Autonomy has been central to moral and political philosophy for millenia, and has been positioned as a critical aspect of both justice and wellbeing. Research in psychology supports this position, providing empirical evidence that autonomy is critical to motivation, personal growth and psychological wellness. Responsible AI will require an understanding of, and ability to effectively design for, human autonomy (rather than just machine autonomy) if it is to genuinely benefit humanity. Yet the effects on human autonomy of digital experiences (...) are neither straightforward nor consistent, and are complicated by commercial interests and tensions around compulsive overuse. This multi-layered reality requires an analysis that is itself multidimensional and that takes into account human experience at various levels of resolution. We borrow from HCI and psychological research to apply a model (“METUX”) that identifies six distinct spheres of technology experience. We demonstrate the value of the model for understanding human autonomy in a technology ethics context at multiple levels by applying it to the real-world case study of an AI-enhanced video recommender system. In the process we argue for the following three claims: 1) There are autonomy-related consequences to algorithms representing the interests of third parties, and they are not impartial and rational extensions of the self, as is often perceived; 2) Designing for autonomy is an ethical imperative critical to the future design of responsible AI; and 3) Autonomy-support must be analysed from at least six spheres of experience in order to approriately capture contradictory and downstream effects. (shrink)

In the late summer of 1998, the authors, a cognitive scientist and a logician, started talking about the relevance of modern mathematical logic to the study of human reasoning, and we have been talking ever since. This book is an interim report of that conversation. It argues that results such as those on the Wason selection task, purportedly showing the irrelevance of formal logic to actual human reasoning, have been widely misinterpreted, mainly because the picture of logic current in psychology (...) and cognitive science is completely mistaken. We aim to give the reader a more accurate picture of mathematical logic and, in doing so, hope to show that logic, properly conceived, is still a very helpful tool in cognitive science. The main thrust of the book is therefore constructive. We give a number of examples in which logical theorizing helps in understanding and modeling observed behavior in reasoning tasks, deviations of that behavior in a psychiatric disorder (autism), and even the roots of that behavior in the evolution of the brain. (shrink)

This paper explores the connections between human rights, human dignity, and power. The idea of human dignity is omnipresent in human rights discourse, but its meaning and point is not always clear. It is standardly used in two ways, to refer to a normative status of persons that makes their treatment in terms of human rights a proper response, and a social condition of persons in which their human rights are fulfilled. This paper pursues three tasks. First, it provides an (...) analysis of the content and an interpretation of the role of the idea of human dignity in current human rights discourse. The interpretation includes a pluralist view of human interests and dignity that avoids a narrow focus on rational agency. Second, this paper characterizes the two aspects of human dignity in terms of capabilities. Certain general human capabilities are among the facts that ground status-dignity, and the presence of certain more specific capabilities constitutes condition-dignity. Finally, this paper explores how the pursuit of human rights and human dignity links to distributions and uses of power. Since capabilities are a form of power, and human rights are in part aimed at respecting and promoting capabilities, human rights involve empowerment. Exploring the connections between human rights, capabilities, and empowerment provides resources to defend controversial human rights such as the right to democratic political participation, and to respond to worries about the feasibility of their fulfillment. This paper also argues that empowerment must be coupled with solidaristic concern in order to respond to unavoidable facts of social dependency and vulnerability. (shrink)

The last decade has witnessed the mass distribution and adoption of smart home systems and devices powered by artificial intelligence systems ranging from household appliances like fridges and toasters to more background systems such as air and water quality controllers. The pervasiveness of these sociotechnical systems makes analyzing their ethical implications necessary during the design phases of these devices to ensure not only sociotechnical resilience, but to design them for human values in mind and thus preserve meaningful human control over (...) them. This paper engages in a conceptual investigations of how meaningful human control over smart home devices can be attained through design. The value sensitive design (VSD) approach is proposed as a way of attaining this level of control. In the proposed framework, values are identified and defined, stakeholder groups are investigated and brought into the design process and the technical constraints of the technologies in question are considered. The paper concludes with some initial examples that illustrate a more adoptable way forward for both ethicists and engineers of smart home devices. (shrink)

Human need and related concepts such as basic needs have long been part of the implicit conceptual foundation for social work theory, practice, and research. However, while the published literature in social work has long stressed social justice, and has incorporated discussion of human rights, human need has long been both a neglected and contested concept. In recent years, the explicit use of human needs theory has begun to have a significant influence on the literature in social work.

