Norman Swazo

There has been much made of philosopher Peter Sloterdijk’s advocacy of “anthropotechnology” consequent to his ostensible “response” to Heidegger’s wellknown “Letter on Humanism.” But, while many commentators engage Sloterdijk’s controversial essay, it seems there has been no commentary that takes Sloterdijk to task for not directly engaging what Heidegger has to say in the “Letter on Humanism.” There is reason to challenge what is problematic in Sloterdijk’s approach to modern technology and his assumption that the future is quite promising as humanity appropriates technologies such as bioengineering and artificial intelligence. It is arguable that there should be no further concern for prospective “domination” from such technologies given the supposed “co-beneficiary” effect of adaptation to what he calls the “information ecology” of the contemporary moment. Sloterdijk’s failure to directly engage Heidegger’s critique of technology is a cause for concern in the supposed “second coming” of Sloterdijk in the discourse of contemporary continental philosophy.

Whether (1) vaccines produced in response to a pandemic should be considered “global public goods” and whether (2) Big Pharma companies should waive intellectual property rights for pandemic disease vaccines are important questions in global health ethics and public health policy. The extended argument advanced here (a) affirms such vaccines are global public goods and (b) supports those among low- and middle-income nations who, during the COVID-19 pandemic, proposed waiver of intellectual property rights. As a matter of distributive justice, we argue that (c) Big Pharma, national regulatory agencies, and international intergovernmental organizations such as the World Health Organisation and the World Trade Organisation have a moral responsibility to ensure developing countries have equitable access to pandemic vaccines. Hence, (d) there should be appropriate technology transfer for production and distribution of pandemic-responsive vaccines in these nations.

In view of intensified danger from multiple causes manifesting what Heidegger understood as the rule of planetary technology and the possibility of pitting meditative thinking (besinnliches Denken) against the dominant calculative thinking (rechnendes Denken), there is enhanced need to think further Heidegger’s turn to the poetic word of Hölderlin. Here Heidegger’s attentiveness to Hölderlin’s “The Ister” is engaged with a view to clarifying the significance of “becoming homely” and “dwelling” as part of the task of thinking required of Western humanity if it is to appropriate a “second beginning” such as Heidegger intimates possible. Absent this thinking, the “first beginning” initiated in Greek antiquity promises a thoroughly techno-cratic world order.

This book engages with the philosophical thought of French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. It studies some of his Talmudic readings and his concern for a Jewish "universal ethics." It does so in relation to the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the moral imperatives that apply to the conduct of the State of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) vis-à-vis the Palestinian people. The book not only looks at what Levinas understands about the moral "universality" of the Talmud, but also applies this understanding to the assessment of the IDF military operations ongoing in Gaza since 07 October 2023. In this way, the author makes a distinction between the moral teaching of rabbinic Judaism to which Levinas appeals for its universality (on the one hand) and the ideology of political Zionism (on the other hand) to which Levinas subscribed, hence moral critique of the latter required in view of this moral teaching. A unique contribution, this book will be indispensable to scholars and researchers of European philosophy, Jewish ethics, religious studies, Talmudic studies, and contemporary moral philosophy, as well as those interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s later thought is significant because of his attention to the meaning of “truth” (alētheia) and its connection to Protagoras’s thesis of anthrōpos metron (“of all things man is the measure…”), which Heidegger elevates to the “highest principle” of philosophy. Philosopher Werner Marx concurs with Heidegger that our time faces the “age of technology” as the completion of the Western tradition of metaphysics. With the “end of philosophy” in this sense, we stand to inaugurate “a new beginning” in thinking without reliance on the principles and standards that have their provenance in the tradition from ancient Greek philosophy onward to late European modernity. For Marx, this elicits the possibility of a non-metaphysical ethics, hence the question of “measure” that he engages in connection with Heidegger’s later thinking. However, it is problematic that Marx engages Schelling’s reflections on the essence of human freedom to articulate a possibility of measure. Here Marx’s reflections are engaged by considering his motivation and the thought of Schelling, Nietzsche, Heidegger, as well as the historical context of the twentieth century, all of which constrain Marx’s normative objective. Heidegger’s engagement of Schelling and Kant to elucidate the problem of human freedom raises questions whether Marx’s proposal for a measure “on this earth” can achieve the goal of a foundation for a post-metaphysical ethics.

