We must suffer, suffer into truth. –AeschylusThe outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in late 2019 along with the ensuing shutdowns and scramble for a vaccine provided unprecedented soil for various conspiracy t...

Le présent travail s’inscrit dans une démarche d’archéologie conceptuelle. Il s’agit de suivre, à travers les épîtres échangées entre Jérôme et Augustin, les grandes thématiques abordées par les deux hommes. Leurs échanges, très orageux parfois, restèrent respectueux à la codification de l’épistolographie du temps. En somme chacun gardait ses idées, et Jérôme se refusait à toute discussion ; mais ni l’estime, ni l’affection réciproque ne reçurent d’atteinte et il viendrait un temps où la collaboration intellectuelle si désirée s’établirait d’elle-même pour (...) faire front devant l’ennemi commun, Pélage. (shrink)

Fear of cancer is mostly related to cancer recurrence, metastasis, additional cancer, and diagnostic tests. Its legacy as a lethal disease has raised fear of approaching death. Currently, cancer’s total suffering and the worsening phenomena have raised fear, especially among female patients. Family caregivers (FCGs) who are responsible for the day-to-day cancer care at home need to help the patients deal with this fear frequently. Due to the limited care competencies, they need supportive care from healthcare professionals in cancer fear (...) management. This study aims to assess how types of demanded healthcare information affect the FCG’s role in reducing the fear of female cancer patients. The mindsponge theory was used in conceptual development and interpretation. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics were used for statistical analysis on a dataset of 48 spouses (husbands) and 12 other family members in five congested communities of Surabaya, Indonesia. Results showed that among the six types of healthcare information, FCGs with higher demand on cancer-specific information and information on cancer physical needs were more likely to need support in reducing the fear of female cancer patients. Meanwhile, FCGs with a higher demand for information on support services were less likely to need support to reduce cancer patients’ fear. Other types of healthcare information have ambiguous effects on the need for support in reducing cancer-induced fear. This study reveals that the demanded cancer-specific information, e.g., cancer’s prognosis or likely outcome and information on cancer physical needs, need to be met in priority to assist FCG’s role in cancer fear management. (shrink)

Folkbiology refers to people’s everyday understanding of the biological world. The early twentieth-century pioneers of public health C.-E.A Winslow (1877–1957), and his mentor H. Biggs (1859–1923), conceptualized public health as the ‘purchasable’ science of preventing disease and death from unfavorable economic and living conditions. Their ideas were foundational in shaping public health’s strategy of a ‘war against disease’ (Winslow, 1903), a strategy that was very successful in preventing the early-life mortality risks from infectious diseases, and was eventually extended to combating (...) the chronic diseases of late life (like cancer). However, the initial framing of public health, through the lens of sanitation science, was predicated upon folkbiological premises that geroscience must abate in order to direct public health interventions toward the goal of improving the quality of life for older persons in the twenty-first century. Three folkbiological premises of sanitation science’s ‘war against disease’ are identified and critiqued: (i) the belief that health is the ‘normal’ condition of the human mechanism and disease ‘unnecessary’; (ii) the belief that the proximate causes of disease are the only modifiable risk factors public health interventions can alter; and (iii) the belief that the rate of biological aging is universal. (shrink)

Sanitizing Justice Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-5 DOI 10.1007/s11158-011-9174-y Authors Oliver Dowlen, 62 Brockswood Lane, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire AL8 7BQ, UK Journal Res Publica Online ISSN 1572-8692 Print ISSN 1356-4765.

Using Demographic and Health Survey datasets from Ghana and Nigeria, this study examined whether the protective effects of breast-feeding are greatest where the poorest sanitation conditions prevail. It was found that mixed-fed infants aged between 0 and 11 months tend to have a higher risk of diarrhoea than fully breast-fed children, while the risk of diarrhoea among weaned infants is twice that of mixed-fed infants. The probit regression models employed in the analysis were used to predict the probability of diarrhoea (...) associated with each breast-feeding pattern for both ‘poor’ and ‘good’ sanitation areas. It was found that the risk of diarrhoea among mixed-fed infants in the poor sanitation areas tends to be high while the same risk among fully breast-fed infants tends to be minimal. In essence, the health risks of mixed feeding are real, particularly for infants aged less than 7 months, and are even worse for those weaned before 6 months of age. (shrink)

