This paper recounts the efforts of a Bioethics student to understand the experience of human subjects of medical research in Kenya. Although the endeavor resulted in more questions than answers, it served to highlight areas where the current system of protections has failed to secure the well-being of those involved. It concludes that, in addition to existing considerations, ethical review ought to include another kind of information: that which can be gained only from listening to the feelings and experiences related (...) by subjects themselves. (shrink)

Comment la philosophie peut-elle contribuer à lutter contre le processus actuel d’atomisation sociale? Cherchant à éviter les raccourcis de la controverse qui a opposé le communautarisme au libéralisme, la recherche récente s’inspirant de la « pensée post-métaphysique » distingue quatre types de communauté : la communauté éthique constitutive de l’identité, la communauté légal, la communauté politique et la communauté morale. En ce qui concerne cette dernière, l’article remet en cause l’affirmation du discours théorique selon laquelle on peut résoudre les questions (...) morales en termes de « communauté justificative » (Habermas, Forst). En montrant que la logique du contrat est impuissante à définir la moralité de manière adéquate, l’article invite à se tourner vers la démarche kantienne. On s’intéresse tout particulièrement à la façon dont Kant, en liant la théorie morale à la philosophie de la religion, fournit les bases d’un concept de la communauté globale qui s’abstient de tracer une ligne entre « nous » et « eux ». (shrink)

L’expression « naturaleza muerta » a des connotations qui clarifient les relations conceptuelles entre la vie et la mort dans la culture baroque. On les étudie dans cet article à travers plusieurs peintures de cette époque ainsi que dans quelques œuvres contemporaines.

S’appuyant sur l’argument que la rencontre de la philosophie confucéenne avec la théorie éthique occidentale ne constitue pas un tournant, cet article cherche dans le vocabulaire de l’éthique confucéenne les éléments permettant de dessiner la vision sui generis de la vie morale comme une éthique de rôle confucéenne. Etant donné la centralité de la famille en tant que lieu initial d’acquisition des qualités morales, un terme clé du corpus confucéen qui exprime cette notion d’éthique de rôle n’est rien d’autre que (...) l’impératif moral primordial de cette tradition, à savoir la « révérence familiale » – ou pitié filiale – ( xiao ). Si notre but est d’aborder la tradition confucéenne selon ses propres termes et de la laisser s’exprimer par elle-même sans la remplacer par nos propres priorités culturelles, il faut commencer par reconsidérer de manière critique la conception confucéenne de l’individu comme point de départ de l’éthique confucéenne. Cette dernière diffère du tout au tout de l’individualisme qui fonde l’approche occidentale dont la terminologie est éloquente (agents, actions, traits de caractères, autonomie, choix, liberté, principes…). L’éthique confucéenne s’appuie d’abord sur une vision totalisante de l’expérience humaine et recourt à un ensemble de termes qui révèlent des idées totalement différentes : par exemple que les qualités morales se manifestent sous la forme d’une virtuosité consommée dans les rôles et les relations qui nous constituent. Ne pas distinguer les « êtres » humains individuels des « devenirs humains » relationnels revient bon gré mal gré à importer, avant même de se pencher sur la question, une notion contemporaine de personne résolument étrangère au sujet. (shrink)

We estimate that 208,000 deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices have been implanted to address neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide. DBS Think Tank presenters pooled data and determined that DBS expanded in its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 providing a space where clinicians, engineers, researchers from industry and academia discuss current and emerging DBS technologies and logistical and ethical issues facing the field. (...) The emphasis is on cutting edge research and collaboration aimed to advance the DBS field. The Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank was held virtually on September 1 and 2, 2020 (Zoom Video Communications) due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting focused on advances in: (1) optogenetics as a tool for comprehending neurobiology of diseases and on optogenetically-inspired DBS, (2) cutting edge of emerging DBS technologies, (3) ethical issues affecting DBS research and access to care, (4) neuromodulatory approaches for depression, (5) advancing novel hardware, software and imaging methodologies, (6) use of neurophysiological signals in adaptive neurostimulation, and (7) use of more advanced technologies to improve DBS clinical outcomes. There were 178 attendees who participated in a DBS Think Tank survey, which revealed the expansion of DBS into several indications such as obesity, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. This proceedings summarizes the advances discussed at the Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank. (shrink)

