A Utilitarian Approach for the Governance of Humanitarian Migration.Herbert Brücker -2018 -Analyse & Kritik 40 (2):293-320.detailsHumanitarian migration creates, on the one hand, huge benefits for those who are protected from war, persecution and other forms of violence, but, on the other hand, involves also net monetary and social costs for the population in host countries providing protection at the same time. This is the core of the ethical and political problem associated with the governance of humanitarian migration. Against this background, this paper discusses whether the provision of protection can be founded on rational ethical principles. (...) By drawing on a utilitarian approach a simple criterion is derived: Humanitarian migration is welfare improving, as long as the benefits of the marginal humanitarian migrant exceed the marginal costs of providing shelter per refugee. Based on this principle, practical solutions for the admission of humanitarian migrants and the international and European coordination of asylum policies are discussed. (shrink)
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Lebenskunst als Schreibkunst? Der Autor von Ecce Homo.Tobias Brücker -2014 -Nietzscheforschung 21 (1):209-220.detailsName der Zeitschrift: Nietzscheforschung Jahrgang: 21 Heft: 1 Seiten: 209-220.
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Apologétique 1650-1802: la nature et la grace.NicolasBrucker (ed.) -2010 - New York: Peter Lang.detailsTracer le panorama de l'apologétique à l'âge classique n'est pas chose facile, tant sont multiples les perspectives philosophiques et diverses les formes littéraires. La tentation est alors grande d'aligner les monographies. Le colloque de Metz (16-18 octobre 2008), dont sont issues les contributions du présent ouvrage, a choisi d'appréhender cette diversité foisonnante et mouvante en la soumettant à une unique approche, la question du croire. Tenant de l'imaginaire et du rationnel, la foi manifeste l'ambition de réaliser la synthèse du sentiment (...) et de la raison. La théologie pascalienne de la grâce fournit des éléments de réponse pour faire cohabiter ces deux principes, constituant le matériau dont d'innombrables apologies se nourriront pendant plus d'un siècle. De 1650 à 1802, de Pascal à Chateaubriand, en contexte catholique comme en contexte protestant, la réflexion est inlassablement reprise sur la possibilité de rendre raison de sa foi à autrui, comme le demande saint Pierre (1 P 3, 15), alors que les progrès de l'histoire, de l'exégèse biblique ou des sciences de la nature en renouvellent les conditions. Mais peu à peu le sujet s'affirme comme la preuve première : son expérience de la foi, le témoignage qu'il en rend, l'espace de parole qu'il ouvre à l'autre, pour mettre ses idées en débat et engager un possible dialogue, sont les nouveaux moyens de la persuasion et de la conversion. (shrink)
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De la paraphrase à l’herméneutique. L’histoire d’Adam dans le Magasin des enfants de Marie Leprince de Beaumont.NicolasBrucker -2019 -ThéoRèmes 14 (14).detailsThe Magasin des enfants (1756) by Leprince de Beaumont includes a Bible for children, based on an oralised rewriting of the famoust stories of the Old Testament. The story of Adam, we closely examine, is both representative of the skill of retelling and of the discursive pragmatic function. This paraphrase, which is also a parable, includes the reader in its device and reveals the functioning of reading. The story, coupled with a tale that turns out to be an allegory of (...) reading, implicitly displays the conditions of biblical hermeneutics. (shrink)
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La Bible en littérature. Nouvelles approches.NicolasBrucker -2019 -ThéoRèmes 14 (14).detailsEn 1997 la parution de La Bible en littérature marquait une étape importante du dialogue entre les études littéraires et les études bibliques [Beaude 1997]. Issu d’un colloque qui s’était tenu à Metz trois ans plus tôt, le livre visait à « mettre en lumière les alliances que nouent la littérature moderne, principalement d’expression française, et la Bible aux XIXe et XXe siècles » [Beaude 1997, p. 7], et concrètement à décrire chez tel ou tel écrivain le travail de réécriture (...) opéré à partir d... (shrink)
