법을 공부하고 법을 가르치는 법학도나 법학 교수, 그리고 현실 사회에서 법과 정의를 구현하기 위하여 묵묵히 자신의 책무를 수행하는 일선 법률가들을 생각하며 조금이라도 도움이 될 수 있는 글을 써 보겠다는 마음으로 페북에 글을 올리기 시작한지 어언 5년 가까이 되고 있다. 우리 법률전문가들은 세상의 진실에 눈을 감고 진리를 왜곡하는 곡학아세의 길을 걷는 것을 항상 경계하여야 한다. 특히 좌우 정치가 자리를 잡아가면서 법률가들 마저 파벌을 이루어 법을 생각하기 앞서 자파의 이익을 생각하는 현실을 부인하기 어렵다. 이는 우리에게 양심의 회복을 질책한다. 무매한 민중을 호도하고 국가의 (...) 기강이자 바른 초석이어야 할 법과 법지식을 우롱하는 것이라 아니할 수 없다. 이는 민주주의와 함께 우뚝 서야 할 법치주의를 갉아 먹는 행태라 아니할 수 없다. 조심스러운 마음에서 같이 공부하여야겠다는 생각으로 ‘인간과 사회 그리고 법에 관한 성찰’이라는 제목으로 책을 출간하기로 마음 먹었다. 본서는 한 법률과목을 전문적으로 다루었다거나, 법이론이나 법해석학 관련 주제를 체계적으로 다룬 서적이 아니다. 그렇다고 법 실무에 도움이 될 수 있는 구체적이고 실무적인 문제를 다루고 있는 것도 아니다. 본서는 우리의 일상을 기반으로 법에 관한 단상, 그리고 관련되는 이론들을 생각나는대로 기술한 책이다. 변호사. 법률가. 법학교수, 법학도 등이 제 1차로 독자가 될 수 있을 것이지만, 그 밖에 인간, 사회, 법에 관심 있는 시민 모두가 즐겁게 읽을 수 있도록 엮으려고 노력하였다. 천학비재한 주제에도 화광동진(和光同塵)의 심정으로 출간에 나아가면서 감히 일독을 권하는 바이다. (shrink)

What is a society? According to sociologists and philosophers, the concept is a self-evident one. They describe society as an aggregate of people, as a society divided into classes or as a community - but also as an impossible object. Why is the answer so vague? There is a conceptual wall that stands in the way of a definition of society, at the same time as society must be defined in order for the social sciences (...) to be possible. The book shows how society can be defined based on philosopher Uuno Saarnio's categories of the whole and the field of toleration (Leibniz). The whole is more than the sum of its parts. (shrink)

As a continuation of this author’s previous cosmological neuroscience papers on the hypothesized Soul of Multiverse and its possible laws, the present work examined the social aspects of four of these laws. The following key aspects were recognized: (1) Knowing about the cosmic Law of Coexistence in Diversity can let our mind respect not only the endless diversity of human beings but also the cohesive force of space-time in which all are connected. This may help realizing the superiority of (...) cooperation for shared goals over competition for gaining by harming others. (2) Knowing about the cosmic Law of Truth in Complexity can ready our mind to confront the problems of societies with the understanding that these problems are much more complex than generally thought. This may help initiating the needed intellectual renaissance of the 21st century. (3) Knowing about the cosmic Law of Divine - Evil Asymmetry can make our mind appreciate the slight yet sufficient supremacy of divine over evil. This may help restoring faith in the eventual creation of a just society, where social justice is defined as an administrative mechanism providing the right conditions for every human being to accomplish his or her Conscience-led Mission throughout life, while allowing each of these accomplishments to be reciprocated with the gratitude it induced in the involved social systems, small or large, to let equal opportunities in life coexist with due diversity in welcomed, not abused, social recognitions. And (4) knowing about the cosmic Law of Lives to Transcend can empower our mind to build on these advances. This may help moving evolution towards the human species worthy of its origin and destination. (shrink)

In the face of conflict, power can be defined as ‘the ability to get one’s needs met [1].’ Power requires not just an ability to do or act by strength and force, but also requires an inherent want and need for a commodity. Yet it is self-explanatory that a desire for power isn’t temporary, but perpetual, with those whose needs are satisfied always yearning for more. This can lead to longer term conflict, suggesting the gradient of power enrooted within (...) class='Hi'>society, is the sole perpetrator towards worldwide violence; yet is it possible to completely eradicate violence from society, when individuals, parties and states will never stop their crave for greater power? (shrink)

Cross cultural studies have played a pivotal role in elucidating the extent to which behavioral and mental characteristics depend on specific environmental influences. Surprisingly, little field research has been carried out on a fundamentally important perceptual ability, namely the perception of biological motion. In this report, we present details of studies carried out with the help of volunteers from the Mundurucu indigene, a group of people native to Amazonian territories in Brazil. We employed standard biological motion perception tasks inspired by (...) over 30 years of laboratory research, in which observers attempt to decipher the walking direction of point-light (PL) humans and animals. Do our effortless skills at perceiving biological activity from PL animations, as revealed in laboratory settings, generalize to people who have never before seen representational depictions of human and animal activity? The results of our studies provide a clear answer to this important, previously unanswered question. Mundurucu observers readily perceived the coherent, global shape depicted in PL walkers, and experienced the classic inversion effects that are typically found when such stimuli are turned upside down. In addition, their performance was in accord with important recent findings in the literature, in the abundant ease with which they extracted direction information from local motion invariants alone. We conclude that the effortless, veridical perception of PL biological motion is a spontaneous and universal perceptual ability, occurring both inside and outside traditional laboratory environments. (shrink)

This brief article is written in the Naga's context and as per to the writer's experiences.

