During early embryonic development in several metazoans, accurate DNA replication is ensured by high number of replication origins. This guarantees rapid genome duplication coordinated with fast cell divisions. In Xenopus laevis embryos this program switches to one with a lower number of origins at a developmental stage known as mid‐blastula transition (MBT) when cell cycle length increases and gene transcription starts. Consistent with this regulation, somatic nuclei replicate poorly when transferred to eggs, suggesting the existence of an epigenetic memory suppressing (...) replication assembly origins at all available sites. Recently, it was shown that histone H1 imposes a non‐permissive chromatin configuration preventing replication origin assembly on somatic nuclei. This somatic state can be erased by SSRP1, a subunit of the FACT complex. Here, we further develop the hypothesis that this novel form of epigenetic memory might impact on different areas of vertebrate biology going from nuclear reprogramming to cancer development. (shrink)

What is the relationship between inquiry and epistemology? Are epistemic norms the norms that guide us as inquirers—as agents in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding? Recently, there has been growing support for what I, following Friedman (Philosophical Review 129(4):501–536, 2020), will call the zetetic turn in epistemology, the view that all epistemic norms are norms of inquiry. This paper investigates the prospects of an inquiry-centered approach to epistemology and develops several motivations for resisting it. First, I argue that the (...) norms of inquiry are most plausibly seen as practical, not as distinctively epistemic. Second, I argue that a zetetically-grounded epistemology is unable to properly account for the rationality of belief. It fails to account for cases where intuitively irrational beliefs promote inquiry, or where intuitively rational beliefs are zetetically useless or counterproductive to inquiry. The main upshot is this: there must be a source of epistemic normativity that isn’t ultimately zetetic. (shrink)

Much of the recent work on epistemology of inquiry defends two related theses. First, inquiry into a question rationally prohibits believing an answer to that question. Second, knowledge is the aim of inquiry. I develop a series of cases which indicate that inquiry is not as narrow as these views suggest. These cases can be accommodated if we take a broader approach and understand inquiry as aiming at epistemic improvement, described more generally. This approach captures a wider range of inquiring (...) phenomena because it accounts for forms of epistemic improvement that fall short of, or go beyond, coming to know the answer to a question. (shrink)

This article develops a new approach for theorizing about hermeneutical injustice. According to a dominant view, hermeneutical injustice results from a hermeneutical gap: one lacks the conceptual tools needed to make sense of, or to communicate, important social experience, where this lack is a result of an injustice in the background social methods used to determine hermeneutical resources. I argue that this approach is incomplete. It fails to capture an important species of hermeneutical injustice which doesn’t result from a lack (...) of hermeneutical resources, but from the overabundance of distorting and oppressive concepts which function to crowd-out, defeat, or preempt the application of a more accurate hermeneutical resource. I propose a broader analysis that better respects the dynamic relationship between hermeneutical resources and the social and political contexts in which they are implemented. (shrink)

A puzzle arises when combining two individually plausible, yet jointly incompatible, norms of inquiry. On the one hand, it seems that one shouldn’t inquire into a question while believing an answer to that question. But, on the other hand, it seems rational to inquire into a question while believing its answer, if one is seeking confirmation. Millson (2021), who has recently identified this puzzle, suggests a possible solution, though he notes that it comes with significant costs. I offer an alternative (...) solution, which doesn’t involve these costs. The best way to resolve the puzzle is to reject the prohibition on inquiring into a question while believing an answer to it. Resolving the puzzle in this way makes salient two fruitful areas in the epistemology of inquiry which merit further investigation. The first concerns the nature of the inquiring attitudes and the second concerns the aim(s) of inquiry. (shrink)

Recent pragmatic accounts of slurs argue that the offensiveness of slurs is generated by a speaker's free choice to use a slur opposed to a more appropriate and semantically equivalent neutral counterpart. I argue that the theoretical role of neutral counterparts on such views is overstated. I consider two recent pragmatic analyses, Bolinger (Noûs, 51, 2017, 439) and Nunberg (New work on speech acts, Oxford University Press, 2018), which rely heavily upon the optionality of slurs, namely, that a speaker exercises (...) a deliberate lexical choice to use a slur when they could have easily used a neutral counterpart instead. Against such views, I argue that across a range of different offensive uses of slurs, a speaker's choice to use a slur opposed to a neutral counterpart plays little to no role in accounting for why the slur generates offence. Such cases cast serious doubt upon the explanatory depth of these pragmatic analyses, and raise more general concerns for views which draw upon the relationship between a slur and its neutral counterpart. The main upshot is this: theorists should exercise caution in assuming that neutral counterparts play any fundamental or systemic role in explaining why slurs are offensive. (shrink)

