Gesellschaftliche Veränderungen in grossem Massstab, von der Pluralisierung der Gesellschaft, der Digitalisierung, die als Vierte Kulturtechnik bezeichnet wird, bis hin zur Widerfahrnis von Kontingenzen wie Armut und Flüchtlingsströmen oder Umweltkatastrophen, stellen die Verantwortungsfähigkeit des Menschen vor neue Herausforderungen. Es wird dabei deutlich: Humanität und Vernunft, Würde und Freiheit verdanken ihren Gehalt und ihre Gestalt einem die Vernunft selbst übersteigenden Transzendenten, in dem die Vernunft je und je ihres eigenen Grundes ansichtig werden kann. Dass dieses Verhältnis zwischen Vernunft und ihrem transzendenten (...) Grund alle Wissens- und Lebensbereiche durchdringt, zeigen die interdisziplinären Beiträge dieses Bandes, die Fragen der Weltentstehung und Anthropologie, der Logik und Mystik, des Glaubens und des Gottesbildes, des Sinns und der Religion, der Gottesdienstpraxis und der Architektur behandeln. (shrink)

Gegenstand der Erörterung ist die Offenlegung des faktischen und potentiellen Ethikbezugs von Technik. Grundlegend für jede Ethik ist ein je bestimmtes Verständnis des Menschen und seiner Wirklichkeit. Diese prinzipielle Positionalität ist gegenüber diskurs- und verfahrensethischen Ansätzen ebenso festzuhalten wie gegenüber utilitaristischen Nivellierungen grundlagentheoretischer Fragen. Die vorliegende Untersuchung aus evangelischer Perspektive zeigt anhand der Analyse zweier technikphilosophischer Konzeptionen der Gegenwart (G. Ropohl, W. Ch. Zimmerli) die Relevanz von Technikethik nicht nur für Techniker, sondern bezüglich menschlichen Handelns im allgemeinen.

In a recent case, parents of a profoundly developmentally disabled child asked physicians to use high-dose oestrogen to inhibit the growth of their child in the interests of allowing better care of her as she ages. The physicians asked whether such an intervention would be ethically acceptable. Such an intervention would seem to violate the rights of the child to bodily integrity and to normal growth, making the intervention ethically objectionable. But in this paper, I argue that in some rare (...) instances, a developmentally disabled child may have only a minimal right against interference with her growth. In those instances, parents may be acting ethically if they use medical interventions to inhibit the growth of their child for the purposes of facilitating better care. But they may so intervene only when the child's disabilities are so profound that the child has no personal interest in developing an adult size and when the intervention is the least intrusive means available for facilitating the care of the child. (shrink)

Written memoranda of conversations, or memcons, provide a near‐contemporaneous record of what was said in conversation, and offer important insights into the activities of high‐profile individuals. We assess the impact of writing a memcon on memory for conversation. Pairs of participants engaged in conversation and were asked to recall the contents of that conversation 1 week later. One participant in each pair memorialized the content of the interaction in a memcon shortly after the conversation. Participants who generated memcons recalled more (...) details of the conversations than participants who did not, but the content of recall was equally and largely accurate for both participants. Remarkably, only 4.7% of the details of the conversation were recalled by both of the partners after a week delay. Contemporaneous note‐taking appears to enhance memory for conversation by increasing the amount of information remembered but not the accuracy of that information. These findings have implications for evaluating the testimony of participants on conversations with major political or legal ramifications. (shrink)

ABSTRACT As parents become increasingly able to make genetic trait selections on behalf of their children, they will need ethical guidance in deciding what genetic traits to select. Dena Davis has argued that parents act unethically if they make selections that constrain their child's range of futures. But some selections may expand the child's range of futures. And other selections may shift the child's range of futures, without either constraining or expanding that range. I contend that not only would parents (...) act unethically if they make selections that constrain the range of their child's futures, they would act unethically if they make selections that shift the range of their child's futures, because selections that shift the range of the child's futures would allow parents to over‐determine their child's futures. Thus, I contend that parents would act ethically only if they make selections that expand their child's range of futures. (shrink)

