REV - Scientia et Fides - Vol 9, Nº1 (2021)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10171/58799
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Results
- Psychology and Religion. Remarks from a Methodological Perspective(Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 2021) Terelak, J.F. (Jan F.)The paper is an overview of the connections between scientific psychology and religion. The thesis that scientific psychology, which deals with empirical research of all manifestations of spirituality and religiousness within the different principles and contexts of culture, cannot refer to the doctrine of Christianity, just as to other religions of the world, but it should take into account in its research the cultural aspects of the Christian religion and/or other religions – without valuing tchem at the individual human level (personalistic psychology) and their influence on the “fate” of the world (e. g. cultural psychology), is being discussed.
- Imperio y causalidad en Tomás de Aquino(Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 2021) Montoya-Camacho, J.M. (Jorge Martín); Enríquez-Gómez, M.T. (María Teresa)Ante ciertos modelos causales del agente libre inspirados en Tomás de Aquino, resulta interesante atender al modelo causal presentado por Tomás mismo, especialmente en un texto a partir del cual se puede rastrear la exposición de la acción libre como el efecto de los cuatro sentidos causales aristotélicos. Se trata de la cuestión sobre los actos imperados (ST I–II, q. 17); en cuyos primeros cuatro artículos –y en sus textos paralelos– determina que la voluntad es causa agente; la razón práctica, causa ordenadora; y el imperium de ambas (razón y voluntad) se relaciona con el acto imperado como lo formal con lo material.
- ¿Ciencia versus moral? Revisión histórico-científica sobre el síndrome del zika congénito y la reivindicación del aborto(Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 2021) Luciano-de-Oliveira, H. T. (Hélio Tadeu)En 2015 empieza una epidemia causada por el virus del zika en Brasil, siendo luego asociada a problemas teratógenos congénitos. A partir de la sospecha de esta relación, surgen, en dos vertientes, artículos defendiendo el aborto: (1) presentándolo como uno de los tratamientos para las mujeres embarazadas; (2) utilizando la crisis sanitaria y la confusión de la opinión pública como una estrategia para despenalizar el aborto. Las dos vías son injustas al exigir que los recursos ya escasos fuesen destina-dos al aborto y no a la prevención, tratamiento y cuidados necesarios a los afectados. Se concluye que los datos científicos, en si mismos, son acordes a la inmoralidad del aborto, siendo justamente la falta de rigor científico y/o las cuestiones ideológicas los que lo promueven.
- Traditional Cardiopulmonary Criterion of Death is the Only Valid Criterion of Human Death(Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 2021) Volek, P. (Peter)In recent time the critique of the whole brain death as the criterion of hu-man death, that was introduced in 1968, has been growing. The paper aims to show in systematically that there are good reasons based on empirical findings combined with Thomistic Christian anthropology to accept the traditional cardiopulmonary criterion as the criterion of human death. This will be shown through a systematic critique of other criteria of death: whole brain death, higher brain death, brain stem death, and controlled cardiac/circulatory death. The traditional cardiopulmonary criterion of death provides the opportunity to maintain the dead donor rule for organ transplantation. This also affirms the respect for human life required by the ethics of the sanctity of human life. The paper further provides a justification of dead donor rule. The paper proposes 35 minutes period after cardiac arrest to declare the patient dead, since at that time there is no possibility to autoresuscitate the heart.
- The Government of Evil Machines: an Application of Romano Guardini’s Thought on Technology(Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 2021) Beltramini, E. (Enrico)In this article I propose a theological reflection on the philosophical as-sumptions behind the idea that intelligent machine can be governed through ethical protocols, which may apply either to the people who develop the machines or to the machines themselves, or both. This idea is particularly relevant in the case of machines’ extreme wrongdoing, a wrongdoing that becomes an existential risk for humankind. I call this extreme wrong-doing, ‘evil.’ Thus, this article is a theological account on the philosophical assumptions behind the possibility of evil machines, machines that can create an existential risk for humankind, and the ethical remedies that limit that risk. After discussing these assumptions, I argue for the ineffectiveness of these ethical remedies to prevent the possibility of evil machines. The article is an application of Romano Guardini’s thought on technology to evil machines.
