Paweł Bernat

At the end of the second decade of the 21st century, we witness a progressive increase of strategic importance of artificial satellites and other orbital systems, which is a consequence of the ever-accelerating development of space technologies that include weapons systems. The outer space becomes a theatre for a potential conflict. The states possessing sufficient technological potential will further develop and expand those systems, both defensive (for eliminating threats) and offensive (securing the military advantage and serving as a deterrent) to secure their current and future interests. The main argument of the paper demonstrates the necessity, from the perspective of the strong outer space sector players like the USA, Russia, China, to further develop space weapon systems and military units of space corps.

The paper presents a synthesis of research results that focus on identifying factors that affect the organization and functioning of Iraq's air defense system during the Iraqi Freedom operation and, as a result, contributed to Iraq's defeat. An important part of the considerations presented in the article are the results of research relating to the role and significance of the use by the coalition partners of the state-of-the-art air weapon systems, which facilitated carrying out very precise strikes on the most essential elements of the Iraqi air defense system beyond the reach of the anti-aircraft artillery and missile systems. The authors also indicate that of the vital importance in the lack of adequate protection of the most important objects, the so-called centers of gravity, located mainly in Baghdad, were organizational errors in the distribution of forces and resources, technological problems, and inept command. The paper is concluded with a reflection on the gained knowledge on the influence of the experience gathered from the Iraqi Freedom operation on the processes of technological modernization of the armed forces, and especially air defense that is still based on the technology from the 1960s and 1970s.

The paper indicates and discusses three phenomena identified as the main origins of the mindset responsible for the tragedy of the global commons, namely (1) Cornucopianism, (2) rationality of self-interest and egoism, and (3) the presupposed instrumental value of nature. It is demonstrated that all those theses can be philosophically and ethically dismissed and thus, the wrongful environmental mindset built around them should be rejected. It is further argued that the up-to-date solutions to the tragedy are unsatisfactory. Moreover, the tragedy of the commons can be fully resolved only by rethinking the philosophical constituents of the environmental mindset, rejecting superfluous aspects of it, and construct a new one, which seeds exists already in a form of global citizenship identity.

In the West there seems to be a clear cut-line between the proponents and opponents of abortion. The former tend to justify their choice by calling for consequentialistic arguments, while the latter are, in huge majority, deontologists. The issue of abortion has been long debated in Islam. Those debates however lacked in intensity and rabidity when compared with their Western counterparts. This article is an attempt to compare the two standpoints and point at the reasons of that discrepancy. The paper begins with a description of two Western ethical frameworks: consequentialism and deontology, which then are linked with two contradictory attitudes toward abortion, i.e. utilitarianism based pro-choice and deontological pro-life that perceives abortion as murder.The nature of Islamic ethics, akhlāk, is elucidated in the next part of the paper. The main sources of moral conduct, i.e., the Qur’ān and the Sunnahare presented and the main concepts, including ḥarām(forbidden) or ḥalāl(allowed) are explained.The forth part deals with moral status of terminating the life of a foetus in Islam. There is a reference to the sources of the creed, namely the Qur’ān, the most relevant ḥadīth and fatwas. There are arguments provided for and against abortion, including the one due to social reasons before the 120th day of pregnancy and a total prohibition after this date.The article is concluded with the statement that various ethical approaches to abortion area manifestation of somewhat different ways of moral reasoning between the West and the Islamic world.

The goal of the paper is to establish a diagnosis of the actual situation of how technologies influence our morality and ethics. The preconceptions of the greatest philosophers of technology are, in this respect, rather pessimistic. Technology is a growing power with growing autonomy from humans. As it will be demonstrated it does change what we believe is good and right, and the change does not seem to be a good one. Nobody questions the danger technological development may bring about. Deep philosophical analyses carried out by Martin Heidegger and Jacques Ellul help us understand those processes and give us knowledge for appropriate counteract if needed. Both of them believe that the new, ‘technological’ ethics promotes its own values and diminishes the importance of the old ones. In this context, if nothing should be done, the future generations might have entirely different moral point of view than we do. I think that it is our moral duty to preserve our moral ideals. For if we are truly convinced about the rightness of our ethical mindset we are obliged to promote it and conserve it. Technology favours consequentialism over deontology, moral relativism over moral realism. The only way to secure our values for the future is by addressing this technology determined ethical change in the context of moral realism. Personalism seems to be the most suitable candidate here. This paper however will not provide arguments for that. Its intention is to serve as an expression of the today’s challenges for personalism. The article begins with a thorough explanation of the phenomenon of technology and its development. The next section is dedicated to the examination of autonomy of Technology. Thereafter, I discuss the utopian and dystopian approaches toward the technological development, as well as describe possible dangers stemming from it. The following section focuses on Heidegger’s notion of the essence of technology and his ideas how Technology reduces everything, including human beings, into standing-reserve. Subsequently I try to explain why technologies may be so confusing from the axiological point of view. I end the paper with a formulation of the challenge and a request directed to personalistic moral philosophers to take into account the changes that Technology has introduced. For ethics to be widely accepted must be firmly grounded in reality.