Heidegger’s thought presents us with the possibility of, as well as a call for, a “retrieval” (Wiederholung) of what is “unthought” (das Ungedachte) and “unsaid” (das Ungesagte) in the political philosophy of the ancient Greeks. A successful retrieval would lead to an “originary” (ursprünglich) political thinking that enables the “enactment” (Vollzug) of an originary politics, consistent with the possibility of a “second beginning” such as Heidegger deemed necessary and imminent. The task here is to identify “hermeneutic signposts” present in Heidegger’s reading of Plato’s Sophist as a basis for a “prolegomenon” to thinking the unthought. After the signposts are identified, a “Postscript” engages briefly several salient queries that arise from the effort to think about the political with reference to Heidegger’s thought, thus pointing to what remains to be thought beyond the signposting of this prolegomenon.

Every philosopher who is concerned with practical rationality and the public import of philosophy assumes a politico-philosophical responsibility for his or her words, thoughts, and deeds. More often than not, this is a function of his or her place and time in history as well as the press of current events that claim the philosopher’s solicitude so as to intervene at least with the force of thought and words, if not with deeds. Yet, as philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Albert Camus have argued, thinking is itself always the essential action that is needed in times of momentous decision, despite the seeming absurdity of events.

This book critically examines the debate on Martin Heidegger's concept of Entscheidung and his engagement and confrontation with Nazism in terms of his broader philosophical thought. It argues that one cannot explain Heidegger's actions without accounting for his idea of "decision" and its connection to his understanding of individual "fate" and national "destiny." The book looks at the relation of biography to philosophy and the ethical and political implications of appropriating Heidegger's thinking in these domains of inquiry. It highlights themes such as Heidegger's differences with the neo-Kantians in Germany; Heidegger on Kant and practical reason; and his reading of Nietzsche and Hegel. It offers a philosophical assessment grounded in Heidegger's own texts, with reference to historical and other philosophical commentaries on the rise of National Socialism in post-Weimar Germany and the philosophical issues associated with the interpretation of Nazi genocide and ideology. An important intervention in Western philosophy, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political philosophy, continental philosophy, German philosophy, philosophy in general, and political studies.

This book provides a history of the ethnic persecution of the Rohingyas in Myanmar and their disputed ethnic and national identity. It focuses on how the crisis has morphed into a geopolitical encounter among Bangladesh, China, India, and Myanmar. It further explores the moral, ethnographic, and public policy issues in the humanitarian response to the crisis of the Rohingya people. The volume analyzes the question of citizenship for the Rohingyas by analyzing historical documents and interviews which chronicle the status and identity of the community and their past involvement in the government and politics of Myanmar. The authors focus specifically on the changing geopolitical context of state formation in South Asia and the tense relationships between Myanmar and its neighbours - Bangladesh, China, and India. The book examines the alliances and disputes in the South and Southeast Asia region, which are predicated on economic and strategic gains, and their impact on the Rohingya crisis. It also looks at the failure of bilateral and multilateral negotiations among these countries to adequately address or alleviate the plight of the stateless Rohingyas. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of international studies, peace, human rights and conflict studies, sociology, ethnic studies, border studies, migration and diaspora studies, discrimination and exclusion studies, public policy, and Asian Studies. It will also be useful for professionals working in the media, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, and policy makers, as well as general readers interested in the history of the persecution of the Rohingya people.

