Title: Shared Responsibility for the Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence
Author: Eva Buddeberg
Page: 5-25

Philosophical literature generally highlights three different aspects or dimensions of responsibility: 1. the attribution of authorship of actions and the liability of the actor for these actions; 2. the attribution of a duty of care for certain tasks or areas of responsibility; and finally 3. the obligation to justify one’s own behaviour and actions with good reasons. The discussion about the development and the use of artificial intelligence currently focuses on the first and, to some extent, the third aspect. However, the rapid pace of development and the now omnipresent use of AI also require ongoing critical examination and reflection on the normative framework. Responsibility must therefore be understood more broadly: with regard to the development and use of artificial intelligence, we bear a discursive shared responsibility that involves examining the development and use of AI systems against the yardstick of justice, as well as the normative framework itself that guides us in the development and use of AI systems.

Title: Framing Computational Fairness and Non-Discrimination
Author: Wilfried Hinsch
Page: 27-48

This article outlines a new framework of computational fairness for the analysis of data-driven statistical discrimination. It begins by identifying the limitations of the still dominant paradigm of fairness through unawareness. Building on this critique, the article proposes an approach that distinguishes concerns of procedural fairness from questions of distributive justice when evaluating poten tially discriminatory procedures. In contrast to a widespread view, it argues that procedural computational fairness rests on a single formal criterion. A computational procedure is non-discriminatory, it is claimed, if it achieves equal predictive values across demographic groups. In addition, two non-procedural requirements of distributive justice are advanced for selective procedures: the proportionality of individual burdens and their compatibility with a just overall social distribution of benefits and burdens.

Title: Automation, Co-Agency, and Distributed Responsibility: Caring for Hybrid Therapeutic Networks
Author: Cordula Kropp and Tobias Renner
Page: 49-70

Drawing on insights from sociology and science and technology studies, we develop an account of agency as an emergent and relational property constituted within hybrid configurations of humans and machines. We speak of co-agency to capture the ways in which responsible action is jointly produced within human-machine entanglements, with both parties demonstrating purposively intended as well as determined forms of action. By emphasizing the interdependence of sociotechnical systems, therapeutic practices, and institutional automation infrastructures, we argue that responsibility cannot be attributed to discrete actors – whether human or digital – but must instead be understood as generated within the relational processes through which co-agency emerges. This reconceptualization shifts attention from locating isolated bearers of responsibility to examining the socio-technical arrangements that structure action, thereby suggesting recommendations for ethical guidelines aimed at supporting responsible automation in healthcare.

Title: Perfect Lawmaking and Perfect Legal Compliance – Two False Ideals of Normativity in Governance by AI?
Author: Klaus Günther
Page: 71-86

Given the rapid advances in AI in predicting and controlling human behavior, the question arises as to whether the responsible use of AI might not best be regulated by law with the aid of AI itself. This question is guided by the expectation that two normative problems associated with legal norms can be definitively resolved with the help of AI: (1) that it might be possible to perfect legal norms through AI to such an extent that they provide a single correct answer for every application, and (2) that they can control the behavior of those subject to them in such a way that there is no longer any deviant behavior. This article situates these two expectations within the historical context of efforts to perfect legal norms and critically discusses the possible consequences for the democratic constitutional state.

Title: The Debate About Taxing the Wealthy
Author: Wolfgang Detel
Page: 87-110

In light of major societal challenges, the political debate on various forms of wealth taxation, or the ‘Tax the Rich’ strategy, has recently gained momentum in Germany. This article examines the arguments for and against taxing the wealthy, drawing on statistical data and some of the most significant scientific studies on current economic inequality and its history. In particular, it looks at the kinds of reasons used in the current debate. It is argued that the arguments in favor of specific forms of wealth tax outweigh the reservations.

Title: The Late and Tragic Triumph of an Economic Myth
Author: Arnis Vilks
Page: 111-131

The paper argues that the Classical Liberal Paradigm with its core tenet that the ‘invisible hand of the market’ allocates resources in a socially optimal way, has been the dominant paradigm of mainstream economics for more than 200 years, and has given rise to research associated with the names of Cournot, Marshall, Walras, Pareto, Arrow, Debreu and many others. However, the insights produced by economic theory by around 1970 must be regarded as a refutation of the invisible hand tenet. Nevertheless, propagandists of the neoliberal version of the Classical Liberal Paradigm succeeded in convincing political authorities around the world, ironically at about the same time, to implement policies suggested by the outdated paradigm. The tragedy of its late triumph lies in the fact that it has contributed to a political neglect of environmental pollution and ensuing global warming on the one hand, and to a bizarre degree of concentration of wealth and the power that comes with it, on the other hand.

