Little previous research has examined attitudes about societal and ethical issues (SEI) among interns participating in research experience for undergraduate programs (REUs) in nanotechnology, thus neglecting an important population for understanding the burgeoning views of the next generation of nanotechnology researchers. This study surveyed a sample of interns (N = 85) participating in the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network’s (NNIN) REU program during the summer of 2012. Our questions focused on interns’ experiences with education on ethical issues, as well as their (...) attribution of responsibility for considering ethical issues, motivations to talk about ethical issues, and comfort level of discussing ethical issues with faculty, mentors, lab staff, and other REU students. Among key findings was that lab culture related to the extent to which REU interns felt comfortable discussing ethical issues. In addition, those who reported more discussions about ethical issues with their mentors were more likely to consider themselves as responsible for considering ethical issues. We conclude with recommendations and future research directions. (shrink)

In “Omnibenevolence and Eternal Damnation”, I consider whether it is consistent to hold both that God is omnibenevolent and that he infinitely punishes human beings for the commission of finite transgressions. In exploring this problem, I discuss the utilitarian and retributive notions of punishment and justice, the possible mitigating effect of forewarning, and differing conceptions of the nature of the relationship of God to human beings. My conclusion is that it is inconsistant to hold both of these beliefs.

Mass communication researchers face ethical dilemmas during the course of their work, and those dilemmas are more than the trilogy of informed consent, deception, and privacy. As part of a project for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, we surveyed members of the association's Communication Theory and Methodology Division. Researchers, in an open?ended question at the end of the survey, said their concerns about ethics in research ranged from journal publication practices to proprietary research.

Organ transplantation offers many people who suffer from organ failure a chance to live longer. The Catholic Church, which has endorsed organ donation if it is practiced in an ethically acceptable manner, requires that unpaired vital organs be donated only after the donor is certainly dead. In an effort to increase the number of viable organs, a procedure called donation after cardiac death was introduced in the 1990s. This procedure violates the Roman Catholic moral teaching on the dignity of human (...) life because it violates the dead donor rule and undermines the dignity of the dying person. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 12.1 (Spring 2012): 55–65. (shrink)

Scarce resource allocation policies vary across the United States. Little is known about regional variation in resource allocation protocols and variation in their application. We sought to evaluat...

A method is given to determine whether or not the distribution functions describing the two spin measurements in the spin-s Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment are compatible with the existence of distributions describing three spin measurements (not all of which can actually be performed). When applied to the spin-1/2 case the method gives the results of Wigner, or of Clauser, Holt, Horne, and Shimony, depending on whether or not the two-spin distributions are assumed to have the forms given by the quantum theory. Generalizations (...) of the conditions of Wigner or of Clauser et al. to the spin-1 case are explicitly calculated. The spin-3/2 case is examined in some simple geometries to show that an apparently monotonic trend toward local realism as s increases from1/2 to1 is, in fact, violated when s increases from1 to3/2. The analysis is based on a novel representation of the modulus squared of a rotation matrix element. The structure of that matrix element responsible for the restoration of local realism in the classical (large s) limit is identified, but a rigorous treatment of the classical limit is not attempted. The higher-spin results are significantly stronger than those given by Mermin's spin-s Bell inequality. (shrink)

Eye-tracking techniques were used to measure men’s attention to back-posed and front-posed images of women varying in waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). Irrespective of body pose, men rated images with a 0.7 WHR as most attractive. For back-posed images, initial visual fixations (occurring within 200 milliseconds of commencement of the eye-tracking session) most frequently involved the midriff. Numbers of fixations and dwell times throughout each of the five-second viewing sessions were greatest for the midriff and buttocks. By contrast, visual attention to front-posed (...) images (first fixations, numbers of fixations, and dwell times) mainly involved the breasts, with attention shifting more to the midriff of images with a higher WHR. This report is the first to compare men’s eye-tracking responses to back-posed and front-posed images of the female body. Results show the importance of the female midriff and of WHR upon men’s attractiveness judgments, especially when viewing back-posed images. (shrink)

