Ethical Project Research Articles

Ethics Project Mata Kuliah Etika Kristen dalam Meningkatkan Keterampilan Berpikir Kritis Mahasiswa Indonesia

The project shows that Christian ethical principles provide a strong foundation for Indonesian students to understand values such as 1) love, 2) justice, and 3) responsibility, which can help Indonesian students improve their critical thinking skills. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of the ethics project in the Christian Ethics course on improving the critical thinking skills of Indonesian students. The methods used include active learning through discussions, case studies, and social projects that integrate Christian ethical values. As such, the results of the evaluation showed that there was a significant improvement in Indonesian students' ability to analyze and formulate ethical decisions. Thus, this project contributes to the formation of a generation of students who are more sensitive to ethical and social issues in societ.

Beyond SF: Reading the posthuman in crime fiction

Science fiction (SF)’s capacity to imagine alternative futures, embodiments and forms of agency is a crucial resource for the ethical project of critical posthumanism. In the twenty-first century, however, science-fictionality has surpassed its traditional generic boundaries to become a tool for comprehending and intervening in our changing reality, made concrete in different media and styles. This has translated into a rise of recombinant genre fiction, whereby themes and scenarios related to technoscience are addressed by genres other than SF. One illustrative instance of this tendency is the burgeoning body of works that integrate the conventions of SF and crime fiction, which have been steadily on the rise for the past five years in anglophone literary markets. Aiming to open up new avenues for the study of this critically unexplored corpus, this article sets out to assemble a critical apparatus for examining the representation of posthumanity in these hybrid texts. Drawing from an approach to crime fiction as a vector for dialectically exploring social and ethical questions, this article will argue that the constituent elements of the genre, namely its close interrelation with technological breakthroughs, its ambivalent engagement with the legacy of Enlightenment humanism and its affinity with interrogations of the exploitative workings of neo-liberalism, make crime fiction a productive locus for challenging dominant conceptions of the posthuman, as well as for articulating alternative visions indexed to critical posthumanist thought.

Bernard Williams’ legitimate authority between universalism and relativism

ABSTRACT This paper is divided into two main parts. In the first half, I identify a tension within Bernard Williams’ political realist conception of political legitimacy. On the one hand, he was committed to a peculiar universalist criterion of political legitimacy – what is politically unacceptable is summed up in the old Catholic saying quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est. On the other, he supported the idea that what counts as political legitimacy depends on what we, in the here and now, deem to be politically legitimate – thus suggesting some kind of relativist criterion for political legitimacy. In order to eliminate this tension, I propose a two-step reconstruction of Williams’ works on political philosophy. The second half of the article assesses three criticisms to Willliams’ conception of political legitimacy levied by contemporary political realists. I use my two-step reconstruction of Williams to reject two of these three objections. In addressing the third, I sketch a reading of Williams’ notion of political legitimacy in the context of his ethical project as a whole and, in so doing, overcome the difficulty.

Kant’s Importance for European Philosophy. The Perspective of Hermeneutic Philosophy

The article is a short presentation and critical evaluation of the main aspects of Kant’s theoretical and practical philosophy. It focuses on ontological consequences of the so-called Copernican turn that places man in a self-created, phenomenal world, cutting off any hope for his contact with the transcendent reality, independent of man’s cognition. The only escape from this danger of the subjectification of reality is, unjustly criticized, Kant’s acknowledgment of Ding an sich. In the area of practical philosophy, Kant’s ethics of categorical imperative, of good will and the fact of freedom, is an interesting but indefensible project of formal and autonomic ethics that, unfortunately, due to its elitist conclusions cannot fulfil the task of teaching morality. In the light of development in cultural anthropology and hermeneutical philosophy of life, Kant’s position needs to be significantly updated.

‘The problem of other minds’: disappropriation and the limits of polyphony in Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School

ABSTRACT This essay argues that Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School (2019) complicates Mikhail Bakhtin’s dichotomy between monologism and polyphony through strategies resonating with Cristina Rivera Garza’s concept of disappropriation. In contrast to Bakhtinian polyphony, Lerner’s novel posits the necessity of exposing the author’s agency behind the characters’ voices to refrain from appropriating them; it thus embraces authorial fallibility and turns it into an ethical project. Despite comprising multiple narrators, The Topeka School is metafictionally presented as authored by an older version of its teenage protagonist Adam Gordon, serving as Lerner’s alter ego. Adam’s overarching authorial presence is suggested by the narrative’s frequent rejection of individuation and mimesis in its depiction of different characters’ speeches; yet, by presenting individual voices as interwoven, the novel also emphasises the collective nature of language. I discuss how this tension between authorial control and interconnectedness is reflected in textual interferences across different narrative perspectives, in the oscillation between authorial and figural narration in the interludes dedicated to the character Darren, and in the infiltration of various intra and intertextual references into Amber’s as well as Adam’s voice. Through these disappropriative techniques, Lerner’s novel avoids solipsism while also moving beyond the dialogic strategies of previous post-postmodern metafiction.

