With a large number of forcibly displaced people seeking safety, the EU is facing a challenge in maintaining solidarity. Europe has seen millions of asylum seekers crossing European borders, the largest number of asylum seekers since the second world war. Endemic diseases and often failing health systems in their countries of origin, and arduous conditions during transit, raise questions around how to meet the health needs of this vulnerable population on arrival in terms of screening, vaccination, and access to timely (...) and appropriate statutory health services. This paper explores the potential role of the principle of reciprocity, defined as the disposition ‘to return good in proportion to the good we receive, and to make reparations for the harm we have done’, as a mid-level principle in infectious disease screening policies. More than half of the European countries implemented screening programmes for newly arrived asylum seekers. Screening may serve to avoid potential infectious disease risks in the receiving countries as well as help identify health needs of asylum seekers. But screening may infringe upon basic rights of those screened, thus creating an ethical dilemma. The use of the principle of reciprocity can contribute to the identification of potential improvements for current screening programmes and emphasizes the importance of certain rights into guidelines for screening. It may create a two way moral obligation, upon asylum seekers to actively participate in the programme, and upon authorities to reciprocate the asylum seekers’ participation and the benefits for the control of public health. The authors argue that the reciprocity principle leads to a stronger ethical justification of screening programmes and help achieve a balance between justifiable rights claims of the host population and the asylum seekers. The principle deserves a further and more thorough exploration of its potential use in the field of screening, migration and infectious diseases. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Edward Wilmot Blyden and Alexander Crummell James Africanus Beale Horton John Mensah Sarbah and Joseph Casely Hayford.

PurposeThe aim of the research described was to identify reasons for differences between discourses on electronic voting in the UK and The Netherlands, from a qualitative point of view.Design/methodology/approachFrom both countries, eight e‐voting experts were interviewed on their expectations, risk estimations, cooperation and learning experiences. The design was based on the theory of strategic niche management. A qualitative analysis of the data was performed to refine the main variables and identify connections.FindingsThe results show that differences in these variables can partly (...) explain the variations in the embedding of e‐voting in the two countries, from a qualitative point of view. Key differences include the goals of introducing e‐voting, concerns in relation to verifiability and authenticity, the role of the Electoral Commissions and a focus on learning versus a focus on phased introduction.Research limitations/implicationsThe current study was limited to two countries. More empirical data can reveal other relevant subvariables, and contribute to a framework that can improve our understanding of the challenges of electronic voting.Originality/valueThis study shows the context‐dependent character of discussions on information security. It can be informative for actors involved in e‐voting in the UK and The Netherlands, and other countries using or considering electronic voting. (shrink)

Essays on key moments in the intellectual history of the West This book forms a major contribution to the discussion on fate, providence and moral responsibility in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Early Modern times. Through 37 original papers, renowned scholars from many different countries, as well as a number of young and promising researchers, write the history of the philosophical problems of freedom and determinism since its origins in pre-socratic philosophy up to the seventeenth century. The main focus points (...) are classic Antiquity (Plato and Aristotle), the Neoplatonic synthesis of late Antiquity (Plotinus, Proclus, Simplicius), and thirteenth-century scholasticism (Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent). They do not only represent key moments in the intellectual history of the West, but are also the central figures and periods to which Carlos Steel, the dedicatary of this volume, has devoted his philosophical career. (shrink)

During the past three decades the Utrecht scholar Jaap Mansfeld has built up a formidable reputation in the field of the history of ancient philosophy. This state-of-the-art collection of articles is presented to him by colleagues and friends on his sixtieth birthday.

In der Reihe werden herausragende monographische Untersuchungen und Sammelbände zu allen Aspekten der Philosophie Kants veröffentlicht, ebenso zum systematischen Verhältnis seiner Philosophie zu anderen philosophischen Ansätzen in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Veröffentlicht werden Studien, die einen innovativen Charakter haben und ausdrückliche Desiderate der Forschung erfüllen. Die Publikationen repräsentieren damit den aktuellsten Stand der Forschung.

Purpose This study aims to explore how the public perceives the effectiveness of surveillance technology, and how people’s views on privacy and their views on effectiveness are related. Likewise, it looks at the relation between perceptions of effectiveness and opinions on the acceptable cost of surveillance technology. Design/methodology/approach For this study, surveys of Dutch students and their parents were conducted over three consecutive years. Findings A key finding of this paper is that the public does not engage in a trade-off (...) neither with regard to privacy-effectiveness nor with effectiveness-cost, but rather expects all three elements to be achieved simultaneously. This paper also found that the correlation between perceived effectiveness and perceived privacy was stronger for parents than for students. Research limitations/implications Participants for this study were exclusively in The Netherlands. Survey questions on the effectiveness of surveillance technology focused on one type of technology, and on private mobile device use in two scenarios. Social implications The public’s perceptions of the effectiveness of surveillance technology potentially influence its acceptance of the technology, which, in turn, can affect the legitimacy and use of the technology. Originality/value Within the much-discussed privacy-security debate lies a less-heard debate – that of the effectiveness of the surveillance technology in question. The public is one actor in this debate. This study examines the public’s perceptions of this less-heard debate. (shrink)