Circadian rhythms in the sleep/wake cycle, along with a range of physiological measures, are severely disrupted in individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). Moreover, several central circadian genes have been implicated as potential genetic factors underlying the illness through candidate gene studies and some genome wide association studies. However, investigations into the molecular underpinnings of circadian disturbances in the human brain have been quite challenging. In their recent publication, Li and colleagues have used a novel approach to determine the rhythmic (...) patterns of circadian gene expression in several regions of the human brain, and how these patterns are disrupted in MDD. Their findings demonstrate that in healthy subjects, several brain regions outside the suprachiasmatic nucleus (the master clock) exhibit diurnal gene expression patterns that are disrupted in the brains of MDD subjects. These findings will provide the foundation for future studies of gene‐specific drug targets, and biomarkers for the disease. (shrink)

Late Mamlūk Military Equipment. By David Nicolle. Travaux et études de la mission archéologique syro-française, Citadelle de Damas, vol. 3. Damascus: Institut Français du Proche-Orient, 2011. Pp. 396. €45.

This chapter reviews the literature on experimental political philosophy. Much of the literature considers individuals’ intuitions about distributive justice, retributive justice, and key concepts such as the doing/allowing distinction. The chapter argues that although there is relatively little experimental political philosophy proper, there are many avenues for future research. It presumes some familiarity with political philosophy, but its main aim is not to explain the relevance of studies to particular debates. The chapter provides an overview of interesting empirical results that (...) may be of some broad interest and suggests that there is reason for those interested in experimental political philosophy to do new kinds of empirical work and employ new methods from many disciplines. Experimental philosophy need not model itself primarily on the discipline of psychology. There are many useful methods available for answering important questions experimental philosophers might want to address in these other disciplines. (shrink)

Hermeneutical injustice, as a species of epistemic injustice, is when members of marginalized groups are unable to make their experiences communicatively intelligible due to a deficiency in collective hermeneutical resources, where this deficiency is traditionally interpreted as a lack of concepts. Against this understanding, this paper argues that even if adequate concepts that describe marginalized groups’ experiences are available within the collective hermeneutical resources, hermeneutical injustice can persist. This paper offers an analysis of how this can happen by introducing the (...) notion of hermeneutical excess: the introduction of additional concepts into collective hermeneutical resources that function to obscure agents’ understanding of the lived experiences of marginalized groups. The injustice of hermeneutical excesses happens not due to hermeneutical marginalization (the exclusion of members of marginalized groups from the construction of hermeneutical resources), but rather hermeneutical domination: when members of dominant groups have been inappropriately included in the construction of hermeneutical resources. By taking as exemplary cases the concepts of “reverse racism” and “non-consensual sex” this paper shows how such excesses are introduced as a kind of defensive strategy used by dominant ideologies precisely when progress with social justice is made. (shrink)

This study aims to investigate the relationship between job burnout and employee performance in the feed industry during the ASF outbreak. Further, the researchers employed a descriptive-correlational research design in order to analyze the acquired data and produce pertinent findings. Thus, the researchers gathered data from one hundred two (102) feed industry employees. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and Individual Work Performance Questionnaire (IWPQ) were employed to ascertain the extent of job burnout experienced by the respondents and evaluate employee performance, (...) respectively. Based on the statistical analysis, there is a significant relationship between job burnout and employee performance. Moreover, the study's findings were thoroughly analyzed and discussed. (shrink)

Nicole Shukin pursues a resolutely materialist engagement with the "question of the animal," challenging the philosophical idealism that has dogged the question by tracing how the politics of capital and of animal life impinge on one ...