Erasure and Assertion in Body Aesthetics: Respectability Politics to Anti-Assimilationist Aesthetics

Abstract Marginalized people have used body aesthetic practices, such as clothing and hairstyles, to communicate their worth to the mainstream. One such example is respectability politics, a set of practices developed in post-Reconstruction black communities to prevent sexual assault and convey moral standing to the white mainstream. Respectability politics is an ambivalent strategy. It requires assimilation to white bourgeois aesthetic and ethical standards, and so guides practitioners toward blandness and bodily erasure. Yet, it is an aesthetic practice that cultivates moral agency and helps communities avoid violence and meet social and economic goals. I contrast respectability politics with the anti-assimilationist body aesthetics of Chike Jeffers and Janell Hobson. Because these accounts do not seek to neutralize or erase the body, they fundamentally value black people. As such, they more effectively convey personhood than assimilationist strategies do and also demonstrate the positive role that body aesthetics can play in everyday ethical projects.

“Reconstructing the Study of Religion”: Entering the Conversation from a Different Corner of the Academic World

Abstract This essay engages Josephson Storm’s project of the reconstruction of the study of religion after the latest linguistic and material turns and what he calls radical skepticism by provincializing his account of the study of religion and the human sciences. Referencing postfoundational reconstructive approaches, I argue that so called poststructural theories have already led to new reconstructive efforts, also in the study of religion, at least in the academic environment I was trained in. Furthermore, the lack of an account of power risks ignoring the role of status differentials that prefigure the ability of humans to engage in the practice of self-discovery which is central to his ethical project of revolutionary happiness.

Le chemin le moins court : L’art du détour chez Michaël Ferrier et Jirō Taniguchi

This comparative article brings together the works of two painters of Tokyo: Francophone writer Michaël Ferrier and his hybrid collection of poetic essays, Tokyo, petits portraits de l’aube (2004), and Japanese mangaka Jirō Taniguchi and his contemplative bande dessinée, L’homme qui marche (2017, 1995). Through a close study of their explorations of Tokyo, I argue that fragmentation and detour, foundational motifs of the authors’ aesthetics, are carriers of a common ethical project that offers a decentralization of the gaze, one that embraces multiplicity and contradictions, to grasp the human and non-human in a common gesture.

Structural Microaggressions for Explaining Outcome Gaps

Abstract Microaggressions are hypothesized to play a causal role in undesirable population effects such as racial health gaps, but the mechanisms through which this occurs are not yet well understood. I call inquiry about these mechanisms the “explanatory project.” I suggest that the explanatory project has been hindered by microaggression concepts tailored to be applicable under conditions of lived uncertainty, rather than to facilitate understanding of structural causes. I defend a pluralist, structural account of microaggressions from objections by Regina Rini that, while appropriate for ethical projects, do not apply to the explanatory project.

Book Review: Uncovering Violence: Reading Biblical Narratives as an Ethical Project by Amy C. Cottrill

Book Review: <i>Uncovering Violence: Reading Biblical Narratives as an Ethical Project</i> by Amy C. Cottrill

Zainab's traffic: spatial lives of an Islamic ritual across Southwest Asia

AbstractSince the 1979 Revolution, Iranian pilgrims have engaged in saint visitation (ziyarat) to sites in Syria. By travelling via Turkey on buses, and venerating Sayyida Zainab at their destination, these pilgrims disrupt conventional conceptions of not only Islamic ritual, but also Iranian mobility under sanctions. Their experiences venerating Sayyida Zainab – emerging out of a self‐described ‘poverty of mobility’ – demonstrate the utility of a more expansive conceptualization of ritual in anthropology. Instead of taking ritual for a scripturally canonized ‘manual for’ pious self‐cultivation, here I approach ziyarat as a traffic of pilgrims, goods, and ideas across Iran, Turkey, and Syria. This approach produces a dynamic and spatial conception of ziyarat as a ritual of mobility. Ethnographic attention to these pilgrims’ politically conditioned and regionally networked spatial practices reveals that their movements are irreducible to ethical projects of cultivating piety alone. What is at stake in Iranian pilgrims’ movements is nothing short of the extra‐religious conditions of religion – those of the economy and the polity. These stakes illuminate how religious practices interarticulate with political and social institutions – including bazaars, borders, and shrines – that remain understudied in recent anthropological scholarship on Islamic piety.

