A friend once told me I was wasting my time writing about cross-cultural perspectives on the beginnings of life. “Your work is interesting for its curiosity value,” he said, “but fundamentally worthless. What happens in other cultures is totally irrelevant to what is happening here.” Those were discouraging words, but as I followed the American debates about the beginnings and ends of life, it seemed he was right. Anthropologists have written a great deal about birth and death rites (...) in other societies and about non-western notions of personhood, but to date our findings have had little impact on American policy, ethics, or law. The recognized experts on contentious topics such as abortion and euthanasia tend to come from the fields of philosophy, bioethics, theology, law, and biology, but rarely from the social sciences. I was a bit surprised, therefore, to be invited to address the Thomas A. Pitts Memorial Lectureship on “Defining the Beginning and the End of Human Life.”. (shrink)

The question of when human life begins is critical in debates related to life issues. While there are a variety of proposals as to how an organism should be defined, many biologists and ethicists, particularly Catholics, have approached this issue by arguing that fertilization defines the beginning of a new organism. Examining the processes of fission and fusion, which take place before gastrulation, provides strong evidence for when human life beings and therefore how it should be defined. (...) Among the four dominant theories, regulative fission and fusion are the best explanations in terms of being the most consistent with the biological data. This explanation of twinning provides compelling evidence that fertilization is not a necessary condition for human generation, although it may be a sufficient condition. While fertilization generates the vast majority of human beings, additional human beings may rarely be generated during fission events. (shrink)

In theory, at least, we might achieve a certain sort of invulnerability right at the end of life. Suppose that under favorable circumstances we can live a certain number of years, say 125, but no longer, and also that we can make life as a whole better and better over time. Under these assumptions we might hope to disarm death by spending 125 years making life as good as it can be. If we were lucky enough to (...) accomplish that, afterwards we would be immune to mortal harm. Especially for those who are closer to the beginning of life than to the end, however, this strategy leaves much to be desired. It is like devouring an entire banquet so as to eliminate the danger of someone stealing it from us. Like a feast, a good life is safely ours after it is over, but then safety comes too late to be of any use to us. To be of practical value, we need protection from mortal harm much earlier in life. (shrink)

A new law has been passed by the Danish Parliament, establishing an ethical council. The law has caused considerable debate in Denmark, particularly because it states that 'the work of the council shall build on the basis that human life takes its beginning at the time of conception'.

This article explores the impact of Dobbs on access to assisted reproductive technologies. Clinical aspects of IVF, including embryo discard and cryopreservation, preimplantation genetic testing, and selective reduction of multiple pregnancy are potentially jeopardized by a new legal landscape that protects embryos over the interest of infertility patients.

The process of condensation of an amorphous solid into a rigid matrix can often trap molecules in reversible binding sites. Exchange of the same molecular species with such sites is known to be sensitive to small chemical differences and to distinguish between enantiomers. In addition to their usefulness in chromatographic processes, such materials can separate, by solid phase extraction, specific compounds from complex mixtures. Furthermore, the trapped molecules can have their reactions guided and catalytically changed. The combination of this spontaneously (...) formed system of templates and catalytic sites may support a type of replication cycle, and suggests some pathways from simple chemistry toward the complexities of biology. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 11: 30–35, 2005 -/- . (shrink)

This chapter examines Morrison’s claim that “modern life begins with slavery.” How were new forms of freedom and bondage constituted in the Americas? The chapter examines Morrison’s fictional recreation of two historical moments. In _A Mercy_ (2008), Morrison reimagines 17th-century North America, through the intertwined stories of black, white, and Indigenous characters. _Jazz_ (1992) tracks the descendants of the enslaved who respond to their dispossession by picking up stakes and moving to the urban North in the early decades of (...) the 20th century. Both novels accentuate the relationship of geography to the constitution of free selfhood and explore the lives of people who are repeatedly preyed upon and still refuse to be “easy prey.” Read together, the author argues, _A Mercy_ and _Jazz_ make a double-move, reminding readers how slavery claims us today and gesturing toward creative ways of claiming slavery to reimagine the meaning of freedom. (shrink)

