This article is an attempt to bring together knowledge about the Norwegian prostitution market, public debates on prostitution and prostitution laws and regulation in order to explore the processes whereby the prostitution setting is constituted. Norway has been the site of changes in the ways female prostitution takes place, changes that are being experienced by the women involved due to a growth in indoor prostitution. These changes seem to have been produced by, and to take part in, the production of (...) new images of prostitutes and new means of prostitution control. (shrink)

This book is a compilation of some of the wise sayings of M Fethullah Gülen, each of which is a criterion or pearl of wisdom by which we may seek and find our way in todays world, or a light illuminating our way, to live as a responsible ...

Drug recalls and lawsuits against pharmaceutical manufacturers are accompanied by announcements emphasizing harmful drug side-effects. Those with elevated health anxiety may be more reactive to such announcements. We evaluated whether health anxiety and financial incentives affect subjective symptom endorsement, and objective outcomes of cognitive and physiological functioning during a mock drug recall. Hundred and sixty-one participants reported use of over-the-counter pain medications and presented with a fictitious medication recall via a mock Food and Drug Administration website. The opportunity to join (...) a class-action lawsuit was manipulated. We assessed health anxiety, recalled drug usage, blood pressure, heart rate, and performance on a computerized Trail Making Test. Symptom endorsement was strongly predicted by health anxiety. When combined, three health anxiety measures explained 28.5% variance. These effects remain strong after controlling for depression and anxiety. Litigation condition did not predict symptom endorsement. Blood pressure and heart rate were modestly predicted by health anxiety, but not by litigation condition. TMT performance was consistently predicted by health anxiety, with higher scores associated with poorer performance. Although there were no main effects for litigation, interactions consistently emerged for the TMT, with generally poorer performance for those with higher health anxiety in the non-litigation condition; whereas health anxiety was unrelated to performance for the litigation condition. All but one participant joined the litigation when given the opportunity, despite a healthy sample and minimal use of pain medication. Subsequent data from 67 individuals with no mention of the FDA scenario or litigation showed that health anxiety still significantly predicts symptom endorsement, but the explained variance is less than half that obtained in the FDA scenario. The findings suggest that health anxiety plays a significant role in adverse symptom reporting, beyond anxiety or depression, and this effect is independent of the presence of the FDA recall. The lack of differences for health anxiety and symptom endorsement between litigation and non-litigation conditions rules out malingering. Although it is general practice in drug recalls to list potential adverse side effects caused by medications, this may elicit unintended symptom experiences and health anxious individuals may be more susceptible. (shrink)

The issues before the Supreme Court, arising as they did out of multiple cases and divergent appellate court rulings, were quite complex, and its final decision will be parsed rather differently by lawyers, health policy wonks, and economists (or metaphysical philosophers, in Chief Justice John Roberts's memorable phrase). This essay will focus on one singular element: did the final ruling enhance or detract from our collective power to exercise stewardship over our health care resources? -/- Clearly Americans diverge on key (...) features of a desirable society and on the wisdom of using government to achieve even mutually desirable goals. But before politics settles the fate of the Affordable Care Act (and perhaps also the federal role in health policy for the foreseeable future), we should focus on what the Court has allowed us to consider: if we want it to, federal power may constitutionally be marshalled to compel insurers to end discrimination against the sick and to offer more transparent products so the marketplace will better serve consumers. (shrink)

According to scholars as influential as Hans Urs von Balthasar, Eric Voegelin and Cyril O'Regan, what was once rejected as an esoteric second century Christian heresy, has, and indeed continues to, exert a significant amount of influence over modern philosophy and theology in the form of ancient Gnosticism. While a variety of major studies have applied this hermeneutical lens to evaluate and better grasp Hegel's philosophical system, very few have sought to interpret Schelling's philosophy in this manner, when there seems (...) to be ample evidence to suggest that Schelling consciously adopted Gnostic philosophy, particularly Valentinian speculation, alongside other theosophic proposals, when constructing his own ideas. And, given the rise of theological systems, notably from the East, although not exclusively, in the guise of Sergius Bulgakov, that are heavily indebted to Schelling and are currently exerting a notable influence on contemporary Anglophone systematic theology (theologians such as John Milbank), it would seem beneficial for such a study to be conducted to better grasp certain trends in current, mainstream, theological proposals. (shrink)

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to the topic of human happiness. Yet, although Aristotle's conception of happiness is central to his whole philosophical project, there is much controversy surrounding it. Hope May offers a new interpretation of Aristotle's account of happiness - one which incorporates Aristotle's views about the biological development of human beings. May argues that the relationship amongst the moral virtues, the intellectual virtues, and happiness, is best understood through the lens of developmentalism. On this view, happiness emerges (...) from the cultivation of a number of virtues that are developmentally related. May goes on to show how contemporary scholarship in psychology, ethical theory and legal philosophy signals a return to Aristotelian ethics. Specifically, May shows how a theory of motivation known as Self-Determination Theory and recent research on goal attainment have deep affinities to Aristotle's ethical theory. May argues that this recent work can ground a contemporary virtue theory that acknowledges the centrality of autonomy in a way that captures the fundamental tenets of Aristotle's ethics. (shrink)

This paper is to inform the recent situations of work by the foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Hong Kong through the lens of Covid-19. Through the interviews with seven informants — two employers and five FDWs, stories describing the changes in their working conditions, rights and entitlement, and the contextual environment related to the impacts of Covid-19 were collected. They were analysed through three theoretical tools — visibility/invisibility, mobility/immobility, and work boundary. The findings show that under the Covid-19 crisis, the (...) FDWs experienced more hardships and struggles in both the home country and host country. The paradoxes of visibility/invisibility and mobility/immobility together with blurred work boundary were found in their experience of work, rights and entitlement, and the contextual environment. On one hand, the employers’ power of controlling FDWs has increased, but the agency to resist by the FDWs has decreased making them to turn to more passive means of resistance which could harm the FDWs’ physical and mental health and wellbeing. (shrink)

