This article presents a novel set of ten play scenarios for robot-assisted play for children with special needs. This set of scenarios is one of the key outcomes of the IROMEC project that investigated how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging children with special needs to discover a range of play styles, from solitary to collaborative play. The target user groups in the project were children with Mild Mental Retardation,1 children with Severe Motor Impairment and children with Autism. The (...) play scenarios were developed against specific educational and therapeutic objectives that were discussed with panels of experts in various countries, during several user panel meetings for each of the above mentioned target user groups. These objectives were classified with reference to the ICF-CY, the International Classification of Functioning – version for Children and Youth. The article presents a detailed description of the play scenarios, each with its relevant educational and therapeutic objectives in five key developmental areas. While the play scenarios described in this paper originally were developed for and tested with the above user groups and with the IROMEC robot, the play scenarios can potentially be applied to other user groups and to a wide range of other applications involving human-robot interaction using different robotic toys. Keywords: human-robot interaction; assistive technology; play scenarios; autism; mild mental retardation; sever motor impairment; assisted play. (shrink)

Empirical research into the ethics of emerging technologies, often involving foresight studies, technology assessment or application of the precautionary principle, raises significant epistemological challenges by failing to explain the relative epistemic status of contentious normative claims about future states. This weakness means that it is unclear why the conclusions reached by these approaches should be considered valid, for example in anticipatory ethical assessment or governance of emerging technologies. This paper explains and responds to this problem by proposing an account of (...) how the epistemic status of uncertain normative claims can be established in ethical and political discourses based on Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics. To better understand the nature of the problem, the relationship between norms, facts and the future is explored in light of potential meta-ethical fallacies faced in the field of empirical ethics. Weaknesses of current approaches to anticipatory ethical assessment and governance are then explored, including the Precautionary Principle and Technology Assessment. We argue that the epistemic status of uncertain normative claims can be understood within Habermas’ approach to political discourse, which requires ‘translation’ of uncertain claims to be comprehensible to other stakeholders in discourse. Translation thus provides a way to allow for uncertain normative claims to be considered alongside other types of validity claims in discourse. The paper contributes a conceptual account of the epistemic status of uncertain normative claims in discourse and begins to develop a ‘methodology of translation’ which can be further developed for approaches to research and ethical assessment supporting anticipatory evidence-based policy, governance and system design. (shrink)

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to provide a response to Christiansen's paper, Ellen Christiansen “From ‘ethics of the eye’ to ‘ethics of the hand’ by collaborative prototyping”,Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Vol. 12 No. 1.Design/methodology/approach– Reflection and critique of Christiansen's position.Findings– The paper raises questions about the conceptual basis, the realisation of participation and the conditions required for participative practice to be more broadly employed.Originality/value– It is an original response.

In lowland South America, breath animates human and non-human bodies, pulsating through the materialities of organisms. Humans, however, should manage their bodies to recast and reconfigure breath in its most life-enhancing manifestations: singing and smoking. These are the specialized domains of those able to manage their vitalities in such a way as to produce potent effects in themselves and in the world around them, including influencing atmospheric conditions, the lives of animals and plants and the harming and healing of others. (...) In these relational onto-epistemologies, intersubjectivity, intercorporality and states of non-cognitive interaffection find new depths. Breath, properly managed, can make and unmake worldly forms, including bodies and the societies they come together in. Focusing on two Amerindian communities, the Warekena of northwestern Rio Negro, Brazil and the Shipibo-Konibo of the Ucayali valley in Eastern Peru, this article examines the interface between human and non-human subjectivities, and how resonant interaffective atmospheric conditions are induced to promote health. (shrink)

Trust is generally held to have three different dimensions or aspects: a behavioral aspect, a cognitive aspect, and an affective aspect. While t here is hardly any disagreement about trusting behavior, there is some disagreement as to which of the two other aspects is more fundamental. After presenting some of the main ideas concerning the concept of trust as used in the analysis of social cooperation. I will argue that affective aspects of trust must be included in any adequate account (...) of the role of trust in social dilemma situations involving multiple equilibria. Cooperation in such situations requires coordination even though information on what another player might do is not available. A trusting person can handle such problems of cooperation by framing the situation in a way that goes beyond cognitive trust and solves what I shall call the problem of normative consent. I will conclude with some remarks ab out the design of institutions that foster trustful cooperation, especially in the context of the Internet. (shrink)

