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1739Beholt, the ManGrand Viaduct. 2015.This narrative commentary on Nietzschean ambitions, in part influenced by Zarathustra and Ecce Homo, centers on a long, ongoing, expansive, and highly imaginative technological projects by two men, Stuart Beholt and Alby Tolby. Having worked up adventurous software in university days, their experiences interwoven with their friendship bring out a panoply of current philosophical issues--and beyond. This narrative philosophy evokes and explores more issues than current philosophical debates conce…Read more
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679Responsible research for the construction of maximally humanlike automata: the paradox of unattainable informed consentEthics and Information Technology 22 (4): 297-305. 2020.Since the Nuremberg Code and the first Declaration of Helsinki, globally there has been increasing adoption and adherence to procedures for ensuring that human subjects in research are as well informed as possible of the study’s reasons and risks and voluntarily consent to serving as subject. To do otherwise is essentially viewed as violation of the human research subject’s legal and moral rights. However, with the recent philosophical concerns about responsible robotics, the limits and ambiguit…Read more
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478Granting Automata Human Rights: Challenge to a Basis of Full-Rights PrivilegeHuman Rights Review 16 (4): 369-391. 2015.As engineers propose constructing humanlike automata, the question arises as to whether such machines merit human rights. The issue warrants serious and rigorous examination, although it has not yet cohered into a conversation. To put it into a sure direction, this paper proposes phrasing it in terms of whether humans are morally obligated to extend to maximally humanlike automata full human rights, or those set forth in common international rights documents. This paper’s approach is to consider…Read more
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434Anticipating the ultimate innovation, volitional evolution: can it not be promoted or attempted responsibly?Journal of Responsible Innovation 2 (3): 280-300. 2015.The aspiration for volitional evolution, or human evolution directed by humans themselves,has increased in philosophical, scientific, technical, and commercial literature. The prospect of shaping the very being who is the consumer of all other innovations offers great commercial potential, one to which all other innovations would in effect be subservient. Actually an amalgam of projected technical/commercial developments, this prospective innovation has practical and ethical ramifications. However…Read more
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388City Limit: A Sociopolitical Philosophical IndictmentGrand Viaduct. 2013.This philosophical narrative delves into deepening crises afflicting modern democracies, when extreme inequality and its resultant alienation grips not just adults but, even more anguishingly, children. These children and often their parents come in far under the social radar, so out-of-touch that even census takers overlook them. In this milieu, weapons and narcotics are as much an unquestioned part of life as breathing. The world beyond this invisible cage entirely escapes them, nor does the l…Read more
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361The Palgrave Handbook of Posthumanism in Film and Television by Michael Hauskeller, Thomas Philbeck, and Curtis Carbonell (review) (review)Film and History 49 (2): 94-96. 2019.Science fiction has served the film industry like a dreamy stepchild. It gets only scant accolades from its master but must do heavy lifting: that is, make money. While science-fiction films often emphasize spectacle and action, they also inspire philosophical contemplation. Why? Science fiction, dating back to Shelley and Verne, came into existence speculating about humanity's social and physical worlds. Many books and articles over the past several years discuss the philosophical issues that f…Read more
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353Relentless Assimilationist Indigenous Policy: From Invasion of Group Rights to Genocide in Mercy’s ClothingIndigenous Policy Journal (3). 2016.Despite the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, assimilationist policies continue, whether official or effective. Such policies affect more than the right to group choice. The concern is whether indeed genocide or “only” ethnocide (or culturecide)—the elimination of a traditional culture—is at work. Discussions of the distinction between the two terms have been inconsistent enough that at least one commentator has declared that they cannot be used in analytical contex…Read more
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340Human Rights of Users of Humanlike Care AutomataHuman Rights Review 21 (2): 181-205. 2020.Care is more than dispensing pills or cleaning beds. It is about responding to the entire patient. What is called “bedside manner” in medical personnel is a quality of treating the patient not as a mechanism but as a being—much like the caregiver—with desires, ideas, dreams, aspirations, and the gamut of mental and emotional character. As automata, answering an increasing functional need in care, are designed to enact care, the pressure is on their becoming more humanlike to carry out the functi…Read more
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326Transplanting the Body: Preliminary Ethical ConsiderationsThe New Bioethics 23 (3): 219-235. 2017.A dissociated area of medical research warrants bioethical consideration: a proposed transplantation of a donor’s entire body, except head, to a patient with a fatal degenerative disease. The seeming improbability of such an operation can only underscore the need for thorough bioethical assessment: Not assessing a case of such potential ethical import, by showing neglect instead of facing the issue, can only compound the ethical predicament, perhaps eroding public trust in ethical medicine. This…Read more
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322Autonomy, equality and freedom often appear to be significantly interrelated with one another. However, it has been a challenge to unite these concepts. This article attempts to take up the challenge and demonstrate how these interrelate:
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309Where Does Music End and Nonmusic Begin? Fine-tuning the “Naturalist Response” Problem for Nontonal Music’s Naturalistic CriticsJournal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics 45 (1): 354-368. 2022.As to what distinguishes music from other sound, some investigators in both philosophy and cognitive scientists have answered “tonality.” It seems subservient even to rhythm. Tonality is considered to be the central factor around which the piece is oriented; it gives a sense of home, expectation, and completeness. Most important, much of this inquiry builds on naturalistic, evolutionary explanation to account for human nature and behavior. The conclusion of such line of thought is that soun…Read more
