Individual Human Beings Research Articles

A Defense of Aristotelian Justice

Aristotle’s account of the virtue of justice has been regarded as one of the least successful aspects of his ethics. Among the most serious criticisms lodged against his views are (i) that he fails to identify the proper subject matter of justice (LeBar 2020), (ii) that he wrongly identifies the characteristic motives relevant for justice and injustice (Williams 1980), and (iii) that his account is parochial, i.e., that it fails to correctly recognize or characterize our obligations of justice to those outside our community (Annas 1995; Curzer 2012). Indeed, Mark LeBar has recently argued that, although Aristotle’s eudaimonist framework remains the most promising metaethical strategy to ground justice as a virtue of individual human beings, the normative content of his theory is so flawed that neo-Aristotelians ought to adopt a Kantian theory of justice that centers on according respect to persons (LeBar 2020). My aim in this paper is to defend Aristotle’s views from these criticisms in order to show that it holds promise as an account of justice as a virtue. Notably, neo-Aristotelians have generally neglected the topic of justice, despite its centrality to Aristotle’s ethics and to our own social lives. I argue that they ought to take Aristotle’s account seriously as a starting point for their own theorizing, while recognizing that it needs modification on some points.

Preparation and performance study of sodium alginate/bamboo fiber/gelatin ionic conductive self-healing hydrogel

This study has been successfully developed the Sodium alginate/Bamboo fiber /Gelatin（SA/BF/Gel）composite conductive hydrogel with adhesive and self-healing properties. Through in-depth research, the influence of Gel content on the tensile, adhesive, self-healing properties, and conductivity of the SA/BF/Gel composite conductive hydrogel was discussed. The sensing performance and sensing mechanism of the material were also investigated, along with a preliminary exploration of its potential applications. An attempt was made to apply the SA/BF/Gel composite conductive hydrogel to 3D printing technology, establishing a connection between the rheological properties of the hydrogel and its printing structure. The addition of Gel significantly improved the flexibility of the hydrogel, with a conductivity of up to 3.12 S/m at a Gel content of 1.5 %. When employed as a sensor, the material exhibited high sensitivity (GF = 2.21) and excellent cyclic stability, rendering it suitable for a wide range of applications in real-time monitoring of bending movements of fingers and wrists, as well as dynamic contact and variations in contact forces on the hydrogel surface. The SA/BF/Gel composite conductive hydrogel has the potential to be utilized in a multitude of applications, including the development of smart wearable devices, the monitoring of individual human beings, and the integration of human beings and machines. Furthermore, the research findings associated with this hydrogel will provide a strong foundation for the advancement of materials science and the integration of smart technologies.

소파 방정환의 아동 교육 연구

Objectives The purpose of this study is to examine the basic structure of Donghak thought that influenced the theories of childhood education and how childhood education was formed in Donghak thought. In particular, it will consider and comprehensively shed light on Bang Jung-hwan's childhood education, which was influenced by Cheondogyo. Therefore, the aim is to reveal the educational significance of Bang Jung-hwan's theories of childhood education. Methods As a method of literature analysis, each Donghak scripture and collection of works, Bang Jeong-hwan's books and academic literature were analyzed, and the research content on Bang Jeong-hwan's children's education was specified through other Bang Jeong-hwan-related fairy tales, children's songs, magazines, and newspapers. Results Regarding educational content theory, he believed that any content helpful to children's growth and development was sufficient and emphasized three areas of art: children's stories, children's songs, and drawings. With respect to educational methodology, he did not unilaterally plant the educator's ideas but maintained the principle that the educator should only play a role in helping the educatees grow. In terms of educational history, the biggest difference between traditional education and new education is determined by whether the target of education is an adult or a child. Conclusions Our traditional view of the children was that they were passive beings who were subject to instruction or enlightenment from the older generations represented as teachers or pioneers rather than viewing children as independent individual human beings. However, Bang Jung-hwan understood children as beings with independence, autonomy, and potential. He believed that the world of children is independent of the world of adults and that they have the potential to build a new and better world on their own as long as there is no interference or interruption from adults.