This is a critical discussion of Bernard Chapais' Primeval Kinship (Harvard, 2008).

The rise and fall of societies has traditionally been subject matter for history and sociology, but with The Human Swarm, the author establishes the human society as a legitimate object of study for evolutionary biologists. Societies are different from groups of cooperating individuals in that they have a social identity that sets the terms for group membership. In ant colonies, identity is manifested by a unique scent; in whale pods, by unique sounds; and in human groups, (...) by a wide range of signals, including visual markers, accents, and subtle behavioral cues. Identity is what allows the size of societies to increase without all members having to know each other. Strangers can expect to cooperate relatively easily each other, as long as they share a social identity. (shrink)

The book presents an interdisciplinary exploration aimed at renewing interest in Luigi Einaudi’s search for “good government”, broadly understood as “good society”. Prompted by the Einaudian quest, the essays - exploring philosophy of law, economics, politics and epistemology - develop the issue of good government in several forms, including the relationship between public and private, public governance, the question of freedom and the complexity of the human in contemporary societies.

This work is on Hobbesian Conception of Human Nature: Moral Implications for Nigeria Society. It will be absurd indeed to discuss about Ethics and Society without talking about the concept of human nature. In other words, there is no philosophy of life without a theory of human nature. Human nature can be defined as the psychological and social qualities that characterized humankind, especially in contrast with other living things. The problem here is that Hobbes (...) believes that the state of nature was the worst case scenario. Hobbes was ready to sacrifice all of his freedom to avoid the state of nature. Applying this position to the Nigerian society, it is glaring that this view gives justification to authoritarian government and tyranny. This work therefore intends to expose Hobbes concept of human nature and then apply his view to moral issues in Nigeria society. Hobbes view of human nature has a much laudable appeal which can make available a structure for modern day politics in Nigeria. Notwithstanding the issues inherent in Hobbes concept of human nature it could be used as a yardstick in analyzing some perennial, moral and political issues in Nigeria society. (shrink)

Value systems, goals, beliefs, and worldviews need to be changed to leverage the sustainability transformation within the human society, as they define how humans interact with nature, generate knowledge and technologies, and utilize natural and artificial resources. Therefore, the humanistic values of this era demand the inclusion of environmental sustainability, and building an eco-surplus culture is essential for the social transition away from eco-deficit dystopia. The Topical Collection welcomes viewpoints, reviews, and theoretical and empirical work.

This essay briefly summarizes the key characteristics and social philosophies in Japan’s vision of Society 5.0. Then it discusses why Vietnam, as a developing country, can learn from the experiences of Japan in establishing its vision for an AI-powered human-centric society. The paper finally provides five concrete recommendations for Vietnam toward a harmonic and human-centric coexistence with increasingly competent and prevalent AI systems, including: Human-centric AI vision; Multidimensional, pluralistic understanding of human-technology relation; AI as (...) a driving force for socio-economic development; Bottom-up, participatory approach for building the vision; and Sustainability and inclusion in the adoption of AI. (shrink)

Peter Corning: The Fair Society: The science of human nature and the pursuit of social justice Content Type Journal Article Category Review Essay Pages 1-8 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9304-0 Authors Holly Lawford-Smith, Centre for Applied Ethics and Public Philosophy, Charles Sturt University, Canberra, Australia Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867.

It was in ancient Greek philosophy where the idea arose that there is a supreme law before which any civil law created by human societies has to be justified. Since then the concept of natural law not only remained one of the paradigms of Western civilization but has shaped the development of international legislation in general. The understanding of the significance of the idea of a natural law for the philosophical presuppositions of our current concepts of human rights (...) and human dignity is still dependent on the analysis of its relation to the different cultures and civilizations on earth. (shrink)

Human rights have a rich life in the world around us. Political rhetoric pays tribute to them, or scorns them. Citizens and activists strive for them. The law enshrines them. And they live inside us too. For many of us, human rights form part of how we understand the world and what must (or must not) be done within it. -/- The ubiquity of human rights raises questions for the philosopher. If we want to understand these rights, (...) where do we look? As a set of moral norms, it is tempting to think they can be grasped strictly from the armchair, say, by appeal to moral intuition. But what, if anything, can that kind of inquiry tell us about the human rights of contemporary politics, law, and civil society — that is, human rights as we ordinarily know them? -/- This volume brings together a distinguished, interdisciplinary group of scholars to address philosophical questions raised by the many facets of human rights: moral, legal, political, and historical. Its original chapters, each accompanied by a critical commentary, explore topics including: the purpose and methods of a philosophical theory of human rights; the "Orthodox-Political" debate; the relevance of history to philosophy; the relationship between human rights morality and law; and the value of political critiques of human rights. (shrink)