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Plutonium, Power, and Politics: International Arrangements for the Disposition of Spent Nuclear Fuel.Gene I. Rochlin -1979 - University of California Press.detailsIn the early 1970s, the major industrial states were preparing to shift to nuclear fission as their principal source of electrical power. But that change has not occurred. In part, this is due to a growing public recognition that techniques and institutions for management of spent nuclear fuel, separated plutonium, and long-lived radioactive wastes are not yet fully developed. The consequent pressures for resolution have spurred a series of often ill-defined and sometimes contradictory attempts to promote international cooperation and control (...) of hazardous activities. How are these varied suggestions to be compared and evaluated? By what criteria can plans be selected that are likely to be both effective and negotiable? In this study,Gene I. Rochlin, physicist and social scientist, explores the technical, political, and institutional aspects of international nuclear export and fuel cycle policies. He categorizes existing proposals and suggests way to develop new ones that better promote both national and international goals. Dr. Rochlin argues neither for nor against the use of nuclear power or plutonium fuels. Instead, he addresses the question of how international arrangements could be reached that might jointly satisfy the objective of the several key nations, yet not be too difficult to negotiate. He concludes that a major fault has been the tendency to improvise arrangements for specific technical or industrial operations. As a result, overall social and political goals have become the bargaining points for compromise. Yet attempts to simultaneously resolve all problems are unlikely to prove fruitful. Dr. Rochlin suggests instead the formation of institutions organized around more limited social, political, and technical objectives, even at the expense of excluding some nations or omitting some aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle. Only by so doing, he argues, can immediate agreements be reached that preserve the potential for more comprehensive future arrangements without sacrificing industrial, environmental, or nonproliferation goals. This important book will be of interest to scientists, social scientists, government officials, and others concerned with the problems of plutonium management and nuclear wastes. (shrink)
The Problem of Scientific Justification of Norms; Can Norms be Justified Scientifically?Gene G. James -1983 -der 16. Weltkongress Für Philosophie 2:698-705.detailsI argue that before this question cah be answered one must answer the questions: What Is a norm? Are there different types of norms? Why do we adopt norms? How do we attempt to justify adopting particular norms? What would It be to justify a norm scientifically? To what extent can science aid us in justifying adoption of a norm? I then attempt to answer these questions, concluding that science can provide us with certain necessary tests for justifying norms, but (...) cannot provide us with sufficient tests. (shrink)
Agape: An Ethical Analysis.Gene H. Outka -1972 - Yale University Press.detailsThis study is the most comprehensive account to date of modern treatments of the love commandment.Gene Outka examines the literature on agape from Nygren's Agape and Eros in 1930. Both Roman Catholic and Protestant writings are considered, including those of D'Arcy, Niebuhr, Ramsey, Tillich, and above all, Karl Barth. The first seven chapters focus on the principal treatments in the theological literature as they relate to major topics in ethical theory. The last chapter explores further the basic normative (...) content of agape and discusses some of the most characteristic problems. "The book is in my judgment the best recent work in religious ethics. Outka brings together analytic moral philosophy and theological ethics, providing a masterly survey of views and issues arising in the past forty years.... I can think of few books of interest to scholars in both philosophy and theology, but Outka's is one. Unlike some scholars who are at home in continental theology, Outka is also at home in secular analytic philosophy; he brings them together in a mutually illuminating way."--Donald Evans "Outka has mastered this vast literature on love, and has brought a critical and clarifying analysis to bear upon it. This is a most important book on a most important subject, and brings the whole discussion into a new phase."--John Macquarrie "The first thing to be said about Outka's book quite simply is that it is excellent; in fact, it is probably the very best available book about contemporary Christian ethical theory."--The Humanities Association Review. (shrink)
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I Hear a Voice Calling: A Bluegrass Memoir.Gene Lowinger -2009 - University of Illinois Press.detailsA sensitive remembrance of bluegrass dreams and lessons.
