David Koepsell

Since the publication of South Park and Philosophy in 2007, Parker and Stone have made some additional forays into religious satire, poking fun at staunch supporters of the Catholic Church and “militant agnostics” among others. This chapter deals with the episodes 200 and 201 in which the “Cartoon Wars” controversy resurfaced, inspiring real‐life death threats aimed at Parker and Stone. Additionally, The Book of Mormon opened on Broadway. This musical comedy extends the obsession with Mormonism in several South Park episodes, featuring a playful, biting, yet loving portrayal of its adherents. South Park is a show born in blasphemy. In “All About Mormons,” Gary, the little Mormon kid, voices the lesson that Parker and Stone frequently teach in their messed‐up way. This same loving yet mocking attitude is displayed in spades in The Book of Mormon, illustrating even more clearly their love of Mormons while ridiculing their religion.

Modern information technologies rely on electronic and optical signals transmitting data, expressions, and other signals around the world. Digital networks account for trillions of dollars worth of worldwide commerce, but the nature of their objects is complicated and has proven to be a challenge for customary and legal modes of ownership for expressions. Intellectual property law governed expressions and inventions for the past couple hundred years, but software and other digital objects, due to their ephemeral and non-physical natures, pose some ontological, ethical, and regulatory challenges discussed in this chapter.

Breaking Bad has been lauded as the best series ever on television by numerous critics and polls. It follows the “Breaking Bad” (i.e., the moral degradation) of Walter White, a middle-class, middle-aged high school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Presented in the form of a literary epic employing satire, it provides us with a way to look at complex issues of justice, the good, and meaning, all while imparting a sense of aesthetics of justice and morality. The aesthetics of justice in Breaking Bad examines problems and issues of modernity, employing existential and moralistic themes similar to other satirical epic works featuring antiheroes including Ulysses and Don Quixote. In this chapter, the existentialist themes and aesthetic treatment of Walt’s complex moral world are discussed in relation to other epic satirical works, and an argument expanding upon the author’s prior conceptions of Breaking Bad’s aesthetics of the just and the good is made.

The theory of documentality is a way of describing social reality. Developed by Italian philosopher Maurizio Ferraris, it says that the world of social objects is a world of documents, fundamentally. Specifically, it attempts to fill in gaps regarding the existence of objects whose dependence precedes traditional, written documents. Borrowing from Derrida, Ferraris concludes that no part of social reality exists outside of texts, while expanding the notion of texts to include inscriptions as memories in minds. Social reality is constructed by “inscriptions” on documents, the most basic of which can be the inscriptions of memories, ideas, and things like promises and intentions on the matter of human brains. In “Beyond Paper,” Barry Smith and I raise some issues that confront the theory of documentality when electronic documents are involved, specifically problems concerning the distinction between fixed inscriptions and dynamic software, as well as the existence of legal entities that are never inscribed at all (like a common law marriage, that can exist even without any agreement among the parties). Here, I consider briefly how extending our discussion of documentality and electronic media is further complicated by web 3.0, or the emerging realm of documents and processes involved in smart contracts and their offspring and consider some implications for the law arising from this new manner of executing code and weaving new layers of social reality.

Reality is composed of many layers, including what John Searle calls “brute facts” and, superimposed on these, what he calls “social reality”. Ontology is the study of reality in its various layers, and involves attempts to describe that reality in ways that are useful and logically consistent. Philosophers and others who attempt to “build” ontologies, must examine the manners in which we can best describe objects, and devise structured vocabularies that can be used consistently, often across disciplines, and now with an eye toward automation such that when people use terms to describe reality, a greater consistency, and thus better understanding, ensues. Any object of intentionality is capable of ontological analysis and greater clarity. Abstract objects composed by collective intentionality, such as the institutions and other objects that comprise “social reality”, are especially rich domains for ontological analysis

This book defines 'nanowares' as the ideas and products arising out of nanotechnology. Koepsell argues that these rapidly developing new technologies demand a new approach to scientific discovery and innovation in our society. He takes established ideas from social philosophy and applies them to the nanoparticle world. In doing so he breaks down the subject into its elemental form and from there we are better able to understand how these elements fit into the construction of a more complex system of products, rules and regulations about these products.