[Abstract] Suppose that the Big Bang was the first singularity in the history of the cosmos. Then it would be plausible to presume that the availability of the strong general intelligence should mark the second singularity for the natural human race. The human race needs to be prepared to make it sure that if a singularity robot becomes a person, the robotic person should be a blessing for the humankind rather than a curse. Toward this direction I would (...) scrutinize the implication of the hypothesis that the singularity robot is a member of the human society. I will ask how the robot is equipped to satisfy the ontological criteria such as accountability, consciousness, identity, by demonstrating a possibility that it has the epistemological capacities like conceptual role semantic understanding and non-monotonous inference, and by probing whether it can behave in the way human moral visions expect it to. -/- [Table of contents] 1. Opening: Singularity robots are coming 1) Singularity robots of strong general intelligence 2) A singularity robot is a member of the human community 2. Ontological interpretation of singularity robot 1) Responsibility: thinking, understanding, belief 2) Consciousness: three characteristics – zombie, enjoyment, sympathy 3) Identity: I, body, autonomy, unity 3. Epistmological prospects of singularity robot 1) Semantics of general intelligence: conceptual role semantics 2) Logic for general intelligence: non-monotonous logic 4. Moral horizon of singularity robot 1) When a singularity robot becomes a robot person 2) Humanity independence: singularity robot is a user of human languages 5. Concluding: preemptive humanities. (shrink)

Critics of commercial societies complain that the free-market system of property rights and freedom of contract tends to commodify relationships, thus eroding the bonds of personal and civic friendship. I argue that this thesis rests on a misunderstanding of both markets and friendship. As voluntary, reciprocal relationships, market relationships and friendship share important properties. Like all relations and activities that exercise important human capacities and play an important role in a meaningful life, market relations and activities are essentially structured (...) and supported by ethical norms and, in turn, support these norms. The so-called norms of the market, such as instrumentality and fungibility, come in varying degrees and characterize not only market, but also nonmarket, relationships, including friendship. Furthermore, although market relationships are primarily instrumental, the individuals involved are not. The virtues of markets have their counterparts in friendship, as do their vices. For these and other reasons, market societies are not only not inimical to friendship, they create a more secure matrix for civic and personal friendship, as well as for other important values such as art, science, or philosophy, than any other developed form of society. Key Words: commercial societies • friendship • moral norms • virtues • vices. (shrink)

The main research question that this paper aims to answer is: ‘In what does today’s attack on humanities consist and how can humanities be defended?’ In order to answer this research question, one needs first to describe how the humanities have argued for their usefulness before the Bologna Process; second, provide reasons for the claim that the Bologna Process would be a new type of attack; and third, analyse the new defences for the humanities, so as to discuss whether these (...) are suitable. The main finding of this study was to show that, before deciding what type of education society needs, we need to understand who we are educating through our universities. Taking a stance on “who should we educate?” is prior to being able to judge educational policies. This decision requires a previous justification that requires arguments taken from the field of social justice: Who needs to be educated and who has the right to be educated? Furthermore, we have seen that all answers we have examined to the question underlying educational policies, i.e. ‘who is being educated?’, were linked at some level with the citizenship issue. By defining who is a full citizen, an answer to the question who had the right to a humanistic education was implicitly answered. Nussbaum’s project to universalise the definition of democratic citizenship would ensure a basis for providing humanistic education for all. Such a line of arguing would provide humanities to the well-regarded status they had starting from the Renaissance times, but this time not as a device for exclusion, but inclusion for all. We have tried to show that, by defending the humanities, one defends the idea of a plurality of educational purposes, the right to build one’s life based on an education that is not submitted to the political goals of the day, ultimately the right to have a dissenting voice and a different perspective on life. By defending humanities, one defends the true ‘usefulness’ of education, namely its potential for constructing democratic citizenship for all. (shrink)

Although legal personality has slowly begun to be granted to non-human entities that have a direct impact on the natural functioning of human societies (given their cultural significance), the same cannot be said for computer-based intelligence systems. While this notion has not had a significantly negative impact on humanity to this point in time that only remains the case because advanced computerised intelligence systems (ACIS) have not been acknowledged as reaching human-like levels. With the integration of ACIS (...) in medical assistive technologies such as companion robots and bionics, our legal treatment of ACIS must also adapt—least society faces legal challenges that may potentially lead to legally sanctioned discriminatory treatment. For this reason, this article exposes the complexity of normalizing definitions of “natural” human subjects, clarifies how current bioethical discourse has been unable to effectively guide ACIS integration into implanted and external artefacts, and argues for the establishment of legal delineations between various ACIS-human mergers in reference to legal protections and obligations internationally. (shrink)