Lawami' al-Nazar fi Tahqiq Ma'ani al-Mukhtasar is Aḥmad b. Ya'qub al-Wallali's (d. 1128/1716) commentary on al-Sanusi's (d. 895/1490) compendium of logic, al-Mukhtasar. Al-Wallali was the first commentator on al-Sanusi's compendium after the author's autocommentary. In this publication, Ibrahim Safri offers a critical edition of this work, together with a study of the author's life and oeuvre. Safri also tries to show the indirect influence of Avicennism on logic in the Maghribi tradition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the basis (...) of his writings on logic and philosophical theology, al-Wallali was considered a master of rational sciences by his contemporaries. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense relationship with power (...) is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism. (shrink)

Adopting a broadly compatibilist approach, this volume's authors argue that the behavioral and mind sciences do not threaten the moral foundations of legal responsibility. Rather, these sciences provide fresh insight into human agency and updated criteria as well as powerful diagnostic and intervention tools for assessing and altering minds.

“Ghosting”, the act of ceasing all communication with someone with whom you have been romantically involved, is now a normal part of modern dating. The common moral judgment of ghosting is negative, that it is a bad behavior that treats people disrespectfully, and trains up a lack of empathy and accountability in those who engage in it (Abad-Santos 2017; Guilluame 2016; G 2017; Smith 2017). These behaviors and traits are at least morally undesirable if not outright wrong, and so, consequently, (...) it isn’t permissible for anyone to ghost. But is this the whole story to be told about ghosting? In this paper, I offer quite different responses to these two questions about ghosting. Focusing here on gender identity, I claim that it is permissible for women to ghost men. This is because, I contend, women’s practices of ghosting are a justified response to men’s practices of misogyny within the context of heterosexual dating. As such, I argue that contrary to the common perception that ghosting is rude or disrespectful, it rather serves a self-protective function for women and can at times qualify as an act of resistance against women’s oppression. In this way, not only is ghosting done by women minimally permissible, it might even be considered laudable. (shrink)

Soumettre l’histoire de la médecine à l’épreuve du genre depuis l’Antiquité et dans divers espaces géographiques, telle est l’ambition de ce numéro de Clio. Les années 1970 en France ont connu tout à la fois la naissance d’une histoire de la médecine et d’une histoire des femmes qui ne négligea ce domaine ni à ses débuts, ni dans le cadre d’une histoire sociale de la médecine qui se déploya dans les années 1990. Les historien-ne-s de la médecine et des femmes (...) s’intéressèrent d’abord à la natu... (shrink)

In the current U.S. context, we are facing a Constitutional crisis with frequent government shutdowns and new policy debates surrounding immigration, climate change, budgeting practices, and the balance of power. With competing interests, unclear policy, and inconsistent leadership directives, the question becomes: How do contemporary bureaucrats make sense of this ethically turbulent environment? This collection provides a lens for viewing administrative decision-making and behavior from a Constitutional basis, as contemporary bureaucrats attempt to navigate uncharted territory. Ethics for Contemporary Bureaucrats is (...) organized around three constitutional values: freedom, property, and social equity. These themes are based on emerging trends in public administration and balanced with traditional ethical models. Each chapter provides an overview of a contemporary ethical issue, identifies key actors, institutions, legal and legislative policy, and offers normative and practical recommendations to address the challenges the issue poses. Rooted in a respected and time-tested intellectual history, this volume speaks to bureaucrats in a modern era of governance. It is ideally suited to educate students, scholars, and public servants on Constitutional values and legal precedent as a basis for ethics in the public sector. (shrink)

Logics—that is to say logical systems—are generally conceived of as describing the logical forms of arguments as well as endorsing cer- tain principles or rules of inference specified in terms of these forms. From this perspective, a correct logic is a system which captures only (and perhaps all) of the correct principles, and good—i.e. logical— reasoning is reasoning which at the level of logical form conforms to the principles of a correct logic. In contrast, as logical particularists we reject the (...) idea that logical validity is a property of logical forms or schema, and instead take validity to be a property of particular in- ferences. In this paper we describe and defend this radically different approach to validity, and explore the particularist understanding of the relationship between logical systems and logical reasoning. (shrink)

Calls to abolish race as a proxy for biology or genetics in clinical care have reached a fever pitch in the latter half of 2020, including articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, and urgent letters from prominent Senators.

