Citizen science is touted as a means of making science more inclusive and democratic. However, when citizens are drawn from societies with significant socioeconomic and racial disparities, citizen...

The revelation that menstruation tracking apps share sensitive data with third parties, like Facebook, provoked a sense of violation among users. This case highlights the need to address ethics and governance of health data created outside of traditional healthcare contexts. Commodifying health data breaches trust and entails health and moral risks. Through the metaphor of The Wizard of Oz, we argue that these apps approximate healthcare without the professional competency, fiduciary duties, legal protections and liabilities such care requires and thus (...) represent an innovation in the annals of snake-oil salesmanship and the systematic devaluing of women’s bodies, lives, and work. (shrink)

El objeto de este artículo es tratar el tema del fin último o felicidad en la ética de Aritótles, y específicamente en la Ética a Nicómaco, pero distinguiéndolo en tres temas que no deben confundirse: el fin de la política como disciplina arquitectónica, el fin de la vida humana buena y la felicidad. Aunque estos dos fines y la felicidad, según Aristóteles, son lo mismo, podría decirse, usando una expresión muy suya, que “su esencia no es lo misma”. El tratamiento (...) separado de estos aspectos puede clarificar más de una confusión u oscuridad, y su articulación, una vez distinguidos, permite ordenar los principales temas generales de la ética aristotélica. (shrink)

In this article, we apply the literature on the ethics of choice-architecture (nudges) to the realm of virtual reality (VR) to point out ethical problems with using VR for empathy-based nudging. Specifically, we argue that VR simulations aiming to enhance empathic understanding of others via perspective-taking will almost always be unethical to develop or deploy. We argue that VR-based empathy enhancement not only faces traditional ethical concerns about nudge (autonomy, welfare, transparency), but also a variant of the semantic variance problem (...) that arises for intersectional perspective-taking. VR empathy simulations deceive and manipulate their users about their experiences. Despite their often laudable goals, such simulations confront significant ethical challenges. In light of these goals and challenges, we conclude by proposing that VR designers shift from designing simulations aimed at producing empathic perspective-taking to designing simulations aimed at generating sympathy. These simulations, we claim, can avoid the most serious ethical issues associated with VR nudges, semantic variance, and intersectionality. (shrink)

Health equity can be defined as the absence of disadvantage to individuals and communities in health outcomes, access to health care, and quality of health care regardless of one’s race, gender, nationality, age, ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic status. Health equity concerns those disparities in public health that can be traced to unequal, systemic economic, and social conditions. Despite significant improvements in the health of the overall population, health inequities in America persist. Racial and ethnic minorities continue to experience higher rates (...) of morbidity and mortality than non-minorities across a range of health issues. For example, African-American children with asthma have a seven times greater mortality rate than Non-Hispanic white children with the illness. While cancer is the second leading cause of death among all populations in the U.S., ethnic minorities are especially burdened with the disease. (shrink)

Health equity can be defined as the absence of disadvantage to individuals and communities in health outcomes, access to health care, and quality of health care regardless of one’s race, gender, nationality, age, ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic status. Health equity concerns those disparities in public health that can be traced to unequal, systemic economic, and social conditions. Despite significant improvements in the health of the overall population, health inequities in America persist. Racial and ethnic minorities continue to experience higher rates (...) of morbidity and mortality than non-minorities across a range of health issues. For example, African-American children with asthma have a seven times greater mortality rate than Non-Hispanic white children with the illness. While cancer is the second leading cause of death among all populations in the U.S., ethnic minorities are especially burdened with the disease. (shrink)

This essay interrogates the common assumption that good care is necessarily human care. It looks to disruptive fictional representations of robot care to assist its development of a theory of posthuman care that jettisons the implied anthropocentrism of ethics of care philosophy but retains care’s foregrounding of entanglement, embodiment and obligation. The essay reads speculative representations of robot care, particularly the Swedish television programme Äkta människor (Real Humans), alongside ethics of care philosophy and critical posthumanism to highlight their synergetic critiques (...) of neoliberal affective economies and humanist hierarchies that treat some bodies and affects as more real than others. These texts and discourses assist me in proposing a theory of care that regards vulnerability as the normative effect of posthuman vital embodiment, as opposed to an anomalous state that can be overcome or corrected via neoliberal practice. (shrink)