It has been commonplace to equate Foucault’s 1979 series of lectures at the Collège de France with the claim that for neoliberalism, unlike for classical liberalism, the market needs to be artificially constructed. The article expands this claim to its full expression, taking it beyond what otherwise would be a simple divulgation of a basic neoliberal tenet. It zeroes in on Foucault’s own insight: that neoliberal constructivism is not directed at the market as such, but, in principle, at society, (...) arguing that the value of this insight goes beyond the critique of a neoliberal present. The neoliberal rationale rather helps him to reveal a unique historical architecture, a latent approach to the social dissimilar to the one that has long predominated in the human sciences. The inversion of homo œconomicus in neoliberal theory amounted to the unearthing of a ‘social subject of interest’ within civil society. Such a subject, barely recognized by neoliberals who simply instrumentalize it for the sake of the market, demonstrates that the social is not necessarily the natural product of ethical subjects; that society may also need to be constructed. (shrink)

The evolution of altruism in human societies has been intensively investigated in social and natural sciences. A widely acknowledged recent idea is the “parochial altruism model,” which suggests that inter- group hostility and intragroup altruism can coevolve through lethal intergroup conflicts. The current article critically examines this idea by reviewing research relevant to intergroup conflicts in human evolutionary history from evolutionary biology, psychology, cultural anthropology, and archaeology. After a brief intro- duction, section 2 illustrates the mathematical model of (...) parochial altruism and some critiques of the model and its interpretation, primarily from an evolutionary biology point of view. Section 3 delves into the archaeological evidence of prehistoric intergroup conflicts in the Japanese archipelago’s Jomon and Yayoi periods, Europe’s Mesolithic period, and North America’s Pacific period as counter examples of the paro- chial altruism model. In section 4, the ethnographies of intergroup relationships and conflicts reveal that intergroup relationships in many ethnic groups are not as simple as the assumption in the mathematical model of parochial altruism. In section 5, we outline psychological research on intergroup conflicts which suggest that intergroup hostility and ingroup altruism are not necessarily correlated. In conclusion, we argue that the assumption and parameter settings of the parochial altruism model are inconsistent with empirical data. (shrink)

The paper examines the book Martin Buber’s Theopolitics and analyzes the conflict between the hierarchy in nature and in human society. Buber qualifies our relations to nature and to other non-living objects as darker than human relations. This creates an imbalance between the human You and the other type of You. This reflection allows us to think about the meaning of the principle of humanity in relation to personhood, and in relation to different forms of communities (...) (natural, or inorganic communities). It is an important question in the light of “conflicts” and tensions created by the environmental crisis we are facing today. The paper explains how to use the word “conflict” in this context and whether it is justified. (shrink)

Humans interact with animals in numerous ways and on numerous levels. We are indeed living in an “animal”s world,’ in the sense that our lives are very much intertwined with the lives of animals. This also means that animals, like those dogs we commonly refer to as our pets, are living in a “human’s world” in the sense that it is us, not them, who, to a large degree, define and manage the interactions we have with them. In this (...) sense, the human-animal relationship is nothing we should romanticize: it comes with clear power relations and thus with a set of responsibilities on the side of those who exercise this power. This holds, despite the fact that we like to think about our dogs as human’s best friend. Dogs have been part of human societies for longer than any other domestic species. Like no other species they exemplify the role of companion animals. Relationships with pet dogs are both very widespread and very intense, often leading to strong attachments between owners or caregivers and animals and to a treatment of these dogs as family members or even children. But how does this relationship look from the dogs’ perspective? How do they perceive the humans they engage with? What responsibilities and duties arise from the kind of mutual understanding, attachment, and the supposedly “special” bonds we form with them? Are there ethical implications, maybe even ethical implications beyond animal welfare? The past decades have seen an upsurge of research from comparative cognition on pet dogs’ cognitive and social skills, especially in comparison with and reference to humans. We will therefore set our discussion about the nature and ethical dimensions of the human–dog relationship against the background of the current empirical knowledge on dog (social) cognition. This allows us to analyze the human–dog relationship by applying an interdisciplinary approach that starts from the perspective of the dog to ultimately inform the perspective of humans. It is our aim to thereby identify ethical dimensions of the human–dog relationship that have been overlooked so far. (shrink)

The Law Society recently published a practice note titled 'Prosecutions of victims of trafficking'. This practice note comes many years after many lawyers had highlighted the problem and after the government machinery had chuntered into action and passed the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 with explanatory notes and non-statutory guidelines for corporations. Since 2012 there had been issued warnings about the way defence lawyers, the Crown Prosecution Service and the UK police were dealing with trafficking and the Criminal Cases (...) Review Commission as far back as 2012 had note the severe failings by defence solicitors, prosecution and police, leading to many appeals and potential miscarriages of justice. Even in 2012 there were 946 known human trafficking victims, including 234 children. There was an attempt at a Human Trafficking Bill in 2010 which came to a halt and several reports including one by the Prison Reform Trust and Cambridge University Press, notwithstanding many books by notable academics for many years before today. This article examines the inadequacies of the Law Society practice note on defending victims and the jumble of high-ideals but short-sighted and impractical parts of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015. (shrink)