Early versions of satellite and radiosonde datasets suggested that the tropical surface had warmed more than the troposphere, while climate models consistently showed tropospheric amplification of surface warming in response to human-caused increases in greenhouse gases. We revisit such comparisons here using new observational estimates of surface and tropospheric temperature changes. We find that there is no longer a serious discrepancy between modeled and observed trends in the tropics. Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in (...) the tropical troposphere are inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets and on two methodological errors: the neglect of observational trend uncertainties introduced by interannual climate variability and application of an inappropriate statistical “consistency test”.This emerging reconciliation of models and observations has two primary explanations. First, because of changes in the treatment of buoy and satellite information, new surface temperature datasets yield slightly reduced tropical warming relative to earlier versions. Second, recently developed satellite and radiosonde datasets now show larger warming of the tropical lower troposphere. In the case of a new satellite dataset from remote sensing systems, enhancedRSS warming is due to an improved procedure of adjusting for inter-satellite biases. When the RSS-derived tropospheric temperature trend is compared with four different observed estimates of surface temperature change, the surface warming is invariably amplified in the tropical troposphere, consistent with model results. Even if we use data from a second satellite dataset with smaller tropospheric warming than in remote sensing systems RSS, observed tropical lapse rates are not significantly different from those in all model simulations.Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in the tropical troposphere and in tropical lapse rates are inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets and on two methodological errors: the neglect of observational trend uncertainties introduced by interannual climate variability and application of an inappropriate statistical “consistency test”. (shrink)

This dissertation considers the bases upon which ethical assessments of parental genetic trait selections for their children can be made. It argues that if parents engage in genetic trait selections, they must act to expand their child's range of open futures, not to constrict their child's range of open futures or to differentially shift their child's range of open futures. It contends that other proposed distinctions, including distinctions between normal and diseased states and between treatment selections and enhancement selections, do (...) not provide a sound basis for making ethical assessments of parental genetic trait selections. It contends that children have a right to an open future that parents hold in trust for their children and that parents must respect in making genetic trait selections.It considers examples of possible parental genetic trait selections regarding children's hearing, height and visual acuity. Finally, it addresses a number of concerns about and objections to this proposed basis for ethical assessment and to parental genetic trait selection generally but concludes that none of these concerns or objections are fatal the approach that if parents use parental genetic trait selection, they must do so in ways that expand their child's range of open futures. (shrink)

Background: Emergency exception to informed consent regulation was introduced to provide a venue to perform research on subjects in emergency situations before obtaining informed consent. For a study to proceed, institutional review boards need to determine if the regulations have been met.Aim: To determine IRB members’ experience reviewing research protocols using emergency exception to informed consent.Methods: This qualitative research used semistructured telephone interviews of 10 selected IRB members from around the US in the fall of 2003. IRB members were chosen (...) as little is known about their views of exception to consent, and part of their mandate is the protection of human subjects in research. Interview questions focused on the length of review process, ethical and legal considerations, training provided to IRB members on the regulations, and experience using community consultation and notification. Content analysis was performed on the transcripts of interviews. To ensure validity, data analysis was performed by individuals with varying backgrounds: three emergency physicians, an IRB member and a layperson.Results: Respondents noted that: emergency exception to informed consent studies require lengthy review; community consultation and notification regulations are vague and hard to implement; current regulations, if applied correctly, protect human subjects; legal counsel is an important aspect of reviewing exception to informed-consent protocols; and IRB members have had little or no formal training in these regulations, but are able to access materials needed to review such protocols.Conclusions: This preliminary study suggests that IRB members find emergency exception to informed consent studies take longer to review than other protocols, and that community consultation and community notification are the most difficult aspect of the regulations with which to comply but that they adequately protect human subjects. (shrink)

