The on-going space settlement debate has raised questions whether it is possible to settle other planets, and if it was, is it something humans should do. The problem with this space ethical discussion is that it can easily become too vague. To avoid this problem, we suggest a framework for identifying relevant variables that affect the feasibility constraints and desirability factors of establishing space settlements. The variables we focus on include the settlement stage, scale and time frame. Based (...) on the relevant literature, we take mission cost, survival, habitation, water, in situ resources for food, oxygen and fuel energy and dependence on Earth as feasibility constraints that are relevant for the framework. None of them are hard constraints, but rather soft feasibility constraints that make it difficult to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars in the near- to medium-term future. However, in the past, humanity has achieved goals that first seemed infeasible. To justify the costs and effort, the goal must be highly morally desirable. We discuss five different desirability factors that could help justify the effort but as each framework has unique feasibility constraints, not all of these factors are sufficient or necessary to justify this effort. We argue that some of the desirability factors prominent in space ethical literature are not sufficient or necessary in our framework, and thus, we conclude that the normative grounds for establishing a permanent Mars settlement in the foreseeable future are weak. (shrink)

With the end of the Cold War, political and ideological competition has decreased as a stated reason for space exploration. The possibility of establishing a settlement on Mars is being seriously evaluated by state and commercial space agencies, which includes objectives to expand human civilization and ensure the continuity of the human species. The technological challenges associated with space settlement continue to receive significant attention, but the success of space settlement will also depend on other human (...) factors. This study presents a high-level overview of some potential issues that could arise with the development of a permanent populationand a space economyon Mars. This study highlights some of the anticipated problems of overnance, trade, production, and proliferation that will need pragmatic solutions to ensure the sustainability of a martian settlement. This paper is intended to instigate further discussion and research regarding human and economic factors that could enable or constrain future settlements on Mars. (shrink)

The recent success of the Mars 2020 project and the high quality images relayed back to Earth have provided further impetus and expectations for human missions to Mars. To support space agency and private enterprise plans to establish a sustainable colony on Mars in the 2030s, synthetic biology may play a vital role to enable astronaut self-sufficiency. In this review, we describe some aspects of where synthetic biology may inform and guide in situ resource utilisation strategies. We (...) address the nature of Martian regolith and describe methods by which it may be rendered fit for purpose to support growth and yield of bioengineered crops. Lastly, we illustrate some examples of innate human adaptation which may confer characteristics desirable in the selection of colonists and with a future looking lens, offer potential targets for human enhancement. (shrink)

Mars One is an ambitious, private plan to begin colonizing Mars using comprehensively screened volunteers who will make a one-way journey to the Red Planet. Its budget will be partially offset by broadcasting the adventure as a reality-TV program, beginning with the training of the astronauts, and ending with their settlement and, presumably, their deaths on the surface of Mars. In essence, the volunteers being sought for the Mars One project are human subjects in an (...) experiment and ought to be treated as such under international provisions for the protection of human subjects or, at the very least, under a concern for the ethical conduct of a potentially groundbreaking project. In this article, I explore the question of whether the volunteers for Mars One are subject to standard protections for human subjects in scientific research, or to broader ethical concerns and protections for unique reasons. (shrink)

There are a number of candidate rationales for the settlement of Mars. These are considered in Sect. 10.1. At least one of them is economically plausible: its use as a base of operations for asteroid mining in the Main Belt. This rationale suggests that environmental protection on Mars needs to be considered in a broader context than that of the planet alone. More specifically, the authors argue in Sect. 10.2 that planetary environmental protection is partly a matter (...) of containment and so requires a framing principle. Section 10.3 supplies such a principle for protection, “the 1/8 principle”: while economic growth in space remains exponential and comparable to historical patterns on Earth, we should use no more than 1/8 of the available resources, in order to secure a reasonable ‘breaking distance’ before we reach a point of super-exploitation. Section 10.4 examines the difficulties of applying such a principle to Mars, the need for trade-offs and special weighting for special strategic resources such as uncollapsed lava tubes. Section 10.5 points out the ease with which the principle can be turned into policy options and its good matchup with human practices of valuing and use. The latter considerations may not be decisive, but they do count strongly in its favour. (shrink)

