Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2018 Heft: 225 Seiten: 57-76.

Ugar and Malele write that generic machine learning (ML) technologies for mental health diagnosis would be challenging to implement in sub-Saharan Africa due to cultural specificities in how those conditions are diagnosed. For example, they say that in South Africa, the appearance of ‘schizophrenia’ might be understood as a type of spiritual possession, rather than a mental disorder caused by a brain dysfunction. Hence, a generic ML system is likely to ‘misdiagnose’ persons whose symptomatology matches that of schizophrenia in the (...) South African context. The authors thus claim that ‘a generic or universal design cannot be effective given the heterogeneity of value judgements in defining what mental health disorders are in different contexts’.1 Should we take this to mean that ML systems ‘should not be designed with a generalised perception of mental disorders,’1 as the authors suggest? On the contrary, my view is that generic ML can be useful, with the caveat that issues of cultural sensitivity may engender translational challenges in various national and cultural contexts. Yet, if it can be demonstrated that a generic ML system can reliably and accurately pick up on shared symptomatologies across cultures despite what any individual or community might believe about their actual causes, this aspect is surely the function and value of diagnostic ML which we should take to matter. Cultural gaps in aetiological understandings of mental health conditions make it all the more important to advance generic ML as a calibrating diagnostic tool. In this commentary, therefore, I will endeavour to make a case for generic ML in mental healthcare. ### Aetiological (mis)understanding across cultures The fundamental complexity to which Ugar and Malele direct our attention is the fact that mental health conditions are attributed to variable causal explanations, rather than a …. (shrink)

Epistemic injustices are wrongs that agents can suffer in their capacity as knowers. In this article, I offer a conceptualisation of a phenomenon I call anticipatory epistemic injustice, which I claim is a distinct and particularly pernicious type of epistemic injustice worthy of independent analysis. I take anticipatory epistemic injustice to consist in the wrongs that agents can suffer as a result of anticipated challenges in their process of taking up testimony-sharing opportunities. I distinguish my account from paradigmatic cases of (...) epistemic injustice, such as Miranda Fricker’s concepts of testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice; additionally, I differentiate my view from Kristie Dotson’s account of testimonial smothering. I argue, ultimately, that anticipatory epistemic injustice is a useful addition to our current taxonomy of epistemic injustices, as it has promising explanatory potential for a range of non-standard cases of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

An episiotomy is ‘an intrapartum procedure that involves an incision to enlarge the vaginal orifice,’1 and is primarily justified as a way to prevent higher degrees of perineal trauma or to facilitate a faster birth in cases of suspected fetal distress. Yet the effectiveness of episiotomies is controversial, and many professional bodies recommend against the routine use of episiotomies. In any case, unconsented episiotomies are alarmingly common, and some care providers in obstetric settings often fail to see consent as necessary (...) in context. In their article, ‘The ethics of consent during labour and birth: episiotomies,’ van der Pijl et al reiterate that consent is necessary for episiotomies. They specify, further, that the antenatal period is crucial for exchanging information, establishing trust between the birthing subject and provider, and exploring the birthing subject’s—rather than the care provider’s—values and preferences regarding episiotomies. They recommend an individualised approach, which would enable birthing subjects to choose how and when they want to give consent. I applaud van der Pijl et al on their practicable recommendations regarding consent for episiotomies. This is certainly a step in the right direction where respect for birthing subjects’ bodily autonomy and integrity is concerned. Still, we must be reminded that consent alone is not coextensive with autonomy. The conditions for securing informed consent in healthcare does not guarantee that one’s decision is truly reflective of their values. After all, even valid consent does not rule out ‘normatively significant external influence’.2 Consent acquisition for obstetric procedures present no …. (shrink)

Some have claimed that moral bioenhancement undermines freedom and authenticity – thereby making moral bioenhancement problematic or undesirable – whereas others have said that moral bioenhancement does not undermine freedom and authenticity – thereby salvaging its ethical permissibility. These debates are characterized by a couple of features. First, a positive relationship is assumed to hold between these agency-related concepts and the ethical permissibility of moral bioenhancement. Second, these debates are centered around individualistic conceptions of agency, like free choice and authenticity, (...) which hail from an atomistic tradition of autonomy. My view is that emphasizing individualistic conceptions of autonomy do not provide particularly strong foundations on which to argue about the issue of the permissibility of moral bioenhancement. This is because individualistic autonomy is not the kind of agency-related consideration we ought to value. Instead, I propose that we investigate the relationship between moral bioenhancement and a more relational kind of autonomy. Focusing on this latter relationship, on my view, clarifies the potential for moral bioenhancement to support or enhance people’s autonomy. (shrink)

