BackgroundThe areas of Research Ethics (RE) and Research Integrity (RI) are rapidly evolving. Cases of research misconduct, other transgressions related to RE and RI, and forms of ethically questionable behaviors have been frequently published. The objective of this scoping review was to collect RE and RI cases, analyze their main characteristics, and discuss how these cases are represented in the scientific literature.MethodsThe search included cases involving a violation of, or misbehavior, poor judgment, or detrimental research practice in relation to a (...) normative framework. A search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, SCOPUS, JSTOR, Ovid, and Science Direct in March 2018, without language or date restriction. Data relating to the articles and the cases were extracted from case descriptions.ResultsA total of 14,719 records were identified, and 388 items were included in the qualitative synthesis. The papers contained 500 case descriptions. After applying the eligibility criteria, 238 cases were included in the analysis. In the case analysis, fabrication and falsification were the most frequently tagged violations (44.9%). The non-adherence to pertinent laws and regulations, such as lack of informed consent and REC approval, was the second most frequently tagged violation (15.7%), followed by patient safety issues (11.1%) and plagiarism (6.9%). 80.8% of cases were from the Medical and Health Sciences, 11.5% from the Natural Sciences, 4.3% from Social Sciences, 2.1% from Engineering and Technology, and 1.3% from Humanities. Paper retraction was the most prevalent sanction (45.4%), followed by exclusion from funding applications (35.5%).ConclusionsCase descriptions found in academic journals are dominated by discussions regarding prominent cases and are mainly published in the news section of journals. Our results show that there is an overrepresentation of biomedical research cases over other scientific fields compared to its proportion in scientific publications. The cases mostly involve fabrication, falsification, and patient safety issues. This finding could have a significant impact on the academic representation of misbehaviors. The predominance of fabrication and falsification cases might diverge the attention of the academic community from relevant but less visible violations, and from recently emerging forms of misbehaviors. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to give arguments for bringing aesthetics back into praxis. Often aesthetics is understood as something coming out of individual designers' or architects' creative talents. We challenge such a view by introducing an understanding of aesthetics as an aspect of praxis. The article builds on observations of a design project for a community centre in a Danish village. We argue that aesthetics is a result of struggles by participants in praxis, where aesthetic, material, functional, ethical, political, (...) and economic aspects are formed by each other in a dialectic process. The struggles are found in the client's reasons for starting the process, in the design and construction process and the use of the results. This means that descriptions of the aesthetics of buildings should incorporate relevant discussions and struggles of the design, construction and use of the building. It also means that the key to a fruitful ongoing collaborative process producing good aesthetic comes from managing together the many aspects of praxis in an open way. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to critique health policy discourses that are taken for granted. This perspective will allow for the identification of ‘exclusionary’ health policies, which we define as policies that are thought to offer universal benefit, despite yielding adverse effects for significant groups of people in society. As such, policies that are said to be designed ‘for all’ frequently benefit only a subset of the population. Our intent is to highlight the distributional consequences of certain health policies (...) that are largely institutionalized in contemporary society. We believe that these distributional effects are explicit representations of power in society and that institutions may provide individual ‘choice’ and ‘freedom’ that, in turn, yields separation as an outcome, a separating equilibrium. Specifically, if those who benefit from policies of partition are numerous and are to obtain significant advantage or incur limited costs, or if those who are adversely affected are scarce (or hidden), or the size of these adverse effects are small (or perceived to be minor), then partition becomes more likely as a ‘legitimate’, but exclusionary, instrument of public policy. (shrink)

In public debate GMPs are oftenreferred to as being unnatural or a violationof nature. Some people have serious moralconcerns about departures from what is natural.Others are concerned about potential risks tothe environment arising from the combination ofhereditary material moving across naturalboundaries and the limits of scientificforesight of long-term consequences. To addresssome of these concerns we propose that anadditional element in risk assessment based onthe concept of familiarity should beintroduced. The objective is to facilitatetransparency about uncertainties inherent inthe risk assessment of (...) the GMP. Familiarityconventionally involves data and experiencerelating to the plant species and the ecosystemin question. We would like to extend thisconcept to the molecular level of plantbreeding and suggest that GMP characteristicsshould be compared to a reference baselinedetermined by conventional breeding techniques.Three GMPs are ranked according to familiarityat the plant and ecosystem level and themolecular level. The approach may help tointegrate discussion of the scientificarguments and moral questions raised in thedebate about GMOs by providing an operationalscheme within which moral concerns are broughtwithin the framework of science-based riskassessment. (shrink)

Collection of cases with decisions attributed to Cardinal William Allen and Robert Persons, S.J. -- Collection of cases discussed at the English College, Douai (which was at Rheims from 1578 to 1593).