Abstract. In January 1985, about 80 Muslim religious scholars and biomedical scientists gathered in a symposium held in Kuwait to discuss the broad question “When does human life begin?” This article argues that this symposium is one of the milestones in the field of contemporary Islamic bioethics and independent legal reasoning (Ijtihād). The proceedings of the symposium, however, escaped the attention of academic researchers. This article is meant to fill in this research lacuna by analyzing the proceedings of (...) this symposium, the relevant subsequent developments, and finally the interplay of Islam and the West as a significant dimension in these discussions. (shrink)

In this fascinating journey to the edge of science, Vidal takes on big philosophical questions: Does our universe have a beginning and an end or is it cyclic? Are we alone in the universe? What is the role of intelligent life, if any, in cosmic evolution? Grounded in science and committed to philosophical rigor, this book presents an evolutionary worldview where the rise of intelligent life is not an accident, but may well be the key to unlocking the (...) universe's deepest mysteries. Vidal shows how the fine-tuning controversy can be advanced with computer simulations. He also explores whether natural or artificial selection could hold on a cosmic scale. In perhaps his boldest hypothesis, he argues that signs of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations are already present in our astrophysical data. His conclusions invite us to see the meaning of life, evolution and intelligence from a novel cosmological framework that should stir debate for years to come. (shrink)

This paper explores the issue of when human life begins, giving special attention to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas’s position is contrasted with the position defended by many Catholics today. After considering the evidence and a variety of arguments, the paper suggests that the individuated human being begins to exist at roughly fourteen days after the moment of conception.

The question of when a human life begins is usually posed in ethical contexts. Whoever wants to know if – and when – abortion is ethically permissible links the question of the beginning of life with genuine ethical problems: the question of the ethical status of the human individual in her first stages of life is one way to frame the issue. The same applies to the disputes concerning the admissibility or inadmissibility of research on human embryos (...) and preimplantation diagnostics. Whoever enquires about the point in time at which an individual human life starts to exist does this mostly with a moral intention. Furthermore, the question of the beginning of life is frequently expressed in the first-person perspective, as exemplified by the title of Ford’s book When did I begin?. (shrink)

In contemporary discussions of abortion, both sides argue well-worn positions, particularly concerning the question, When does human life begin? Though often invoked by the Catholic Church for support, Thomas Aquinas in fact held that human life begins after conception, not at the moment of union. But his overall thinking on questions of how humans come into being, and cease to be, is more subtle than either side in this polarized debate imagines. Fabrizio Amerini--an internationally renowned scholar of (...) medieval philosophy--does justice to Aquinas's views on these controversial issues. Some pro-life proponents hold that Aquinas's position is simply due to faulty biological knowledge, and if he knew what we know today about embryology, he would agree that human life begins at conception. Others argue that nothing Aquinas could learn from modern biology would have changed his mind. Amerini follows the twists and turns of Aquinas's thinking to reach a nuanced and detailed solution in the final chapters that will unsettle familiar assumptions and arguments. Systematically examining all the pertinent texts and placing each in historical context, Amerini provides an accurate reconstruction of Aquinas's account of the beginning and end of human life and assesses its bioethical implications for today. This major contribution is available to an English-speaking audience through translation by Mark Henninger, himself a noted scholar of medieval philosophy. (shrink)

To many, it seems like the debate of "when life begins" is irresolvable. This is unfortunate since this failure to make progress is largely a result of people not asking what the question means, or clarifying what is being asked, and listening carefully to try to understand the range of answers. -/- As a philosophy professor who teaches logic and critical thinking, I suggest that asking the simple, but powerful, question, "What do you mean?" and seeking to understand different (...) answers could help us move past this debate to more important, and challenging, ethical and legal questions about abortion. (shrink)

As philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism continue to gain traction, we are likely to see a fundamental shift in the way people think about free will and moral responsibility. Such shifts raise important practical and existential concerns: What if we came to disbelieve in free will? What would this mean for our interpersonal relationships, society, morality, meaning, and the law? What would it do to our standing as human beings? Would it cause nihilism and despair as some (...) maintain or would it rather have a humanizing effect on our practices and policies, freeing us from the negative effects of belief in free will? In this chapter we consider the practical implications of free will skepticism and argue that life without free will and basic desert moral responsibility would not be as destructive as many people believe. We argue that prospects of finding meaning in life or of sustaining good interpersonal relationships, for example, would not be threatened. On treatment of criminals, we argue that although retributivism and severe punishment, such as the death penalty, would be ruled out, preventive detention and rehabilitation programs would still be justified. While we will touch on all these issues below, our focus will be primarily on this last issue. -/- We begin in section I by considering two different routes to free will skepticism. The first denies the causal efficacy of the types of willing required for free will and receives its contemporary impetus from pioneering work in neuroscience by Benjamin Libet, Daniel Wegner, and John-Dylan Haynes. The second, which is more common in the philosophical literature, does not deny the causal efficacy of the will but instead claims that whether this causal efficacy is deterministic or indeterministic, it does not achieve the level of control to count as free will by the standards of the historical debate. We argue that while there are compelling objections to the first route—e.g., Al Mele (2009), Eddy Nahmias (2002, 2011), and Neil Levy (2005)—the second route to free will skepticism remains intact. In section II we argue that free will skepticism allows for a workable morality, and, rather than negatively impacting our personal relationships and meaning in life, may well improve our well-being and our relationships to others since it would tend to eradicate an often destructive form of moral anger. In section III we argue that free will skepticism allows for adequate ways of responding to criminal behavior—in particular, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and alternation of relevant social conditions—and that these methods are both morally justified and sufficient for good social policy. We present and defend our own preferred model for dealing with dangerous criminals, an incapacitation account built on the right to self-protection analogous to the justification for quarantine (see Pereboom 2001, 2013, 2014a; Caruso 2016a), and we respond to recent objections to it by Michael Corrado and John Lemos. (shrink)

It will engage bioethicists and philosophers as well as inform policy and law regarding issues at the beginning and end of life.

Islam gives legal precedence to purity of lineage and known parenthood of all children. In Islam treatment to infertility using IVF is permitted within validity of marriage contract with no genes mixing. The paper shows that the Qur’ān, the word of Allah, and science, the deeds of Allah are not in major conflicts in defining the start of human life. The Holy Qur’ān provides an elegant description of origin, developmental stages of intra-uterine life. The Hadith explains two positions (...) one that believes human embryo get ensouled at conception and the other after 40 days of conception. The paper aims to find that Islam confers moral respect to human embryo, but it also clarifies the absence of full human rights to a developing foetus. In Islam, human embryonic use is probably permissible for therapeutic and reproductive purpose keeping intact the principles of Shari’ah. (shrink)

It has long been claimed that Homo sapiens is the only species that has language, but only recently has it been recognized that humans also have an unusual pattern of growth and development. Social mammals have two stages of pre-adult development: infancy and juvenility. Humans have two additional prolonged and pronounced life history stages: childhood, an interval of four years extending between infancy and the juvenile period that follows, and adolescence, a stage of about eight years that stretches from (...) juvenility to adulthood. We begin by reviewing the primary biological and linguistic changes occurring in each of the four pre-adult ontogenetic stages in human life history. Then we attempt to trace the evolution of childhood and juvenility in our hominin ancestors. We propose that several different forms of selection applied in infancy and childhood; and that, in adolescence, elaborated vocal behaviors played a role in courtship and intrasexual competition, enhancing fitness and ultimately integrating performative and pragmatic skills with linguistic knowledge in a broad faculty of language. A theoretical consequence of our proposal is that fossil evidence of the uniquely human stages may be used, with other findings, to date the emergence of language. If important aspects of language cannot appear until sexual maturity, as we propose, then a second consequence is that the development of language requires the whole of modern human ontogeny. Our life history model thus offers new ways of investigating, and thinking about, the evolution, development, and ultimately the nature of human language. (shrink)

Driven by concern about the suffering of animals in nature, Christopher Belshaw (2016) argued that if we were exclusively concerned with these animals’ good, we should reduce the number of free-living animals. We should prevent free-living animals from coming into existence and, if this is not possible, we should painlessly end their lives as soon as we can. This holds, according to Belshaw, even if the future lives of these animals would contain much more enjoyment than suffering. Belshaw’s argument rests (...) on two premises. First, he assumes that death does not harm an animal in a way that matters. Second, he takes it that most free-living animals lead a life of uncompensated suffering because the enjoyments in an animal’s life, even if more predominant, cannot outweigh the animal’s suffering. Therefore, since uncompensated suffering exists in about every animal’s life and matters morally and killing the animal does not harm the animal in a way that matters, killing the animal is an appropriate intervention with the aim of preventing its suffering. This article criticizes both assumptions of Belshaw’s argument and shows that his conclusion is insufficiently supported. (shrink)

