Objectives The study uses a qualitative empirical method to define Health Research for Development. This project explores the perspectives of stakeholders in an international health research partnership operating in Ghana and Tanzania. Methods We conducted 52 key informant interviews with major stakeholders in an international multicenter partnership between GlaxoSmithKline and the global health nonprofit organisation PATH and its Malaria Vaccine Initiative program,. The respondents included teams from four clinical research centres and various collaborating partners. This paper analyses responses to the (...) question: What is Health Research for Development? Results Based on the stakeholders’ experience the respondents offered many ways of defining Health Research for Development. The responses fell into four broad themes: i) Equitable Partnerships; ii) System Sustainability; iii) Addressing Local Health Targets, and iv) Regional Commitment to Benefit Sharing. Conclusion Through defining Health Research for Development six key learning points were generated from the four result themes: 1) Ensure there is local research leadership working with the collaborative partnership, and local healthcare system, to align the project agenda and activities with local research and health priorities; 2) Know the country-specific context - map the social, health, legislative and political setting; 3) Define an explicit development component and plan of action in a research project; 4) Address the barriers and opportunities to sustain system capacity. 5) Support decentralised health system decision-making to facilitate the translation pathway; 6) Govern, monitor and evaluate the development components of health research partnerships. Overall, equity and unity between partners are required to deliver health research for development. (shrink)

Abstractβ‐Catenin/CTNNB1 is critical for leukemia initiation or the stem cell capacity of several hematological malignancies. This review focuses on a general evaluation of β‐catenin function in normal T‐cell development and T‐cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T‐ALL). The integration of the existing literature offers a state‐of‐the‐art dissection of the complexity of β‐catenin function in leukemia initiation and maintenance in both Notch‐dependent and independent contexts. In addition, β‐catenin mutations are screened for in T‐ALL primary samples, and it is found that they are rare (...) and with little clinical relevance. Transcriptional analysis of Wnt family members (Ctnnb1, Axin2, Tcf7, and Lef1) and Myc in different publicly available T‐ALL cohorts indicates that the expression of these genes may correlate with T‐ALL subtypes and/or therapy outcomes. (shrink)

Recent studies reported the development of psychological distress symptoms in patients who recovered from COVID-19. However, evidence is still scarce and new data are needed to define the exact risk and protective factors that can explain the variability in symptoms manifestation. In this study, we enrolled 257 patients who recovered from COVID-19 and we evaluated the levels of psychological distress through the Symptoms Checklist-90-R scale. Data concerning illness-related variables were collected from medical records, while the presence of subjective cognitive difficulties, (...) both before and after the illness, as well as the level of the cognitive reserve, were assessed over a clinical interview. Results revealed that being female and reporting the presence of subjective cognitive difficulties after COVID-19 were associated with higher levels of psychological distress. At the same time, being admitted to the hospital and having a high CR were protective factors. Adding new information to this emerging research field, our results highlight the importance of a complete psychological and cognitive assessment in patients with COVID-19. (shrink)

«Quando entro in una macelleria, mi stupisco sempre di non esserci io, lì appeso, al posto dell’animale». Così il pittore Francis Bacon in una conversazione con David Sylvester, che Mauro Carbone riprende e discute nel volume agile e prezioso, che qui presentiamo, dedicato alla nozione di “carne”. Una nozione che, pur antichissima nella storia della cultura europea, torna d’attualità nel dibattito filosofico contemporaneo con la fenomenologia e con il suo progetto di ricondurre l’esperienza,...

«Quando entro in una macelleria, mi stupisco sempre di non esserci io, lì appeso, al posto dell’animale». Così il pittore Francis Bacon in una conversazione con David Sylvester, che Mauro Carbone riprende e discute nel volume agile e prezioso, che qui presentiamo, dedicato alla nozione di “carne”. Una nozione che, pur antichissima nella storia della cultura europea, torna d’attualità nel dibattito filosofico contemporaneo con la fenomenologia e con il suo progetto di ricondurre l’esperienza,...