Positive vibrations – voice, sound, and resonance as insurgency

ABSTRACT The very idea of ‘critical language studies’ encourages one to develop a sense of criticality; that is, to interrogate the concepts that one uses, to explore the boundaries of one’s professional practice, and to push one’s thinking, if necessary, into new directions. This is typically done with the aim of contributing to epistemic as well as socio-economic justice. In this article, I think with, and through, the sociolinguistic concept of ‘voice’, seeking to move beyond its metaphorical use (as an index of agency) and linking it, explicitly, to sound and resonance, to materiality, affect and the senses. In doing so, I move beyond language, and include different sonic expressions and perceptions. The aim is to develop the broad contours of a ‘sonic criticality’. A ‘sonic criticality’ is also an ethical project: it encourages one to engage in new forms of listening (Robinson 2020), and to explore sound’s insurgent potential, its ability to unsettle and to change the world.

Social Media as Lieux for the Convergence of Collective Trajectories of Holocaust Memory—A Study of Online Users in Germany and Italy

By articulating a shared victimhood or guilt or responsibility, memorial museums are designed as ethical projects that encourage visitors to learn from the past to build a “better future”. In contemporary Europe, Holocaust memorials and museums constitute a trajectory of remembrance about public Holocaust memory that consolidates political legitimacy and articulates national narratives of the legacy of WWII. In parallel, increasing adoption and spread of digital technologies have resulted in a convergence and a globalisation of themes and user interests associated with Holocaust memory. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perspectives and interests of users of the social media profiles of a group of Holocaust museums and memorials in Germany and Italy. Using a primarily quantitative approach, the study sought to understand the motivations, interests, and online activities of users of nine Holocaust museums and memorials. While national narratives regarding public policy continue to diverge in the two countries, users express a convergence of interests and motivations when using these social media profiles. This dual venture of Holocaust memory is a complex yet powerful example of how the globalisation of digital media is playing an increasingly significant role in European contemporary society.

Porównanie myśli Arystotelesa i Konfucjusza w kontekście jurysprudencji cnót

This article aims to study the difference between the ethical projects of Aristotle and Confucius in the context of virtue jurisprudence. In the opening, I demonstrate the current state of virtue jurisprudence, acknowledging both its historical and theoretical foundations. Additionally, an increased interest in East Asian thought in the philosophy of law is underlined as forming the basis for this article. The next two sections consist of a reconstruction of the ethics of Aristotle and Confucius, with a special focus on concepts used in both projects. In the closing parts of this article, an attempt is made to compare both Aristotle’s and Confucius’s ethics in the context of virtue jurisprudence. Finally, the article tries to show how taking a Confucian approach can resolve the issue of the foundation of judicial virtues.

Care ethics, needs-recognition, and teaching encounters

Abstract Care ethics takes as central the discerning of needs in those being cared for and attempts to meet those needs. Perceptive caring agents are more likely to be able to identify needs in those for whom they are caring. The identification of needs is no small matter, not least in teaching encounters. This paper modestly proposes that at least some of the needs a caring agent should attempt to meet are a function of the identity of the patient of caring action. Taking Nel Noddings’ account of care ethics as representative, I present it in outline. This leads to the needs-identification problematic. Following this I turn to Soran Reader’s account of needs. I interpret this to offer what I designate as identity as ‘what-ness’. Such an understanding of identity-based needs is a starting point for the caring agent but a more nuanced account, of identity as ‘who-ness’, is argued to be preferable. Identity as ‘who-ness’, as expressed in Paul Ricoeur’s work, advances the discussion, culminating in his concept of the ‘capable human being’. Having brought this aspect of Ricoeur’s thought into conversation with care ethics, I offer an account of identity-based needs conducive to the broader aims of the care ethical project. Finally, I consider what this bolstered account of care ethics might say about a brief and illustrative teaching encounter.