Studies using Posner’s spatial cueing paradigm have demonstrated that participants can allocate their attention to specific target locations based on the predictiveness of preceding cues. Four experiments were conducted to investigate attentional orienting processes operating in a high probability condition as compared to a low probability condition using various types of centrally-presented cues. Spatially-informative cues resulted in cueing effects for both probability conditions, with significantly larger CEs in the high probability conditions than the low probability conditions. Participants in the high (...) probability conditions reported little or no awareness of cue–target probabilities after task completion. Our results provide support for an implicit learning account of the proportion valid effect under experimental conditions involving spatially-informative central cues and relatively short stimulus onset asynchronies. (shrink)

While Rational Choice Theory (RC) may be understood as a theory of choice, which does not necessarily reflect actual deliberative processes, rule-following behavior is definitely based on a certain form of delibera- tion. This article aims at clarifying the relationship between the two. Being guided by instrumental rules, i.e., rules reducible to the maximiza- tion principle, is perfectly consistent with the fundamental behavioral assumptions of RC. But human individuals use other forms of rules in decision making, especially tie-breaking rules and (...) coordination rules. It is argued that within RC no satisfying account of such rule-following behav- ior can be given. In particular it is impossible to determine suitable pref- erence orderings such that coordinating may be understood as maximizing relative to these orderings. Still, once there is coordination, following a coordination rule may be perfectly consistent with the basic assumptions of RC. So there might be a more complex theory of action that incorpo- rates RC as well as a satisfying theory of rule-guided behavior. (shrink)

Communication is an inherently strategic matter. This paper introduces simple game theoretic models of information transmission to identify different forms of uncertainty which may pose a problem of trust in testimony. Strategic analysis suggests discriminating between trust in integrity, trust in competence, trust in (the will to invest) effort and trust in honesty. Whereas uncertainty about the sender's honesty or integrity may directly influence a rational receiver's readiness to rely on sender's statements, neither uncertainty about the competence of a sender (...) nor uncertainty about his willingness to invest effort has any direct impact on rational reliance on its own. In this regard, trust in honesty and trust in integrity appear to be more basic than trust in competence or effort. (shrink)

Der Umgang mit Gesundheit und Krankheit, noch mehr aber die Übergänge zwischen dem einen und dem anderen Zustand, weisen mit der Entwicklung des therapeutischen Wissens und Könnens und der Strukturen in der Gesundheitsversorgung eine Vielfalt an ethischen Bezügen auf.

The extent to which trust prevails can be measured by the subjective probability with which an agent expects another one to act in desired ways. An agent´s trust in other agents forms in repeated social interactions which typically have the structure of an elementary game of trust. The process of trust formation in such interactions may be described by a reputation function. It is argued that in view of real world processes of trust formation any adequate reputation function must satisfy (...) certain conditions. A simple model conforming to these conditions is presented. Analysing this example it is shown that there is a co-operative Nash equilibrium in a trust supergame which is in line with the basic conditions of trust formation. However, it is also proved that no process of trust formation can be reasonably similar to real world mechanisms and at the same time lead to subgame perfect equilibria in a trust supergame. (shrink)

Even his peers called Locke's political philosophy “The ABC of Politics“: not only does he clarify why one should exit the state of nature (government guarantees protection of life, freedom, and wealth) but also what a good government has to provide. A government should protect individuals from assaults of fellow citizens, other countries, and itself. Locke also shows how to put limits to the power of political institutions: by division of powers, by law, by neutral judges, and by making people (...) trust their government -- and having the right to revolt when their trust is betrayed. This book provides a cooperative commentary to all important topics of Locke's "Two Treatises". With entries by Wolfgang von Leyden, Bernd Ludwig, Peter Niesen, Francis Oakley, Birger P. Priddat, Michaela Rehm, Michael Schefczyk, Ludwig Siep, A. John Simmons, und Simone Zurbuchen. (shrink)

The article explains the essential features of a theory of global justice that combines justice for individuals with justice for political communities. It holds that arguing within the justificatory framework of cosmopolitanism is compatible with a conditional justification of states that are basically just. The justification rests on an argument I will name ‘the moral path dependency argument’. The article follows its normative consequences into the fields of a justly ordered community of legitimate states and of cosmopolitan principles of distributive (...) justice. Thus, it reconciles the latter with claims to political autonomy of particular communities and with the fact of reasonable disagreement between them. (shrink)