Organization philosophy: a study of organizational goodness in the age of human and artificial intelligence collaboration

AbstractThis study challenges the conventional boundaries of philosophy by asserting that organizations can function as legitimate subjects within philosophical discourse. Western philosophy, epitomized by Descartes, has long assumed that individual human beings are the fundamental units of thought and moral agency. However, in a significant oversight, this belief overlooks the idea that organizations can think independently, leading to both virtuous and malevolent results. Epistemology lacks a clear prioritization of morally sound knowledge over potentially harmful knowledge. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has also transformed the landscape of cognition from a primarily individual human endeavor into a joint undertaking where humans collaborate with AI entities in collective thinking and decision-making. Nevertheless, AI lacks the innate ability to discern between ethical and unethical actions. This symbiosis creates organizations as fundamental philosophical subjects, marking a significant shift in philosophical emphasis where the organization takes the center stage. Accordingly, within this emerging field, we advance four propositions as the core subjects of organization philosophy: organizations can think, organizations can create knowledge, AI can be part of an organization, and humans in the organization control moral discipline. These propositions guide the ethical coexistence of AI and human agents in organizations, emphasizing the importance of ethical deliberation in knowledge use. Moreover, the malicious use of profound knowledge hinders human progress, as illustrated in this study by an ethical examination of military institutions within organization philosophy.

AI and the future of IR: Disentangling flesh-and-blood, institutional, and synthetic moral agency in world politics

AbstractIntelligent machines – from automated robots to algorithmic systems – can create images and poetry, steer our preferences, aid decision making, and kill. Our perception of their capacities, relative autonomy, and moral status will profoundly affect not only how we interpret and address practical problems in world politics over the next 50 years but also how we prescribe and evaluate individual and state responses. In this article, I argue that we must analyse this emerging synthetic agency in order to effectively navigate – and theorise – the future of world politics. I begin by outlining the ways that agency has been under-theorised within the discipline of International Relations (IR) and suggest that artificial intelligence (AI) disrupts prevailing conceptions. I then examine how individual human beings and formal organisations – purposive actors with which IR is already familiar – qualify as moral agents, or bearers of duties, and explore what criteria intelligent machines would need to meet to also qualify. After demonstrating that synthetic agents currently lack the ‘reflexive autonomy’ required for moral agency, I turn to the context of war to illustrate how insights drawn from this comparative analysis counter our tendency to elide different manifestations of moral agency in ways that erode crucial notions of responsibility in world politics.

Authentic Commas Made by Audacious Women

Abstract: This study delves into the courageous commas women continue to make every day in their day to day life on this planet. Over time, women have raised their voices, leading to mass movements and protests. In modern times, women have achieved legal, political, civil, social, economic, and cultural rights. The Indian Constitution guarantees fundamental rights to all citizens, emphasizing equality. However, women in India still encounter discrimination, injustice, and dishonour. Education plays a crucial role in addressing inequalities and promoting respect for individual human beings. There are remarkable courageous stories exhibited by women who have made a significant impact in various fields. Here are some inspiring women who have left their indelible mark on our country through struggles and traumas and still made viable to create a new society through the help of the legislations.

Speed, human reality, and the ribovirocell of human existence in the COVID19 and post-COVID19 space-time

In this follow up paper, the ribovirocell concept from the first part of the study is linked to the ontological realm of human reality before, during and in the aftermath of COVID19. During this fluid space-time, human reality is multi-faceted and often very complicated. The authors present a division of the reality into fundamental reality and situational reality. Fundamental reality is based on the (physical) laws of nature such as the speed of light as a fundamental physical constant. This reality spans beyond the course of time as perceived by humans, which is beyond the duration of a single or multiple human lifespans and beyond the duration of the COIVD19 pandemic. Next to fundamental reality and overlapping with it, exists the situational reality, which humans experience directly themselves during their lifetime(s). Actions of humanity and of individual human beings contribute to the shaping of the situational reality. Examples of the situational reality can be e.g. experiencing atrocities that humanity has committed, humanity’s actions to prevent such atrocities in the future, as well as human progress in eliminating poverty/inequality in the world. At least, some aspects of human lives take place at the boundary between the fundamental and situational reality. The COVID19 pandemic is linked to the concepts and the boundary between the fundamental and situational reality that human’s experiences, such as speed of pandemic impact and shifting nature of reality. The ribovirocell state of one’s self is linked to the way to apply the speed as a threshold concept for resilience in the coronavirus space-time and the post-COVID19 world.

