Download or read book The Promise of Human Autonomy written by Walter Gruen Ph.D. and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2017-06-22 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SYNOPSIS The thesis of this book is that autonomous behavior in the human being has now been securely anchored as a stage in the development of human person-ality. It has been recognized and described as a valid form of adult human behavior from the evidence supplied by a number of prominent clinicians and experimenters in the area of personality psychology. Furthermore, self-actualizing behavior has been shown to emerge as the more dominant form of expression in people after they have tried to get help with personal problems from the advocates of some of the newer psychotherapies. Autonomy has also been independently established as a necessary expression of life forces on the psychological level by General Systems Theory. Hence Autonomy is an important characteristic of the living organisms in their tendency to achieve a condi-tion of minimal disorganization or "negentropy". We can furthermore understand the lack of awareness in history of this human process for the following reasons: 1. Technological and scientific development did not allow men to develop long enough for it to emerge except for a few; 2. Pre-industrial technology further prevented Man from developing the physical security or the leisure that is needed for its exercise; 3. Religion and other ideologies forced Man to put his faith and trust in an all-powerful and warmly concerned deity rather than in himself; 4. Confusions about the real working of the human mind embroiled the philosophers over the ages to debate on the so-called faculties of Man and their interrelationships which effectively hid autonomous functioning under a number of other categories; 5. Men so organized their society that they preferred dependency on a King or on an aristocracy. It took the development of machines to do Man's work, knowledge of medicine to keep him alive long enough, an acceptance of a democratic ideology and government, and the scientific investigations of mental processes and personality to see autonomy as a legitimate human form of expression. The exercise of human autonomy has also led to some serious problems for Mankind. We can attribute a sense of irresponsibility and lack of consideration, alienation, apathy, and even forms of anarchy to this. These difficulties have pushed whole societies to experimental solutions in which autonomy is subjugated either to irrational leaders or to a pseudo-scientific dictatorship called communism. If we recognize that autonomy is a stage in adult life, after the person has learned and accepted conformity and a sense of responsibility, we can distinguish between true exercise of autonomy and pseudo autonomy. Recent psychological observations about the development of morality also equate the development of the highest stage, namely considera-tion of the common good, with the exercise of autonomy. It therefore becomes possible for Man to take another look at the possible application of autonomous functioning to the solution of problems in our society, rather than magnify the latter with the slogan: "Let each person do his or her own thing." We can begin here by carefully separating the use of rational thinking available in the autonomy stage from the irrational behavior found in all of us, including moments in the lives of self-actualizing people. Armed with this dichotomy we could then heavily lean on the rational thinking processes for solving problems. For instance, we could increase the utilization of mediation practices on all levels of society to settle the inevitable disputes that arise when the self-expressions of people clash with those of others. We could also organize and legitimate various institutions and practices which would allow people to freely express their irrational impulses. In this way these expressions would be isolated from the mainstream and would not hurt others except the participants who are willing to take the risk. We are, therefore, at the choice point in history where we can accept autonomou

Download or read book The Promise of Human Autonomy written by Walter Gruen and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kant and the Promise of Rhetoric written by Scott R. Stroud and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-04-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immanuel Kant is rarely connected to rhetoric by those who study philosophy or the rhetorical tradition. If anything, Kant is said to see rhetoric as mere manipulation and as not worthy of attention. In Kant and the Promise of Rhetoric, Scott Stroud presents a first-of-its-kind reappraisal of Kant and the role he gives rhetorical practices in his philosophy. By examining the range of terms that Kant employs to discuss various forms of communication, Stroud argues that the general thesis that Kant disparaged rhetoric is untenable. Instead, he offers a more nuanced view of Kant on rhetoric and its relation to moral cultivation. For Kant, certain rhetorical practices in education, religious settings, and public argument become vital tools to move humans toward moral improvement without infringing on their individual autonomy. Through the use of rhetorical means such as examples, religious narratives, symbols, group prayer, and fallibilistic public argument, individuals can persuade other agents to move toward more cultivated states of inner and outer autonomy. For the Kant recovered in this book, rhetoric becomes another part of human activity that can be animated by the value of humanity, and it can serve as a powerful tool to convince agents to embark on the arduous task of moral self-cultivation.

Download or read book Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy written by Ken Gemes and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2009-05-07 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nietzsche is a central figure in our modern understanding of the individual as freely determining his or her own values. These essays by leading Nietzsche scholars investigate what this freedom really means: How free are we really? What does it take to be free? It might be a 'right', but it also needs to be earned.

Download or read book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism written by Shoshana Zuboff and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification." The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future -- if we let it.

