- Table View
- List View
Human Development and Global Institutions: Evolution, Impact, Reform (Global Institutions)
by Arunabha Ghosh Richard PonzioThis book provides a timely and accessible introduction to the foundational ideas associated with the human development school of thought. It examines its conceptual evolution during the post-colonial era, and discusses how various institutions of the UN system have tried to engage with this issue, both in terms of intellectual and technical advance, and operationally. Showing that human development has had a profound impact on shaping the policy agenda and programming priorities of global institutions, it argues that human development has helped to preserve the continued vitality of major multilateral development programs, funds, and agencies. It also details how human development faces new risks and threats, caused by political, economic, social, and environmental forces which are highlighted in a series of engaging case studies on trade, water, energy, the environment, democracy, human rights, and peacebuilding. The book also makes the case for why human development remains relevant in an increasingly globalized world, while asking whether global institutions will be able to sustain political and moral support from their member states and powerful non-state actors. It argues that fresh new perspectives on human development are now urgently needed to fill critical gaps across borders and entire regions. A positive, forward-looking agenda for the future of global governance would have to engage with new issues such as the Sustainable Development Goals, energy transitions, resource scarcity, and expansion of democratic governance within and between nations. Redefining the overall nature and specific characteristics of what constitutes human progress in an increasingly integrated and interdependent world, this book serves as a primer for scholars and graduate students of international relations and development. It is also relevant to scholars of economics, political science, history, sociology, and women’s studies.
Human Development and Human Life
by Michael SloteThis book begins with a discussion of the human life cycle and then uses that discussion and other ideas to paint a general picture of what human lives are like. While the first part looks at human development and change, the second part of the book explores what all human lives are like. Philosophical ideas and methods are central to this book, although it is difficult to subcategorize it into any familiar subdiscipline of philosophy. It draws on modern concepts from psychology and social science in order to portray an image of human life and lives and to enable readers to easily understand the notion of human development in a very specific and directed way. Although cognitive development and the development of motor skills are two examples of forms of human development, this book homes in on a particular, and arguably more synoptic, way of seeing our development, which is in relation to and occurs within the human life cycle. This book is an enlightening read for a broad range of philosophy scholars, articulating and defending a view that is neither as pessimistic nor as optimistic about human life as previous views have been.
Human Development and the Catholic Social Tradition: Towards an Integral Ecology (Routledge Research in Religion and Development)
by Séverine DeneulinThis book brings development theory and practice into dialogue with a religious tradition in order to construct a new, transdisciplinary vision of development with integral ecology at its heart. It focuses on the Catholic social tradition and its conception of integral human development, on the one hand, and on the works of economist and philosopher Amartya Sen which underpin the human development approach, on the other. The book discusses how these two perspectives can mutually enrich each other around three areas: their views on the concept and meaning of development and progress; their understanding of what it is to be human – that is, their anthropological vision; and their analysis of transformational pathways for addressing social and environmental degradation. It also examines how both human development and the Catholic social tradition can function as complementary analytical lenses and mobilizing frames for embarking on the journey of structural and personal transformation to bring all life systems, human and non-human, back into balance. This book is written for researchers and students in development studies, theology, and religious studies, as well as professional audiences in development organizations.
Human Dignity
by Aharon BarakHuman dignity is now a central feature of many modern constitutions and international documents. As a constitutional value, human dignity involves a person's free will, autonomy, and ability to write a life story within the framework of society. As a constitutional right, it gives full expression to the value of human dignity, subject to the specific demands of constitutional architecture. This analytical study of human dignity as both a constitutional value and a constitutional right adopts a legal-interpretive perspective. It explores the sources of human dignity as a legal concept, its role in constitutional documents, its content, and its scope. The analysis is augmented by examples from comparative legal experience, including chapters devoted to the role of human dignity in American, Canadian, German, South African, and Israeli constitutional law.
