Carnap's Scientific Humanism

This paper aims to show that the life reform movement taking place in Japanese cities before the Second World War was not separate from the postwar life reform movement taking place in rural areas; rather, it possessed aspects that were continued after the war. Previous studies have pointed out that life reform movement organizations established in cities in the Taisho period targeted the middle class. However, they have only made fragmentary references to the fact that such organizations instead came to emphasize the importance of farmers, who made up the majority of the population, starting in the late 1920s. This paper is a case study of the activities of the Life Reform League (renamed the Central Association of Life Reform in November 1933), which spearheaded prewar Japan’s life reform movement. The results of this study clarify that the leaders of the life reform movement in the late 1920s and beyond focused on farmers, who made up the majority of the population, as a new target demographic to stop the movement from stagnating. Moreover, they proposed a movement with a foundation consisting not of individuals, but of small, community-based groups. Although many of the organization’s new initiatives never left the planning stages, this change in the organization’s activity policy is nonetheless a clear indication of the process by which the initial principle of “life reform,” concerned with only part of society, transitioned to become a postwar principle concerned with the entire Japanese population.

Most of the issues addressed in the last four chapters fall within the ethics of neuroscience.This involves consideration of the benefits and risks of dif fer ent interventions in the brain and whether individuals have the cognitive and emotional capacity to consent to these interventions.It also involves the obligation of clinicians and researchers to protect patients and research subjects from harm regarding neuroimaging, psychopharmacology, or neuromodulation.This obligation consists in not exposing them to undue risk and upholding privacy and confidentiality of information about their brains.This is distinct from the neuroscience of ethics, which involves the neurobiological basis of moral reasoning and decision-making.More specifically, this branch of neuroethics involves the combination of neuroimaging and behavioral observation to assess people's cognitive and emotional capacity to recognize and respond to reasons for or against actions.Morality involves the intersection of ge ne tic, neurobiological, psychological, and social factors (Tancredi, 2005).As noted in chapter 1, the ethics of neuroscience and the neuroscience of ethics can overlap.The discussion of moral enhancement in chapter 5 involved both branches of neuroethics.Still, questions about rational and moral decision-making and be hav ior control require a more extended analy sis of the neurobiological basis of our mental states and actions, and I do that in this chapter.I discuss how theoretical and clinical neuroscientists attempt to explain moral reasoning by examining its neural correlates.I also discuss how they can administer brain-and mind-altering psychotropic drugs or neuromodulating techniques that can alter how we think and act.These may include individuals with neural pathologies resulting in criminal offenses.These

The purpose of ethical theory is to assist us to make concrete and specific moral decisions. This is the sense of G. E. Moore's sentence, Casuistry is the goal of ethical investigation. 1 The final test of every theory of ethics, whether theological or philosophical, is the pragmatic one of how well it prepares us for casuistry, for deciding what is right or wrong, good or bad. Critical reason-analyzing the data and conceptualizations and background of religious experience, moral experience and moral judgments-can formulate ethical theories that approximately fulfill this fundamental purpose. And precisely because reason has this capacity, some of the central (though in our century most neglected) questions in theological ethics are about the place of reason in the moral decisions made by religious people. For instance: (I) How can a knowledge of theological ethics assist one in making rational moral decisions ? (2) What constitutes rational deliberation in Christian ethics? (3) What theological assumptions must one make for a rational Christian ethics to be possible ? (4) How is the place of reason in theological ethics like and unlike the place of reason in philosophical ethics?

Behavioral economists recognize that we are all subject to the cognitive biases they have observed and studied in laboratory experiments. Yet the leading behavioral economists exhibit far more interest in applying those biases to market decisions than to political decision-, and see irrational decisions making as another example of market failure which justifies correction by some form of government action. We treat this as a justification for comparing the distortions of cognitive biases on market decisions with the distortions of those biases on political decisions. We also make a distinction between the rationality of individual decisions and the collective rationality of those decisions, and question Thaler’s argument that people fail to learn much from the mistakes they make in markets. We conclude that behavioral economists would do more to increase economic rationality by making the case for eliminating government policies that are clearly economically irrational and destructive. Eliminating such policies would not necessarily increase the individual rationality of political or market decisions, but it would increase the collective rationality of both.