Download or read book Our Robots Ourselves written by David A. Mindell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[An] essential book… it is required reading as we seriously engage one of the most important debates of our time.”—Sherry Turkle, author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age From drones to Mars rovers—an exploration of the most innovative use of robots today and a provocative argument for the crucial role of humans in our increasingly technological future. In Our Robots, Ourselves, David Mindell offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the cutting edge of robotics today, debunking commonly held myths and exploring the rapidly changing relationships between humans and machines. Drawing on firsthand experience, extensive interviews, and the latest research from MIT and elsewhere, Mindell takes us to extreme environments—high atmosphere, deep ocean, and outer space—to reveal where the most advanced robotics already exist. In these environments, scientists use robots to discover new information about ancient civilizations, to map some of the world’s largest geological features, and even to “commute” to Mars to conduct daily experiments. But these tools of air, sea, and space also forecast the dangers, ethical quandaries, and unintended consequences of a future in which robotics and automation suffuse our everyday lives. Mindell argues that the stark lines we’ve drawn between human and not human, manual and automated, aren’t helpful for understanding our relationship with robotics. Brilliantly researched and accessibly written, Our Robots, Ourselves clarifies misconceptions about the autonomous robot, offering instead a hopeful message about what he calls “rich human presence” at the center of the technological landscape we are now creating.

Download or read book The Promise of American Life written by Herbert David Croly and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Promise of Artificial Intelligence written by Brian Cantwell Smith and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument that—despite dramatic advances in the field—artificial intelligence is nowhere near developing systems that are genuinely intelligent. In this provocative book, Brian Cantwell Smith argues that artificial intelligence is nowhere near developing systems that are genuinely intelligent. Second wave AI, machine learning, even visions of third-wave AI: none will lead to human-level intelligence and judgment, which have been honed over millennia. Recent advances in AI may be of epochal significance, but human intelligence is of a different order than even the most powerful calculative ability enabled by new computational capacities. Smith calls this AI ability “reckoning,” and argues that it does not lead to full human judgment—dispassionate, deliberative thought grounded in ethical commitment and responsible action. Taking judgment as the ultimate goal of intelligence, Smith examines the history of AI from its first-wave origins (“good old-fashioned AI,” or GOFAI) to such celebrated second-wave approaches as machine learning, paying particular attention to recent advances that have led to excitement, anxiety, and debate. He considers each AI technology's underlying assumptions, the conceptions of intelligence targeted at each stage, and the successes achieved so far. Smith unpacks the notion of intelligence itself—what sort humans have, and what sort AI aims at. Smith worries that, impressed by AI's reckoning prowess, we will shift our expectations of human intelligence. What we should do, he argues, is learn to use AI for the reckoning tasks at which it excels while we strengthen our commitment to judgment, ethics, and the world.

Download or read book Human Autonomy in Cross Cultural Context written by Valery I. Chirkov and published by . This book was released on 2011-03-30 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Practical Autonomy and Bioethics written by James Stacey Taylor and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-07 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops a unique account of autonomy in which its attribution to agents is dependent in part on their relationships with others and not merely upon their mental states. This is then applied to bioethical issues—e.g., informed consent and patient confidentiality—in which autonomy plays a central role.

Download or read book Human Autonomy in Cross Cultural Context written by Valery I. Chirkov and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-12-02 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents the reader with a stimulating tapestry of essays exploring the nature of personal autonomy, self-determination, and agency, and their role in human optimal functioning at multiple levels of analysis from personal to societal and cross-cultural. The starting point for these explorations is self-determination theory, an integrated theory of human motivation and healthy development which has been under development for more than three decades (Deci & Ryan, 2000). As the contributions will make clear, psychological autonomy is a concept that forms the bridge between the dependence of human behavior on biological and socio-cultural determinants on the one side, and people’s ability to be free, reflective, and transforming agents who can challenge these dependencies, on the other. The authors within this volume share a vision that human autonomy is a fundamental pre-condition for both individuals and groups to thrive, and that without understanding the nature and mechanisms of autonomous agency vital social and human problems cannot be satisfactory addressed. This multidisciplinary team of researchers will collectively explore the nature of personal autonomy, considering its developmental origins, its expression within relationships, its importance within groups and organizational functioning, and its role in promoting to the democratic and economic development of societies. The book is aimed toward developmental, social, personality, and cross-cultural psychologists, towards researchers and practitioners’ in the areas of education, health and medicine, social work and, economics, and also towards all interested in creating a more sustainable and just world society through promoting individual freedom and agency. This volume will provide a theoretical and conceptual account of the nature and psychological mechanisms of personal motivational autonomy and human agency; rich multidisciplinary empirical evidence supporting the claims and propositions about the nature of human autonomy and capacities for self-regulation; explanations of how and why different psychological and socio-cultural conditions may play a role in promoting or undermining people’s autonomous motivation and well-being, discussions of how the promotion of human autonomy can positively influence environmental protection, democracy promotion and economic prosperity.