This study investigates the level of awareness about funding influences and potential conflicts of interests among early career researchers. The sample for this study included users of one or more of the 14 U.S. laboratories associated with the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network. To be eligible, respondents must have been either still completing graduate work or <5 years since graduation. In total, 713 early career researchers completed the web survey, with about half still in graduate school. Results indicate that although respondents (...) were aware of potential funding and COI influences on their work, they remained largely ignorant of their role in addressing or managing these issues. Respondents often attributed the responsibility of addressing these issues to their supervisors. Respondents who had received some training around these issues, however, were more likely to assume more personal responsibility. Overall, this study points out that ignorance among early career researchers is less about awareness of funding and COI issues and more about taking personal responsibility for addressing these issues. (shrink)

Suppose you want to live a happy life. Who should you turn to for advice? We normally think that we know best about our own happiness. But recent work in psychology and neuroscience suggests that we are often mistaken about our own natures, and that sometimes scientists know us better than we know ourselves. Does this mean that to live a happy life we should ask scientists for advice rather than relying on our introspection? In what follows, we highlight ways (...) in which the science of happiness could help us live happy lives, but we also argue that, in other ways, our navel gazing will remain indispensable. (shrink)

The authors conducted a baseline survey of baccalaureate and graduate degree health humanities programs in the United States and Canada. The object of the survey was to formally assess the current state of the field, to gauge what kind of resources individual programs are receiving, and to assess their self-identified needs to become or remain programmatically sustainable, including their views on the potential benefits of program accreditation. A 56-question baseline survey was sent to 111 institutions with baccalaureate programs and 20 (...) institutions with graduate programs. Respondents were asked about three areas: (1) program administration (managing unit, paid director, faculty lines, paid staff, funding sources); (2) educational program (curricular structure, CIP code usage, completion rates); and (3) views on accreditation for the field. A clear majority of respondents agreed that some form of accreditation or consultation service could address resource and sustainability issues. Overall, the survey responses to staffing, curricular structure, and support suggest the need for developing a sustainable infrastructure for health humanities. (shrink)

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a form of life support for cardiac and/or pulmonary failure with unique ethical challenges compared to other forms of life support. Ethical challenges with ECMO exist when conventional standards of care apply, and are exacerbated during periods of absolute ECMO scarcity when “crisis standards of care” are instituted. When conventional standards of care apply, we propose that it is ethically permissible to withhold placing patients on ECMO for reasons of technical futility or when patients have (...) terminal, short-term prognoses that are untreatable by ECMO. Under crisis standards of care, it is ethically permissible to broaden exclusionary criteria to also withhold ECMO from patients who have a low likelihood of recovery, to maximize the overall number of lives saved. Unilateral withdrawal of ECMO against a patient’s preferences is unethical under conventional standards of care, but is ethical under crisis standards of care to increase access to ECMO to others in society. ECMO should only be rationed when true scarcity exists, and allocation protocols should be transparent to the public. When rationing must occur under crisis standards of care, it is imperative that oversight bodies assess for inequities in the allocation of ECMO and make frequent changes to improve any inequities. (shrink)

The ability to quickly and accurately recognise emotional states is adaptive for numerous social functions. Although body movements are a potentially crucial cue for inferring emotions, few studies have studied the perception of body movements made in naturalistic emotional states. The current research focuses on the use of body movement information in the perception of fear expressed by targets in a virtual heights paradigm. Across three studies, participants made judgments about the emotional states of others based on motion-capture body movement (...) recordings of those individuals actively engaged in walking a virtual plank at ground-level or 80 stories above a city street. Results indicated that participants were reliably able to differentiate between height and non-height conditions (Studies 1 & 2), were more likely to spontaneously describe target behaviour in the height condition as fearful (Study 2) and their fear estimates were highly calibrated with the fear ratings from the targets (Studies 1-3). Findings show that VR height scenarios can induce fearful behaviour and that people can perceive fear in minimal representations of body movement. (shrink)

Irrelevant emotional stimuli often capture attention, disrupting ongoing cognitive processes. In two experiments, we examined whether availability of rewards can prevent...