To flesh out love's potential for transformative imaginaries and politics, it is important to explore earlier examples of Black feminist theorizing on love. In this spirit, I examine Anna Julia Cooper, an early Black feminist educator, intellectual, and activist whose work is generally overlooked in feminist and anti-racist thinking on love, affect, and social change. Contesting narrow readings of Cooper, I first explore how critics might engage in more “loving” approaches to reading her work. I then delineate some of her (...) contributions to a Black feminist love-politics. In unmasking dominance enacted in love's name, Cooper analyzes romantic love, marriage, and gendered care-work in the domestic sphere. Using an intersectional lens, she contests gendered-raced hierarchies and links normative masculinity and femininity with white supremacy, xenophobia, and imperial rule. Cooper also extolls the possibilities of love rooted in nonhierarchical, intersubjective cooperation: such loving has the potential to transform interpersonal relations and foster broad collaborative action to eradicate inequality, locally and globally. Structural subjection, internalized oppression, and colonized imaginations have no part in Cooper's reciprocal, political love-force. Unfortunately, her ideas about transforming gender relations, contesting racism, challenging imperialism, seeking decolonized selves, and pursuing solidarity as a loving political orientation remain relatively unknown. (shrink)

To flesh out love's potential for transformative imaginaries and politics, it is important to explore earlier examples of Black feminist theorizing on love. In this spirit, I examine Anna Julia Cooper, an early Black feminist educator, intellectual, and activist whose work is generally overlooked in feminist and anti-racist thinking on love, affect, and social change. Contesting narrow readings of Cooper, I first explore how critics might engage in more “loving” approaches to reading her work. I then delineate some of her (...) contributions to a Black feminist love-politics. In unmasking dominance enacted in love's name, Cooper analyzes romantic love, marriage, and gendered care-work in the domestic sphere. Using an intersectional lens, she contests gendered-raced hierarchies and links normative masculinity and femininity with white supremacy, xenophobia, and imperial rule. Cooper also extolls the possibilities of love rooted in nonhierarchical, intersubjective cooperation: such loving has the potential to transform interpersonal relations and foster broad collaborative action to eradicate inequality, locally and globally. Structural subjection, internalized oppression, and colonized imaginations have no part in Cooper's reciprocal, political love-force. Unfortunately, her ideas about transforming gender relations, contesting racism, challenging imperialism, seeking decolonized selves, and pursuing solidarity as a loving political orientation remain relatively unknown. (shrink)

AimHealthcare workers have directly provided care for COVID-19 patients, and have faced many additional sources leading to poor mental health. The study aimed to investigate the mental health problems and related factors among healthcare staff in Vietnam.MethodsA descriptive cross-sectional mixed methods study, combining quantitative and qualitative research methods, was performed among 400 healthcare workers working at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases and Ninh Binh General Hospital from the first day of treatment for COVID-19 patients to May 01, 2020.ResultsThe results (...) showed that 8.0% of participants had stress, 17.5% of participants had anxiety, and 14.8% of participants had depression. Approximately 50% of participants reported that they had at least one of these symptoms. The findings illustrated that stress, anxiety, and depression were associated with the position in a hospital, health status during the COVID-19 pandemic, family members/relatives infected with COVID-19, physical and mental support from friends, family, and community, department, years of working, and the average work hours per day of healthcare workers exposed to COVID-19.ConclusionDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers who worked in the hospital providing treatment and care for COVID-19 patients dealt with mental health problems such as stress, anxiety, and depression. It is necessary to promote mental health among healthcare workers, to contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 outbreak in Vietnam. (shrink)

A shared goal amongst most educators, we argue, is to supplant students’ raw or “naive” intuitions with more refined intuitions about a particular domain. Educators want students, and people more generally, to recognize when ideas, frameworks, and processes don’t “look right”. When we know that something does not look right, sound right, or feel right, we investigate further. We seek to fill in the gaps between our knowledge and we attempt to learn new approaches for solving problems. Lifelong learning, in (...) other words, builds from a recognition of incoherence. We hope students will be more likely to recognize flawed reasoning or rhetorical appeals, even if they have long forgotten the details of logic, statistics, and argumentation. They have acquired a refined (one might even say “aesthetic”) sense of what is likely correct or incorrect; what is likely promising or empty. This sense is “aisthesis”. -/- Aisthesis is a marker of education. Although it doesn’t refer to particular sets of knowledge or particular skills in analyzing and evaluating problems, it provides a overarching framework that binds educators in both literature and science. Consequently, aisthesis provides a novel lens for pedagogy. Insofar as we are correct that education is about the cultivation of an aesthetic discrimination between good and bad work, aisthesis could be more explicitly targeted. Educators hope to instill in students an aisthetic sense of how to recognize when statements, issues, or artifacts are problematic and require further engagmeent. (shrink)

Having identified previously the Peircean Category Firstness as the semiotic basis for Australian Aboriginal culture, this paper examines the “lens” of Firstness as it is manifest in a variety of aboriginal cultures worldwide. By studying the semiotic contours of religion, language, social organization, and art, we find systemic prioritization of Firstness in its various manifestations, across a wide range of aboriginal cultures from Australia to the Indian Subcontinent to aboriginal Siberia and the New World. Shamanic culture, despite its ethnic and (...) geographic variety, may therefore be represented as a semiotic type – and, in addition, one that, in its pristine form, is nearly extinct. (shrink)

The vertebrate eye lens has been used extensively as a model for developmental processes such as determination, embryonic induction, cellular differentiation, transdifferentiation and regeneration, with the crystallin genes being a prime example of developmentally controlled, tissue‐preferred gene expression. Recent studies have shown that Pax‐6, a transcription factor containing both a paired domain and homeodomain, is a key protein regulating lens determination and crystallin gene expression in the lens. The use of Pax‐6 for expression of different crystallin genes provides a new (...) link at the developmental and transcriptional level among the diverse crystallins and may lead to new insights into their evolutionary recruitment as refractive proteins. (shrink)