‘The Greeks Call It Horme ’: Hobbes’ anti-Aristotelian account of human action

ABSTRACT This essay reads Hobbes’ account of human action against Aristotle’s accounts of animal motion and human action, thus offering a new perspective for understanding Hobbes’ account and illuminating a neglected aspect of Hobbes’ relationship to Aristotle. I argue that the basic structure of Hobbes’ account is indebted to Aristotle’s account of animal motion, except that Hobbes purges the teleological elements from his predecessor and presents a picture that is mechanistic and explicitly deterministic. Moreover, while Aristotle introduces ‘deliberation’ as a way of explaining the diversity of human actions as their varied attempts at realizing the distinctly human end of the good life, Hobbes’ radically anti-Aristotelian notion of ‘deliberation’ explains that diversity in terms of the fundamental uncertainty of the passions. I conclude with some reflections on two related tensions in Hobbes: between Hobbes’ determinism and his account of human action, and between his ethical project of reducing human life to mere life and his separate ethical project of justifying diverse ways of life. This essay contributes to our understanding of the significance of Hobbes’ account of human action in both the history of the debate on determinism and the history of ethics.

Literacy and STEM Teachers Adapt AI Ethics Curriculum

This article examines the ways secondary computer science and English Language Arts teachers in urban, suburban, and semi-rural schools adapted a project-based AI ethics curriculum to make it better fit their local contexts. AI ethics is an urgent topic with tangible consequences for youths’ current and future lives, but one that is rarely taught in schools. Few teachers have formal training in this area as it is an emerging field even at the university level. Exploring AI ethics involves examining biases related to race, gender, and social class, a challenging task for all teachers, and an unfamiliar one for most computer science teachers. It also requires teaching technical content which falls outside the comfort zone of most humanities teachers. Although none of our partner teachers had previously taught an AI ethics project, this study demonstrates that their expertise and experience in other domains played an essential role in providing high quality instruction. Teachers designed and redesigned tasks and incorporated texts and apps to ensure the AI ethics project would adhere to district and department level requirements; they led equity-focused inquiry in a way that both protected vulnerable students and accounted for local cultures and politics; and they adjusted technical content and developed hands-on computer science experiences to better challenge and engage their students. We use Mishra and Kohler’s TPACK framework to highlight the ways teachers leveraged their own expertise in some areas, while relying on materials and support from our research team in others, to create stronger learning experiences.

Viktor von Weizsäcker's Gestaltkreis Theory. The Dynamic and Subjective Relationship of Perception and Movement.

The paper presents Victor von Weizsäcker's theory of Gestaltkreis (i.e. 'circle of form'), which offers an original theoretical contribution. It is rich of fruitful stimuli for understanding the relationship of the living organism with its environment, recognizing a dynamic unity between perception and the movement. The paper first provides some biographical, scientific and clinical professional life elements of Viktor von Weizsäcker, then it presents the dynamic theory of Gestaltkreis with its principles and key elements, and finally discusses the epistemological and methodological implications. Von Weizsäcker's Gestaltkreis theory - systematically published in 1939 - represents the effort of a theoretical synthesis of the experiments conducted in the field of neurology, of studies of perception and voluntary movement. It is based on the complementary and simultaneous unity of perception and movement, and it establishes a substantial contribution against the mechanism of physiology, by overcoming the notion of automatic reflex. Such a theory consolidates von Weizsäcker's systematic commitment to his epistemological, methodological and ethical project for the 'introduction of the subject in the biological sciences'.

Heideggerian things. Perspectives about things and the practical occupation of Dasein in three periods of Heidegger's work (1927-1951)

In the following work we will analyze and interpret three elaborations around the conceptions related to things, intramundane entities and the practical occupation of Dasein in the world, in three works corresponding to three moments of Heidegger's elaborations: the first, from the time of Sein und Zeit and the other two, to a transition period and after the Kehre. In this framework we intend to demonstrate and circumscribe the implications of the change in perspective in both periods, which move from the centrality given to the practical and functional field of Dasein, to a markedly relational approach that is radicalized in his 1951 writing. We will see, this distinction allows us to identify and relate a displacement of the emphasis in the manual model of primary relationship with the world and in the ethical projections that such treatments suppose.

Ethnography, cacophony, and Lebanon as a zone of prestige in the anthropology of the Middle East

Ethnography, cacophony, and Lebanon as a zone of prestige in the anthropology of the Middle East