The U.S. civilian space program is focused on planning for a new round of human missions to the Moon and, later, perhaps, to Mars. These plans are intended to realize a “vision” for exploration articulated by President George W. Bush. It is important to examine this “vision” in the broader context of 21st-century space exploration, which is a truly global enterprise. Questions to be addressed include the following: How will extending human presence into the solar system affect society and (...) culture on Earth? What legal, ethical, and other value systems should govern human settlements and other activities in space? Do humans have rights to exploit extraterrestrial resources and alter extraterrestrial environments? Does space exploration need reinvention to meet social needs? This article describes the current environment for space policy making and a framework of space law, ethics, and culture within which these questions can be considered. (shrink)

When the time comes to decide how to govern an extraterrestrial settlement there will be many alternatives to chose from. We will have the opportunity to try new and so far untested theories, but there are also some old forms of government that might be tempting to try again. We might for instance let the company whose activities on the world are the reason for the establishment govern the settlement. This has been tried before on our own planet (...) both because it was seen as convenient and as an incentive for colonisation. In this chapter I will ask what this solution would mean for the civil liberty of the settlers. To answer the question I will look at some historical analogues and have a philosophical discussion. The conclusion is that a settlement governed by a body whose sole reason for existence is to make money for the owners, that is led by a board that answers only to the owners and not to the people, that functions as both government and sole employer, and that has the unlimited power over the life support systems necessary for the survival of the settlers will not be a good basis for civil liberties. (shrink)

The prospect of human societies being made anew on other planets is a powerful recurring theme in popular culture and speculative technoscience. I explore what Science and Technology Studies offers to analyzing how the future is made and contested in present-day endeavors to establish humans as multiplanetary subjects. I focus on the case of Mars One—an initiative that aims to establish a human settlement on Mars in the 2020s—and discuss interviews undertaken with some of the individuals who (...) have volunteered to be the first humans to live on Mars, drawing on STS work on futures and sociotechnical imaginaries and scholarly discussions of utopia. Seeing themselves as part of a project that would start to “establish what it means to live on another planet,” I discuss how interviewees talked about how sociotechnical relations could be remade in the future, both on Earth and on Mars, through the pursuit of this technoscientific project. I conclude that this project is an expression of a multiplanetary imaginary of human beings no longer subject to Earth—but, through sociotechnical inventiveness, able to live on other planets. (shrink)

During the English Civil War and subsequent Restoration, beekeeping provided a ready set of moral examples for those seeking answers about the ‘natural’ structure of society. The practice itself also underwent a number of substantial changes, moving from a traditional craft practice to a more knowledge-focused, technologically complex one. The advent of glass-windowed hives in the latter half of the sixteenth century allowed intellectuals from across the political spectrum to directly observe bees as a way of gathering knowledge about how (...) to understand the divine plan and, with that understanding, improve human society. (shrink)

Yuri Gagarin has started the first time in human history the manned mission in space when his Vostok aircraft successfully achieved Earth orbit in 1961. Since his times, human space programs did not develop too much, and the biggest achievement still remain landing on the Moon. Despite this stagnation, there are serious plans to launch manned mission to Mars including human space settlement. In out paper, we are going to identify and discuss a couple of challenges that – (...) in our opinion – will be a domain of every human deep-space program. (shrink)

We discuss a recent approach to investigating cognitive control, which has the potential to deal with some of the challenges inherent in this endeavour. In a model-based approach, the researcher defines a formal, computational model that performs the task at hand and whose performance matches that of a research participant. The internal variables in such a model might then be taken as proxies for latent variables computed in the brain. We discuss the potential advantages of such an approach for the (...) study of the neural underpinnings of cognitive control and its pitfalls, and we make explicit the assumptions underlying the interpretation of data obtained using this approach. (shrink)