The human rights that are enshrined in most western democracies are based on enlightenment ideals of freedom, equality, and justice. Although these core principles are inspirational, their application has not necessarily been equitable or complete enough to provide for the stability, safety, health, and security of all citizens. A more modern understanding of human rights encompasses that which is needed to establish human flourishing, including guaranteed access to water, particularly the clean water provided by adequate sanitation. Without confidence in broad (...) safety and health, and established norms for individual protections, it is difficult for a society to be stable and flourish. Although this argument begins with political philosophy, it ends with a case study in Alabama, one of the poorest states in the United States. This study evaluates the dysfunction caused to local communities and greater society when governmental organizations fail to provide sanitation and guarantee public health for their communities. (shrink)

The development of a human right to water and sanitation under international law has created an imperative to implement human rights in water and sanitation policy. Through forty-three interviews with informants in international institutions, national governments, and non-governmental organizations, this research examines interpretations of this new human right in global governance, national policy, and local practice. Exploring obstacles to the implementation of rights-based water and sanitation policy, the authors analyze the limitations of translating international human rights into local water and (...) sanitation practice, concluding that system operators, utilities, and management boards remain largely unaffected by the changing public policy landscape for human rights realization. To understand the relevance of human rights standards to water and sanitation practitioners, this article frames a research agenda to ensure that human rights aspirations lead to public policy reforms and public health outcomes. (shrink)

For well over a millennium, public institutions have sought to limit the spread of disease. This article claims that shared political narratives about collective solidarity and belonging expressed in ideas about citizenship shape and constrain public health interventions. While a Sanitarian medical paradigm fit the mid-nineteenth-century British citizenship regime better than one based on limiting contagion by quarantine, full implementation of the “sanitary idea” had to wait upon adjustments after 1870 in the predominantly liberal citizenship regime, and particularly in the (...) institutions of governance and ideas about the responsibility mix. (shrink)

The expansion of the corpus of international human rights to include the right to water and sanitation has implications both for the process of recognizing human rights and for future developments in the relationships between technology, engineering and human rights. Concerns with threats to human rights resulting from developments in science and technology were expressed in the early days of the United Nations (UN), along with the recognition of the ambitious human right of everyone “to enjoy the benefits of scientific (...) progress and its applications.” This comment explores the hypothesis that the emerging concepts most likely to follow recognition of the human right to water primarily involve issues of science and technology, such as access to medicines or clean and healthy environment. Many threats to human rights from advances in science, which were identified in the past as potential, have become real today, such as invasion of privacy from electronic recording, deprivation of health and livelihood as a result of climate change, or control over individual autonomy through advances in genetics and neuroscience. This comment concludes by urging greater engagement of scientists and engineers, in partnership with human rights specialists, in translating normative pronouncements into defining policy and planning interventions. (shrink)

For almost two years now the COVID-19 pandemic impacted in most different forms habits, models of organization, socio-political dynamics and economic assets. Arrangements and orders taking decades to reach stabilization have demonstrated an unsuspected precarity, demanding a profound reorganization of dynamics we had been long accustomed to. As the distant, sanitized character of interaction, transmission, fruition and creation processes has turned from a contingent measure into the unamenable norm of these days’ routine, every aspect of social interaction is changing accordingly. (...) “Contact”, “contagion”, “proximity” and “distance” are not features of a transient period anymore: they are keywords of today’s experience. Indeed, while these concepts were already at stake in masscommunication and social media, it was not before nowadays that their precipitate on art forms could be taken into account more pristinely, for especially performative arts never had to amend their “familiar ground” in order to pursue their goals. Hence, how did artforms adjust themselves to wholly new forms of participation? What are we supposed to expect next? The main aim of this paper is to sketch out, relying on some classical loci of the history of Western aesthetics such as Plato, Aloïs Riegl, Walter Benjamin, this new, re-configured notion of aesthetic and artistic experience in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