Совмещение несовместимого или вопрос о синергии образовательных стратегий

Introduction. The main idea of the article is that every established educational strategy combines the incompatible, generating economocentrism, political centrism, technocentrism, ecocentrism and other “centrisms” that lead to a reductivist approach to the meaning and forms of education. Theoretical analysis. Education as a socioanthropological institution is relatively autonomous, and the idea of autopoiesis of the human being is what lies at the foundation of its autonomy. In this context, philosophy of education appears as a philosophy of its age, or, even broader, a philosophy of human beings who are able not only to integrate themselves into the civilizational design of the epoch with its cultural and historical standards, and professional needs, but also to transcend their epoch in search for themselves / their own. Empirical analysis. The inalienable mission of education consists in creating a social field for spiritual maturation and self-perfection for individual human beings. Education acquires its completeness and dignity only when it reaches the level of navigating a person towards development, “the care of the self”. Conclusion. Education thus becomes a form of development of a civil society, able to self-organize and self-develop, to create (cultivating meanings and institutions), which is not reducible to a social “conveyor-factory” for producing semi-finished products according to the standards of political, professional or sociocultural institutions.

Reaching for Immortality: Can Science Cheat Death? A Christian Response to Transhumanism

REACHING FOR IMMORTALITY: Can Science Cheat Death? A Christian Response to Transhumanism by Sandra J. Godde. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2022. 98 pages. Paperback; $18.00. ISBN: 9781666736748. *This short book considers what it means to live in a world in which transhumanism has taken root. Written from a Christian perspective primarily for a general Christian audience, it is nonetheless also for others who, the author hopes, will be "inspired by the invitation of Christ to find true and everlasting life in him" (p. xiv). *Exploring the importance of embodiment (especially from a biblical perspective), the nature of personhood in the technological future, as well as the convergences and divergences between transhumanist and Christian visions, Sandra J. Godde--an artist and lecturer in Christian Studies at Christian Heritage College in Brisbane--takes up the following guiding questions: "Will cybernetic immortality ever trump the Christian hope of resurrection from the dead and the life of the world to come?," and "Is [transhumanism] desirable for human flourishing, or consistent with faith in biblical redemption?" The overall objective, here, is "to resource Christians to think deeply and respond to the transhumanist agenda regarding death and immortality" (p. 6) as advances in technology continue to form us as human beings (pp. 18-19). *The author begins with a quick and very general overview of transhumanism, summarized as "man improving himself by merging with technology" (p. 2). Godde pays particular attention to technological immortality and to the larger question of what, exactly, we ultimately desire for ourselves as individual human beings and, collectively, as a species. *In the first chapter, Godde speaks to how transhumanist ideas have infiltrated popular culture, "endowing technology with a religious-like significance bordering on worship" (p. 8). As cases in point, the author goes on to highlight a number of movies and literary pieces, hardly any of which are favorable depictions of technological use by human beings. In the chapters that follow, she goes on to compare and contrast Christian and transhumanist worldviews, looking primarily at the nature of humanhood and creatureliness, the value (or not) of being limited, eschatology, deification, the concept of the imago Dei, and the necessity (or disposability) of the body. *This last point frames much of the discussion. The Christian tradition's affirmation that "we are our bodies" (with emphasis here on the centrality of the body in Christian teaching on the Incarnation and the Resurrection) is completely at odds with the transhumanist quest to technologically transform the biological body (or, very simply, to do away with it altogether). Working toward a more perfect, as it were, expression of the imago Dei is quite different, the author notes, from striving to become Homo cyberneticus (p. 19). *Although the penultimate chapter ("Towards a Christian Ethical Framework") does not really take up the constructive, balanced, or critical ethics discussion that I was hoping for (the title itself suggests that the chapter was meant to be preliminary), it offers a helpful list of those aspects of human nature that we ought to preserve and defend. This is great fodder for Christian readers, who will want to continue mulling over the question of what is valuable and indispensable about being human. *The overall brevity of the book (there are only about 73 pages of text), which is punctuated by some degree of repetition, means that the author does not dive into a rigorous analysis of the pressing and important questions that she asks throughout. For example, I would have liked to read a more nuanced representation of the diversity that exists in transhumanist thought regarding a number of issues raised here; I would have liked a deeper engagement with how transhumanists handle the concept of the "transcendent and intangible soul," especially if it is, as the author says, "the essence of who we are" (p. 10); and I would have liked to learn more about Godde's understanding of how, in the Incarnation, Christ validates "the good design" of the unenhanced human body (p. 26). *The author's aim, here, is to introduce Christian readers to the conversation, which she does in an insightful and accessible way. In the end, she wants to help equip the Christian reader to think about the big, existential questions that are brought to the fore in the pursuit for immortality that is shared by Christians and transhumanists alike. Although Godde is unreservedly critical of transhumanism, I very much appreciated her perception of transhumanists as a "new breed of fellow travellers who also see a promised land" (p. 2). *Reviewed by Cory Andrew Labrecque, PhD, Associate Professor of Theological Ethics and Bioethics, Vice-Dean, Faculté de théologie et de sciences religieuses, Université Laval, QC.