Performative accounts of personhood argue that group agents are persons, fit to be held responsible within the social sphere. Nonetheless, these accounts want to retain a moral distinction between group and individual persons. That: Group-persons can be responsible for their actions qua persons, but that group-persons might nonetheless not have rights equivalent to those of human persons. I present an argument which makes sense of this disanalogy, without recourse to normative claims or additional ontological commitments. I instead ground rights in (...) the different relations in which performative persons stand in relation to one another. (shrink)

This paper explores the perceptions of academic staff and students to student cheating behaviours in online exams and other online assessment formats. The research took place at three Australian universities in July and August 2020 during the emergency transition to online learning and assessment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study sought to inform decision making about the future of online exams at the participating universities. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected using online surveys. The findings of the study (...) led to seven key observations, most notably the need to redefine the characteristics of academic misconduct to account for changes wrought to examinations in a digital world. The study concludes with lessons learned in relation to enhancing academic integrity in digital examinations and assessments. (shrink)

In recent years, a significant body of literature has emerged on the subject of epistemic injustice: wrongful harms done to people in their capacities as knowers. Up to now this literature has ignored the role that attention has to play in epistemic injustice. This paper makes a first step towards addressing this gap. We argue that giving someone less attention than they are due, which we call an epistemic attention deficit, is a distinct form of epistemic injustice. We begin by (...) outlining what we mean by epistemic attention deficits, which we understand as a failure to pay someone the attention they are due in their role as an epistemic agent. We argue that these deficits constitute epistemic injustices for two reasons. First, they affect someone’s ability to influence what others believe. Second, they affect one’s ability to influence the shared common ground in which testimonial exchanges take place. We then outline the various ways in which epistemic attention deficits harm those who are subject to them. We argue that epistemic attention deficits are harms in and of themselves because they deprive people of an essential component of epistemic agency. Moreover, epistemic attention deficits reduce an agent’s ability to participate in valuable epistemic practices. These two forms of harm have important impacts on educational performance and the distribution of resources. Finally, we argue that epistemic attention deficits both hinder and shape the development of epistemic agency. We finish by exploring some practical implications arising from our discussion. (shrink)

Various U.S. laws, such as the Clean Air Act and the Food Quality Protection Act, require additional protections for susceptible subpopulations who face greater environmental health risks. The main ethical rationale for providing these protections is to ensure that environmental health risks are distributed fairly. In this article, we (1) consider how several influential theories of justice deal with issues related to the distribution of environmental health risks; (2) show that these theories often fail to provide specific guidance concerning policy (...) choices; and (3) argue that an approach to public decision making known as accountability for reasonableness can complement theories of justice in establishing acceptable environmental health risks for the general population and susceptible subpopulations. Since accountability for reasonableness focuses on the fairness of the decision-making process, not the outcome, it does not guarantee that susceptible subpopulations will receive a maximum level of protection, regardless of costs or other morally relevant considerations. (shrink)

In this paper, I put the claim that sensitivity is a necessary condition for knowledge under pressure, by considering its applicability with regard to testimonially-formed beliefs. Building on, and departing from, Goldberg, I positively draw out how we might understand the required sensitivity as a social interaction between speaker and hearer in testimonial cases. In doing so however, I identify a concern which places the whole notion of testimonial sensitivity in potential jeopardy: the problem of the reliable liar. I find (...) an apparently paradoxical inverse relationship between better-differentiating methods that fulfil sensitivity conditions, and being able to have sensitive beliefs with regard to specific instances of testimony. After examining potential resolutions, I conclude that only a focus on minimally realising the problem, rather than “solving” it, will enable us to retain sensitivity as a necessary condition for testimonial-knowledge. (shrink)