Can a human society be constrained in such a way that self-organization will thereafter tend to produce outcomes that advance the goals of the society? Such a society would be self-organizing in the sense that individuals who pursue only their own interests would none-the-less act in the interests of the society as a whole, irrespective of any intention to do so. The paper sketches an agent-based model that identifies the conditions that must be met if (...) such a self-organizing society is to emerge. The model draws heavily on an understanding of how self-organizing societies have emerged repeatedly during the evolution of life on Earth. The model demonstrates that the key enabling requirement for a self-organizing society is ‘consequence-capture’. Broadly this means that all agents in the society must capture sufficient of the beneficial consequences of their actions for the goals of the society. ‘Consequence-capture’ can be organized in a society by appropriate management that suppresses free riders and supports pro-social actions. In human societies these constraints include institutions such as systems of governance and social norms. If a self-organizing society is to emerge, consequence-capture must apply to all agents in the society, including those involved in the establishment and adaptation of institutions. If this is achieved, the result will be a fully self-organizing society in which the interests of all agents are aligned with the interests of the society as a whole. (shrink)

The “language-communication-society” triangle defies traditional scientific approaches. Rather, it is a phenomenon that calls for an integration of complex, transdisciplinary perspectives, if we are to make any progress in understanding how it works. The highly diverse agents in play are not merely cognitive and/or cultural, but also emotional and behavioural in their specificity. Indeed, the effort may require building a theoretical and methodological body of knowledge that can effectively convey the characteristic properties of phenomena in human terms. New (...) complexity approaches allow us to rethink our limited and mechanistic images of human societies and create more appropriate emo-cognitive dynamic and holistic models. We have to enter into dialogue with the complexity views coming out of other more ‘material’ sciences, but we also need to take steps in the linguistic and psycho-sociological fields towards creating perspectives and concepts better fitted to human characteristics. Our understanding of complexity is different – but not opposed – to the one that is more commonly found in texts written by people working in physics or computer science, for example. The goal of this book is to extend the knowledge of these other more ‘human’ or socially oriented perspectives on complexity, taking account of the language and communication singularities of human agents in society. (shrink)

Human obsolescence is imminent. We are living through an era in which our activity is becoming less and less relevant to our well-being and to the fate of our planet. This trend toward increased obsolescence is likely to continue in the future, and we must do our best to prepare ourselves and our societies for this reality. Far from being a cause for despair, this is in fact an opportunity for optimism. Harnessed in the right way, the technology that (...) hastens our obsolescence can open us up to new utopian possibilities and enable heightened forms of human flourishing. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the idea of human dignity has a precise and philosophically relevant sense. Following recent works,we can find some important clues in the long history of the term.Traditionally, dignity conveys the idea of a high and honourable position in a hierarchical order, either in society or in nature. At first glance, nothing may seem more contrary to the contemporary conception of human dignity, especially in regard to human rights.However,an account of dignity (...) as high rank provides an illuminating perspective on the role it plays in the egalitarian discourse of human rights. In order to preserve that relational sense regarding human dignity, we can use the notion of moral status, towhich somemoral philosophers have paid attention in recent years.I explore the possibilities of the idea of moral status to better understand the idea of human dignity and its close relationship with human rights. (shrink)

David Hume, a leading Scottish Enlightenment philosopher using empirical investigation, examines and explains his view on human nature, society, and morality in A Treatise of Human Nature (Treatise) and in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Enquiry). In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Jekyll and Hyde), Robert Louis Stevenson draws from the Enlightenment’s empirical explorations in the study of the individual and society, to tell a story examining human nature.

Human nature is a concept that transgresses the boundary between science and society and between fact and value. It is as much a political concept as it is a scientific one. This chapter will cover the politics of human nature by using evidence from history, anthropology and social psychology. The aim is to show that an important political function of the vernacular concept of human nature is social demarcation (inclusion/exclusion): it is involved in regulating who is (...) ‘us’ and who is ‘them.’ It is a folk concept that is used for dehumanization, for denying (a) membership in humankind or (b) full humanness to certain people in order to include or exclude them from various forms of politically relevant aspects of human life, such as rights, power, etc. (shrink)

African societies are becoming aware of the shortcomings of Western capitalist value system, because of its aftermath on individual, society, and environment. Many of African conservationist values, moral attitudes and ways of life have been destroyed by the exploitative capitalist ethos of European colonialism and modernity. Three decades of African countries trying to build their economies like the Western models have left her people wallowing in poverty, and her environment exposed to hazards. With this new imbibed Western values, African (...) population will continue to rise, as well as innovation in science and technology, thus, there is a growing need to put adequate measures in place against further environmental degradation. This paper tends to show the ethical implication of environmental crises on African societies. It concludes with the need for Africans to jettison western anthropocentric, capitalist and individualist values for her communal values. This paper further acknowledges that due to modernity, African value systems such as taboo and totems are being outdated. This paper proposes that scientific methods of environmental conservation and Christian ethics in the spirit of African communitarianism can go a long way in curbing ecological problems within the continent. This work is carried out with the philosophical method of analysis and exposition. (shrink)