Kantian disinterest is the view that aesthetic judgement is constituted (at least in part) by a form of perceptual contemplation that is divorced from concerns of practical action. That view, which continues to be defended to this day, is challenged here on the basis that it is unduly spectator-focussed, ignoring important facets of art-making and its motivations. Beauty moves us, not necessarily to tears or rapt contemplation, but to practical action; crucially, it may do so as part and parcel of (...) its appreciation. This claim is defended via reflection on (i) the art of photography, (ii) the concepts of ‘attentional salience’ and ‘experienced mandates’, and (iii) a virtue-based account of aesthetic value. (shrink)

Disability through the Lens of Justice offers a contextual framework for considering the limitations that disability places on individuals. Specifically, those that prevent individuals from having control in certain domains of their life, by restricting the availability of acceptable options or the ability to choose between them. Begon argues that our theory of justice should be concerned with the lives individuals can lead, and not with whether their bodies and minds function typically. The problem that disability raises is not the (...) mere fact of difference, but the ways in which that difference is accommodated (or not) and the limitations it may cause. In Disability Through the Lens of Justice, Begon offers a new framework to the disability and justice model. She argues that achieving justice does not require 'normalisation', or the elimination of difference, but through implementating a model which enables all individuals to control their lives as they choose. (shrink)

As the world’s population grows and urbanization continues, the global waste crisis is becoming more severe, especially in developing countries. Without proper waste management, they may encounter various environmental and health risks. Biological technologies are regarded as promising waste management and recycling approaches in developing countries due to their cost-effectiveness and capability to handle diverse waste categories. One prominent technology in this aspect is the vermicomposting of organic waste utilizing the black soldier fly larvae. Nevertheless, significant financial resources are still (...) necessary to advance and expand biological waste treatment, which requires the participation of businesses. By examining waste management companies listed on the Vietnamese stock market, we highlight two challenges that hinder the adoption and scaling of the waste treatment system using black soldier flies and potentially other biological technologies in Vietnam. Specifically, the business regards the environmental services they offer primarily as a means to generate profit rather than as a genuine commitment to environmental preservation, and the values of companies operating in the environmental sector, particularly in waste management, have been significantly undervalued by the Vietnamese investing public. Therefore, we advocate for societal shifts toward the eco-surplus culture and apply the semiconducting principle of monetary and environmental values exchange to address the problem. (shrink)

Greek κρατύς and cognates (κράτος, κρατερός, etc.) are related to Vedic krátu- ‘resolve’ and Avestan xratu- ‘[guiding] intellect’. The cumulative phraseological evidence supports this etymological proposal: in at least ten cases, Greek personal names and phrasemes exhibiting a cognate of κρατύς (that is, κράτος and compounds with first member κρατ[α]ι-) combine with terms whose Indo-Iranian linguistic cognates are joined with Vedic krátu- and Avestan xratu-. Furthermore, Indo-Iranian expressions, in which Vedic krátu- and its compounds are referred to a god as (...) attributes, are structurally comparable to Greek κρατὺς Ἀργεϊφόντης. Since Ἀργεϊφόντης is likely to reflect ‘shining (cf. Greek φαίνω) with whiteness/brightness (ἀργει-)’, it is possible to identify Vedic phraseological matches for the Greek formula, namely expressions in which Vedic krátu- and its derivative krátumant- combine with the notion of ‘shining widely’, Vedic ví-bhā (Vedic bhā being a linguistic congener of φαίνω). The phraseological correspondence between Vedic krátu- … agní- ‘Agni, [endowed with] resolve’, and κρατὺς Ἀργεϊφόντης ‘Argeiphontes, endowed with superior might (κράτος)’ may be added to the dossier of common phraseology which the Greek god shares with the Old Indic fire-deity. (shrink)

Throughout the pandemic, the media and scholars have widely discussed increasing social inequality and thereby publicly pointed to often hidden and neglected forms of inequality. However, the “newly” arisen awareness has not yet been put into action to reduce this inequality. Dealing with social inequality implies exploring and confronting social privileges, which are often seen as the other side of inequality. These social constructs, inequality and privilege, are often discussed in light of vulnerability and resilience. This is particularly important in (...) the context of the worldwide coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and efforts to end the pandemic, as both constructs are discussed regarding access to healthcare, vaccination, and education and knowledge, misinformation, social resources, economic resources, and so forth. Minority and/or marginalized groups may be particularly vulnerable to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, resilience factors in these groups may be neglected and underreported. This narrative review aims at illustrating the specific and intertwined aspects of resilience and vulnerability in minority and/or marginalized groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve this, we use an intersectional lens based on recommendations made by Moradi and Grzanka. A total of 48 articles were included in the narrative review. Most of them were commentaries focusing on social inequality, vulnerability, and/or resilience. Based on the dissection of articles at structural, systemic, and individual levels, we propose three hypothesis on vulnerability and resilience in minority and marginalized individuals and groups: social inequality must be considered at a global level; inequality at a global level translates into a vulnerable context for an individual; vulnerability is historically situated: vulnerability is maintained and reinforced by history; strength through collective hardship: vulnerability is not the opposite of resilience but may serve as an aspect of resilience. The conclusions drawn from this review show that we need to include diverse voices to advance concepts, such as vulnerability and resilience, in minority and marginalized groups. Additionally, these concepts are not necessarily in opposition to each other, but vulnerability should be understood as an integral part of resilience. (shrink)

I argue for three principles of minimal beneficence, which constrain when and what at least we are obligated to do on behalf of someone. All three may be accepted by both the consequentialist Peter Singer and by his staunch opponents in material value-ethics, who are typically anti-consequentialists. Either side would philosophically benefit from accepting the principles. At the same time, the first principle is rarely applicable, the second only when the available relevant evidence is not too complex, and the third (...) only as a prompt to keep thinking seriously about how to practice beneficence. Even so, I derive some widely applicable, practical implications. (shrink)