Human Dignity
by George KatebWe often speak of the dignity owed to a person. And dignity is a word that regularly appears in political speeches. Charters are promulgated in its name, and appeals to it are made when people all over the world struggle to achieve their rights. But what exactly is dignity? When one person physically assaults another, we feel the wrong demands immediate condemnation and legal sanction. Whereas when one person humiliates or thoughtlessly makes use of another, we recognize the wrong and hope for a remedy, but the social response is less clear. The injury itself may be hard to quantify. Given our concern with human dignity, it is odd that it has received comparatively little scrutiny. Here, George Kateb asks what human dignity is and why it matters for the claim to rights. He proposes that dignity is an “existential” value that pertains to the identity of a person as a human being. To injure or even to try to efface someone’s dignity is to treat that person as not human or less than human—as a thing or instrument or subhuman creature. Kateb does not limit the notion of dignity to individuals but extends it to the human species. The dignity of the human species rests on our uniqueness among all other species. In the book’s concluding section, he argues that despite the ravages we have inflicted on it, nature would be worse off without humanity. The supremely fitting task of humanity can be seen as a “stewardship” of nature. This secular defense of human dignity—the first book-length attempt of its kind—crowns the career of a distinguished political thinker.
Human Dignity and Law: Legal and Philosophical Investigations
by Stephen RileyThis book argues that human dignity and law stand in a privileged relationship with one another. Law must be understood as limited by the demands made by human dignity. Conversely, human dignity cannot be properly understood without clarifying its interaction with legal institutions and legal practices. This is not, then, a survey of the uses of human dignity in law; it is a rethinking of human dignity in relation to our principles of social governance. The result is a revisionist account of human dignity and law, one focused less on the use of human dignity in our regulations and more on its constitutive implications for the governance of the public realm.The first part conducts a wide-ranging moral, legal and political analysis of the nature and functions of human dignity. The second part applies that analysis to three fields of legal regulation: international law, transnational law, and domestic public law.The book will appeal to scholars in both philosophy and law. It will also be of interest to political theorists, particularly those working within the liberal tradition or those concerned with institutional design.
Human Dignity and Political Criticism
by Colin BirdMany, including Marx, Rawls, and the contemporary 'Black Lives Matter' movement, embrace the ambition to secure terms of co-existence in which the worth of people's lives becomes a lived reality rather than an empty boast. This book asks whether, as some believe, the philosophical idea of human dignity can help achieve that ambition. Offering a new fourfold typology of dignity concepts, Colin Bird argues that human dignity can perform this role only if certain traditional ways of conceiving it are abandoned. Accordingly, Bird rejects the idea that human dignity refers to the inherent worth or status of individuals, and instead reinterprets it as a social relation, constituted by affects of respect and the modes of mutual attention which they generate. What emerges is a new vision of human dignity as a vital political value, and an arresting vindication of its role as an agent of critical reflection on politics.
Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends: Kantian Perspectives and Practical Applications (Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy)
by Adam Cureton Jan-Willem van der RijtThis book advances our understanding of the nature, grounds and limits of human dignity by connecting it with Kant’s notion of an ideal moral community, or "Kingdom of Ends". It features original essays by leading Kant scholars and moral and political philosophers from around the world. Although Kant’s influential injunction to treat humanity as an end in itself and never merely as a means has garnered the most attention among those interested in analyzing human dignity with a Kantian lens, Kant himself places much more emphasis on the Kingdom of Ends as crucial for defining human dignity. The chapters in this collection focus not only on interpretive issues related to the Kingdom of Ends but also on practical applications that have the potential to advance discussions about the nature and foundations of rights, the content of moral principles, the importance of moral ideals and attitudes and the nature of moral motivation. Exploring and connecting the ideas of human dignity and the Kingdom of Ends significantly deepens our moral understanding, advances discussions in moral and political philosophy and enhances our appreciation of Kant’s moral theory. Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends: Kantian Perspectives and Practical Applications will appeal to scholars and advanced students of Kant, moral philosophy, political philosophy, and political theory.