The thinking of those with the power to formulate and implement public policy is now almost totally dominated by the so-called science of economics. While efforts have been made to supplement or modify economics to make it less brutal or less environmentally blind, here it is suggested that economics is so fundamentally flawed and that it so completely dominates the culture of late modern capitalism (or postmodernity) that a new master human science is required to displace it and provide (...) an alternative coordinating framework for research and for defining reality. This could then provide an alternative basis for formulating public policy. It is argued that if human ecology is to fill this role, it will must be developed on consistently anti-reductionist foundations, and that such a social science would totally reorient public policy from a domain for power elites to a domain for genuinely democratic societies to define and control their destinies. -/- . (shrink)

On April 19, 2024, the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness was announced at the “Emerging Science of Animal Consciousness” conference held at New York University. The New York Declaration is an effort to showcase a scientific consensus on the presence of conscious experiences across all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians, and fish) and many invertebrates (at least including cephalopods, decapod crustaceans, and insects). Scientifically, the New York Declaration marks a significant advancement for humanity. However, it also brings heightened awareness to (...) the moral challenges associated with animals that have conscious experiences (or phenomenal consciousness). This article will discuss philosophical approaches to the moral issue of killing sentient beings, thereby highlighting an existing moral dilemma in human society: In sustaining human survival, a species considered to have morality, we have to violate our own moral standards by killing other species with intrinsic value, consciousness, or sentience. This moral dilemma has long been present in human society. Various solutions have been proposed and implemented in practice to address this issue, such as the non-violence and vegetarian approach of Buddhism, the application of Islamic law and sacred rituals to animals in Islam, animal rights movements and voluntary extinction in Western countries, and the technology producing meat using animal cells. However, despite these approaches, we have not yet been able to fully resolve the dilemma, as sentient beings continue to be killed for our survival. We believe the most feasible solution is to change the current food consumption culture, build an eco-surplus culture to mitigate climate change, prevent deforestation, and promote peace. (shrink)

Traditional ways of characterizing humans and persons are vague and simplistic. For example, persons are often defined as having free will and responsibility – but what actual powers underlie these vague metaphysical abstractions? Traditional answers like "rationality" and "creativity" are still vague, and also simplistic. Similar traits appear as defining traits of humans, yet we’re far too complex to be distinguished from other species in such simple and tight ways. But there may be a looser hallmark of humans that just (...) serves to best distinguish our complex package of traits from those of other species. It will be argued that while humans and persons differ, the underlying hallmark of both is their innately powerful, symbolically organized minds and societies. This seems to capture what is most distinctive about humans without the vagueness or oversimplification above. It explains how creativity, rationality, etc. arose in stages from precursors, and what is distinctive about their human forms. It also helps clarify what underlies the free will and responsibility of persons. It might also say interesting things about persons that may have evolved elsewhere, for example, that we have similar mentalities and evolutions, and that we are capable of mutual understanding. Finally, it might help weigh our evolutionary importance. (shrink)

In domains as disparate as playing Go and predicting the structure of proteins, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have begun to perform at levels beyond which any humans can achieve. Does this fact represent something lamentable? Does superhuman AI performance somehow undermine the value of human achievements in these areas? Go grandmaster Lee Sedol suggested as much when he announced his retirement from professional Go, blaming the advances of Go-playing programs like AlphaGo for sapping his will to play the game (...) at a high level. In this paper, I attempt to make sense of Sedol’s lament. I consider a number of ways that the existence of superhuman-performing AI technologies could undermine the value of human achievements. I argue there is very little in the nature of the technology itself that warrants such despair. (Compare: does the existence of a fighter jet undermine the value of being the fastest human sprinter?) But I also argue there are several more localized domains where these technologies threaten to displace human beings from being able to achieve valuable things at all. This is a particular worry for those in unequal societies, I argue, given the difficulty of many achievements and the corresponding amount of resources needed to achieve great things. (shrink)

Society is one of the intangible needs of humans, for humans since their very dawn have been a social animal. Through this article, we have attempted to analyze the social aspects of current day Nepal, and have made a humble attempt to categorize the major challenges faced by current day Nepal under 4 major headings.

What is it to be a better ape? This is the question Victor Kumar and Richmond Campbell ask in their book on the evolution of the moral mind, an ambitious story that starts with the common ancestor of the modern apes—humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. Of all of us, it’s the humans who remain in the running for being a better ape, because we’re the ones who have all the necessary ingredients: the binding emotions of sympathy and loyalty which (...) we share with our nonhuman cousins, but also the collaborative emotions of trust and respect and the reactive emotions of guilt and resentment. Importantly, only humans are thought to have norms, and to be biologically prepared to learn norms. For Kumar and Campbell, the co-evolution of emotions and norms is what set humans on this path so we can become a better ape. -/- The story they tell is artfully woven from major theories in psychology and anthropology, and those of us who have pre-existing opinions about these theories have points where we can quibble regarding the nature of the emotions–whether only humans imitate, what norms of fairness amount to, or whether any other species are generalists who can survive in a wide range of habitats. Rather than focusing on these, I want to turn to an exciting hypothesis Kumar and Campbell propose about the evolution and function of norms. While it is most common to think that norms helped our ancestors solve the collective action problems that emerged when larger groups of individuals started living together, Kumar and Campbell suggest a different, though complementary, function for norms. They propose that norms provide a more precise and flexible means for coordinating behavior in quickly changing societies. On their view, it isn’t the size of community that is the most significant variable, but rather the speed at which culture evolves. -/- That norms are a human universal is indubitable. Our contemporary human societies are rife with rules constraining our behaviors, governing aspects of our lives from birth to death, prescribing practices about what to wear, how to work, what to eat, when and how to sleep as well as rules about rare practices that are proscribed. However, Kumar and Campbell also presume that norms are human unique. Here I have more than a quibble, given the burgeoning empirical and theoretical literature on the question of animal normativity (Andrews 2020; Danón 2019; Fitzpatrick 2020; de Waal 2014; von Rohr et al. 2011; Rohr et al. 2015; Whiten et al. 2005; Westra et al., in prep)... (shrink)