We bring together recent discussions on data capitalism and biocapitalization by studying value flows in consumer genomics firms—an industry at the intersection between health care and technology realms. Consumer genomics companies market genomic testing services to consumers as a source of fun, altruism, belonging and knowledge. But by maintaining a multisided or platform business model, these firms also engage in digital capitalism, creating financial profit from data brokerage. This is a precarious balance to strike: If these companies’ business models consist (...) of assetizing the pool of genomic data that they assemble, then part of their work has to revolve around obscuring to consumers any uncertainties that would potentially impinge on these processes of assemblage. We reflect on the nature of these practices and the market relationships that enable them, and we relate this reflection to debates around alternative market arrangements that would potentially mitigate the extractive tendencies of these and other digital health firms. (shrink)

Anthropology of Consciousness, Volume 32, Issue 2, Page 124-128, Autumn 2021.

Anthropology of Consciousness, Volume 32, Issue 2, Page 124-128, Autumn 2021.

A heterogeneous survey sample of for-profit, non-profit and government employees revealed that organizational factors but not personal characteristics were significant antecedents of misconduct and job satisfaction. Formal organizational compliance practices and ethical climate were independent predictors of misconduct, and compliance practices also moderated the relationship between ethical climate and misconduct, as well as between pressure to compromise ethical standards and misconduct. Misconduct was not predicted by level of moral reasoning, age, sex, ethnicity, job status, or size and type of organization. (...) Demographic variables predicted job satisfaction and organizational variables added significant incremental variance. Results suggest the importance of promoting a moral organization through the words and actions of senior managers and supervisors, independent of formal mechanisms such as codes of conduct. (shrink)

Multiple studies have been performed to identify the most common ethical dilemmas encountered by ethics consultation services. However, limited data exists comparing the content of ethics consultations requested by specific hospital specialties. It remains unclear whether the scope of ethical dilemmas prompting an ethics consultation differ between specialties and if there are types of ethics consultations that are more or less frequently called based on the specialty initiating the ethics consult. This study retrospectively assessed the incidence and content of ethics (...) consultations called by surgical vs. non-surgical specialties between January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2018 using our RedCap Database and information collected through the EMR via our Clinical and Translational Science Center. 548 total ethics consultations were analyzed. Our results demonstrate that more surgical consults originated from the ICU, as opposed to lower acuity units, and surgical patients were more likely to have a DNR in place. Surgical specialties were more likely to call about issues relating to withholding/withdrawing life-sustaining treatment, while non-surgical specialties were more likely to call about issues related to discharge planning. There appear to be morally relevant differences between consults classified as the “same” that are not entirely captured by the usual ethics consultations classification system. In conclusion, this study highlights the unique ethical issues experienced by surgical vs. non-surgical specialties. Ultimately, our data can help ethics consultation services determine how best to educate various hospital specialties to approach ethical issues commonly experienced within their field. (shrink)

Luck egalitarians think that considerations of responsibility can excuse departures from strict equality. However critics argue that allowing responsibility to play this role has objectionably harsh consequences. Luck egalitarians usually respond either by explaining why that harshness is not excessive, or by identifying allegedly legitimate exclusions from the default responsibility-tracking rule to tone down that harshness. And in response, critics respectively deny that this harshness is not excessive, or they argue that those exclusions would be ineffective or lacking in justification. (...) Rather than taking sides, after criticizing both positions I also argue that this way of carrying on the debate – i.e. as a debate about whether the harsh demands of responsibility outweigh other considerations, and about whether exclusions to responsibility-tracking would be effective and/or justified – is deeply problematic. On my account, the demands of responsibility do not – in fact, they can not – conflict with the demands of other normative considerations, because responsibility only provides a formal structure within which those other considerations determine how people may be treated, but it does not generate its own practical demands. (shrink)