Download or read book Kantian Ethics and Economics written by Mark White and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-17 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book integrates the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant—particularly the concepts of autonomy, dignity, and character—into economic theory, enriching models of individual choice and policymaking, while contributing to our understanding of how the economic individual fits into society.

Download or read book Virtually Human written by Martine Rothblatt and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virtually Human explores what the not-too-distant future will look like when cyberconsciousness—simulation of the human brain via software and computer technology—allows our consciousness to be present forever. Meet Bina48, the world's most sentient robot, commissioned by Martine Rothblatt and created by Hanson Robotics. Bina48 is a nascent Mindclone of Martine's wife that can engage in conversation, answer questions, and even have spontaneous thoughts that are derived from multimedia data in a Mindfile created by the real Bina. If you're active on Twitter or Facebook, share photos through Instagram, or blogging regularly, you're already on your way to creating a Mindfile—a digital database of your thoughts, memories, feelings, and opinions that is essentially a back-up copy of your mind. Soon, this Mindfile can be made conscious with special software—Mindware—that mimics the way human brains organize information, create emotions and achieve self-awareness. This may sound like science-fiction A.I. (artificial intelligence), but the nascent technology already exists. Thousands of software engineers across the globe are working to create cyberconsciousness based on human consciousness and the Obama administration recently announced plans to invest in a decade-long Brain Activity Map project. Virtually Human is the only book to examine the ethical issues relating to cyberconsciousness and Rothblatt, with a Ph.D. in medical ethics, is uniquely qualified to lead the dialogue.

Download or read book Contemporary Bioethics written by Mohammed Ali Al-Bar and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-05-27 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the common principles of morality and ethics derived from divinely endowed intuitive reason through the creation of al-fitr' a (nature) and human intellect (al-‘aql). Biomedical topics are presented and ethical issues related to topics such as genetic testing, assisted reproduction and organ transplantation are discussed. Whereas these natural sources are God’s special gifts to human beings, God’s revelation as given to the prophets is the supernatural source of divine guidance through which human communities have been guided at all times through history. The second part of the book concentrates on the objectives of Islamic religious practice – the maqa' sid – which include: Preservation of Faith, Preservation of Life, Preservation of Mind (intellect and reason), Preservation of Progeny (al-nasl) and Preservation of Property. Lastly, the third part of the book discusses selected topical issues, including abortion, assisted reproduction devices, genetics, organ transplantation, brain death and end-of-life aspects. For each topic, the current medical evidence is followed by a detailed discussion of the ethical issues involved.

Download or read book The Ambiguity of Human Autonomy and Freedom in the Thought of Paul Tillich written by Robert Donald Knudsen and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Infinite Autonomy written by Jeffrey Church and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: G. W. F. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche are often considered the philosophical antipodes of the nineteenth century. In Infinite Autonomy, Jeffrey Church draws on the thinking of both Hegel and Nietzsche to assess the modern Western defense of individuality—to consider whether we were right to reject the ancient model of community above the individual. The theoretical and practical implications of this project are important, because the proper defense of the individual allows for the survival of modern liberal institutions in the face of non-Western critics who value communal goals at the expense of individual rights. By drawing from Hegelian and Nietzschean ideas of autonomy, Church finds a third way for the individual—what he calls the “historical individual,” which goes beyond the disagreements of the ancients and the moderns while nonetheless incorporating their distinctive contributions.

Download or read book Subject to Ourselves written by Anthony Elliott and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The revised edition of Subject to Ourselves, a lively and provocative book that was a leader on its topic in England, uses psychoanalytic theory as the basis for a fresh reassessment of the nature of modernity and postmodernism. Analyzing changing experiences of selfhood, desire, interpersonal relations, culture and globalization, the author develops a novel account of postmodernity that supplants current understandings of "fragmented selves." Subject to Ourselves includes a diverse set of case studies, including the power of fantasy in military violence and war, the debate over sexual seduction in psychoanalysis, and the cultural uses of media and new information technologies. The book will be essential reading for students and professionals of social and political theory, psychoanalytic studies, psychology and cultural studies, as well as those with an interest in the modernity/postmodernity debate. Praise for the First Edition: 'This book not only fills an important gap in the literature, for it summarises a debate that is scattered across a decade of rather difficult texts, but also offers a resolution that is sensible and grounded in the best current thinking. It will be widely read by graduate students, faculty, and professionals in the humanities and social sciences.' Choice 'This is an informative and enjoyable book, which will be of use to students and academics...It is accessibly written and provides useful summaries of the different theories and debates in cultural and psychoanalytic theory. Recommended.' Radical Philosophy