Kommunikation kann als eine besondere Form der strategischen Interaktion verstanden werden. Die Spieltheorie stellt ein formales Instrumentarium zur Analyse strategischer Probleme zur Verfügung. Einige Grundkonzepte der Spieltheorie werden vorgestellt, und ihre Anwendung auf Probleme der Kommunikation an einfachen Modellen vom Typ des Signalspiels illustriert. Es wird argumentiert, dass Kommunikation durch ein typisches Dilemma individueller Rationalität gefährdet sein kann. Obwohl eine korrekte Anwendung von Regeln, die die Verwendung eines verfügbaren Zeichens festlegen, für alle Akteure vorteilhaft wäre, gelingt es rationalen Akteuren unter (...) bestimmten Bedingungen nicht, die Regeln zu befolgen und entsprechende Konventionen zu etablieren. (shrink)

David Hume’s theory of social and political order as represented in Russell Hardin’s dual coordination theory seems to conflict with the idea of political liberty as defined in Benjamin Constant’s concept of the ‘liberty of the ancients’. In this chapter, I argue that the apparent tension vanishes once the role of moral approbation in Humes’s theory of the conventional foundation of social and political order is adequately taken into account.

We used a multi-dimensional framework to assess current stereotypes of men and women. Specifically, we sought to determine (1) how men and women are characterized by male and female raters, (2) how men and women characterize themselves, and (3) the degree of convergence between self-characterizations and charcterizations of one’s gender group. In an experimental study, 628 U.S. male and female raters described men, women, or themselves on scales representing multiple dimensions of the two defining features of gender stereotypes, agency and (...) communality: assertiveness, independence, instrumental competence, leadership competence (agency dimensions), and concern for others, sociability and emotional sensitivity (communality dimensions). Results indicated that stereotypes about communality persist and were equally prevalent for male and female raters, but agency characterizations were more complex. Male raters generally descibed women as being less agentic than men and as less agentic than female raters described them. However, female raters differentiated among agency dimensions and described women as less assertive than men but as equally independent and leadership competent. Gender stereotypes also were evident in self-ratings, with female raters rating themselves as less agentic than male raters and male raters rating themselves as less communal than female raters, although there were exceptions (e.g., no differences in independence and sociability self-ratings for men and women). Comparisons of self-ratings and ratings of men and women in general indicated that women tended to characterize themselves in more stereotypic terms – as less assertive and less competent in leadership – than they characterized others in their gender group. Men, in contrast, characterized themselves in less stereotypic terms – as more communal. Overall, our results show that a focus on facets of agency and communality can provide deeper insights about stereotype content than a focus on overall agency and communality. (shrink)

This volume describes features of biological autonomy and integrates them into the recent discussion of factors in evolution. In recent years ideas about major transitions in evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. They include questions about the origin of evolutionary innovation, their genetic and epigenetic background, the role of the phenotype, and of changes in ontogenetic pathways. In the present book, it is argued that it is likewise necessary to question the properties of these innovations and what was qualitatively generated (...) during the macroevolutionary transitions. The author states that a recurring central aspect of macroevolutionary innovations is an increase in individual organismal autonomy whereby it is emancipated from the environment with changes in its capacity for flexibility, self-regulation and self-control of behavior. The first chapters define the concept of autonomy and examine its history and its epistemological context. Later chapters demonstrate how changes in autonomy took place during the major evolutionary transitions and investigate the generation of organs and physiological systems. They synthesize material from various disciplines including zoology, comparative physiology, morphology, molecular biology, neurobiology and ethology. It is argued that the concept is also relevant for understanding the relation of the biological evolution of man to his cultural abilities. Finally the relation of autonomy to adaptation, niche construction, phenotypic plasticity and other factors and patterns in evolution is discussed. The text has a clear perspective from the context of systems biology, arguing that the generation of biological autonomy must be interpreted within an integrative systems approach. (shrink)