Cultural code-switching concerns how we adjust our overall behaviours, manners of speaking, and appearance in response to a perceived change in our social environment. We defend the need to investigate cultural code-switching capacities in artificial intelligence systems. We explore a series of ethical and epistemic issues that arise when bringing cultural code-switching to bear on artificial intelligence. Building upon Dotson’s (2014) analysis of testimonial smothering, we discuss how emerging technologies in AI can give rise to epistemic oppression, and specifically, a (...) form of self-silencing that we call “cultural smothering.” By leaving the sociodynamic features of cultural code-switching unaddressed, AI systems risk negatively impacting already-marginalised social groups by widening opportunity gaps and further entrenching social inequalities. (shrink)

Lucia Schwarz urges a reconsideration of the implications of species egalitarianism, which is an essential element of the position in environmental ethics that Paul Taylor calls “respect for nature.” Species egalitarianism’s claim that every living thing has equal inherent worth appears to lead to counterintuitive conclusions, such as that killing a human being is no worse than killing a dandelion. Species egalitarians have generally responded by explaining that species egalitarianism is compatible with recognizing moral differences between killing different types (...) of living things, and that some killing is morally permissible. Schwarz raises doubts about whether this deflationary defensive strategy is philosophically justified, and suggests that taking seriously the supposedly repugnant implications of species egalitarianism may have a salutary effect on the overall debate. (shrink)

Les explications de ce pourquoi mentir est mal sont toutes inadéquates. Leur problème commun se situe dans leur structure unitaire. Ces analyses présupposent que tous les mensonges sont mauvais pour la même raison unificatrice. Cette supposition ne rend cependant pas justice au phénomène du mensonge, et ce, parce qu’on peut s’objecter à l’acte de mentir de différentes façons. Ainsi je suggère qu’il faut un changement dialectique en direction d’un traitement pluraliste de ce qui est mauvais dans le mensonge. Il ne (...) faut pas forcer une unité sur la structure morale du mensonge lorsqu’il y a en fait pluralité. (shrink)

Oftentimes, reality seems to us a chaos that we try to control with our theories. This article starts from the antithetic standpoint, inspired by Antonio Rosmini’s works: reality is intelligible, and originates our thinking. From this perspective, any research that tries to reach the truth is determined by the real, not the contrary. Moreover, interdisciplinarity, far from being a solipsistic enterprise, aims at achieving truth and guaranteeing scientific advancement. Here, we analyze the distinctive character of Rosminian encyclopedism and his principles (...) for preventing human errors. We then clarify why it is impossible to achieve perfection, and why such an impossibility is not problematic for the interdisciplinary dialogue. (shrink)

The general question to be considered in this paper points to the nature of the world described by chemistry: what is macro-chemical ontology like? In particular, we want to identify the ontological categories that underlie chemical discourse and chemical practice. This is not an easy task, because modern Western metaphysics was strongly modeled by theoretical physics. For this reason, we attempt to answer our question by contrasting macro-chemical ontology with the mainstream ontology of physics and of traditional metaphysics. In particular, (...) we introduce the distinction between stuff-ontology, proper of chemistry, and individual-ontology, proper of physics. These two ontologies differ from each other in the basic categories of their own structures. On this basis, we characterize individual-ontology in such a way that the features of stuff-ontology will arise by contrast with it. (shrink)

This paper describes a practice innovation: the addition of formal weekly discussions of patients with prolonged PICU stay to reduce healthcare providers’ moral distress and decrease length of stay for patients with life-threatening illnesses. We evaluated the innovation using a pre/post intervention design measuring provider moral distress and comparing patient outcomes using retrospective historical controls. Physicians and nurses on staff in our pediatric intensive care unit in a quaternary care children's hospital participated in the evaluation. There were 60 patients in (...) the interventional group and 66 patients in the historical control group. We evaluated the impact of weekly meetings to establish goals of care for patients with longer than 10 days length of stay in the ICU for a year. Moral distress was measured intermittently and reported moral distress thermometer scores fluctuated. "Clinical situations" represented the most frequent contributing factor to moral distress. Post intervention, overall moral distress scores, measured on the moral distress scale revised, were lower for respondents in all categories, and on three specific items. Patient outcomes before and after PEACE intervention showed a statistically significant decrease in PRISM indexed LOS, a statistically significant increase in both code status changes DNR, and in-hospital death, with no change in patient 30 or 365 day mortality. The addition of a clinical ethicist and senior intensivist to weekly inter-professional team meetings facilitated difficult conversations regarding realistic goals of care. The study demonstrated that the PEACE intervention had a positive impact on some factors that contribute to moral distress and can shorten PICU length of stay for some patients. (shrink)