Lifestyle refers to a set of personal and group behaviours related to normative and semantic aspects of social life. Any coherent set of behavioural patterns derived from religious teachings that exist in life can be considered a religious lifestyle. Considering that the dominant religion in Jordan is Islam, the present study focused on the Islamic lifestyle. In addition, given that the correct relationship between couples has been compared to life-giving blood in marriage, and since the quality of marital role plays (...) a determining role, the existence of communication skills in any of the couples can generate satisfaction and compatibility, whereas lack of awareness of these skills could cause misunderstandings and tension. Therefore, the current study aims to study the role of the Islamic lifestyle in communication skills of 250 Muslim couples of Jordan (Amman, Zarqa and Irbid) in 2022. Data were collected using questionnaires during four months, and the validity and reliability was confirmed. In addition, data analysis was performed in Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) using mean tests and structural equation modelling. According to the results, Islamic lifestyle had a positive, significant effect on the improvement of communication skills in Muslim couples in Jordan (P-value: 0.76; T-value: 7.92). Therefore, it is recommended that more attention should be paid to this issue by families, researchers and cultural authorities in the country.Contribution: Our findings revealed that Islamic lifestyle improved communication skills in Muslim couples, which demands special attention. By adhering to the Islamic lifestyle, couples can influence each other’s knowledge, emotions, education and growth, and try to have a realistic understanding of each other’s desires, needs, living environment and perceptions that each has in life issues. Furthermore, they can organise their role in the common life in appropriate ways to prevent problems and solve them in the event of problems. (shrink)

Boghossian’s (2003) proposal to conditionalize concepts as a way to secure their legitimacy in disputable cases applies well, not just to pejoratives – on whose account Boghossian first proposed it – but also to thick ethical concepts. It actually has important advantages when dealing with some worries raised by the application of thick ethical terms, and the truth and facticity of corresponding statements. In this paper, I will try to show, however, that thick ethical concepts present a specific case, whose (...) analysis requires a somewhat different reconstruction from that which Boghossian offers. A proper account of thick ethical concepts should be able to explain how ‘evaluated’ and ‘evaluation’ are connected. (shrink)

The present paper deals with the ontological status of numbers and considers Frege ́s proposal in Grundlagen upon the background of the Post-Kantian semantic turn in analytical philosophy. Through a more systematic study of his philosophical premises, it comes to unearth a first level paradox that would unset earlier still than it was exposed by Russell. It then studies an alternative path, that departin1g from Frege’s initial premises, drives to a conception of numbers as synthetic a priori in a more (...) Kantian sense. On this basis, it tentatively explores a possible derivation of basic logical rules on their behalf, suggesting a more rudimentary basis to inferential thinking, which supports reconsidering the difference between logical thinking and AI. Finally, it reflects upon the contributions of this approach to the problem of the a priori. (shrink)

Cet article met en lumière la réception du Talmud parmi les érudits parisiens chrétiens entre 1140, avec la rédaction du Adversus judaeorum de Pierre le Vénérable, et 1248, la condamnation officielle par Eudes de Châteauroux. Avec la création des universités au XIIe siècle, la curiosité intellectuelle et la soif de savoir dirigent les théologiens chrétiens vers des textes non plus uniquement bibliques, mais aussi rabbiniques. Simultanément, la présence de l’Église et son orthodoxie doctrinale se renforcent, avec un désir encore plus (...) fort d’encadrer ses fidèles. Le XIIIe siècle est l’époque d’une série de condamnations de thèses chrétiennes par l’Église pour prévenir la propagation d’erreurs dogmatiques. Avec Pierre le Vénérable, nous voyons pour la première fois un théologien chrétien s’attarder sur les textes talmudiques. Ce n’est véritablement qu’un siècle plus tard que le Talmud se fait connaître par les savants chrétiens, après que Nicolas Donin, juif converti au christianisme, informe Grégoire IX des erreurs blasphématoires à l’encontre de Dieu et du christianisme contenues dans ce livre. Une fois examiné, le Talmud est condamné 1240, puis solennellement en 1248 par l’autorité parisienne, soutenue par des enregistrements méticuleux, intitulés Extractiones de Talmut. (shrink)