One of the biggest ethical issues in animal agriculture is that of the welfare of animals at the end of their lives, during the process of slaughter. Much work in animal welfare science is focussed on finding humane ways to transport and slaughter animals, to minimise the harm done during this process. In this paper, we take a philosophical look at what it means to perform slaughter humanely, beyond simply reducing pain and suffering during the slaughter process. In particular, we (...) will examine the issue of the harms of deprivation inflicted in ending life prematurely, as well as shape of life concerns and the ethical implications of inflicting these harms at the end of life, without the potential for future offsetting through positive experiences. We will argue that though these considerations may mean that no slaughter is in a deep sense truly ‘humane’, this should not undermine the importance of further research and development to ensure that while the practice continues, animal welfare harms are minimised as far as possible. (shrink)

Human nature has always been a foundational issue for philosophy. What does it mean to have a human nature? Is the concept the relic of a bygone age? What is the use of such a concept? What are the epistemic and ontological commitments people make when they use the concept? In What’s Left of Human Nature? Maria Kronfeldner offers a philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against contemporary criticism. In particular, she takes on challenges related to social (...) misuse of the concept that dehumanizes those regarded as lacking human nature (the dehumanization challenge); the conflict between Darwinian thinking and essentialist concepts of human nature (the Darwinian challenge); and the consensus that evolution, heredity, and ontogenetic development results from nurture and nature. After answering each of these challenges, Kronfeldner presents a revisionist account of human nature that minimizes dehumanization and does not fall back on outdated biological ideas. Her account is post-essentialist because it eliminates the concept of an essence of being human; pluralist in that it argues that there are different things in the world that correspond to three different post-essentialist concepts of human nature; and interactive because it understands nature and nurture as interacting at the developmental, epigenetic, and evolutionary levels. On the basis of this, she introduces a dialectical concept of an ever-changing and “looping” human nature. Finally, noting the essentially contested character of the concept and the ambiguity and redundancy of the terminology, she wonders if we should simply eliminate the term “human nature” altogether. (shrink)

What should we make of claims by members of other groups to have moralities different from our own? Human Rights in Chinese Thought gives an extended answer to this question in the first study of its kind. It integrates a full account of the development of Chinese rights discourse - reaching back to important, though neglected, origins of that discourse in 17th and 18th century Confucianism - with philosophical consideration of how various communities should respond to contemporary Chinese claims about (...) the uniqueness of their human rights concepts. The book elaborates a plausible kind of moral pluralism and demonstrates that Chinese ideas of human rights do indeed have distinctive characteristics, but it nonetheless argues for the importance and promise of cross-cultural moral engagement. (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)

When people suffer they always suffer as a whole human being. The emotional, cognitive and spiritual suffering of human beings cannot be completely separated from all other kinds of suffering, such as from harmful natural, ecological, political, economic and social conditions. In reality they interact with each other and influence each other. Human beings do not only suffer from somatic illnesses, physical pain, and the lack of decent opportunities to satisfy their basic vital, social and emotional needs. They also suffer (...) when they are not able to experience and grasp any meaning of life even if such suffering is not quite as obvious as most forms of physical, social and emotional suffering. Suffering from the lack for the sense of the meaning of life is a special form of emotional, cognitive, and spiritual suffering. Although all human beings share the same basic human need for some meaning of life, the fulfilment of this need is highly individual and personal. Although all forms of human suffering can be a challenge to the meaning of life, the personal conditions of suffering usually are a stronger challenge for the meaning of life. Among the personal conditions of human suffering, the Grenzsituationen cannot be cancelled or raised at all, but only accepted and coped with as existential aspects of the conditio humana. According to Karl Jaspers these are: death, suffering, struggling, guilt, and failing. The challenge for human beings to cope with these Grenzsituationen is a way to move from the mere Being-there to true human Existence. (shrink)