Critical and Emancipatory Theory (CET) of peacebuilding emerged as the sixth school of thought in Peace and Conflict Studies to critique the liberal and neoliberal approaches to peacebuilding. CET contends that liberal and neoliberal approaches to peacebuilding are discriminatory and biased, perpetrates the interest of Western elites, hinders the achievement of social justice, and considers the local as insignificant for peacebuilding. A call for the reformation of the liberal and neoliberal approaches necessitated the CET school of thought to outline certain (...) principles and guidelines that could guide the practice of peace-building. Different methodologies, intervention strategies, principles and approaches that could guide praxis have therefore been advanced by scholars, researchers, and practitioners. This paper therefore examines and reflects on the multiplex methodologies in peacebuilding, the adoption of a multidisciplinary approach to understanding peace and peacebuilding, and the question of intervention in post-war peacebuilding, the principles that guide the implementation of peacebuilding from the lens of Critical and Emancipatory school of thought. This piece contend that CET approach may not be self-sufficient but would be the most appropriate way to decentralize the peacebuilding process and, as such, local or indigenous peacebuilding processes must be encouraged while acknowledging the salient role of the international community as well. (shrink)

Cheryl Chase has argued that “the problem” of intersex is one of “stigma and trauma, not gender,” as those focused on medical management would have it. Despite frequent references to shame in the critical literature, there has been surprisingly little analysis of shame, or of the disgust that provokes it. This paper investigates the function of disgust in the medical management of intersex and seeks to understand the consequences—material and moral—with respect to the shame it provokes.Conventional ethical approaches may not (...) provide quite the right tools to consider this affective dimension of the medical management of intersex, but we find in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality a framework that allows us a profound appreciation of its moral significance (Nietzsche 1887/1998). Understanding doctors' disgust—and the disgust that they promote in parents of those born with atypical anatomies—as a contemporary expression of ressentiment directs us to not focus on the bodies of those born with intersex conditions, which have been the privileged objects of attention both in medical practice and in criticisms of it, but moves us to consider instead the bodies of those whose responses constitute the motivating force for normalizing practices in the first place. (shrink)

Noted Hungarian historian Karoly Szerencses provides brief, steam-of-consciousness essays to accompany each photo. Acting as the photographer's fictive guide, Szerencses introduces "Margaret" to each of her photos, providing her with an encapsulated historical background of the subject and in the process revealing the soul and conscience of the nation in 1938. As he says in farewell to Margaret at the end of their "tour": "... please remember us, our terrible fears; recite a prayer for us so that we may say, (...) for the very last time: they caught us by surprise, they meant to annihilate us, yet we managed to survive." --Book Jacket. (shrink)

BackgroundMachine learning-based clinical decision support systems (ML_CDSS) are increasingly employed in various sectors of health care aiming at supporting clinicians’ practice by matching the characteristics of individual patients with a computerised clinical knowledge base. Some studies even indicate that ML_CDSS may surpass physicians’ competencies regarding specific isolated tasks. From an ethical perspective, however, the usage of ML_CDSS in medical practice touches on a range of fundamental normative issues. This article aims to add to the ethical discussion by using professionalisation theory (...) as an analytical lens for investigating how medical action at the micro level and the physician–patient relationship might be affected by the employment of ML_CDSS.Main textProfessionalisation theory, as a distinct sociological framework, provides an elaborated account of what constitutes client-related professional action, such as medical action, at its core and why it is more than pure expertise-based action. Professionalisation theory is introduced by presenting five general structural features of professionalised medical practice: (i) the patient has a concern; (ii) the physician deals with the patient’s concern; (iii) s/he gives assistance without patronising; (iv) s/he regards the patient in a holistic manner without building up a private relationship; and (v) s/he applies her/his general expertise to the particularities of the individual case. Each of these five key aspects are then analysed regarding the usage of ML_CDSS, thereby integrating the perspectives of professionalisation theory and medical ethics.ConclusionsUsing ML_CDSS in medical practice requires the physician to pay special attention to those facts of the individual case that cannot be comprehensively considered by ML_CDSS, for example, the patient’s personality, life situation or cultural background. Moreover, the more routinized the use of ML_CDSS becomes in clinical practice, the more that physicians need to focus on the patient’s concern and strengthen patient autonomy, for instance, by adequately integrating digital decision support in shared decision-making. (shrink)

This paper explores the impacts of neurological intervention on selfhood with reference to recipients’ claims about changes to their self-understanding following Deep Brain Stimulation for treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. In the neuroethics literature, patients’ claims such as: “I don’t feel like myself anymore” and “I feel like a machine”, are often understood as expressing threats to identity. In this paper I argue that framing debates in terms of a possible threat to identity—whether for or against the proposition, is mistaken and (...) occludes what is ethically salient in changes from DBS. Rather, by adopting a relational narrative approach to identity and autonomy, I show that the ethically salient issue from DBS is impacts on autonomous agency—whether one’s actions and beliefs are one’s own, and how DBS may hinder, or foster, embodied, relational autonomy competences. This approach recognizes that if sufficiently significant, impacts on autonomy competences may pose a threat to one’s ability to contribute to the process of authoring one’s own life and so pose a threat to identity formation. I argue this approach resolves the confusion in the literature about whether and how DBS threatens identity and provides a complex picture of how DBS may affect selfhood by disrupting narrative identity formation and revision, distorting agency and/or undermining autonomy. (shrink)