Recent studies have shown that self‐explanation is an effective metacognitive strategy, but how can it be leveraged to improve students' learning in actual classrooms? How do instructional treatments that emphasizes self‐explanation affect students' learning, as compared to other instructional treatments? We investigated whether self‐explanation can be scaffolded effectively in a classroom environment using a Cognitive Tutor, which is intelligent instructional software that supports guided learning by doing. In two classroom experiments, we found that students who explained their steps during problem‐solving (...) practice with a Cognitive Tutor learned with greater understanding compared to students who did not explain steps. The explainers better explained their solutions steps and were more successful on transfer problems. We interpret these results as follows: By engaging in explanation, students acquired better‐integrated visual and verbal declarative knowledge and acquired less shallow procedural knowledge. The research demonstrates that the benefits of self‐explanation can be achieved in a relatively simple computer‐based approach that scales well for classroom use. (shrink)

Children and adolescents with an intellectual disability and autistic traits often attend special needs schools where they are surrounded by peers with diverse characteristics. Given the role that peers can play in social development, we examined whether autistic traits development in students with ID and high levels of such characteristics are influenced by the level of autistic traits among the schoolmates they like most. Furthermore, we investigated the degree to which this peer influence susceptibility depends on students’ gender. A longitudinal (...) design, with data collection points at the beginning and the end of a school year, was used. Staff reported on 330 students with high levels of autistic traits who attended 142 classrooms in 16 Swiss special needs schools. Results showed that students’ future individual level of autistic traits was not predicted by the autistic traits level of preferred peers, controlling for individual autistic traits at T1, level of general functioning, gender, and age. However, the peer effect was significantly moderated by students’ gender, indicating that girls but not boys were susceptible to peer influence. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for understanding autistic traits development and directions of support for children and adolescents in their peer context. (shrink)

Foundation models such as GPT-4 are fine-tuned to avoid unsafe or otherwise problematic behavior, so that, for example, they refuse to comply with requests for help with committing crimes or with producing racist text. One approach to fine-tuning, called reinforcement learning from human feedback, learns from humans' expressed preferences over multiple outputs. Another approach is constitutional AI, in which the input from humans is a list of high-level principles. But how do we deal with potentially diverging input from humans? How (...) can we aggregate the input into consistent data about "collective" preferences or otherwise use it to make collective choices about model behavior? In this paper, we argue that the field of social choice is well positioned to address these questions, and we discuss ways forward for this agenda, drawing on discussions in a recent workshop on Social Choice for AI Ethics and Safety held in Berkeley, CA, USA in December 2023. (shrink)

Background: Dementia care at home often involves decisions in which the caregiver must weigh safety concerns with respect for autonomy. These dilemmas can lead to situations where caregivers provide care against the will of persons living with dementia, referred to as involuntary treatment. To prevent this, insight is needed into how family caregivers of persons living with dementia deal with care situations that can lead to involuntary treatment. Objective: To identify and describe family caregivers’ experiences regarding care decisions for situations (...) that can lead to involuntary treatment use in persons living with dementia at home. Research design: A qualitative descriptive interview design. Data were analysed using the Qualitative Analysis Guide of Leuven. Participants and research context: A total of 10 family caregivers providing care for 13 persons living with dementia participated in in-depth semi-structured interviews. Participants were recruited by registered nurses via purposive sampling. Ethical consideration: The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University Hospitals Leuven and the Medical Ethical Test Committee Zuyderland. Findings: Family caregivers experience the decision-making process concerning care dilemmas that can lead to involuntary treatment as complicated, stressful and exhausting. Although they consider safety and autonomy as important values, they struggle with finding the right balance between them. Due to the progressive and unpredictable nature of dementia, they are constantly seeking solutions while they adapt to new situations. Family caregivers feel responsible and experience social pressure for the safety of persons living with dementia. They may be blamed if something adverse happens to the persons living with dementia, which increases an already stressful situation. Their experience is influenced by characteristics of the care triad such as practical and emotional support, knowledge, and previous experiences. Discussion and conclusion: To prevent involuntary treatment, professionals need to proactively inform family caregivers, and they need to support each other in dealing with complex care situations. (shrink)

