This article tackles the current deficit in the supply of cadaveric organs by addressing the family veto in organ donation. The authors believe that the family veto matters—ethically as well as practically—and that policies that completely disregard the views of the family in this decision are likely to be counterproductive. Instead, this paper proposes to engage directly with the most important reasons why families often object to the removal of the organs of a loved one who has signed up to (...) the donor registry—notably a failure to understand fully and deliberate on the information and a reluctance to deal with this sort of decision at an emotionally distressing time. To accommodate these concerns it is proposed to separate radically the process of information, deliberation and agreement about the harvesting of a potential donor's organs from the event of death and bereavement through a scheme of advance commitment. This paper briefly sets out the proposal and discusses in some detail its design as well as what is believed to be the main advantages compared with the leading alternatives. (shrink)

In this paper we re-examine Hugh LaFollette's proposal that the state carefully determine the eligibility and suitability of prospective parents before granting them a ?license to parent?. Assuming a prima facie case for licensing parents grounded in our duty to promote the welfare of the child, we offer several considerations that complicate LaFollette's radical proposal. We suggest that LaFollette can only escape these problems by revising his proposal in a way that renders the license effectively obsolete, a route he implicitly (...) adopts in his recent revisiting of the licensing proposal. We conclude that there is little merit in the idea of licensing ?natural? parents as a practical policy proposal, and raise some questions about its continued use in relation to adoptive and foster parents. (shrink)

A basic income is typically defined as an individual’s entitlement to receive a regular payment as a right, independent of other sources of income, employment or willingness to work, or living situation. In this article, we examine what it means for the state to institute a right to basic income. The normative literature on basic income has developed numerous arguments in support of basic income as an inextricable component of a just social order, but there exists little analysis about basic (...) income within a jurisprudential or philosophical rights perspective. In our view, strong reasons of either a principled or a pragmatic nature in support of instituting a basic income scheme nevertheless often fall short of ascribing to basic income a distinctive Hohfeldian rights status. This article aims to partially redress this gap by examining two sets of questions. First, what are the implications – ethical and practical – of adopting basic income as a legal right as opposed to a mere policy? Second, we also enquire whether there should be such a right: what, if anything, is the ethical foundation that warrants granting basic income a distinctive legal rights status? This article suggests that any such foundation must be grounded in comparative evaluation and discusses several comparative strategies available to basic income advocates. The aim of this article is not to offer a definite argument in favor of a legal right to basic income, but to chart several lines of argument that a rights perspective might add to the contemporary discussion. (shrink)

Childhood looms large in our understanding of human life as it is a phase through which all adults have passed. Childhood is foundational to the development of selfhood, the formation of interests, values and skills and to the lifespan as a whole. Understanding what it is like to be a child, and what differences childhood makes, are essential for any broader understanding of the human condition. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is an outstanding reference source (...) to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into five parts: ¿ Being a child ¿ Childhood and moral status ¿ Parents and children ¿ Children in society ¿ Children and the state. Questions covered include: What is a child? Is childhood a uniquely valuable state, and if so why? Can we generalize about the goods of childhood? What rights do children have, and are they different from adults¿ rights? What gives people a right to parent? What role, if any, ought biology to play in determining who has the right to parent a particular child? What kind of rights can parents legitimately exercise over their children? What roles do relationships with siblings and friends play in the shaping of childhoods? How should we think about sexuality and disabilility in childhood, and about racialised children? How should society manage the education of children, and what values should inform such practices? What is a good school? How are children¿s lives affected by being taken into social care? The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of childhood, political philosophy and ethics as well as those in related disciplines such as education, psychology, sociology, social policy, law, social work, youth work, neuroscience and anthropology. (shrink)

Advocates of altruism maintain that altruism is an inherently beneficial and, therefore, morally desirable motivational disposition towards furthering other people's good. In this essay I dispute this claim by showing various ways in which altruism might come into conflict with plausible moral demands. The underlying problem is always one of moral myopia, an altruistic blind spot that interferes with altruism's capacity to track moral demands. To resolve the moral dilemmas associated with altruism, I argue, we need to embed altruistic dispositions (...) in a more comprehensive moral framework. I propose that a theory of impartiality might succeed in embedding altruism in way that avoids the problems outlined in this essay, in addition to allowing room for altruistic motivations to play a genuine part. The main purpose of this essay is to draw attention to the complexities associated with the moral assessment of altruistic acts and choices. (shrink)

Philippe Van Parijs’s ethical justification of basic income is based on the argument that job resources must be shared equally. Underlying this idea are two important claims: (1) all individuals in society hold an ex. ante entitlement in job resources and (2) job resources are tradable: First, I present the real-libertarian argument for sharing job resources. Next, I identify and critically review three different objections against this view: the liability objection, the cooperation objection and the parasitism objection. I believe the (...) parasitism objection poses a serious challenge to basic income, and argue that Van Parijs’s most plausible response-based on the idea that job resources are socially owned-is flawed. I provide the outline of an alternative normative basis for grounding a person's ex ante entitlement to job resources using an institutionalist approach. (shrink)

This paper focuses on an emergency basic income as a tool for avoiding financial insecurity during the time of pandemic. The authors argue that paying each resident a monthly cash amount for the duration of the crisis would serve to protect them from the economic fallout.They suggest three reasons why the EBI proposal is particularly well-suited to play an important role in a comprehensive public health response to COVID-19: it offers an immediate and agile response; it prioritizes the most vulnerable (...) in the affected population; and it promotes a solidaristic response to the pandemic crisis. To go beyond the need to shut down and restart an EBI assistance scheme each time a pandemic hits, the authors propose considering turning the program into a permanent feature. (shrink)

