The ethical guidelines for prenatal diagnosis proposed by the World Health Organisation , as well as by national regulations, only refer to paternity and gender of the fetus as unacceptable, disease-unrelated criteria for prenatal selection, as no other such parameters are at hand so far. This perspective is too narrow because research on complex genetic systems such as cognition and ageing is about to provide clinically applicable tests for genetic constituents of potentially desirable properties such as intelligence or longevity which (...) could be misused as parameters for prenatal diagnosis. Moreover, there is an increasing number of prenatally testable genetic traits, such as heritable deafness, which are generally regarded as pathological but desired by some prospective parents and taken into account as parameters for pro-disability selection. To protect prenatal diagnosis from ethically unacceptable genetic consumerism, guidelines must be clarified as soon as possible and updated towards a worldwide restriction of prenatal genetic testing to immediately disease-determining traits. (shrink)

Die Entwicklung von Substitutionstherapien für Enzymdefekte hat für betroffene Patienten zu einer grundlegend verbesserten Prognose und Lebensqualität geführt, allerdings zu extrem hohen Behandlungskosten. Bei solchen rezessiv erblichen Krankheiten besteht ein hohes Risiko dafür, dass auch weitere Geschwister eines betroffenen Kindes in gleicher Weise behandlungsbedürftig werden.Vor dem Hintergrund der Debatte um Ressourcenallokationen im Gesundheitswesen drohen anlagetragende Elternpaare bzw. Schwangere unter Druck zu geraten, angesichts der absehbar hohen Behandlungskosten auf weitere Kinder zu verzichten bzw. eine Schwangerschaft mit einem betroffenen Feten abzubrechen. Nach (...) geltendem Strafrecht und unter dem individualethischen Aspekt der reproduktiven Freiheit kommt eine solche „ökonomische Indikation“ zum Schwangerschaftsabbruch bislang nicht in Betracht, da sich die medizinische Indikation allein an der Zumutbarkeit der Fortsetzung der Schwangerschaft für die Mutter bemisst. Sozialer Druck sowie insbesondere mögliche A-priori Leistungsausschlüsse durch private Versicherer könnten aber künftig die Entscheidungsautonomie von Eltern von Kindern mit behandelbaren Erbleiden untergraben. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Entwicklung von Substitutionstherapien für Enzymdefekte hat für betroffene Patienten zu einer grundlegend verbesserten Prognose und Lebensqualität geführt, allerdings zu extrem hohen Behandlungskosten. Bei solchen rezessiv erblichen Krankheiten besteht ein hohes Risiko dafür, dass auch weitere Geschwister eines betroffenen Kindes in gleicher Weise behandlungsbedürftig werden.Vor dem Hintergrund der Debatte um Ressourcenallokationen im Gesundheitswesen drohen anlagetragende Elternpaare bzw. Schwangere unter Druck zu geraten, angesichts der absehbar hohen Behandlungskosten auf weitere Kinder zu verzichten bzw. eine Schwangerschaft mit einem betroffenen Feten abzubrechen. Nach (...) geltendem Strafrecht und unter dem individualethischen Aspekt der reproduktiven Freiheit kommt eine solche „ökonomische Indikation“ zum Schwangerschaftsabbruch bislang nicht in Betracht, da sich die medizinische Indikation allein an der Zumutbarkeit der Fortsetzung der Schwangerschaft für die Mutter bemisst. Sozialer Druck sowie insbesondere mögliche A-priori Leistungsausschlüsse durch private Versicherer könnten aber künftig die Entscheidungsautonomie von Eltern von Kindern mit behandelbaren Erbleiden untergraben. (shrink)

Definition of the problem: The development of molecular genetics has provided tools not only for the diagnosis of genetic diseases and disease dispositions in affected individuals, but also for the detection of healthy carriers of recessive hereditary traits. The resulting, ethically controversial option of genetic population screening used to be restricted to a small number of rather rare diseases by methodological limitations which are now about to be overcome.

