Although for the last 50 years, ethicists dealing with human experimentation have focused primarily on the need to protect individual research subjects and vulnerable groups, biomedical research, especially in genetics, now requires the establishment of standards for the protection of communities. We have developed such a strategy, based on five steps. (i) Identification of community characteristics relevant to the biomedical research setting, (ii) delineation of a typology of different types of communities using these characteristics, (iii) determination of the range of (...) possible community protections, (iv) creation of connections between particular protections and one or more community characteristics necessary for its implementation, and (v) synthesis of community characteristics and possible protections to define protections appropriate for each type of community. Depending on the particular community, consent and consultation, consultation alone, or no added protections may be required for research. (shrink)

Initial responses to questionnaires used to assess participants' understanding of informed consent for malaria vaccine trials conducted in the United States and Mali were tallied. Total scores were analyzed by age, sex, literacy (if known), and location. Ninety-two percent (92%) of answers by United States participants and 85% of answers by Malian participants were correct. Questions more likely to be answered incorrectly in Mali related to risk, and to the type of vaccine. For adult participants, independent predictors of higher scores (...) were younger age and female sex in the United States, and male sex in Mali. Scores in the United States were higher than in Mali (P = 0.005). Despite this difference participants at both sites were well informed overall. Although interpretation must be qualified because questionnaires were not intended as research tools and were not standardized among sites, these results do not support concerns about systematic low understanding among research participants in developing versus developed countries. (shrink)

In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, such as health care system strain and stress, as well as (...) economic destruction. It proposes proceeding in three phases: the first addresses premature death, the second long-term health issues and economic harms, and the third aims to contain viral transmission fully and restore pre-pandemic activity. -/- To those who may deem an ethical framework irrelevant because of the belief that many countries will pursue "vaccine nationalism," we argue such a framework still has broad relevance. Reasonable national partiality would permit countries to focus on vaccine distribution within their borders up until the rate of transmission is below 1, at which point there would not be sufficient vaccine-preventable harm to justify retaining a vaccine. When a government reaches the limit of national partiality, it should release vaccines for other countries. -/- We also argue against two other recent proposals. Distributing a vaccine proportional to a country's population mistakenly assumes that equality requires treating differently situated countries identically. Prioritizing countries according to the number of front-line health care workers, the proportion of the population over 65, and the number of people with comorbidities within each country may exacerbate disadvantage and end up giving the vaccine in large part to wealthy nations. (shrink)

Initial vaccine allocations for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) will be limited. It is crucial to assess the ethical values associated with different methods of allocation, as well as important scientific and practical questions. This Viewpoint identifies three ethical values, benefiting people and limiting harm; prioritizing disadvantaged populations; and equal concern for all. It then explains why these values support prioritizing three groups: health care workers; other essential workers and people in high-transmission settings; and people with medical vulnerabilities associated with (...) poorer COVID-19 outcomes. In contrast, two other groups, people over 65 without medical vulnerabilities and participants in clinical research, present more complex ethical questions. This prioritization also encompasses valuing direct benefits to vaccinated individuals, indirect benefits to individuals protected from spread of infection, and indirect health and socioeconomic benefits to those protected from harm as health system and societal functioning improve. Vaccine allocation that recognizes important ethical values and avoids arbitrariness, waste, and corruption can ensure that the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine is both fair and perceived as fair. (shrink)