The past few years has seen a resurgence in the public interest in space flight and travel. Spurred mainly by the likes of technology billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the topic poses both unique scientific as well as ethical challenges. This paper looks at the concept of generation ships, conceptual behemoth ships whose goal is to bring a group of human settlers to distant exoplanets. These ships are designed to host multiple generations of people who will be born, (...) live, and die on these ships long before it reaches its destination. This paper takes reproductive ethics as its lens to look at how genetic enhancement interventions can and should be used not only to ensure that future generations of offspring on the ships, and eventual exoplanet colonies, live a minimally good life but that their births are contingent on them living genuinely good and fulfilling lives. The paper makes the further claim that if such a thesis holds, it also does so for human enhancement on Earth. (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)

Organizations are increasingly finding it challenging to balance economic and environmental performance particularly those that face competitive, regulatory and community pressure. With the increasing pressures for environmental sustainability, this calls for the new formulation of strategies by the manufacturers in order to minimize their products and services negative impact on the environment. Hence, Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) continues to be an important research agenda among the researchers. In Palestine, green issues are new and still developing. Constant study is needed (...) to fully understand and update information regarding this area. Objective: The aim of this paper is to explore the views and level of acceptance of GHRM practices among manufacturing firms in Palestine. Results: Through the use of e-mail survey, 121 responses were obtained to generate the results of the study. The result showed GHRM practices have been practiced to somewhat to a greater extent a firms in Palestine. Findings can be extended to study on the issues in further. Academicians and practitioners can apply this result to their research and business strategies on how to improve sustainable performance and to effectively implement GHRM practices. (shrink)

The question of how to arrive at a consensus on human rights norm in a diverse, pluralistic, and interconnected global environment is critical. This volume is a contribution to an intercultural understanding of human rights in the context of India and its relationship to the West. The legitimacy of the global legal, economic, and political order is increasingly premised on the discourse of international human rights. Yet the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights developed with little or no consultation from (...) non-Western nations such as India. In response, there has developed an extensive literature and cross-cultural analysis of human rights in the areas of African, East-Asian, and Islamic studies, yet there is a comparative dearth of conceptual research relating to India. As problematically, there is an lacuna in the previous literature; it simply stops short at analyzing how Western understandings of human rights may be supported from within various non-Western cultural self-understandings; yet, surely, there is more to this issue. The chapters in this collection pioneer a distinct approach that takes such deliberation to a further level by examining what it is that the West itself may have to learn from various Indian articulations of human rights as well. (shrink)

What is a race? Ernst Mayr (1904–2005) distinguishes between species in which biological change is continuous in space, and species in which groups of populations with different character combinations are separated by borders. In the latter species, the entities separated by borders are geographic races or subspecies. Many anthropology textbooks describe human races as discrete (or nearly discrete) clusters of individuals, geographically localized, each of which shares a set of ancestors, and hence can be distinguished from other races by their (...) common gene pool or by different alleles fixed in each. (shrink)

This paper argues that human ecology, based on process philosophy and challenging scientific materialism, is required to effectively confront the global ecological crisis now facing us.

Human augmentation is discussed in three axes: the technological means, the ability being augmented, and the social systems that will be affected. The technological augmentations considered range from exocortical information and communication systems, to pharmaceuticals, tissue and genetic engineering, and prosthetic limbs and organs, to eventually nanomedical robotics, brain-computer interfaces and cognitive prostheses. These technologies are mapped onto the capabilities which we are in the process of enabling and augmenting, which include extending longevity and physical, sensory and cognitive abilities, and (...) enabling control over emotions, moral behavior, and spiritual experience. The impacts of augmentation on the family, education, economy, politics and religion are considered individually, but their aggregate effects will be non-linear and drive complex adaptations in the living machine that is our co-evolved techno-social civilization. (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)