English interpretations, appropriations, and transpositions of the figure of Don Quixote play a pivotal role in eighteenth-century constructions of so-called English national character. A corpus of quixotic narratives worked to reinforce the centrality of Don Quixote and the practice of quixotism in the national literary landscape. They stressed the man from La Mancha’s eccentricity and melancholy in ways inextricable from English self-constructions of these traits.2 This is why Stuart Tave is able to write that eighteenth-century Britons could “recast” Don Quixote (...) in a fashion that followed “national pride” in the “freedom” of their humors.1 However, Don Quixote’s integral place in patriotic self-constructions was troubled by gender. While national character was construed as masculine by default, quixotism’s association with masculinity was complicated by the potential passive penetrability of quixotism and the proliferation of narratives about female quixotic readers. This essay will analyze these tensions. Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742) and Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1759–67) are key examples of quixotic texts that respond to the figure of the female quixote by interrogating the relationship between Englishness, masculinity, and quixotism. (shrink)

This essay considers the ways in which graphic caregiving memoirs complicate the idealizing tendencies of ethics of care philosophy. The medium’s “capacious” layering of words, images, temporalities, and perspectives produces “productive tensions... The words and images entwine, but never synthesize”. In graphic memoirs about care, this “capaciousness” allows for quick oscillation between the rewards and struggles of care work, representing ambiguous, even ambivalent attitudes toward care. Graphic memoirs effectively represent multiple perspectives without synthesis, part of a structural and thematic ambivalence (...) that provides a provocative counterpart to the abstract idealism of ethics of care philosophy. (shrink)

Morally speaking, what should one do when one is morally uncertain? Call this the Moral Uncertainty Question. In this paper, I argue that a non-ideal moral theory provides the best answer to the Moral Uncertainty Question. I begin by arguing for a strong ought-implies-can principle---morally ought implies agentially can---and use that principle to clarify the structure of a compelling non-ideal moral theory. I then describe the ways in which one's moral uncertainty affects one's moral prescriptions: moral uncertainty constrains the set (...) of moral prescriptions one is subject to, and at the same time generates new non-ideal moral reasons for action. I end by surveying the problems that plague alternative answers to the Moral Uncertainty Question, and show that my preferred answer avoids most of those problems. (shrink)

Several philosophers have recently argued that decision-theoretic frameworks for rational choice under risk fail to provide prescriptions for choice in cases of moral uncertainty. They conclude that there are no rational norms that are “sensitive” to a decision-maker's moral uncertainty. But in this paper, I argue that one sometimes has a rational obligation to take one's moral uncertainty into account in the course of moral deliberation. I first provide positive motivation for the view that one's moral beliefs can affect what (...) it's rational for one to choose. I then address the problem of value comparison, according to which one cannot determine the expected moral value of one's actions. I argue that we should not infer from the problem of value comparison that there are no rational norms governing choice under moral uncertainty. (shrink)

Woody Allen’s uneasy relationship with organized religions, as represented in his entire work, has often drawn accusations of atheism and ethnic self-hatred, just as his personal behavior, as represented in the media, has stirred a series of allegations of immorality. However, Woody Allen’s exploration of religion, faith, and morality is far more complex and epitomizes the experience of modern man, living in a disenchanted universe. While most scholars focused on discussing the provocative debates over faith and religion in Woody Allen’s (...) films, the main purpose of this paper is to investigate what underlies Woody Allen’s obsessive preoccupation with the existence of divinity, as expressed in that part of his work which received little critical attention, namely his short fiction. The purpose of such an analysis is not to clear Woody Allen’s vexed reputation, but to understand the relevance of his individual ideology for the religious and moral conundrums of modern man. The corpus selected for this analysis consists of a series of relevant short stories and essays published in the 1991 edition of The Complete Prose of Woody Allen , a volume which gathers the texts published in three other short story collections. (shrink)