In this article, I critique the commonly accepted distinction between commercial and altruistic surrogacy arrangements. The moral legitimacy of surrogacy, I claim, does not hinge on whether it is paid (‘commercial’) or unpaid (‘altruistic’); rather, it is best determined by appraisal of virtue-abiding conditions constitutive of the surrogacy arrangement. I begin my article by problematising the prevailing commercial/altruistic distinction; next, I demonstrate that an assessment of the virtue-abiding or non-virtue-abiding features of a surrogacy is crucial to navigating questions about the (...) moral legitimacy of surrogacy; in the final part, I reject other moral heuristics that might be proposed as alternatives to the commercial/altruistic dichotomy, and reiterate that a virtue-ethical framework is the most suitable way forward. (shrink)

The necessity of a coordination of rights and virtues is analyzed. Interpreting liberalism as a rights-based morality and Confucianism as a virtue-based morality, the author directs his criticism to the extremes found within both. Through a mutual criticism of liberalism and Confucianism, it is proposed that the coordination of these two moral systems is not only possible, but also necessary for a fulfilling moral society.

Results from three field network studies show that depending on individuals’ network positions (central or peripheral), experts and novices have varying ethical predispositions (EP). In particular, central experts (vs. peripheral experts) have higher EP, while novices in the same positions (vs. peripheral novices) have lower EP. Results demonstrate individuals’ relational-interdependent self-construal mediates these relationships. Importantly, this research suggests that the interaction between network and individual difference variables uniquely affect individuals’ ethical predisposition. Given the lack of research focus on the impact (...) of structural positions on EP, this article demonstrates the importance of combining network and individual variables to investigate individuals’ EP. (shrink)

In this paper, I claim that live uterus donors ought to be considered for the possibility of compensation. I support my claim on the basis of comparable arguments which have already been applied to gamete donation, surrogacy, and other kinds of organ donation. However, I acknowledge that there are specificities associated with uterus donation, which make the issue of incentive and reward a harder ethical case relative to gamete donation, surrogacy, and other kinds of organ donation. Ultimately, I contend that (...) while reimbursement for the costs incurred by live uterus donors should be treated as a necessary ethical minimum, how much further we ought to remunerate uterus donations remains an open question. (shrink)

As important stakeholder research streams have built their own silos over time, it has become increasingly difficult to visualize a full picture of stakeholder management. To begin to address this gap, we synthesize five distinct stakeholder research streams, which include stakeholder identification, stakeholder understanding, stakeholder awareness, stakeholder prioritization, and stakeholder action. We juxtapose each of these five stakeholder research streams with Scott’s framework consisting of participants, socials structure, environment, technology, and goals of an organization, respectively. What emerges from this analysis (...) of the literature is the notion of “stakeholder work” defined as the purposive processes of an organization aimed at identifying, understanding, being aware of, prioritizing, and acting with respect to stakeholders. (shrink)

Mere inability, which refers to what persons are naturally unable to do, is traditionally thought to be distinct from unfreedom, which is a social type of constraint. The advent of biomedical enhancement, however, challenges the idea that there is a clear division between mere inability and unfreedom. This is because bioenhancement makes it possible for some people’s mere inabilities to become matters of unfreedom. In this paper, I discuss several ways that this might occur: first, bioenhancement can exacerbate social pressures (...) to enhance one’s abilities; second, people may face discrimination for not enhancing; third, the new abilities made possible due to bioenhancement may be accompanied by new inabilities for the enhanced and unenhanced; and finally, shifting values around abilities and inabilities due to bioenhancement may reinforce a pre-existing ableism about human abilities. As such, we must give careful consideration to these potential unfreedom-generating outcomes when it comes to our moral evaluations of bioenhancement. (shrink)

In this paper, we attempt to refine the concept of corporate citizenship. Traditionally, research on corporate citizenship has paid greater attention to corporateduties, leaving corporate rights relatively unattended in the corporate citizenship literature. However, some scholars have recently explored corporate citizenship as the corporation’s implementation of both of its respected rights and duties. Others have conceptualized the corporate citizenship concept with a specific focus on the corporation’s expansion of its new duties and rights. Integrating existing conceptualizations of corporate citizenship, we (...) propose a refined definition of corporate citizenship as a dynamic process by which corporations implement and expand their respective corporate rights and duties. (shrink)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1991.