(1985). Underlying Theoretical Assumptions and the Evaluation of Management Motivation in Higher Education. Educational Studies: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 159-166.

In Western societies scientists are increasingly expected to seek media exposure and cooperate with industry. Little attention has been given to the way such expectations affect the role of scientific experts in society. To investigate scientists’ own perspectives on these issues eight exploratory, in-depth interviews were conducted in Denmark with reputable nutrition scientists. Additionally, eight interviews were held with ‘key informants’ from the field of nutrition policy. It was found that nutrition scientists experience two dilemmas: first, between their aspiration to (...) make a collective impact on public health and the powerful incentives of each to appear frequently in the media with new messages; second, between their need to cooperate with the food industry for financial reasons and their fear that this may compromise their independence and scientific integrity. It is argued that the dilemmas identified in this study should be dealt with openly by the relevant groups of scientists. (shrink)

Philosophy and Kafka is a collection of original essays interrogating the relationship of literature and philosophy. The essays either discuss specific philosophical commentaries on Kafka’s work, consider the possible relevance of certain philosophical outlooks for examining Kafka’s writings, or examine Kafka’s writings in terms of a specific philosophical theme, such as communication and subjectivity, language and meaning, knowledge and truth, the human/animal divide, justice, and freedom.

Pricing Life is an extremely timely and stimulating book. The debate about health care rationing has now been running for several decades but there are still people who publicly deny that rationing of health care has to take place, or that health care rationing could be ethically justifiable. In many countries we have also had politicians who have refused to allow the “R” word to pass their lips. In this well written, and very direct book Peter Ubel decisively shows (...) that rationing is an inevitable feature of modern medicine and that it is not something that health care administrators and economists force doctors to perform against …. (shrink)

"Menschen glauben aus den unterschiedlichsten Gründen an Gott. Aber ist dieser Glaube rational gerechtfertigt? In diesem Band streiten führende Religionsphilosoph/-innen um die Frage, ob die besten Gründe für oder gegen den Theismus sprechen. Einige Beiträge unterziehen klassische Argumente für bzw. gegen die Existenz Gottes einer neuen Betrachtung. Andere gehen der Frage nach, welche Bedingungen eigentlich erfüllt sein müssen, damit die Überzeugung, Gott existiere, als vernünftig angesehen werden kann. Gelten hier dieselben Standards wie bei Überzeugungen über die Existenz von Quasaren? Oder (...) haben religiöse Überzeugungen einen besonderen epistemologischen Status? Und ist es rational zulässig, religiöse Erfahrungen oder tradierte Offenbarungen als Gründe für religiöse Überzeugungen anzuführen? Mit Beiträgen von Ansgar Beckermann, Katherine Dormandy, Franz von Kutschera, Winfried Löffler, Herman Philipse, Peter Schulte, Holm Tetens und Christian Weidemann."-- Back cover. (shrink)

Mit Beiträgen von Heiner Hastedt, Peter Schefe, Michael Heidelberger, Wolfgang Coy, Peter Janich, Sybille Krämer, Heinz Zemanek, Rafael Capurro, Ekkehard Martens, Yvonne Dittrich, Holm Tetens, Geert Keil, John R. Searle, Margaret A. Boden, Godela Unseld, Ulrike Teubner, Rüdiger Weingarten, Florian Rötzer und Simone Dietz.

As a fan of Sherlock Holmes from a young age it occurred to me recently to wonder what the great detective would have made of the 'hard' problem of consciousness. Here is one possible scenario.

Informed consent is one of the perennial problems of medical ethics. It raises interesting philosophical questions, but also questions about regulation and implementation. The paper by Fovargue and Miola in this issue look at the recent guidance to doctors on informed consent from the UK's General Medical Council. They reach the rather depressing conclusion that whereas the law in the UK has moved forward in the recognition of patient autonomy, the GMC has moved backwards in some areas since the previous (...) guidance was issued in 1998. A paper by Potts et al also look at consent, but in this case consent to organ donation. They criticise a paper by Ben Saunders published in the JME in 2010. Saunders combined David Estlund's concept of ‘normative consent’ with Peter Singer's ‘greater moral evil’ principle and argued on this basis that actual consent to organ donation after death is not necessary, only absence of a clear refusal. Potts and …. (shrink)

In this paper, a theory of the contents of fictional names — names of fictional people, places, etc. — will be developed.1 The fundamental datum that must be addressed by such a theory is that fictional names are, in an important sense, empty: the entities to which they putatively refer do not exist.2 Nevertheless, they make substantial contributions to the truth conditions of sentences in which they occur. Not only do such sentences have truth conditions, sentences differing only in the (...) fictional names they contain differ in their truth conditions. It is, after all, commonplace to note such things as, for example, thatBilbo Baggins is a hobbitis true, andSherlock Holmes is a hobbitis false, while acknowledging at .. (shrink)