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AS THE HISTORICAL BASIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE

ABSTRACTPhilosophy is an extensive science, meaning it is closely related to our daily lives, and philosophy is the driving force of our daily lives as individual human beings and as collective human beings in the form of a society or nation. Philosophy of science is a philosophical reflection on the nature of science which will not recognize a stopping point towards achieving the goal, namely truth and reality. Understanding the philosophy of science means understanding the intricacies of science so that its most essential aspects and foundations also understand the perspective of science, the possibility of its development, and its interweaving between one branch of science and another. The research approach that researchers use in writing this scientific work is a type of library research. Philosophy is a science that seriously studies the true nature of everything. Science is a method of thinking objectively in describing and giving meaning to the natural and moral world to organize and systematize. Knowledge indicators are: It is accumulative, and its truth is not absolute but objective. There are six phases of scientific development: The Pre-Ancient Greece Phase, the Ancient Greek Phase, the Medieval Age Phase, the Renaissance Age phase, the Modern Age phase, and finally, the Contemporary Age phase. Keywords: Philosophy, Historical, Development, Science, Knowledge

Analisis Data Pemahaman Anggota Komunitas Japan Club 6 Garut Tentang Bahaya dan Dampak Dari Ujaran Kebencian

Hate speech is a behavior that based on hatred to some tribes, religions, races, ethnic, skin color, believes, or faiths, Hate speech could be a worst impact to individual or social human beings and can be founded in various media. So in that case, social community must be given knowledge aboout impact and dangerous of hate speech. IT volunteers provides educational presentation to anticipating the impact and dangerous of hate speech for partnership that has been cooperated with IT volunteers. The community that has been appertain to do partnership is the community that have interest in culture and technology in focus to country of Japan, this community centered in SMAN 6 Garut highschool that called by Japan Club. For making sure that the educational presentation of the dangerous and impact of hate speech has been delivered successfully to the community, IT volunteers provides a socialitation with different session and a test. Then, statistical hypothesis test conducted by the IT volunteers on purpose for measuring the community knowledge after the socialitation done by every respondent that present in that presentation done by IT volunteers. In conclusion, that result of the dangerous and impact of hate speech presentation has been succesfully understood by the object.

Deskripsi Pelaku Perundungan pada Anak Usia Didik Sebagai Isu Psikologi Sosial di Indonesia

Abstract: Bullying is an effort or action carried out by individual human beings, both personally and collectively that attacks a target repeatedly physically, psychologically, socially or verbally, which is carried out in a situationally defined position of strength for their own benefit or satisfaction (Elinda Emza, 2015). Another opinion defines bullying as the use of aggression in any form that aims to hurt or corner other people physically or mentally.Purpose: To describe and explain the perpetrators of bullying in school-aged children as a social psychological issue in Indonesia. In terms of (1) the perpetrators of bullying, (2) the causes of bullying, (3) the process of bullying behavior, (4) excesses of bullying behavior. Methodology: This research is a research with a descriptive qualitative approach, namely a research method that utilizes qualitative data which is described according to the existing conditions and facts. Descriptive method is a method in examining the status of human groups, an object, condition, a system of thought or a class of events in the present. The strength of this method lies in the facts that are happening now. Data collection by means of interviews, journals, digital books, mainstream media such as mass media, social media (XL nodes), libraries, data agencies or organizations. Data Collection Techniques use the Fishbone Technique, which emphasizes collecting data from various sources and collectors. The data analysis technique uses the Morphology Technique, which is a technique that describes the quality of a problem that explains it comprehensively.Implication: Bullying in Student Age Children as a Social Psychological Issue is a reality whose phenomenon occurs everywhere. In the case of perpetrators of bullying, this is a big problem that must be handled together. Data on bullying in Indonesia, especially on students in their teens, is still very high. The perpetrators of bullying continue to carry out their actions because there are still many reproaches that are open to repetition. Students are the main perpetrators of bullying on other students. Teachers, parents and the community either directly or indirectly have played a role in bullying. The process of bullying; Social media is the most powerful tool for perpetrators of bullying that can continue in the real world. Educational institutions and systems do not clearly handle cases of bullying, especially for perpetrators. The government and schools have not been firm in terms of bullying rules and laws. The perpetrator commits bullying in verbal and non-verbal ways. Causes of bullying behavior; there are problems that arise from the perpetrator who is mentally unstable; Another cause is the existence of problems in the social psychology of society which indirectly help perpetrators commit bullying. The excesses of bullying behavior include: The excesses for the bully are legal issues, negotiations, revenge and repetition of acts that can turn them into criminals, radicals and terrorists. Victims of bullying can become perpetrators in the future. If the perpetrators of bullying are not prevented, they can become predators for the next victims. That bullying is a behavior that can be modified through the education process.