Several authors have concluded that scientists should not attempt to perform overall animal welfare assessment (OWA). They argue that scientists have continued to fail to make progress in this area and that value judgements are inherently involved in OWA for which science cannot provide answers. We take a more positive attitude toward OWA and argue that scientists should avoid creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. OWA is necessary for making actual moral and political decisions. Science has already accumulated much relevant information about welfare and this information should be applied in decision making. The task of OWA is to assess welfare based on knowledge of the biological needs of animals. Weighting of welfare relevant factors constitutes a problem. However, when scientists cannot provide empirical data to solve weighting issues, this does not mean that rational answers cannot be found, e.g. in the form of procedural rules. OWA is conceived as a problem of multi-criteria decision making with fuzzy information. If focuses on the descriptive aspect of welfare, i.e. on what the welfare status of the animals really is without taking an ethical stance. The welfare status of animals depends on their biology and on the way animals assess their own welfare. It does not depend on how it happens to be perceived by us. Even though OWA necessarily remains a human activity, it is not arbitrary, nor does it allow of multiple 'correct' answers. OWA is a descriptive activity that can achieve more and more accuracy as science proceeds.

Holocaust Memory and Restorative JusticeCompetition, Friction, and Convergences Björn Krondorfer (bio) Keywords Holocaust, transitional justice, memory, restorative justice, Jewish and Christian responses, trauma, uniqueness, reconciliation, politics of difference, national entrenchment, dialogical engagement In Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization, Michael Rothberg argues for the value of overlapping and intersecting Holocaust memory with other collective memories. He traces how the history and memory of the Holocaust have been evoked, adopted, and employed as a way of making sense of political struggles and group identity in various colonial and postcolonial contexts. For Rothberg, the concept of multidirectional memory recognizes that remembrances of cataclysmic events do not cancel each other out but are venues through which meaningful moral and political decisions can be formed in the present. In a time when momentous collective (and often traumatic) memories flow freely and rapidly across national borders, they are often pitted against each other competitively. But, Rothberg argues, the idea of "competitive memory" must be abandoned since it assumes a public sphere that cannot hold "different collective memories"—as if it were "a zero-sum struggle over scarce resources."1 While Rothberg's study largely focuses on how the Holocaust has figured as a political, cultural, and moral trope in negotiating the meaning of the Algerian War (in which Algeria eventually won independence from France), it transcends any specific cultural location. His frame is global in perspective and rests on an ethical foundation that pursues the "notion of transnational, comparative justice."2 Consequently, Rothberg disagrees with claims that view the Holocaust (or any other calamity, for that matter) as a unique and incomparable event. [End Page 373] In this essay, I use Rothberg's critical intervention—multidirectional memory—and its application as a "shared moral and political project"3 to probe the dichotomizing language of uniqueness/universality when applied to memorable events of great harm. By eschewing competition among collective memories, I seek new pathways of justice-oriented, dialogical engagement. I do so by tracing, on the one hand, the rhetorical weight of Holocaust uniqueness claims (particularly in American and occasionally German contexts) and, on the other, the universalist claims of transitional justice as they evolved after 1945. I will read uniqueness claims through and against a transitional justice genealogy, eventually arriving at the concept of restorative justice. I will argue that neither uniqueness nor universality is a helpful mechanism for thwarting the entrenchment of partisan political memory. I propose, instead, to speak of "singularity" with respect to the gravity of each injurious history and collective memory. Creating a framework that averts competition among narratives of suffering will be "inevitably dialogical," as Rothberg suggests.4 It supplants the competitive deployment of political memory with an ethical vision of engaged relationality. UNIVERSAL, UNIQUE, SINGULAR: PRELIMINARY CLARIFICATIONS "The question of the uniqueness and universality of the Holocaust," writes Michael Berenbaum, "is being considered with increasing frequency not only in scholarly quarters with a focus on historiography but also in communities throughout the United States where Holocaust memorials and commemorative services raise a consciousness of the Holocaust."5 Berenbaum wrote those lines before the 1993 opening of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, at a time when Jewish American and Israeli scholars were debating the place of the Holocaust along the oppositional poles of uniqueness and universality. In his 1981 essay, Berenbaum briefly reviewed the positions of some of the major participants in the debate, including Yehuda Bauer, Lucy Dawidowicz, Emil Fackenheim, Elie Wiesel, Richard Rubenstein, Ismar Schorsch, Eliezer Berkovits, Robert Alter, and Henry Feingold. Berenbaum, who had been a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, sided with a restrained embrace of the uniqueness claim, arguing that neither the perceived threat of a so-called Americanization of the [End Page 374] Holocaust nor the attempt to compare Jewish victims to other victim groups or other genocides would diminish the historical uniqueness for the Jewish community. To Americanize the Holocaust, he suggested, is just a way of telling "the story . . . in such a way that it resonates" with an American audience; to compare the Holocaust to other events, he continued, is no cause for fear since they are "analogous...