Young proposes an extremely important definition of social groups, which champions the flexible nature of the concept over attempts to freeze and fix the content of groups' identity on a cultural basis. Young shows an increasing disaffection with claims for groups' legislative presence that results in the abandoning of an essential definition of groups and the promotion of an analytical one. This entails that social groups remain the instruments to acknowledge and reproduce patterns of injustices, yet mechanisms to enhance effective (...) inclusion of marginalized groups do not depend on political mobilization around groups' shared backgrounds. This increasing rejection of social groups as privileged instruments of political mobilizations leads me to elaborate an Arendtian `inessential coalition', viewed as the development of Young's reworking of the concept of social groups. (shrink)

Although the literature on corporate social responsibility has discussed the scope and meaning of CSR extensively, confusion still exists regarding how to define the concept. One controversial issue deals with the changing legal status of CSR. Based on a review of CSR definitions and meta-studies on CSR definitions, we find that the majority of definitions leans toward voluntary CSR. However, some recent regulatory amendments toward mandatory CSR have called into question the established idea of CSR as merely a managerial tool (...) of self-regulation. In this paper, we juxtapose the evolution of CSR in India against the scholarly literature discussing voluntary-versus-mandatory CSR to understand the recent shift toward a new conceptualization of CSR as a form of co-regulation that includes elements of both voluntary and mandatory regulation. The Indian Companies Act 2013 is a remarkable example in that it replaced an older version from 1956, taking a bold step toward the integration of voluntary and mandatory aspects in the application of CSR. We present practical implications of the Indian case for businesses and discuss implications for CSR theory development; we particularly consider the evolution of the business and society relationship from a voluntary soft law approach to CSR to an increasingly hard law approach and transitory hybrid forms in-between like soft–hard law and hard–soft law. (shrink)

La investigación propuesta indagó las relaciones que existen entre el derecho a la memoria y el derecho a la ciudad. Para ello se analizaron desde una teoría crítica de los derechos humanos y teniendo como punto de contacto entre ambos derechos las inscripciones espaciales que materializan la memoria colectiva en la ciudad de Madrid. Es así que se buscó comprobar, desde una dimensión jurídica basada en un enfoque de derechos y con perspectiva espacial, si aquellos lugares que materializan y garantizan (...) la memoria pueden a su vez garantizar el acceso al derecho a la ciudad en virtud de que colaboran en la creación de una ciudad más democrática. La metodología empleada consistió en un análisis crítico de textos, relevamiento y estudio exhaustivo de las normas y estándares nacionales e internacionales, políticas públicas locales, observación y registro de los lugares y, por último, una entrevista en profundidad mediante la técnica de muestra de caso sumamente importante para el problema analizado. (shrink)

Sports are an excellent venue for demonstrating evolutionary principles to audiences not familiar with academic research. Team sports and sports fandom feature dynamics of in-group loyalty and intergroup competition, influenced by our evolved coalitional psychology. We predicted that reactions to expressions signaling mutual team/group allegiance would vary as a function of the territorial context. Reactions should become more prevalent, positive, and enthusiastic as one moves from the home territory to a contested area, and from a contested area to a rival’s (...) territory during active rival engagement. We also predicted that men would be more responsive than women based on sex differences in evolved coalitional psychology. The research team visited public places immediately prior to 2016–2017 collegiate football and basketball games. A male research confederate wore a sweatshirt displaying the logo of one of the competing university teams and vocalized the team’s most popular slogan when he saw a fan displaying similar logos. Observers followed 5 m behind, recording reactions and response positivity/enthusiasm. Reaction tone was most positive in the rival territory, least positive in the home territory, and intermediate in the periphery and contested territory. Rates of “no reaction” were lowest in the rival territory but were highest in the periphery. Men had higher reaction rates and more positive and enthusiastic reaction tones than women. Reactions generally followed predictions based on expected signal value. This project provides evidence that coalitional psychology influences dynamics related to university sports team rivalries and that context matters for expressions of alliance. (shrink)

