Soraj Hongladarom

We endorse policymakers’ efforts to address the negative consequences of the attention economy’s technology but add that these approaches are often limited in their criticism of the systemic context of human attention. Starting from Buddhist philosophy, we advocate a broader approach: an ‘ecology of attending’ that centers on conceptualizing, designing, and using attention (1) in an embedded way and (2) focused on the alleviating of suffering. With ‘embedded’ we mean that attention is not a neutral, isolated mechanism but a meaning-engendering part of an ‘ecology’ of bodily, sociotechnical and moral frameworks. With ‘focused on the alleviation of suffering’ we mean that we explicitly move away from the (often implicit) conception of attention as a tool for gratifying desires. We analyze existing inquiries in these directions and urge them to be intensified and integrated. As to the design and function of our technological environment, we propose three questions for further research: How can technology help to acknowledge us as ‘ecological’ beings, rather than as self-sufficient individuals? How can technology help to raise awareness of our moral framework? And how can technology increase the conditions for ‘attending’ to the alleviation of suffering, by substituting our covert self-driven moral framework with an ecologically attending one? We believe in the urgency of transforming the inhumane attention economy sociotechnical system into a humane ecology of attending, and in our ability to contribute to it.

Kaebnick presents a thorough account of ethical issues surrounding synthetic biology. Synthetic biology should give rise to a new way of thinking about the role of intellectual property rights in promoting the welfare of people around the world. Instead of tying up the products of synthetic biology in the existing regime of intellectual property rights, a new principle of conceiving the rights based on Buddhist principles is briefly introduced. Synthetic biology may increase the likelihood of widening the existing gap between advanced developed countries and their developing counterparts. According to the Buddhist principle of mutual interdependence of all things, claiming intellectual property rights without a fair way of sharing the products will be detrimental to the owners themselves, and would increase instability due to the gap between the two sides.

The author discusses Maschke’s preference of a pull approach in genetic testing and evaluates how this approach accommodates the principle of individual autonomy and privacy. Furthermore, the author touches upon the question of how individualized or personalized medicine would help or hinder equity of access to medical care--an issue the author believes to be more pressing in the developing world. In the context of poorer, developing countries, genetic technologies might be more useful if tailored to finding possible traits that occur throughout a population, rather than targeting individual differences or variations. Instead of promoting individually tailored medicine, a technology geared toward group-level customization should be developed, as this will go further towards reducing the inequality that still exists in the world today.

The exponential growth in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the past few years has seen important new considerations in economics, global politics, communication, data analysis and more. Many great promises are in store for those who master this technology, but so too are many potential disasters. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Asia, the most populous continent where national strategies since 2017 have focused on the importance of AI for establishing the stability and prosperity of the region. On 16 and 17 October 2024, the Centre for Applied Ethics at Hong Kong Baptist University, in collaboration with the Dicastery for Culture and Education, held a conference to discuss particular social and ethical challenges facing Asia with AI. Scholars gathered from across the continent and even beyond to bring to light and collaborate on what issues we uniquely face. We offer this piece to highlight problems and potential responses.

Authors from all over the world unite in an effort to cultivate dialogue between Asian and Western philosophy. The papers forge a new, East-West comparative path on the whole range of issues in Kant studies. The concept of personhood, crucial for both traditions, serves as a springboard to address issues such as knowledge acquisition and education, ethics and self-identity, religious/political community building, and cross-cultural understanding. Edited by Stephen Palmquist, founder of the Hong Kong Philosophy Café and well known for both his Kant expertise and his devotion to fostering philosophical dialogue, the book presents selected and reworked papers from the Kant in Asia conference, held in Hong Kong in May 2009. In addition to keynote essays by Patricia Kitcher (Columbia), Günter Wohlfart (Wuppertal), and Cheng Chung-ying (Hawaii), the book contains 64 contributed essays. The latter include contributions from Andrew Brook, David Cummiskey, Rainer Enskat, Wolfgang Ertl, Hans Feger, Klaus-Gerd Giesen, Ronald Green, Martin Moors, Ulrich Seeberg, Susan Shell, Rein Vos, Günter Zoeller, and numerous Asian philosophers.