We continuously talk about autonomous technologies. But how can words qualifying technologies be the very same words chosen by Kant to define what is essentially human, i.e. being autonomous? The article focuses on a possible answer by reflecting upon both etymological and philosophical issues, as well as upon the case of autonomous vehicles. Most interestingly, on the one hand, we have the notion of (human) “autonomy”, meaning that there is a “law” that is “self-given”, and, on the other hand, we have the notion of (technological) “automation”, meaning that there is something “offhand” that is “self-given”. Yet, we are experiencing a kind of twofold shift: on the one hand, the shift from defining technologies in terms of automation to defining technologies in terms of autonomy and, on the other hand, the shift from defining humans in terms of autonomy to defining humans in terms of automation. From a philosophical perspective, the shift may mean that we are trying to escape precisely from what autonomy founds, i.e. individual responsibility of humans that, in the Western culture, have been defined for millennia as rational and moral decision-makers, even when their decisions have been the toughest. More precisely, the shift may mean that we are using technologies, and in particular emerging algorithmic technologies, as scapegoats that bear responsibility for us by making decisions for us. Moreover, if we consider the kind of emerging algorithmic technologies that increasingly surround us, starting from autonomous vehicles, then we may argue that we also seem to create a kind of technological divine that, by being always with us through its immanent omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence and inscrutability, can always be our technological scapegoat freeing us from the most unbearable burden of individual responsibility resulting from individual autonomy.

The purpose of this research was to examine the moral sensitivity on the interaction between different cultures among secondary school students in Sabah. This qualitative study utilized interviews, document analysis and observation to collect data from its respondents. There were 15 form four students who were selected from diverse ethnic backgrounds in the district of Keningau through purposive sampling technique. In order to examine the characteristics of moral sensitivity on the interaction between different cultures, the researcher adapted an instrument known as Ethical Sensitivity Scale Questionnaire (ESSQ) by Darcia Narvaez. The findings of this study used to address three objectives. The first one was to analyse the characteristics of moral sensitivity among school students of different cultures. The second objective was to identify the presence of moral sensitivity among the different cultures in the selected school. The final objective was to determine to what extent students’ moral sensitivity influenced their moral decisions. The analysis of the findings revealed that concern about others, compassion and adherence to moral values were the three most obvious traits in the interaction between different cultures in Sabah secondary schools. The presence of this moral sensitivity derived from two processes and these were teamwork in accomplishing common goals and cultural assimilation which refers to understanding other cultures to the degree of accepting their values and norms that could be practiced universally. The analysis of this research indicated that moral sensitivity could help students make rational and proper moral decisions with compassion on others regardless of their races. It could help reduce their bias or prejudice in making ethical decisions by putting moral values as their main principle. This study implied how essential moral sensitivity is in the interaction of different cultures and the growth of cultural interaction directly influences the number of elements in moral sensitivity that can be integrated in schools. Moral sensitivity is not just limited to moral education, but it also can be seen in various aspects of languages and religions.