In a questionnaire study on organ allocation 348 students of medicine (102) and economics (246) at the universities of Halle (114 students) and Hannover (234 students) responded to questions concerning their basic attitudes toward alternative criteria of organ allocation. Medical criteria were widely accepted by the respondents. Considerations concerning the patient's value to society were seen as being of minor importance. With respect to reciprocity, we could detect a high share of respondents who would favor former living donors and discriminate (...) against murderers. Among considerations of fairness, the criterion of waiting time gained the highest support. Furthermore, majorities favored the view that health-compromising behavior and differences in age should play a role. Economic considerations were strongly rejected as criteria of organ allocation. (shrink)

Foucault's analysis of an aesthetics of existence is presented as an instrument to practice ethical thought without the presupposition of an autonomous subject. The implications of Foucault's aesthetics of existence for ethical thought are traced to the work of Nietzsche. In Foucault's work, experiences of oneself are not a given, but are constituted in power relations and true-and-false games. In the interplay of truths and power relations, the individual constitutes a certain relationship to him- or herself. Foucault designated the relation (...) to oneself and one's existence as the main area of ethical concern and the most important field where aesthetic values are to be applied. In his aesthetics of existence, he invited the individual to problematize the relationship with the self and by using 'self-techniques' to transform it into a work of art. The relation to intimate others, shaped as friendship, is crucial to this ethical-aesthetic approach. Key Words: aesthetics of existence • ethics • Foucault • friendship • Nietzsche • subjectivity. (shrink)

The effective implementation of regulation in organizations is an ongoing concern for both research and practice, in order to avoid deviant behavior and its consequences. However, the way compliance with regulations is actually enacted or “performed” within organizations instead of merely executed, remains largely under-characterized. Evidence from an ethnographic study in the compliance unit of a French investment bank allows us to develop a detailed practice approach to how regulation is actually implemented in firms. We characterize the work accomplished by (...) compliance analysts who are in fact, “curving” the script of regulation within what we conceptualize as a “comfort zone”. Beyond agency, ethics appears as a key element in linking the “letter of the law”, which serves as a referential anchor to guide action, with the complex nature of specific situations. We analyze the way individuals and compliance teams cope with, interpret, struggle and in fine, perform regulation within this comfort zone. A particular interest is thus given to the work of embedded ethics in this process, as an enabler to partly recouple compliance with the regulated activity. We find that blind execution is not only impossible, but also devoid of meaning both from regulatory, risk management, and business perspectives in organizations. We highlight and characterize a hermeneutic dimension to this work, essential to effectively perform regulation in complex environments, and we suggest some directions for further research. (shrink)

Filosoof en arts Marli Huijer, de opvolger van René Gude als Denker des Vaderlands, is geen studeerkamergeleerde, al schreef ze meerdere boeken, zoals het recente Ritme en Discipline. Ze is geen tegen-, geen mee-, maar een tussendenker, ze wil de stemmen van allerlei verschillende mensen laten klinken. In de interviews in Het leven is niet leuk als je je mond houdt praat Peter Henk Steenhuis met haar over haar inspiratiebron Hannah Arendt, haar overstap van haar werk bij de methadonpost in (...) Beverwijk naar de filosofie, haar bijdrage aan het Filosofisch Elftal van Trouw, hoe wij met elkaar omgaan, hoe je jezelf kunt disciplineren, Simone de Beauvoir en Martha Nussbaum, de participatiesamenleving, omgaan met teleurstellingen, bevolkingsonderzoeken. In deze veelheid van onderwerpen benadrukt Huijer keer op keer dat het belangrijk is je vrijmoedig uit te spreken.00. (shrink)

The importance of relationality in ethical leadership has been the focus of recent attention in business ethics scholarship. However, this relational component has not been sufficiently theorized from different philosophical perspectives, allowing specific Western philosophical conceptions to dominate the leadership development literature. This paper offers a theoretical analysis of the relational ontology that informs various conceptualizations of selfhood from both African and Western philosophical traditions and unpacks its implications for values-driven leadership. We aim to broaden Western conceptions of leadership development (...) by drawing on twentieth century European philosophy’s insights on relationality, but more importantly, to show how African philosophical traditions precede this literature in its insistence on a relational ontology of the self. To illustrate our theoretical argument, we reflect on an executive education course called values-driven leadership into action, which ran in South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt in 2016, 2017, and 2018. We highlight an African-inspired employment of relationality through its use of the ME-WE-WORLD framework, articulating its theoretical assumptions with embodied experiential learning. (shrink)