In 1878, amid a rapidly proliferating social interest in public health and cleanliness, a group of sanitary scientists and reformers founded the Parkes Museum of Hygiene in central London. Dirt and contagion knew no social boundaries, and the Parkes's founders conceived of the museum as a dynamic space for all classes to better themselves and their environments. They promoted sanitary science through a variety of initiatives: exhibits of scientific, medical and architectural paraphernalia; product endorsements; and lectures and certificated courses in (...) practical sanitation, food inspection and tropical hygiene. While the Parkes's programmes reified the era's hierarchies of class and gender, it also pursued a public-health mission that cut across these divisions. Set apart from the great cultural and scientific popular museums that dominated Victorian London, it exhibited a collection with little intrinsic value, and offered an education in hygiene designed to be imported into visitors’ homes and into urban spaces in the metropole and beyond. This essay explores the unique contributions of the Parkes Museum to late nineteenth-century sanitary science and to museum development, even as the growth of public-health policy rendered the museum obsolete. (shrink)

The right to water and sanitation has emerged from the penumbra of associated rights in the past few decades and now plays an important role in international debates. This right has emerged “from below”, through the efforts of social movements seeking transformation in the lives of the world’s poor, and it has been recognized “from above”, with major international actors such as the United Nations, international financial institutions, and even large corporate actors affirming its existence. As the obligations and entitlements (...) inherent in this right are increasingly clarified, the role of interdisciplinary collaboration has never been more important. This short Commentary examines one such collaborative effort, led by the United Nations Joint Monitoring Programme, to devise post-2015 goals, targets, and indicators for water, sanitation, and hygiene. The Commentary calls for renewed partnerships to advance human rights-based policy among advocates, development practitioners, and water and sanitation experts from diverse scientific fields. (shrink)

Willingness to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries is necessary but not sufficient for project success. This is a case study of a transdisciplinary project whose success was constrained by contextual factors that ultimately favoured technical and scientific forms of knowledge over the cultural intelligence that might ensure technical solutions were socially feasible. In response to Alaskan Water and Sewer Challenge, an international team with expertise in engineering, consultative design and public health formed in 2013 to collaborate on a two-year project to (...) design remote area water and sanitation systems in consultation with two native Alaskan communities. Team members were later interviewed about their experiences. Project processes are discussed using a ‘Knowledge Ecology’ framework, which applies principles of ecosystems analysis to knowledge ecologies, identifying the knowledge equivalents of ‘biotic’ and ‘abiotic’ factors and looking at their various interactions. In a positivist ‘knowledge integration’ perspective, different knowledges are like Lego blocks that combine with other ‘data sets’ to create a unified structure. The knowledge ecology framework highlights how interactions between different knowledges and knowledge practitioners are shaped by contextual factors: the conditions of knowledge production, the research policy and funding climate, the distribution of research resources, and differential access to enabling infrastructures. This case study highlights the importance of efforts to negotiate between different knowledge frameworks, including by strategic use of language and precepts that help translate social research into technical design outcomes that are grounded in social reality. (shrink)

Resolutions in the United Nations Human Rights Council and General Assembly provide clarification of economic, social, and cultural (ESC) rights, and most of these resolutions pass by consensus. Yet these resolutions are more contentious than they appear. This article analyzes a case study of contestation over resolutions on two ESC rights: water and sanitation. Drawing from theories of norms contestation, this article analyzes how the USA, UK, and Canada challenged the creation of the rights to water and sanitation as rights (...) and as norms. An analysis of all resolutions, archival research, and interview data reveals that while challengers failed to stop water and sanitation from becoming legal human rights, they successfully delayed the process and weakened the normative aspect of the rights. The findings show that while powerful actors may not be opposed to ESC rights in theory, they worked to keep these rights weak and aspirational. (shrink)

Child mortality differentials according to water supply and sanitation in many urban areas of developing countries suggest that access to piped water and toilet facilities can improve the survival chances of children. The central question in this study is whether access to piped water and a flush toilet affects the survival chance of children under five in urban areas of Eritrea. The study uses data collected by the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) project in Eritrea in 1995. The results show (...) that while the unadjusted effect of household environment (water supply and toilet facility) is large and statistically significant during the post[hyphen]neonatal and child periods, it is relatively small and statistically insignificant during the neonatal period. The effect of household environment remains substantial during the post[hyphen]neonatal and child periods, even when other socioeconomic variables are held constant. However, the household environment effect totally disappears during the neonatal period when the socioeconomic factors are controlled for. (shrink)

Critical study of Sufism and Islamic philosophy with special reference of Ibn-i al-ʻArabī, 1165-1240.