Purpose Moral psychology often assumes a relationship between psychopathy and moral judgments. The purpose of this study is to focus on these issues and examine how psychopathic traits are related to moral decision-making. Hypotheses were formulated, assuming that individuals more sensitive to consequences do not significantly differ from those less sensitive in affective responsiveness, cognitive responsiveness, interpersonal manipulation and egocentricity. It was predicted that individuals less sensitive to moral norms would exhibit greater deficits in affective and cognitive responsiveness, as well as higher levels of interpersonal manipulation and egocentricity. It was also assumed that individuals who prefer action would demonstrate higher levels of these traits. To verify the hypotheses, the methodology used addresses the limitations of previous research methods. Design/methodology/approach The psychopathic personality traits model (PPTM) (Boduszek et al., 2018) was utilized to measure the four aspects of psychopathy as outlined by Boduszek et al. (2018): affective responsiveness, cognitive responsiveness, interpersonal manipulation and egocentricity. The consequences, norms and inaction (CNI) model (Gawronski et al., 2017) was used to quantify sensitivity to consequences, sensitivity to moral norms and general preference for inaction versus action in response to moral dilemmas. The study was conducted on a general population sample (n = 523). Findings It was found that individuals with greater deficits in affective responsiveness are more sensitive to consequences, less sensitive to moral norms and more likely to prefer inaction. Moreover, individuals with pronounced egocentricity showed less sensitivity to the consequences of their moral decisions. Originality/value The results of the study indicate that the relationship between psychopathic personality traits and moral judgments is varied. Deficits in affective responsiveness are associated with a tendency to make decisions that are sensitive to the greater good. Conversely, they are linked to a propensity to violate moral norms and to prefer inaction. Individuals with pronounced egocentricity primarily focus on their own attitudes, interests and beliefs, neglecting overall well-being. The study highlights the complexity of psychopathic traits, demonstrating that deficits in affective responsiveness can be both beneficial and potentially risky, which is particularly relevant in organizational psychology. Understanding these ambiguous manifestations reveals that, although individuals with such traits may make rational and effective decisions, their choices can raise moral concerns. In clinical and forensic psychology, this knowledge can enhance intervention strategies, ensuring a more targeted approach. Moreover, it may improve risk assessment models for recidivism, leading to more accurate predictions of future norm violations.

El presente trabajo aborda la política y la teoría nacional desarrollada por la Socialdemocracia austríaca. Analiza los debates en torno al programa nacional del Partido Socialdemócrata Pan-austríaco y los distintas disputas teórico-políticas que se dieron al interior del mismo sobre esta cuestión, así como sus repercusiones internacionales entre teóricos importantes de la Socialdemocracia alemana, los bolcheviques y grupos socialistas de los Balcanes. A su vez, enmarca estas discusiones en la situación política de la cual emergieron, caracterizada por distintos conflictos nacionales en Austria ante los cuales la Socialdemocracia debía posicionarse. Como elementos fundamentales de este marco político, analizaremos también la evolución del modelo partidario austríaco (de organizaciones separadas por nacionalidad), los conflictos nacionales en el seno de la Socialdemocracia y las distintas posturas Socialdemócratas sobre el Estado austríaco imperial, sus posibilidades de reforma, y las perspectivas para la solución de la situación nacional de los distintos pueblos de Austria. Concluimos con una evaluación crítica de esta trayectoria y una reflexión en torno a cómo el programa teórico-político nacional dominante en la Socialdemocracia austríaca (en sus distintas variantes, incluyendo la escuela Austro-marxista) se acomodó en última instancia a las características del Estado austríaco y sus limitaciones históricas.

This paper depicts a Covid science case, that of the AstraZeneca Vaxzevria vaccine, with specific focus on what happened in Italy. Given that we believe acknowledging the role of non-evidential factors in medicine is an important insight into the recent philosophy of science, we illustrate how in the case of Vaxzevria, the interplay between facts, values (both epistemic and non-epistemic) and cognitive biases may have possibly led to different institutional decisions based on the same evidence. The structure of the paper is as follows. First, we provide a glossary of the relevant terms involved, that is to say, epistemic values, non-epistemic valuesand cognitive biases. Second, we sketch a timeline of Vaxzevria's approvals and suspensions by relevant institutional healthcare authorities with special focus on Italy and the Italian Medicines Agency. Then we show the interplay between the evidence base, epistemic as well as non-epistemic values and cognitive biases using a narrative review of political decisions along with newspaper and social media content pertaining to Vaxzevria. We briefly compare Italy with other European countries to show that different political decisions were made on the basis of the same evidence.

