David Hume: Unwitting Cosmopolitan?

Author(s): Edward W. Glowienka / Language(s): English Issue: 44/2015

If Hume is considered cosmopolitan in his ethics at all, he is said to be so through his anti-mercantilist approach to commerce. Prevailing commercial interpretations attribute to Hume a cosmopolitanism that is best described as instrumental and supervenient. I argue that Hume’s principles lead to a cosmopolitan ethic that is more demanding than commercial interpretations recognize. Hume’s cosmopolitanism is more than merely supervenient and its instrumentality is such that cosmopolitan regard becomes inseparable from healthy patriotic concern. I show sympathy and duty, not merely justice, central to Hume’s cosmopolitanism and address how Hume’s moderate cosmopolitanism might be enacted in society. I suggest Hume’s view can contribute to contemporary cosmopolitan discourse, aiding both those forms with which it is consonant and the practical ends of otherwise opposed, Kantian forms.

IMPERATIVUL PROGRESULUI MORAL. IPOTEZE CONTEMPORANE PRIVITOARE LA INTERVENTIILE BIOMEDICALE ASUPRA MORALITĂłII INDIVIDUALE

Author(s): Codruța Liana Cuceu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 13/2015

If the notion of improvement of the human nature and capacities has pervaded almost all the stages of human history and education has proved to be, until now, one of the most efficient and less risky means for achieving the betterment of individuals, in the last decade, the idea of human enhancement through biomedical means became one of the most debated themes within the field of contemporary applied philosophy and ethics. The idea of enhancement regards interventions upon various capacities of human individuals, thus targeting either the life extension, or enhancement of physical traits, mood states, cognitive and moral capacities. However, because of the complexity of human moral psychology and because of the insufficient scientific data concerning the neuro-scientific basis of the moral capacities of individuals, their enhancement through biomedical intervention is not yet available and, probably, neither will it become available in the near future. Within this study, we will try to argue that the entire contemporary debate focused on the moral bio-enhancement aims at testing the strength of the arguments formulated against it, with the opposite purpose of finding solid grounds which could sustain it and, which could, then, advertise for moral bio-enhancement as a good or as a service offered to the people of the future societies. The moral enhancement through bio-medical means implies a change at the level of each person’s moral motivations that leads, thereafter, to an improved level of morality in her/his actions and decisions. By analyzing the nature and the possibility of human enhancement in general, as well as the meaning of moral enhancement through biomedical means, within this study, we will thoroughly discuss the arguments that either support, or reject the permissibility of moral enhancement relating them to questions regarding its possibility.

Ranjivost i otpor

Author(s): Judith Butler / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 1/2016

In conversation with Judith Butler: Binds yet to be settled

Author(s): Judith Butler,Adriana Zaharijević / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

What about Eternal Life? A Transhumanist Perspective

Author(s): Loredana Terec-Vlad / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The human individual has been preoccupied with the phenomenon of death since death expresses the end of the existence on earth. The issue of life and death has not lost its actuality, whereas nowadays life extension (and why not immortality) is considered the ultimate goal of scientists. The aim of this article is to highlight the problems that will arise along with the achievement of eternal life. In this regard, I shall focus on human enhancement and the principle of procreative beneficence as means of achieving this objective. In addition, I shall bring into question the fact that the principles of bioethics are being violated along with human enhancement: the principle of respect for autonomy and beneficence, avoiding harm-causing behaviours and the principle of justice. Given that the researchers in the field of transhumanism argue that the penetration of the new technologies into the private sphere of the individual is inevitable, I shall present arguments that prove the fact that the principles of bioethics are being violated along with the achievement of eternal life, given that human enhancement is only accessible for an elite both in terms of costs as well as in terms of the Christian values.

Living Our Values, Preserving Our Values: Hungary’s Response to the 2015 European Migrant Crisis – Part I

Author(s): BARBARA PIAZZA-GEORGI / Language(s): English Issue: 02/2016

It is still early days for writing about the mass migration phenomenon that dominated European headlines in 2015, and is likely to continue dominating them this year. The discourse is still largely on the journalistic and political level, steeped in the different ideologies of the moment. There is a deep polarisation between those who – in the name of European values –advocate openness and integration, and those whose priority is security and the maintenance of European social characteristics and the preservation of European values. As regards both the level of the discourse and the polarisation of views, this is even truer within Hungary – except that the camp of those who advocate openness is very small, partly for historical reasons, and partly as a result of deliberate recent political choices.

Dlaczego nieśmiertelność nie jest taka zła

Author(s): John Martin Fischer / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2016

The author argues that immortality need not be as bad as Bernard Williams says it would be. He argues that if an immortal life were characterized by a sufficiently diverse package of experiences, appropriately distributed, there is no reason to think that one would become bored (just as there is no reason to think that one would become bored of such experiences in a finite life). He acknowledges that some pleasurable experiences would be “self-exhausting,” but he says that there are enough “repeatable pleasures” to avoid the tedium of which Bernard Williams speaks.

Przyzwoity laicki świat – realna przyszłość ludzkich społeczności? Rozważania o racjach polityki i zasadach etyki

Author(s): Jacek Grzybowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 35/2014

VII Sympozjum „Dylematy etyczne w praktyce lekarskiej: Czy można pogodzić biznes medyczny z etyką lekarską?” (Warszawa, 3 kwietnia 2014 r.)