Heidegger’s thinking of the human way to be unavoidably concerns itself with a distinctive human possibility of being. It is argued here that the early Heidegger, who engaged Aristotle’s philosophy via what Heidegger calls “phenomenological interpretations,” learns from Aristotle’s method of definition but goes beyond it to conceive the idea of possibility—Dasein’s being-possible (Seinkönnen)—differently. It is reasonable to argue that the early Heidegger accomplishes a productive interpretation of Aristotle in this case while being indebted to Aristotle’s understanding of ‘definition’ as both “genuinely indicative” and “indeterminate.” Despite Aristotle’s ontological commitment to a metaphysics of presence (Anwesenheit) with its linkage of “possibility-actuality” (“dunamis-energeia/entelecheia”), Heidegger appreciates that there remains an important possibility of phenomenological interpretation in both Aristotle’s concept of zóon lógon echon and the expression ‘tò tí en einai’. This interpretive move is discussed here.

Political philosophy (past and present) concerns itself with thematic, systematic interrogation of political ideas, structures, institutions, and practices. As such it privileges the authority of reason. But, the vision of the literary imagination likewise can and does contribute to human understanding and to imagining our common future. Ursula K. LeGuin is a master teacher of ethical politics in her award-winning novel The Dispossessed. Therein, the protagonist Shevek is presented as an edifying exemplar of “permanent revolution” in a uniquely “thinking mind.” His quest for solidarity of peoples is grounded on a possibility of authentic selfhood within his anarchist society. Considering the concept of authentic selfhood as discussed in philosopher Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, Shevek’s character may be represented as an imaginary, yet “real,” example or profile of how authentic selfhood may be constituted. This is consistent with LeGuin’s intent in The Dispossessed.

Literary criticism of Shakespeare’s Othello since the early 20th century leaves us with various complaints that Shakespeare fails to achieve poetic justice therein, or that this work leaves us, in the end, with a moral enigma—despite what seems to be Shakespeare’s intent to represent a plot and characters having moral probity and, thereby, to foster our moral edification through the tragedy that unfolds. Here a number of interpretive views concerning the morality proper to Othello are reviewed. Thereafter, it is proposed that Heidegger’s thought about the relation of appearance, semblance, and reality enables a novel interpretation of the moral significance of this tragedy, thereby to resolve the question of moral enigma.

How can one be authentic, except with reference to some dogma? An answer to this query is philosophically important in light of the significance that individuals attach to traditions of thought and practice and to epistemic commitments articulated in the context of the political, which are characterized as ideological appeals. Here the thinking of Martin Heidegger is engaged as a way of evaluating the concept of dogma and the seemingly moral and political relevance of the concept of authenticity. The point of the analysis is to conclude otherwise than is presupposed by the question, i.e., to conclude that one can be authentic without reference to some dogma.

Philosopher Martin Heidegger’s writing on the essence of technology has often been seen as too abstract even though he illustrated his concerns with reference to technological developments of his day. While most in the immediate post-World War 2 period judged thermonuclear weaponry to be the most obvious technological threat to the future of humanity, Heidegger instead considered developments in the biological sciences to be more so. In the discussion presented here, Heidegger’s thinking is related to developments in biotechnology, specifically assisted reproductive technology. The task here is (1) to illustrate how Heidegger’s disquiet is manifested in such technologies and (2) to emphasize the significance of his call for a “step back” from the calculative thinking dominant in the natural sciences to what he called, alternately, “essential,” “meditative,” or “commemorative” thinking. Only through this latter mode of thinking can we expect to enter into a “free” relationship to technology.

When political philosopher Hannah Arendt introduced the concept of ‘banality of evil’ she did so in reference to the actions of Germans who appropriated the doctrines of National Socialism “thoughtlessly” and without obvious intentions to do evil. But, Arendt’s description of this phenomenon entails that such banality can be found even in a democracy such as the USA. The relation of law and morality must therefore be unambiguous to defend the rule of law against the rule of men. However, a legal philosophy other than positivism is essential to safeguard the Republic against the overreach of executive power. And, where the psychopathology of Donald Trump is at the core of America’s electoral discontent in 2020, as mental health professionals have argued, there is all the more reason to take Arendt’s counsel especially seriously today. It is in this context that it is argued here that the American public must beware Trump’s inducement of America’s banality of evil.