In this article, we use ideas from stakeholder capital maintenance theory to address tensions in allocating firm profits between stockholders and other stakeholders. We utilize a mediative thought experiment to conceptualize how multiple stakeholder interests might better be served, such that genuine firm profits (from new value creation) versus artificial firm profits (from non-wealth-producing transfers) may be identified and incentivized. We thereby examine how such accounting transfers can be envisioned as stakeholder capital to be maintained for the benefit of both (...) the firm and the economy. We present examples to illustrate the hypothetical model proposed and its implications. (shrink)

In moral and political philosophy, topics like the distributive inequities conferred via special partial relationships – family relationships, for example – have been frequently debated. However, the epistemic dimensions of such partiality are seldom discussed in the ethical context, and the topic of partial relationships rarely feature in the realm of social epistemology. My view is that the role of partial relationships is worth exploring to enrich our understanding of epistemic injustice and its transmission. I claim that epistemic features typical (...) of partial relationships make phenomena like epistemic injustice easier to mask, more difficult to identify, and harder to correct. (shrink)

Ascribing autonomous status to agents is a valuable practice. As such, we ought to care about how we engage in practices of autonomy ascription. However, disagreement between first-personal experiences of an agent's autonomy and third-personal determinations of their autonomy presents challenges of ethical and epistemic concern. My view is that insights from a dialogical rather than nondialogical account of autonomy give us the resources to combat the challenges associated with autonomy ascription. I draw on Andrea Westlund's account of dialogical autonomy—on (...) which autonomy requires a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external critical perspectives—to make my case. (shrink)

Individualistic traditions of autonomy have long been critiqued by feminists for their atomistic and asocial presentation of human agents. Relational approaches to autonomy were developed as an alternative to these views. Relational accounts generally capture a more socially informed picture of human agents, and aim to differentiate between social phenomena that are conducive to our agency versus those that pose a hindrance to our agency. In this article, I explore the various relational conceptualizations of autonomy profferred to date. I critically (...) review some of the ongoing internal disputes within the relational autonomy literature, and conclude the article by taking stock of the value of relational autonomy despite these unresolved debates. (shrink)

김창협의 「사단칠정설」은 그의 변화하는 생각을 수시로 기록한 필기였다. 본 글은 「사단칠정설」에서 주리주기 구분 및 칠포사 논제와 관련한 김창협의 논증과 주장의 변화를 분석하였다. 주리주기 구분과 관련해서, 김창협은 일관되게 사단을 주리, 칠정을 주기로 구분하지만, 그 논증에는 차이가 있다. 처음에 그는 설명 방식과 수양론 측면의 개념 차이를 통해 주리·주기를 구분하며, 이는 기대승의 해석과 유사했다. 이후 그는 사단과 칠정의 명칭을 통해 알 수 있는 정보의 차이에 근거해서 주리·주기를 구분하는데, 이는 그의 경위설 논제에 근거한 해석이다. 칠포사와 관련해서, 처음에 그는 칠정이 사단을 포함하지는 않지만, 교집합은 있다고 (...) 주장했다. 이후 그는 칠포사를 긍정하는 데, 주장이 바뀐 배경에는 그의 인간-자연 간 상관성 논제에 담긴 사유가 자리한다. 결론적으로 김창협의 사칠론은 외형상 퇴·율을 절충한 듯 보이지만, 그 내용은 이이의 사칠론에 기반해서 자신의 고유한 해석을 제안했다고 평가할 수 있다. (shrink)

Because many involuntarily childless people have equal interests in benefitting from assisted reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization as a mode of treatment, we have normative reasons to ensure inclusive access to such interventions for as many of these people as is reasonable and possible. However, the prevailing eligibility criterion for access to assisted reproductive technologies—'infertility'—is inadequate to serve the goal of inclusive access. This is because the prevailing frameworks of infertility, which include medical and social infertility, fail to precisely (...) capture and unify the relevance of certain involuntarily childless experiences as warranting assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment. I argue that the least we can do for those who have an interest in accessing ARTs is to conceptualize involuntarily childless experiences in dialogue with interactionist and ecological models of disability, to outline a unified and more inclusive eligibility criterion. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that various epistemic challenges associated with eating disorders (EDs) can negatively affect the care of already marginalized patient groups with various EDs. I will first outline deficiencies in our understanding of EDs—in research, healthcare settings, and beyond. I will then illustrate with examples cases where discriminatory misconceptions about what EDs are, the presentation and treatment of EDs, and who gets EDs, instantiate obstacles for the treatment of various ED patient groups.