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The influence of stated organizational concern upon ethical decision making.Gene R. Laczniak &Edward J. Inderrieden -1987 -Journal of Business Ethics 6 (4):297 - 307.detailsThis experimental study evaluated the influence of stated organizational concern for ethical conduct upon managerial behavior. Using an in-basket to house the manipulation, a sample of 113 MBA students with some managerial experience reacted to scenarios suggesting illegal conduct and others suggesting only unethical behavior. Stated organizational concern for ethical conduct was varied from none (control group) to several other situations which included a high treatment consisting of a Code of Ethics, an endorsement letter by the CEO and specific sanctions (...) for managerial misconduct. Only in the case of suggested illegal behavior tempered by high organizational concern were managers influenced by organizational policy to modify the morality of their actions. However, the responses to the illegal scenarios were significantly more ethical than the reactions given to the unethical (but not illegal) situations. The implications of these findings are then discussed. (shrink)
Say No to GMOs! (Genetically Modified Organisms).Gene Thomas &Chris Picone -unknowndetailsTime was when you could bite a tomato and not ingest fish genes. Time was when you could eat french fries and just worry about the fat and salt, not the bacterial genes that produce insecticides in the potato. Those times are over, thanks to corporate control over both genetic engineering and the lack of food-labeling. Unless you are a “hard core” consumer of organic foods, you eat genetically engineered foods everyday. While 80-90% of US consumers believe genetically engineered foods (...) should be labeled, only 3% know they already on the market.[1] Today 60-70% of the food in a grocery store contains components from genetically modified crops. Moreover, this technology was unleashed on over 45 million acres of US farmland last year alone, after having been commercially introduced only four years ago.[2] Here we will provide a brief background on the types of genetically engineered crops that are being surreptitiously forced upon consumers, then argue against their current widespread use. (shrink)
The Anatomy of Truth: Literary Modes as a Kantian Model for Understanding the Openness of Knowledge and Morality to Faith.Gene Fendt -2006 - In Chris L. Firestone & Stephen R. Palmquist,Kant and the New Philosophy of Religion. Indiana University Press. pp. 90-104.detailsKant's famous statement (from the first Critique) that he found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith acknowledges a religious or theological telos to the entire critical project. This article outlines a series of relations of 'knowledge' to 'faith' in the architectonic repetitions with variation that plays from the first Critique through the Religion. Various deployments of 'truth' at each stage presume a kind of 'faith' or trust all the way along. These deployments are shown (...) to follow a pattern which echoes that set out in Northrop Frye's understanding of literary modes descending from myth to romance to high and low mimetic and ending in the ironic. These modes describe realms of possibility and necessity, and their nesting in Frye's explication of literature is shown to be itself an echo of more formal theories of Tarski and Godel. (shrink)
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Critics of Enlightenment Rationalism.Gene Callahan &Kenneth B. McIntyre (eds.) -2020 - Palgrave-Macmillan.detailsThis book provides an overview of some of the most important critics of “Enlightenment rationalism.” The subjects of the volume—including, among others, Burke, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, T.S. Eliot, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, C.S. Lewis, Gabriel Marcel, Russell Kirk, and Jane Jacobs—do not share a philosophical tradition as much as a skeptical disposition toward the notion, common among modern thinkers, that there is only one standard of rationality or reasonableness, and that that one standard is or ought to be taken from the presuppositions, methods, (...) and logic of the natural sciences. The essays on each thinker are intended not merely to offer a commentary on that thinker, but also to place that thinker in the context of this larger stream of anti-rationalist thought. Thus, while this volume is not a history of anti-rationalist thought, it may contain the intimations of such a history. (shrink)
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Prospects for a Common Morality.Gene Outka &John P. Reeder (eds.) -1992 - Princeton University Press.detailsThis volume centers on debates about how far moral judgments bind across traditions and epochs. Nowadays such debates appear especially volatile, both in popular culture and intellectual discourse: although there is increasing agreement that the moral and political criteria invoked in human rights documents possess cross-cultural force, many modern and postmodern developments erode confidence in moral appeals that go beyond a local consensus or apply outside a particular community. Often the point of departure for discussion is the Enlightenment paradigm of (...) a common morality, in which it is assumed that certain unchanging beliefs inhere in the structure of human reason. Whereas some thinkers continue to defend this paradigm, others modify it in diverse ways without abandoning entirely the attempt to address a universal audience, and still others jettison virtually all of its distinguishing features. Exhibiting a range of positions Western participants take in these debates, this volume seeks to advance the substance of the debates themselves without prejudging the outcome. Rival assessments of the Enlightenment paradigm are offered from various philosophical and theological points of view. In addition to the editors, the contributors include Robert Merrihew Adams, Annette C. Baier, Alan Donagan, Margaret A. Farley, Alan Gewirth, David Little, Richard Rorty, Jeffrey Stout, and Lee H. Yearley. (shrink)