A recent Carnegie Report on Nursing Education – Educating Nurses: A Call for Radical Transformation challenges the nursing profession to embrace an education model that integrates knowledge, skilled know how and ethical comportment. Placing ethics in such a prominent position in nursing education is a radical transformation. Teaching ethics must be intentional and it is integral to the development of individual nurses and the profession as a whole. The development of moral imagination has a prominent place in this new education (...) model. The moral imagination is the ability to ponder and wonder about the inherent rightness or wrongness of decisions, choices and behaviors. This paper will review some key issues relevant to teaching ethics and then explore what nurturing the moral imagination could do for nurses as they learn to apply abstract ethics concepts to their clinical practice. (shrink)

Considering Rosmini’s political works in comparison with his metaphysical and anthropological essays, and starting from Rosmini's project of a code of law that, in the author’s opinion, can guarantee fundamental human rights, this article discusses the concept of justice between citizens and outsiders. Its first part is an analysis of Rosmini’s juridical fundaments, which takes into account also some objections historically moved against it. Its second part examines some specific cases of conflicts between outsiders and the members of civil society, (...) as considered by the Roveretan philosopher. (shrink)

This article reports a notable misprint in J.C.G. Strachan's Oxford Classical Text of Plato's Phaedo.

Universal por estar no direito e particular por estar fora do direito, o “sujeito” de referência deste trabalho é o “autista”. Esta escolha garantiu a definição do sistema social, que foi concebido segundo o modo como os autistas se viam ou eram vistos. O sistema teórico foi delimitado segundo tradições intelectuais que problematizam o “sujeito” de acordo com questões formuladas pelos campos empíricos. O esquema metodológico visa a conhecer o “sujeito” por dentro dos sistemas e entre eles. O objetivo teórico (...) é pensar o “sujeito” considerando que o universal do direito não resulta da pluralidade do “sujeito”. (shrink)

Moral distress is a well-documented phenomenon for health care providers (HCPs). Exploring HCPs’ perceptions of participation in moral distress interventions using qualitative and quantitative methods enhances understanding of intervention effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to measure and describe the impact of a two-phased intervention on participants’ moral distress. Using a cross-over design, the project aimed to determine if the intervention would decrease moral distress, enhance moral agency, and improve perceptions about the work environment. We used quantitative instruments and (...) explored participants’ perceptions of the intervention using semi-structured interviews. Participants were from inpatient settings, within three major hospitals of a large, urban healthcare system in the Midwest, United States. Participants included nurses (80.6%) and other clinical care providers. Using generalized linear mixed modeling we assessed the change in each of the outcome variables over time controlling for groups. Interviews were audiotaped and professionally transcribed. The written narratives were coded into themes. The change in scores on study instruments trended in the desired direction however did not meet statistical significance. Qualitative interviews revealed that intervention effectiveness was derived from a combination of learning benefits, psychological benefits, and building community that promoted moral agency. Findings demonstrate a clear link between moral distress and moral agency and suggest that Facilitated Ethics Conversations can enhance the work environment. Findings provide insight for developing evidenced-based approaches to address moral distress of hospital nurses. (shrink)

Many published instruments for assessing adolescent adjustment can be implemented in the school context. However, most of them fail to include a comprehensive and positive theoretical perspective of adolescent development and, even when they do, priority is often given to the clinical perspective, or problems with ecological validity and cost-effectiveness emerge. The Magallanes Adaptation Scale is a 90-item Likert-instrument designed for Spanish-speaking adolescents in order to screen several adjustment areas from a holistic and positive perspective of development. Although some evidence (...) of its psychometric robustness has been tested, no confirmatory analysis of its structure has been published. This paper analyzes the items and the factor structure (exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, using the split-half method) of the scales. Participants were 948 Spanish adolescents (49.84% girls) aged between 11 and 17 and stratified sampled. Thirty-six items were removed from the item analysis. The results of the exploratory factor analysis revealed five factors, excluding mother’s adaptation. Several models were tested during the confirmatory factor analyses, with a 24-item second-order four-factor solution being found to have the best adjustment indicators. The short version proposed in this paper can constitute a helpful tool with screening purposes to help school teachers to assess students’ overall development beyond mere academic performance, although further validity research is needed. (shrink)