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)

Nietzsche promises to “translate man back into nature,” but it remains unclear what he meant by this and to what extent he succeeded at it. To help come to grips with Nietzsche’s conceptions of drive (Trieb), instinct (Instinkt) and virtue (Tugend and/or Keuschheit), I develop novel digital humanities methods to systematically track his use of these terms, constructing a near-comprehensive catalogue of what he takes these dispositions to be and how he thinks they are related. Nietzsche individuate drives and instincts (...) by the type of actions they motivate. One way in which the “translation” of man back into nature might succeed is through naturalistic explanation and reduction of moral notions such as virtue in terms of amoral, naturalistic notions, such as drives and instincts. I go on to show that this is indeed Nietzsche’s project: for him, a virtue is a well-calibrated drive. Such calibration relates both to the rest of the agent’s psychic economy (her other drives) and to her social context (what’s considered praiseworthy and blameworthy in her community). (shrink)

This paper, published in 2022 in the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective (SERRC), offers a philosopher-psychologist’s explanation of our species’ deeply rooted resistance to self-knowledge. The article focuses on limitations that come about when people do not possess a group of cognitive and psychological skills and competencies which the author has called “epistemological intelligence.” ¶¶¶¶¶ The paper develops the idea of “one-way concepts,” concepts that can appropriately and informatively be applied to the human species, but which, due to human (...) species pride and exemptionalism, people often refuse to do.¶¶¶¶¶ When people lack the necessary skills and competences, they become resistant to new ways of thinking which can help our species break free from self-limiting and often self-destructive ways patterns of thought and behavior.¶¶¶¶¶ . (shrink)

This study assessed human resource management and teachers’ job performance in secondary schools in Akamkpa Local Government Area of Cross River State. Three null hypotheses were formulated accordingly to guide the study. Census technique was adopted in selecting the entire population of 432 teachers. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire designed and administered by the researcher. Collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while the null hypotheses were all tested at .05 level of significance using Pearson Product (...) Moment Correlation Analysis. Findings from the study revealed that there is significant relationship respectively between principals’ interpersonal relationship (r=0.364, p<. 05), teachers’ participation in decision-making (r=0.624, p< .05) and principals’ delegation of responsibilities (r = 0.538, p< .05) with teachers’ job performance in secondary schools. Based on these findings it was recommended among others that; principals should ensure that they create a conducive school climate by building a sound interpersonal relationship with teachers in order to improve their job performance; teachers should be actively involved in making certain decisions for the school especially those within their jurisdiction in order to foster unity and cooperation in the implementation of such decisions. (shrink)

This chapter interrogates the human in human rights. It first takes issue with the common assumption that to be human just is to be a member of the species homo sapiens, and that this suffices for possession of human rights. Such an assumption is problematic because it presupposes a unique ‘essence’ possessed by all and only human beings, which in turn functions to exclude certain individuals from the realm of the human, and presents a culturally-specific vision of humanity as (...) if it were universal. As an alternative, this chapter develops a conception of the human as a social construct. Analogous to the sex/gender distinction common to feminist theory, it posits a homo sapiens/human distinction, whereby the human refers to the network of social norms, political status, privileges and burdens that are conferred on people because they are (taken to be) members of the species homo sapiens. (shrink)

The discursive character of human rights prevents a precise summary of historical origin, rationale, or definition outside of the various codifications in religious texts, secular philosophies, founding national documents, and international treaties, charters, conventions, covenants, declarations, and protocols. Regarding the objects of human rights, we can speak of a “foundational five” 1) Personal security 2) Material subsistence 3) Elemental equality 4) Personal Freedom and 5) Recognition as a member of the human community. Despite, or perhaps because of its multivalence, the (...) concept of human rights has been criticized as “foundationalist,” “essentialist,” or “ethnocentric”—its universalism being used as a weapon against itself by critics of cultural imperialism. Even the tolerance discourses so popular in critical theory, however, gain their normative force from the same basic notion of individual or group rights. Notwithstanding these rhetorical abuses, the concept of human rights has proved robust as a doctrine of equality owing to its openness to a pluralism of justifications grounding the basic “goods” agreed as necessary for human development. (shrink)