The study of complexity in chronic care is an emergent discipline that has not yet developed a consistent theoretical framework. Thinking in the field of complexity encompasses complexity science and complexity theories, which represent a convergence of different types of ideas and theories that focus on the interactions of individual parts that make up a complex system. In this context, an important distinction is to be made between "complex" and "complicated." If a system—despite the fact that it may consist of (...) a huge number of components— can be given a complete description in terms of its individual constituents, such a system is merely complicated. An example could be computers. In a complex system, on the .. (shrink)

This article analyses a sceptical challenge resulting from metaphysical approaches to the problem of the necessity of empirical laws of nature in Kant’s critical philosophy (what I shall call ‘essentialist’ readings). I argue that this challenge may jeopardize the purpose of empirical enquiry (and therefore the plausibility of essentialist readings), but that Kant has internal resources to address it in the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason. I show that reading this problem through the lens of the Dialectic allows (...) us to reconcile the metaphysical question of necessitation of laws with a robust sense of empirical cognition. (shrink)

There is growing interest for a communitarian approach to the governance of genomics, and for such governance to be grounded in principles of justice, equity and solidarity. However, there is a near absence of conceptual studies on how communitarian-based principles, or values, may inform, support or guide the governance of genomics research. Given that solidarity is a key principle in Ubuntu, an African communitarian ethic and theory of justice, there is emerging interest about the extent to which Ubuntu could offer (...) guidance for the governance of genomics research in Africa. To this effect, we undertook a conceptual analysis of Ubuntu with the goal of identifying principles that could inform equity-oriented governance of genomics research. Solidarity, reciprocity, open sharing, accountability, mutual trust, deliberative decision-making and inclusivity were identified as core principles that speak directly to the different macro-level ethical issues in genomics research in Africa such as: the exploitation of study populations and African researchers, equitable access and use of genomics data, benefit sharing, the possibility of genomics to widen global health inequities and the fair distribution of resources such as intellectual property and patents. We use the identified the principles to develop ethical guidance for genomics governance in Africa. (shrink)

Mobile applications (apps) have gained significant popularity as a new intervention strategy responding to violence against women and girls. Despite their growing relevance, an assessment from the perspective of public health ethics is still lacking. Here, we base our discussion on the understanding of violence against women and girls as a multidimensional, global public health issue on structural, societal and individual levels and situate it within the theoretical framework of structural injustice, including epistemic injustice. Based on a systematic app review (...) we previously conducted, we evaluate the content and functions of apps through the lens of structural injustice. We argue that technological solutions such as apps may be a useful tool in the fight against violence against women and girls but have to be situated within the broader frame of public health that considers the structural dimensions of such violence. Ultimately, the concerns raised by structural injustice are—alongside key concerns of safety, data privacy, importance of human supportive contact, and so forth—crucial dimensions in the ethical assessment of such apps. However, research on the role and relevance of apps as strategies to address the structural and epistemic dimensions of violence remains scarce. This article aims to provide a foundation for further discussion in this area and could be applicable to other areas in public health policy and practice. (shrink)

Many Hume scholars have partially anticipated the essential links between his magnum opus—the History of England—and other writings, but we lacked an appropriate theoretical framework. According to Andrew Sabl,2 the key to the breakthrough is provided by “coordination theory.” The approach to Hume’s work through the lens of twentieth-century political theories has been preceded, to take one example, by Russell Hardin, who envisions Hume’s notion of convention as a prototype of game theory. Hardin also mentions coordination theory in relation to (...) game theory,3 but it is Sabl who elucidates its comprehensiveness and significance, and successfully grasps the essential features of Hume as a political theorist. The most... (shrink)

Recent work in the fields of ethics and entrepreneurship has raised the possibility that entrepreneurs may differ from other individuals in the moral issues they face, in their moral judgements and behaviors concerning those issues, and even in their level of cognitive moral development. While this work has been exploratory and its conclusions tentative, the findings raise two interesting questions: do entrepreneurs actually differ from non-entrepreneurs in their ethical orientations and, if so, why? We propose a model of ethical decision (...) making for small business entrepreneurs. We suggest some ways in which the ethical framework of entrepreneurs may differ systematically from that of other business people and propose some areas for future research. (shrink)

A major puzzle in contemporary political theory is how to extend notions of justice to the environment. With environmental entities unable to communicate in ways that are traditionally recognised within the political sphere, their interests have largely been recognised instrumentally: only important as they contribute to human interests. In response to the multispecies justice project's call to reimagine our concepts of justice to include other-than-human beings and entities, we offer a novel reading of Edmund Burke's account of political representation that, (...) we argue, can be applied to the environment. Burke claimed that interests are ‘unattached’ to any actual class or group, and that it is the duty of the representative to represent these unattached interests. Beyond providing an original application of Burke's work, the paper offers an alternative to the ‘allure’ of authoritarian environmentalism, an alternative which conservative thinkers may use as an entryway into debates on environmental justice. (shrink)

The point of departure of this article is that hospitality in education has not been theorized in terms of emotion and affect, partly because its law have been discussed in ways that have not paid much attention to the role of emotion and affect. The analysis broadens our understanding of the ethics and politics of hospitality by considering it as a spatial and affective relational practice. In particular, concepts from affect theory such as the notion of affective atmospheres and atmospheric (...) walls are discussed to highlight the notion of affective hospitality. It is argued that a greater awareness of the micro-politics of hospitality in its everyday enactment in various educational settings can show educators how specific practices of hospitality work to produce affective spaces in which the socio-historical context of privilege may be interrupted. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ethical, political and pedagogical implications of affective hospitality. (shrink)