How We Live: A Dialectical Examination of Human Existence

ABSTRACTThe author endeavors to show how dialectical methods can reveal and clarify Ayn Rand’s philosophy from the two vital perspectives of the lives of individual human beings in relation to the world and in relation to other people and the social institutions under which they live. In so doing, he applies Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s Tri-Level Analysis model of social relations (derived from Rand’s social commentaries) and relates Rand’s metaphysical value-judgments to the cardinal values and virtues of her ethics.

After the Transitions

After the Transitions Krzysztof Siwczyk (bio) and Alice-Catherine Carls (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution FRANCIS MESLET, FORGOTTEN LIBRARIES SERIES (2023) / FRANCISMESLET.COM Translator's note: Almost thirty-five years have passed since the democratic awakening of central Europe, yet despite being praised today for its originality, eastern and central European literature is still not fully understood by Western readers. Krzysztof Siwczyk, a major Polish poet and accomplished actor of the post-1989 generation, examines the "disintegration" gunnysack created by a century of totalitarianism in his country. After affirming the death of Polish literature's noble novels of the "heroic past," he affirms the future preeminence of essays. To his reflective text is added a personal confession that combines Gombrowiczian satirical accents with poignancy to tell of innocence, ugliness, and cruelty in a truth-driven stream of consciousness that alone can conjure poetry.–ACC WE CAN CLEARLY SEE today from a cultural perspective that the symbolic year 1989 ushered in a specific kind of prosperity for the literature of this part of the world (see WLT, "After the Wall Fell," Nov. 2014). Interestingly, the traumatological prosperity of Polish literature—the "young" poetry and prose—flourished in Germany, which after the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification contributed with an open heart and mind to the rapidly rising European careers of such writers as Olga Tokarczuk or Andrzej Stasiuk. A relatively fluent transfer into target languages and the critics' significant interest—including the likes of Marcel Reich-Ranicki—led to judgments about the ways in which a specific kind of central European experience could, through its literature, contribute to enrich the spiritual heritage of the old continent, or at least of its postmodern and wealthy part that, through a happy alignment of political conditions, found itself on the right side of the Iron Curtain. Broadly defined, central European literature turned out to be a kind of "accursed share," to use the title of Georges Bataille's 1949 book, that "European literature"—also broadly defined—internalized as its own, hitherto invisible imago. The historical experience of a war waged by two totalitarian regimes—plowing through Europe while contributing to the collapse of Enlightenment myths—found its reward as the "black sun" of the twentieth century began to shine with full brilliance. Writers, many of whom had suffered an unwanted and forced quarantine in the camp of communist states, began to enter the canon of European literature. [End Page 62] The majority of them has already fallen on the trash heap of literary history for having missed the historical reset that is etched in our minds through photographs of meetings between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev or cross-stitched portraits of John Paul II, who called on the Holy Spirit to renew his homeland during his pilgrimage to Poland. The effectiveness and dynamism of the historical process are measured not by individual human beings but by galaxies of interstate interests or blocs of states sharing the same system like the one that happened in 1989. In fact, 1989 turned out to be a postmodern "Orwellian year" for Poland or, more precisely, its beginning. Literature was very much aware of it because it was not swept up in the fever that accompanied the social strengthening of the Solidarity movement. In my opinion, far fewer than the ten million Solidarność members were real democrats and committed citizens. In a country of forty million people, four out of five people were not mentally ready for change. It is precisely to this mute and politically indifferent majority that the most important texts of Polish-language writers who debuted after 1989 were devoted. In fact, to this day, one can hear disgruntled longings for a great contemporary novel that would explain to us who we really were as a society and what changes we have undergone in the last four decades of Polish freedom—a freedom brutally tamed today by small autocrats like Jarosław Kaczyński, a devotee of the new "Smolensk religion," whose cult launched like a supernova after the plane carrying his brother crashed in 2010. One thing is certain: four decades of democracy have not fundamentally altered our Polish tendency...