In this paper, we describe the conceptual elusiveness of the notion of function as used in engineering practice. We argue that it should be accepted as an ambiguous notion, and then review philosophical argumentations in which engineering functions occur in order to identify the consequences of this ambiguity. Function is a key notion in engineering, yet is used by engineers systematically in a variety of meanings. First, we demonstrate that this ambiguous use is rational for engineers by considering the role (...) of functions in design methods and by analysing the ambiguity in terms of Kuhn’s notion of methodological incommensurability. Second, we discuss ontological and mereological analyses of engineering functions and describe a proof that subfunctions cannot formally be taken as parts of the functions they decompose. Engineering functions figure sometimes in philosophical work and are then typically taken as having an unambiguous, well-defined meaning. Finally, we therefore revisit work in philosophy of technology on the dual nature of technical artefacts, in philosophy of science on functional and mechanistic explanations, and in philosophy of biology on biological functions, and explore the consequences of the fact that engineering function is an ambiguous notion. It is argued that one of these consequences may be that also the notion of biological function has an ambiguous meaning. (shrink)

One of the older questions in the debate about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is whether it is worthwhile for organizations to pay attention to societal demands. This debate was emotionally, normatively, and ideologically loaded. Up to the present, this question has been an important trigger for empirical research in CSR. However, the answer to the question has apparently not been found yet, at least that is what many researchers state. This apparent ambivalence in CSR consequences invites a literature study that (...) can clarify the debate and allow for the drawing of conclusions. The results of the literature study performed here reveal that there is indeed clear empirical evidence for a positive correlation between corporate social and financial performance. Voices that state the opposite refer to out-dated material. Since the beginnings of the CSR debate, societies have changed. We can therefore clearly state that, for the present Western society, “Good Ethics is Good Business.”. (shrink)

Information is a recognized fundamental notion across the sciences and humanities, which is crucial to understanding physical computation, communication, and human cognition. The Philosophy of Information brings together the most important perspectives on information. It includes major technical approaches, while also setting out the historical backgrounds of information as well as its contemporary role in many academic fields. Also, special unifying topics are high-lighted that play across many fields, while we also aim at identifying relevant themes for philosophical reflection. There (...) is no established area yet of Philosophy of Information, and this Handbook can help shape one, making sure it is well grounded in scientific expertise. As a side benefit, a book like this can facilitate contacts and collaboration among diverse academic milieus sharing a common interest in information. . First overview of the formal and technical issues involved in the philosophy of information . Integrated presentation of major mathematical approaches to information, form computer science, information theory, and logic . Interdisciplinary themes across the traditional boundaries of natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. (shrink)

In "Off Track" art and philosophy are the inspiration to look differently at daily life and organizations. The book is a plea to approach the complexity of the current world with new metaphors. The author calls this "hinking around". She sees that in "square worlds" there is a need for tools to approach entrenched patterns and systems differently and to get thought processes moving. Sarai van de Boel challenges the reader to look at one's own systems from the inside with (...) a philosophical approach. In eight chapters there are eight "tracks" to follow, but it is also possible to go off the rails. More than fifty works of art by well-known and lesser-known artists and designers play a role in these traces. The author questions the essence of their works and asks philosophical questions about phenomena they evoke. With Marlene Dumas, Marinus Boezem, L.A. Raeven, Ed Atkins, Wong Ping, Kazumasa Nagai, Remy Jungerman, Otto Piene, Eiko Ishioka, Campana brothers, Ann Demeulemeester and Kara Walker. The book ends with the Art & Philosophy Strategy, a theoretical framework for the use of art and philosophy. (shrink)

This article represents the genre of auto-ethnographic, autobiographical research. It consists of questions which evoke narrative responses because the questions register a life story in itself. Pieter G.R. de Villiers is the interpellator and Andries G. van Aarde the respondent. They are long-standing friends and both professors of New Testament studies. De Villiers is presently the editor at LitNet Academic (Religious Studies), and Van Aarde is the editor of HTS Theological Studies. Since 1990, De Villiers has been Executive Director (...) of the Centre for Christian Spirituality and Ethics and has been a Research Fellow and Professor Extraordinarius in Biblical Spirituality at the Department of Old and New Testament Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of the Free State (since 2001).Contribution: The article reflects a conversation between Andries G. van Aarde and Pieter G.R. de Villiers. It contributes to an understanding of contemporary South African church history, including the protest by academics in Afrikaans ecclesial circles against apartheid and gender injustice. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPrevious research has shown that the presentation of valenced information about a target stimulus sometimes has different effects on implicit and explicit stimulus evaluations. Importantly,...