ABSTRACT: David Braybrooke argues that the core of the natural law theory of Thomas Aquinas survived in the work of Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Rousseau. Much to my surprise, Braybrooke argues as well that David Copp’s society-centered moral theory is a secular version of this same natural law theory. Braybrooke makes a good case that there is an important idea about morality that is shared by the great philosophers in his group and that this idea is also found in (...) Copp’s work. The idea is captured by the Functionalist Thesis, the thesis that moral propositions are made true by facts about what, given the nature of human beings and their circumstances, enables people to live together in thriving communities. I argue that Copp can accept Braybrooke’s suggestion and use it to improve his formulation of the basic idea of the society-centered theory. RÉSUMÉ : David Braybrooke soutient que l’idée centrale de la théorie du droit naturel de Thomas d’Aquin a survécu dans les œuvres de Hobbes, Locke, Hume et Rousseau. À mon grand étonnement, Braybrooke soutient aussi que la théorie morale société-centrique de David Copp est une version séculaire de cette même théorie du droit naturel. Braybrooke argumente de façon convaincante que les œuvres de ces grands philosophes partagent une idée centrale relative à la moralité et que cette idée se retrouve aussi chez Copp. Cette idée est la Thèse Fonctionnaliste, c’est-à-dire la thèse selon laquelle les faits moraux sont des faits concernant ce qui rend les membres de la société capables de vivre ensemble dans des communautés florissantes, étant donné la nature des êtres humains et les circonstances de leurs vies. Je soutiens que Copp peut reprendre à son compte les arguments de Braybrooke, et ainsi améliorer la formulation de l’idée centrale de sa théorie société-centrique. (shrink)

This article addresses computational procedures that are no longer constrained by human modes of representation and considers how these procedures could be philosophically understood in terms of ‘algorithmic thought’. Research in deep learning is its case study. This artificial intelligence (AI) technique operates in computational ways that are often opaque. Such a black-box character demands rethinking the abstractive operations of deep learning. The article does so by entering debates about explainability in AI and assessing how technoscience and technoculture tackle (...) the possibility to ‘re-present’ the algorithmic procedures of feature extraction and feature learning to the human mind. The article thus mobilises the notion of incommensurability (originally developed in the philosophy of science) to address explainability as a communicational and representational issue, which challenges phenomenological and existential modes of comparison between human and algorithmic ‘thinking’ operations. (shrink)

Human dignity, a normative category developed by the Colombian Constitutional Court, is seen from "humanist constitutionalism", due to its functionality for the configuration of the fundamental human right of access to the Internet that translates into a digital vital minimum of the human person, emphasizing in the inclusion of the poor and vulnerable affected by digital inequality. A complex fundamental hyperright that obliges the State to guarantee the human rights of their essential core and formulate public (...) policies for their effective satisfaction inherent in the realization of the valuable life project of the person and their effective functioning in society. (shrink)

I would argue that toleration is one of the cornerstones for a just social order in any pluralistic society. Yet, the ideal of toleration is usually thought to originate from within, and most often justified from a European historical and philosophical context. It is thought to be a response to societal conflict and the Wars of Religion in the West, which is then exported to the rest of the world, by colonialism (ironically), or globalization. The West, once again, calls (...) upon itself to teach the rest of the world how to be more ethical. I think that this not only plays into the hands of cultural and ethical relativists, but that this picture is far from accurate; it ignores rich indigenous sources for toleration that already exist and have existed in India for millennia. In this chapter, I explore three central and predominant ideas in India as providing justification for distinctly Indian forms of toleration; as well, I explore Indian forms of secularism. I examine how toleration, and indeed, more strongly, respect for difference and pluralism, emerge through three influential Indian self-understandings: the theory of anekāntavāda or non-absolutism; the concept of ātman or self; and the idea of pratītyasamutapāda or interconnectedness. In contrast to various Euro-Western legal and political ideals that may have little resonance, I think indigenous sources offer a far more promising alternative ground upon which to build an overlapping convergence on basic human rights in India. As the eminent Indian philosopher and states person Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1955), Gadamer (Pantham 1992), and James Tully (1995) contend: the purpose of such convergence is not uniformity in diversity, but rather, unity in diversity. These sources provide an antidote not only to current forms of Hindutva in India, but may have something of value from which the West can learn -- given the European Caste System which is alive and continues to thrive today. (shrink)