How can the abortion issue be resolved? Many believe that the issue can be resolved if, and only if, we can determine when human life begins. Those opposed to abortion choice typically say that human life begins at conception. Many who favor abortion choice say that we will never know when human life begins. The importance of the when-does-human-life-begin issue is not so much argued for as it is taken to be self-evident. Furthermore, belief that (...) this issue is fundamental is taken for granted – at least outside of philosophy – by many of the people who seem to disagree about almost everything else concerning abortion. It has been my experience that – with rare exceptions – even those who insist that the issue of abortion should focus on the interests of pregnant women believe that this focus is warranted because fetuses are either not yet fully alive or not yet fully human. (shrink)

The long tradition of pessimism in philosophy and poetry notoriously laments suffering caused by vulnerabilities of the human body. The most familiar and contemporary version is antinatalism, the view that it is wrong to bring sentient life into existence because birth inevitably produces suffering. Technotopianism, which stems from a similarly negative view of embodied limitations, claims that we should escape sickness and death through radical human-enhancement technologies. In Embodiment and the Meaning of Life Jeff Noonan presents pessimism and (...) technotopianism as two sides of the same coin, as both begin from the premise that the limitations of embodied life are inherently negative. He argues that rather than rendering life pointless, the tragic failures that mark life are fundamental to the good of human existence. The necessary limitations of embodied being are challenges for each person to live well, not only for their own sake, but for the sake of the future of the human project. Meaning is not a given, Noonan suggests, but rather the product of labour upon ourselves, others, and the world. Meaningful labour is threatened equally by unjust social systems and runaway technological development that aims to replace human action, rather than liberate it. Calling on us to draw conceptual connections between finitude, embodiment, and the meaning of life, this book shows that seeking the common good is our most viable and materially realistic source of optimism about the future. (shrink)

In The Life of a Style, Jonathan Gilmore claims that such narrative developments inhere in the history of art itself.By exploring such topics as the discovery ...

In this article I take an unusual starting point from which to argue for a unified cognitive science, namely a position defined by what is sometimes called the ‘life-mind continuity thesis’. Accordingly, rather than taking a widely accepted starting point for granted and using it in order to propose answers to some well defined questions, I must first establish that the idea of life-mind continuity can amount to a proper starting point at all. To begin with, I (...) therefore assess the conceptual tools which are available to construct a theory of mind on this basis. By drawing on insights from a variety of disciplines, especially from a combination of existential phenomenology and organism-centered biology, I argue that mind can indeed be conceived as rooted in life, but only if we accept at the same time that social interaction plays a constitutive role for our cognitive capacities. (shrink)

The concept of dramatization represents a rhetorical and conceptual tension in Deleuze's philosophy in that it refers both to autopoietic ontological processes and to a critical philosophical method. Commentators are wont to refer to either one or the other, saying little about how or if these two fundamentally distinct usages can be thought together; that is what we aim to do here. By unravelling the conceptual transformations of the term, we can gain an appreciation for the double characterisation of dramatization (...) and its centrifugal nature. We begin with the hypothesis that dramatization is linked to actualisation in the first sense and counteractualisation in the second. The fundamental question that we would like to address is: how are these two views to be reconciled? Addressing this question leads us to the conclusion that dramatization becomes an ethical imperative for philosophical subjects to perform certain philosophical exercises, that is, to become worthy of the event. The particular philosophical exercise that is emphasised is the dramatization of a paradoxical thought of death. Ultimately, we suggest that dramatization can be galvanised for both an emancipatory politics and an ethico-aesthetic life practice. (shrink)

Modified action, either artificially induced or occurring naturally during life-span, alters organization and processing of primary somatosensory cortex, thereby serving as a predictor of age-related changes. These findings, together with the interconnectedness between motor-sensory systems and temporally-distributed processing across hierarchical levels, throws into question a sharp division between early perception and cognition, and suggest that composite codes of perception and action might not be limited to higher areas.