A wealth of experimental findings on how real actors do in fact bargain exists. However, as long as there is no systematic general account of the several experiments bargaining theory remains dominated by axiomatic approaches based on normative requirements or on assumptions of full rather than bounded rationality. Contrary to that, the new axiomatic account of aspiration level balancing in negotiations of boundedly rational actors presented in this paper incorporates experimental findings systematically into economic bargaining theory. It thereby forms a (...) descriptive theory of bargaining that has normative power as well. (shrink)

It is argued that a truly Humean approach to social interaction and to normative reflection on how we should interact needs to get even closer to the facts than the Binmore program suggests. In view of the facts Binmore’s normative conclusions on bargaining as well as on the nature of the equilibria of the game of life both seem precarious.

In the Eurotransplant region transplantable kidneys from cadaveric donors are allocated according to the Wujciak-Opelz algorithm. This paper shows that the algorithm as it stands fulfils certain normative standards of a more formal nature while violating others. In view of these insights, it is explored how the algorithm could perhaps be improved. Even if issues of substantial rather than formal adequacy need to be addressed separately, analyses as presented in this paper can prepare the ground for a discussion of substantive (...) normative issues. In any event, axiomatic accounts can tell us something about what we are in fact doing when using a procedure like the Wujciak-Opelz algorithm. (shrink)

In the Eurotransplant region transplantable kidneys from cadaveric donors are allocated according to the Wujciak-Opelz algorithm. This paper shows that the algorithm as it stands fulfils certain normative standards of a more formal nature while violating others. In view of these insights, it is explored how the algorithm could perhaps be improved. Even if issues of substantial rather than formal adequacy need to be addressed separately, analyses as presented in this paper can prepare the ground for a discussion of substantive (...) normative issues. In any event, axiomatic accounts can tell us something about what we are in fact doing when using a procedure like the Wujciak-Opelz algorithm. (shrink)

Experts in the field of organ transplantation had to rank order a set of 32 patients according to their priority in receiving a donated kidney. The patients were described by the five characteristics that are incorporated in the kidney allocation algorithm applied by Eurotransplant. The priority rankings as defined by the experts were analyzed and patterns of dedsion making identified in the rankings investigated in this study. All patterns could be explained by some type of lexicographical ranking. The larger group (...) of experts preordered tissue compatibility or, more technically speaking, the criterion of HLA match, while the complementary group applied the criterion of the length of waiting time first. Analyzing the finer decision structures of expert rankings and com paring the method of pattern exploration with a conjoint measurement analysis led to two follow-up questions: First, how can the value judgments of the experts be described adequately? Second, which type of aggregated ordering derived from the individual rankings represents them ‘best’? (shrink)

Yoga, together with other so-called holistic spiritual practices such as reiki or meditation, is one of the most popular spiritual disciplines in our contemporary society. The success of yoga crosses the boundaries between health, sport, religion, and popular culture. However, from a sociological point of view, this is a largely under-researched field. Aiming to fill this gap, this article analyzes the impact, meaning, and implications of the practice of yoga by taking prisons as the institutional context of the study. The (...) growth of yoga in penitentiary settings is a recent trend in many countries and raises new questions concerning its potential to foster well-being and self-transformation. The research presented here applies Schutz’s concepts of “finite province of meaning” and “stock of knowledge” to understand yoga’s role in inmates’ lives. The main argument of the article is that yoga is a body technique that affords inmates the possibility to enter into a “finite province of meaning” and transcend their everyday prison lives. However, the impact of yoga upon inmates’ lives is not limited just to its physical effects as learning yoga also involves the acquisition of a “spiritual stock of knowledge” made up of Eastern philosophy, holistic concepts, and self-help therapeutic narratives. Indeed, physical movements and spiritual accounts constitute one another in the practice of yoga, thus opening up a pathway into a different reality; movement and spiritual discourse inform one another—and it is precisely in this reflexivity that “transcendent experiences” are created and yoga is made meaningful and important in the improvement-setting of the prison. This article is based on ethnographic fieldwork developed carried out in two different penitentiary institutions. (shrink)