In both radical and mainstream environmental discourses, anthropocentrism (human centredness) is inextricably linked to modern industrial society's drive to control and dominate nature and the generation of our current environmental crisis. Such environmental discourses frequently argue for a retreat from anthropocentrism and the establishment of a harmonious relationship with nature, often invoking the supposed ecological harmony of indigenous peoples and/or other small-scale societies. In particular, the beliefs and values of these societies vis-à-vis their natural environment are taken to be instrumental (...) in their low environmental impact. Here it is argued that, aside from the empirically problematic nature of such claims, the beliefs of small-scale societies have been seen through an ethnocentric discursive framework which bifurcates belief systems into anthropocentric and ecocentric. Taking a meta-theoretical approach informed by Strong Structuration Theory, it is argued that the beliefs of small-scale societies about their relationship with nature should be recognised as lying on a continuum of anthropocentrism and understood in the context of their attempts to establish ‘environmental ontological security’ in the face of natural uncertainty. (shrink)

The singularity hypothesis is a radical hypothesis about the future of artificial intelligence on which self-improving artificial agents will quickly become orders of magnitude more intelligent than the average human. Despite the ambitiousness of its claims, the singularity hypothesis has been defended at length by leading philosophers and artificial intelligence researchers. In this paper, I argue that the singularity hypothesis rests on scientifically implausible growth assumptions. I show how leading philosophical defenses of the singularity hypothesis (Chalmers 2010, Bostrom 2014) fail (...) to overcome the case for skepticism. I conclude by drawing out philosophical implications of this discussion for our understanding of consciousness, personal identity, digital minds, existential risk, and ethical longtermism. GPI Working Paper No . 19-2022. (shrink)

Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth are currently being targeted by global anti-trans legislation that would prevent their access to gender-affirming care even by healthcare providers willing to deliver it and who understand the importance of this support. It has been suggested in some studies that transness in young people is a result of peer contagion. As such their free will, authenticity and autonomy could be brought into question when accessing gender-affirming care. It is important to explore the relevance of (...) these concepts concerning the provision of gender-affirming care to TGD youth by nurses and other healthcare professionals. Nurses should challenge the notion held by some that these young people are not capable of knowing themselves or the level of treatment they require. They can do this by practising gender-affirming care determined by aspirational ethical values of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and justice. (shrink)

Interpretation -- Introduction -- Interpreting Plato -- The political culture of Plato's early dialogues -- Dialogue -- Character and history -- The mouthpiece principle -- Forms of evidence -- Desire -- Socrates and eros -- The subjectivist conception of desire -- Instrumental and terminal desire -- Rational and irrational desires -- Desire in the critique of Akrasia -- Interpreting Lysis -- The deficiency conception of desire -- Inauthentic friendship -- Platonic desire -- Antiphilosophical desires -- Knowledge -- Excellence as wisdom (...) -- The epistemic unity of excellence -- Dunamis and technê -- Goodness and form -- The epistemological priority of definitional knowledge -- Ordinary ethical knowledge -- Method -- The Socratic fallacy -- Socrates' pursuit of definitions -- Hupothesis -- Two postulates -- The geometrical illustration -- Geometrical analysis -- The method of reasoning from a postulate -- Elenchus and hupothesis -- Knowledge and aitia -- F-conditions -- Cognitive security -- Aporia -- Forms of aporia -- Dramatic aporia -- The example of Charmides -- Charmides as autobiography -- The politics of Sôphrosunê -- Critias' Philotimia -- Self-knowledge and the knowledge of knowledge -- Knowledge of knowledge and knowledge of the good -- Philosophy and the polis. (shrink)

AI technologies affect not only humans in many ways but also sentient animals. When investigating the impact of AI on other animals, it is important to consider how these technologies can harm them. However, it is equally important to explore how they can be used to enable animals to live good lives and improve their wellbeing. In this article, I present the rationale for this claim (Section 1), highlight applications through which AI systems are or can be used to benefit (...) nonhuman animals, and show how these benefits can be classified in terms of the harm framework proposed by Coghlan and Parker (Philosophy & Technology 36:25, 2023; Section 2). Finally, I identify open research questions that need to be addressed next (Section 3). (shrink)