This volume brings together a range of theoretical responses to issues in Irish politics. Its organising ideas: recognition, equality, and democracy set the terms of political debate within both jurisdictions. For some, there are significant tensions between the grammar of recognition, concerned with esteem, respect and the symbolic aspects of social life, and the logic of equality, which is primarily concerned with the distribution of material resources and formal opportunities, while for others, tensions are produced rather by certain interpretations of (...) these ideas while alternative readings may, by contrast, serve as the basis for a systematic account of social and political inequality. The essays in this collection will explore these interconnections with reference to the politics of Northern Ireland and the Republic. The Republic has gone through a period in which its constitution was the focus for a liberal politics aimed at securing personal autonomy, while Northern Ireland’s political landscape has been shaped by the problem of securing political autonomy and democratic legitimacy. While the papers address key questions facing each particular polity, the issues themselves have resonances for politics on each side of the border. (shrink)

This book is an anthology of some of the most influential research on basic income in the period of roughly 1960-2010.

Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research presents a compilation of six decades of Basic Income literature. It includes the most influential empirical research and theoretical arguments on all aspects of the Basic Income proposal. -/- Includes six decades of the most influential literature on Basic Income Includes unpublished and hard-to-find articles The first major compendium on one of the most innovative political reform proposals of our age Explores multidisciplinary views of Basic Income, with philosophical, economic, political, and sociological views (...) Features contributions from key and well-known philosophers and economists, including Atkinson, Simon, Friedman, Fromm, Gorz, Offe, Rawls, Pettit, Van Parijs, and more Presents the best theoretical and empirical arguments for and against Basic Income -/- . (shrink)

We develop a framework for assessing security market quality, relating five elements of market design to three metrics of market integrity and two metrics of market efficiency. We empirically implement this integrity–efficiency MQ framework by testing a hypothesis that trade-based ramping manipulation at the close raises execution costs on 24 security markets worldwide. Estimating a simultaneous equations model of ramping incidence, spreads, and the probability of deploying real-time surveillance, we show that quoted bid-ask spreads are positively related to the incidence (...) of MTC across seven liquidity deciles. The magnitude is economically significant; improving market integrity by cutting MTC in half reduces spreads 6–11 %. Allowing direct market access in conjunction with RTS, conducting auctions at the close, and developing regulations that require surveillance, all reduce MTC and thereby lower spreads, assuring better market integrity and enhancing market efficiency. Introducing circuit breakers or prohibiting shorts poses integrity–efficiency tradeoffs. (shrink)

Advanced practice nursing is an expanding field within many healthcare environments around the world. The scope and particular focus of an advanced practice nurse’s role is highly variable and thus the ethical challenges they face are equally diverse. Yet, the dominant existing ethics pedagogies used in the nursing context have been described as not fit-for-purpose. Existing pedagogies do not adequately prepare APN candidates to meet the ethical challenges they will encounter in practice. Applying an arts-based pedagogy in ethics education for (...) advanced practice nurses has the capacity to provide effective ethics learning. This article reports on the value of a multidisciplinary pedagogy used in a graduate course in nursing leadership, law and ethics for advanced practice at an Australian university. Written in a multidisciplinary mode that allies with the pedagogy it presents, it addresses the key pedagogical challenges and opportunities of teaching ethics through an innovative arts-based pedagogy centred upon the changing depictions of the human person in works of art housed in a major state-funded art gallery. (shrink)

Advanced practice nursing is an expanding field within many healthcare environments around the world. The scope and particular focus of an advanced practice nurse’s role is highly variable and thus the ethical challenges they face are equally diverse. Yet, the dominant existing ethics pedagogies used in the nursing context have been described as not fit-for-purpose. Existing pedagogies do not adequately prepare APN candidates to meet the ethical challenges they will encounter in practice. Applying an arts-based pedagogy in ethics education for (...) advanced practice nurses has the capacity to provide effective ethics learning. This article reports on the value of a multidisciplinary pedagogy used in a graduate course in nursing leadership, law and ethics for advanced practice at an Australian university. Written in a multidisciplinary mode that allies with the pedagogy it presents, it addresses the key pedagogical challenges and opportunities of teaching ethics through an innovative arts-based pedagogy centred upon the changing depictions of the human person in works of art housed in a major state-funded art gallery. (shrink)

Advanced practice nursing is an expanding field within many healthcare environments around the world. The scope and particular focus of an advanced practice nurse’s role is highly variable and thus the ethical challenges they face are equally diverse. Yet, the dominant existing ethics pedagogies used in the nursing context have been described as not fit-for-purpose. Existing pedagogies do not adequately prepare APN candidates to meet the ethical challenges they will encounter in practice. Applying an arts-based pedagogy in ethics education for (...) advanced practice nurses has the capacity to provide effective ethics learning. This article reports on the value of a multidisciplinary pedagogy used in a graduate course in nursing leadership, law and ethics for advanced practice at an Australian university. Written in a multidisciplinary mode that allies with the pedagogy it presents, it addresses the key pedagogical challenges and opportunities of teaching ethics through an innovative arts-based pedagogy centred upon the changing depictions of the human person in works of art housed in a major state-funded art gallery. (shrink)

After having defined the KARO logic for specifying intelligent agents in earlier work we now turn to the question how to realise agents specified in the KARO framework. To this end we look at agent programming languages that we have defined, and investigate how programs in these languages can be linked to the KARO logic.

The cell assembly as a simple attractor cannot explain many cognitive phenomena. It must be a highly structured network that can sustain highly structured excitation patterns. Moreover, a cell assembly must be more widely distributed in space than on a square millimeter.