Defending Humanity

Download or read book Defending Humanity written by George P. Fletcher and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2008-03-18 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recoge: Murder among nations -- How to talk about self-defense -- A theory of legitimate defense -- The six elements of legitimate defense -- Excusing international aggression -- Humanitarian intervention -- Preemptive and preventitive wars -- The collective dimension of war.

Download or read book Defending Humanity written by George P. Fletcher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Defending Humanity, internationally acclaimed legal scholar George P. Fletcher and Jens David Ohlin, a leading expert on international criminal law, tackle one of the most important and controversial questions of our time: When is war justified? When a nation is attacked, few would deny that it has the right to respond with force. But what about preemptive and preventive wars, or crossing another state's border to stop genocide? Was Israel justified in initiating the Six Day War, and was NATO's intervention in Kosovo legal? What about the U.S. invasion of Iraq? In their provocative book, Fletcher and Ohlin offer a groundbreaking theory on the legality of war with clear guidelines for evaluating these interventions. The authors argue that much of the confusion on the subject stems from a persistent misunderstanding of the United Nations Charter. The Charter appears to be very clear on the use of military force: it is only allowed when authorized by the Security Council or in self-defense. Unfortunately, this has led to the problem of justifying force when the Security Council refuses to act or when self-defense is thought not to apply--and to the difficult dilemma of declaring such interventions illegal or ignoring the UN Charter altogether. Fletcher and Ohlin suggest that the answer lies in going back to the domestic criminal law concepts upon which the UN Charter was originally based, in particular, the concept of "legitimate defense," which encompasses not only self-defense but defense of others. Lost in the English-language version of the Charter but a vital part of the French and other non-English versions, the concept of legitimate defense will enable political leaders, courts, and scholars to see the solid basis under international law for states to intervene with force--not just to protect themselves against an imminent attack but also to defend other national groups.

Download or read book Cultivating Humanity written by Martha C. Nussbaum and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1998-10-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can higher education today create a community of critical thinkers and searchers for truth that transcends the boundaries of class, gender, and nation? Martha C. Nussbaum, philosopher and classicist, argues that contemporary curricular reform is already producing such “citizens of the world” in its advocacy of diverse forms of cross-cultural studies. Her vigorous defense of “the new education” is rooted in Seneca’s ideal of the citizen who scrutinizes tradition critically and who respects the ability to reason wherever it is found—in rich or poor, native or foreigner, female or male. Drawing on Socrates and the Stoics, Nussbaum establishes three core values of liberal education: critical self-examination, the ideal of the world citizen, and the development of the narrative imagination. Then, taking us into classrooms and campuses across the nation, including prominent research universities, small independent colleges, and religious institutions, she shows how these values are (and in some instances are not) being embodied in particular courses. She defends such burgeoning subject areas as gender, minority, and gay studies against charges of moral relativism and low standards, and underscores their dynamic and fundamental contribution to critical reasoning and world citizenship. For Nussbaum, liberal education is alive and well on American campuses in the late twentieth century. It is not only viable, promising, and constructive, but it is essential to a democratic society. Taking up the challenge of conservative critics of academe, she argues persuasively that sustained reform in the aim and content of liberal education is the most vital and invigorating force in higher education today.

Download or read book New Laws of Robotics written by Frank Pasquale and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AI is poised to disrupt our work and our lives. We can harness these technologies rather than fall captive to them—but only through wise regulation. Too many CEOs tell a simple story about the future of work: if a machine can do what you do, your job will be automated. They envision everyone from doctors to soldiers rendered superfluous by ever-more-powerful AI. They offer stark alternatives: make robots or be replaced by them. Another story is possible. In virtually every walk of life, robotic systems can make labor more valuable, not less. Frank Pasquale tells the story of nurses, teachers, designers, and others who partner with technologists, rather than meekly serving as data sources for their computerized replacements. This cooperation reveals the kind of technological advance that could bring us all better health care, education, and more, while maintaining meaningful work. These partnerships also show how law and regulation can promote prosperity for all, rather than a zero-sum race of humans against machines. How far should AI be entrusted to assume tasks once performed by humans? What is gained and lost when it does? What is the optimal mix of robotic and human interaction? New Laws of Robotics makes the case that policymakers must not allow corporations or engineers to answer these questions alone. The kind of automation we get—and who it benefits—will depend on myriad small decisions about how to develop AI. Pasquale proposes ways to democratize that decision making, rather than centralize it in unaccountable firms. Sober yet optimistic, New Laws of Robotics offers an inspiring vision of technological progress, in which human capacities and expertise are the irreplaceable center of an inclusive economy.