Placing Bruno—both advanced philosopher and magician burned at the stake—in the Hermetic tradition, Yates's acclaimed study gives an overview not only of Renaissance humanism but of its interplay—and conflict—with magic and occult practices. "Among those who have explored the intellectual world of the sixteenth century no one in England can rival Miss Yates. Wherever she looks, she illuminates. Now she has looked on Bruno. This brilliant book takes time to digest, but it is an intellectual adventure to read it. Historians (...) of ideas, of religion, and of science will study it. Some of them, after reading it, will have to think again.... For Miss Yates has put Bruno, for the first time, in his tradition, and has shown what that tradition was."—Hugh Trevor-Roper, _New Statesman_ "A decisive contribution to the understanding of Giordano Bruno, this book will probably remove a great number of misrepresentations that still plague the tormented figure of the Nolan prophet."—Giorgio de Santillana, _American Historical Review_ "Yates's book is an important addition to our knowledge of Giordano Bruno. But it is even more important, I think, as a step toward understanding the unity of the sixteenth century."—J. Bronowski, _New York Review of Books_. (shrink)

There are cases in which, intuitively, an agent’s action is both morally right in one sense, and morally wrong in another sense. Such cases (along with other intuitions about blameless wrongdoing and action-guidance) support distinguishing between the objective moral ‘ought’ and the subjective moral ‘ought.’ This chapter argues against drawing this distinction, on the grounds that the prescriptions delivered by an adequate objective moral theory must be sensitive to the mental states of agents. Specifically, an adequate theory of the objective (...) moral ‘ought’ must respect a strong ought-implies-can principle—morally ought implies agentially can—in order to prescribe actions to real-life agents. An agent’s mental states determine what is agentially possible for that agent; thus, what an agent objectively morally ought to do is in part determined by the agent’s mental states. This chapter describes the structure of a compelling non-ideal moral theory that is both objective and mental state-sensitive. This non-ideal theory illuminates the shortcomings of extant objectivist and subjectivist moral theories, and illustrates how we can dispense with the subjective moral ‘ought.’. (shrink)

This paper attempts to be a contribution to the epistemological project of explaining complex conceptual structures departing from more basic ones. The central thesis of the paper is that there are what I call “functionally structured concepts”, these are non-harmonic concepts in Dummett’s sense that might be legitimized if there is a function that justifies the tie between the inferential connection the concept allows us to trace. Proving this requires enhancing the russellian existential analysis of definite descriptions to apply to (...) functions and using this in proving the legitimacy of such concepts. The utility of the proposal is shown for the case of thick ethical terms and an attempt is made to use it in explaining the development of natural numbers. This last move could allow us to go one step lower in explaining the genesis of natural numbers while maintaining the notion of abstract numbers as higher order entities. (shrink)

In their article, “Immigrant legalization: A Dilemma Between Justice and The Rule of Law,” Sarah Song and Irene Bloemraad address rule of law objections to policies that would regularize the status of undocumented immigrants in the United States. On their view, justice requires that liberal democratic states (i.e., states that are committed to individual liberty and universal equality) provide pathways for undocumented immigrants to regularize their status. We do not disagree with Song and Bloemraad’s account: rule of law and regularization (...) policies are not inconsistent, and in fact regularization supports rule of law, when properly understood. Our view is that there needs to be a deeper investigation into the motivations of “rule of law” objections considered in Song and Bloemraad’s account. We argue that the real purpose of these objections is not necessarily to serve as an alternative to the justice-based claims of undocumented immigrants, but as a way to undermine them. On our account, these rule of law objections accomplish this undermining task through the mechanisms of dog whistling, discrediting and distorting, and ostracizing. (shrink)

