An influential approach to engineering ethics is based on codes of ethics and the application of moral principles by individual practitioners. However, to better understand the ethical problems of complex technological systems and the moral reasoning involved in such contexts, we need other tools as well. In this article, we consider the role of imagination and develop a concept of distributed responsibility in order to capture a broader range of human abilities and dimensions of moral responsibility. We show that in (...) the case of Snorre A, a near-disaster with an oil and gas production installation, imagination played a crucial and morally relevant role in how the crew coped with the crisis. For example, we discuss the role of scenarios and images in the moral reasoning and discussion of the platform crew in coping with the crisis. Moreover, we argue that responsibility for increased system vulnerability, turning an undesired event into a near-disaster, should not be ascribed exclusively, for example to individual engineers alone, but should be understood as distributed between various actors, levels and times. We conclude that both managers and engineers need imagination to transcend their disciplinary perspectives in order to improve the robustness of their organisations and to be better prepared for crisis situations. We recommend that education and training programmes should be transformed accordingly. (shrink)

Wearing facial masks became a common practice worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated (1) whether facial masks that cover adult faces affect 4- to 6-year-old children’s recognition of emotions in those faces and (2) whether the duration of children’s exposure to masks is associated with emotion recognition. We tested children from Switzerland (N = 38) and Brazil (N = 41). Brazil represented longer mask exposure due to a stricter mandate during COVID-19. Children had to choose a face displaying (...) a specific emotion (happy, angry, or sad) when the face wore either no cover, a facial mask, or sunglasses. The longer hours of mask exposure were associated with better emotion recognition. Controlling for the hours of exposure, children were less likely to recognise emotions in partially hideen faces. Moreover, Brazilian children were more accurate in recognising happy faces than Swiss children. Overall, facial masks may negatively impact children’s emotion recognition. However, prolonged exposure appears to buffer the lack of facial cues from the nose and mouth. In conclusion, restricting facial cues due to masks may impair kindergarten children’s emotion recognition in the short run. However, it may facilitate their broader reading of facial emotional cues in the long run. (shrink)

Background The global pandemic raised ethical issues for nurses about caring for all patients, not just those with COVID-19. Italy was the first European country to be seriously affected by the first wave, while Estonia’s infection and death rates were among the lowest in Europe. Did this raise different ethical issues for nurses in these two countries as well? Aim The aim was to describe and compare ethical issues between nurses working during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in (...) Estonia and Italy. Research design A cross-sectional survey study with a self-administered questionnaire. The impact of COVID- 19 emergency on nursing care questionnaire was used. Participants and research context Convenience sampling was used to recruit 1098 nurses working during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020: 162 from Estonia and 936 from Italy. Ethical considerations Research ethics approvals were obtained, and the nurses provided informed consent. Results The most frequent ethical issues for Estonian nurses were professional communication and ensuring access to care for patients without COVID-19, and for Italian nurses, the end-of-life care and the risk of them getting the virus and transmitting it to their loved ones. There were no statistically significant differences in the frequency of ethical issues between Estonian nurses working with patients with and without COVID-19. Italian nurses caring for COVID-19 patients faced statistically significantly more (both p <.001) issues around prioritising patients and end-of-life. Nurses working with patients without COVID-19 in Italy faced more issues about access to care ( p <.001). Conclusions Estonian and Italian nurses, working in different clinical contexts during the first wave of the pandemic, faced different ethical issues. Local contextual aspects need to be considered to support nurses’ ethical decision-making in providing care during future crises and to ensure ethical care for patients. (shrink)

John Gerring's exceptional textbook has been thoroughly revised in this second edition. It offers a one-volume introduction to social science methodology relevant to the disciplines of anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology and sociology. This new edition has been extensively developed with the introduction of new material and a thorough treatment of essential elements such as conceptualization, measurement, causality and research design. It is written for students, long-time practitioners and methodologists and covers both qualitative and quantitative methods. It synthesizes the (...) vast and diverse field of methodology in a way that is clear, concise and comprehensive. While offering a handy overview of the subject, the book is also an argument about how we should conceptualize methodological problems. Thinking about methodology through this lens provides a new framework for understanding work in the social sciences. (shrink)

Violence metaphors for cancer can have undesirable implications. The metaphorical expression “She lost her battle with cancer,” for instance, is deemed inappropriate by some because of the implicit...