In times of social and moral crises, sport has often been called to boost individual moral development. By the same token, outdoor activities are viewed as good educational practices to enhance environmental responsibility. However, the present paper argues that these physical activities are currently following the same technological development trend as the mainstream society, and challenges this trend itself in terms of sustainability by critically asking this question: Do outdoor activities really enhance environmental responsibility? The research supporting this paper is (...) based on a qualitative inquiry using interviews with outdoor activities practitioners: mountain guides and white water sports instructors. The findings of this research show that environmental responsibility development depends on the sport contexts. It is fostered in slow and none-technological activities and lowered in fast and technological activities. The paper concludes with the following paradox reached by the preliminary research results: the birth of modern technology calls for greater need of environmental responsibility, but it may also prevent its development at the same time. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore artificial moral agency by reflecting upon the possibility of a Moral Turing Test and whether its lack of focus on interiority, i.e. its behaviouristic foundation, counts as an obstacle to establishing such a test to judge the performance of an Artificial Moral Agent. Subsequently, to investigate whether an MTT could serve as a useful framework for the understanding, designing and engineering of AMAs, we set out to address fundamental challenges within (...) the field of robot ethics regarding the formal representation of moral theories and standards. Here, typically three design approaches to AMAs are available: top-down theory-driven models and bottom-up approaches which set out to model moral behaviour by means of models for adaptive learning, such as neural networks, and finally, hybrid models, which involve components from both top-down and bottom-up approaches to the modelling of moral agency. With inspiration from Allen and Wallace as well as Prior, we elaborate on theoretically driven approaches to machine ethics by introducing deontic tense logic. Finally, within this framework, we explore the character of human interaction with a robot which has successfully passed an MTT. Design/methodology/approach – The ideas in this paper reflect preliminary theoretical considerations regarding the possibility of establishing a MTT based on the evaluation of moral behaviour, which focusses on moral reasoning regarding possible actions. The thoughts reflected fall within the field of normative ethics and apply deontic tense logic to discuss the possibilities and limitations of artificial moral agency. Findings – The authors stipulate a formalisation of logic of obligation, time and modality, which may serve as a candidate for implementing a system corresponding to an MTT in a restricted sense. Hence, the authors argue that to establish a present moral obligation, we need to be able to make a description of the actual situation and the relevant general moral rules. Such a description can never be complete, as the combination of exhaustive knowledge about both situations and rules would involve a God eye’s view, enabling one to know all there is to know and take everything relevant into consideration before making a perfect moral decision to act upon. Consequently, due to this frame problem, from an engineering point of view, we can only strive for designing a robot supposed to operate within a restricted domain and within a limited space-time region. Given such a setup, the robot has to be able to perform moral reasoning based on a formal description of the situation and any possible future developments. Although a system of this kind may be useful, it is clearly also limited to a particular context. It seems that it will always be possible to find special cases in which a given system does not pass the MTT. This calls for a new design of moral systems with trust-related components which will make it possible for the system to learn from experience. Originality/value – It is without doubt that in the near future we are going to be faced with advanced social robots with increasing autonomy, and our growing engagement with these robots calls for the exploration of ethical issues and stresses the importance of informing the process of engineering ethical robots. Our contribution can be seen as an early step in this direction. (shrink)

Contemporary medical diagnostics has a dynamic moral landscape, which includes a variety of agents, factors, and components. A significant part of this landscape is composed of information technologies that play a vital role in doctors’ decision-making. This paper focuses on the so-called Intelligent Decision-Support System that is widely implemented in the domain of contemporary medical diagnosis. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, I will show that the IDSS may be considered a moral agent in the practice of medicine (...) today. To develop this idea I will introduce the approach to artificial agency provided by Luciano Floridi. Simultaneously, I will situate this approach in the context of contemporary discussions regarding the nature of artificial agency. It is argued here that the IDSS possesses a specific sort of agency, includes several agent features (e.g. autonomy, interactivity, adaptability), and hence, performs an autonomous behavior, which may have a substantial moral impact on the patient’s well-being. It follows that, through the technology of artificial neural networks combined with ‘deep learning’ mechanisms, the IDSS tool achieves a specific sort of independence (autonomy) and may possess a certain type of moral agency. Second, I will provide a conceptual framework for the ethical evaluation of the moral impact that the IDSS may have on the doctor’s decision-making and, consequently, on the patient’s wellbeing. This framework is the Object-Oriented Model of Moral Action developed by Luciano Floridi. Although this model appears in many contemporary discussions in the field of information and computer ethics, it has not yet been applied to the medical domain. This paper addresses this gap and seeks to reveal the hidden potentialities of the OOP model for the field of medical diagnosis. (shrink)

Interprofessional education – students of different professions learning together, from and about each other – is increasingly common in health professional degrees. Despite its explicit aims of transforming identities, practices and relationships within/across health professions, IPE remains under-theorised sociologically, with most IPE scholarship focussed on evaluating specific interventions. In particular, the significance of a shared knowledge base for shaping professional power and subjectivity in IPE has been overlooked. In this paper we begin to develop a framework for theorising IPE in (...) allied health, by drawing parallels with a cognate area in which there has already been fruitful conceptual development: interdisciplinarity. Specifically, we offer a worked example of how the two areas may be brought into dialogue, by deploying Barry, Born and Weszkalnys’ conceptualisation of interdisciplinarity as a lens for understanding IPE. Following Barry et al. we delineate a number of ‘modes’ and ‘logics’ of knowledge-production that emerge both in IPE literature and in our own empirical study of IPE. Our empirical data are drawn from 32 semi-structured interviews with 19 allied health students participating in an IPE curriculum at one Australian university. Findings point to the emergence of interprofessional practitioner identities among students that have the potential to undermine traditional epistemological boundaries and transcend role-based distinctions in future health professions. We argue that Barry et al.’s ‘logic of ontology’ sheds light on previously unidentified processes of transformation within IPE, and offers a theoretical framework that can explain the importance of a shared pan-professional knowledge base for the reflexive individual construction of new interprofessional ontological subjects. (shrink)