Does AI conform to humans, or will we conform to AI? An ethical evaluation of AI-intensive companies will allow investors to knowledgeably participate in the decision. The evaluation is built from nine performance indicators that can be analyzed and scored to reflect a technology’s human-centering. When summed, the scores convert into objective investment guidance. The strategy of incorporating ethics into financial decisions will be recognizable to participants in environmental, social, and governance investing, however, this paper argues that conventional ESG frameworks (...) are inadequate for AI-intensive companies. To fully account for contemporary technology, the following categories of evaluation will be developed and featured as vital investing criteria: autonomy, dignity, privacy, performance. With these priorities established, the larger goal is a model for humanitarian investing in AI-intensive companies that is intellectually robust, manageable for analysts, useful for portfolio managers, and credible for investors. (shrink)

“Existential risks” are risks that threaten the destruction of humanity’s long-term potential: risks of nuclear wars, pandemics, supervolcano eruptions, and so on. On standard utilitarianism, it seems, the reduction of such risks should be a key global priority today. Many effective altruists agree with this verdict. But how should the importance of these risks be assessed on a Christian moral theory? In this paper, I begin to answer this question – taking Thomas Aquinas as a reference, and the risks (...) of anthropogenic extinction as an example. I’ll suggest that on a Thomist framework, driving ourselves extinct would constitute a complete failure to fulfil our God-given nature, a radical form of hubris, and a loss of cosmological significance. So the reduction of such risks seems vital for Thomists, or Christians more broadly. Indeed, I end with the thought that these considerations are not parochially Christian, or indeed specifically religious: everyone with a similar view of mankind – as immensely valuable yet fallen and fragile – should agree that existential risks are a pressing moral concern. (shrink)

Since before we can remember, humanity aims to overcome its biological limitations; such a goal has certainly played a key role in the advent of technique. However, despite the benefits that technique may bring, the people who make use of it will inevitably be under risk of harm. Even though human technical wisdom consists in attaining the best result without compromising anybody’s safety, misuses are always a possibility in the horizon. Nowadays, technology can be used for more than just (...) improving human capacities, preserving and restoring health or promoting human well-being. It also enables us to overcome human limitations and reach way beyond our "natural design". That being said, what could possibly justify the fear for these new directions of biotechnology? Should medicine and health care change their traditional goals and begin searching for artificial improvements to wellness in human nature? In this paper, I will hereby present and briefly discuss the main topics of the contemporary issue of human enhancement: the therapy-enhancement distinction, the possibility of cognitive enhancements and better physical performances, the fight against senescence, the arguments for and against human eugenics, the search for perfection, the quest of moral enhancement, the problem of public priorities, and some questions on medical ethics. Then, finally, I will want to present some realist perspectives on the subject. (shrink)

I argue that the human being fits squarely within the natural world in Aristotle’s anthropology. Like other natural beings, we strive to fulfill our end from the potential within us to achieve that end. Logos does not make human beings unnatural but makes us responsible for our actualization. As rational, the human can never be reduced to mere living animal but is always already concerned with living well; yet, as natural, she is not separated from the animal world, a dangerous (...) distinction which inevitably leaves some persons reduced to mere animality. (shrink)