“No one can serve two masters.” This Bible quotation highlights an irreducible contradiction, which echoes numerous organizational settings. This article considers the under-explored ethical implications of paradoxical injunctions created by such a contradiction at the managerial level. Contradictory organizational constraints turn into paradoxant systems , where the organization structurally settles paradoxical injunctions which challenge managerial ethics in practice. We then ask what managerial responsibility means in such contexts and find that managers have then to reshape their practice as a situated (...) construction through constant mediation between different “masters” and bricolage (i.e., tinkering with concepts). An ethnographic case study of an anti-money laundering service in an investment bank illuminates this phenomenon from a practice perspective. The possibility to enact an actual ethical practice within the contradictory organization relies on a new role of the manager. This implies drawing on an approach of responsible management as an enactment of ethics in practice which is situated within the framework of a new conception of both the organization, as a structurally “paradoxant system,” and the manager as a mediator in charge of enacting coherence. (shrink)

Volume 46, Issue 6, November 2020, Page 693-707.

Due to the pressing environmental and social issues facing the global economic system, the role of organizations in promoting socially responsible behavior among employees warrants attention in research and practice. It has been suggested that the concept of socio-moral climate might be particularly useful for understanding how participative organizational structures and processes shape employees’ prosocial behaviors. While SMC has been shown to be positively related to employees’ prosocial behaviors within the work context, little is known about the potential spillover effects (...) of SMC. The present study aims to address this gap by investigating how and why SMC is related to employees’ socially responsible purchase intention. Drawing on the relational job design framework, we argue that employees’ perceptions of their social impact may explain why SMC is positively related to responsible purchase intentions. We collected data from 492 employees working in various industries at two measurement points with a time lag of 12 months. Hypotheses were tested using path analysis, in which we controlled for the temporal stability of the study variables. The results showed that SMC was positively related to perceived social impact and socially responsible purchase intention and that perceived social impact was positively related to socially responsible purchase intention. In addition, we found a significant indirect relationship between SMC and socially responsible purchase intention through perceived social impact. The findings provide initial support for the spillover of employees’ work-related experiences onto their responsible purchase intentions within the nonwork domain. This study contributes to the literature by extending the traditional focus of SMC research on the development of moral reasoning skills to suggest that perceived social impact is an important mechanism underlying the relationship between SMC and prosocial behaviors. In terms of practical implications, this study suggests that organizational interventions designed to increase SMC may enhance employees’ perceptions of their social impact. (shrink)

Daydreaming appears to have a complex relationship with life satisfaction and happiness. Here we demonstrate that the facets of daydreaming that predict life satisfaction differ between men and women , that the content of daydreams tends to be social others , and that who we daydream about influences the relation between daydreaming and happiness variables like life satisfaction, loneliness, and perceived social support . Specifically, daydreaming about people not close to us predicts more loneliness and less perceived social support, whereas (...) daydreaming about close others predicts greater life satisfaction. Importantly, these patterns hold even when actual social network depth and breadth are statistically controlled, although these associations tend to be small in magnitude. Individual differences and the content of daydreams are thus important to consider when examining how happiness relates to spontaneous thoughts. (shrink)

This Open Access book offers a synthetic reflection on the authors’ fieldwork experiences in seven countries within the framework of ‘Authoritarianism in a Global Age’, a major comparative research project. It responds to the demand for increased attention to methodological rigor and transparency in qualitative research, and seeks to advance and practically support field research in authoritarian contexts. Without reducing the conundrums of authoritarian field research to a simple how-to guide, the book systematically reflects and reports on the authors’ combined (...) experiences in getting access to the field, assessing risk, navigating ‘red lines’, building relations with local collaborators and respondents, handling the psychological pressures on field researchers, and balancing transparency and prudence in publishing research. It offers unique insights into this particularly challenging area of field research, makes explicit how the authors handled methodological challenges and ethical dilemmas, and offers recommendations where appropriate. This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. (shrink)