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309The composite redesign of humanity’s nature: a work in processTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 39 (2): 157-164. 2018.One of the most salient contemporary concerns in academic debates and pop culture alike is the extent to which new technologies may re-cast Homo sapiens. Species members may find themselves encased in a type of existence they deem to be wanting in comparison with their present form, even if the promised form was assured to be better. Plausibly, the concern is not merely fear of change or of the unknown, but rather it arises out of individuals’ general identification with what they are and what t…Read more
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289How Ecology Can Edify Ethics: The Scope of MoralityJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31 (4): 443-454. 2018.Over the past several decades environmental ethics has grown markedly, normative ethics having provided essential grounding in assessing human treatment of the environment. Even a systematic approach, such as Paul Taylor’s, in a sense tells the environment how it is to be treated, whether that be Earth’s ecosystem or the universe itself. Can the environment, especially the ecosystem, as understood through the study of ecology, in turn offer normative and applied ethics any edification? The study…Read more
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286Kantian Approaches to Human Reproduction: Both Favorable and UnfavorableKantian Journal 40 (1): 51-96. 2021.Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the question of whether humans should reproduce. Some say human life is too punishing and cruel to impose upon an innocent. Others hold that such harms do not undermine the great and possibly unique value of human life. Tracing these outlooks historically in the debate has barely begun. What might philosophers have said, or what did they say, about human life itself and its value to merit reproduction? This article looks to Kant, who wrote much on wh…Read more
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221A Way Out of Techno-limbo (review)Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 23 (2): 251-256. 2019.Nihilism is in the air. Yet, it is hard to say to what profit—beyond that for marketers and manufacturers of electronic devices. Advertisements paradoxically take on a bravura of appealing to targeted-consumers’ nihilism in the guise of bold autonomy dependent on one’s incorporating their brand names into one’s life. Social analysts themselves, reporting on such phenomena, seem to shy from too much criticism of the trend lest they appear out of touch. We seem to have ended up in a sociopolitical…Read more
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213Beyond Human Nature by Jesse J. Prinz (review)Philosophy Now 108 47-49. 2015.The nature-nurture debate rages so, one cannot help but wonder why the sides are so vehemently partitioned. What's at stake? It is simply not clear why a great amount of people embrace either one side or the other, but dare not even blow a kiss to the opposite opinion. Prinz does an excellent job of arguing for the nurture position, zeroing in on some of the most preciously held nature arguments including the basis of knowledge, thought, and feelings in experience and cultural values, increasing…Read more
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202There is a conflict between a strictly political approach to LGBT rights, in which the battle must never cease. and the less encountered notion that individuals can let the battle settle into the background and simply get on with unpolitical life. at least unpolitical at home. The article takes the example of India as a salient place to view this conflict. As a democratic nation, India has had some limited progress in protecting LGBT rights. How its massively differentiated and traditional socie…Read more
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178Why Should One Reproduce? The Rationality and Morality of Human ReproductionDissertation, City University of New York Graduate Center. 2014.Human reproduction has long been assumed to be an act of the blind force of nature, to which humans were subject, like the weather. However, with recent concerns about the environmental impact of human population, particularly resource depletion, human reproduction has come to be seen as a moral issue. That is, in general, it may be moral or immoral for people to continue propagating their species. The past decade’s philosophical discussions of the question have yielded varying results. This…Read more
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176Review of The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief. By Joseph Hinman (review)Studies in Religion 43 (3): 529-531. 2014.The ongoing debates about what rationality consists in remain unsettled and leave plenty of interpretation for what is rational in belief formation and action. Hinman risks a large step in seeming to assume that it is rational not to contravene scientific theories and findings and irrational to disallow this openness. These -- possibilities lending a potential for deistic beliefs not to be inconsistent with rationality. The presumed scientific approach to allowing a rationality in such belief re…Read more
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172Review of "God Science Ideology: Examining the Role of Ideology in the Religious-Scientific Dialogue," by Joseph Hinman.Philosophy in Review 42 (2): 22-24. 2022.If any area of current philosophy is so incendiary as to veer on violence, it is argument about a divide being’s existence. Hinman’s sober offering is possibly one of the most thorough apologetics in contemporary times, meriting serious consideration yet certain to draw fire. Since Darwin, the religious have taken up arms, both metaphorically and, in the case of World Trade Center and its imitators, literally. In turn, growing atheist movements reacted against such defensiveness. This upsurge in…Read more
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138What We Think We Are: Maximizing the Subjects in the Human SciencesAnnals of Philosophy, Social and Human Disciplines 1. 2022.Human-sciences research often focuses on social problems to create tools for solving them. Yet, in using common prejudices in gathering and sorting data on their subjects, they risk propagating those same prejudices. This article proposes that a major subject matter of human sciences is human concepts themselves. Concepts about “what we are,” individually and as a species, are deeply embedded, if not essential. It concludes that for greater precision, practitioners in human sciences must take ma…Read more