_Courting the Abyss_ updates the philosophy of free expression for a world that is very different from the one in which it originated. The notion that a free society should allow Klansmen, neo-Nazis, sundry extremists, and pornographers to spread their doctrines as freely as everyone else has come increasingly under fire. At the same time, in the wake of 9/11, the Right and the Left continue to wage war over the utility of an absolute vision of free speech in a (...) time of increased national security. _Courting the Abyss_ revisits the tangled history of free speech, finding resolutions to these debates hidden at the very roots of the liberal tradition. A mesmerizing account of the role of public communication in the Anglo-American world, _Courting the Abyss_ shows that liberty's earliest advocates recognized its fraternal relationship with wickedness and evil. While we understand freedom of expression to mean "anything goes," John Durham Peters asks why its advocates so often celebrate a sojourn in hell and the overcoming of suffering. He directs us to such well-known sources as the prose and poetry of John Milton and the political and philosophical theory of John Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., as well as lesser-known sources such as the theology of Paul of Tarsus. In various ways they all, he shows, envisioned an attitude of self-mastery or self-transcendence as a response to the inevitable dangers of free speech, a troubled legacy that continues to inform ruling norms about knowledge, ethical responsibility, and democracy today. A world of gigabytes, undiminished religious passion, and relentless scientific discovery calls for a fresh account of liberty that recognizes its risk and its splendor. Instead of celebrating noxious doctrine as proof of society's robustness, _Courting the Abyss_ invites us to rethink public communication today by looking more deeply into the unfathomable mystery of liberty and evil. (shrink)

Menschen glauben aus den unterschiedlichsten Gründen an Gott. Aber ist dieser Glaube rational gerechtfertigt? In diesem Band streiten führende Religionsphilosoph/-innen um die Frage, ob die besten Gründe für oder gegen den Theismus sprechen. Einige Beiträge unterziehen klassische Argumente für bzw. gegen die Existenz Gottes einer neuen Betrachtung. Andere gehen der Frage nach, welche Bedingungen eigentlich erfüllt sein müssen, damit die Überzeugung, Gott existiere, als vernünftig angesehen werden kann. Gelten hier dieselben Standards wie bei Überzeugungen über die Existenz von Quasaren? Oder (...) haben religiöse Überzeugungen einen besonderen epistemologischen Status? Und ist es rational zulässig, religiöse Erfahrungen oder tradierte Offenbarungen als Gründe für religiöse Überzeugungen anzuführen? Mit Beiträgen von Ansgar Beckermann, Katherine Dormandy, Franz von Kutschera, Winfried Löffler, Herman Philipse, Peter Schulte, Holm Tetens und Christian Weidemann. (shrink)

A principle claiming equal entitlement to continued life has been strongly defended in the literature as a fundamental social value. We refer to this principle as ‘equal value of life'. In this paper we argue that there is a general incompatibility between the equal value of life principle and the weak Pareto principle and provide proof of this under mild structural assumptions. Moreover we demonstrate that a weaker, age-dependent version of the equal value of life principle is also incompatible with (...) the weak Pareto principle. However, both principles can be satisfied if transitivity of social preference is relaxed to quasi-transitivity. Footnotes1 The authors are grateful to Luc Bovens, Kristian Schultz Hansen, Søren Holm, Franz Huber, Wiebke Kuklys, Gabriella Pigozzi, and two anonymous referees for detailed and very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Any errors and shortcomings are the responsibility of the authors alone. (shrink)

In 2017 Ploug and Holm argued that anonymizing individuals in the Danish circumcision registry was insufficient to protect these individuals from what they regard as the potential harms of being in the registry. We argue that Ploug and Holm’s fears in each of the areas are misguided, not supported by the evidence, and could interfere with the gathering of accurate data. The extent of the risks and harms associated with ritual circumcision is not well known. The anonymized personal health data (...) supplemented with the circumcision registry will enable more precise research into the medical consequences of ritual circumcision, and allow parents to make more fully informed decisions about circumcision with minimal, if any, adverse consequences. (shrink)

Philosophy should and can contribute to bioethics Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9476-2 Authors Vicki Langendyk, School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC, NSW 1797, Australia Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Neoliberalism, an ideology with an emphasis on competition and marketization of things, has increasingly infiltrated many socio-economic sectors, including education in general and early childhood...