The twentieth-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger distinguished “meditative” and “calculative” modes of thinking as a way of highlighting the problematique of modern technology and the limits of modern science. In doing so he also was prescient to recognize, in 1955, that the most significant danger to the future of humanity are developments in molecular biology and biotechnology, in contrast to the post-World War global threat of thermonuclear weapons. These insights are engaged here in view of recent discussion of the need for international regulation of heritable human genome editing and the announcement in 2018 of the birth of the world’s first gene-edited babies in China. Heidegger’s call for meditative thinking requires modern medicine and the life sciences to appropriate the phenomenological conception of the human “way to be” such that it is not restricted to the “present-at-hand” physiology and pathology of the human body.

In November 2018, Dr. He Jiankui announced the birth of two baby girls born through the use of in vitro fertilization technology and the use of the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9. There has been nigh uniform international condemnation of the clinical trial for violating international norms governing genomic research, especially research in human embryos that has implications for the germline. At issue also is the question whether the parents and the clinical research team harmed, and therefore wronged, the two girls. Here this question is engaged through application of the reasoning Derek Parfit has provided on the non-identity problem. One concludes that on this reasoning the parents are not morally culpable on that argument, although there is other reasoning that is to be considered to resist the Parfitian conclusion.

It is often stated that the German twentieth-century philosopher Martin Heidegger never wrote an ethics while undertaking his critique and deconstruction of the Western tradition of metaphysics. It is, therefore, difficult to know what manner of normative ethics, if any, is consistent with his “hermeneutic of Dasein” such as articulated in his Being and Time. However, in his “Letter on Humanism,” Heidegger refers to the tragedies of Sophocles as “preserving the ēthos” more originally, thus better, than does Aristotle’s ethics. Hence, one may examine Sophocles’s tragedies guided by the hermeneutic Heidegger provides, especially through the concepts of authenticity and authentic selfhood. Doing so, it is argued here that Sophocles’s Philoctetes presents one such opportunity for moral understanding in the interplay of authenticity and inauthenticity, in particular through a study of the moral dilemma that Neoptolemus must resolve as he moves from a situation of inauthenticity to a display of authentic resolve.

BackgroundNormally, physicians understand they have a duty to treat patients, and they perform accordingly consistent with codes of medical practice, standards of care, and inner moral motivation. In the case of COVID-19 pandemic in a developing country such as Bangladesh, however, the fact is that some physicians decline either to report for duty or to treat patients presenting with COVID-19 symptoms. At issue ethically is whether such medical practitioners are to be automatically disciplined for dereliction of duty and gross negligence; or, on the contrary, such physicians may legitimately claim a professional right of autonomous judgment, on the basis of which professional right they may justifiably decline to treat patients.MethodsThis ethical issue is examined with a view to providing some guidance and recommendations, insofar as the conditions of medical practice in an under-resourced country such as Bangladesh are vastly different from medical practice in an industrialized nation such as the USA. The concept of moral dilemma as discussed by philosopher Michael Shaw Perry and philosopher Immanuel Kant’s views on moral appeal to “emergency” are considered pertinent to sorting through the moral conundrum of medical care during pandemic.ResultsOur analysis allows for conditional physician discretion in the decision to treat COVID-19 patients, i.e., in the absence of personal protective equipment (PPE) combined with claim of duty to family. Physicians are nonetheless expected to provide a minimum of initial clinical assessment and stabilization of a patient before initiating transfer of a patient to a “designated” COVID-19 hospital. The latter is to be done in coordination with the national center control room that can assure admission of a patient to a referral hospital prior to ambulance transport.ConclusionsThe presence of a moral dilemma (i.e., conflict of obligations) in the pandemic situation of clinical care requires institutional authorities to exercise tolerance of individual physician moral decision about the duty to care. Hospital or government authority should respond to such decisions without introducing immediate sanction, such as suspension from all clinical duties or termination of licensure, and instead arrange for alternative clinical duties consistent with routine medical care.