We endorse policymakers’ efforts to address the negative consequences of the attention economy’s technology but add that these approaches are often limited in their criticism of the systemic context of human attention. Starting from Buddhist philosophy, we advocate a broader approach: an ‘ecology of attending’ that centers on conceptualizing, designing, and using attention (1) in an embedded way and (2) focused on the alleviating of suffering. With ‘embedded’ we mean that attention is not a neutral, isolated mechanism but a meaning-engendering part of an ‘ecology’ of bodily, sociotechnical and moral frameworks. With ‘focused on the alleviation of suffering’ we mean that we explicitly move away from the (often implicit) conception of attention as a tool for gratifying desires. We analyze existing inquiries in these directions and urge them to be intensified and integrated. As to the design and function of our technological environment, we propose three questions for further research: How can technology help to acknowledge us as ‘ecological’ beings, rather than as self-sufficient individuals? How can technology help to raise awareness of our moral framework? And how can technology increase the conditions for ‘attending’ to the alleviation of suffering, by substituting our covert self-driven moral framework with an ecologically attending one? We believe in the urgency of transforming the inhumane attention economy sociotechnical system into a humane ecology of attending, and in our ability to contribute to it.

In this chapter, I would like to argue that there are universal values in AI ethics. This line of argument is quite neglected in the voluminous literature in the field. Basically, the argument is that the basic values in AI ethics that are generally agreed on, such as privacy, explainability, lack of bias, and so on, are indeed universalizable. Furthermore, given the empirical situation of the widespread use of AI and the shared global communication systems, these values are indeed universal. The idea, to be argued for in the chapter, is that the basis of this universality is founded not on any a priori theorization, but on the contingencies or exigencies of the situation that obtains empirically. The reason for this is that values always serve certain goals, and the main AI values serve goals that happen to be advantageous to those who work with AI as well as those who benefit from it, the advantage that spans cultural differences. This does not necessarily mean that cultures are essentially the same, but it shows that cultures cannot remain in isolation, but always interact with one another, and that this is especially the case when it comes to AI.

My response to Ellen Zhang’s article in the book is that I argue that the conception of individual rights can coexist with the basic tenets of Buddhist philosophy that emphasize interdependence and compassion. Normally these two traits make it rather difficult to see how the individual rights, which are often regarded as presupposed by individuals as separate, autonomous entities, could be justified through a system of thought that emphasize just the opposite. However, if we imagine an ideal society where everyone acts as if they fully respect the rights of one another, we would see that the rights as expressly specified and written down are not necessary, as they are already implicit in the behavior of the members of the ideal society. According to the Buddhist viewpoint, such a society embodies the ideal of living together, where one is totally unselfish and is totally dedicated to the welfare of others. This society thus is morally perfect according to the Buddhist system of compassion and interdependence, and there is no need to emphasize the separate and autonomous nature of individuals in order to justify it. However, since the end result is the same, this ideal situation shows that it is possible that the individual rights regime can indeed coexist with Buddhism.

Technology has become indispensable in all the processes of food and agriculture, whether we like it or not. This has created a tension between what we would like as ‘being natural’ and the reality of technology. Furthermore, food is intimately connected with identity; thus when technology comes in to play its role in changing the sense of identity with regards to food is an interesting phenomenon. I argue that technology does not have to destroy food identity as some scholars have claimed. On the contrary we can use technology even to enhance our identity, but there are many necessary conditions that have to be met before that can become a reality.

This chapter is a discussion of online selves when they are interacting with one another. This phenomenon is widely known through the spread of social media, where users log on and add “friends” to their repertoire of people they are interacting with. I argue that genuine friendship can indeed develop on these social media sites. This sounds counterintuitive, but a close investigation of Aristotle’s view on friendship, a beacon by which whatever passes as genuine friendship is judged, shows that there seems to be nothing in online friendship that cannot qualify as an instance of genuine friendship. The argument hinges on the idea that friendship is constituted through close and constant communication, something that can readily take place online. I also discuss the views of several scholars who have also written on the topic.