ZusammenfassungDie Entwicklung von Substitutionstherapien für Enzymdefekte hat für betroffene Patienten zu einer grundlegend verbesserten Prognose und Lebensqualität geführt, allerdings zu extrem hohen Behandlungskosten. Bei solchen rezessiv erblichen Krankheiten besteht ein hohes Risiko dafür, dass auch weitere Geschwister eines betroffenen Kindes in gleicher Weise behandlungsbedürftig werden.Vor dem Hintergrund der Debatte um Ressourcenallokationen im Gesundheitswesen drohen anlagetragende Elternpaare bzw. Schwangere unter Druck zu geraten, angesichts der absehbar hohen Behandlungskosten auf weitere Kinder zu verzichten bzw. eine Schwangerschaft mit einem betroffenen Feten abzubrechen. Nach (...) geltendem Strafrecht und unter dem individualethischen Aspekt der reproduktiven Freiheit kommt eine solche „ökonomische Indikation“ zum Schwangerschaftsabbruch bislang nicht in Betracht, da sich die medizinische Indikation allein an der Zumutbarkeit der Fortsetzung der Schwangerschaft für die Mutter bemisst. Sozialer Druck sowie insbesondere mögliche A-priori Leistungsausschlüsse durch private Versicherer könnten aber künftig die Entscheidungsautonomie von Eltern von Kindern mit behandelbaren Erbleiden untergraben. (shrink)

Am 1. Februar 2010 ist das Gendiagnostikgesetz (GenDG) in Kraft getreten. Die Debatte um einige Regelungsbereiche, wie beispielsweise das Neugeborenenscreening, reißt nicht ab. Ein Aspekt des Gesetzes ist im Rahmen der Debatte um die Präimplantationsdiagnostik (PID) in Deutschland unter neuen Vorzeichen zu diskutieren: Das – international bislang einzigartige – Verbot der pränatalen Diagnostik so genannter spätmanifestierender Erkrankungen, die erst nach der Vollendung des 18. Lebensjahres ausbrechen. In diesem Beitrag möchten wir Hinweise zur differenzierten Diskussion dieser in § 15(2) GenDG bestimmten (...) Verbotsnorm liefern. Obgleich Argumente, insbesondere das Recht auf Nichtwissen des geborenen Kindes, für ein solches Verbot sprechen, kommen wir aufgrund der medizinischen Sachlage und nach einer Analyse der Pro- und Kontraargumente aus ethischer und rechtlicher Sicht zu dem Schluss, dass ein generelles Verbot der pränatalen Diagnostik spätmanifestierender Erkrankungen im Sinne der Zielsetzung womöglich insuffizient ist sowie in der Begründung Inkonsistenzen zum bereits bestehenden Regelwerk aufweist, und lenken daher den Blick auf unter Umständen bessere Alternativen. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungAm 1. Februar 2010 ist das Gendiagnostikgesetz in Kraft getreten. Die Debatte um einige Regelungsbereiche, wie beispielsweise das Neugeborenenscreening, reißt nicht ab. Ein Aspekt des Gesetzes ist im Rahmen der Debatte um die Präimplantationsdiagnostik in Deutschland unter neuen Vorzeichen zu diskutieren: Das – international bislang einzigartige – Verbot der pränatalen Diagnostik so genannter spätmanifestierender Erkrankungen, die erst nach der Vollendung des 18. Lebensjahres ausbrechen. In diesem Beitrag möchten wir Hinweise zur differenzierten Diskussion dieser in § 15 GenDG bestimmten Verbotsnorm liefern. (...) Obgleich Argumente, insbesondere das Recht auf Nichtwissen des geborenen Kindes, für ein solches Verbot sprechen, kommen wir aufgrund der medizinischen Sachlage und nach einer Analyse der Pro- und Kontraargumente aus ethischer und rechtlicher Sicht zu dem Schluss, dass ein generelles Verbot der pränatalen Diagnostik spätmanifestierender Erkrankungen im Sinne der Zielsetzung womöglich insuffizient ist sowie in der Begründung Inkonsistenzen zum bereits bestehenden Regelwerk aufweist, und lenken daher den Blick auf unter Umständen bessere Alternativen. (shrink)

Do physicists believe that general relativity is true, and that electrons and phonons exist, and if so, in what sense? To what extent does the spectrum of positions among physicists correspond to philosophical positions like scientific realism, instrumentalism, or perspectivism? Does agreement with these positions correlate with demographic factors, and are realist physicists more likely to support research projects purely aimed at increasing knowledge? We conducted a questionnaire study to scrutinize the philosophical stances of physicists. We received responses from 384 (...) physicists and 151 philosophers. Our main findings are (1) On average, physicists tend toward scientific realism, and slightly more so than philosophers of science. (2) Physicists can be clustered into five groups. Three show variants of scientific realism, one is instrumentalist, and one seems undecided or incoherent. (3) Agreement with realism weakly correlates with approval of building a bigger particle collider. (4) Agreement with realism weakly correlates with the seniority of physicists. (5) We did not find correlations with other factors, such as whether physicists focus on theoretical or experimental research and whether they engage with applied or basic research. (shrink)