An important challenge for actors in economic exchange relations concerns dealing with the aftermath of unethical behavior and the violation of trust that such transgressions entail. As transgressions in these relations often result in financial harm for one party, a common restorative approach consists of the transgressor paying a financial compensation to the victim; either voluntarily, or following coercion by a third party (cf. litigation). In the present article, we studied the impact of financial compensations on victims' trust towards the (...) transgressor and examined whether the size of the compensation is relevant to this process. In contrast to out-come-based models in game theory, we predicted that whether larger compensations foster more trust, depends on whether the compensation is provided voluntarily or not. Experimental data from a trust game supported our hypothesis by showing that larger compensations only lead to more trust when the transgressor provided the compensation voluntarily, whereas compensation size had no effect when the transgressor was forced by a third party. (shrink)

The body plays an important role in the book of Job - as do animals. According to psychoanalytical specifically object-relations theory, a subjective body image was partly constructed through the internalisation of external stimuli from significant others who mirrored the subject through their feedback or through their own bodies, which served as an ideal or critique to the subject. Amongst the external stimuli, animals constitute such significant others. Animals could therefore have impacted Job's subjective body image, particularly as their bodies (...) were described in detail by God as a response to Job's complaints and searching. CONTRIBUTION: Two theoretical and interrelated problems were acknowledged although they cannot be satisfactorily solved: the cultural aspect of the body image and the relationship to animals. (shrink)

This study is about the mouth and its parts in the book of Job on the one hand, and on psychic introjection on the other, even when these two aspects do not completely overlap. The dominance of the mouth and orality in this biblical book speaks for its symbolic and psychic implications, including dependency and depression, but also symbolisation and empathy, where psychic digestion is resymbolising what has been desymbolised by trauma. The hypothesis is therefore that the mouth plays a (...) crucial role in the process of mourning in the Book of Job. Contribution: Interdisciplinary research into biblical texts from the perspective of psychoanalytic literary criticism adds to the broader horizons within which these texts can be analysed and interpreted. Within this frame, the focus on the mouth continues and promotes the Bodies Studies movement, which has been blossoming for over 40 years. (shrink)

In the past decades, computers have become more and more involved in society by the rise of ubiquitous systems, increasing the number of interactions between humans and IT systems. At the same time, the technology itself is getting more complex, enabling devices to act in a way that previously only humans could, based on developments in the fields of both robotics and artificial intelligence. This results in a situation in which many autonomous, intelligent and context-aware systems are involved in decisions (...) that affect their environment. These relations between people, machines, and decisions can take many different forms, but thus far, a systematic account of machine-assisted moral decisions is lacking. This paper investigates the concept of machine-assisted moral decisions from the perspective of technological mediation. It is argued that modern machines do not only have morality in the sense of mediating the actions of humans, but that, by making their own decisions within their relations with humans, mediate morality itself. A classification is proposed to differentiate between four different types of moral relations. The moral aspects within the decisions these systems make are combined into three dimensions that describe the distinct characteristics of different types of moral mediation by machines. Based on this classification, specific guidelines for moral behavior can be provided for these systems. (shrink)

It would seem that there has been a growing concern about the body during the composition of the Hebrew Bible, just as the body has awakened in the mind of the humanities during the last three to four decades in Western culture. Parallel to that has been a growing interest in psychological understanding often linked to the wisdom writings, and now again when the historical–critical approach has shown its limitations. The aim of psychoanalysing the body image of Job has several (...) advantages: it allows the recipient to sense the body of the protagonist and so penetrate into the core of the narrative. Moreover, psychological sense can be made of the deeper meanings underlying certain body parts, which play a particularly important role for Job. In such a way, a network of subtexts can be accessed. This study will trace the image of Job’s body in the mind of the external world around him but more so in his own internal reality as depicted by the text. This will then constitute a body image which shifts amongst the characters and as the narrative develops. The clusters of attention imply the relations between the body parts in Job’s mind and suggest the tensions of his still unintegrated body image. (shrink)

(1996). Korte Notities Over Het Godsbegrip Bij Grieken En Romeinen En De Vergoddelijking Van Jezus in Het Nieuwe Testament. Bijdragen: Vol. 57, No. 2, pp. 149-157.