Sustainability has become a powerful discourse, guiding the efforts of various stakeholders to find strategies for dealing with current and future social-ecological crises. To overcome the latter, we argue that sustainability discourse needs to be based on a critical-emancipatory conceptualization. Therefore, we engage two such approaches—environmental justice approaches informed by a plural understanding of justice and feminist political economy ones focusing on care—and their analytical potential for productive critique of normative assumptions in the dominant sustainability discourse. Both of these approaches (...) highlight aspects of sustainability that are particularly relevant today. First, although sustainable development was conceptualized from the outset based upon a twofold notion of justice (intra- and intergenerational), the integration of justice in the dominant sustainability discourse and praxis often manifests merely as a normative aspiration. Meanwhile, the environmental justice and care approaches offer conceptualizations of justice that can act as a powerful lever and as transformation-strategy. Second, the dominant sustainability discourse largely remains within a neoliberal economic framework that continues to promote economic growth as the means to reach prosperity while neglecting the bases of every economy: care work and nature. Its focus lies solely on paid work and the market economy. By integrating (a) social and ecological ‘reproductivity’ (unpaid care and subsistence work as well as nature) and (b) democratic processes for just distribution of environmental burdens and benefits, as well as participatory equity in relevant decision making, feminist political economy and environmental justice approaches offer substantial strategies towards building humane, just and caring societies. (shrink)

An introduction to ethical reasoning -- Comparative religious perspectives on war -- Just and unjust war in Shakespeare's Henry V -- Anticipating and preventing atrocities in war -- The CIA's original "social contract" -- The KGB: CIA's traditional adversary -- Espionage -- Covert action -- Interrogation -- Concluding reflections.

Virtual assistants (VAs), like Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant, and Apple’s Siri, are on the rise. However, despite allegedly being ‘assistants’ to users, they ultimately help firms to maximise profits. With more and more tasks and leeway bestowed upon VAs, the severity as well as the extent of conflicts of interest between firms and users increase. This article builds on the common law field of fiduciary law to argue why and how regulators should address this phenomenon. First, the functions of VAs (...) resemble established fiduciaries, namely mandataries when they perform tasks on behalf of users, and increasingly advisors whenever they provide recommendations or suggestions. Second, users grant firms deploying VAs ever more discretion over their economic, and more and more significant non-economic interests, such as their health or finances. This delegation of power renders users vulnerable to abuse of power and inadequate performance by firms deploying VAs. Moreover, neither specification or monitoring nor market forces are alternatives that can sufficiently protect users. Thus, regulation is needed, departing from the recognition of the relationship between firms deploying VAs and users as a fiduciary relationship. In the EU, this could be realised through fiduciary requirements for VAs. First and foremost, to adequately protect users from abuse of power by firms deploying VAs, the core fiduciary duty of loyalty should be converted into corresponding fiduciary requirements for VAs, obliging firms to align VAs with their users. (shrink)

The philosophical literature that tackles foundational questions about normativity often appeals to normative reasons—or considerations that count in favor of or against actions—and their interaction. The interaction between normative reasons is usually made sense of by appealing to the metaphor of (normative) weight scales. This paper substitutes an argumentation-theoretic model for this metaphor. The upshot is a general and precise model that is faithful to the philosophical ideas.