BackgroundBioethics can play an important role in addressing diversity both in and outside of academia, setting precedents for meaningful contributions to public discourse, research, teaching, training, and policy development. However, in order to do so, these conversations also need to reflect on the issue of diversity within the field of bioethics across the globe. This study aims to examine current gender representation and diversity at medical ethics and humanities institutes in Germany, the German-speaking areas of Switzerland, and Austria.MethodsA total of (...) forty-nine medical ethics and humanities institutes from Germany (n=42), the German-speaking areas of Switzerland (n=5), and Austria (n=2) were included in the study. Institutes websites were reviewed in the first week of March 2021 and the details of each staff member listed on the website recorded.ResultsOverall, a total of 964 staff members were identified at the forty-nine German-speaking medical ethics and humanities institutes. Just over half (530/964; 55%) of all staff were female. There were significant differences between gender in some staff positions: 64.6 per cent (31/48) of directors were male (χ2(1)=4.1, P=.04); 62.7 per cent (84/134) of student assistants were female (χ2(1)=8.6, P=.003); and 83.7 per cent (77/92) of administrative staff were female (χ2(1)=41.8, P<.001). There were no significant differences between staff gender for researchers and lecturers, or associated researchers. In addition, 65.5 per cent (19/29) of researchers and lecturers who had a professor title were male, but the difference between genders was not found to be significant. However, significantly more of the researchers and lecturers who had completed a habilitation were male (75.8% (25/33); χ2(1)=8.8, P=.003). When comparing the institute director’s gender presentation with staff gender presentation, it was found that male-led institutes had 53.4 per cent (286/536) female staff overall but had 52.7 per cent (136/258) male researchers and lecturers. However, the difference between genders were not found to be significant. On the other hand, female-led institutes had significantly more female staff overall (59.9% (223/372); χ2(1)=14.7, P<.001) and also significantly more female researchers and lecturers (58.9% (119/202; χ2(1)=6.4, P=.01).ConclusionsThere has been a significant push to address gender diversity in German-speaking academia, and this study finds overall good gender parity in medical ethics and humanities institutes. However, there has not been a similar openness to discussing issues of systemic racism or how other forms of inequality affect academic diversity. Taking diversity seriously requires opening up conversations around intersectionality, including difficult conversations around race and cultural background that have long been taboo in German-speaking countries. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the concept of ‘shared meaning’, and the relationship between a shared understanding of signs within an animal social group and the Umwelten of individuals within the group. I explore the concept of the ‘Total Umwelt’, as described by Tønnesen, (2003), and use examples from the traditional ethology literature to demonstrate how semiotic principles can not only be applied, but underpin the observations made in animal social biology. Traditionally, neo-Darwinian theories of evolution concentrate on ‘fitness’ or (...) an organism’s capacity to survive and reproduce in its own environmental niche. However, this process also relies on underlying signs and sign processes, which are often over-looked in traditional ethology and behavioural ecology. Biosemiotics, however, places the emphasis on sign process, with signs and signals comprising a semiosphere. Significantly, whilst the semiosphere is formulated as physical phenomena, specifically energetic and material signs which can be detected and transmitted as signals from one individual to another, it is the Umwelten of living organisms which give those signals meaning. Further, two or more Umwelten can merge, giving rise to a ‘Total Umwelt’, which facilitates shared meaning of signs between two or more individuals. Across and within generations, this gives rise to cultural interpretation of signs within populations. I argue this is the fundamental basis for emergent group properties in social species, or indeed in solitary living species where individuals interact to mate, defend territories or resources, or in raising altricial young. I therefore discuss a fusion of traditional behavioural ecology- based theory with semiotics, to examine the phenomenon of ‘shared meaning’ in animal social groups. (shrink)