Aristotle and Tolkien: An Essay in Comparative Poetics.Gene Fendt -2019 -Christian Scholar's Review 49 (Number 1 (Fall 2019)).detailsBoth Aristotle and Tolkien are authors of short works seemingly concentrated on one form of literary art. Both works contain references which seem to extend further than that single art and offer insights into the worth and purpose of art more generally. Both men understand the relevant processes of mind of the artist in a similar way, and both distinguish the value of works of art based on their effect on the audience. But Tolkien figures the natural human artistic bent (...) as an elvish strain in us, and in his legends the elves are passing away to make way for the new—human beings. The legendary tales are an image of the natural pagan man giving place to the new man coming to be after Christ. This implies that what Aristotle called the mimetic nature of man—the source of all artistic play and work—is being given a new shape and orientation. Further, the master of those who know, in explicating catharsis, must have been reaching for something that exceeded his grasp and he did not know it. The aim of this essay is to explore the agreements (seeming and real) and disagreements (seeming and real) between what can be built up as each author’s general literary and aesthetic ideas—so, the relation between pagan and Tolkien’s Christian poetics. This will include evaluating where each is more or less adequate to the task of a general aesthetic, ending in an exploration of the purpose of art for the “new man.”. (shrink)
Resolving the contradictions of addiction.Gene M. Heyman -1996 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (4):561-574.detailsResearch findings on addiction are contradictory. According to biographical records and widely used diagnostic manuals, addicts use drugs compulsively, meaning that drug use is out of control and independent of its aversive consequences. This account is supported by studies that show significant heritabilities for alcoholism and other addictions and by laboratory experiments in which repeated administration of addictive drugs caused changes in neural substrates associated with reward. Epidemiological and experimental data, however, show that the consequences of drug consumption can significantly (...) modify drug intake in addicts. The disease model can account for the compulsive features of addiction, but not occasions in which price and punishment reduced drug consumption in addicts. Conversely, learning models of addiction can account for the influence of price and punishment, but not compulsive drug taking. The occasion for this target article is that recent developments in behavioral choice theory resolve the apparent contradictions in the addiction literature. The basic argument includes the following four statements: First, repeated consumption of an addictive drug decreases its future value and the future value of competing activities. Second, the frequency of an activity is a function of its relative (not absolute) value. This implies that an activity that reduces the values of competing behaviors can increase in frequency even if its own value also declines. Third, a recent experiment (Heyman & Tanz 1995) shows that the effective reinforcement contingencies are relative to a frame of reference, and this frame of reference can change so as to favor optimal or suboptimal choice. Fourth, if the frame of reference is local, reinforcement contingencies will favor excessive drug use, but if the frame of reference is global, the reinforcement contingencies will favor controlled drug use. The transition from a global to a local frame of reference explains relapse and other compulsive features of addiction. (shrink)
Bullshit universities: the future of automated education.Robert Sparrow &Gene Flenady -forthcoming -AI and Society:1-12.detailsThe advent of ChatGPT, and the subsequent rapid improvement in the performance of what has become known as Generative AI, has led to many pundits declaring that AI will revolutionize education, as well as work, in the future. In this paper, we argue that enthusiasm for the use of AI in tertiary education is misplaced. A proper understanding of the nature of the outputs of AI suggests that it would be profoundly misguided to replace human teachers with AI, while the (...) history of automation in other settings suggests that it is naïve to think that AI can be developed to assist human teachers without replacing them. The dream that AI could teach students effectively neglects the importance of ‘learning how’ in order to ‘learn that’, that teachers are also role models, and the social nature of education. To the extent that students need to learn how to use AI, they should do so in specialized study skills units. Rather than creating a market for dodgy educational AI by lowering their ambitions about what they can offer, universities should invest in smaller class sizes and teachers who are passionate about their disciplines. To flourish in the future, just as much as they do today, societies will need people who have learned to think and not—or not just—intelligent machines. (shrink)