This chapter explores the ethical and legal issues faced when caring for pregnant women. A case study involving four women who have used or are contemplating using reproductive technologies forms the basis of the chapter to illustrate and discuss the issues raised. The issue at the heart of the debate is the question of when life begins and what sort of status we should afford to the entity that develops from a fertilised ovum through various stages to be a (...) fully formed baby. Beginning with an exploration of this concept of when life begins and begins to matter, assisted conception, surrogacy, and prenatal diagnosis are discussed. This is followed by a consideration of the notion of choosing children including the creation of saviour siblings. The final section of the chapter considers the complex ethical issue of abortion particularly on the grounds of foetal abnormality. Differing views on the moral status of the embryo are explored along with common reasons for justifying abortion. The chapter concludes with a glimpse into the future, with an examination of new and emerging technologies. (shrink)

This essay aims to reveal the conceptual unity of an ensemble of concepts of organic, animal, and anthropological life articulated by the young Karl Marx between 1842 and 1844. To lay the groundwork for my analysis, I begin with Marx's general account of “life as activity.” I argue that Marx articulates a hylomorphic theory of organic form in 1842 and 1843, and a Left Hegelian conception of organismal agency as productive activity in 1844. I then interpret Marx's (...) organismic conception of “productive life‐activity” as the guiding thread of his scala naturae in the Manuscripts. More precisely, I examine how Marx distinguishes plant, animal, and human life through the organism's production of its life and the life of its species (Gattung). I then redefine Marx's concept of species‐being as the unfulfilled power of an animal organism to self‐consciously pursue its productive life‐activity as its species‐life. In making this argument for the unity of Marx's concept of life, I hope to clarify the Aristotelian and Left Hegelian roots of his materialism. (shrink)

Some disability rights advocates criticise prenatal testing and selective abortion on the grounds that these practices express negative attitudes towards existing persons with disabilities. Disability rights advocates also commonly criticise and oppose physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia on the same grounds. Despite the structural and motivational similarity of these two kinds of arguments, there is no literature comparing and contrasting their relative merits and the merits of responses to them with respect to each of these specific medical practices. This paper (...) undertakes such a comparison. My thesis is that a number of potentially significant weaknesses of the expressivist argument against reproductive technologies are avoided when the argument is used against PAS. In particular, I try to show that three common criticisms of the expressivist argument applied to reproductive technologies, whatever merit they have, have even less merit when they are used to reply to the expressivist argument applied to PAS. This is important because the expressivist argument applied to the end of life scenario does not get as much attention as the argument applied to the beginning of life scenario, and yet it has a relatively stronger position. (shrink)

In this paper I set the debate between Kant and Schiller in terms of the role that an ideal of life can play within an autonomist ethic. I begin by examining the critical role Schiller gives to emotions in tackling specific motivational concerns in Kant's ethics. In the Kantian response I offer to these criticisms, I emphasise the role of metaphysics for a proper understanding of Kant's position whilst allowing that with respect to moral psychology, Kant and Schiller (...) are in agreement about the importance of emotions in our moral lives. I conclude by returning to the themes broached in the introduction to consider the extent to which the teleological concerns that motivate Schiller can be addressed within Kant's autonomist ethics. (shrink)

This essay aims to reveal the conceptual unity of an ensemble of concepts of organic, animal, and anthropological life articulated by the young Karl Marx between 1842 and 1844. To lay the groundwork for my analysis, I begin with Marx's general account of “life as activity.” I argue that Marx articulates a hylomorphic theory of organic form in 1842 and 1843, and a Left Hegelian conception of organismal agency as productive activity in 1844. I then interpret Marx's (...) organismic conception of “productive life-activity” as the guiding thread of his scala naturae in the Manuscripts. More precisely, I examine how Marx distinguishes plant, animal, and human life through the organism's production of its life and the life of its species (Gattung). I then redefine Marx's concept of species-being as the unfulfilled power of an animal organism to self-consciously pursue its productive life-activity as its species-life. In making this argument for the unity of Marx's concept of life, I hope to clarify the Aristotelian and Left Hegelian roots of his materialism. (shrink)

Natural kinds have been a constant topic in philosophy throughout its history, but many issues pertaining to natural kinds still remain unresolved. This paper considers one of these issues: the epistemic role of natural kinds in scientific investigation. I begin by clarifying what is at stake for an individual scientific field when asking whether or not the field studies a natural kind. I use an example from life science, concerning how biologists explain the similar body shapes of fish (...) and cetaceans, to show that natural kinds play a central epistemic role in scientific explanations that cannot be delegated to other explanatory factors. A task for philosophy, then, is to come up with a theory of natural kinds that adequately accounts for the epistemic role of natural kinds in science. After having sketched the spectrum of available philosophical theories of natural kinds, I argue that none of the available theories adequately performs this task and that therefore the search is still open for a theory that does. (shrink)