Most philosophers assume that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, and most of them hold that this principle is true not only universally but also analytically or conceptually. Some skeptics deny this principle, although they often admit some related one. In this article, we show how new empirical evidence bolsters the skeptics’ arguments. We then defend the skeptical view against some objections to the empirical evidence and to its effect on the traditional principle. In light of the new evidence, we conclude that philosophers (...) should stop unconditionally assuming that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. (shrink)

People more frequently select norm-violating factors, relative to norm- conforming ones, as the cause of some outcome. Until recently, this abnormal-selection effect has been studied using retrospective vignette-based paradigms. We use a novel set of video stimuli to investigate this effect for prospective causal judgments—i.e., judgments about the cause of some future outcome. Four experiments show that people more frequently select norm- violating factors, relative to norm-conforming ones, as the cause of some future outcome. We show that the abnormal-selection effects (...) are not primarily explained by the perception of agency (Experiment 4). We discuss these results in relation to recent efforts to model causal judgment. (shrink)

Life's Solution builds a persuasive case for the predictability of evolutionary outcomes. The case rests on a remarkable compilation of examples of convergent evolution, in which two or more lineages have independently evolved similar structures and functions. The examples range from the aerodynamics of hovering moths and hummingbirds to the use of silk by spiders and some insects to capture prey. Going against the grain of Darwinian orthodoxy, this book is a must read for anyone grappling with the meaning of (...) evolution and our place in the Universe. Simon Conway Morris is the Ad Hominen Professor in the Earth Science Department at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St. John's College and the Royal Society. His research focuses on the study of constraints on evolution, and the historical processes that lead to the emergence of complexity, especially with respect to the construction of the major animal body parts in the Cambrian explosion. Previous books include The Crucible of Creation (Getty Center for Education in the Arts, 1999) and co-author of Solnhofen (Cambridge, 1990). Hb ISBN (2003) 0-521-82704-3. (shrink)

What is objectionable about “blacking up” or other comparable acts of imagining involving unethical attitudes? Can such imaginings be wrong, even if there are no harmful consequences and imaginers are not meant to apply these attitudes beyond the fiction? In this article, we argue that blackface—and imagining in general—can be ethically flawed in virtue of being oppressive, in virtue of either its content or what imaginers do with it, where both depend on how the imagined attitudes interact with the imagining’s (...) context. We explain and demonstrate this using speech act theory alongside a detailed case study of blackface. (shrink)

People’s causal judgments are susceptible to the action effect, whereby they judge actions to be more causal than inactions. We offer a new explanation for this effect, the counterfactual explanation: people judge actions to be more causal than inactions because they are more inclined to consider the counterfactual alternatives to actions than to consider counterfactual alternatives to inactions. Experiment 1a conceptually replicates the original action effect for causal judgments. Experiment 1b confirms a novel prediction of the new explanation, the reverse (...) action effect, in which people judge inactions to be more causal than actions in overdetermination cases. Experiment 2 directly compares the two effects in joint-causation and overdetermination scenarios and conceptually replicates them with new scenarios. Taken together, these studies provide support for the new counterfactual explanation for the action effect in causal judgment. (shrink)

Properly understood, Kant’s moral philosophy is incompatible with constitutivism. According to the constitutivist, being subject to the moral law cannot be a matter of free choice, and failure to c...

Many philosophers claim that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. In light of recent empirical evidence, however, some skeptics conclude that philosophers should stop assuming the principle unconditionally. Streumer, however, does not simply assume the principle’s truth; he provides arguments for it. In this article, we argue that his arguments fail to support the claim that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’.