A psychology-informed view of human rights has been taken into account by many scholars while examining the short-term and long-term effects of human rights violations on individuals and communities. In Trauma and Human Rights: Integrating Approaches to Address Human Suffering, for instance, the authors discuss the trauma-informed approach in the context of human rights violations, namely domestic violence, racial and other forms of discrimination, etc. In the paper on Trauma among children and legal implications, the authors advance a trauma-informed approach (...) to human rights. The approach considers the experiences of trauma associated with physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, psychological/emotional abuse, community violence, natural disasters, serious accidents, parental death/grief, medical procedures and conditions, and terrorism. In the case of violations including rape and torture, the paper Torture by means of Rape concerns the psychological suffering of victims of rape, abuse, and torture in light of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. As for the jurisprudence of international human rights bodies, the advancement of a psychology-informed view of human rights is noticeable. Take the example of the Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment on Biopsychosocial factors conducive to torture and ill-treatment. The Report explores the root causes of the current worldwide complacency concerning torture and ill-treatment and recommends the urgent and proactive incorporation of science-based conclusions into ongoing, policy-based global governance reform processes. Further, the report provides that the root cause of the systemic governance failure is attributed to the generic biopsychosocial factors that have shaped human decision-making throughout history, irrespective of national, cultural, religious, or other distinctive influences. Since the two fields are creating a landscape of new concepts and perspectives, one may study this interface broadly under three headings; (a) Psychology in Human Rights. (b) Rights-Based Approach to Psychological Science and Research. (c) Psychology and Human Rights in Law and Policy. (shrink)

Human nature is a puzzling matter that must be analysed through a holistic lens. In this commentary, I foray into anthropology's biosocial dimensions to underscore that human relations span from microorganisms to global commodities. I argue that the future of social-cultural anthropology depends on the integration of evolutionary theory for its advancement. Ultimately, since the likelihood of novel zoonoses' emergence, digital ethnography could offer remarkable opportunities for ethical and responsible inquiries.

Some people think that the inevitability of human extinction renders life meaningless. Joshua Seachris has argued that naturalism can be conceptualized as a meta-narrative and that it narrates across important questions of human life, including what is the meaning of life and how life will end. How a narrative ends is important, Seachris argues. In the absence of God, and with knowledge that human extinction is a certainty, is there any way that humanity could be meaningful and have a (...) good ending? I will distinguish between two conceptions of how humanity could be meaningful: the traditional view and an alternative view, which I will outline. I will argue that this alternative view provides a plausible explanation for how humanity could become meaningful. I will also argue that coming to terms with our mortality and other limitations would add meaning to human life and provide humanity with a good ending. (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)

Contra mercantile propaganda, technology is "humanized" to the extent that it satisfies or at least permits satisfaction of basic human needs or enhancements. To assess a technology's contribution to humanization requires (1) rejection of the primacy of the machine (cyborg model) and commitment to primacy of the human being (prosthesis model) in man/machine relations, and (2) insistence on the responsibility of managers for consequences of their technology-related decisions. Such decisions are appropriate in this respect to the extent that they help (...) meet basic human needs rather than artificially engendered needs. Meta-evaluation requires active citizen participation in government regulation of technology. (shrink)

Should college teachers still teach works with immoral content? What if the works are by deeply immoral thinkers? This guide is intended to help us answer these sorts of pedagogical questions by articulating the pertinent moral issues and then suggesting strategies for navigating them.

[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)

Domestic courts are often quoting foreign case law on human rights. The conversation pursued through cross-referencing across jurisdictions has added to the globalization of international human rights standards. As the practice is gaining ground and becoming a more permanent feature of domestic judgments, its relevance needs to be examined. A closer look at the practice will bring forth a more realistic understanding of the approaches of domestic courts and the advantages which they offer to the institution. This paper raises few (...) questions on the value and influence of cross-referencing in the area of human rights. Questions in this regard can be posed as to (a) whether cross-referencing is reflective of an emerging consensus on the subject matter? (b) Is it strategic for domestic courts to quote foreign case law? (c) Is the practice of cross-referencing simply a trend or an urge to belong to a community of courts? (d) Is the practice of relevance towards the implementation and advancement of international human rights standards? The topic can shed light on broader themes including the universality of human rights, contestations/disagreements over human rights standards, and the measure of acceptability of international human rights standards within domestic settings. This paper discusses the practice, its role and influence in relation to international human rights standards. Three judgments [of the courts of Nepal, India and Singapore] addressing the human rights and homosexuality agenda have been illustrated for discussion. (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)