… power is never uni dimensional; it is exercised not only as a mode of domination, but also as an act of resistance or even as an expression of a creative mode of cultural and social production outside the immediate force of domination.The point is important in that the behavior expressed by subordinate groups cannot be reduced to a study of domination or resistance.Clearly, in the behavior of subordinate groups there are moments of cultural and creative expression that are informed (...) by a different logic, whether it be existential, religious, or otherwise.Our faith is ultimately in individuals and their potentialities.In saying this, I do not mean what is sometimes called individualism as opposed to association.I mean rather an individuality that operates in and through voluntary associations.If our outward scene is one of externally imposed organization, behind and beneath there is working the force of liberated individualities, experimenting in their own ways to find and realize their own ends.The testimony of history is that in the end such a force, however scattered and inchoate, ultimately prevails over all set institutionalized forms, however firmly established the latter may be. (shrink)

The pattern, process, and mechanism of residential heterogeneity vary significantly with different geographical scales. However, most traditional methods ignore the checkboard and modifiable areal unit problem, which may cover up the complexity and hierarchy of social space. Taking Hangzhou city as an example, a multiscalar method was proposed based on the information entropy theory to estimate residential heterogeneity and its scale sensitivity. Based on the sixth population census of Hangzhou and the housing price database of 6,536 residential districts from 2008 (...) to 2018, we explore the scale effect and dynamic characteristics of residential heterogeneity. The results of spatial simulation and geostatistical analysis based on Python Spatial Analysis Library module show that the multiscalar algorithm better presents the real segregation pattern than traditional method, which is one of the new models and technologies in urban geography complex system. Exploring residential heterogeneity through multiscalar lens provides an important basis for the gradual and refined urban renewal. (shrink)

I take up reflections on my book, On Manners, by Professors Van Norden, Cline, and Olberding. In response to Professor Van Norden, I further explain and defend my employment of Kant, arguing that Kantianism offers distinctive and valuable resources for thinking about manners. I suggest similarities between Kant and Xunzi 荀子. In response to Professor Cline, I take up the question of the developmental function of manners and explore in further detail the ways in which our social roles both give (...) us standing to perform certain ritual actions and also make demands on us about whether and how we perform them. In response to Professor Olberding, I revisit one of the themes from the book, virtuous hospitality. I argue that we may have moral reason to adapt ourselves and our practices to certain aesthetic standards for domestic activities, rather than adjust the standards to suit our individual tastes. (shrink)

We received several commentaries both challenging and supporting our hypothesis. We thank the commentators for their thoughtful contributions, bringing together alternative hypotheses, complementary explanations, and appropriate corrections to our model. Here, we explain further our hypothesis, using more explicitly the framework of evolutionary social sciences. We first explain what we believe is the ultimate function of fiction in general (i.e., entertainment) and how this hypothesis differs from other evolutionary hypotheses put forward by several commentators. We then turn to the proximate (...) features that make imaginary worlds entertaining and, therefore, culturally successful. We finally explore how these insights may explain the distribution of imaginary worlds across time, space, age, and social classes. (shrink)

In the lead article of the May‐June 2021 issue of the Hastings Center Report, Nancy Jecker and Caesar Atuire argue that the Covid‐19 crisis is best understood as a syndemic, “a convergence of biosocial forces that interact with one another to produce and exacerbate clinical disease and prognosis.” A syndemic framework, the authors advise, will enable bioethicists to recognize the ethical principles that should guide efforts to reduce the unequal effects that Covid‐19 has on populations. Drawing on sub‐Saharan African conceptions (...) of solidarity, the authors lay out an approach to global vaccine distribution that prioritizes low‐ and middle‐income countries. Like Jecker and Atuire's article, an essay by philosopher Keisha Ray pushes bioethicists to recognize broader justice‐oriented responsibilities with the aid of a wide‐angle lens. Ray's essay focuses on contemporary examples of environmental injustices that sicken, disable, or kill Black people. (shrink)

The parable of the widow and the unjust judge is unique to Luke. It forms part of three other parables shedding light on the coming of the Son of Man. It also bears striking resemblances with the parable of the friend at midnight, but unlike the friend of midnight, persistence is a focal point for interpreting the parable. There is an intersection between the parable of the unjust judge and resilience theory. Resilience may be understood as the ability to have (...) positive, better-than-expected outcomes in the face of adversity. The widow persists and manages to persuade the judge to aid her plight. Accordingly, this article explored the intersections between resilience theory and the parable of the unjust judge as an interpretive aid.Contribution: This article explored a multidisciplinary approach to Luke 18:1–8. Resilience theory was incorporated with exegesis, thereby offering another hermeneutical lens to the text that enriches our understanding. (shrink)

Ageism within the context of care has attracted increasing attention in recent years. Similarly, autonomy has developed into a prominent concept within health care law and ethics. This paper explores the way that ageism, understood as a set of negative attitudes about old age or older people, may impact on an older person’s ability to make maximally autonomous decisions within health care. In particular, by appealing to feminist constructions of autonomy as relational, I will argue that the key to establishing (...) this link is the concept of self-relations such as self-trust, self-worth and self-esteem. This paper aims to demonstrate how these may be impacted by the internalisation of negative attitudes associated with old age and care. In light of this, any legal or policy response must be sensitive to and flexible enough to deal with the way in which ageism impacts autonomy. (shrink)

Epigenetics – the study of mechanisms that influence and modify gene expression – is providing unique insights into how an individual’s social and physical environment impact the body at a molecular level, particularly in populations that experience stigmatization and trauma. Researchers are employing epigenetic studies to illuminate how epigenetic modifications lead to imbalances in health outcomes for vulnerable populations. However, the investigation of factors that render a population epigenetically vulnerable present particular ethical and methodological challenges. Here we are concerned with (...) demonstrating how, in targeting certain populations for epigenetic research, this research may be pathologizing socio-cultural and medical practices in those populations in a way that increases their vulnerability. Using a case study approach, this article examines three vulnerable populations currently of interest to epigenetic researchers – Indigenous, autistic, and transgender populations – in order to highlight some of the challenges of conducting non-stigmatizing research in epigenetics. (shrink)

