Koji Tachibana Abstract Some skeptics question the very possibility of moral bioenhancement by arguing that if we lack a widely acceptable notion of morality, we will not be able to accept the use of a biotechnological technique as a tool for moral bioenhancement. I will examine this skepticism and argue that the assessment of … [Read more…]
Marcello Ienca Abstract Machine ethics is the branch of ethics concerned with the behavior of artificially intelligent systems. Cyborg ethics is the related field of investigation concerned with the ethics of human-machine hybrid systems. While these areas of ethical investigation are experiencing rapid growth urged by disruptive advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and human-machine … [Read more…]
Mihail-Valentin Cernea Abstract This paper is concerned with evaluating the arguments given to support the prohibition of autonomous weapon systems (AWS). I begin by offering a definition of autonomous weapons systems, focusing on the kind of autonomy involved by this type of combat robots. I continue by exploring Ronald Arkin’s main arguments for ethical … [Read more…]
Radu Uszkai Abstract The moral analysis of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) has been dominated in the past couple of decades by American and Anglo-Saxon academic literature. As a result, great weight has been given to either utilitarian or Lockean natural rights justifications for copyrights and patents. The purpose of my article is that of … [Read more…]
Shunzo Majima Abstract The purpose of this article is to examine the moral (im)permissibility of terrorism and suicide attacks from the perspective of war ethics. On the one hand, terrorism in general is hardly morally justifiable, but it could be permissible – theoretically at least – under exceptional circumstances where a specific set of … [Read more…]
Stephen Hudson Abstract This essay uses the “capability approach” to evaluate emerging technologies. It argues that the proper application of the capability approach can deflate misguided moral intuitions and ensure the ethical use of key emerging technologies. First, an outline is given of the ways in which the capability approach can be uniquely helpful … [Read more…]
Toni Gibea Abstract Three million Romanians signed a petition to organize a referendum in order to specify in the Constitution that a family should be formed only through the consensual marriage between a wife and a husband, not two spouses, as the Constitution states at this moment. This fuelled in the media an intense … [Read more…]
Constantin Stoenescu Abstract Although John St. Mill seems to be a philosopher easy to be classified in the history of philosophy as an empiricist who has overstated the epistemological role of induction, if we take into account his metaphysical commitments then we’ll find an unexpected approach which has to be explained. I think that … [Read more…]
Alejandro Tomasini Bassols Abstract In this essay I argue that in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Wittgenstein was perfectly coherent with his conception of philosophy and, accordingly, that no philosophical theory is to be found in the book. I apply this methodological principle to the so-called ‘ontological’ sections of the text and try to show that … [Read more…]
Emanuel Copilaș Abstract This article explores Nietzsche and Hegel’s philosophies of history, aiming to defend the latter from the powerful and challenging critiques of the first. It does so by analyzing the strengths and also the weaknesses of both positions, and concludes that Nietzsche’s rebuke of Hegelianism is, despite some interesting and fertile insights, … [Read more…]