Human Dignity and the Law: A Personalist Theory (Routledge Research in Legal Philosophy)
by Michał RupniewskiThis book reassesses the relationship between human dignity, law, and specifically the ‘personalist’ school of agency. The work argues that a specific way of appreciating dignity is contained in how law understands the person, and so can be used to improve upon how we explain and interpret the law. Despite considerable differences between jurisdictions as regards human dignity in application, it is argued that the particular weight of human persons is the widely shared focal point. The central claim, therefore, is that the law recognises, and tries to foster, the status of personhood, and, drawing on the work of Karol Wojtyła, the author develops a ‘Status of Personhood Theory’. The book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of Legal Philosophy, Jurisprudence, Philosophy, Ethics and Political Theory.
Human Dignity in African Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (SpringerBriefs in Philosophy)
by Motsamai MolefeThis book throws a spotlight on the under-explored African perspective on the mercurial concept of human dignity. To do so, it employs two strategies. In the first instance, it considers African theories of human dignity: (1) vitality; (2) community; (3) Personhood. Secondly, it explores the plausibility of these theories by applying them to select applied ethics themes, specifically: animal ethics, disability ethics and euthanasia. The aim of this book is not to argue for the plausibility of these African theories, but to familiarize the global audience of philosophy, ethics and related disciplines (legal studies, sociology, bioethics and so on) with a neglected African perspective on this vital concept. The books is aimed at scholars of philosophy interested in non-European and specifically African perspective.
Human Dignity in Bioethics: From Worldviews to the Public Square (Routledge Annals of Bioethics)
by Stephen Dilley Nathan J. PalpantHuman Dignity in Bioethics brings together a collection of essays that rigorously examine the concept of human dignity from its metaphysical foundations to its polemical deployment in bioethical controversies. The volume falls into three parts, beginning with meta-level perspectives and moving to concrete applications. Part 1 analyzes human dignity through a worldview lens, exploring the source and meaning of human dignity from naturalist, postmodernist, Protestant, and Catholic vantages, respectively, letting each side explain and defend its own conception. Part 2 moves from metaphysical moorings to key areas of macro-level influence: international politics, American law, and biological science. These chapters examine the legitimacy of the concept of dignity in documents by international political bodies, the role of dignity in American jurisprudence, and the implications—and challenges—for dignity posed by Darwinism. Part 3 shifts from macro-level topics to concrete applications by examining the rhetoric of human dignity in specific controversies: embryonic stem cell research, abortion, human-animal chimeras, euthanasia and palliative care, psychotropic drugs, and assisted reproductive technologies. Each chapter analyzes the rhetorical use of ‘human dignity’ by opposing camps, assessing the utility of the concept and whether a different concept or approach can be a more productive means of framing or guiding the debate.
Human Dignity in Classical Chinese Philosophy
by Qianfan ZhangThis book reinterprets classical Chinese philosophical tradition along the conceptual line of human dignity. Through extensive textual evidence, it illustrates that classical Confucianism, Mohism and Daoism contained rich notions of dignity, which laid the foundation for human rights and political liberty in China, even though, historically, liberal democracy failed to grow out of the authoritarian soil in China. The book critically examines the causes that might have prevented the classical schools from developing a liberal tradition, while affirming their positive contributions to the human dignity concept. Analysing the inadequacies of the western concept of human dignity, the text covers relevant teachings of Kongzi, Mengzi, Xunzi, Mozi, Laozi and Zhuangzi (in comparison with Rousseau). While the Confucian notions of humanity (Ren), righteousness (Yi), and gentleman (Junzi) bear most directly on the conception of dignity, Mohism and Daoism provide salutary corrections to the ossification of the orthodox Confucian practice (Li).
Human Dignity in an African Context
by Motsamai Molefe Christopher AllsobrookThis book is a contribution to African philosophy, by philosophers focusing specifically on the concept of human dignity in ethical theory. The concept of ‘human dignity’ denotes the intrinsic and superlative worth associated with human beings in virtue of which we owe them utmost moral regard. Although dignity is a foundational concept for African philosophy, there remains scant literature in African philosophy dedicated to critical and systematic reflection on the concept of human dignity. This volume responds to this lacuna by bringing together chapters that offer philosophical exposition, defense (or even rejection) and application of the concept of human dignity in light of intellectual resources in African cultures, such as ubuntu, personhood, and serithi.
Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Responsibility: The New Language of Global Bioethics and Biolaw (Basic Bioethics)
by Yechiel Michael BarilanA novel and multidisciplinary exposition and theorization of human dignity and rights, brought to bear on current issues in bioethics and biolaw.“Human dignity” has been enshrined in international agreements and national constitutions as a fundamental human right. The World Medical Association calls on physicians to respect human dignity and to discharge their duties with dignity. And yet human dignity is a term—like love, hope, and justice—that is intuitively grasped but never clearly defined. Some ethicists and bioethicists dismiss it; other thinkers point to its use in the service of particular ideologies. In this book, Michael Barilan offers an urgently needed, nonideological, and thorough conceptual clarification of human dignity and human rights, relating these ideas to current issues in ethics, law, and bioethics.Combining social history, history of ideas, moral theology, applied ethics, and political theory, Barilan tells the story of human dignity as a background moral ethos to human rights. After setting the problem in its scholarly context, he offers a hermeneutics of the formative texts on Imago Dei; provides a philosophical explication of the value of human dignity and of vulnerability; presents a comprehensive theory of human rights from a natural, humanist perspective; explores issues of moral status; and examines the value of responsibility as a link between virtue ethics and human dignity and rights.Barilan accompanies his theoretical claim with numerous practical illustrations, linking his theory to such issues in bioethics as end-of-life care, cloning, abortion, torture, treatment of the mentally incapacitated, the right to health care, the human organ market, disability and notions of difference, and privacy, highlighting many relevant legal aspects in constitutional and humanitarian law.
Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Social Justice: A Chinese Interdisciplinary Dialogue with Global Perspective
by Pauline Kollontai Sebastian Kim Zhibin XieThis book explores human dignity, human rights and social justice based on a Chinese interdisciplinary dialogue and global perspectives. In the Chinese and other global contexts today, social justice has been a significant topic among many disciplines and we believe it is an appropriate topic for philosophers, theologians, legal scholars, and social scientists to sit together, discuss, enrich each other, and then deepen our understanding of the topic. Many of them are concerned with the conjuncture between social justice, human rights, and human dignity. The questions this volume asks are: what’s the place of human rights in social justice? How is human dignity important in the discourse on human rights? And, through these inquiries, we ask further: how is possible to achieve humanist justice? This volume presents the significance, challenges, and constraints of human dignity in human rights and social justice and addresses the questions through philosophical, theological, sociological, political, and legal perspectives and these are placed in dialogue between the Chinese and other global settings. We are concerned with the norms regarding human dignity, human rights and social justice while we take seriously into account their practice. This volume consists of two main sections. The first section examines Chinese perspectives on human rights and social justice, in which both from Confucianism and Christianity are considered and the issues such as patriotism, religious freedom, petition, social protest, the rights of marginalized people, and sexual violence are studied. The second section presents the perspectives of Christian public theologians in the global contexts. They examine the influence of Christian thought and practice in the issues of human rights and social justice descriptively and prescriptively and address issues such as religious laws and rights, diaconia, majoritarianism, general equality, social-economic disparities, and climate justice from global perspectives including in the contexts of America, Australia, Israel and Europe. With contributions by experts from mainland China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, USA and Norway, the book provides valuable cross-cultural and interdisciplinary insights and perspectives. As such it will appeal to political and religious leaders and practitioners, particularly those working in socially engaged religious and civil organizations in various geopolitical contexts, including the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Human Emergence and Our Place in the Natural World
by David SprintzenThis book challenges the prevailing, though often unacknowledged, view among most practicing scientists and philosophers that human free will is incompatible with the natural causality that is the basic presupposition of modern science. That position is essentially based on the reductionist view of modern physics that all complex phenomena are thought to be ultimately causally explainable solely as a function of the action of their elemental constituents. The book argues that this mainstream opinion is the appropriate logical result of an inadequate conception of the way nature works. To show this the book first details the fundamental philosophical incoherence in the prevailing scientific world view. It then justifies the critique by outlining and re-describing some key findings of modern science, and presents three related alternative aspects by which we can understand the occurrence of natural emergence. In so doing it is suggested that emergence is a pervasive phenomenon in the natural world, and that human free will is an entirely understandable development of these natural processes, when properly understood, in which humanity is appropriately seen as a natural emergent within the evolutionary processes operating in accord with natural selection. Human Emergence and Our Place in the Natural World is essential reading for all philosophers of metaphysics and of science.