In this text, I consider two examples in the history of emancipation and manumission of enslaved, Black populations in the Caribbean and South America in order to theorize a colonial mode of conceiving of freedom at play in the first half of the nineteenth century. This mode is marked by the figure of the promise, enacting a notion of freedom as a constantly deferred, external compensation. Indeed, instead of an immediate decision deeming the practice of enslavement and trade of human (...) beings unacceptable, and an effective liberation of the enslaved Black populations in these different emancipation proclamations, the various histories of manumission in Latin America and the Caribbean show a long series of political and legal attempts to reduce and limit the extent of the slave trade that deferred the process of liberation for decades. Moreover, in many of these territories the practice did not end with the official proclamation of emancipation but was continued by illegal practices and mutations into legal forms of exploitation and oppression that are still operative today. After outlining this first trajectory, reconstructing the promise of manumission in the historical examples of Martinique (as read by Édouard Glissant) and La Gran Colombia and the Republic of Nueva Granada (contemporary Panamá, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador), I analyze a second mode of investigation in examples of individual and collective strategies of liberation coming from the enslaved themselves, as reconstructed by contemporary feminist scholars in South America. These strategies appropriate liberation not as a promise, but as a negotiation and calculation that begins with the enslaved’s resistance to their oppressive conditions and that ultimately depends on the external concession by juridical authorities. In the third section of the chapter, I read these practices not as marronage, as they are sometimes approached, but as a different mode of turning back to these glimpses of freedom that more effectively challenge the narrative of emancipation and, with it, the promise of manumission in our present. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper, I accomplish a conceptual task and a historical task. The conceptual task is to argue that (1) Einstein’s Principle of Separability (henceforth “separability”) is not a supervenience principle and that (2) separability and entanglement are compatible. I support (1) by showing that the conclusion of Einstein’s incompleteness argument would still follow even if one assumes that the state of a composite system does not supervene on the states of the subsystems, and by showing that what Einstein says (...) in “Quantum Mechanics and Reality” (1948) strongly suggests that separability is not a principle about how subsystem states relate to the state of composite systems. I support (2) by showing that if separability was incompatible with entanglement, then Einstein’s argument would be incoherent in a trivial way. Thus, by arguing for (1) and (2) I directly challenge what has been, and still is, a very common reading of separability. The historical task is to offer the first detailed review of the different ways in which separability has been defined by physicists and philosophers in the last 60 years. Among other things, such a review distinguishes three different definitions of the principle, and shows that since the 1990s and up until the present date, it became standard to take separability (as presented by Einstein) to be a supervenience principle. (shrink)

RESUMO: Os intérpretes dos manuscritos de Leonardo da Vinci partilham dos mesmos sentimentos de espanto e de fascínio quando examinam sua contribuição para a ciência moderna. Podemos, contudo, perceber uma constante tentativa em prol de uma revisão histórica acerca do papel desempenhado por Leonardo. Observando a história dessas revisões, é possível detectar aspectos significativos das perspectivas históricas e historiográficas dos envolvidos nessa discussão. É o que pretendemos fazer neste trabalho, focando a controvérsia entre Duhem, por um lado, e Sarton, Koyré (...) e Rossi, por outro. Ao fazer isso, buscamos discutir alguns traços que marcam a distinção entre uma historiografia mais antiga e a nova historiografia da ciência, tal como exposta por Thomas Kuhn. ABSTRACT: Interpreters of Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts share the same feelings of astonishment and fascination when they examine his contribution to modern science. However, it is possible to perceive an ongoing attempt towards a historical revision of the role played by Leonardo. Observing the history of this ongoing revision, it is possible to detect significant aspects of the historical and historiographical perspectives of those involved in this discussion. This article deals with the controversy between Duhem's point of view, on the one hand, and the views of Sarton, Koyré, and Rossi on the other. It aims to show some features that distinguish an older historiography from the new historiography of science as presented by Thomas Kuhn. (shrink)