The authors outline the way in which documents as social objects have evolved from their earliest forms to the electronic documents of the present day. They note that while certain features have remained consistent, processes regarding document authentication are seriously complicated by the easy reproducibility of digital entities. The authors argue that electronic documents also raise significant questions concerning the theory of ‘documentality’ advanced by Maurizio Ferraris, especially given the fact that interactive documents seem to blur the distinctions between the static documents (or ‘inscriptions’) which form Ferraris’s starting point, and dynamic software processes. The authors argue further that the Ferraris view as applied to legal documents is flawed because of the fact that courts may treat contractual obligations as enduring even in spite of a complete absence of enduring inscriptions. Finally, the authors note that traces in brains, another important family of inscriptions (as Ferraris conceives them), differ significantly from genuinely documentary inscriptions by their lack of public inspectability.

This book is an easy to read, yet comprehensive introduction to practical issues in research ethics and scientific integrity. It addresses questions about what constitutes appropriate academic and scientific behaviors from the point of view of what Robert Merton called the “ethos of science.” In other words, without getting into tricky questions about the nature of the good or right (as philosophers often do), Koepsell’s concise book provides an approach to behaving according to the norms of science and academia without delving into the morass of philosophical ethics. The central thesis is that: since we know certain behaviors are necessary for science and its institutions to work properly (rather than pathologically), we can extend those principles to guide good behaviors as scientists and academics. The Spanish version of this book was commissioned by the Mexican National Science Foundation (CONACyT) and is being distributed to and used by Mexican scientists in a unique, national plan to improve scientific integrity throughout all of Mexico. Available now in English, the examples and strategies employed can be used throughout the English speaking research world for discussing issues in research ethics, training for scientists and researchers across disciplines, and those who are generally interested in ethics in academia.

Ontologies describe reality in specific domains in ways that can bridge various disciplines and languages. They allow easier access and integration of information that is collected by different groups. Ontologies are currently used in the biomedical sciences, geography, and law. A Biomedical Ethics Ontology would benefit members of ethics committees who deal with protocols and consent forms spanning numerous fields of inquiry. There already exists the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI); the proposed BMEO would interoperate with OBI, creating a powerful information tool. We define a domain ontology and begin to construct a BMEO, focused on the process of evaluating human research protocols. Finally, we show how our BMEO can have practical applications for ethics committees. This paper describes ongoing research and a strategy for its broader continuation and cooperation.

This volume considers the numerous philosophical ideas and arguments found in and inspired by the critically acclaimed series Breaking Bad. This show garnered both critical and popular attention for its portrayal of a cancer-stricken, middle-aged, middle-class, high school chemistry teacher’s drift into the dark world of selling methamphetamine to support his family. Its characters, situations, and aesthetic raise serious and familiar philosophical issues, especially related to ethics and morality. The show provokes a bevy of rich questions and discussion points, such as: What are the ethical issues surrounding drugs? What lessons about existentialism and fatalism does the show present? How does the show grapple with the concept of the end ‘justifying’ the means? Is Walt really free not to ‘break bad’? Can he be redeemed? What is the definition and nature of badness itself? Contributors address these and other questions as they dissect the legacy of the show and discuss its contributions to philosophical conversations.

"Cyberspace" is a term used commonly but without adequate definition. All computer-mediated phenomena may be said to comprise cyberspace. So far, no adequate ontology of cyberspace has been formulated. The law of intellectual property has attempted to fit computer-mediated phenomena into the current legal scheme. Currently, the law of intellectual property distinguishes between the subjects of patent law , and the subject of copyright law . The distinction embodied in the law of intellectual property is invalid and all things which are man-made and intentionally produced are expressive objects. All computer-mediated phenomena are such expressive objects. The law of intellectual property comprises a naive ontology. A common-sense ontology of intellectual property, which must abide by the rules of logic, recognizes that all man-made objects which are intentionally produced are expressive objects and should be afforded the same form on intellectual property protection. The current legal ontology has failed in devising mutually exclusive categories for objects which are of the same type, namely--expressive. A unified ontology would accommodate computer-mediated phenomena without the problems which result from the current naive ontology

Breaking Bad, hailed by Stephen King, Chuck Klosterman, and many others as the best of all TV dramas, tells the story of a man whose life changes because of the medical death sentence of an advanced cancer diagnosis. The show depicts his metamorphosis from inoffensive chemistry teacher to feared drug lord and remorseless killer. Driven at first by the desire to save his family from destitution, he risks losing his family altogether because of his new life of crime. In defiance of the tradition that viewers demand a TV character who never changes, Breaking Bad is all about the process of change, with each scene carrying forward the morphing of Walter White into the terrible Heisenberg. Can a person be transformed as the result of a few key life choices? Does everyone have the potential to be a ruthless criminal? How will we respond to the knowledge that we will be dead in six months? Is human life subject to laws as remorseless as chemical equations? When does injustice validate brutal retaliation? Why are drug addicts unsuitable for operating the illegal drug business? How can TV viewers remain loyal to a series where the hero becomes the villain? Does Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty rule our destinies? In Breaking Bad and Philosophy, a hand-picked squad of professional thinkers investigate the crimes of Walter White, showing how this story relates to the major themes of philosophy and the major life decisions facing all of us.

