Inauguration Symposium

2012/04/23 at Rakuyu Kaikan of Kyoto University.

Symposiasts

Takashi Yagisawa, California State University, U. S. A.

Szu-Ting Chen, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan

Kai-Yuan Cheng, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan

Sang-Wook Yi, Hanyang University, Republic of Korea

Robert Sparrow, Monash University, Australia

Abstracts

Takashi Yagisawa: Applied Metaphysics: Contents of Narrative Cinema
The so-called possible-worlds framework provides a powerful theoretical arena in which a variety of philosophical theorizing can be pursued with much benefit. A natural extension of it is the impossible-worlds framework. It gives philosophical respectability to the idea of the impossible. A number of topics may be usefully discussed within this framework, among which is the content of a typical narrative film. I shall sketch the reason why the contents of narrative films are typically impossible in two or more different senses of “impossible” and how these senses are treated in the impossible-worlds framework.

Szu-Ting Chen: Many Faces of Causal Inquiry and Its Implications for Scientific Discovery
Although causal inquiry has long been regarded as one of the core elements of science, the focus of the philosophical investigation of causality has changed over time since at least the modern era. The modern philosophical analysis of causality has been going through three stagesi.e., metaphysical, epistemological, and methodological stagesto prove that it has its uses in providing suggestions for scientific discovery of causal connection between relevant factors. The main purpose of this presentation is to briefly go through the three developmental stages and then move on to focus on the cases of causal inquiry that have their implications for practical scientific discovery.

Kai-Yuan Cheng: The Reality and Value of Virtual Experience in Online Games
The aim of this paper is to address the following question: Is the experience which we obtain from on-line games or cyberspace ontologically inferior to that which we obtain from interacting with the physical world? Answering this question requires that we illuminate the reality and value of digital experienceexperience that we acquire from the so-called virtual reality. Some philosophical considerations are offered in support of the view that there is no fundamental difference between the two worlds  the digital and the physical  in terms of reality and value.

Sang-Wook Yi :Recovery and Enhancement: Ethics of Being Better than Human
Medical treatments including drugs and surgery are usually understood to help patients recover their health. If you have appendicitis, your doctor might suggest appendectomy. If you suffer from indigestion, you might consider taking a digestive. On the other hand, we are also used to various types of non-medical enhancements including legally permitted ones such as coffee and illegal substances such as steroids for athletes. At first, the distinction between recovery and enhancement is trivial, or at least conceptually clear enough to make no practical difficulties in deciding our proper attitudes towards them. Recovery to health through medical treatments is desirable, while enhancement from normal ability of human requires our judgments concerning its ethical, social, and legal acceptability.
Some disagree and question the legitimacy of the distinction, claiming that there is no intrinsic difference between medical treatments to recover human health and all sorts of enhancements for performing better than average human. I will consider the argument offered by Buchanan, and examine if his continuity claim actually holds. I will argue that despite conceptual difficulties in providing a unique, clear-cut line between recovery and enhancement, the line is still significant to draw for our moral, social and legal decision- making. For the matter of consequential significance, conceptual fuzziness tells us little more than the importance of better institutions.

Robert Sparrow: What makes a human life go well&. And why it matters.
This presentation will ask how we can tell when someone’s life is going well or  to put it another way  how we should evaluate well-being. I will introduce three popular answers to this question  hedonism, preference-satisfaction accounts, and objective list theories  and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each. I will argue that which theory we choose has important implications across a wide range of problems in applied ethics, including the philosophy of education, care for the elderly, and the ethics of human enhancement. Finally, I will explore some of the implications of what I believe to be the most plausible account of well-being, an objective list theory.

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