Hugh Baxter’s book Habermas: A Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy not only carefully recounts Habermas’ political and legal theory, but also raises several insightful criticisms of Habermas. Of particular note is Baxter’s criticism of Habermas’ system–lifeworld model originally presented in Theory of Communicative Action. Baxter argues that Habermas ought to discard the concept of the lifeworld because the distinction between lifeworld and system is no longer tenable in the model of political power presented in Habermas’ later work, Between Facts (...) and Norms, which focuses more explicitly on law as a social system. Baxter contends that the lifeworld, which Habermas describes as those parts of our lives that are structured by communicative action and shared norms, is an unhelpful way of understanding our social world because, in reality, most of our interactions are structured both by communicative norms and by the strategic action typical of ‘the system’. I argue, however, that Habermas must retain the theoretical distinction between system and lifeworld, though in everyday practice they are not so neatly disentangled, because without such an element there would be no source of legitimacy for the law. Without a connection to the communicative action of the lifeworld, law and the political structure would be nothing but strategic action. (shrink)

Several philosophers have recently argued that decision-theoretic frameworks for rational choice under risk fail to provide prescriptions for choice in cases of moral uncertainty. They conclude that there are no rational norms that are “sensitive” to a decision maker’s moral uncertainty. But this chapter argues that one sometimes has a rational obligation to take one’s moral uncertainty into account in the course of moral deliberation. It first provides positive motivation for the view that one’s moral beliefs can affect what it (...) is rational for one to choose. It then addresses the problem of value comparison, according to which one cannot determine the expected moral value of one’s actions. The chapter argues that we should not infer from the problem of value comparison that there are no rational norms governing choice under moral uncertainty. (shrink)

A tradição bíblica tem inspirado leituras e interpretações ecológicas por parte de teólogos de vertentes cristãs diversas, dentre os quais podemos destacar: Carriker, Reimer, Schaeffer e Stott. O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar alguns textos das Escrituras Sagradas judaico-cristãs e o modo como estes têm sido interpretados por teólogos cristãos vinculados à vertente reformada à luz de uma leitura ecológica. Um corte epistemológico foi feito reconhecendo nestes teólogos posições ideológicas heterogêneas a fim de preservar a re(leitura) dos textos bíblicos escolhidos (...) sob a perspectiva ecológica. White Júnior (1967), historiador americano, escreveu um artigo em que responsabilizava o Cristianismo pela crise ambiental. Este discurso tem sido confrontado ao longo das últimas décadas por várias vertentes cristãs e os teólogos escolhidos para o diálogo neste artigo defendem posições contrárias ao que foi declarado por White Júnior, à época. O caminho para o diálogo entre estes teólogos foi buscado a partir da concepção de que o discurso é uma construção social (Foucault, 2009). A partir da análise dos diálogos estabelecidos entre os teólogos escolhidos e suas re(leituras) dos textos bíblicos é possível concluir que esta nova teologia tem o papel de conscientização, como resposta à crise ambiental, no âmbito das igrejas evangélicas. Palavras-Chave : Discurso. Ecologia. Bíblia. Teologia.: The biblical tradition has inspired environmental readings and interpretations by Christian theologians of various aspects, among which we highlight: Carriker, Reimer, Schaeffer and Stott. The aim of this paper is to present a brief overview of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and how they have been interpreted by Christian theologians linked to strand reformed in the light of an ecological reading. An epistemological cut was made recognizing these theologians and their heterogeneous ideological positions in order to preserve the re(read) of the biblical texts chosen under the ecological perspective. White Jr. (1967), American historian, wrote an article that blamed Christianity for the environmental crisis. This speech has been confronted over the past several decades by the Christian spectrum and the theologians chosen for dialogue in this article advocate contrary positions to what was stated by White Jr., at the time. The path to the dialogue between these theologians was sought from the idea that speech is a social construction (Foucault, 2009). From the analysis of the dialogue established between the theologians and their chosen re(readings) biblical texts is possible to conclude that this new theology has the role of awareness in response to environmental crisis within the evangelical churches. Key-words: Speech. Ecology. Bible. Theology. (shrink)