Title: From the Description of ‘Wokeness’ to its Critique. Methodological Remarks on Musa Al-Gharbi’s We Have Never Been Woke
Author: Giovanni Battista Soda
Page: 133-156

This article critically examines the methodology of Musa Al-Gharbi’s We Have Never Been Woke, which offers an ambitious sociological account of ‘wokeness’ as a performative ideology deployed by elite symbolic capitalists to consolidate their privilege under the guise of progressive politics. I argue that Al-Gharbi’s account is traversed by an unresolved tension between his methodological commitments that ultimately constrains the critical reach of his analysis. Drawing on both classical and contemporary authors of Frankfurt School Critical Theory, particularly Horkheimer, Adorno, Jaeggi, and Celikates, I show that Al-Gharbi’s exclusive reliance on material-economic explanations leaves the normative and transformative capacity of ‘woke’ concepts undertheorized. Subsequently, I argue that Al-Gharbi’s descriptive account of ‘wokeness’ can be framed as a description of first order ‘woke’ practices that subsequently calls for reconstruction through a second-order self-critique. Relying on Celikates, I conclude that doing so rehabilitates the emancipatory potential of ‘woke’ concepts while exposing their conservative social entanglement, grounding a discourse that moves beyond mere demystification toward a genuinely critical account of ‘wokeness’.

Title: Peace in Gaza?
Author: Quassim Cassam
Page: 157-177

This paper identifies five normal pre-requisites for ending a war by a formal peace agreement and argues that none of the five conditions is satisfied by both sides in the war between Israel and Hamas. Each side must be a valid interlocutor (‘interlocuteur valable’) and must recognize the other side as a valid interlocutor. There must be a degree of mutual trust and a willingness to compromise on both sides. Finally, there must be mechanisms for enforcing the agreement. Hamas’s conduct on 7 October 2023 placed it beyond the pale of dialogue and negotiation. Governments should be willing to negotiate with some terrorists but not others. Hamas in its current form belongs in the latter category. An alternative to negotiating with Hamas is to crush it with massive military force. Although some terrorist groups have been defeated in this way, Hamas is unlikely to be one of them. A more realistic objective is to continue to degrade it with a view to rendering it politically and militarily impotent. It remains to be seen whether there is any level of military pressure that would induce it to change its approach and compromise for the sake of peace.

Title: Peace in Gaza: A Response to Cassam
Author: Jeff McMahan
Page: 179-194

This article responds to Quassim Cassam’s arguments for the claim that the only viable strategy for Israel in its conflict with Hamas is to continue the war begun in October 2023 until Hamas is “crushed.” It critically examines his reasons for claiming that Hamas fails to satisfy the five conditions he states for potentially successful peace negotiations. While it may be true that Hamas fails to satisfy the conditions, it is also true that Israel fails even more egregiously to satisfy them. And even if the satisfaction of the conditions by both sides were necessary for successful negotiations, which is not the case, peace negotiations are not the best alternative to continued war. The best strategy for achieving a lasting peace is for both parties to address what Cassam calls the “root causes” of the conflict. Israel could successfully do this entirely unilaterally. And the Palestinians could also act unilaterally in a way that would be the best they could do to eliminate the fundamental source of the conflict.

Title: The Meaning of Social Ownership, the Priority of Cooperativism, and the Unpleasant Need for Private Shareholding: A Reply to Claassen
Author: Hannes Kuch
Page: 195-205

This paper defends the model of Plural Cooperativism against criticism. Plural Cooperativism is a society-wide economic system of cooperative ownership that allows for limited private shareholding, counterbalanced by public shareholding and a more democratic reallocation of control rights, while universal inheritances enable broad-based investment in cooperatives. In response to Rutger Claassen’s critique, the paper clarifies the normative foundations of social ownership and argues that cooperatives can serve a wide range of values beyond workplace democracy, especially when a public shareholder complements them. It further defends the focus on cooperatives against Claassen’s proposal to rely more strongly on trust-owned firms, since the latter exhibit a structural deficit in workplace democracy and impose overly demanding altruistic requirements. Finally, it justifies the opportunity for private shareholding by addressing issues of entry costs, financing, and portfolio diversification, and it argues for a strong role of the public shareholder by showing that disinvestment threats from private shareholders persist under Plural Cooperativism.