Author(s): Jacek Meller / Language(s): Polish Issue: 35/2014

Civil Disobedience and Its Ethical Meaning

Author(s): Karolina Rozmarynowska / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

The goal of the discussion presented in the article is to recognize the ethical dimension of civil disobedience. Setting out to achieve that goal, the author analyses the difference between civil disobedience and other forms of social protest, and attempts to define its essential substance. With that goal in view, she identifies the key features and the subject matter of an act of disobedience. Having explained the civil character of disobedience, she then goes on to discuss its moral and ethical significance. Emphasizing the personal character of civil disobedience, the author presents it as an expression of ethics.

Filozoficzne modele nieśmiertelności w fantastyce naukowej (przeł. Sylwia Wilczewska, Marcin Iwanicki)

Author(s): Curl Ruth,John Martin Fischer / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2016

Science fiction is often described as a literary genre well suited to philosophical speculation. SF and philosophy share a common interest in the question of immortality, and comparisons and contrasts can be made regarding their respective treatments of the theme. We propose here a sketch of a taxonomy of different models or pictures of immortality offered by philosophers and SF writers. After noting important difference in these models, we suggest that some problems and concerns expressed by philosophers and SF writers alike are the result of conflating different models. It is our hope that these comparisons provide a preliminary sense of the way SF can be said to function as philosophical discourse.

Az elegancia hanyagsága

Author(s): Hannes Böhringer / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 99/2015

Maşini de altădată

Author(s): Dan Ciachir / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 01/2016

The article evoks episodes and people who lived decades ago, all having one thing in common: vintage cars. It also depicts how people tryed to maintain a certain standard of living, despite the constraints of the time

SAVREMENI ODGOVOR NA ARGUMENT OTVORENOG PITANJA

Author(s): Stefan Mićić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 7/2015

George Edward Moore's Principia Ethica is one of the most influential works in the field of ethics. The significance of Principia lies in the fact that it led to the creation of a new subdiscipline of ethics - metaethics. The central place in Principia occupies the problem of, what is nowdays known as, the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ and ‘the open-question argument’. This paper will present contemporary responses to the open-question argument and the directions in which the metaethical debate on this question has been developing.

ULOGA VELA NEZNANJA U ODABIRU STRATEGIJE ZA IZBOR PRINCIPA PRAVDE U ROLSOVOJ „TEORIJI PRAVDE“

Author(s): Maja Mihajlović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 7/2015

The original position is the hypothetical position of equality. The position of equality should ensure an impartial agreement between all rational individuals concerning the principles of justice that should be applied to the basic structure of society. This position is defined by a set of restrictions – the 'veil of ignorance'. The 'veil of ignorance' eliminates bias by covering individual's knowledge about the personal concept of good and likelihood of greatest possible benefits (the likelihood of outcome). Rawls shows that the position of people set behind the 'veil' results in applying the maximin strategy in determining the principles of justice. Eventually, this procedure leads to justice as fairness. In this paper I question the role given to the 'veil of ignorance' and justification of the leap made from the choice of the people in the original position to the choice of the people in real life. I will show that the very rationality Rawls emphasises is the reason why such a leap is unjustifiable. The strategy held as rational in the original position ceases to be in accordance with rationality once the 'veil' is lifted.

Przeżycie etyczne w badaniach Edyty Stein

Author(s): Piotr Janik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2016

The expression “moral experience”, along with the concomitant notion of experience itself, seems to have been understood in divergent ways. Taking as a background three views currently operative in our culture — emotivism, the ethics of duty, and the notion of an ethics “beyond good and evil” — a conception of ethical experience will be presented based on the findings of Edith S as elaborated in her work Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities.

Etičke dileme povodom ideala tolerancije

Author(s): Esko Muratović / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 53-54/2012

Ukoliko bi se pratila geneza ideje tolerancije kao etičke vrijednosti, u teorijskom smislu postalo bi jasno da nam je spoznaja totaliteta nemoguća, a samo etičko vrednovanje nadilazilo bi stari krug racionalnosti i opravdanja koji je bio vezan za pojedinačnu situaciju djelovanja. Ono seže do promišljanja koja prihvataju težinu svijeta, kompleksnost, etičke, odnosno, moralne konflikte. Etička promišljanja su danas u biti postmetafizička u svakom smislu: uključujući savremene i buduće životne sklopove, aspekte ljudskog djelovanja u njihovom punom obimu.

Smisao estetskog morala

Author(s): Milan Damjanović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 254/1980

Svoje poslednje delo Etienne Souriau ne izgled neočekivano, posvetio je starom pitanju odnosa etike i estetike i izložio "moral na čisto estetskim osnovama" kao novi moral koji odgovara našem vremenu. No, kako god uzeli taj estetski moral, ipak je to moral koji, najzad, interesuje Surioa u njegovom poznom okretanju toj, na izgled, zastareloj problematici.

Etika kao učenje o sreći

Author(s): Dragan Ćopić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 264/1981

Postoji nekoliko uobičajenih okolnosti u kojima za nekog možemo reći da posjeduje doživljaj sreće. Ostarenje nekog životnog cilja , nekog neverovatnog podviga, koje iziskuje napor, nadanja i padove može dovesti do prijatnog osećanja sreće i zadovoljstva.

Eudaimonia: kvalitet moralnog života u doba zrelosti

Author(s): David L. Norton / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 264/1981

"Nitko ne bi izabrao da posjeduje ceo svet, ako bi prvo morao da postane neko drugi". Aristotelove reči daju srž i temeljne razlike između moralnih osećanja njegovog vremena i našeg sopstvenog. Jer moto našeg vremena sigurno je: "Pokaži mi kako da posedujem ceo svet i postaću ko god hoćeš."