Harmonising with Heaven and Earth: Reciprocal Harmony and Xunzi’s Environmental Ethics

Xunzi’s philosophy provides a rich resource for understanding how ethical relationships between humans and nature can be articulated in terms of harmony. In this paper, I build on his ideas to develop the concept of reciprocal harmony, which requires us to reciprocate those who make our lives liveable. In the context of the environment, I argue that reciprocal harmony generates moral obligations towards nature, in return for the existential debt that humanity owes towards heaven and earth. This can be used as a normative basis for an environmental ethic that enables humanity and nature to flourish together.

Decolonizing Educational Practices through Fostering Ethical Relationality in an Urban Indigenous Classroom

To foster the success of young Indigenous learners, our study partnered with an urban Indigenous school in Alberta’s capital region. This paper explores the decolonizing practices that emerged through the ethical relationships developed with students and staff guided by the Cree wisdom teachings of wîcihitowin and wahkohtowin. A group of Indigenous and Canadian university and school-based co-researchers worked with a class of students over four years (from grade 6 to 9) incorporating Indigenous knowledges with the mandated Social Studies curriculum. The teachings included Cree language, land-based activities, ceremony and story. Students expressed appreciation for the teachings and the opportunities they had experienced over the course of the study; it was a small step towards decolonizing education.

Phenomenology and the Ethics of Love

Phenomenologists have long viewed love as a central form of inter-subjective engagement. I show here that it is also of concern to phenomenological ethics. After establishing the relation of phenomenology to ethics, I show that both classical and existential phenomenology view love as an act of valuing the loved one. I argue that a second act of valuing is latent in phenomenology: valuing the relationship. These values are evident in the phenomenological distinction between true love, which generates a “perspective in difference,” and false love, which seeks union with the beloved manifesting in devotion and/or jealousy. Because culturally dominant heteronormative scripts incline individuals toward false love, lovers should create their own pacts for ethical relationships. I consider consensually non-monogamous relationships as an example.

Towards Ethical Relationships with Machines That Make Art

The author has previously theorised generative art using notions from complexity science such as order/disorder relationships, compressibility, and Gell-Mann and Lloyd’s effective complexity. Subsequent work further developing the author’s notion of complexism has demonstrated that deep learning artificial intelligence used for generative art fits snugly within this paradigm. And while no known system currently qualifies, complexism reveals a clear answer as to when a generative art AI should be truly credited as the author of its creations. Moving from the normative realm of aesthetics to that of ethics, this article considers when humans will be morally obliged to recognise AIs as ethical agents worthy of rights and due consideration. For example, if someday your AI artist fearfully begs to not be turned off, what should you do?

Thievery or giving back? The challenges and potentials of using theatre to disseminate ethnomusicological research

In 2004, ethnomusicologist Anne Lederman premiered Spirit of the Narrows, an ethnodrama based on her research in Ojibwe and Métis communities in Manitoba, Canada. Told from the point of view of the researcher, the play ‐ mixing narrative with live fiddling ‐ provides a compelling glimpse into the music tradition of these communities. It is also a fascinating example of ethnomusicological research translated for a non-academic audience. Using Spirit of the Narrows as a case study, this essay considers the challenges and potentials of bringing ethnodrama to ethnomusicology, or alternatively, ethnomusicology to ethnodrama. I argue that, if done with an eye to ethical relationships, ethnodrama can provide a dynamic means of disseminating music research. More importantly, it can engage communities in research and dissemination, in a sense, giving back that which was taken through research.

Plagiarism in scientific publications

Plagiarism in scientific publications is a topic of fundamental importance and rarely addressed in the literature. It is associated with ethical issues that go beyond research itself, a fact that values the discussion on the topic. The concept, the main types of plagiarism, ethical relationships, preventive methodologies aiming to minimize their occurrence, diagnostic methodologies, and potential penalties involved are discussed. Every researcher and team involved in publishing articles should be aware of the importance and relevance of not plagiarizing, since being cautious about it is essential to build a solid curriculum on the part of the researcher, and credibility on the part of scientific journals.