This study examines urban agriculture (UA) in Sacramento, California (USA), the nation's self-branded “Farm-to-Fork Capital,” in order to highlight UA’s distinct yet entangled roots. The study is based on 24 interviews with a diverse array of UA leaders, conducted as part of a five-year transdisciplinary study of UA in Sacramento. In it, we unearth three primary “taproots” of UA projects, each with its own historical legacies, normative visions, and racial dynamics. In particular, we examine UA projects with “justice taproots,” “health (...) taproots,” and “market taproots.” We use this analysis to understand how different kinds of UA projects are embedded in racial capitalism in ways that transform relationships between people, the city, and food systems. Unearthing these entangled roots helps illuminate UA’s underlying politics, showing how these roots grow in both competitive and symbiotic ways within the soil matrix of racial capitalism. We argue that these roots interact differently with racial capitalism, creating disparities in their growth trajectories. In particular, UA projects associated with the justice taproot are historically underrepresented and undervalued. However, we argue that there are some prospects for building alliances between the UA movement’s three roots, and that these are both promising and problematic. (shrink)

The aim of the present investigation was to describe and to classify significant ethical problems encountered by the members of the staff during the daily clinical work at a hospital medical department. A set of definitions was prepared for the purpose, including the definition of a 'significant ethical problem'. During a three month period 426 inpatients and 173 outpatients were admitted. Significant ethical problems were encountered during the management of 106 in-patients (25 per cent) and 9 out-patients (5 per cent). (...) No significant difference was found between the frequency of ethical problems in female and male patients, but a positive correlation was noted between the number of problems and the patients' age. The problem types were classified according to a problem list. The results of this investigation suggest that greater attention must be paid to discussions about ethical problems among doctors and other categories of health personnel and that, among others, medical students ought to be taught the analysis of ethical problems. (shrink)

This paper explores metonymical and metaphorical expressions of verbal behaviour in Chinese. While metonymy features prominently in some of these expressions and metaphor in others, the entire dataset can be best viewed as spanning the metonymy-metaphor-continuum. That is, we observe a gradation of conceptual distance between the source and target which corresponds to the gradation of figurativity. Specifically, roughly half of the expressions we encounter are based on the ORGAN OF SPEECH ARTICULATION FOR SPEECH metonymy and can be considered as (...) clustering around the metonymic pole. The other half can be seen as tending towards the metaphoric pole, as they are largely motivated by conceptual metaphors: (a) VERBAL BEHAVIOUR IS PHYSICAL ACTION, (b) SPEECH IS CONTAINER, (c) ARGUMENT IS WAR (or WORDS ARE WEAPONS) and (d) WORDS ARE FOOD. The interaction between metonymy and metaphor is an important cognitive strategy in the conceptualisation of verbal behaviour. The findings (i) evidence the gradient predictability of idiom meanings based on semantic compositionality, (ii) confirm the hypothesis of a bodily and experiential basis of cognition, (iii) suggest the existence of culture-specific models in the utilization of basic experiences, and (iv) point to the role of emotion in the metaphorisation of verbal behaviour as a socio-emotional domain. (shrink)

This article focuses on the interaction between recipes unearthed from tombs datable to the Han dynasty and the early history of the materia medica. We observed that the two medicographic media, i.e. the materia medica and the recipes, share the following logical structure: [Substance] A [produces] → [effect] B Our arrow indicates a variety of relations, which the present article tries to categorize.

Verschwindet die Religiosität in der Moderne oder ist im Gegenteil eine Rückkehr der Religionen zu verzeichnen? Das Handbuch beleuchtet die Dialektik von Säkularisierung und Revitalisierung der Religionen aus philosophischer, soziologischer und religionswissenschaftlicher Perspektive. Vorgestellt werden grundlegende Konzepte, z. B. von Durkheim, Weber, Habermas, Blumenberg und Luhmann. Der zweite Teil untersucht Begriffe wie das Böse, das Heilige, Pluralismus etc. in ihrer Bedeutung im Kontext der Säkularisierung. Abschließend geht es um Konflikte wie Glauben und Wissen, Religion und Menschenrechte oder Säkularisierung und die (...) Weltreligionen. (shrink)

