Smart Technologies and Fundamental Rights covers a broad range of vital topics that highlight the ethical, socio-political, and legal challenges as well as technical issues of Artificial Intelligence with respect to fundamental rights. Either humanity will greatly profit from the use of AI in almost all domains in human life, which may eventually lead to a much better and more humane society, or it could be the case that people may misuse AI for idiosyncratic purposes and intelligent machines may turn against human beings. Therefore, we should be extremely cautious with respect to the technological development of AI because we might not be able to control the machines once they reached a certain level of sophistication.

Marx and Critical Theory examines Marx's main philosophical, political and social theoretical ideas. Its purpose is twofold: making sense of the concepts and theses of Marx, and showing that they remain relevant for contemporary critical theory. Part One focuses on Marx's conception of philosophy. Part Two analyses the Marxian primacy of the practical. Part Three is devoted to Capital and the critique of political economy. This book will be useful for those who want to deepen their understanding of Marx's main ideas, as well as for those who want to clarify what is at stake in contemporary debates about the ways in which contemporary critical theory could or should refer to Marx.

In a bold new argument, Ulrika Carlsson grasps hold of the figure of Eros that haunts Soren Kierkegaard's The Concept of Irony, and for the first time, uses it as key to interpret that text and his second book, Either/Or. According to Carlsson, Kierkegaard adopts Plato's idea of Eros as the fundamental force that drives humans in all their pursuits. For him, every existential stance-every way of living and relating to the outside world-is at heart a way of loving. By intensely examining Kierkegaard's erotic language, she also challenges the theory that the philosopher's first two books have little common ground and reveals that they are in fact intimately connected by the central and explicit topic of love. In this text suitable for both students and the Kierkegaard specialist, Carlsson claims that despite long-held beliefs about the disparity of his early work, his first two books both relate to love and Part I of Either/Or should be treated as the sequel to The Concept of Irony.

In her new book, Corine Pelluchon argues that the dichotomy between nature and culture privileges the latter. She laments that the political system protects the sovereignty of the human and leaves them immune to impending environmental disaster. Using the phenomenological writings of French philosophers like Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and Paul Ricoeur, Pelluchon contends that human beings have to recognise humanity's dependence upon the natural world for survival and adopt a new philosophy of existence that advocates for animal welfare and ecological preservation. In an extension of Heidegger's ontology of concern, Pelluchon declares that this dependence is not negative or a sign of weakness. She argues instead, that we are nourished by the natural world and that the very idea of nourishment contains an element of pleasure. This sustenance comforts humans and gives their lives taste. Pelluchon's new philosophy claims then, that eating has an affective, social and cultural dimension, but that most importantly it is a political act. It solidifies the eternal link between human beings and animals, and warns that the human consumption of animals and other natural resources impacts upon humanity's future.

The question of evil is one of the oldest and most intensely studied topics in intellectual history. In fiction, legend and mythology the boundary between good and evil is often depicted as clear-cut, at least to the reader or listener, who is supposed to understand such tales as lessons and warnings. Evil is something that must be avoided by the hero in some cases and vanquished in others; it is either the exact opposite of the expected good behaviour, or its complete absence. Even so, for the characters in these didactic fictions, it turns out to be deceptively easy to fall to the infernal, 'dark' side. This volume draws on the expertise of an interdisciplinary group of contributors to chart events and deeds of an 'evil' nature that have been lived in the (recent) past and have become part of history, from individual to institutionalised evil.

This book explores the spatial, material, and affective dimensions of solitude in the late medieval and early modern periods, a hitherto largely neglected topic. Its focus is on the dynamic qualities of "space" and "place", which are here understood as being shaped, structured, and imbued with meaning through both social and discursive solitary practices such as reading, writing, studying, meditating, and praying. Individual chapters investigate the imageries and imaginaries of outdoor and indoor spaces and places associated with solitude and its practices and examine the ways in which the space of solitude was conceived of, imagined, and represented in the arts and in literature, from about 1300 to about 1800. Contributors include Oskar Batschmann, Carla Benzan, Mette Birkedal Bruun, Dominic E. Delarue, Karl A.E. Enenkel, Christine Goettler, Agnes Guiderdoni, Christiane J. Hessler, Walter S. Melion, Raphaele Preisinger, Bernd Roling, Paul Smith, Marie Theres Stauffer, Arnold A. Witte, and Steffen Zierholz.

How can the stories of the Hebrew Bible be read for their ethical value? Eryl W. Davies uses the narratives of King David in order to explore this, basing his argument on Martha Nussbaum's notion that a sensitive and informed commentary can unpack the complexity of fictional accounts. Davies discusses David and Michal in 1 Sam. 19:11-17; David and Jonathan in 1 Sam. 20; David and Bathsheba in 2 Sam. 11; Nathan's parable in 2 Sam. 12; and the rape of Tamar in 2 Sam. 13. By examining these narratives, Davies shows that a fruitful and constructive dialogue is possible between biblical ethics and modern philosophy. He also emphasizes the ethical accountability of biblical scholars and their responsibility to evaluate the moral teaching that the biblical narratives have to offer.