Ethics

This paper is about the modern-day problem of human alienation and fulfillment in work from the perspective of the Catholic social thought. It analyses the symptoms and causes of work alienation, the meaning of work and its significance in the individual’s quest for fulfillment, and how the Catholic social teachings can shed light on the problems involved in transforming the world of work. Alienation in work affects one’s subjective and psychological fulfillment, but it is not ultimately dependent on material culture or economic models. The problem of alienation in work cannot be dealt with by simply modifying the production process or the wage system, although these are factors that alienate people even more. Social problems cannot be solved without light of faith and the recognition of the moral order that is rooted in God. In the final analysis, alienation is not simply the loss of meaning in human activities. It is the loss of life’s meaning and man’s estrangement from his own authentic nature, including his reason for being and final end, that results from the rejection of God and His teachings. What Catholicism provides is a combination of economic, psychological, moral, social, and spiritual motives for work that will make it personally fulfilling.

The thesis that there is a reciprocal relationship between human beings and work—i.e., although man controls work, he may find in it either fulfillment or degradation—has its roots in the Marxist theory of alienation. This paper, therefore, tackles this problem from a Marxist perspective. It examines Marx and Engels’s analysis of the history and causes of human alienation by presenting their views on human nature and how work is related to the individual’s search for meaning and fulfillment. The two—man and work—cannot be separated, for doing so leads to alienated work (production alienation) and alienated worker (self-alienation). Hence, the problem of employee satisfaction has to be dealt with from the perspective of how employees experience their relation to their work.

The growing governance of algorithms and the rapid emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the ‘Internet of Things’, has intensified discussions about the relationship between humans and machines,
and the ethics of everyday life with technologies. It raises questions such as: How should we live with technologies? Can humans still make decisions? The earlier taken for granted authority of humans is
clearly debatable, and sometimes also dismissed, particularly within Actor Network Theory (ANT). In this paper, I look into the basic premises of the ethics of ANT, explore suggested ethical perspectives within ANT such as ‘disclosive’ ethics, and continue by penetrating the relation between agency and ethics, as well as between morality and ethics in ANT. ANT is further discussed as on the one hand a sociological perspective and on the other hand an ethical approach. Based on this analysis I propose the
anthropological perspective of an ‘ethics of the ordinary’ as a possible way to learn from the basic premises of ANT while maintaining a human notion of ethics in a technology‐conflated culture.

This article outlines an analysis of the ethical organization of digital media and social and individual space in everyday life. This is made from a perspective of an 'ethics of the ordinary', highlighting the mundane negotiations and practices conducted to maintain a 'good life' with the media. The analysis shows a sensorial organization of space is conducted in relation to social space, as well as individually. The interviewees use facilities provided by media technologies in order to organize space, as well as organize their media devices spatially in order to construct space for specific purposes, and maintain a good life. These results call for a deepened analysis of the sensorial dimensions of everyday space, in order to understand the ethical struggles of a life with digital media. It is important to include the full spectrum of sensorial experiences in our approach to everyday life and to take the sensorial experiences of ordinary media users into account in our analysis of space as part of an everyday ethics.

This is a revised and expanded version of my response to Gudrun von Tevenar's review of my book, 'Nietzsche's Search for Philosophy: On the Middle Writings', focused on the issue of 'modesty' and whether or not Nietzsche practices in his writing a philosophy of 'modesty'.  I show further in this expanded response just what modesty means in Nietzsche, how it is put to work by him, and why it is so important for a proper appreciation of Nietzsche.

Opening keynote address on the 2019 conference theme of Global Digital Society: Impacts on Humanities and Social Sciences. The topic of disruptive technology and our calling suited the author's background in online education and international faculty development. The author has also worked for the impact to go the other way, from the Humanities and Social Sciences to new technologies, which tend to be rudderless or even dangerous unless guided by ethics and, in education, pedagogy. Thus the presentation encourages interdisciplinarity and outlines the history of e-learning.

El  presente  trabajo  pretende  poner  en  cuestión algunas  interpretaciones  generalizadas  en  torno a  la  ética  de  la  vocación  de  Ortega  y  Gasset.  Así, se  expondrán  aquellos  puntos  de  su  obra  que permitan  una  adecuada  comprensión  del  concepto,  para,  en  primer  lugar,  cuestionar  algunas exégesis  que  se  han  hecho  sobre  su  filosofía;  y con  objeto,  en  segundo  lugar,  de  apoyar  ciertas posturas  en  algunos  debates,  como  la  posibilidad de  la  existencia,  en  el  marco  teórico  orteguiano, de  vocaciones  perversas;  o  la  imposible  equivalencia  entre  autenticidad  y  bondad.