The goal of this article is to show that instrumental rationality and utility that have been used in economics for many years does not work well. What is presented in the article is how significant the influence of utilitarianism has been on economics and why the economists get rid of humans’ goals and motivations. It is shown in the article that the human who decides in present is absolutely different from the human who decides over time. Many economists neglected this (...) problem because they wanted to have an effective and simple model. Becker’s economic method is presented as a dead end to which economics has been brought to. It is impossible to connect different selves of one human being by using the utility measure. The works of Schelling and J.S. Mill are used to explain this impossibility. The conclusion of this article is that instrumental rationality and utility have affected economics significantly. But, this simplified view on human nature is no longer valid. Hence, economics needs to think not only about the means but also about the human goals. Economics needs to rebuff relativism and show people how to achieve well-being. If we want to help people with their self-governance, we will have to choose reason over emotions. (shrink)

The relevance of the study is due to the need to transform educational methods and technologies that can satisfy the cognitive, social, and emotional needs of people in the digital world. The modern education system is focused on the implementation of educational strategies that meet high ethical and technical standards. The purpose of the article is the study of humanization as the development direction of education in the digital age. The methodological basis of this study is an understanding of the (...) principle of humanization as combining the general cultural, social, moral, and professional development of an individual. It is shown that digital devices are an integral part of the identity of a modern person, which leads to the need to develop media literacy among students using media education. As part of the humanization of education in educational institutions, a direction is being implemented for organizing and implementing project activities. This instructional format involves the transformation of the role of participants in educational processes and the methods and technologies that are used for its implementation. The results prove that the goals of modern education are possible provided if the principles of humanization and individualization are implemented in the educational process. (shrink)

In the present article, I will evaluate the utility of environmental human rights in the light of the global climate conditions prevailing in the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century. Human rights and their tools have proven useful on many occasions. Here I will promote the idea that the ecological situation we are facing now is so urgent that we should exploit their potential to the fullest. To that end, I will argue, there is a clear need (...) to render environmental rights as explicit, precise and thus legally binding as possible. It is tried to adopt a point of view that is informed by both scientific findings and the theory of human rights; the conclusions are definitely intended to be pragmatic. (shrink)

What grounds human rights? How do we determine that something is a genuine human right? This chapter offers a new answer: human beings have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. The fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life are certain goods, capacities, and options that human beings qua human beings need whatever else they qua individuals might need in order to pursue a characteristically good human life. This chapter explains how this Fundamental Conditions Approach is (...) better than James Griffin’s Agency Approach as well as Martha Nussbaum’s Central Capabilities Approach. It also shows how it can be compatible with the increasingly popular Political Conceptions of human rights defended by John Rawls, Charles Beitz, and Joseph Raz. (shrink)

Google Translate (GT) is the most widely used translator application in the world. The function of GT is not merely as tools but has become a means in personal communication, learning and business matters. This paper aims to examine the GT accuracy in translating culinary texts. This paper used a semiotic approach to analyze the equivalence of GT from the source language to the target language. The data source as the object of study is French culinary texts retrieved from the (...) internet. It can be concluded that the accuracy of GT in culinary texts lies in words, phrases and sentences. GT does not yet have good accuracy in translating culture between source and target languages. In the semiotic perspective, the GT translation model is the translation from the source language form to the target language form (signifier) by maintaining the concept (meaning). GT does not yet have a translation feature in a cultural context. The advancement in information technology shows that GT, as a human-robot, can replace human translators. (shrink)

Chapman & Huffman argue that humans are neither unique nor superior to other animals. I believe they are right in claiming that we are no more unique than any other species, but wrong in assuming that this means we cannot be ranked as superior. I show how this need not undermine the central aim of their target article, for superiority can only be measured with respect to a certain standard, and it’s only by using anthropocentric standards that we can be (...) plausibly regarded as superior. Other — perhaps more neutral — standards yield different results. (shrink)