- Wait, But Why? Challenging the Intuitive Force of Substance Dualism(Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 2021) Ritchie, S.L. (Sarah Lane)In responding to Joshua Farris’ The Soul of Theological Anthropology, I suggest several reasons for questioning the theological need for substance dualism in any form. Specifically, I argue that it is not at the level of analytic argumentation that the mind or soul is best understood, and that the sciences do indeed challenge substance dualism (despite philosophical arguments to the contrary). In making this argument, I examine the roles of intuition and theological pre-commitments in one’s determination of the correct understanding of the mind or soul. I suggest that dualism is not only theolog-ically unnecessary, but also an intuition that we have reason to question.
- In Defense of Posthuman Vulnerability(Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 2021) Liedo-Fernández, B. (Belén); Rueda, J. (Jon)Transhumanism is a challenging movement that invites us to rethink what defines humanity, including what we value and regret the most about our existence. Vulnerability is a key concept that require thorough philosophical scrutiny concerning transhumanist proposals. Vulnerability can refer to a universal condition of human life (ontological vulnerability) or, rather, to the specific exposure to certain harms due to particular situations (social vulnerability). Even if we are all vulnerable in the first sense, there are also different sources and levels of vulnerability depending on con-crete social circumstances. Recently, Michael Hauskeller (2019) argued about a fun-damental incompatibility between transhumanism and vulnerability. He understands vulnerability as an existential category, linked to woundability and mortality. This idea is akin to ontological vulnerability, but it does not notice some important features of social vulnerability. On the other side, transhumanism is a complex and non-ho-mogeneous movement. Here we distinguish between a strong and a weak version of transhumanism. We will propose that the salience of vulnerability is only diminished in the radical one, while a moderate version can reconcile vulnerability with human enhancement. Thus, vulnerability, a concept that has recently gained much importance as an anthropological category in contemporary ethics, is not necessarily at odds with any transhumanist project.
- Is Transhumanism Heading Towards Redefinition of Human Being or Towards Utopia?(Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 2021) Szopa, R. (Rafal)Transhumanism has enormous affect on temporary philosophical thought by forcing philosophers to take on many intellectual challenges generated by scientists who try to create technological solutions that enable implementation of transhuman-istic ideas. The question is whether all these ideas will be realized. The purpose of the article is to show that the ulitmate goal of transhumanism, to create posthumanistic society, is impossible to realize. The first reason is that transhumanism limits human’s understanding to the material dimension (from a theological viewpint). While this is understandable in the naturalistic paradigm, this approach is insufficient when it comes to all complexity of human being and for this reason transhumanism represents too narrow a human’s understanding to be able to implement its all assumptions. The second reason is that to enable people to become posthumans the latest technologies would have to be available to everyone and this seems impossible. If so, such a sit-uation will divide people into ordinary ones and posthumans and this could lead to conflicts that transhumanists want to avoid after all. Finally, the body-mind problem is essentially limited to emergentism, which corresponds to the naturalistic paradigm. It seems, however, that without the concept of the soul it is impossible to understand who a man is, their identity and consciousness and this is crucial for mind uploading.
- Theological and Ethical Aspects of Mind Transfer in Transhumanism(Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 2021) Osinski, G. (Grzegorz)Mind transfer is the most important concept of transhumanists. Its tech-nological implementation is to copy and transfer the human mind to a computer, by exact mapping of all neural connections in the human brain and their precise copying in a computer simulation. The idea of mind transfer also brings some dangers, related to the denial of human nature, the placing of hopes for future life in digital spaces and the liberation from the limitations imposed on man by his biological structure. Transhumanists believe that in order to achieve mind transfer, various technologies defined by the acronym NBIC (Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, Cognitive Science) currently available, should be used. The very dynamic development of these technologies in recent years, and in particular the latest AI (Artificial Intelli-gence) algorithms seem to be very fast approaching the moment when practical mind transfer will be possible. The paper contains a very brief description of these technical capabilities with the necessary short commentary on their ethical aspects.
- Transhumanist Immortality: Understanding the Dream as a Nightmare(Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 2021) García-Barranquero, P. (Pablo)This paper offers new arguments to reject the alleged dream of immortality. In order to do this, I firstly introduce an amendment to Michael Hauskeller’s approach of the “immortalist fallacy”. I argue that the conclusion “we (normally) do not want to live forever” does not follow from the premise “we (normally) do not want to die”. Next, I propose the philosophical turn from “normally” to “under these circumstances” to resolve this logical error. Then, I review strong philosophical critiques of this trans-humanist purpose of immortality in the literature. There are two key questions related to the possibility of fulfilling this goal: the hard problem of consciousness and the personal identity dilemma. Finally, I defend a specific type of indefinite life and justify that it is more desirable than our current limited life.