Health is certainly a valuable asset in the life of every human being and of particular relevance for a flourishing childhood. As empirical research concerning the social determinants of health shows, its distribution can, at least to a certain extent, be influenced by the way a society is arranged. Many philosophers now acknowledge that a fair distribution of health has to be a central part of a just society and they discuss to what extent a right to health can be (...) justified. However, they do not typically distinguish between physical and mental health and neglect the special problems arising from these distinct, though related, perspectives. In this paper, we argue in favour of such a distinction and ask whether a minimally just society ought to include mental health among the goods that are to be distributed in a fair way among its children. Furthermore, we investigate the relationship between mental health and happiness and ask whether making mental health a subject of justice implies that children are entitled not only to a healthy but also to a happy childhood. Despite the positive impact of happiness on the lives of children, we conclude that happiness cannot be incorporated into a functional theory of justice, since it does not fully meet the criteria of objectivity, measurability and influenceability. (shrink)

In this paper we claim educational leadership as an autonomous discipline whose goals and strategies should not mirror those typical of business and political leadership. In order to define the aims proper to educational leadership we question three common assumptions of what it is supposed to carry out. First, we turn to Hannah Arendt and her contemporary critics to maintain that education aims at opening up exceptions within the normal course of events rather than simply preserving it. This way, education (...) is not reduced to an instrument at the service of the reinforcement of a given social and economic system. This leads us to ask what should exactly educational leadership oppose by means of these exceptions. According to Tyson E. Lewis’s wise application to education of Giorgio Agamben’s ontology of impotentiality, the apparently reasonable idea that education must help the subject to develop his potentials is precisely an instrumentalization of education which brings about a desubjectification of the learner. Education should actually make the pupil aware of his right not to carry his potentiality to its actualization and dwell instead in a state of impotentiality. Third and last, we complicate this picture by alluding to Zygmunt Bauman’s critique of the rejection of Western individuals to realize certain possibilities, which they deem too costly. By analysing in conjunction Agamben’s encouragement to suspend one’s potential and Bauman’s insistence on the need of not suspending it, we conclude by defining what, in our opinion, defines the raison d’être of educational leadership. (shrink)

BackgroundThe evaluation of pain remains one of the most difficult challenges that healthcare practitioners face. Chronic pain appears to affect more than 35% of the population in the West, and indeed, pain is the most common reason patients seek medical care. Despite its ubiquity, studies in the last decades reveal that many patients feel their pain is dismissed by healthcare practitioners and that, as a result, they are denied proper medical care. Buchman, Ho, and Goldberg (J Bioethic Inq 14:31-42, 2017) (...) point to this phenomenon as a form of “epistemic injustice”: an unfair and harmful downgrading of credibility affecting some individuals and groups, which prevents them from receiving appropriate and beneficial medical care.MethodsBy exploring the existing literature on this downgrading of patients’ credibility written by healthcare professionals and scholars in medical humanities, I identify and examine the reasons patients are often not believed about their pain and why healthcare is too-often unhelpful or hurtful to people presenting with chronic pain. I also explore to what extent it is possible to forge an alternative epistemological model.ResultsI suggest that most of the causes of this downgrading of patient’s credibility result from either the difficulty in communicating pain or the widespread belief that pathology is always the result of objective tissue damage. I examine whether pain has to be effectively communicated and have an objective cause in order for it to be deemed credible. In the end, I argue that in the case of pain, both communication and objectivity are highly problematic.ConclusionsI conclude by suggesting that, although alternative epistemological models might be impossible to build, believing patients has both moral and clinical benefits, and this warrants further research. (shrink)

The current study explores the role of individual and environmental determinants on students’ fear of crime. Based on a large-scale survey among students of a Belgian university (n = 1,463), the relationship between perceived social and physical disorder and the three dimensions of fear of crime (perceived risk of victimization, feelings of anxiety, avoidance behaviour) is examined. Support was found for a relationship between perceived social and physical disorder and perceived risk of victimization. Moreover, a relationship was found between students’ (...) perception of social disorder and anxiety and students’ perception of physical disorder and avoidance behaviour. Based on the results, this study suggests that preventing or reducing visible signs of disorder on campus should inevitably be included in the university’s security policy. This research offers universities more insight in the determinants of students’ fear of crime and potential measures to increase their (perception of) safety. (shrink)