In institutional settings affecting the formulation and implementation of international foreign and security policy, nation-states are influenced by Western standards of jurisprudence without explicit concern for religiously grounded legal frameworks. The question at issue here is whether there is a role for Islamic law in the formulation of international law, given recent literature examining this conjunction. For some, cultural symmetry requires attention to Islamic law, e.g., the Islamic law of nations, in the same way Western modernity evolved contemporary international law out of a concept of a “law of nations”. In a historical period of asserted fundamentalist Islamic ideology as well as post-9/11 neo-conservative political ideology, there is ample need for negotiation of culture, including philosophical foundations of law, in which case attention to Islamic jurisprudence may well be a positive development to advance the cause of an evolving international legal order.

In recent times, the American Philosophical Association has been exposed in a serious way to the issue of pluralism in philosophy curriculums in the departments of philosophy of American universities and colleges. This conversation brings to the fore the fact that what is at issue in the prospect of pluralizing American philosophy departments is not merely the matter of deciding the discipline's boundaries of intellectual formation relative to the current generation of students, but the unforeseeen consequences of pluralism which challenge both 'the American canon' and the profession's self-understanding vis-à-vis a 'Western' intellectual heritage that distinguishes the 'essential' from the 'marginal' by privileging essential figures, problems, and time-honored methodological commitments. Yet, to the degree that there is a quest for relation of differences, this need not presuppose the universality of philosophical discourse, comparative philosophy moving inevitably within a logic of opposition rather than a logic of mutuality. Our thinking is surely problematic if at this World Congress we find an occasion for a confrontation between 'the West' and 'the margin,' the latter construed negatively as a 'mute, growing and menacing pressure.'

The medical devices industry is one of the fastest growing sectors of healthcare industry with a large market, a wide variety of products and growing applications. In Malaysia, this industry is a major contributor to the economy and government initiatives support its growth to position Malaysia as a medical device manufacturing hub in the Asia-Pacific region. There are more than 180 manufacturers of medical devices in Malaysia involved in the production of sophisticated devices such as orthopedic products, surgical instruments and dialysis machines. Local companies are moving towards complying with internationally recognized quality standards such as ISO 13485 as an attempt to penetrate the global market. However, there is a religious need to provide medical devices that are certified halal in order to cater to the needs of Muslim consumers who make up 64.3% of the Malaysian population. It is an advantage that Malaysia halal certification industry is well-developed and recognized as a model all around the world. Malaysia shows a strong industrial manufacturing potential for a wide range of halal products. The availability of supporting industries thus provides Malaysia with the ideal conditions to develop into a medical device hub in Asia as well as to establish a global acceptance model for halal medical devices. This paper will discuss the ethical aspects of developing halal medical devices for the needs of Muslims in Malaysia and other Islamic nations.

Islamic studies, as a discipline, are carried out according to various methodological commitments and hermeneutic presuppositions. This includes traditional conservative and apologetic perspectives, as well as Orientalist and revisionist, more or less historical-critical approaches to Islamic religious life. Interpretation of Islamic faith and practice is to be understood accordingly. Notwithstanding such methodological commitments, one can reasonably ask if and how a phenomenological clarification of ‘the Qur’an’ might add to this understanding. Phenomenological methods vary, in which case phenomenological description is dependent on the methodological guideline adopted, e.g., that which follows Edmund Husserl or, alternatively, the approach offered by Martin Heidegger. This paper reviews these methodological issues with a view to illuminating an alternative comportment that sees the Qur’an as a phenomenon open to clarification, yet without commitment to epistemological or empirical methods of analysis

Whether Albert Camus’s “existentialist” thought expresses an “ethics” is a subject of disagreement among commentators. Yet, there can be no reading of Camus’s philosophical and literary works without recognizing that he was engaged in the post-WW2 period with two basic questions: How must we think? What must we do? If his thought presents us with an ethics, even if not systematic, it seems to be present in his ideas of “remaking” both man and world that are central to his The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel. Curiously, however, this apparent recommendation is ambiguous for the fact that while Camus proposes as much he does so “comme si,” i.e., form a perspective of “as if.” A clarification of this qualification is presented here in the light of the fact that Camus rejects any nihilist project that countenances either suicide or murder. Thereby one may argue that Camus indeed has an ethics that remains pertinent to today.