ABSTRACTIn Democracy for Realists, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels argue provocatively that the public falls far short of ideals of democratic citizenship, and they turn to political psychology to explain the empirics of mass political behavior. But their model of group identity fails to shed much light on the origins of political behavior and gives members of the public less credit than they deserve, for three reasons. First, group politics is not a hollow exercise; it depends on the identification of (...) a collective grievance that has a potential political solution. Second, concerns about group economics, status, and respect are more likely than individual economic considerations to animate political behavior, yet the former concerns are no less rational than the latter. Third, individuals vary in how strongly they identify with politically relevant groups, masking considerable variation in the degree to which group affiliations shape political behavior. Therefore, group identification is not a monolithic, irrational force that affects people regardless of their perceptions of political reality. (shrink)

Consciousness and Mind presents David Rosenthal's influential work on the nature of consciousness. Central to that work is Rosenthal's higher-order-thought theory of consciousness, according to which a sensation, thought, or other mental state is conscious if one has a higher-order thought that one is in that state. The first four essays develop various aspects of that theory. The next three essays present Rosenthal's homomorphism theory of mental qualities and qualitative consciousness, and show how that theory fits with and helps sustain (...) the HOT theory. A crucial feature of homomorphism theory is that it individuates and taxonomizes mental qualities independently of the way we're conscious of them, and indeed independently of our being conscious of them at all. So the theory accommodates the qualitative character not only of conscious sensations and perceptions, but also of those which fall outside our stream of consciousness. Rosenthal argues that, because this account of mental qualities makes no appeal to consciousness, it enables us to dispel such traditional quandaries as the alleged conceivability of undetectable quality inversion, and to disarm various apparent obstacles to explaining qualitative consciousness and understanding its nature. Six further essays build on the HOT theory to explain various important features of consciousness, among them the complex connections that hold in humans between consciousness and speech, the self-interpretative aspect of consciousness, and the compelling sense we have that consciousness is unified. Two of the essays, one an extended treatment of homomorphism theory, appear here for the first time. There is also a substantive introduction, which draws out the connections between the essays and highlights their implications. (shrink)

This Introduction introduces readers to the concepts of political philosophy: authority, democracy, freedom and its limits, justice, feminism, multiculturalism, and nationality. Accessibly written and assuming no previous knowledge of the subject, it encourages the reader to think clearly and critically about the leading political questions of our time. THe book first investigates how politcial philosophy tackles basic ethical questions such as 'how should we live together in society?' It furthermore looks at political authority, discusses the reasons society needs politics in (...) the first place, explores the limitations of politics, and asks if there are areas of life that shouldn't be governed by politics. Moreover, the book explores the connections between political authority and justice, a constant theme in political philosophy, and the ways in which social justice can be used to regulate rather than destroy a market economy. In his travels through this realm, Miller covers why nations ar the natural units of government and wonders if the rise of multiculturalism and transnational co-operation will change all this, and asks in the end if we will ever see the formation of a world government. (shrink)

The relationship between philosophy and science has always been complementary. Today, while science moves increasingly fast and philosophy shows some problems in catching up with it, it is not always possible to ignore such relationships, especially in some disciplines such as philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and neuroscience. However, the methodological procedures used to analyze these data are based on principles and assumptions that require a profound dialogue between philosophy and science. Following these ideas, this work aims to raise the (...) problems that a classical connectionist theory can cause and problematize them in a cognitive framework, considering both philosophy and cognitive sciences but also the disciplines that are near to them, such as AI, computer sciences, and linguistics. For this reason, we embarked on an analysis of both the computational and theoretical problems that connectionism currently has. The second aim of this work is to advocate for collaboration between neuroscience and philosophy of mind because the promotion of deeper multidisciplinarity seems necessary in order to solve connectionism’s problems. In fact, we believe that the problems that we detected can be solved by a thorough investigation at both a theoretical and an empirical level, and they do not represent an impasse but rather a starting point from which connectionism should learn and be updated while keeping its original and profoundly convincing core. (shrink)

