Forgiveness Or Fairness?

Several philosophers who argue that forgiveness is an important virtue also wish to maintain the moral value of retributive emotions that forgiveness is meant to overcome. As such, these accounts explicate forgiveness as an Aristotelian mean between too much resentment and too little resentment. I argue that such an account ends up making forgiveness superfluous: it turns out that the forgiving person is not praised for a greater willingness to let go of her resentment, but rather for her fairness or good judgment. I conclude by arguing that the virtue of fair-mindedness is more compatible with maintaining the value of the retributive emotions than the virtue of forgiveness

Model of the early development of thalamo-cortical connections and area patterning via signaling molecules

The mammalian cortex is divided into architectonic and functionally distinct areas. There is growing experimental evidence that their emergence and development is controlled by both epigenetic and genetic factors. The latter were recently implicated as dominating the early cortical area specification. In this paper, we present a theoretical model that explicitly considers the genetic factors and that is able to explain several sets of experiments on cortical area regulation involving transcription factors Emx2 and Pax6, and fibroblast growth factor FGF8. The model consists of the dynamics of thalamo- cortical connections modulated by signaling molecules that are regulated genetically, and by axonal competition for neocortical space. The model can make predictions and provides a basic mathematical framework for the early development of the thalamo-cortical connections and area patterning that can be further refined as more experimental facts become known.Comment: brain, model, neural development, cortical area patterning, signaling molecule

FYS: Ethics And Technology (PHIL 07/CPSC 15) Syllabus

There has been an accelerated shift in the influence of computing technology and the use of algorithms in our daily lives. With this technology comes serious ethical questions. Philosophers are often well-equipped to wrestle with ethical questions, but less well-equipped to wrestle with questions of technology itself. Computer scientists are well-equipped to deal with the problems and challenges of technology, but less well-equipped to deal with the ethical problems and challenges that technology can pose. In this co-taught course, we bring together the two fields to address ethical questions involving social media, data mining, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, and other topics

Controversies over the Moral Justification for Patent Protection in Biotechnology

The following paper presents and discusses controversies over the moral justification for patent protection in biotechnology. Special emphasis was put on the controversy over the moral justification for patent protection of stem cells. By referring to arguments of (i) human dignity and (ii) patentability criteria, the moral justifiability of patent protection of stem cells was put in serious doubt. In a further section of the paper, the moral problems linked to patent protection in biotechnology were shown in a broader political and economic view. In that section of the paper, the preliminary concept of solving some of the discussed problems was sketched out (i.e. the introduction of decision criteria based on the system of values shared by the members of a given society)