A pair of studies demonstrates that simply asking children to make a blatantly false accusation in the guise of helping others can result in both immediate and long-term false claims. In the pilot study, the initial willingness to make a blatantly false statement was associated with some children making false statements a week later despite being told that the first interviewer had made mistakes during the initial interview. On a positive note, the majority of participants accurately stated that they did (...) not have first-hand knowledge of their accusation's accuracy. Across both studies, the rate of false accusation rates was high. The main experiment demonstrated that children who were young, possessed the lowest verbal intelligence or who were from the lowest SES homes made the most accusations. These findings illustrate not only the dangers of encouraging children to make false statements, but the ease and durability of making such false statements. (shrink)

Background The prioritization protocols for accessing adult critical care in the extreme pandemic context contain tiebreaker criteria to facilitate decision-making in the allocation of resources between patients with a similar survival prognosis. Besides being controversial, little is known about the public acceptability of these tiebreakers. In order to better understand the public opinion, Quebec and Ontario’s protocols were presented to the public in a democratic deliberation during the summer of 2022. Objectives (1) To explore the perspectives of Quebec and Ontario (...) citizens regarding tiebreakers, identifying the most acceptable ones and their underlying values. (2) To analyze these results considering other public consultations held during the pandemic on these criteria. Methods This was an exploratory qualitative study. The design involved an online democratic deliberation that took place over two days, simultaneously in Quebec and Ontario. Public participants were selected from a community sample which excluded healthcare workers. Participants were first presented the essential components of prioritization protocols and their related issues (training session day 1). They subsequently deliberated on the acceptability of these criteria (deliberation session day 2). The deliberation was then subject to thematic analysis. Results A total of 47 participants from the provinces of Quebec (n = 20) and Ontario (n = 27) took part in the online deliberation. A diverse audience participated excluding members of the healthcare workforce. Four themes were identified: (1) Priority to young patients - the life cycle - a preferred tiebreaker; (2) Randomization - a tiebreaker of last resort; (3) Multiplier effect of most exposed healthcare workers - a median acceptability tiebreaker, and (4) Social value – a less acceptable tiebreaker. Conclusion Life cycle was the preferred tiebreaker as this criterion respects intergenerational equity, which was considered relevant when allocating scarce resources to adult patients in a context of extreme pandemic. Priority to young patients is in line with other consultations conducted around the world. Additional studies are needed to further investigate the public acceptability of tiebreaker criteria. (shrink)

Teleological theories are often dismissed in the study of animal behaviour, because of both the anthropomorphic element, and the paradox of retro-causation. Instead, emergent properties of animal systems, such as those which drive behaviour and decision making, are generally deemed to be non-purposeful. Nonetheless, organisms’ interactions with the environment, including sensory processing, have long been subject to biological study, and the resulting models include Jakob von Uexküll’s functional circle (part of his ‘Umwelt Theory’). The functional circle is modelled on an (...) assumption of three- dimensional space containing matter and energy, and one-dimensional, linear time. Moreover, the function of such models relies upon feedback within biological systems, and generally assume that the functional feedback loops close. I argue that this is impossible, because a feedback loop cannot go back intime to close itself, and so whilst it may approximate closure in space, it does not close in the dimension of time. To address this problem, I propose a conceptual model where time is treated as having a three- dimensional structure, and is measured in terms of past, future, and subjective present, termed the ‘period,’ ‘present’ and ‘phase,’ respectively. Space and matter, meanwhile, occur as a two- dimensional intersect, in which three-dimensional emergent properties which occur ion time are embedded. The model relies on functional helices rather than circles, and the loops of each helix (unlike circular loops) never achieve closure. I explain how this therefore results in a biological system, based on both feedback and anticipatory probabilities, which is both autopoietic and teleological. I also provide examples of how the concept can be applied, using foraging behaviour as an example. I further propose the theoretical origin of such a system is ‘timing’ and ‘rhythm,’ both of which I argue have their origins in single cellular organisms’ chemotaxis and the associated gradient descent search. (shrink)