This book puts forward a revisionist view of Japanese wartime thinking. It seeks to explore why Japanese intellectuals, historians and philosophers of the time insisted that Japan had to turn its back on the West and attack the United States and the British Empire. Based on a close reading of the texts written by members of the highly influential Kyoto School, and revisiting the dialogue between the Kyoto School and the German philosopher Heidegger, it argues that the work of Kyoto (...) thinkers cannot be dismissed as mere fascist propaganda, and that this work, in which race is a key theme, constitutes a reasoned case for a post-White world. The author also argues that this theme is increasingly relevant at present, as demographic changes are set to transform the political and social landscape of North America and Western Europe over the next fifty years. (shrink)

Las ideas de Michel Foucault han tenido una gran influencia en las ciencias de la educación. Los estudios acerca de la sociedad disciplinaria se han convertido en una referencia ineludible para pensar las dinámicas de la institución escolar. Sin embargo, esa influencia a menudo se reduce a su enfoque crítico y deconstructivo, sin elaborar adecuadamente los aspectos propositivos y la influencia constructiva que su teoría puede ofrecer. Estetrabajo parte de la hipótesis de que los últimos estudios del filósofo brindan un (...) marco conceptual sólido que va más allá la mera crítica hacia las relaciones de poder, aportando intuiciones relevantes para aplicar al campo educativo. Siguiendo esta lógica, en la presente propuesta se explorarán algunos conceptos claves del pensamientotardío de Foucault: régimen de verdad, prácticas de sí, psicagogia y parresía. Estos conceptos permitirán rastrear la importancia de los últimos trabajos de Foucault para pensar la tarea educativa. Dichos trabajos invitan a considerar la potencia de la filosofía, ya no solo para cuestionar las estructuras sedimentadas, sino también como una fuerza motivadora de procesos de transformación ética y posibilidades de invención para la trama vital delos individuos. En síntesis, la argumentación permitirá mostrar que la interpretación que el filósofo realiza tanto de la filosofía estoica como del cinismo a —través de la noción de parresía— proporciona pautas claras para aplicar al trabajo pedagógico y a la relación docente-alumno. (shrink)

A number of philosophers endorse, without argument, the view that there’s something it’s like consciously to think that p, which is distinct from what it’s like consciously to think that q. This thesis, if true, would have important consequences for philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In this paper I offer an argument for it, and attempt to induce examples of it in the reader. The argument claims it would be impossible introspectively to distinguish conscious thoughts with respect to their (...) content if there weren’t something it’s like to think them. This argument is defended against several objections. Then I use what I call “minimal pair” experiences—sentences read without and with understanding—to induce in the reader an experience of the kind I claim exists. Further objections are considered and rebutted. (shrink)

Through Narcissus' Glass Darkly presents a genealogy and critique of the ideal of conscience in modern philosophical theology, particularly in the writings of ...

Liberal thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were alert to the political costs and human cruelties involved in European colonialism, but they also thought that European expansion held out progressive possibilities. In Progress, Pluralism, and Politics David Williams examines the colonial and anti-colonial arguments of Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, and L.T. Hobhouse. Williams locates their ambivalent attitude towards European conquest and colonial rule in a set of tensions between the impact of colonialism on European states, the possibilities (...) of progress in distant and diverse places, and the relationship between universalism and cultural pluralism. In so doing he reveals some of the central ambiguities that characterize the ways that liberal thought has dealt with the reality of an illiberal world. Of particular importance are appeals to various forms of universal history, attempts to mediate between the claims of identity and the reality of difference, and the different ways of thinking about the achievement of liberal goods in other places. Pointing to key elements in still ongoing debates within liberal states about how they should relate to illiberal places, Progress, Pluralism, and Politics enriches the discussion on political thought and the relationship between liberalism and colonialism. (shrink)