This paper looks at the case of moral philosophy in order to assess the extent to which and ways in which teacher education should respond to the liberal principle of justification. This principle states that moral and political decisions made by citizens with special kinds of influence and other coercive powers should be accountable to other citizens on the basis of good reasons. To what extent should teachers, who are empowered by the state with such special kinds of influence, be held accountable to this principle and what kind of education is needed in order to prepare teachers for such accountability? Moral philosophy stands as an informative test case because it expressly deals in the justification of judgements and actions and so it stands to reason that arguments for moral philosophy in teacher education are likely to appeal to educational values that dovetail with demands of this principle. I first identify some preliminary criteria under which activities are understood to be educationally worthwhile in the context of the broader principle of justification. I then argue that the justificatory obligations incurred by liberal citizens who adopt the role of teacher not only allow for, but also require, moral philosophy as an activity in programmes of teacher education.

Social reformers must often make difficult political decisions as they define an ideology of change, and the strategies and tactics to be implemented on its behalf. As Peter Gay observes, “A democratic Socialist movement that attempts to transform a capitalist into a Socialist order is necessarily faced with the choice between two incompatibles—principles and power.” An emphasis on the purity of principles may help to sustain the identity of the movement. But it may also expose the movement to repression by governments that have as their policy the control of dissent, and insistence on society's conformity to the central value system they seek to protect. On the other hand, accommodation with the established order—however justifiable it may be as a means of working for social change from within the existing institutions of society—runs the risk of exposing reform movements to the danger of cooptation and absorption by that order, particularly if the reform movements are weak to begin with or if the pressures upon them to sacrifice their principles for the national good become irresistible.

Toegye Lee Hwang provided the governing principles and the future directions of the choseon dynasty while he opened the new horizons of understanding of neo-confucianism and contributed to the transition which is neo-confucianism switch to choseon confucianism. So, this paper analyzes Toegye’s political projects to realize neo-confucian political norms at a time when the Sarim led to political situation at the end of era of ‘Purges of confucian scholars’.<BR> First, I try to explain Teogye’s political career and political position in the early of the King Seon Jo to emphasize the fact that he was not only the confucian scholar but also the politician. He passed the small and great government service examinations, was appointed to important offices and was getting the respect as the best scholar of Confucianism at that time and as Ju Ja of the East.<BR> Second, I try to survey the meaning of politics in the view of Toegye and his political projects to build neo-confucian moral society through contents analysis of ‘Six Articles Memorial Throne(the King Seon Jo) in Year Mu Jin’ and ‘Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning’. He asserted that the aim of politics focuses on cultivating human’s innate morality rather than establishing new law or institutions which create in human’s external behaviors. Especially, he emphasized that self-cultivation of the king for the morality edification is the key requisite to embody neo-confucian moral society in choseon dynasty because all political decision are made by the king ultimately.

The relevance of the state of deliberative democracy development in Ukraine is connected with the low efficiency of interaction between civil society and public authorities in Ukraine, as well as the inadequate level of functioning of existing deliberative democracy instruments. Since the decision-making system that was developed in recent years in Ukraine does not provide a rational approach, but is based on a one-sided understanding of political realities without taking into account the views of civil society, it is necessary to explore the deliberative democracy in Ukrain, by which the author understands the model of democracy, which is based on institutionalized dialogue between government and civil society, rational discourse, discussion, persuasion, argumentation, compromise, in which compliance ensures rational decisions. The comparative method was used in comparing the procedural consolidation and, in particular, the actual holding of public hearings by the Ternopil City Council and the Ladyzhyn City Council. The structural-functional method allowed to study the main mechanisms of deliberative democracy (local initiatives, general meetings of citizens, public hearings) as a factor in increasing the level of citizen involvement in political decision-making. Based on this, an absence of the mechanism to control the decision-making process on local initiatives was identified. The article proved the incapacity of deliberative instruments in Ukraine, without overcoming which it is impossible to count not only on the ideal, but also, at least, on the optimal model of development of deliberative democracy. As a result, the author presented ways to improve the legal regulation of the general meetings of citizens at the place of residence in order to increase the level of citizens involvement in the deliberative discourse in Ukraine.