Human Enhancement in the EU

Many academics in the Western world favour Human Enhancement (HE) with the motto: “if we can, we should.” It is hard to deny the appeal of the idea of sparing or ridding human beings of some of our “weaknesses.” This idea is instinctively appealing, but once certain factors are considered, the morality of such an approach becomes less convincing. This article analyses the political dimension of HE, defining whether or not the European Union (EU) has a common stance on the issue. If HE is morally condemned at a theoretical level, the practical question arises of whether the EU shares a moral stance on the issue. A positive answer to this question will help reinforce a European identity, whereas a negative one will push us to question its appropriateness and will help to provide the necessary tools to change the current state of affairs.

THE HEIDEGGERIAN CONCEPT OF DASEIN AND ITS ONTOLOGICAL MODALITY: DAS MAN

The paper presents a non-standard interpretation of the celebrated Heideggerian existential das Man in terms of its oft-underrated unity with Dasein—an entity of a special ontic-ontological prerogative. The present authors intend to highlight this essential theme in terms of the specific unity of Dasein being-in-the world, covering many subsequent and adjacent existentials in the analytics of the Heideggerian existential hermeneutics, especially Mitsein/Mitdasein. Dasein’s existence-essence is based on the structure of possibilities, and hence free, spontaneous choices, while Das Man is a concrete choice of a certain modus of existence rendering—as it were—all other modi invalid and non-operational. Although Heidegger is far from taking up an ethical or moral stance in its traditional understanding, he is quite adamant that the phenomenon of das Man invalidates a truly human project of existing one’s own possibilities—to wit—be oneself (Jemeines).

Co-constructing a child as disorderly: Moral character work in narrative accounts of upsetting experiences

This study explores how displays of strong emotions in narrative accounts of emotional experiences provide a context for invoking moral accountabilities, including the shaping of the teller’s character. We use a dialogical approach (i.e., ethnomethodology, linguistic anthropology) to emotions to explore how affective stances are performed, responded to and accounted for in episodes of narrative accounts. The analysis is based on a case study that centers on how a child’s walkout from a peer dispute is managed retrospectively in narrative constructions in teacher-child interaction. It is found that the targeted child uses heightened affect displays (crying, sobbing, and prosodic marking), to amplify feelings of distress and stance claims (incorporating reported speech and extreme case formulations) of being badly treated. The heightened stance claims work to justify an oppositional moral stance towards the reported events while projecting accountability to others. The child’s escalated resistance provides a ground for the teacher’s negative uptakes (negative person ascriptions, counter narratives, and third-party reports). The findings shed light on how narrative renderings of upsetting experiences easily become indexical of the teller’s moral character and adds to dispositional features of being over-reactive and disorderly, in ways that undermine a child’s social position.

Metanoia in Anime

Through the concept of metanoia, this essay surveys examples of its occurrence in anime and suggests possible reasons for its relative frequency there. The author discusses the concept in his study of protagonist and antagonist characters, and the related concept of the story arc—revealing how a character changes over the course of the film and how the narrative plot is affected by the character’s transformation. The author particularly explores the varieties of rehabilitated antagonists in the context of Japanese anime and examines the literary and cultural antecedents for this sort of character and the character’s shifting moral stance. He also compares and contrasts them to the typical western character arcs and different hero-types featured in Hollywood films. The author concludes that the occurrence of metanoia in Japanese anime is influenced by Buddhist beliefs, for example, the concept of karma and subsequent changes of the spiritual identity of the character.

How is the moral stance related to the intentional stance and group thinking?

The natural history of our moral stance told here in this commentary reveals the close nexus of morality and basic social-cognitive capacities. Big mysteries about morality thus transform into smaller and more manageable ones. Here, I raise questions regarding the conceptual, ontogenetic, and evolutionary relations of the moral stance to the intentional and group stances and to shared intentionality.