Título Ação comunicativa e ética no acesso e uso sustentável da água: a experiência do saneamento rural de Marechal Cândido Rondon - PR (Communicative action and ethics on the access and sustainable use of water: the experience of rural sanitation of Marechal Cândido Rondon – Paraná, Brazil. DOI: 10.5752/P.2175-5841.2013v11n32p1571 Resumo O texto apresenta um estudo/pesquisa sobre a ética e os recursos hídricos, problematizando a relação entre a ética e o uso sustentável da água, tendo como modelo referencial aproximações na experiência (...) do saneamento rural de Marechal Cândido Rondon, PR que, através da organização dos próprios agricultores e com o apoio da autarquia municipal de água e esgoto, atingiu 100% de acesso à água potável na zona rural do município. A discussão propõe uma sinergia entre comunidades, gestores de sistemas e pesquisadores, que possibilite a criação de contextos comunicativos nos quais se partilha e socializa informações para o debate dos temas e situações que defendam um acesso democrático aos recursos hídricos e ao uso sustentável da água. Os fundamentos para este debate se encontram na obra de Lord Selborne, A Ética do Uso da Água Doce: um levantamento . (2001), e no paradigma da Teoria da Ação Comunicativa de Jürguen Habermas (1989), como um instrumento para propor o debate público sobre o acesso democrático aos recursos hídricos e, assim, criar contextos comunicativos que possibilitem a socialização de conhecimentos necessários relativos aos recursos hídricos e potencializar o debate sobre o uso desse bem natural como um direito humano universal. Palavras-chave: Ética. Água. Uso sustentável. Ação comunicativa. Saneamento rural.The text presents a study/research on ethics and water resources, questioning the relationship between ethics and sustainable water use, taking as reference model approaches in the experience of rural sanitation of Marechal Cândido Rondon, PR that, through the organization's own farmers, with the support of a municipal water and sewer, reached 100% access to safe drinking water in the rural area. The discussion proposes a synergy between communities, systems managers and researchers, enabling the creation of communicative contexts in which information is shared and socialized for discussion of issues and situations that advocate democratic access to water resources and the sustainable use of water. The grounds for this debate are the work of Lord Selborne, The Ethics of Freshwater Use: A survey. (2001), and the paradigm of the Theory of Communicative Action by Jürguen Habermas (1989), as an instrument to propose a public debate on democratic access to water resources and thus create communicative contexts that enable socialization of required knowledge of the water resources and enhance the debate on the use of this natural asset as a universal human right. Keywords: Ethics. Water. Sustainable use. Communicative action. Rural sanitation. (shrink)

There are over 800 seventh to tenth grade students at the College d’Enseignment Generale (CEG) School in Azové, Benin. Like most children in the developing world, these students lack access to clean water and basic sanitation facilities. These students suffer from parasitic infection and health ailments which could be directly offset with short term aid to supply water and medical aid. Promoting proper sanitation and providing the technology to implement water and wastewater treatment in the community will decrease childhood and (...) maternal disease and mortality rates in Azové. However, these measures may take several years to implement and will require a significant investment in the infrastructure of the school. Is it ethical to spend $10,000 towards the long-term goals of providing water and sanitation to the students of CEG Azové, compared to spending the same amount on short-term relief efforts? (shrink)

This case study investigates Gram Vikas' innovative social entrepreneurial approach to sustainable rural development through its 'Water and Sanitation Programme'. We explore its key innovation of 100 % inclusion and the process of creating democratic, self-governing management systems. This allows us to demonstrate how a social enterprise tries to realize its vision of "an equitable and sustainable society where people live in peace with dignity", and ultimately, how it contributes to the United Nations Millennium Goals of improving health, empowering women (...) and breaking the vicious circle of poverty. We also discuss the management challenges that the organisation faces in the area of finance, personnel management and scaling up. (shrink)