Para Unamuno, que concibe al catedrático como un “fraguador de doctrinas”, la asignatura universitaria, ubicada en las antípodas de su concepción en la enseñanza secundaria, debería ser una expresión de una “ciencia viva” o in fieri, y no un repositorio de conocimientos. Con dicha toma de posición, el rector salmantino terminó por oponerse a la ciencia oficial y al dogma científico a favor de una enseñanza de procedimientos. El presente trabajo procura recuperar dicha concepción de asignatura, intentando desvelarla en sus (...) varias dimensiones con vistas a aportar al espacio de la reflexión pedagógica contemporánea las sui generis ideas educativas unamunianas que, por su densidad y sentido, permiten enfocar la asignatura académica no como un espacio de mera instrucción, sino como un momento de investigación de “hipótesis y utopías”. Utilizaremos como metodología de investigación la lectura, el análisis y el comentario del texto unamuniano, cuya contextualización filosófica, educativa e histórica se hace a partir de la oposición que el autor mantiene, dentro de su obra, hacia la pedagogía escolástica, presente en la universidad de su época en la figura del profesor/lector. La gran propuesta unamuniana es, pues, la de que docente y estudiante pierdan sus características clásicas, que les definen como un “templo del saber” y un “botijo vacío”, respectivamente, a favor de una concepción más adaptada a los nuevos tiempos académicos, en que el perenne desarrollo científico y cultural hace obsoletos los contenidos asimilados ayer. (shrink)

La misión educativa del maestro, del profesor de primeras letras, fue uno de los temas pedagógicos al que Unamuno, el insigne rector de la Universidad de Salamanca, más páginas de análisis y reflexión dedicó a lo largo de su producción ensayística. El presente artículo, centrado en dicho tema, procura desvelar la concepción unamuniana del maestro, en cuanto a su misión de promover la formación de una concepción unitaria del saber en sus alumnos. Para nuestro autor, la fragmentación del saber era (...) un grave error educativo al que había que combatir con vehemencia. En contra de dicha fragmentación, propuso, inspirado en su formación romántica, una visión holista e integrada de los saberes impartidos en clase a partir de la cosmovisión étnica del pueblo español (intrahistoria). No pudiendo haber educaciones ideológicamente neutrales, sólo el trasfondo espiritual de la comunidad patria a la que el alumno pertenece podría unificar el saber escolar que tendría siempre que ser consustancial al espíritu del propio pueblo (Volksgeist) en cuanto expresión individualizada del alma de la propia humanidad (Allgeist). Y es aquí donde se hace sentir la educación de talante nacionalista propuesta por Unamuno, siendo cierto que lo nacional en el autor es siempre concebido como puerta para lo universal. (shrink)

En este estudio, que intenta analizar la relación que Unamuno mantuvo con las pedagogías vigentes en España a finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, procuraremos determinar los aspectos que han alejado al insigne rector salmantino de los métodos pedagógicos de los jesuitas (emulación), de la escolástica (retórica) y de las Escuelas del Avemaría (juego), que, como es bien sabido, han estructurado la enseñanza en España durante el susodicho período. Pero, más allá de su enfoque histórico, este estudio permitirá (...) también la comprensión filosófica de lo que es la educación, y la tarea de educar, que, según su peculiar visión pedagógica, debe estructurarse bajo un horizonte espiritual, donde profesor y alumno se han de concebir como padre e hijo en espíritu. Unamuno, al definir de este modo los agentes del acto educativo, terminó por determinar la formación ético normativa de la persona como telos pedagógico por excelencia de la escuela. No nos extraña, pues, que don Miguel se haya alejado del ideal educativo alemán (Fachmann), el del doctor especialista, a favor del ideal educativo inglés (Gentleman), que ha aceptado sin reservas como eje filosófico de su pensamiento educativo. (shrink)

We’re grateful for the thoughtful and incisive commentaries on our article, “Ethical Responsibilities for Companies that Process Personal Data” (McCoy et al. 2023). In the article, we propose the E...

Introduction , Sophie Gibb 1. Mental Causation , John Heil 2. Physical Realization without Preemption , Sydney Shoemaker 3. Mental Causation in the Physical World , Peter Menzies 4. Mental Causation: Ontology and Patterns of Variation , Paul Noordhof 5. Causation is Macroscopic but not Irreducible , David Papineau 6. Substance Causation, Powers, and Human Agency , E. J. Lowe 7. Agent Causation in a Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics , Jonathan D. Jacobs and Timothy O’Connor 8. Mental Causation and Double Prevention , (...) Sophie Gibb 9. The Identity Theory as a Solution to the Exclusion Problem , David Robb 10. Continuant Causation, Fundamentality, and Freedom , Peter Simons 11. There is no Exclusion Problem , Steinvor Tholl Arnadottir and Tim Crane. (shrink)