As engineers propose constructing humanlike automata, the question arises as to whether such machines merit human rights. The issue warrants serious and rigorous examination, although it has not yet cohered into a conversation. To put it into a sure direction, this paper proposes phrasing it in terms of whether humans are morally obligated to extend to maximally humanlike automata full human rights, or those set forth in common international rights documents. This paper’s approach is to consider the ontology (...) of humans and of automata and whether ontological difference between them, that pertains to the very bases of human rights, affects the latter’s claims to full human rights. Considering common bases of human rights, can these bases tell us whether a certain ontological distinction of humans from automata—or a de facto distinction about humans tacitly acknowledged by full-rights-recognizing societies—makes a difference in whether humans are morally obligated to assign these entities full rights? Human rights to security also arise. The conclusion is that humans need not be under any moral obligation to confer full human rights on automata. The paper’s ultimate point is not to close the discussion with this ontological cap but to set a solid moral and legal groundwork for opening it up tout court. (shrink)

This book puts forward a harmonious analysis of similarities and differences between two concepts—human minds and cultures—and strives for a multicultural spectrum of philosophical explorations that could assist them in pondering the striking pursuit of envisaging human minds and cultures as an essential appraisal of philosophy and the social sciences. The book hinges on a theoretical understanding of the indispensable liaison between the dichotomy of minds and objectivity residing in semantic-ontological conjectures. -/- The ethnographic sense of cultures confines (...) the scope of cultural scientism, an evolutionary paradigm on the functionalist turn, where one could enthral the cultural phenomenon from the contentment of the conflict of scientific quandaries. Hence, cultural relativism concedes that cultures have some descriptive contents, like customs, beliefs, moral codes, other minds, etc., that are followed by an individual or a group of people. However, the notion of societal semiotics embarks on the ‘semiotic conception of culture’ that deploys modernity and values centred on ethical conjectures. -/- Human Minds and Cultures conspicuously attune the cultural edifice of moral minds and cope with the enduring prospects of ethics, genders, laws, and socio-political affairs. Essential reading for anyone with a sparkling interest in human minds and cultures. (shrink)

People have sought ways to improve their physical and mental capabilities for thousands of years. For those of us who believe that human enhancement technologies include clothes, tools and weapons, the politics of enhancement started in prehistory. The norms of pre-industrial societies that only certain castes or genders could touch specific tools or wear certain clothes were preliminary politics of enhancement. Prosthetic limbs are thousands of years old, and by the 15th century, there were multiple experiments with vaccination around (...) the world. Although it would be appropriate to write a history of the various forms of empowerment that have taken place since the dawn of civilisation, this volume – that now we can present to the lectors – will be on the debates about human enhancement that began in the early 20th century, once modern medicine had begun to suggest actual technologies for human augmentation. Before examining the relationship between human enhancement and biopolitics (the subject of our work), it is helpful to say a few words about the series in which this volume appears, a series that bears the same title as this first text and which opens with contributions from the best scientific experts on the subject. (shrink)

Karoline von Günderrode (1780–1806) has long enjoyed a reputation as a Romantic poet, but her philosophical contributions have largely been neglected. This paper is one of the first to address Günderrode’s political thought, especially her view of the interrelationship between human society and the broader environment. The paper argues that Günderrode develops resources for reconceiving the relationship of human beings to the nonhuman and to each other that work against an instrumentalizing view of nature and programmatic political (...) ideals. Günderrode’s normative restraint, concept of harmony, and view of human beings as part of and the same in kind as the rest of nature contribute to a vision of sociality, grounded in her metaphysics, that envisions small communities fostering connections between human beings and the nonhuman. On Günderrode’s model, these connections can grow and strengthen and eventually, perhaps, enable the emergence of the single, perfect organism that she calls the “realized idea of the earth.”. (shrink)

Based on a discussion of the theoretical contributions of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Pierre Clastres, this article explores social relationships as more than a human dimension. Though strongly analysed by both anthropologists, these relationships appear to involve indigenous societies’ whole ecological and cosmological system. In this sense, reciprocity, social cohesion, and exchange can be understood as material and immaterial interrelationships between entities of a more than a corporeal world. I argue, then, that to go beyond the mere anthropocentric conceptualisation of (...) sociality in a nature good to think, we need to holistically conceive the interconnected levels of trophic, socio-structural and socio-cosmic relationships and exchanges between human and non-human beings in the ecosystem. (shrink)

This paper spells out the ways in which we need to be pluralists about “human nature”. It discusses a conceptual pluralism about the concept of “human nature”, stemming from post-essentialist ontology and the semantic complexity of the term “nature”; a descriptive pluralism about the “descriptive nature” of human beings, which is a pluralism regarding our self-understanding as human beings that stems from the long list of typical features of, and relations between, human beings; a natural (...) kind term pluralism, which is a pluralism that concerns the choices we have in deciding how to apply the kind term “human”; and an explanatory pluralism that results from the causal complexity of life. Because of the complexity of being human, which gives rise to these pluralisms, being human is, the paper claims, a kaleidoscopic affair, and one far from concerning the life sciences only. (shrink)