Hacking stylometry with multiple voices: Imaginary writers can override authorial signal in Delta

Abstract It is a basic assumption of stylometry that texts written by the same person show greater stylometric similarity even if published under multiple pennames. Statistical authorship attribution strongly relies on the ability of Burrows’s Delta and its variants to cluster one author together regardless of pseudonyms. At the same time, the very first computational discoveries by the founder of modern stylometry showed that a single author is capable of producing multiple voices (Burrows, 1987, Computation into Criticism: A Study of Jane Austen’s Novels and an Experiment in Method. Clarendon Press). We investigate two authors whose stylistically autonomous pennames seem to deceive Delta and override authorial signals: a Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa and a French novelist Romain Gary. Pessoa managed to create at least three pennames (the author himself used the term ‘heteronym’) who exhibit all traits of individual human beings from the stylometric point of view. Gary’s alter ego Emile Ajar, who was an intentional literary mystification, also demonstrates traits of stylometric autonomy. At the same time, other pseudonyms used by Gary lack that autonomy completely. Our investigation shows that there appears to be a continuum between a purely formal use of a penname, which brings almost no distinction from the real name of an author, and a strong literary sub-personality such as those created by Pessoa.

Buya Hamka: Nationalism in Islamic Education in Indonesia

Strengthening and building the nation is a vital role of nationalism which is also a means of improving human living standards. Islamic education that is nationalistic can result in a pattern of Islamic education that deviates from Islamic teachings. This study aims to analyze the thought and relevance of the values ​​of Nationalism in Buya Hamka's Islamic education thought in Indonesia. This research method uses historical research methods. This research will be presented using descriptive-analytic history writing. The technique used to analyze the data is descriptive qualitative analysis. The results of this study indicate that a sense of nationalism can be obtained through Hamka's view of the world of education, especially in Islam. The principal value of nationalism through Islamic education is an effort to strengthen national values ​​as individual human beings who are part of a large society in the formation of the state. The meaning of Hamka's nationalism related to collective awareness in Islamic Education thought can be seen in the idiom recognition based on the first principle of Pancasila. The practice of religious values ​​will be able to fortify the nation's next generation from deviant acts.

Analysis of Moral Values in Princess Muslimah & 9 Characters of Great Leaders by Watiek Ideo and Niken Wulandari

Moral value is something that relates to individual human beings as a whole and totality. In storybooks, moral values ​​are usually intended as a means to relate to something that can be taken from stories related to problems that exist in real life. This study aims to analyze and describe the moral values ​​contained in the Storybook Princess Muslimah & 9 Characters of Great Leaders by Watiek Ideo & Niken Wulandari. This study uses a literature study by listening, recording and concluding and analyzing relevant references from various existing sources such as books, journals, articles and documents that are by the moral values ​​in the storybook. The results of this study indicate that the moral values ​​contained in the storybook Princess Muslimah & 9 Characters of Great Leaders by Watiek Ideo & Niken Wulandari are as follows: religious moral values ​​(thanks and giving thanks), social care moral values ​​(sharing, complementing each other, aware of actions), the moral value of honesty, the moral value of responsibility, the moral value of self-control, and the moral value of empathy.