El objetivo de este trabajo es esbozar las bases de un análisis crítico a través de la neuroética y la teoría social que permita señalar las implicaciones que pueden derivarse del uso de neurotecnologías para fomentar el placer en el contexto turístico. Con este propósito, el trabajo revisará los objetivos que proponen las investigaciones neuroturísticas. Para subrayar los riesgos que conllevan tanto para la autonomía de los turistas como para la configuración de los servicios turísticos y la elección de los destinos, se recurrirá a la neuroética. Los trabajos aportados permitirán esbozar una problematización del alcance ético que puede conllevar configurar el turismo en torno a bases emocionales, dada la predisposición «natural» con la que, según estas inves- tigaciones, los sujetos hacemos elecciones en base a patrones emocionales. Se trata de un escenario que, finalmente, será considerado a la luz de las teorías sociales del turismo en un contexto de aceleración social, de modo que puedan vislumbrarse algunos de los riesgos que puede conllevar la utilización de técnicas neuroturísticas para el desarrollo del turismo.

A través de este enfoque pretende sugerirse que, en diálogo con otras disciplinas, la ética, entendida como filosofía moral, puede contribuir a la crítica del desarrollo actual del turismo y, en última instancia, a los debates que giran en torno a la orientación del turismo hacia una actividad responsable con los destinos y servicios turísticos.

Building upon recent work on epistemic varieties of liberalism, avant-garde political agency and the theory and practice of activism, I claim that a liberal defence of more open borders does not presuppose either indifference to the problem of the deep structural sources of poverty in poorer countries, or the absence of an account of those structures’ transformation. Rather, it is claimed that in addition to the remittance of money and other economic goods to alleviate the symptoms of poverty, more open borders facilitate the remittance of norms and values in terms of which individuals and activist communities in poorer countries may transform the deep structures and institutions that are poverty’s sources. This liberal account of more open borders and deep structural transformation also makes possible the non-coercive discharge of obligations of global justice on the part of wealthier states to the world’s poor, when poorer nations are either unable or unwilling to discharge them themselves.

Including the interests of those migrants leave behind in debates about migration and justice is a strategy which theorists who are sceptical of open borders have made use of, most notably in brain drain critiques of emigration. In rejecting this view, and in invoking an epistemic conception of liberalism, I claim that not only can the interests of those left behind be appealed to by defenders of more open borders. For at least two reasons such interests should be included. First, more open borders have a unique role to play in addressing the interests of those left behind via the transformative economic effects of remittances and the state signalling mechanism that migrant and remittance flows provide, both for wealthier states as they dispense foreign aid and for poorer states as they implement national development programmes. Second, more open borders are also compelling for those who are sceptical of immigration insofar as they help them identify the obligations of justice they may owe to the world’s poor and how these are best discharged; obligations whose fulfillment lessens the pressure to migrate from poorer to wealthier states over the long term.

There is growing concern today with the state of ethics in higher education as it relates to everything from increasing corporate influence and widespread use of questionable research methods, to cheating and plagiarism committed by students and faculty alike. Multiple studies, from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, have recently approached the question of academic ethics in the hopes of identifying some of the fundamental problems confronting universities while advancing possible solutions for improving conduct across the academy. This article seeks to contribute to this discussion by analyzing the current state of ethics in higher education through an engagement with the concept of gnosticism - a term that refers most notably today to the modern compulsion to 'fix' an inherently fractured and malformed world. 
Utilizing the work of Del Noce (2017; 2014), Voegelin (1987; 1968), and Rosmini (1988), this article focuses on providing a critique of the current state of the academy in relation to ethics, drawing parallels between the gnostic roots of 20th century totalitarianisms and current progressive ideology endemic to higher education. While primarily serving as a critique of contemporary progressivism in the academy, this article will also argue for the need to reconstruct a transcendental ethics as a response to the current ethical crisis countenanced by modern gnosticism.

How does a lawyer think? Does legal intuition exist? Do lawyers need imagination? Why is legal language so abstract? It is no longer possible to answer these questions by applying philosophical analysis alone. Recent advances in the cognitive sciences have reshaped our conceptions of the human mental faculties and the tools we use to solve problems. A new picture of the functioning of the legal mind is emerging. In The Legal Mind, Bartosz Brożek uses philosophical arguments and insight from the cognitive sciences to depict legal thinking as a close cooperation between three cognitive mechanisms - intuition, imagination, and language - and addresses the question of how to efficiently use these mental tools. This novel and provocative approach provides a fresh perspective on legal thinking and gives rise to important questions pertaining to the limits of legal interpretation and rationality in the law.