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113What You Are and Its Affects on Moral Status: Godman's Epistemology and Morality of Human Kinds, Gunkel's Robot Rights, and Schneider on Artificial YouHuman Rights Review 22 (4): 525-531. 2021.Thanks to mounting discussion about projected technologies’ possibly altering the species mentally and physically, philosophical investigation of what human beings are proceeds robustly. Many thinkers contend that whatever we are has little to do with how we should behave. Yet, tampering with what the human being is may tread upon human rights to be whatever one is. Rights given in widely recognized documents such as the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples assume what humans are…Read more
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83Review of Consciousness and Moral Responsibility. By Neil Levy. (review)Journal of Consciousness Studies 21 (11-12): 201-206. 2014.One purpose for the field of consciousness studies may be to increase general understanding about consciousness and its place in human life, thereby possibly aiding us in living in better harmony within our societies and with our fellow humans. Neil Levy’s new work is a candidate for this latter purpose for the field. Consciousness studies may help us better understand how we function as conscious agents—or what role consciousness plays in our agency—and aid in our more just construction of laws…Read more
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79Review of Violence and Political Theory, by Elizabeth Frazer and Kimberly Hutchings. (review)Philosophy in Review 41 (2): 65-67. 2021.Violence seems to be such that, once it has set in, it is hard to extract. Getting rid of violence appears to require violence. It reproduces only itself. Peace appears but a sheep exposed to predators. If the world were to abruptly become peaceful, it would only await the next Thrasymachus to reimpose tyranny. This sticky nature of violence and how to cope with it are the most potent themes of this much-needed work. It provides a fair though critical overview of the subject of politics and …Read more
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75Is Species Integrity a Human Right? A Rights Issue Emerging from Individual Liberties with New TechnologiesHuman Rights Review 15 (2): 177-199. 2014.Currently, some philosophers and technicians propose to change the fundamental constitution of Homo sapiens, as by significantly altering the genome, implanting microchips in the brain, and pursuing related techniques. Among these proposals are aspirations to guide humanity’s evolution into new species. Some philosophers have countered that such species alteration is unethical and have proposed international policies to protect species integrity; yet, it remains unclear on what basis such right …Read more
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64Michael Hauskeller: Sex and the Posthuman Condition: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2014, 98 ppScience and Engineering Ethics 22 (5): 1569-1574. 2016.This new book from Michael Hauskeller explores the currently marketed or projected sex/love products that exhibit some trait of so-called “posthumanistic” theory or design. These products are so designated because of their intention to fuse high technologies, including robotics and computing, with the human user. The author offers several arguments for why the theory behind these products leads to inconsistencies. The book uses a unique approach to philosophical argument by enmeshing the argumen…Read more
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63Fine-tuning the ontology of patriarchy: A new approach to explaining and responding to a persisting social injusticePhilosophy and Social Criticism 41 (9): 885-906. 2015.After years of activism and scholarship concerning patriarchal social structures, many contemporary societies have made substantial progress in women’s rights. The shortfall, and the work ahead, is well known. Even in societies where the most progress has been achieved, males continue to dominate at key levels of power. Yet, essentialism appears to be widely, although not yet entirely, discounted. In helping to illuminate the social ontology of patriarchy and thereby helping to defuse its injust…Read more
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62Filling the gaps in the risks vs. benefits of mammalian adult-cell cloning: Taking Bernard Rollin's philosophy its next stepJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 11 (1): 1-16. 1998.A critique is made of Bernard Rollin''s examination of the ethics of cloning adult mammalian cells. The primary concern is less to propound an anticloning or procloning position than to call for full exploration of the ethical complexities before a rush to judgment is made. Indeed, the ethical examination in question rushes toward an ethical position in such a way that does not appear consistent with Rollin''s usual methodology. By extending this methodology – which entails full weighing of bene…Read more
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62Rights of Self-delimiting Peoples: Protecting Those Who Want No Part of UsHuman Rights Review 14 (1): 31-51. 2013.While in recent years new charters and government actions have boosted the collective and individual rights enjoyed by “Fourth-World” indigenous peoples such as the Inuit, another set of indigenous peoples has not experienced such protection: “self-delimiting” peoples. Their rights go largely unprotected because of deliberate ambiguities in the word “indigenous”; because these peoples generally avoid all contact with the larger society, and so are unknown by it and have no voice in it; and becau…Read more
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61The Astounding Assumption of Infinite LifeMetaphilosophy 50 (3): 377-394. 2019.The multi-millennial philosophical discussion about life after death has received a recent boost in the prospect of immortality attained via technologies. In this newer version, humans generally are considered mortal but may develop means of making themselves immortal. If “immortal” means not mortal, thus existing for infinity, and if the proposed infinite-existing entity is material, it must inhabit an infinite material universe. If the proposed entity is not material, there must be means by wh…Read more
Enschede, Overijssel, Netherlands
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
Areas of Interest
Metaphilosophy |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Value Theory |