A well-known adage says that we are what we eat; yet many scholars have pointed out that it is more likely the case that we eat what we are, or more accurately, we eat according to who we are. Instead of expressing our identity through the choice of food we eat, I argue instead that it is more likely that our identity does and should determine how we choose our food. More specifically, I argue that identity choice entails a level of identity commitment, such that when our choice is not available for any reason, we can maintain our identity through alternative choices which can maintain our identity. I argue further that this identity commitment regarding food choice is an ethical one: it is about authenticity of one’s own choice. Thus, I disagree with the recent argument by Zachary Tobias and Jill Dieterle (Tobias and Dieterle, Food Ethics 8(1):8, 2023), which claims that limitations on food choice lead to an erosion of one’s identity. While it is indeed the case that external factors can interfere with one’s own food choice, I argue that the premise that food choice entails a level of commitment has an implication that one has a duty to oneself to maintain one’s chosen identity when external factors are not optimal. In order to support the claim, I discuss the case of villagers in northeastern Thailand, who prefer to eat raw freshwater fish, which often contain parasites that can cause a serious disease. Despite various attempts by public health authorities to educate the villagers about the dangers, they continue eating the fish, nonetheless, thus showing a clear sign of commitment to their own identity. I compare this case with the cases in contemporary Western society and use it to show that it is possible for a group of people to continue to maintain their identity through their food, despite attempts to curtail their behavior. When a group of people or an individual is committed to their identity, they usually can find ways to circumvent the limitations to maintain their identity.

As vehicles become more autonomous, the task of designing guiding systems that make morally acceptable decisions is getting more urgent. It is sometimes assumed that one solution will be acceptable across various cultures. In this paper we argue for the importance of intercultural perspectives; in particular, we explore possible insights derived from Buddhist philosophy, taking avail of the virtue of compassion (karuṇā). We suggest that autonomous vehicles should first learn in supervised situations so that they reach a level of decision-making ability that human experts within a given culture deem morally good. How will they be evaluated? In some debates it is assumed that there is a one-fit-all answer to be found based on an agreed-upon moral theory. Apart from problems of ethical pluralism within a given culture, there are also problems due to different moral preferences and driving styles across cultures. One way the problem might be addressed is to introduce a machine-learning training curriculum that would provide autonomous vehicles with a process comparable to a novice human driver learning to drive and passing her own driving license test.

Global Philosophy of Religion is a constructive approach to the philosophy of religion. It aims to incorporate various religious perspectives to diversify the field’s theoretical and practical resources. Proponents of this approach hope that these diverse resources may aid in the progress of the traditional problems of the field. In this introductory chapter, we discuss how the perspectives from Southeast Asia, particularly those from what we call “appropriated religions,” may help in this endeavor.

There is no evidence that Spinoza knew anything about Buddhism, but his philosophy bears certain similarities with Buddhist philosophy, or at least as shall be argued later. This paper compares and contrasts Spinoza’s thoughts on death and immortality with Buddhist philosophy. According to Spinoza, the death of a human being is a process whereby the body, as a mode of Substance, is modified according to natural law. However, Spinoza’s view on the mind or the soul is interesting. In Book V of the Ethics, he says, “The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but something of it remains which is eternal” (VP23). This proposition has generated a considerable number of commentaries. This paper notes some similarities and differences between Spinoza’s thoughts and the corresponding view in Buddhist philosophy. Spinoza’s idea bears an interesting similarity with Buddhist philosophy. The mind that survives, both in Spinoza and in Buddhist philosophy, is not personal but is mind in general, in the same way as bodies are essentially extension in general.

This book brings together different intercultural philosophical points of view discussing the philosophical impact of what we call the ‘appropriated’ religions of Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is home to most of the world religions. Buddhism is predominantly practiced in Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, Laos, and Cambodia; Islam in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei; and Christianity in the Philippines and Timor-Leste. Historical data show, however, that these world religions are imported cultural products, and have been reimagined, assimilated, and appropriated by the culture that embraced them. In this collection, we see that these ‘appropriated’ religions imply a culturally nuanced worldview, which, in turn, impacts how the traditional problems in the philosophy of religion are framed and answered—in particular, questions about the existence and nature of the divine, the problem of evil, and the nature of life after death. Themes explored include: religious belief and digital transition, Theravāda Buddhist philosophy, religious diversity, Buddhism and omniscience, indigenous belief systems, divine apology and unmerited human suffering, dialetheism and the problem of evil, Buddhist philosophy and Spinoza’s views on death and immortality, belief and everyday realities in the Philippines, comparative religious philosophy, gendering the Hindu concept of dharma, Christian devotion and salvation during the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines through the writings of Jose Rizal, indigenous Islamic practices in the Philippines, practiced traditions in contemporary Filipino celebrations of Christmas, role of place-aspects in the appropriation of religions in Southeast Asia, and fate and divine omniscience. This book is of interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy of religion, sociology of religion, anthropology of religion, cultural studies, comparative religion, religious studies, and Asian studies.