El objetivo de este texto es investigar sobre los posibles puntos de encuentro entre la psicoterapia existencial, un paradigma psicológico arraigado en las filosofías de la existencia, y el posicionamiento del profesor Marino Pérez Álvarez, quien se define a sí mismo como conductista radical, respecto a su manera de entender la existencia humana y el modelo más adecuado de psicoterapia. Para ello se proponen seis puntos de encuentro: necesidad de una fundamentación filosófica para la psicología, crítica al cientificismo y al (...) modelo médico, interpretación de los trastornos mentales como problemas de la vida cotidiana, recuperación del paciente como protagonista de la terapia, crítica a la psicología positiva y crítica al dualismo cartesiano. (shrink)

After the establishment of the independent Slovak Republic, legal and institutional ground rules were set for providing asylum to foreigners present on the territory of the Slovak Republic. The national legislation of the last twenty years was adopted in compliance with international treaties and the European Union instruments covering asylum matters. In the field of asylum policy, the Slovak Republic complies with its traditional pillars and supports new forms of protection following the new challenges faced by the international community. The (...) currently valid Asylum Act regulates the international protection of aliens in the Slovak Republic, by defining the conditions and procedures related to granting asylum and provision of subsidiary protection and temporary shelter. The Asylum Act also covers the rights and obligations of different categories of persons, stay in asylum facilities and, partially, the integration of persons that are granted asylum. This article describes and analyses the development of the Slovak asylum legal framework and the concept of asylum policy. Furthermore, it looks at different protection statuses granted to foreigners and finally deals with the refugee migration trends in the Slovak Republic. (shrink)

Historians and political theorists have long been interested in how the principle of people’s power was conceptualised during the French Revolution. Traditionally, two diverging accounts emerge, one of national and the other of popular sovereignty, the former associated with moderate monarchist deputies, including the Abbé Sieyes, and the latter with the Jacobins. This paper argues against this binary interpretation of the political thought of the French Revolution, in favour of a third account of people’s power, Sieyes’ idea of pouvoir constituant. (...) Traditionally, constituent power has been viewed as a variation of sovereignty, but I show it to be an independent conceptualisation of people’s power. Sieyes’ political theory led him to criticise and refuse contemporary theories of sovereignty in favour of what he understood as a fully modern account of people’s power. Based on extensive research in the archives, I show how Sieyes opposed the deployment of sovereignty by the revolutionary Assemblies and reco... (shrink)

Enaction, as put forward by Varela and defended by other thinkers (notably Alva Noë, 2004; Susan Hurley, 2006; and Kevin O’Regan, 1992), departs from traditional accounts that treat mental processes (like perception, reasoning, and action) as discrete, independent processes that are causally related in a sequen- tial fashion. According to the main claim of the enactive approach, which Thompson seems to fully endorse, perceptual awareness is taken to be a skill-based activity. Our perceptual contact with the world, according to the (...) enactionists, is not mediated by representations but is enacted, and the notion of representation, belonging to the classic computational paradigm, has no place in this alternative approach. Though Thompson does not pronounce directly on the issue of representationalism, he is most definitely keeping the company of anti-representationalists, and in that context it is not unreasonable to take his silence for consent. In this paper, we will argue that the enactive approach to imagery is unworkable unless it makes appeal to representations, understood in a particular way. Not understood as pictures, to be sure. Or sentences for that matter. But those aren’t the only options. (shrink)

Some recent uses of artificial intelligence for facial recognition, evaluating resumes, and sorting photographs by subject matter have revealed troubling disparities in performance or impact based on the demographic traits of subject populations. These disparities raise pressing questions about how using artificial intelligence can work to promote justice or entrench injustice. Political theorists and philosophers have developed nuanced vocabularies and theoretical frameworks for understanding and adjudicating disputes about what justice requires and what constitutes injustice. The interdisciplinary community committed to understanding (...) and conscientiously using big data could benefit from this work. Thus, in the spirit of encouraging cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration, this piece examines contemporary scholarship in political theory and philosophy to illustrate some of the vocabularies and frameworks political theorists and philosophers have developed for thinking about justice and injustice. It then draws on these frameworks to illuminate how the use of artificial intelligence can implicate questions of justice, with a focus on institutional discrimination, structural injustice, and epistemic injustice. Ultimately, the piece argues that the use of artificial intelligence—far from representing a decision to take power out of human hands—represents a novel way of harnessing human power, making questions of justice central to its conscientious undertaking. (shrink)