Recently, a number of authors have suggested that we understand scientific models in the same way as fictional characters, like Sherlock Holmes. The biggest challenge for this approach concerns the ontology of fictional characters. I consider two responses to this challenge, given by Roman Frigg, Ronald Giere and Peter Godfrey-Smith, and argue that neither is successful. I then suggest an alternative approach. While parallels with fiction are useful, I argue that models of real systems are more aptly compared (...) to works that portray real people, like the Emperor Claudius. This approach will allow us to avoid problems with fictional characters. (shrink)

When do two sentences say the same thing, that is, express the same content? We defend two-component (2C) semantics: the view that propositional contents comprise (at least) two irreducibly distinct constituents, (1) truth-conditions, and (2) subject-matter. We contrast 2C with one-component (1C) semantics, focusing on the view that subject-matter is reducible to truth- conditions. We identify exponents of this view and argue in favor of 2C. An appendix proposes a general formal template for propositional 2C semantics.

Berkeley’s likeness principle is the claim that “an idea can be like nothing but an idea”. The likeness principle is intended to undermine representationalism: the view (that Berkeley attributes to thinkers like Descartes and Locke) that all human knowledge is mediated by ideas in the mind which represent material objects. Yet, Berkeley appears to leave the likeness principle unargued for. This has led to several attempts to explain why Berkeley accepts it. In contrast to ‘metaphysical’ and ‘epistemological’ interpretations available in (...) the literature, in this paper I defend a ‘conceptual’ interpretation. I argue that Berkeley accepts the likeness principle on the basis of (i) his commitment to the transparency of ideas, and (ii) his account of resemblance which he sets out in his works on vision. Thus, I provide an explanation for Berkeley’s reasons for accepting the likeness principle which, appropriately, focuses on his views concerning ideas and likeness. (shrink)

Margaret Macdonald was at the institutional heart of analytic philosophy in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Yet, her views on the nature of philosophical theories diverge quite considerably from those of many of her contemporaries. In this paper, I focus on her 1953 article ‘Linguistic Philosophy and Perception’, a provocative paper in which Macdonald argues that the value of philosophical theories is more akin to that of poetry or art than science or mathematics. I do so for two reasons. First, (...) because it reveals just how far Macdonald’s meta- philosophical views diverged from those of many of her contemporaries. Second, because the discussion in LPP pre-empts recent literature on the nature of philosophical inquiry and the efficacy of philosophical arguments. Indeed, Macdonald’s paper is just as likely to provoke discussion today as it was in the 1950s. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical evaluation of the concept of handedness prevalent but largely unspoken in the scientific literature. This literature defines handedness as the preference or ability to use one hand rather than the other across a range of common activities. Using the philosophical discipline of phenomenology, I articulate and critique this conceptualization of handedness. Phenomenology shows defining a concept of handedness by focusing on hand use leads to a right hand biased concept. I argue further that a phenomenological (...) model based in spatial orientation rather than hand use provides a more inclusive concept of handedness. (shrink)

Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of "speciesism"—our systematic disregard of nonhuman animals—inspiring a worldwide movement to transform our attitudes to animals and eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them. In Animal Liberation, author Peter Singer exposes the chilling realities of today’s "factory farms" and product-testing procedures—destroying the spurious justifications behind them, and offering alternatives to what has become a profound environmental and social as well as moral issue. (...) An important and persuasive appeal to conscience, fairness, decency, and justice, it is essential reading for the supporter and the skeptic alike. (shrink)

It is argued that causal understanding originates in experiences of acting on objects. Such experiences have consistent features that can be used as clues to causal identification and judgment. These are singular clues, meaning that they can be detected in single instances. A catalog of 14 singular clues is proposed. The clues function as heuristics for generating causal judgments under uncertainty and are a pervasive source of bias in causal judgment. More sophisticated clues such as mechanism clues and repeated interventions (...) are derived from the 14. Research on the use of empirical information and conditional probabilities to identify causes has used scenarios in which several of the clues are present, and the use of empirical association information for causal judgment depends on the presence of singular clues. It is the singular clues and their origin that are basic to causal understanding, not multiple instance clues such as empirical association, contingency, and conditional probabilities. (shrink)

In this important new book in the IPPP series, a group of leading thinkers in psychiatry, psychology, and philosophy offer alternative perspectives that address both the scientific and clinical aspects of psychiatric validation, emphasizing throughout their philosophical and historical considerations.

Prospect Theory: For Risk and Ambiguity, provides a comprehensive and accessible textbook treatment of the way decisions are made both when we have the statistical probabilities associated with uncertain future events and when we lack them. The book presents models, primarily prospect theory, that are both tractable and psychologically realistic. A method of presentation is chosen that makes the empirical meaning of each theoretical model completely transparent. Prospect theory has many applications in a wide variety of disciplines. The material in (...) the book has been carefully organized to allow readers to select pathways through the book relevant to their own interests. With numerous exercises and worked examples, the book is ideally suited to the needs of students taking courses in decision theory in economics, mathematics, finance, psychology, management science, health, computer science, Bayesian statistics, and engineering. (shrink)