Displaying: 81-100 of 547 documents

0.161 sec

81. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2
Karen Lancaster The Robotic Touch: Why There is No Good Reason to Prefer Human Nurses to Carebots
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
An elderly patient in a care home only wants human nurses to provide her care – not robots. If she selected her carers based on skin colour, it would be seen as racist and morally objectionable, but is choosing a human nurse instead of a robot also morally objectionable and speciesist? A plausible response is that it is not, because humans provide a better standard of care than robots do, making such a choice justifiable. In this paper, I show why this response is incorrect, because robots can theoretically care as well as human nurses can. I differentiate between practical caring and emotional caring, and I argue that robots can match the standard of practical care given by human nurses, and they can simulate emotional care. There is growing evidence that people respond positively to robotic creatures and carebots, and AI software is apt to emotionally support patients in spite of the machine’s own lack of emotions. I make the case that the appearance of emotional care is sufficient, and need not be linked to emotional states within the robot. After all, human nurses undoubtedly ‘fake’ emotional care and compassion sometimes, yet their patients still feel adequately cared for. I show that it is a mistake to claim that ‘the human touch’ is in itself a contributor to a higher standard of care; ‘the robotic touch’ will suffice. Nevertheless, it is not speciesist to favour human nurses over carebots, because carebots do not (currently) suffer as the result of such a choice.
82. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 26 > Issue: 1/2
Sharyn Clough Using Values as Evidence When There’s Evidence for Your Values
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
I have argued that political values are beliefs informed, more or less well, by the evidence of experience and that, where relevant and well-supported by evidence, the inclusion of political values in scientific theorizing can increase the objectivity of research (e.g., Clough 2003, 2004, 2011). The position I endorse has been called the “values-as-evidence” approach (Goldenberg 2013). In this essay I respond to three kinds of resistance to this approach, using examples of feminist political values. Solomon (2012) questions whether values are beliefs that can be tested, Alcoff (2006) argues that even if our values are beliefs that can be tested, testing them might not be desirable because doing so assigns these important values a contingency that weakens their normative force, and Yap (2016) argues that the approach is too idealistic in its articulation of the role of evidence in our political deliberations. In response, I discuss the ways that values can be tested, I analyze the evidential strength of feminist values in science, and I argue that the evidence-based nature of these values is neither a weakness nor an idealization. Problems with political values affecting science properly concern the dogmatic ways that evaluative beliefs are sometimes held—a problem that arises with dogmatism toward descriptive beliefs as well. I conclude that scientists, as with the rest of us, ought to adopt a pragmatically-inclined appreciation of the fallible, inductive process by which we gather evidence in support of any of our beliefs, whether they are described as evaluative or descriptive.
83. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 26 > Issue: 1/2
James B. Gould Covid 19, Disability, and the Ethics of Distributing Scarce Resources
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The Covid-19 pandemic provides a real-world context for evaluating the fairness of disability-based rationing of scarce medical resources. I discuss three situations clinicians may face: rationing based on disability itself; rationing based on inevitable disability-related comorbidities; and rationing based on preventable disability-related comorbidities. I defend three conclusions. First, in a just distribution, extraneous factors do not influence a person’s share. This rules out rationing based on disability alone, where no comorbidities decrease a person’s capacity to benefit from treatment. Second, in a just distribution, undeserved luck does not influence a person’s share. This rules out rationing for biologically caused comorbidities that decrease capacity to benefit. Third, in a just distribution, social injustice does not influence a person’s share. This rules out rationing for socially caused comorbidities that decrease capacity to benefit.
84. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 26 > Issue: 1/2
Charles Harvey Insatiable: Why Everything is not Enough
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In this essay, I argue that the deepest roots of Homo sapiens’ propensity towards excessive consumption lie in the emptiness of human awareness, itself possibly rooted in brain plasticity. I attempt to demonstrate how this insight emerged and appeared repeatedly throughout the history of philosophy and religious thought and how industrialized capitalism and consumer culture led to the current domination and envelopment of our lives by the “commodity canopy.” In the final section of the paper, I envision one way that contemporary humanity might use the history of insights about empty, restless awareness and brain plasticity to develop cultures that focus more on doing than having, more on events than on objects.
85. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 26 > Issue: 1/2
Lawrence Quill Orcid-ID Should A.I. Be Your Therapist?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and their application within the field of mental health provision raise issues that cross social, economic, and philosophical boundaries. While Therapeutic A.I. promises to disrupt the current provision of mental health services to reach populations without access to adequate mental health care there are risks. This paper addresses the philosophical problems posed by Therapeutic A.I. I suggest that in the absence of legal guidelines there is a need for philosophical guidance that prioritizes the dignity of clients/consumers. To that end, I advance Rosen’s (2012) concept of dignity-as-respectfulness as the most appropriate philosophical principle to guide the application of Therapeutic A.I.
86. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 26 > Issue: 1/2
Grace Goh Rethinking Belonging in a Globalized World: Home(s) in Morrison and Lugones
87. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 26 > Issue: 1/2
Joshua M. Hall iZombie Cyborg Dancers: Rechoreographing Smartphone Abusers
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Compulsive smartphone users’ psyches, today, are increasingly directed away from their bodies and onto their devices. This phenomenon has now entered our global vocabulary as “smartphone zombies,” or what I will call “iZombies.” Given the importance of mind to virtually all conceptions of human identity, these compulsive users could thus be productively understood as a kind of human-machine hybrid entity, the cyborg. Assuming for the sake of argument that this hybridization is at worst axiologically neutral, I will construct a kind of phenomenological psychological profile of the type of cyborg which engages in these patterns of behavior. I follow Judith Butler in seeing this identity as the result of performance practices, which as such can be modified or replaced using other performances. Pursing one such alternative, I compose a dancing critique that “reverse engineers” the choreographies implied by these cyborgs’ survival practices. The upshot of this critique is that their movement patterns do indeed align closely to those of horror cinema’s zombies. I therefore conclude by suggesting a few possible choreographic imperatives to facilitate more enabling ways of being for iZombie cyborgs today.
88. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 27 > Issue: 1
José-Antonio Orosco, Lark Sontag, Zara Stevens, Taine Duncan Special Section: Anarres Project for Alternative Futures Collection
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This article contains four essays from the Anarres Project, a forum for conversations, ideas, and initiatives that promote a future free of domination, exploitation, oppression, war, and empire. In the spirit of philosophy in the contemporary world, the selection includes recent work on the pandemic and related struggles for justice in the past year. An introduction to the project is included.
89. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 27 > Issue: 1
Becky Vartabedian Orcid-ID Guests in the Out-Side: Becoming, Knowing, and Acting in Jane Bennett’s Vital Materialism
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Jane Bennett’s vital materialism develops positive ontological commitments to lively matter and resistant vitality, articulated using notions of actant and assemblage, thing-power and the out-side. I show that these ontological commitments reveal a limit for traditional modes of human knowing, favoring an emergent epistemology that attends to the ways actants and assemblages express themselves. I then argue for an account of acting that positions humans as guests of vibrant matter. Compacts of guest-friendship in Plato’s Crito and Kant’s To Perpetual Peace indicate that to be a guest is to be embedded in an asymmetrical system. The compact that binds the guest in a world of vibrant matter is the prospect of friendship with nonhuman others, a prospect I discuss following the work of Nick Bingham. I conclude by addressing Axelle Karera’s recent critique of Anthropocenean discourses, explaining the role guest-friendship can play in addressing certain of the weaknesses Karera identifies.
90. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 27 > Issue: 1
Elizabeth Lanphier Orcid-ID Friends and Citizens in Plato’s Crito: A Revisionary Relational Reading
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
I propose a revisionary reading of Plato’s Crito focusing on the dramatic rendering of the friendship between Crito and Socrates, which I argue affords a model for political participation in a social contract. Their friendship models how citizens can come to be conventionally related to one another, and how they should treat one another internal to that relationship. This approach is apt for contemporary democratic theory, perhaps more so than standard interpretations of the political theory traditionally mined from the text, rather than drama, of the Crito. My account moves beyond questions of civility in deliberative democratic politics and deepens an account of how and why we ought to regard those with whom we disagree, but to whom we have nonetheless quasi-voluntarily bound ourselves within the same project of democracy. Friendship also addresses regard for those who have not previously received equal consideration within a putatively democratic social contract.
91. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 27 > Issue: 1
Seth Mayer Mass Deliberative Democracy and Criminal Justice Reform: Beyond Democratic Communitarian Localism
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The American criminal justice system falls far short of democratic ideals. In response, democratic communitarian localism proposes a more decentralized system with a greater emphasis on local control. This approach aims to deconcentrate power and remove bureaucracy, arguing local control would reflect informal cultural life better than our current system. This view fails to adequately address localized domination, however, including in the background culture of society. As a result, it underplays the need for transformative, democratizing change. Rejecting communitarian localism, I defend a mass deliberative democratic approach to criminal justice reform that relies on institutions outside localities to democratize local institutions and background cultural patterns. Nonetheless, local institutions must be empowered to exert democratic control, as well as to influence institutions outside the locality. This process of democratic co-development offers greater hope for political equality, non-domination, and inclusive democratic deliberation about criminal law than democratic communitarian localism.
92. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Robert Paul Churchill Commentary and Questions by Robert Paul Churchill
93. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Eddy Souffrant Introduction to the Symposium and Global Development Ethics
94. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Eddy Souffrant Reply to My Critics
95. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Lori Keleher Commentary and Questions by Lori Keleher
96. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Rob Lovering All Human Beings Are Equal, But Some Human Beings Are More Equal Than Others: A Case Study On Punishing Abortion-Performing Doctors But Not Abortion-Procuring Women
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In this paper, I present a case study on a recent attempt at implementing what I refer to as the “Pro-lifer’s Asymmetrical Punishment View” (PAPV), the view that people should be legally punished for performing abortions whereas women should not be so punished for procuring abortions. While doing so, I argue that the endeavor, which took place in the state of Alabama, is incoherent relative to the conjunction of its purported underlying moral rationale and the Alabama criminal code. I then present what I take to be possible explanations for, practical implications of, and solutions to the attempt and its incoherence. Given that other endeavors to implement PAPV are currently in the works and are so with similar underlying moral rationales and within similar criminal codes, what I present and argue here is not limited to Alabama’s attempt at doing so.
97. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Charles Harvey, Janet Donohoe, David K. Chan, Joseph Orosco, Andrew Fiala In Memoriam: Reflections on the Friendship and Philosophical Life of Trudy Conway
98. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 28 > Issue: 1
Jeremy Barris, Jeffrey C Ruff The Nature of Persons and Our Ethical Relations with Nonhuman Animals
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
If we accept that at least some kinds of nonhuman animals are persons, a variety of paradoxes emerge in our ethical relations with them, involving apparently unavoidable disrespect of their personhood. We aim to show that these paradoxes are legitimate but can be illuminatingly resolved in the light of an adequate understanding of the nature of persons. Drawing on recent Western, Daoist, and Zen Buddhist thought, we argue that personhood is already paradoxical in the same way as these aspects of our ethical relations with nonhuman animals, and in fact is the source of their paradoxical character. In both contexts, depth and shallowness turn out to be internal to or crucial parts of each other, with logically anomalous consequences. We try to show that the character of this paradoxical relation between depth and shallowness in the nature of personhood involves a crucial inflection in the case of nonhuman animal persons that allows us to make sense of and resolve these ethical paradoxes.
99. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 28 > Issue: 1
Noel Boulting Forms of Domination and Conceptions of Violence: A Semiotic Approach
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
By employing Peirce’s semiotics, Totalitarianism is distinguished indexically from forms of Dictatorship and Authoritarianism. The former can be cast, as Arendt argued, to initiate a project for world domination dispensing with any sense of Authoritarianism in forwarding some purely fictitious conception where violence is manifested in terror. Alternatively, distortion of intellectual activity may issue within Populism so that the rule of Demagogy emerges initiating Despotism or a form of Dictatorship – either Commissarial or Sovereign form – where lawless violence is sustained by secret police inducing fear but not terror. In the case of Authoritarianism induced iconically in a populace, violence may be tolerated accompanying either lawmaking or lawpreserving, both to be separated from Benjamin’s sense of pure violence. The latter – whether humanistically or spiritually understood – transcends both utilitarianism and sheer arbitrariness.
100. Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Volume > 28 > Issue: 1
Eleonora Montuschi Orcid-ID Science, Philosophy, Practice: Lessons from Use
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
It has been urged that philosophers in the contemporary world should be able to engage with domains of practice and not just with each other. If that is the case, in what sense philosophy can become an ‘applied’ discipline, and with what consequences both for philosophy and for practice? As a preliminary I will rehearse some of the reasons why philosophical investigation is socially commendable. I will then show (sect. 1) how philosophy in so called knowledge societies should interact with science and the contexts where science is used. A suitably formulated idea of interdisciplinarity (sect.2) will suggest the necessary epistemic conditions to achieve this interaction. I will use two illustrations (sects. 4 and 5) from the specific field of the philosophy of science to point out the kinds of readjustments required by philosophical analysis not so much to apply but to ‘engage’ with practice (in a sense qualified in sect.3).