Human Empire: Mobility and Demographic Thought in the British Atlantic World, 1500–1800 (Ideas in Context)
by Ted McCormickArguing that demographic thought begins not with quantification but in attempts to control the qualities of people, Human Empire traces two transformations spanning the early modern period. First was the emergence of population as an object of governance through a series of engagements in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, Ireland, and colonial North America, influenced by humanist policy, reason of state, and natural philosophy, and culminating in the creation of political arithmetic. Second was the debate during the long eighteenth century over the locus and limits of demographic agency, as church, civil society, and private projects sought to mobilize and manipulate different marginalized and racialized groups – and as American colonists offered their own visions of imperial demography. This innovative, engaging study examines the emergence of population as an object of knowledge and governance and connects the history of demographic ideas with their early modern intellectual, political, and colonial contexts.
Human Enhancement and Well-Being: A Case for Optimism (Routledge Research in Applied Ethics)
by Emma C. GordonNew technologies and medicines make it increasingly possible to enhance human functioning in new ways: to become smarter, more emotionally attuned, and perhaps even morally better. But just because we can use the latest science to improve ourselves, should we? This book has two main aims. First, it outlines and criticises the six main contemporary arguments for scepticism about the role of human enhancements in promoting well-being. These arguments concern, respectively, (i) the value of achievements, (ii) freedom, (iii) hyperagency, (iv) human nature, (v) authenticity, and (vi) inequality. It will be shown – for the first time in a book-length treatment – why the overarching bioconservative case against enhancement doesn’t hold water. The second central aim of the book is positive; as we’ll see, each of the bioconservative critiques considered and rejected will be shown to nonetheless motivate a distinctive kind of theoretical desideratum that a viable positive enhancement proposal should satisfy. The remainder of the book then defends a two-part enhancement proposal that will be shown to clearly satisfy the theoretical desiderata that emerged from reflecting on the earlier critique of bioconservativism. The first part of the positive proposal motivates and outlines the general role of an enhancement counsellor in facilitating voluntary enhancement; I then offer an applied case study of this role in the special case of enhancement for the purpose of facilitating romantic and parental relationships. Human Enhancement and Well-Being: A Case for Optimism will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in applied ethics, bioethics, philosophy of technology, philosophy of well-being, and social epistemology.
Human Enhancements for Space Missions: Lunar, Martian, and Future Missions to the Outer Planets (Space and Society)
by Konrad SzocikThis book presents a collection of chapters, which address various contexts and challenges of the idea of human enhancement for the purposes of human space missions. The authors discuss pros and cons of mostly biological enhancement of human astronauts operating in hostile space environments, but also ethical and theological aspects are addressed. In contrast to the idea and program of human enhancement on Earth, human enhancement in space is considered a serious and necessary option. This book aims at scholars in the following fields: ethics and philosophy, space policy, public policy, as well as biologists and psychologists.
Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation (Routledge Studies in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine)
by Émile P. TorresThis volume traces the origins and evolution of the idea of human extinction, from the ancient Presocratics through contemporary work on "existential risks." Many leading intellectuals agree that the risk of human extinction this century may be higher than at any point in our 300,000-year history as a species. This book provides insight on the key questions that inform this discussion, including when humans began to worry about their own extinction and how the debate has changed over time. It establishes a new theoretical foundation for thinking about the ethics of our extinction, arguing that extinction would be very bad under most circumstances, although the outcome might be, on balance, good. Throughout the book, graphs, tables, and images further illustrate how human choices and attitudes about extinction have evolved in Western history. In its thorough examination of humanity’s past, this book also provides a starting point for understanding our future. Although accessible enough to be read by undergraduates, Human Extinction contains new and thought-provoking research that will benefit even established academic philosophers and historians.