The field of moral psychology has been confined to the study of social morality, resulting in a nearly exclusive focus on the primary other-regarding virtue of justice. It is argued that an understanding of personal morality, with its concern with self-regarding virtues and the dynamics of intimate relationships, is needed to complement this approach. The importance of personal morality issues to moral psychology is foreshadowed in C. Gilligan's caring ethic. This article expands on Gilligan's schematic portrayal to provide a more (...) complete theoretical understanding of personal morality. Social and personal morality are contrasted to highlight their differences and interrelatedness. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Abstract:Rorty in private exchanges and public discourse occasionally gave me remarkably bad advice (e.g., in teaching pragmatism, especially to undergrads, it is better to focus on James and Dewey to the exclusion of Peirce). He however was far better than this. As a philosopher preoccupied with meta-philosophy and intimately linked to this with issues of justification, he displayed reflexive finesse unsurpassed by any of his contemporaries. As someone who identified with James and Dewey even more than Marx, Freud, Foucault, and (...) Derrida, he was animated by a pragmatic imagination oriented to the ongoing task of reconstructing the democratic ethos of our daily lives. Chris Voparil has made a painstaking and responsible case for taking the thought of Rorty to be continuous with that of Peirce, James, Dewey, and Addams. It is far from clear that the path forward requires us to go through, rather than ‘round, Rorty; but it is one possible route. Moreover, even if Voparil in the end offers a “weak misreading” of a “strong misreader,” he offers an engaging, erudite, and illuminating portrait of a controversial figure. (shrink)

THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN FREEDOM is one of the central and recurring issues of philosophy. Kant considered it to be at the heart of his own philosophy, the "keystone," as he called it, of the whole architecture of his system of pure reason, both of practical reason as well as of speculative reason. However, the notorious difficulties of interpreting Kant's philosophy in general, and his doctrine of freedom in particular, have made most of Kant's accomplishments in this area relatively inaccessible (...) to contemporary philosophers. In this paper I will discuss the problem of human freedom from a Kantian perspective and will make use of some of what I consider to be Kant's most significant analyses and arguments. It is not my intention to try to preserve, illuminate, or render consistent everything which Kant said about freedom; such an endeavor would probably be in vain. I do, however, want to pay him the respect of believing that there is much that is worth preserving in what he says about freedom, and that is, with a modest amount of reconstruction, quite relevant to the way many of us think about the problem of freedom today. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article offers a critique of a deeply engrained tendency to narrate the story of American pragmatism exclusively or primarily in terms of modern European philosophy. While it suggests alternative stories, it is principally a metanarrative, an intentionally polemical story about our entrenched habits of philosophical storytelling. Indeed, the pragmatics of storytelling merits, especially in reference to historical accounts of American pragmatism, critical attention. The seemingly simple question, “What are we doing when we tell the story of this movement (...) in this manner rather than that?” is a truly important one. It is also an avowedly pragmatic question. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article offers a critique of a deeply engrained tendency to narrate the story of American pragmatism exclusively or primarily in terms of modern European philosophy. While it suggests alternative stories, it is principally a metanarrative, an intentionally polemical story about our entrenched habits of philosophical storytelling. Indeed, the pragmatics of storytelling merits, especially in reference to historical accounts of American pragmatism, critical attention. The seemingly simple question, “What are we doing when we tell the story of this movement (...) in this manner rather than that?” is a truly important one. It is also an avowedly pragmatic question. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article elaborates a deceptively simple suggestion made by Hegel. It relates Hegel's suggestion above all to Dewey's stress on looking back, looking around, and looking ahead. In this endeavor the article touches upon two seemingly contradictory facets of philosophical thought—the autonomy and heteronomy of such thought. To a greater extent, however, the article focuses on the dramatic character of philosophical efforts to think things over, once again. The drive to think things over is frequently rooted in historical crises, (...) in experiential conflicts. The actuality of philosophy cannot be adequately understood apart from such dramas and conflicts, ones taking place far outside the studies and classrooms of thinkers. (shrink)