The Ancient Greek Roots of Human Rights

The Ancient Greek Roots of Human Rights

From Legal Contracts to Legal Calculi: the code-driven normativity

Using dedicated software to represent or enact legislation or regulation has the advantage of solving the inherent ambiguity of legal texts and enabling the automation of compliance with legal norms. On the other hand, the so-called code-driven normativity is less flexible than the legal provisions it claims to implement, and transforms the nature of legal protection, potentially reducing the capability of individual human beings to invoke legal remedies. In this article we focus on software-based legal contracts; we illustrate the design of a legal calculus whose primitives allow a direct formalisation of contracts' normative elements (i.e., permissions, prohibitions, obligations, asset transfer, judicial enforcement and openness to the external context). We show that interpreting legal contracts as interaction protocols between (untrusted) parties enables the generalisation of formal methods and tools for concurrent systems to the legal setting

Poland's Solidarity Movement and the Global Politics of Human Rights

In the Fall 2013 issue of the Journal of Cold War Studies, Robert Brier published an article “Broadening the Cultural History of the Cold War: The Emergence of the Polish Workers’ Defense Committee and the Rise of Human Rights,” which examined the emergence of a dissident movement in Communist-era Poland. Following a student uprising in Poland in March 1968 and the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of that year, distinctive forms of opposition began to challenge the Communist monopoly of power in Poland. Inspired by Soviet dissenters, most notably Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Polish opposition activists also later appealed to the human rights agenda of the Helsinki Accords of 1975, which the Polish authorities had recognized by signing but failed to enact in practice.Poland's key opposition movements in the 1970s were the Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR) and the Movement to Defend Human and Civil Rights (ROPCiO). Their aspirations were encouraged by the arrival of the Polish Pope, John Paul II, in 1979, though Brier contends that the pope's visit “may not have been as heroic as some accounts suggest” (p. 34). These were significant impulses for the creation of Solidarity, whose “Twenty-One Demands” articulated the agenda of human rights. Solidarity was temporarily accepted by the Communist authorities in the Gdańsk Agreement of August 1980, but after sixteen months of legality Solidarity was banned by martial law, and the human rights agenda was brutally suppressed.The world watched the Solidarity underground in the decade that followed. But, as Brier explains, international responses were often determined by domestic agendas. To West German Chancellor Willy Brandt—himself a former refugee from Nazi Germany—foreign policy was governed by lengthy time-horizons during which détente gradually unfolded through the evolution of intergovernmental relations. His Ostpolitik hence saw dissidents as promoting an unreasonable, or simply ignorant, view of history. Even so, Western officials began to extend their visits by meeting opposition figures and stopping at sites of popular remembrance, notably the tomb of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, a Polish priest murdered by secret police officers in 1984.The French left engaged in fierce debate from 1974—triggered by Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago—about the respective merits of Communism and Marxism. Brier argues that “the once dominant framework of the French Left—Marxism—collapsed completely” (p. 108), and in its place human rights became the principal concern. As the abstractions of “totalitarianism” were replaced by specific concerns for human rights, political prisoners and dissidents in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe became central figures. Left-wing intellectuals demanded that Communist rulers heed human rights and other universal norms they had endorsed at Helsinki. Rather than acknowledging Communist autocracy, they had to accept Solidarity's democratic principle that citizens should have a direct influence on public affairs. This was also the priority at home.U.S. debates on foreign policy were also driven by domesticity. In the 1970s, Democrats like Senator Henry Jackson began to use the language of human rights to reinforce the ideological differences between East and West and thereby “reclaim American virtue” (p. 128). But under Ronald Reagan's Republican presidency the target was extended from anti-Communist rhetoric to measures against any social system antagonistic toward the creativity of individual human beings. As Reagan dismantled some welfare policies and reduced the influence of trade unions, union leaders in the United States argued that Solidarity represented a human right that was under threat at home: freedom of association.Brier concludes that Solidarity became a “vessel” for the ideas and wishes of its supporters abroad. Its leaders, including “iconic figures” such as Lech Wałęsa, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, were harshly suppressed by the Communist regime and were lauded abroad as prisoners of conscience. Poland became a “canvas unto which West Europeans and Americans could project their own struggles” (p. 145). Brier does recognize their assistance in helping to keep Polish activists out of prison, providing funds to sustain their activity and nudging the Polish government toward the 1989 roundtable talks with the opposition. These were significant steps toward the end of Communism in Eastern Europe and of the Cold War, but Brier suggests their main impulse was domesticity rather than internationalism.His book is a contribution to the promising Cambridge University Press series “Human Rights in History,” which one hopes will explore these issues further. Not least are the dramatic changes of the post-1989 era, as political leaders in Poland and Hungary have moved to recentralize state power and limit, or indeed extinguish, the role of human rights-based opposition.