Download or read book In Defense of the Human Being written by Thomas Fuchs and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the progress of artificial intelligence, the digitalization of the lifeworld, and the reduction of the mind to neuronal processes, the human being increasingly appears to be just a product of data and algorithms. That is, we conceive ourselves in the image of our machines, and conversely, we elevate our machines and our brains to new subjects. At the same time, demands for an enhancement of human nature culminate in transhumanist visions of taking human evolution to a new stage. Against this self-reification of the human being, this book defends a humanism of embodiment: our corporeality, vitality, embodied freedom are the foundations of a self-determined existence, which uses these new technologies only as a means, instead of letting them rule us. In Defence of the Human Being offers an array of interventions directed against a reductionist naturalism or transhumanism in various areas of science and society. As alternative it offers an embodied and enactive account of the human person: we are neither pure minds nor brains, but primarily embodied, living beings in relation with others. Fuchs applied this concept to issues such as artificial intelligence, transhumanism and enhancement, virtual reality, neuroscience, embodied freedom, psychiatry, and finally to the accelerating dynamics of current society which lead to an increasing disembodiment of our everyday conduct of life. Cutting across neuroscience, philosophy, and psychiatry, this important new book applies cutting-edge concepts of embodiment and enactivism to the current scientific, technological and cultural tendencies that will crucially influence our society's development in the 21st century.

Download or read book In Defense of Faith written by David Brog and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious faith is under assault. In books and movies and on television, militant secular critics attack religion with a renewed vigor. These “new atheists” repeat a two-part mantra: that religious faith is hopelessly irrational and that those possessed of such faith are responsible for the hatred and bloodshed that has plagued humanity. Abandon religion, they urge us, and the world will at last live in peace. In Defense of Faith examines this proposition in the context of Western civilization and the Judeo-Christian tradition and asserts that, far from encouraging hatred and violence, the Judeo-Christian tradition has easily been the most effective curb upon the dark defects of human nature and our best tool in the struggle for humanity. From the Christian activists who fought to stop the genocide of Indians in South America and their ethnic cleansing in North America, to the abolition of African slavery on both sides of the Atlantic, and on to modern human rights activists from Martin Luther King Jr. to the rock star Bono—In Defense of Faith rebuts the fashionable arguments against religion and presents the strong and lasting record of the Judeo-Christian idea. History has not been as kind to the atheist model: every time it is put to the test, we have reverted to the most base, violent instincts of our selfish genes.

Download or read book Protecting Humanity written by Chile Eboe-Osuji and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-09-24 with total page 908 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Navi Pillay is a modern icon in the world’s efforts to protect humanity through international law and policy. She played a leading role in the multi-national operation to clean up the humanitarian dross left on the essence of modern civilization by the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. Her contributions in that effort were in virtue of her role as a judge—and, eventually, as the President—of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. From there, she went on to serve as one of the first appeal judges at the newly established International Criminal Court—another international endeavour aimed at protecting humanity through law. In time, she was fittingly appointed the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, just ahead of a call to honour her with a book of essays in international law and policy, for the contributions that she had already made in the international enterprise of protecting humanity. Inspired by Pillay, some of the modern legends and experts in international law and policy have, in this volume, shared their experiences and thoughts on how better to protect humanity in our time. In the book, we read the wise words of Nobel laureates and other envoys of peace, renowned international judges and famous scholars, as well as those of energetic younger minds with great promise. Some chapters are in French.