scholarly journals Virtue, Reason, and Principle

1991 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Jay Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Characteristic Function ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Narrative Unity ◽  
Common Strategy

A common strategy unites much that philosophers have written about the virtues. The strategy can be traced back at least to Aristotle, who suggested that human beings have a characteristic function or activity (rational activity of soul), and that the virtues are traits of character which enable humans to perform this kind of activity excellently or well. The defining feature of this approach is that it treats the virtues as functional concepts, to be both identified and justified by reference to some independent goal or end which they enable people to attain (human flourishing, rational perfection, participation in practices, ‘narrative unity’ in a life). Some recent philosophers seem to have hoped that by following this perfectionist strategy, we might attain a more convincing account of our moral practices than rule-based theories of ethics have been able to provide.

Persons Together

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Market Relations ◽  
The Image Of God

This chapter moves into the political and economic aspects of human nature. Given scarcity and interdependence, what sense has Judaism made of the material well-being necessary for human flourishing? What are Jewish attitudes toward prosperity, market relations, labor, and leisure? What has Judaism had to say about the political dimensions of human nature? If all humans are made in the image of God, what does that original equality imply for political order, authority, and justice? In what kinds of systems can human beings best flourish? It argues that Jewish tradition shows that we act in conformity with our nature when we elevate, improve, and sanctify it. As co-creators of the world with God, we are not just the sport of our biochemistry. We are persons who can select and choose among the traits that comprise our very own natures, cultivating some and weeding out others.

scholarly journals STOUT: SMILES to IUPAC names using neural machine translation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kohulan Rajan ◽  
Achim Zielesny ◽  
Christoph Steinbeck
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
Similarity Index ◽  
Chemical Compounds ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
International Union ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Neural Machine Translation ◽  
Tanimoto Similarity ◽  
Reverse Translation ◽  
String Representation

AbstractChemical compounds can be identified through a graphical depiction, a suitable string representation, or a chemical name. A universally accepted naming scheme for chemistry was established by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) based on a set of rules. Due to the complexity of this ruleset a correct chemical name assignment remains challenging for human beings and there are only a few rule-based cheminformatics toolkits available that support this task in an automated manner. Here we present STOUT (SMILES-TO-IUPAC-name translator), a deep-learning neural machine translation approach to generate the IUPAC name for a given molecule from its SMILES string as well as the reverse translation, i.e. predicting the SMILES string from the IUPAC name. In both cases, the system is able to predict with an average BLEU score of about 90% and a Tanimoto similarity index of more than 0.9. Also incorrect predictions show a remarkable similarity between true and predicted compounds.

scholarly journals A Framework for Authentic Ethical Decision Making in the Face of Grand Challenges: A Lonerganian Gradation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Larres ◽  
Martin Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Invariant Structure ◽  
Grand Challenges

AbstractThis paper contributes to the contemporary business ethics narrative by proposing an approach to corporate ethical decision making (EDM) which serves as an alternative to the imposition of codes and standards to address the ethical consequences of grand challenges, like COVID-19, which are impacting today’s society. Our alternative approach to EDM embraces the concept of reflexive thinking and ethical consciousness among the individual agents who collectively are the corporation and who make ethical decisions, often in isolation, removed from the collocated corporate setting. We draw on the teachings of the Canadian philosopher and theologian, Fr. Bernard Lonergan, to conceptualize an approach to EDM which focuses on the ethics of the corporate agent by nurturing the universal and invariant structure that is operational in all human beings. Embracing Lonergan’s dynamic cognitive structure of human knowing, and the structure of the human good, we advance a paradigm of EDM in business which emboldens authentic ethical thought, decision making, and action commensurate with virtuous living and germane to human flourishing. Lonergan’s philosophy guides us away from the imposition of over-arching corporate codes of ethics and inspires us, as individual agents, to attend to the data of our own consciousness in our ethical decision making. Such cognitional endowment leads us out of the ethics of the ‘timeless present’ (Islam and Greenwood in Journal of Business Ethics 170: 1–4, 2021) towards ethical authenticity in business, leaving us better placed to reflect upon and address the ethical issues emanating from grand challenges like COVID-19.