One currently popular methodology of metaphysics has it that ‘intuitions’ play an evidential role with respect to metaphysical claims. This chapter defends a realist methodology of metaphysics that implies that any rational being, simply in virtue of being rational, is necessarily capable of grasping the essences of at least some mind-independent entities. The notion of essence in play here is Aristotelian, whereby an entity’s essence is captured by an account of what that entity is, or what it is to be (...) that entity. Concepts are just ways of thinking of things and, as such, may or may not be adequate to the real natures — the essences — of the things being thought of. Our ‘intuitions’, particularly as revealed by aptly constructed thought experiments, may cast interesting light on some of our concepts, but they are not and cannot be reliable guides to mind-independent truths of essence. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Syntax and Semantics of Complex Sortal Terms On the Identity of Sorts.

The relations between reason, motivation and value present problems which, though ancient, remain intractable. If values are objective and rational how can they move us and if they are dependent on our contingent desires how can they be rational? E. J. Bond makes a bold attack on this dilemma. The widespread view among philosophers today is that judgements contain an irreducible element of personal commitment. To this Professor Bond proposes an account of values as objective and value judgements as true (...) or false, employing a distinction between grounding and motivating reasons to establish their connection with action. He defines and tests his position against a number of recent theories, providing in the process forceful criticism of Williams, Wiggins, Foot, Narveson and Nagel, among others. A distinctive contribution to the subject, it will stimulate interest and worthwhile debate among philosophers, while also serving as an introduction to this vital topic. (shrink)

As thinkers in the market for knowledge and agents aspiring to morally responsible action, we are inevitably subject to luck. This book presents a comprehensive new theory of luck in light of a critical appraisal of the literature's leading accounts, then brings this new theory to bear on issues in the theory of knowledge and philosophy of action.

本书的论文展示了这位伟大的历史学家对研究历史的重要性热情洋溢的信念,以及深邃的分析、论说的广度和独到的见解,这些足以令他名至实归。.

Luck looms large in numerous different philosophical subfields. Unfortunately, work focused exclusively on the nature of luck is in short supply on the contemporary analytic scene. In his highly impressive recent book Epistemic Luck, Duncan Pritchard helps rectify this neglect by presenting a partial account of luck that he uses to illuminate various ways luck can figure in cognition. In this paper, I critically evaluate both Pritchard’s account of luck and another account to which Pritchard’s discussion draws our attention—viz., that (...) due to Nicholas Rescher. I also assess some novel analyses of luck that incorporate plausible elements of Pritchard’s and Rescher’s accounts. (shrink)

In “The Nature of the Atonement”, Eleonore Stump explores the problem of human sin that the atonement is meant to solve, helpfully uncovering important adequacy conditions for theories of atonement. She then uses those conditions to critically evaluate Anselmian and Thomistic theories of atonement, arguing (among many other interesting things) that the Thomist has a leg up on the Anselmian when it comes to the atonement-motivating problem of human sin (pp.11-12 of ms.). I argue for two claims in what follows. (...) First, Stump’s two seemingly independent “further problems” for theorists of atonement (discussed in the penultimate section of her paper) in fact reduce to a single challenge, which suggests a strategy for future theorizing about the atonement. Second, Stump’s case that the Thomist outperforms the Anselmian on the problem of human sin is weaker than it initially appears. As we’ll see, Stump’s own account of shame implies that the Anselmian’s difficulties on this front are less serious than she thinks. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Varieties of ‘Is’ Individuals, Kinds, and Realism Semantics, Metaphysics, and Necessity New Developments.

This chapter contains sections titled: Appendix: An Axiomatic System of Sortal Logic.

This chapter contains sections titled: Matter and Organisms Organisms and Persons Is There a Criterion of Personal Identity?