'A wonderfully assured and utterly riveting biography that captures not only the much-maligned Machiavelli, but also the spirit of his time and place. A monumental achievement.' - Jessie Childs, author of God's Traitors. 'A notorious fiend', 'generally odious', 'he seems hideous, and so he is.' Thanks to the invidious reputation of his most famous work, The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli exerts a unique hold over the popular imagination. But was Machiavelli as sinister as he is often thought to be? Might he (...) not have been an infinitely more sympathetic figure, prone to political missteps, professional failures and personal dramas? Alexander Lee reveals the man behind the myth, following him from cradle to grave, from his father's penury and the abuse he suffered at a teacher's hands, to his marriage and his many affairs (with both men and women), to his political triumphs and, ultimately, his fall from grace and exile. In doing so, Lee uncovers hitherto unobserved connections between Machiavelli's life and thought. He also reveals the world through which Machiavelli moved: from the great halls of Renaissance Florence to the court of the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, from the dungeons of the Stinche prison to the Rucellai gardens, where he would begin work on some of his last great works. As much a portrait of an age as of a uniquely engaging man, Lee's gripping and definitive biography takes the reader into Machiavelli's world - and his work - more completely than ever before. (shrink)

Both in criminal law science and in the judicial practice there are a lot of discussions as to what should be considered as the beginning and end of human life. Birth and death are not instantaneous acts, but rather processes made up of time-spans that can be construed as evidence of the beginning or end of a human life. From a biological point of view the human life is a constant, continuous metabolic process after cessation of which (...) the human life also ceases. These circumstances very much aggravate the definition of criteria of the moments of beginning and end of human life. There are disagreements in the criminal law science with respect to from which moment the human life is to be protected by the criminal law. Herewith this presupposes also the other problematic question—what is to be considered a “living human” as a homicide subject (a victim). Complication of the said question is also determined by the fact that it is related not only to legal but also to medical, religious, and moral aspects. This article exactly analyses certain aspects of the beginning and end of human life in the context of the homicide composition attributes. (shrink)

I am grateful that the editors of this volume invited me to write a chapter on beginning-of-life issues. In examining the enormous corpus of Pellegrino’s writing, they could not find articles that directly address the issues of fertility control, reproduction, and abortion. It is quite a peculiar anomaly in his prolific writing career, mainly because these issues were hotly debated in the early days of bioethics during which he was a prominent protagonist. As president of the Catholic University of (...) America (CUA) and as director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Pellegrino was directly involved in the debate. He testified in the court case against theologian Charles Curran who was fired from CUA because of his open dissent with Catholic teaching on contraception and which was therefore deemed incompatible with the university’s identity. CUA won that court case against Curran. As a doctoral student under Dr. Pellegrino, I was fortunate to enjoy long conversations with him on some of these topics since my dissertation touches on the secularization of bioethics and the debate on fertility control in the 1960s and ’70s. He was familiar with the stances of Joseph Fuchs, Richard McCormick, Warren Reich, Bernard Häring, Bruno Schüller, and William E. May, all prominent moral theologians and bioethicists. From these exchanges and the clues that he left in his writings, we can garner some of the reasons he shied away from addressing these issues publicly... (shrink)

This article aims to analyze the perspective of the philosopher Hans Jonas with regard to the rights of animals to life. We will show how, according to Jonas, the ethical significance of animals emerges as they reveal nature’s vulnerability and underscore the moral duty of humans, whose responsibility intensifies as their capacity to cause harm increases. Within this framework, it is essential to recognize that (1) Jonas supports the criterion of maximum benefit when it comes to animal experimentation for (...) scientific purposes; (2) his theory reflects a concern for the conditions of animals within the meat industry, advocating for moderation in consumption; and (3) his ethical approach is particularly focused on the protection of endangered animal species, a concern that has become increasingly urgent with the rise of new powers of technology. For Jonas, an ethical theory that seeks to address the challenge of species preservation must begin with a theoretical redefinition that acknowledges animals as ‘ends in themselves’, a shift that would necessitate a re-evaluation not only of ethics but also of underlying ontological and metaphysical assumptions. Finally, as we will discuss, Jonas’s ongoing debate on the rights of animals to life brings to the forefront the central concern of his ethics of responsibility: maintaining the balance of the cosmic whole against the destructive impact of human activity, which has led to the extinction of animal species with which humans share a ‘solidarity of interests’. It is within this context that Jonas’s stance on animal rights should be understood, and it is precisely here that his position stands out as both innovative and urgent in the defense of animal life. (shrink)