Bioethics Contra Biopower

2019 ◽  
pp. 247-266
Author(s):  
Bruce Jennings
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Mutual Relations ◽  
Genomic Editing

This chapter engages two issues as they bear on genomic editing and the effects of biotechnology on human well-being: (1) how technology influences a reductionistic and manipulative understanding of biopower and biopolitics, fundamentally at odds with the worldview of bioethical humanism; and (2) how the reconceptualization of human flourishing in capability theories of justice bears on the ethics of biotechnology. The argument of this chapter appeals to a relational or “ecological” humanism that will assist bioethics in developing a critique of the technologies and knowledges of molecular reductionism. In the perspective of relational humanism, human beings are empowered as subjects of value and agents of self-realization, and mutual relations of interdependence and solidarity are affirmed. Along these lines, a reframed debate concerning the governance of biopower and the promotion of just human flourishing in an age of biotechnology can take place.

Liberal Order in the Twenty-First Century: Searching for Eunomia Once Again

2019 ◽  
Vol 139 (2-4) ◽  
pp. 271-284
Author(s):  
Amichai Magen
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Political Liberty ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Good Order ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Unique Potential

Adherents of economic and political liberty are again compelled to ask fundamental questions about the nature and prospects of good order (or Eunomia). This article: (1) offers a quaternary definition of the concept of “order;” (2) contends that Eunomia is essentially about the creation, adaptation, and protection of the conditions necessary for human beings to live lives that are free from fear so as to maximize each individual’s unique potential for human flourishing; and (3) outlines an evolutionary understanding of Eunomia, whereby contemporary liberal orders represent the cumulative outcome of three sets of elite-selected “wins” over illiberal ones. To survive and thrive in the twenty-first century liberalism must once again contest and defeat rival orders.

Distributed Recommender Systems for Internet Commerce

2005 ◽  
pp. 907-911 ◽  
Author(s):  
Badrul M. Sarwar ◽  
Joseph A. Konstan ◽  
John T. Riedl
Keyword(s):  
Recommender Systems ◽  
Nearest Neighbor ◽  
Clustering Algorithms ◽  
Weighted Average ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Internet Commerce ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Evaluation Approach ◽  
The Many

Recommender systems (RSs) present an alternative information-evaluation approach based on the judgements of human beings (Resnick & Varian, 1997). It attempts to automate the word-of-mouth recommendations that we regularly receive from family, friends, and colleagues. In essence, it allows everyone to serve as a critic. This inclusiveness circumvents the scalability problems of individual critics—with millions of readers it becomes possible to review millions of books. At the same time it raises the question of how to reconcile the many and varied opinions of a large community of ordinary people. Recommender systems address this question through the use of different algorithms: nearest-neighbor algorithms (Resnick, Iacovou, Suchak, Bergstrom, & Riedl, 1994; Shardanand et al., 1994), item-based algorithms (Sarwar, Karypis, Konstan, & Riedl, 2001), clustering algorithms (Ungar & Foster, 1998), and probabilistic and rule-based learning algorithms (Breese, Heckerman, & Kadie, 1998), to name but a few. The nearest-neighbor-algorithm-based recommender systems, which are often referred to as collaborative filtering (CF) systems in research literature (Maltz & Ehrlich, 1995), are the most widely used recommender systems in practice. A typical CF-based recommender system maintains a database containing the ratings that each customer has given to each product that customer has evaluated. For each customer in the system, the recommendation engine computes a neighborhood of other customers with similar opinions. To evaluate other products for this customer, the system forms a normalized and weighted average of the opinions of the customer’s neighbors.