Natalie Stoljar posits that those who have internalized oppressive norms lack normative competence, which requires true beliefs and critical reflection. A lack of normative competence makes agents nonautonomous, according to Stoljar. This framework is thereby meant to address what she calls the “feminist intuition”—the intuition that oppressive norms are incompatible with autonomy. On my view, however, Stoljar’s normative competence account of autonomy is subject to a worrying problem. Her account misattributes nonautonomy to those who perpetrate the oppression, making those who (...) are oppressed and those who oppress count as equally nonautonomous. I argue that this is implausible and demonstrate in this paper that we can establish an asymmetry of autonomy between those who oppress others and those who are made the target of oppression. (shrink)

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted prosocial behavior as a professional healthcare core competency. Although medical students are expected to work in the best interests of their patients, in the pandemic context, there is a greater need for ethical attention to be paid to the way medical students deal with moral dilemmas that may conflict with their obligations.MethodsThis study was conducted in the spring semester of 2019 on 271 students majoring in health professions: medicine, dentistry, and veterinary medicine. All participants provided (...) informed consent and completed measures that assessed utilitarian moral views, cognitive reflections, cognitive reappraisal, and moral judgment.ResultsThe healthcare-affiliated students who scored higher on the instrumental harm subscale in the measurement of utilitarian moral views were more likely to endorse not only other-sacrificial actions but also self-sacrificial ones for the greater good in moral dilemma scenarios. In particular, those engaged in deliberative processes tended to make more self-sacrificial judgments. The mediation analysis also revealed that the effect of deliberative processes on self-sacrificial judgments was mediated by cognitive reappraisal.ConclusionsThese findings suggested that cognitive reappraisal through deliberative processes is involved when the students with utilitarian inclination make prosocial decisions, that it is necessary to consider both moral views and emotional regulation when admitting candidates, and that moral education programs are needed in the healthcare field. (shrink)

A wide-ranging, comprehensive overview of pressing issues in bioethics today, this handbook takes into account current affairs and historical precedents. Interdisciplinary authorship and global examples make the handbook applicable to a variety of scholar, student, and practitioner types.

Halal means permissible or lawful in Arabic and is applied to both the religious and daily life of Muslims. Islamic Law Shariah requires Muslims to consume halal products only. But with the expansion of supply chains around the world and the development of many new products, Muslim consumers have found it difficult to confirm whether food is halal or not. Also, as many foods are produced in non-Muslim countries and exported to Muslim countries, interest in halal certification in non-Muslim countries (...) is increasing. With several Islamic countries strengthening their halal certification regulation for import in recent years, there is no accurate information on whether halal certification is necessary to export to Muslim countries or the Islamic State, and is lack of clear study of the definition of the Islamic State. Therefore, in this research, we will investigate the constitution and food import regulations of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation member states, called the Union of Islamic States, to study the definition of Islamic State and whether halal certification is necessary for food exports. (shrink)

According to Chloe Romanis, it is worth distinguishing interventions such as surrogacy, uterus transplantation (UTx), and potentially artificial placenta technology, as falling under the genus assisted gestative technologies (AGTs) rather than the more general term assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). The proposed genus of assisted gestative technologies is a helpful first step in the endeavour to distinguish between the different ethico-legal landscapes across various ‘assisted reproductive technologies.’ Yet, if assisted gestative technologies can be considered a genus of assisted reproductive technologies, we (...) might consider surrogacy, uterus transplantation (UTx), and artificial placenta technology their individual species. Between these various species of AGTs, I would argue, there remains enough ethico-legal diversity to warrant independent discussion about the descriptive and normative functions of each AGT and the relationship between gestation, genetic relatedness, and legal/moral parenthood. (shrink)