People frequently entertain counterfactual thoughts, or mental simulations about alternative ways the world could have been. But the perceived plausibility of those counterfactual thoughts varies widely. The current article interfaces research in the philosophy and semantics of counterfactual statements with the psychology of mental simulations, and it explores the role of perceived similarity in judgments of counterfactual plausibility. We report results from seven studies (N = 6405) jointly supporting three interconnected claims. First, the perceived plausibility of a counterfactual event is (...) predicted by the perceived similarity between the possible world in which the imagined situation is thought to occur and the actual world. Second, when people attend to differences between imagined possible worlds and the actual world, they think of the imagined possible worlds as less similar to the actual world and tend to judge counterfactuals in such worlds as less plausible. Lastly, when people attend to what is identical between imagined possible worlds and the actual world, they think of the imagined possible worlds as more similar to the actual world and tend to judge counterfactuals in such worlds as more plausible. We discuss these results in light of philosophical, semantic, and psychological theories of counterfactual thinking. (shrink)

While philosophers generally accept some version of the principle ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, recent work in experimental philosophy and cognitive science provides evidence against a presupposition or a conceptual entailment from ‘ought’ to ‘can’. Here, we review some of this evidence, its effect on particular formulations of the principle, and future directions for cognitive scientists and philosophers.

Recently, psychologists have explored moral concepts including obligation, blame, and ability. While little empirical work has studied the relationships among these concepts, philosophers have widely assumed such a relationship in the principle that “ought” implies “can,” which states that if someone ought to do something, then they must be able to do it. The cognitive underpinnings of these concepts are tested in the three experiments reported here. In Experiment 1, most participants judge that an agent ought to keep a promise (...) that he is unable to keep, but only when he is to blame for the inability. Experiment 2 shows that such “ought” judgments correlate with judgments of blame, rather than with judgments of the agent’s ability. Experiment 3 replicates these findings for moral “ought” judgments and finds that they do not hold for nonmoral “ought” judgments, such as what someone ought to do to fulfill their desires. These results together show that folk moral judgments do not conform to a widely assumed philosophical principle that “ought” implies “can.” Instead, judgments of blame play a modulatory role in some judgments of obligation. (shrink)

In certain cases, people judge that agents bring about ends intentionally but also that they do not bring about the means that brought about those ends intentionally—even though bringing about the ends and means is just as likely. We call this difference in judgments the Kraemer effect. We offer a novel explanation for this effect: a perceived difference in the extent to which agents know how to bring about the means and the ends explains the Kraemer effect. In several experiments, (...) we replicate the Kraemer effect in a variety of non-moral and moral scenarios, and we find support for our new account. This work accords with a burgeoning area of action theory that identifies an important connection between know-how and intentionality. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 5, May 2022.

Recent literature describing the process and pathways of the agrarian transition in Southeast Asia suggests that the rise of agricultural intensification and the growth of commodity markets will lead to the demise of swidden agriculture. This paper offers a longitudinal overview of the conditions that drive the agrarian transition amongst indigenous swidden cultivators and migrant paddy farmers in central Palawan Island, the Philippines. In line with regional agrarian change, we describe how a history of conservation policies has criminalized and pressured (...) swidden farmers to adopt more intensive “modern” agricultural practices. We examine how indigenous swidden cultivators adjust their practice in response to recent changes in policies, security of harvests, and socio-cultural values vis-à-vis intensification. Rather than suggest that this transition will lead to the demise of swidden, results reveal that farmers instead negotiate a shifting ground in which they lean on and value swidden as a means of negotiating agrarian change. (shrink)

We investigate connections between the syntactic and semantic distance of programs on an abstract, recursion theoretic level. For a certain rather restrictive notion of interdependency of the two kinds of distances, there remain only few and “unnatural” numberings allowing such close relationship. Weakening the requirements leads to the discovery of universal metrics such that for an arbitrary recursively enumerable family of functions a numbering compatible with such a metric can uniformly be constructed. We conclude our considerations with some implications on (...) learning theory. (shrink)

This chapter explores some fundamental consequences of the correspondence between physical process and computations. Most physical questions may be answerable only through irreducible amounts of computation. Those that concern idealized limits of infinite time, volume, or numerical precision can require arbitrarily long computations, and so be considered formally undecidable. The behavior of a physical system may always be calculated by simulating explicitly each step in its evolution. Much of theoretical physics has, however, been concerned with devising shorter methods of calculation (...) that reproduce the outcome without tracing each step. Computational irreducibility is common among the systems investigated in mathematics and computation theory, but it may well be the exception rather than the rule, since most physical questions may be answerable only through irreducible amounts of computation. (shrink)