Virtue and the “Good Life” in the Book of Job

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Patricia L. Vesely
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
Human Happiness ◽  
External Goods

Abstract In this article, I argue that Job 29 provides an eudaimonic depiction of human happiness whereby virtue, combined with a number of “external goods” is held up as the best possible life for human beings. I compare Job’s vision of the “good life” with an Aristotelian conception of εὐδαιμονία and conclude that there are numerous parallels between Job and Aristotle with respect to their understanding of the “good life.” While the intimate presence of God distinguishes Job’s expectation of happiness with that of Aristotle, Job is unique among other eudaimonic texts in the Hebrew Bible in that expectations of living well are expressed in terms of virtue, rather than Torah piety. In the second portion of the article, I assess Job’s conception of human flourishing from the perspective of the divine speeches, which enlarge Job’s vision of the “good life” by bringing Job face-to-face with the “wild inhabitants” of the cosmos.

Acknowledging Dependence: a MacIntyrean perspective on relationships involving Alzheimer’s Disease

2004 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 400-410
Author(s):  
Janie B Butts ◽  
Karen L Rich
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Cognitive Decline ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Family Health ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Disease Experience ◽  
Person With Dementia

As people living with Alzheimer ’s disease experience their lifetime of memories slowly slipping away, they become dependent on society’s independent practical reasoners - family, health care professionals and society. Many people grow accustomed to the cognitive decline and begin to view the person with dementia as less than a person. In Dependent rational animals, Alasdair MacIntyre emphasized a moral framework that encompasses two sets of virtues needed for human beings to flourish in society and to achieve genuine common goods - the virtues of independent practical reasoners and the virtues of acknowledged dependence. Virtues of acknowledged dependence are discussed ethically in terms of benevolence towards those who are disabled or dependent upon people who are strong and independent. The authors propose that using MacIntyre’s perspective of the two sets of virtues is valuable in the care of persons with Alzheimer ’s disease. According to MacIntyre, independent reasoners who understand and practice these two sets of virtues will help those people in communities who are dependent and vulnerable, and, subsequently, human flourishing can occur.

Equality: From Marxism to Liberalism (and Back Again)

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Sypnowich
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Historical Materialist ◽  
Normative Argument ◽  
Liberal Political Theory

G. A. Cohen casts doubt on the extent to which Marxism can contribute to a theory of equality. This essay affirms Cohen's critique. The historical materialist approach to social change, the privileged role ascribed to the proletariat, and Marx's assumption that scarcity can be abolished: these three themes account for the impatience of classical Marxists with moral commitments and normative argument, an impatience which now seems utopian. Marx was wrong about how social change comes about, and that error made it very difficult for the goal of equality to be formulated, let alone realised. ‘The egalitarian turn’ in liberalism suggests that it is liberal political theory, not Marxism, which can inform debates about equality. The insistence on neutrality about the good in much left-liberal argument, however, has forestalled consideration of the kinds of lives to which human beings should aspire, something that must be considered if we are enable individuals to live well, as Marx understood with his critique of alienation. This paper argues that questions of human flourishing are essential to questions of equality, and that Marx's perfectionist vision of the equal society ought to be retrieved.

Aristotle's Wondering Children

Politeia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 68-81
Author(s):  
Ioannis Alysandratos ◽  
Dimitra Balla ◽  
Despina Konstantinidi ◽  
Panagiotis Thanassas ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Systematic Account ◽  
Imperfect State ◽  
The One ◽  
Shed Light

Wonder is undoubtedly a term that floats around in today’s academic discussion both on ancient philosophy and on philosophy of education. Back in the 4th century B.C., Aristotle underlined the fact that philosophy begins in wonder (θαυμάζειν), without being very specific about the conditions and the effects of its emergence. He focused a great deal on children’s education, emphasizing its fundamental role in human beings’ moral fulfillment, though he never provided a systematic account of children’s moral status. The aim of this paper is to examine, on the one hand, if, to what extent, and under what conditions, Aristotle allows for philosophical wonder to emerge in children’s souls, and, on the other hand, how his approach to education may shed light to the link between wonder and the ultimate moral end, i.e. human flourishing. We will, thus, 1) try to offer a unified outlook of the philosopher’s views on children’s special cognitive and moral state, and 2) illustrate how wonder contributes in overcoming their imperfect state of being.

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