Ethical concerns regarding agricultural practices can be found to co-evolve with technological developments. This paper aims to create an understanding of ethics that is helpful in debating technological innovation by studying such a co-evolution process in detail: the development and adoption of the milking robot. Over the last decade an increasing number of milking robots, or automatic milking systems (AMS), has been adopted, especially in the Netherlands and a few other Western European countries. The appraisal of this new technology in (...) ethical terms has appeared to be a complicated matter. Compared to using a conventional milking parlor, the use of an AMS entails in several respects a different practice of dairy farming, the ethical implications and evaluation of which are not self-evident but are themselves part of a dynamic process. It has become clear that with its use, the entire practice of dairy farming has been reorganized around this new device. With a robot, cows must voluntarily present themselves to be milked, whereby an ethical norm of (individual) freedom for cows can be seen to emerge together with this new technology. But adopting a robot also implies changes in what is considered to be a good farmer and an appropriate relation between farmer and cow. Through interviews, attending “farmers’ network” meetings in the Netherlands, and studying professional literature and dedicated dairy farming web forums, this paper traces the way that ethical concerns are a dynamic part of this process of rearranging a variety of elements of the practice of dairy farming. (shrink)

In this book, which thoroughly revises and greatly expands his classic work Sameness and Substance, David Wiggins retrieves and refurbishes in the light of twentieth-century logic and logical theory certain conceptions of identity, of substance and of persistence through change that philosophy inherits from its past. In this new version, he vindicates the absoluteness, necessity, determinateness and all or nothing character of identity against rival conceptions. He defends a form of essentialism that he calls individuative essentialism, and then a form (...) of realism that he calls conceptualist realism. In a final chapter he advocates a human being-based conception of the identity and individuation of persons, arguing that any satisfactory account of personal memory must make reference to the life of the rememberer himself. This important book will appeal to a wide range of readers in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

What is going on when we are consciously aware of a visual scene, or hear sounds, or otherwise enjoy sensory experience? David Papineau argues controversially for a purely qualitative account: conscious sensory experiences are intrinsic states with no essential connection to external circumstances or represented properties.

Considerable heterogeneity among pediatric chronic pain patients may at least partially explain the variability seen in the response to behavioral therapies. The current study tested whether autistic traits and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in a clinical sample of children and adolescents with chronic pain are associated with socioemotional and functional impairments and response to acceptance and commitment therapy treatment, which has increased psychological flexibility as its core target for coping with pain and pain-related distress. Children and adolescents aged 8–18 years were (...) recruited. Patients and their parents completed questionnaires pre- and post-ACT of 17 sessions. Correlational analyses and mixed-effects models were used to assess the role of autistic traits and ADHD symptoms in pretreatment functioning and ACT-treatment response. Outcome variables were degree to which pain interfered with daily activities, socioemotional functioning, psychological inflexibility, and pain intensity. Autistic traits and ADHD symptoms, pain frequency, and pain duration were measured at pretreatment only. Higher autistic traits were associated with greater pain interference, higher depression, and greater psychological inflexibility. Higher ADHD symptomatology was associated with greater pretreatment pain interference, lower emotional functioning, greater depression, and longer duration of pain. Across patients, all outcome variables, except for sleep disturbances and school functioning, significantly improved from pre- to post-ACT. Higher autistic traits were associated with greater pre- to post-ACT improvements in emotional functioning and sleep disturbance and non-significant improvements in pain interference. ADHD symptomatology was not associated with treatment outcome. The current results showed that neuropsychiatric symptoms in pediatric chronic pain patients are associated with lower functioning, particularly pain interfering with daily life and lower socioemotional functioning. The results suggest that not only pediatric chronic pain patients low in neuropsychiatric symptoms may benefit from ACT, but also those high in autism traits and ADHD symptoms. With the present results in mind, pediatric chronic pain patients higher in autistic traits may actually derive extra benefit from ACT. Future research could assess whether increased psychological flexibility, the core focus of ACT, enabled those higher in autism traits to cope relatively better with pain-related distress and thus to gain more from the treatment, as compared to those lower in autism traits. Moreover, to address specific effects of ACT, inclusion of an appropriate control group is key. (shrink)