This book manuscript, entitled United Nations Human Rights Ethics: For The Greatest Success of the Greatest Number, critically examines most all major normative ethical theories since Socrates and finds Roman Stoic ethics to be the least deficient. It divides ethical theories into popular ones with little academic support, other popular ones that have had such support, and Kantian ethics standing alone as a philosopher's academic ethical philosophy with limited popular support. It criticizes the appropriation of human rights by the international (...) law profession to the exclusion of moral philosophy, despite the origin of "human rights" in the moral philosopher Rousseau. It blames the inability of moral philosophers to reach a professional consensus on the elements of normative ethics, not the legal profession. It laments both the failure of human rights education to human beings everywhere as requested by the Universal Declaration and the decline in popular support for human rights in favor of nationalism in current history since 2015. It advocates a way of redirecting human right education to people on the ground rather than mainly to law students. Such education has been overtaken by the Rule of Law movement fighting high crimes crimes against humanity unanticipated by the Universal Declaration. It argues for a way for ethicists to get on the same page in teaching elements in ethics and argues forcefully for a positive method for popular human rights education as well as for human rights-based elementary ethical theory. (shrink)

Prominent critics of consequentialism hold that utilitarianism is not capable of accepting authentic human values, because the consequentialist viewpoint is impersonal. According to it consequentialist rationality has no axiological limits and it can think about doing the unthinkable. The main objective of the paper is to show that human dignity has a significant position in the author’s conception of ethics of social consequences arguing for a particular theory of the value of human dignity. The author argues that the ethics of (...) social consequences is capable of accepting human dignity as well as all authentic human moral values. He believes that ethical theory of social consequences can provide the element missing whose lack was unveiled by the critics of utilitarianism. (shrink)

Symmetry in biological and physical systems is a product of self-organization driven by evolutionary processes, or mechanical systems under constraints. Symmetry-based feature extraction or representation by neural networks may unravel the most informative contents in large image databases. Despite significant achievements of artificial intelligence in recognition and classification of regular patterns, the problem of uncertainty remains a major challenge in ambiguous data. In this study, we present an artificial neural network that detects symmetry uncertainty states in human observers. To this (...) end, we exploit a neural network metric in the output of a biologically inspired Self- Organizing Map Quantization Error (SOM-QE). Shape pairs with perfect geometry mirror symmetry but a non-homogenous appearance, caused by local variations in hue, saturation, or lightness within and/or across the shapes in a given pair produce, as shown here, a longer choice response time (RT) for “yes” responses relative to symmetry. These data are consistently mirrored by the variations in the SOM-QE from unsupervised neural network analysis of the same stimulus images. The neural network metric is thus capable of detecting and scaling human symmetry uncertainty in response to patterns. Such capacity is tightly linked to the metric’s proven selectivity to local contrast and color variations in large and highly complex image data. (shrink)

Social work has long been concerned with the respective roles of the social work profession and the social welfare system in addressing human needs. Social workers engage in needs assessment together with client systems. They provide and advocate for the needs of clients, as well enabling and empowering clients and communities to address their needs. They also advocate for social welfare benefits and services and overall social policies that take human needs into account. However, explicit ethical content was not present (...) in earlier Codes of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers. Furthermore, until very recently, little published literature in peer-reviewed journals has human needs theories to guide models of social work practice or inform social work research. Universalistic assumptions about human needs have long been found within social work’s literature on human development (see Jani and Reisch 2011, under General Overviews). However, these assumptions were often inexplicit. They did not fully utilize theories of human need, which have long recognized that although human needs may be universal, they are addressed in culturally and environmentally specific manners. Also, in practice, social workers have often conflated human needs with the need for the services or benefits available at any one time. This bibliography will explore the history and evolution of the interdisciplinary body of human needs theory and research on which social work has drawn historically, with special attention to the recent surge in interest in human needs theories. In doing so, the entry will discuss a number of key debates that have arisen regarding needs, including whether they are universal or specific to particular cultures; what the relationship is between human needs, human rights, and social justice; and how to reconcile theories of human needs and of human capabilities. (shrink)