How an acceptance of our limitations can lead to a more fulfilling life and a more harmonious society We live in a world oriented toward greatness, one in which we feel compelled to be among the wealthiest, most powerful, and most famous. This book explains why no one truly benefits from this competitive social order, and reveals how another way of life is possible—a good-enough life for all. Avram Alpert shows how our obsession with greatness results in (...) stress and anxiety, damage to our relationships, widespread political and economic inequality, and destruction of the natural world. He describes how to move beyond greatness to create a society in which everyone flourishes. By competing less with each other, each of us can find renewed meaning and purpose, have our material and emotional needs met, and begin to lead more leisurely lives. Alpert makes no false utopian promises, however. Life can never be more than good enough because there will always be accidents and tragedies beyond our control, which is why we must stop dividing the world into winners and losers and ensure that there is a fair share of decency and sufficiency to go around. Visionary and provocative, The Good-Enough Life demonstrates how we can work together to cultivate a good-enough life for all instead of tearing ourselves apart in a race to the top of the social pyramid. (shrink)

This article proposes that Ramón Llull’s life can be understood as a philosophical life. This implies that his vital actions reflect the will to give a specific form to his existence so that it becomes an expression of the normative principles of his thought. To this end, the article will begin by defining what is meant by a philosophical life and where its conceptualization originates and will propose that a philosophical life is the combination of (...) an effectively lived life, a set of normative principles it adheres to, and a narrative in which the life is presented as an example of those normative principles. It will then examine whether Llull's life possesses these elements to propose the following: understanding his life as a philosophical life allows it to be taken as a model to follow, sheds light on the impossibility of separating Llullian ethics from his vital actions, and enables us to assess the importance of three aspects of his philosophical life—its peripheral nature, his self-taught formation, and his multilingualism—for understanding the figure of Llull and his thought. (shrink)

Much has been written on the life of Muhammad, prophet of Islam. (“Mohammed” and the French “Mahomet” are the result of a long-standing and now traditional deformation.) Aside from his picturesque and romantic character, sure to excite the interest of Occidentals drawn to active, impassioned lives of genius, the importance of the Moslem achievement which he initiated has given rise to important works, the solid and honorable production of historians and specialists of Islam.We see, then, that many pages have (...) been written on this astonishing man. Critical discussions, often heated ones, have been devoted to the least of his words or deeds. However, very few of these pages have been devoted to the fundamental problems raised by his life in the minds of those who reflect on the evolution and the destiny of societies. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Wittgenstein’s frequent and pervasive of the adjective “complicated.” I begin by comparing and contrasting the adjective’s use in the Tractatus and the much later manuscripts on the philosophy of psychology. While there are a number of important and illuminating affinities between these uses, I argue that these need to be balanced against the wide disparities between them: in contrast to the Tractatus, the later philosophy preserves a sense of “surface” complexity while jettisoning the idea (...) of a deep—but hidden—simplicity that logical analysis promises to reveal. The notion of a surface must thus be reconceived as complicated in terms of its “spread” rather than in relation to what lies “beneath” it. Wittgenstein’s later appeals to what is complicated need to be read in tandem with his critique of the idea of there being an “absolute sense” of “simple.” Doing so prevents our seeing in his later appeals to complexity a new, more substantive notion of complexity that a more adequate philosophical theory must capture or reflect. On the contrary, the appeal to something as complicated plays a recollective and corrective role that challenges the viability of a theoretical-explanatory perspective. (shrink)

There are words and concepts that almost automatically trigger bitter discussions in our country. And among them are the terms in the title of this article. True, there are occasional attempts to tone down the bitterness of the disputes surrounding them by using the more ideologically "neutral" terms "personal" or "individual." But the dispute is of course not about the words but about their meaning. Let us begin by looking in the dictionary.

The question I shall deal with is often put in the form “What is the meaning of life?” I shall consider this form later on, but I do not want to begin with it, partly because it assumes that life has a meaning which can be called “the” meaning, an assumption which will have to be looked into, and partly because I want to start with something which looks very much more vague.