In Norms in the Wild, distinguished philosopher Cristina Bicchieri argues that when it comes to human behavior, social scientists place too much stress on rational deliberation. In fact, she says, many choices occur without much deliberation at all. Two people passing in a corridor automatically negotiate their shared space; cars at an intersection obey traffic signals; we choose clothing based on our instincts for what is considered appropriate. Bicchieri's theory of social norms accounts for these automatic components of coordination, where (...) individuals react automatically to cues that focus their attention on what the norm is in that situation. Social norms thus act as rules for making choices in a social world where people expect others -- often unconsciously -- to follow the same rule. Some norms enable seamless social co-operation, while others are less beneficial to human flourishing.Bicchieri is famous for her interdisciplinary work on game theory and most recently her work on social norms, and Norms in the Wild represents her latest challenge to many of the fundamental assumptions of the social sciences. Bicchieri's work has broad implications not only for understanding human behavior, but for changing it for better outcomes. People have a strongly conditioned preference for following social norms, but that also means that manipulating their expectations can cause major behavioral changes. Bicchieri has been working recently with UNICEF and other NGO's to explore the applicability of her views to issues of human rights around the world. Is it possible to change social expectations around forced marriage, genital mutilations, and public health practices like vaccinations and sanitation? If so, how? What tools might we use? This short book explores how social norms work, and how changing them - changing preferences, beliefs, and especially social expectations - can potentially improve lives all around the world. It will appeal to an unusually broad range of readers including philosophers, psychologists and others in behavioral sciences, and anyone involved in public policy or at NGOs. (shrink)

These days many gyms and fitness centers are closed to reduce transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in society. The gym is an environment rich in microorganisms, and careful hygiene is a necessity to keep infections at bay. Exercise centers strive for better hygiene compliance among their members. This effort has become essential in light of the current pandemic. Several experimental studies show that others’ physical presence, or the “illusion” of being watched, may alter behavior. This article reports on a natural (...) field experiment testing one specific social nudge intended to increase gym members’ hygienic behavior. The study was conducted before the SARS-COV-2 pandemic. A picture of “observing eyes” was attached to paper dispensers and cleanser spray bottles at two different gyms in Norway. A reversal design, also called an ABA design, with and without the nudge’s presence, was used to investigate the impact on gym members’ hygienic behavior. A follow-up study was conducted in one of the centers to investigate whether the nudge stimuli would function over time. The study included 254 individual choice situations during nine observation sessions conducted over 9 weeks. The results from both centers provide evidence of a strong effect of the nudge. However, the effect decreased during the follow-up study. These findings support previous research indicating that human behavior is influenced by the presence of implicit observation cues – in this case – observing eyes. However, insights into the long-term effect of implicit observation cues are still needed since the salience of the stimuli faded over time. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to severe shortages of many essential goods and services, from hand sanitizers and N-95 masks to ICU beds and ventilators. Although rationing is not unprecedented, never before has the American public been faced with the prospect of having to ration medical goods and services on this scale.

Moshe Tati, a sanitation worker in Jerusalem, was among the first of more than a thousand mortally sick Israelis who signed up for illicit and clandestine ‘transplant tour’ packages that included: travel to an undisclosed foreign and exotic setting; five-star hotel accommodation; surgery in a private hospital unit; a ‘fresh’ kidney purchased from a perfect stranger trafficked from a third country. Although Tati’s holiday turned into a nightmare and he had to be emergency air-lifted from a rented transplant unit in (...) a private hospital in Adana, Turkey back to Israel, Moshe became a poster-boy of transplant tourism for the next decade. João Cavalcanti was among the first of 38 residents of the slums of Recife recruited by retired military Captain Ivan da Silva and his sidekick Captain Gadddy Tauber to travel to Durban, South Africa to provide a spare kidney to an Israeli transplant tourist in Durban. This article examines the logics and practices through which kidney buyers and kidney sellers, organs brokers, surgeons and their accessories convince themselves that they are engaged in an illegal but still mutually beneficial ‘medical-recreational’ adventure, an ‘extreme medical sport’ of sorts. While life, health and survival motivate ‘transplant tourism’, a euphemism for human trafficking in spare body parts, the freedom to roam, mobility, is an essential feature of transplant tours for kidney buyers and kidney sellers. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to show that mainstream liberal accounts of civil disobedience fail to fully capture the latter’s specific characteristics as a genuinely political and democratic practice of contestation that is not reducible to an ethical or legal understanding either in terms of individual conscience or of fidelity to the rule of law. In developing this account in more detail, I first define civil disobedience with an aim of spelling out why the standard liberal model, while providing (...) a useful starting point, ultimately leads to an overly constrained, domesticated and sanitized understanding of this complex political practice. Second, I place the political practice of civil disobedience between two opposing poles: symbolic politics and real confrontation. I argue that the irreducible tension between these poles precisely accounts for its politicizing and democratizing potential. Finally, I briefly examine the role of civil disobedience in representative democracies, addressing a series of recent challenges made in response to this radically democratic understanding of disobedience. (shrink)