Supererogation in Buddhist philosophy is a rather neglected topic. Among the questions to be investigated are: “Is there supererogation in Buddhism?” “Can one explicate the examples of apparently supererogatory acts performed by bodhisattvas and other enlightened beings in terms of supererogation?” “Is there room in Buddhist ethics for acts which are neither obligatory but still meritorious?” The answer that I aim to defend here is that there is a place for supererogation in Buddhism, as exemplified, among others, by the acts of Buddhist saints and practitioners who perform action that exceeds normal expectation. Supererogation depends on the existence of minimal norms, and I argue that in the Sigalovāda Sutta the Buddha did lay out such minimal norms which are expected of lay people who are not practitioners. This discussion will shed light not only on Buddhist ethical theory itself but also serve as a contribution to the ongoing discussion of the nature and possible justification of supererogation itself.

An attempt to survey all non-western AI ethics guidelines that are available either in English or in Thai was made to find out whether there are any cultural elements within them that could shed light on how we understand their backgrounds and how these elements could advance the discussion on intercultural ethics of technology. The cultural elements are found to be superficially universal in that they retain the language used in the guidelines found in the west but contain interestingly unique cultural elements when probed deeper. For example, many non-western guidelines have an injunction “Be ethical” without specifying the content of the ethical in question. We present an analysis of this and other unique aspects of the non-western guidelines in terms of broad cultural traditions that inform the guidelines and their drafters. This leads to a normative argument that what is understood to be universal in intercultural ethics is in fact based on the desire of many cultures to live and work together, and not, as ethical universalists seem to argue, on some culture-transcendent standard of morality.

The conceptions of three kinds of knowledge in Buddhism and in Spinoza are compared. There are both similarities and differences in the two conceptions, both of which provide interesting insights into both traditions. The similarities are that the three kinds of knowledge represent a hierarchical structure, starting from the first kind, characterized by sense perception. The second kind for Spinoza is characterized by rational knowledge, which is comparable to the Buddhist second kind, which is about thinking through what one has heard. These two kinds lead to the third kind of knowledge, which in Spinoza is intuitive knowledge, and in Buddhism is knowledge by mental cultivation. In both traditions, these three kinds of knowledge lead to soteriological aims. Among the differences is that Spinoza presents his three kinds of knowledge through a series of axioms and proofs, whereas in Buddhism they form a guideline for the practitioner.

This book is a collection of selected papers that were presented at the First International Conference of the Asia-Pacific Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics (APSAFE 2013), which was held at Chulalongkorn University from November 28 - 30, 2013. The papers are interdisciplinary, containing insights into food security and food ethics from a variety of perspectives, including, but not limited to, philosophy, sociology, law, sociology, economics, as well as the natural sciences. The theme of the conference was to consider the interplay and balance between food security and food ethics as the world approaches the middle part of the twenty-first century.

This book offers a new way to justify privacy based on a theory derived from Buddhist insights. It uses insights obtained from the Buddhist teachings on Non-Self to create an alternative theory of privacy. In doing so, the author first spells out the inherent differences between the Buddhist insights and the beliefs underlying conventional theories of privacy. While Buddhism views the self as existing conventionally through interactions with others, as well as through interrelations with other basic components, non-Buddhist ideas of self are understood as being grounded upon autonomous subjects, commonly understood to be entitled to rights and dignity. In light of this, the book offers ways in which these seemingly disparate concepts can be reconciled, while keeping in mind the need for protecting citizens' privacy in a modern information society. It also argues that the new way of conceptualizing privacy, as presented in this book, would go a long way in helping unravel the difficult concept of group privacy.

The paper gives a narrative of the reception of Western philosophical ideas into Thailand from the middle part of the seventeenth century to the end of the twentieth century. The first wave of the reception occurred in the middle decades of the seventeenth century, when the Thai King at that time began to gather foreign advisers around himself and sent out diplomatic missions to western countries, resulting in contact, for the first time, between indigenous and western scientific, religious, and possibly philosophical ideas. However, this first wave was cut short, only to start again in the middle part of the nineteenth century, this time for good. Thailand received western philosophy as part of the package of western education, and the process produced a number of western-trained philosophers who wrote original works. After World War II, philosophy became professionalized and became a regular part of university curricula. More Thai philosophers went abroad to study and started to make original contributions to the field. The neoliberal autonomization of universities brought a wholesale change in how professional philosophers work, and it remains to be seen how this turns out in the near future.

