Jerd Bandasak

I will discuss in this chapter the philosophical concept of romantic love. I argue that the narrative theory can contribute to a more complete understanding of romantic love. Since romantic love is a dynamic relationship, we can understand it as a story that may have different beginnings and ends. How a love story varies is dependent on changes of the self and perspectives in life, which comprise a narrative identity. The chapter consists of following sections: Philosophical Debates on the Concept of Romantic Love. In this section, I argue that conceptual analysis is inadequate and unnecessary as an explanation of romantic relationship. Romantic Relationship. Here I discuss some of the issues and complexities arising from being in a romantic relationship. I will also show that romantic relationship is different from other kinds of relationships. Love Story. I will discuss in this section how a romantic relationship can be explained in a narrative theory. By ‘narrative theory,’ I mean, essentially speaking, emplotment, i.e., an understanding events as narrative. Paul Ricoeur’s narrative identity has some aspects that enable lovers to understand each other in their love story. Conclusion. Here I will conclude and answer some possible objections.

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.

This paper discusses the place of religious belief in the digital era. It shows that religious belief is still relevant as an ultimate question of our life regardless of the advancement of technology. However, this means that technology compatible with religious thoughts. This paper is divided as follows. The first part discusses the digital revolution as a philosophical challenge. Luciano Floridi calls the digital revolution or the Fourth Industrial Revolution a challenge since technological changes transform our understanding of the world and ourselves. This revolution gives rise to many philosophical topics. The second part discusses information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the device paradigm. Here we focus on Albert Borgmann’s view on ICTs as a device paradigm, how technology separates society, and how they constitute a different relation to reality. The third part discusses technology and vulnerability through the lens of Mark Coeckelbergh, who proposes that technology is a way to deal with existential risks and vulnerability. Technology is somewhat related to the existential aspect of human life. The fourth part discusses the status of religious beliefs in a technological society. Here we discuss how religions remain relevant to life in the digital era. The idea is that religion answers the question of the meaning of life without any appeal to a supernatural reality. We argue that technological changes do not need to undermine religious thought and that dependence on technology can lead to a misconception of religious belief. The final part concludes by considering possible objections and issues like cyber-worship and irreligious movements on social media.