There is an increasing call for preventive state interventions in so-called families at risk—that is, interventions before any overt harm has been done by parents to their children or by the children to a third party, in families that are statistically known to be liable to harm children. One of the basic principles of liberal morality, however, is the citizen's right to be free from state intervention so long as no demonstrable harm has been done. On the other hand, Joel (...) Feinberg interprets the harm principle as a harm prevention principle, so that the risk of harm also might be a reason for interference. The question that needs to be asked, therefore, is whether enforced preventive intervention in the cases where families are judged to be at risk can be justified within the limits of liberalism. (shrink)

In this article we take up Burtonwood's criticism of our view that liberal states should, under certain conditions, fund denominational schools. We not only reject his plea for the accommodation of strong faith schools by liberalism but also criticise his portrayal of the character of the conflict between liberals and strong faith school advocates. Arguing that liberalism is not part of the diversity of goods, we maintain that liberals and strong faith school advocates should not be seen as competing on (...) the same playing field. Rather, liberalism transcends the battleground both by enabling and conditioning the competition between adherents of rival conceptions of the good. (shrink)

Texto extracto de la Introducción del libro de Ger Groot. Adelante, ¡contradígame! Filosofía en conversación. Madrid, Sequitur, 2008. Ger Groot es profesor de filosofía en la Erasmus Universiteit de Rotterdam y colaborador de filosofía en publicaciones como NRC Handelsblad y De Groene Amsterdammer . En este libro presenta las conversaciones que el autor ha tenido con dieciocho personalidades de la filosofía contemporánea, y gira alrededor de los temas que más interesan a sus interlocutores. Ofrecemos un avance de esta edición a (...) través del texto que compone la introducción de este libro. (shrink)

This paper summarizes paired courses, a technique that is being used to incorporate the benefits of liberal arts into the business curriculum. This technique pairs a required business course with a liberal arts course that students take concurrently during a semester. The courses have overlapping themes and activities to build specific competencies that are desired by organizations, such as communication, critical thinking and problem solving, emotional intelligence, and organizational professionalism. These competencies are identified by exploring national surveys and conducting a (...) local survey of business professionals. The paired courses utilize a variety of exercises with the ultimate goals of building desired workplace-related skills in students and improving their practical reasoning ability. The exercises do this by strengthening students’ analytical thinking, understanding of multiple framing, and reflective exploration of meaning through various techniques. Many of the activities are explained in detail with some additional resources provided. Teachers can utilize the same activities or adapt them to their classroom. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno—philosopher, cultural critic, sociologist, and music theorist—was one of the most important German intellectuals of the twentieth century. This concise, readable life is the first attempt to look at his philosophical and literary work in its essential political context. Central to Adorno’s intellectual development were his musical training, his father’s Jewish roots, and the rise of National Socialism in Germany, which forced him to emigrate to the United States. While in exile, he and Max Horkheimer wrote Dialectic of (...) Enlightenment, a bold attempt to illuminate the dark side of modernity, and on his own Adorno wrote a series of connected essays on the “culture industry”—his indictment of mass culture. A co-founder of the famous Frankfurt School, Adorno returned to head it after the war, assuming a key role in the intellectual life of postwar West Germany until his untimely death in 1969. Ja;ger’s biography sheds new light on many aspects of Adorno’s life and writings and on his relationships with such figures as Paul Celan, Bertolt Brecht, and Walter Benjamin. (shrink)

Atheïstisch-filosofische poging tot begrip van de relevantie en continuering van christelijke religiositeit in een moderne en seculiere Europese cultuur.

" Pour moi, la figure humaine, le corps humain n'ont pas plus d'importance que des clés ou des vélos. C'est vrai. Ce sont pour moi des objets valables plastiquement et à disposer suivant mon choix. On doit reconnaître que les traditions picturales qui nous précèdent - la figure et le paysage - sont lourdes d'influences. [...] Il a fallu, pour y voir clair, que l'artiste moderne se détache de cette emprise sentimentale. Nous avons franchi cet obstacle : l'objet a remplacé (...) le sujet, l'art abstrait est venu comme une libération totale, et on a pu alors considérer la figure humaine non comme une valeur sentimentale mais uniquement comme une valeur plastique. Voilà pourquoi dans l'évolution de mon œuvre, de 1905 à maintenant, la figure humaine reste volontairement inexpressive. ". (shrink)

Essays, written between 1920 and 1953, by an influential, modern painter on the purpose of art in modern life.