Purpose The paper aims to analyze the content of the newly published National AI Ethics Guideline in Thailand. Thailand’s ongoing political struggles and transformation has made it a good case to see how a policy document such as a guideline in AI ethics becomes part of the transformations. Looking at how the two are interrelated will help illuminate the political and cultural dynamics of Thailand as well as how governance of ethics itself is conceptualized. Design/methodology/approach The author looks at the history of how the National AI Ethics Guidelines came to be and interprets its content, situating the Guideline within the contemporary history of the country as well as comparing the Guideline with some of the leading existing guidelines. Findings It is found that the Guideline represents an ambivalent and paradoxical nature that characterizes Thailand’s attempt at modernization. On the one hand, there is a desire to join the ranks of the more advanced economies, but, on the other hand, there is also a strong desire to maintain its own traditional values. Thailand has not been successful in resolving this tension yet, and this lack of success is shown in the way that content of the AI Ethics Guideline is presented. Practical implications The findings of the paper could be useful for further attempts in drafting and revising AI ethics guidelines in the future. Originality/value The paper represents the first attempt, so far as the author is aware, to analyze the content of the Thai AI Ethics Guideline critically.

I would like to introduce the notion of machine hermeneutics in this paper. The notion refers to hermeneutical activity performed by machines. Machines are now capable of making the very interpretive tasks, using artificial intelligence algorithms based on the technology of machine learning that used to be the exclusive domain of human beings. In making this claim, I am not talking about possible conscious machines of the future, but those existing here and now. With facial recognition algorithms, for example, machines are now performing routinely what must be regarded as hermeneutical analyses with astounding accuracy and power. Thus, machine hermeneutics supplements Don Ihde’s notion of material hermeneutics. In the latter, it is still human beings who do the interpretation, through the lenses provided the natural sciences; in this case, the natural sciences, or the technology afforded by the sciences, intervene between the human being and the world. In machine hermeneutics, on the contrary, the intervening comes in two layers. On the one hand, there is the usual intervention that Ihde talks about, but on the other, the artificial intelligence algorithm performs its own kind of intervention and interpretation, presenting an already interpreted result to the human beings, who then perceive it through the aid of the usual intervention such as the normal eyeglasses. Then the paper discusses the problem of how to justify the kind of perception that undergoes this process. In what sense can it be said that the algorithm is performing the right action, i.e., one such that the process comes up with a right picture of the world? I contend that this does not merely consist of technical excellence for the technology involved, but also ethical excellence. The two cannot be considered one apart from the other.

This collection brings together different philosophical points of view discussing two important aspects of human life, namely love and friendship, within the broad context of comparative philosophy. These points of view differ in terms of their cultural orientations - East or West, ancient or modern; philosophical methodologies - analytical, historical, experimental, or phenomenological, broadly construed; and motivation - explanatory, revisionary, or argumentative. The volume is a comparative treatment of how diverse philosophical cultures view love and friendship, such as how Aristotle and Confucius’ views on friendship are similar and different, how the ancient Greeks and the Buddhists view friendship and happiness, and how posthumous love is possible. With contributions from a diverse set of scholars, this book presents the emerging views of Southeast Asian philosophers compared with those of philosophers from other regions, including Europe and North America. The volume thus provides a multi-faceted way of understanding love and friendship across cultures, and will be relevant to scholars interested in philosophy, the history of ideas, Asian Studies, and religious studies.

The sharing economy and peer-to-peer business relationships using information technology has become moreimportant in today’s world. For the sharing economy to work, however, trust and reputation are cruciallyimportant. I argue that the gathering of personal data needs to be accompanied by safeguards providing aguarantee of privacy rights. This argument will be based on a sketch of a theory called ‘peer-to-peer ethics.’Basically, the idea is that what constitutes the ground for normativity is something that is agreed upon byeveryone involved. In short, what is considered to be ‘good’ is whatever contributes to bringing about thedesired goal of the community. This is a very familiar and ancient view on normative concepts, but, as I argue,one that deserves to be taken seriously especially as we enter into an intricately globalized world of ethicswhere worldviews clash with one another.

Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of the Will bears many striking similarities with Buddhist philosophy. The denial of the Will, which is the only route to salvation and true happiness for Schopenhauer, results in nothing. Schopenhauer also recommends us to face this nothingness squarely, so to speak, and not to flee from it or put it under myths or “meaningless words” such as “Brahma” or “Nirvana.” This is completely different from the Buddhist point of view. The Will, for the Buddhist, is not there from the beginning. Nothing escapes Emptiness, including the Schopenhauerian Will itself.