Currently, under the law of intellectual property, IP owners may exclude from use or production substances and processes that we would ordinarily consider to be products of nature. This has helped companies monopolize disease genes, and thus diagnostic testing for those diseases, and “biosimilar” products, pharmaceutical materials that mimic biological materials. Extending the current paradigm to the world of synthetic biology and nanotechnology will create further injustices in the delivery of health care to billions of people around the world. As such, I advocate heading this trend off at the pass. Scientists ought to conduct basic research into the building blocks of biology and matter in the open, publishing their results, releasing knowledge into the public domain upstream so that beneficial innovation can be produced without fear of downstream litigation, and so that what ought to remain in the public domain as a matter of right (products of nature) does not become unjustly monopolized.

Peter Hare and Edward Madden's collaborative book Evil and the Concept of God (968) has become a staple in literature about the problem of evil and remains frequently cited by supporters and critics alike. The major concepts of the work arose out of earlier papers in which they first began to formulate their arguments about the problem of evil. Their article "Evil and Unlimited Power" embodies many of their arguments against quasi-theist attempts to resolve the problem of evil.1 Assembled from these and other papers, their compendium frames a thorough synthesis of the long history of debate regarding the problem of evil, and contributes their own exhaustive, point-by-point attack on modern defenders of three main ..

For the past half-century, issues relating to the ethical conduct of human research have focused largely on the domain of medical, and more recently social–psychological research. The modern regime of applied ethics, emerging as it has from the Nuremberg trials and certain other historical antecedents, applies the key principles of: autonomy, respect for persons, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice to human beings who enter trials of experimental drugs and devices :168–175, 2001). Institutions such as Institutional Review Boards and Ethics Committees oversee most governmentally-funded medical research around the world, in more than a hundred nations that are signers of the Declaration of Helsinki. Increasingly, research outside of medicine has been recognized to pose potential risks to human subjects of experiments. Ethics committees now operate in the US, Canada, the U.K. and Australia to oversee all governmental-funded research, and in other jurisdictions, the range of research covered by such committees is expanding. Social science, anthropology, and other fields are falling under more clear directives to conduct a formal ethical review for basic research involving human participants. The legal and institutional response for protecting human subjects in the course of developing non-medical technologies, engineering, and design is currently vague, but some universities are establishing ethics committees to oversee their human subjects research even where the experiments involved are non-medical and not technically covered by the Declaration of Helsinki. In The Netherlands, as in most of Europe, Asia, Latin America, or Africa, no laws mandate an ethical review of non-medical research. Yet, nearly 2 years ago we launched a pilot ethics committee at our technical university and began soliciting our colleagues to submit their studies for review. In the past year, we have become officially recognized as a human subjects ethics committee for our university and we are beginning the process of requiring all studies using human subjects to apply for our approval. In this article, we consider some of the special problems relating to protecting human participants in a technology context, and discuss some of our experiences and insights about reviewing human subjects research at a technical university, concluding: that not less than in medical studies, human participants used in technology research benefit from ethical committees’ reviews, practical requirements for publications, grants, and avoiding legal liability are also served by such committees, and ethics committees in such contexts have many similarities to, but certain other special foci than medical ethics committees. We believe that this experience, and these observations, are helpful for those seeking to establish such committees in technology research contexts, and for framing the particular issues that may arise in such contexts for the benefit of researchers, and nascent committees seeking to establish their own procedures.

Much of the discussion regarding nanotechnology centers around perceived and prosphesied harms and risks. While there are real risks that could emerge from futuristic nanotechnology, there are other current risks involved with its development, not involving physical harms, that could prevent its full promise from being realized. Transitional forms of the technology, involving “microfab,” or localized, sometimes desk-top, manufacture, pose a good opportunity for case study. How can we develop legal and regulatory institutions, specifically centered around the problems of intellectual property, that both stimulate innovation, and make the best possible use of what will eventually be a market in “types” rather than “tokens”? This paper argues that this is the most critical, current issues facing nanotechnology, and suggests a manner to approach it.