Human Factors in Privacy Research
by Nina Gerber Alina Stöver Karola MarkyThis book covers topics needed to be considered in research around usable privacy. The book starts from a psychological perspective and introduces readers to basic behavioral theories and models that can explain end-user privacy behavior (including the “privacy paradox”) on a theoretical level. Subsequently, an introduction to different study methods (e.g., experiment, survey, interviews, co-creation) used in usable privacy research is given. Based on this, different methodological aspects, such as identifying appropriate questionnaires, and applying User-Centered Design, will be discussed. Finally, the book describes application areas for privacy research such as dark patterns and presents solutions for privacy protection, e.g., regarding consent-giving and PETs. The book aims to bring together the different research approaches to the topic of usable privacy, which often originate from computer science, psychology, and law, and provide a methodologically sound basis for researchers who want to delve deeper into this topic.This is an open access book.
Human Flourishing, Spiritual Awakening and Cultural Renewal: Personal and Communal Challenges
by Francisco Díaz Estrada Catalina Elena Dobre Rafael García PavónThis book seeks to generate a theoretical and a reflective framework to re-connect people with culture and spirituality. It seeks to recreate important links between these domains to provide interpretative, foundational, and ethical perspectives. It is distinctive in that it focusses on the challenges that humanity is facing at a cultural, social, moral, and spiritual level. It provides a philosophical understanding of humanity from a humanistic and multidisciplinary perspective (encompassing ethics, language, art/cinema, political, cultural and gender approaches) and offers a variety of ways of how we can rethink our culture and our society for the future.
Human Flourishing: A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Neuroscience, Health, Organizations and Arts
by Marc Grau Grau Yasin Rofcanin Mireia Las HerasThis open access book presents a novel multidisciplinary perspective on the importance of human flourishing. The study of the good life or Eudaimonia has been a central concern at least since Aristotelian times. This responds to the common experience that we all seek happiness. Today, we are immersed in a new paradoxical boom, where the pursuit of happiness seems to permeate everything (books, media, organizations, talks), but at the same time, it is nowhere, or at least very difficult to achieve. In fact, it is not easy to even find a consensus regarding the meaning of the word happiness. Seligman (2011), one of the fathers of the positive psychology, confirmed that his original view the meaning he referred to was close to that of Aristotle. But, he recently confessed that he now detests the word happiness, since it is overused and has become almost meaningless. The aim of this open access book is to shed new light on human flourishing through the lenses of neurosciences and health, organizations, and arts. The novelty of this book is to offer a multi-disciplinary perspective on the importance of human flourishing in our lives. The book will examine further how different initiatives, policies and practices create opportunities for generating human flourishing.
Human Foundations of Management: Understanding the Homo Humanus
by Domènec Melè Cèsar González CantónHuman Foundations of Management explores the human foundation of management and economic activity in a way that is accessible to readers. The structure and contents of this book examines those aspects of the human being which are relevant to management and economic activities.
Human Freedom in the Age of AI (Routledge Research in Applied Ethics)
by Filippo Santoni de SioThis book claims that artificial intelligence (AI) may affect our freedom at work, in our daily life, and in the political sphere. The author provides a philosophical framework to help make sense of and govern the ethical and political impact of AI in these domains. AI presents great opportunities and risks, raising the question of how to reap its potential benefits without endangering basic human and societal values. The author identifies three major risks for human freedom. First, AI offers employers new forms of control of the workforce, opening the door to new forms of domination and exploitation. Second, it may reduce our capacity to remain in control of and responsible for our decisions and actions, thereby affecting our free will and moral responsibility. Third, it may increase the power of governments and tech companies to steer the political debate, thereby affecting the possibility of a free and inclusive political participation. The author claims that it is still possible to promote human freedom in our interactions with AI. This requires designing AI systems that help promote workers’ freedom, strengthen human control and responsibility, and foster a free, active, and inclusive democratic participation.Human Freedom in the Age of AI will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working on the ethics of technology, philosophy of technology, political philosophy, design, and artificial intelligence.