While much is known about the prevalence and impact of incivility in the workplace, relatively less is known about those who instigate workplace incivility. This research aims to investigate incivility instigation through a moral lens by examining the roles of other-condemning moral emotions (contempt, disgust, and anger) and appraisals of coworkers’ morality as predictors of this behavior at work. In Study 1, we used structural equation modeling to analyze two waves of self-report data collected from a sample of 447 full-time (...) United States (U.S.) working adults. Findings from this study indicate that appraising coworkers as low in morality elicited feelings of contempt, disgust, and anger. However, only contempt predicted incivility instigation and mediated the relationship between appraising coworkers as low in morality and instigating incivility. In Study 2, we collected self-report data from a sample of 309 full-time U.S. workers using a critical incident technique. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Results from Study 2 replicated the association between low morality appraisals and contempt, anger, and disgust found in Study 1. However, anger predicted incivility instigation and mediated the relationship between appraising coworkers as low in morality and instigating incivility. Additionally, contempt and perceived civility norms had an interactive effect on instigated incivility. These studies provide insight into the roles of contempt, disgust, and anger in predicting incivility instigation, suggesting that employees may engage in incivility to condemn others who engage in moral transgressions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Re-examining Empirical Data on Conflicts of Interest Through the Lens of Personal NarrativesEmily E. Anderson and Elena M. KrausIntroductionThe personal stories submitted by physicians and researchers for this symposium add much–needed dimension to conversations on conflicts of interest in medicine and research. Narratives from individuals living with conflicts of interest can serve as a unique lens through which to consider psychological and economic theories and survey data on physician (...) and patient views. In our reading of these personal narratives, we identified four primary themes that will serve as springboards for our commentary. We aim to triangulate clusters of meaning drawn from the narratives with relevant data from published empirical studies and identify gaps in knowledge where more research is needed. These themes are: the unique environments of medicine and research; weighing the potential benefits of conflicts of interest against the risks; conflict of interest management; and the roles and responsibilities of diverse stakeholder groups.The Unique Challenges of the Medical and Research EnvironmentsThe reflections of the narrative authors draw attention to many of the unique environmental aspects of medicine and medical research that make physicians and researchers especially vulnerable to conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest may be more ubiquitous in medicine than in any other industry (Kassirer, 2006). As the narratives demonstrate, conflicts of interest emerge across a range of health care delivery and research activities. Surveys have shown that 94 percent of physicians have some kind of relationship with industry (Campbell, Gruen, Mountford, et al., 2007). There is also evidence that physician interactions with medical industry begin early and are a regular part of a physician’s professional practice along the career continuum (Wazana, 2000).Medicine as a profession is distinct from banking or law. It is often said that medicine is an art; in treating patients, creative individualized solutions and gut instinct are as (if not more) important than the application of scientific knowledge. Uncertainty surrounds medical decision making. There is limited precision with respect to diagnoses and prognoses, limited data regarding the effectiveness of many treatments, and a range of patient values and preferences. Because of this uncertainty, rules about practice standards, especially with respect to avoidance and management of conflicts of interest, cannot be as explicit as they are in law or business. As demonstrated by the story presented by Sal Cruz–Flores, research and practice often intersect. And, there is no system in greater need of reform—and no system about which there are more divergent opinions as to what shape that reform should take—than the United States health care [End Page 91] system. The narratives of Tony Mikulec, Govind Nagaldinne, and David M. Zientek demonstrate how various aspects of the structure of healthcare service provision and third–party payer arrangements have the potential to harm patients. Conflicts of interest comprise more than relationships with pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers.The narratives of Laura Jean Bierut and David M. Zientek also discuss examples of conflicts of interest that arise from factors beyond relationships with industry or the direct potential for financial gain. This may be somewhat unique to the medical milieu. Non-financial conflicts such as a desire for the prestige bestowed upon scientists who make key discoveries, a requirement to publish for tenure and promotion, the need to maintain one’s license or other privileges, or simply the pressure of a competitive environment can influence physician and researcher behavior. As noted by Bierut, more research on how to identify and manage non-financial conflicts is needed.The Potential Benefits and Harms of Conflicts of InterestConflicts of interest are usually presented in a negative light, particularly those that involve physician relationships with the pharmaceutical industry. To “have a conflict of interest” is to be in a situation or role where there is potential for personal interests to be prioritized over professional responsibilities. However, in terms of public perception, it seems that conflicts of interest have become almost synonymous with wrongdoing. Perhaps this is due to the barrage of media reports during the last decade on significant harms caused by financial conflicts of interest in business, journalism, and sports as well as in medicine (Steinbrook, 2004). Amidst... (shrink)

Spillover occurs when one environmentally sustainable behaviour leads to another, often initiated by a behaviour change intervention. A number of studies have investigated positive and negative spillover effects, but empirical evidence is mixed, showing evidence for both positive and negative spillover effects, and lack of spillover altogether. Environmental identity has been identified as an influential factor for spillover effects. Building on identity process theory the current framework proposes that positive, negative, and a lack of spillover are determined by perceived threat (...) of initial behaviour and identity process mechanisms evaluating the behaviour. It is proposed, that an environmental behaviour change intervention may threaten one’s existing identities, leading to either (a) integration, (b) compartmentalisation, or (c) conflict between one’s environmental identity and non-environmental identities. Initial evidence for the proposed framework is based on a field intervention which included a meat reduction programme in a canteen of a medium size private sector company. Semi-structured interviews and an explorative visualisation method that aimed at assessing identity change were implemented with thirteen employees (i.e. intervention participants) before and after the intervention. The qualitative data was analysed by using thematic analysis via NVivo12. Results of the visualisation task and interview method provided initial evidence of direct and indirect positive contextual spillover effects, with comparatively less evidence a lack of spillover and a relative absence of reported negative spillover. This paper provides a novel theoretical approach, centred on identity process theory to enhance understanding of positive spillover, negative spillover, and the lack of spillover. (shrink)