Eating disorders (EDs) are characterized by marked cognitive distortions and maladaptive schemas. Cognitive models of EDs highlight the direct impact of cognitive dysfunctions on eating-related disturbances, insofar as specific cognitive contents such as thoughts about diet rules and food or loss of control may trigger disturbed eating behavior. Moreover, early maladaptive schemas that reflect perfectionist standards and relate to achievement and performance seem to be associated with disturbed eating, e.g. via their impact on situation-specific appraisals. However, so far, no study (...) has investigated these assumptions. Hence, the present study sought to demonstrate whether and how cognitive content exerts an impact on eating behavior in daily life, and whether maladaptive core schemas impact the occurrence of binge eating via dysfunctional ED cognitions in eating-related contexts. N = 29 females with Bulimia Nervosa (BN), n = 31 females with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and n = 30 female controls without EDs (NC) participated in the study. All participants received a handheld computer for a 48-hour period to capture antecedents of disturbed eating behavior in daily life. Event-sampling (meals, binge eating, purging, stressful situations) and signal-sampling (five times a day) methods were applied. EMA included a short questionnaire to assess dysfunctional cognitions and level of craving and to capture information about situational contexts. Early maladaptive schemas were assessed using a short version of the Young Schema Questionnaire at baseline. The main results showed specific patterns of dysfunctional eating-related cognitions for BED and BN. Binge eating was predicted by thoughts about loss of control (positively) and dietary restraint (negatively). For meal situations, no significant differences between the two ED groups emerged. All three domains exerted indirect effects on craving via thoughts about ‘eating/loss of control’, whereas neither a direct nor an indirect effect emerged regarding thoughts about ‘dietary restraint’. These results fit well with previous studies and support cognitive models of EDs; schema therapeutic approaches may be a valuable contribution to enhance treatment of EDs. Further studies should explore whether the findings from emerging adulthood can be generalized to younger age groups. (shrink)

This open access book provides the first explicit case study for an application of the method of reflective equilibrium (RE), using it to develop and defend a precautionary principle. It thereby makes an important and original contribution to questions of philosophical method and methodology. The book shows step-by-step how RE is applied, and develops a methodological framework which will be useful for everyone who wishes to use reflective equilibrium. With respect to precautionary principles, the book demonstrates how a rights-based precautionary (...) principle can be constructed and defended. The case study succeeds in demonstrating that RE can be successfully applied and puts real constraints on the justification process. This is all the more remarkable as the case study was designed as an open-ended process, without presupposing any specific results. This book will be highly relevant both to people interested in philosophical methodology and epistemology, as well as to researchers who are interested in using philosophical methods and tools and applying them to practical problems. (shrink)

The basic idea underlying a precautionary principle is often summarized as “better safe than sorry.” Even if it is uncertain whether an activity will lead to harm, for example, to the environment or to human health, measures should be taken to prevent harm. This demand is partly motivated by the consequences of regulatory practices of the past. Often, chances of harm were disregarded because there was no scientific proof of a causal connection between an activity or substance and chances of (...) harm, for example, between asbestos and lung diseases. When this connection was finally established, it was often too late to prevent severe damage. However, it is highly controversial how the vague intuition behind “better safe than sorry” should be understood as a principle. As a consequence, we find a multitude of interpretations ranging from decision rules over epistemic principles to procedural frameworks. To acknowledge this diversity, it makes sense to speak of precautionary principles (PPs) in the plural. PPs are not without critices. For example, it has been argued that they are paralyzing, unscientific, or promote a culture of irrational fear. This article systematizes the different interpretations of PPs according to their functions, gives an overview about the main lines of argument in favor of PPs, and outlines the most frequent and important objections made to them. (shrink)

This paper explores how consumers’ ethical food consumption practices, mediated by mobile phone applications (apps), are transformed into digital data. Based on a review of studies on the digitalization of ethical consumption practices and food apps, we find that previous research, while valuable, fails to acknowledge and critically examine the digital labor required to perform digitalized ethical food consumption. In this paper, we call for research on how digital labor underlies the digitalization of ethical food consumption and develop a conceptual (...) framework that supports this research agenda. Our proposed conceptual framework builds on three interconnected analytical concepts—datafication, affordances and digital labor—that enable the study of digital labor as an infrastructural element of digitalized food consumption. We illustrate our conceptual framework through our previous research concerning Buycott, a US-based mobile app whose stated aim is to facilitate consumers’ ethical purchasing decisions. Using the walkthrough method, we consider how the Buycott app engages user-generated data and what implications this holds for consumers. The app’s infrastructure, we suggest, connects ethical consumption and digital labor. A richer understanding of the digital food economy, we propose, enables social scientists not only to elucidate how consumers engage in digital labor, but also to contribute to the development of new data governance structures in the digital food economy. We therefore call for social scientists interested in food, consumption and the digital economy to contribute to a new research agenda for studying everyday food digitalization by empirically examining how ethical consumption apps implicate ethical consumers’ work. (shrink)