We demonstrate in two experiments that real and imagined body movements appropriate to metaphorical phrases facilitate people's immediate comprehension of these phrases. Participants first learned to make different body movements given specific cues. In two reading time studies, people were faster to understand a metaphorical phrase, such as push the argument, when they had previously just made an appropriate body action (e.g., a push movement) (Experiment 1), or imagined making a specific body movement (Experiment 2), than when they first made (...) a mismatching body action (e.g., a chewing movement) or no movement. These findings support the idea that appropriate body action, or even imagined action, enhances people's embodied, metaphorical construal of abstract concepts that are referred to in metaphorical phrases. (shrink)

This paper argues that “backstage” gallows humor among clinical mentors not only affects medical students’ perceptions of what it means to be a doctor but is also symptomatic and indicative of a much larger problem in medicine—namely, the failure to attend fully to the complexity and profundity of the lived experiences of illness, suffering, and death. Reorienting the discourse surrounding gallows humor away from whether or in what context it is acceptable and toward the reasons why doctors feel the need (...) to use such humor in the first place addresses this issue in a more illuminating way. (shrink)

Recently, natural scientists have begun to support an interpretive turn in ecology. Yet the ethical implications of interpreting nature have not been sufficiently addressed. In this essay, I use different interpretations of nature to make three distinct but related points relevant to forestry : ecological narratives should be evaluated on the basis of ethical norms, the choice of which interpretations of nature and ethical norms to use in environmental policy should be conducted by a process of public deliberation, and scientific (...) narratives should be denied a priori privilege over non-scientific interpretations of nature for policy purposes. (shrink)

The role of research ethics committees, and research ethics issues more broadly are often not viewed in the context of the development of scientific methods and the academic community. This topic piece seeks to redress this gap. I begin with a brief outline of the changes we experience within the social sciences before exploring in more detail their impact on research ethics and the practices of research ethics committees. I conclude with recommendations for how the existing research ethics processes may (...) be made more future-proof. (shrink)

This study investigated the roles of problem structure and strategy use in problem encoding. Fourth‐grade students solved and explained a set of typical addition problems (e.g., 5 + 4 + 9 + 5 = _) and mathematical equivalence problems (e.g., 4 + 3 + 6 = 4 + _ or 6 + 4 + 5 = _ + 5). Next, they completed an encoding task in which they reconstructed addition and equivalence problems after viewing each for 5 s. Equivalence problems (...) of the form 4 + 3 + 6 = 4 + _ overlap with a perceptual pattern found in traditional arithmetic problems (i.e., answer blank in final position), and students' encoding was poorest on problems of this type. Individual differences in encoding the equivalence problems were related to variations in strategy use. Some students solved blank‐final equivalence problems using the standard arithmetic strategy of performing all given operations on all given numbers. These students made more errors in encoding problem structure, but fewer errors in encoding the numbers, than did students who solved the problems using correct or other incorrect strategies. Moreover, students who expressed many strategies for solving the blank‐final equivalence problems made fewer errors in encoding problem structure, but more errors in encoding the numbers, than did students who expressed only a single strategy. Results highlight that encoding is intended to guide action and that prior experience can simultaneously facilitate and interfere with accurate encoding. (shrink)

In this paper, I draw on the principles of Aristotelian ethics, the work of modern virtue ethicists, and previous feminist critiques of purity balls to interrogate the effects of this practice on moral development. I argue that purity balls discourage young women from making autonomous, informed, and virtuously motivated decisions regarding their sexuality. While most critiques of purity balls are rooted in the explicitly patriarchal structure of these events, my analysis emphasizes the negative impact they have on moral agency. I (...) conclude that purity balls are unethical because of the detrimental effects they have on the becoming of virtuous agents. (shrink)

All people have human rights and, intuitively, there is a close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy. The two main theories about the natureand value of human rights often fail to account for this connection. Interest theories, on which rights protect individuals’ important interests, usually fail to capturethe close relationship between human rights and autonomy; autonomy is not constitutive of the interests human rights protect. Will theories, on which human rights protect individuals’ autonomy, cannot explain why the nonautonomous have (...) a human right to meet their needs. This paper argues that it is possible to account for the close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy if human rights at least protect individuals’ ability to live minimally good lives. It argues that people need whatever will enable them to live such lives and autonomy is partly constitutive of such a life. This argument also has importantimplications for some other key debates in the human rights literature. (shrink)