There is an increasing call for preventive state interventions in so-called families at risk—that is, interventions before any overt harm has been done by parents to their children or by the children to a third party, in families that are statistically known to be liable to harm children. One of the basic principles of liberal morality, however, is the citizen’s right to be free from state intervention so long as no demonstrable harm has been done. On the other hand, Joel (...) Feinberg interprets the harm principle as a harm prevention principle, so that the risk of harm also might be a reason for interference. The question that needs to be asked, therefore, is whether enforced preventive intervention in the cases where families are judged to be at risk can be justified within the limits of liberalism. (shrink)

Among the items in his legacy, the Florentine philosopher and humanist Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) left an extensive collection of Latin letters, which illustrate his studies and how he viewed himself as a teacher and counselor of princes. This book provides an introduction to this letter collection, analyzing selected letters with reference to the roles adopted by the author and his literary strategies.

Die Buchreihe "Philosopische Anthropologie" wird mit einem Band eröffnet, der die Philosophische Anthropologie im Streit vorstellt. Geführt wird dieser Streit um das Paradigma der Philosophischen Anthropologie und um ihre Methoden im Unterschied sowohl zu anderen Philosophien als auch zu den verschiedenen Erfahrungswissenschaften. Ihre Grenzbestimmungen und Grenzübergänge finden schließlich anhand ausgewählter Themen eine exemplarische Erprobung.

This volume honours the life and work of Solomon Feferman, one of the most prominent mathematical logicians of the latter half of the 20th century. In the collection of essays presented here, researchers examine Feferman’s work on mathematical as well as specific methodological and philosophical issues that tie into mathematics. Feferman’s work was largely based in mathematical logic, but also branched out into methodological and philosophical issues, making it well known beyond the borders of the mathematics community. With regard to (...) methodological issues, Feferman supported concrete projects. On the one hand, these projects calibrate the proof theoretic strength of subsystems of analysis and set theory and provide ways of overcoming the limitations imposed by Gödel’s incompleteness theorems through appropriate conceptual expansions. On the other, they seek to identify novel axiomatic foundations for mathematical practice, truth theories, and category theory. In his philosophical research, Feferman explored questions such as “What is logic?” and proposed particular positions regarding the foundations of mathematics including, for example, his “conceptual structuralism.” The contributing authors of the volume examine all of the above issues. Their papers are accompanied by an autobiography presented by Feferman that reflects on the evolution and intellectual contexts of his work. The contributing authors critically examine Feferman’s work and, in part, actively expand on his concrete mathematical projects. The volume illuminates Feferman’s distinctive work and, in the process, provides an enlightening perspective on the foundations of mathematics and logic. (shrink)

Background: Biomedical science is producing an avalanche of data about risk factors, often with a small predictive value, associated with a broad diversity of diseases. Prevention and screening are increasingly moving from public health into the clinic. Therefore, the question of which risk factors to investigate and disclose in the individual patient, becomes ethically increasingly urgent. In line with Wilson and Jungner's public health-related 10 principles for screening, it seems crucial to distinguish important from unimportant health risks.Aim: to explore the (...) ways in which clinicians distinguish important from unimportant health risks.Methods: We interviewed 36 respondents (gastroenterologists and gynaecologists/obstetrics) in 5 focus group interviews and 15 open in-depth interviews on their interpretation of what makes a health risk important.Results: Physicians primarily interpreted importance as the severity of the possible harm, less often its probability. Possibilities of prevention or reassurance strongly influenced their judgment on importance.Discussion: It is not likely that interpreting ‘important’ as ‘severe’ will help in differentiating meaningful from meaningless risk knowledge. A more fundamental change in our ways of dealing with risk may be called for. We discuss existing literature on resilience as an alternative way to deal with risk. Balancing prevention and risk reduction with resilience could be a fruitful direction. (shrink)

In this article we take up Burtonwood’s criticism of our view that liberal states should, under certain conditions, fund denominational schools. We not only reject his plea for the accommodation of strong faith schools by liberalism but also criticise his portrayal of the character of the conflict between liberals and strong faith school advocates. Arguing that liberalism is not part of the diversity of goods, we maintain that liberals and strong faith school advocates should not be seen as competing on (...) the same playing field. Rather, liberalism transcends the battleground both by enabling and conditioning the competition between adherents of rival conceptions of the good. (shrink)

Die Methode der Dialektik im modernen Sinne stammt von Hegel. Woher aber hat er diese Methode bezogen? Die nachfolgende Theorie heisst: Hegel logisiert das trinitarische Geheimnis Gottes (Mythos) und stilisiert dieses zur Weltformel, die fur Marx bis Marcuse und Sartre gleichermassen verbindlich ist.".