Values and Identities: Crossing Philosophical Borders – serie

To what degree is technology in the form of products and processes capable of contributing human enhancement and wellbeing? In cases where the impact of a technology on society is not only very negligible but overall negative and harmful, what is technology good for? To answer these questions, Spence develops and applies a normative model based on rationalist and virtue ethics as well as stoic philosophy. Its primary purpose is to determine the essential conditions that any normative theory that seeks to assess the impact of technology on wellbeing must adequately address in order to be able to account for, explain and evaluate what contribution, if any, technology is capable of making to the attainment and enhancement of human wellbeing. Through developing this model, Spence offers a novel and important examination of the benefit of technology to our society as a whole.

In cases that involve domination of, and discrimination against, minorities, the most common solution is the promotion of minority rights. However, this book contends that in the context of migrant minorities in Africa, appealing to minority rights is not a workable solution due to the historical abuses and discrimination of minorities both within and across African states. Through insightful philosophical analysis, Abumere argues for a new normative international relations among African states, which includes the adoption of minority rights, but does not rely on them. He analyses the possible consequences of the newly ratified African Continental Free Trade Agreement, looking at how it may encourage a more integrated Africa, but also may increase the chances of domination and discrimination against minorities. Abumere explains that in order to have normative international relations that transcends realist-rationalist fundamentalism, African states must be amenable to a fusion of horizons.