Plants belonging to the genus Salsola (Family: Chenopodiaceae) are common in the arid and semiarid regions of our planet with no less than 69 different Salsola species found in Namibia and the Republic of South Africa. This genus is used as a traditional medicine and aqueous extracts of Salsola have been used by Bushmen women as an oral contraceptive. Ingestion of the Namibian shrub Salsola tuberculatiformis Botsch. by pregnant Karakul sheep leads to prolonged gestation and fetal post‐maturity and, as a (...) result, the pelts of the new‐born karakul lambs are worthless. This initiated an investigation into the active agents in the plant, using the terminal enzyme in adrenal corticosteroidogenesis, cytochrome P450‐dependent 11β‐hydroxylase (P450c11), as a bioassay. Although the active fraction, S2, was extremely labile, partial structure determination suggested the presence of synephrine and a highly reactive aziridine. Therefore a more stable analogue, 2‐(4‐acetoxyphenyl)2‐chloro‐N‐methylethylammonium‐chloride (compound A), was synthesised, which, like the active plant extracts, inhibited adrenal steroidogenesis and acted as a contraceptive. In addition, compound A was stabilised by interaction with steroid‐binding globulins in plasma thus enhancing biological activity in vivo. These findings provided explanations for the complex biological effects of the shrub as well as a new insight into the mode of action of chemically labile plant products in vivo. BioEssays 25:612–619, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In this essay an attempt will be made to trace the origins and history of the accusation that Jews are cannibals. Its origins go back much further into history than most people know, and for that reason it is this aspect of our topic that will receive the most attention. At the same time, it will be demonstrated that this anti-Jewish myth has an unprecedented tenacity, since it is still readily believed in by millions up until the present day. Part (...) I: Antiquity1Frist Encounters The encounters between Jews, on the one hand, and Greeks and Romans, on the.. (shrink)

Compared with other biblical books that are named after its main protagonist, Job mentions many (at least 72) body parts. Yet hair is explicitly referred to only once, even when it plays a relatively significant role in other books in the Hebrew Bible. This virtual absence of hair in the book can at first glance be explained by the shaving of Job's 'head' as early as 1:20, using a different verb, •••, from the one in Leviticus 13:33 and 14:8.9, •–•, (...) where the context is that of —’—’–’—, wrongly translated as 'leprosy', but probably referring to the same skin problem from which Job is suffering. This connection to the skin is important, because the two body parts seem to be almost mutually exclusive, as also suggested by 1:21 immediately after the aforementioned shaving, where Job considers himself to be essentially –’—’– [naked]. This means that hair has, amongst other functions, also a clothing-like role in the book of Job. Three questions will hence be explored: how 'absence' is to be psychoanalytically interpreted and more specifically, what consequences all of this has on the virtual absence of hair in the Book of Job and, finally, what relevance this absence has for the South African context. CONTRIBUTION: Applying a psychoanalytical perspective to both the body and to absence, the biblical text is contextualised on a broader horizon than what the purely historical-critical approach can render. The additional African context widens the relevance of the ancient book even further. (shrink)

The 5 lamentations, when read as a single biblical book, outline several interacting bodies in a similar way that dotted lines present the silhouettes and aspects of a total picture. Each also represents action, building into a plot that can be interpreted psychoanalytically to render its depth and colour content. In addition, by focusing on the body and its sensations, this study can facilitate the visceral experience of the suffering of collective and individual bodies by the recipient.

Job’s body is ‘portrayed’ in a text that can be nothing more than audible. Compared with the eyes of Job (mentioned 49 times explicitly), his ears (mentioned 13 times, i.e., four times less than his eyes, perhaps because his ears are less visible) play a much more subtle role, underlying even his final confession in 42:5-6, where it seems/sounds that his eyes gave him (only) his final in-‘sight’. That leaves the impression that his ears give him access to the second-hand (...) testimony of tradition but his eyes to his own, personal experience. The hypothesis of this study is that a psychoanalytical perspective can give additional meaning to this polarity and cooperation of the senses for both the main character and recipient of the book of Job in that Job’s (in)sight depends on the foundation of the aural experience, even the musical experience.Contribution: A psychoanalytical perspective adds to the breadth and depth of insight gained from studying the role of the sensory experience in the narrative about the psychic and spiritual development of the protagonist in the Book of Job. (shrink)

In this review, we provide an overview of the dynamic changes within the microbiota and its metabolites that are implicated in establishing and maintaining gastrointestinal homeostasis during various stages of microbial colonization. The gradual conversion of the gut microbiota toward a mutualistic microbial community involves replacement of pioneer gut colonizers with bacterial taxa that are characteristic for the adult gut. An important microbial signature of homeostasis in the adult gut is the prevalence and activity of a diverse spectrum of bacterial (...) species that produce beneficial metabolites through metabolic interactions between microbial groups. Deciphering these microbial signatures and their metabolites that govern short and long‐term equilibrium, as well as imbalances in host‐microbial relationships, may provide novel diagnostic tools and/or therapeutic targets for specific disorders associated with intestinal dysbiosis and loss of homeostasis. (shrink)