In der klassischen Metaphysik war der alle speziellen Aspekte der Wirklichkeit übergreifende Gesichtspunkt der des „Seins". Dem entspricht in Puntels Buch ein Theorierahmen für das uneingeschränkte „universe of discourse". Methodisch angemessen ist ihm ein nicht-fundamentalistisches kohärentiell-reflexives Begreifen, dem sich auch die Sache selbst in eben dieser Struktur darstellt, nämlich als Beziehungseinheit von Begriff und Wirklichkeit, von Semantik und Ontologie, woraus sich sowohl eine an der Sprache orientierte Sicht der Dinge ergibt als auch eine mit dem Ganzen koextensive, also sich selbst (...) einschließende Geist-Strukur als reflexiver Maßstab allen Begreifens. Damit ist eine „prima philosophia" wiedergewonnen, die als methodisch-inhaltlicher Rahmen für das Begreifen der einzelnen Bereiche des Universums geeignet ist, nämlich der Naturphilosophie und Anthropologie, der Ethik und Ästhetik, der Geschichts- und Religionsphilosophie.In classical metaphysics, „Being" constituted the one viewpoint, which encompassed all particular aspects of reality. In Puntel's book, corresponding to this viewpoint is a theoretical framework for the unrestricted „universe of discourse." For him, a non fundamentalist comprehension of reality will be methodologically adequate, insofar as it is both coherent and reflexive. For only in and though the structure of this comprehending can the subject matter present itself as a relational unity of concept and reality, and of semantics and ontology. This structure will yield both a view of things that is linguistically orientated, as well as a mind-structure that is coextensive with the whole of reality, itself included. This mind-structure serves, then, as a reflexive criterion for all acts of comprehension. With this, the book regains a „prima philosophia," understood as a methodological and content-filled framework suitable for the comprehension of individual spheres of the universe, namely, the philosophy of nature and anthropology, ethics an aesthetics, as well as the philosophy of history and religion. (shrink)

In the face of environmental crises such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss—which all adversely impact on health—Gils-Schmidt and Salloch explore whether physicians can be justified in taking climate issues into account in clinical care.1 While their approach centres on the ‘climate-sensitive’ decisions, physicians can carry out on the micro-level of clinical decision-making, they encourage further discussions on how climate-related issues can be included across different levels of decision-making in healthcare. We propose a list of tasks and a (...) model to assist with navigating the range of factors and structural elements an environmentally sensitive ethics must address. Stephen Gardiner’s notion of a perfect moral storm is central to understanding these issues.2 Gardiner describes how a perfect moral storm occurs in the centre of three overlapping conditions for human action and policymaking in the face of climate change. This storm is driven by: (1) a lack of interest among current generations to meet global needs and accommodate the well-being of future generations, (2) a lack of ecological concerns for other parts of nature than humans and (3) weak ethical and political theories and institutions shaping policy decisions on issues with severe implications across borders and generations. Moreover, these conditions are embedded in the existing, complex world of ethically unjustified power imbalances and social injustice. The growing awareness of healthcare’s climate footprint has amplified and accelerated global, grassroots action to make healthcare more environmentally friendly. This includes incorporating environmental impacts into quality improvement methodologies, building communities of practice to explore how to make …. (shrink)

This chapter compares Lotze’s, Lipps’, and Voigtländer’s notion of feelings of self-worth in order to carve out the specific and genuine aspects of Voigtländer’s understanding of self-feeling, as developed in her dissertation. Three lines of thinking important to her approach to the constitution of self-feeling are identified. While primarily sitting on an axis that stretches from the post-romantic Lotze via the descriptive psychologist Lipps to what is later understood as phenomenological philosophy, traces of two other major traditions can be discovered (...) in her proposal: (a) romantic psychology of the unconscious as found, for instance, in C. G. Carus, and (b), Nietzsche’s genealogical psychology of value. Both these traditions would later inspire biologistic versions of German Lebensphilosophie. By relying on them, it is argued, Voigtländer’s notion of self-feeling shows affinities with those vitalist approaches that fueled racist and eugenic ideologies in National Socialism. Given this, her theory of self-feeling in her dissertation from 1910 turns out to be fairly compatible with her later engagement in the fields of eugenics and membership in the NSDAP. Although her account of self-feeling is unique and interesting, therefore, it is finally suggested that Voigtländer’s proposal should be read with due caution. (shrink)