Due to the socio-demographic change in most developed western countries, elderly populations have been continuously increasing. Therefore, preventive and assistive systems that allow elderly people to independently live in their own homes as long as possible will become an economical if not ethical necessity. These respective technologies are being developed under the term "Ambient Assistive Technologies". The EU-funded AAT-project Ambient Lighting Assistance for an Ageing Population has established the long-term goal to create an adaptive system capable of improving the residential (...) lighting conditions of single living elderly persons also aiming at supporting the preservation of their independence. Results of an earlier survey revealed that the elderly perceived their current lighting situation as satisfactory, whereas interviewers assessed in-house lighting as too dark and risk-laden. The overall results of ALADIN showed a significant increase in well-being from the baseline final testing with the new adaptive lighting system. Positive results for wellbeing and life quality suggest that the outcome effects may be attributed to the introduction of technology as well as to social contacts arising from participating in the study. The technological guidance of the study supervisors, in particular, may have produced a strong social reactivity effect that was first observed in the famous Hawthorne experiments in the 1930s. As older adults seem to benefit both from meaningful social contacts as well as assistive technologies, the question arises how assistive technology can be socially embedded to be able to maximize positive health effects. Therefore ethical guidelines for development and use of new assistive technologies for handicapped/older persons have to be developed and should be discussed with regard to their applicability in the context of AAT. (shrink)

Non-verbal enrichment in the form of pictures or gesture can support word learning in first and foreign languages. The present study seeks to compare the effects of viewing pictures vs. imitating iconic gestures on learning second language vocabulary. In our study participants learned L2 words together with a virtual, pedagogical agent. The to-be-learned items were either enriched with pictures, or with gestures that had to be imitated, or without any non-verbal enrichment as control. Results showed that gesture imitation was particularly (...) supportive for learning nouns, whereas pictures showed to be most beneficial for memorizing verbs. These findings, suggesting that the type of vocabulary learning strategy has to match with the type of linguistic material to be learned, have important educational implications for L2 classrooms and technology-enhanced tutoring systems. (shrink)

This study draws on achievement goal theory and self-determination theory to examine the associations among two motivational climates (i.e. mastery and performance) and two indicators of energy at work (i.e. vigour and emotional exhaustion), as well as the mediating role of basic psychological need satisfaction (i.e. autonomy, relatedness, and competence). A two-wave longitudinal study was conducted collecting data from 1081 engineers and technologists. We applied previously validated instruments to assess the variables of interest. Structural equation modeling analyses were conducted to (...) test the hypotheses. Our findings show that mastery climate is positively and significantly related to each of the three basic needs, while a performance climate is negatively and significantly related to each of the three basic needs. Further, the results indicate that the basic needs are significantly associated with both measures of energy, negatively with emotional exhaustion and positively with vigour. This pattern of results suggests that basic psychological need satisfaction mediates the relationship between motivational climates and energy at work. (shrink)

Recently developed super‐resolution microscopy techniques are changing our understanding of lipid rafts and membrane organisation in general. The lipid raft hypothesis postulates that cholesterol can drive the formation of ordered domains within the plasma membrane of cells, which may serve as platforms for cell signalling and membrane trafficking. There is now a wealth of evidence for these domains. However, their study has hitherto been hampered by the resolution limit of optical microscopy, making the definition of their properties problematic and contentious. (...) New microscopy techniques circumvent the resolution limit and, for the first time, allow the fluorescence imaging of structures on length scales below 200 nm. This review describes such techniques, particularly as applied to the study of membrane organisation, synthesising newly emerging facets of lipid raft biology into a state‐of‐the art model.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays: Super‐resolution imaging prompts re‐thinking of cell biology mechanisms Abstract and Quantitative analysis of photoactivated localization microscopy (PALM) datasets using pair‐correlation analysis Abstract. (shrink)

In its comprehensive overview of Alain Locke's pragmatist philosophy this book captures the radical implications of Locke's approach within pragmatism, the critical temper embedded in Locke's works, the central role of power and empowerment of the oppressed and the concept of broad democracy Locke employed.

Considered together, Butler and Whitehead draw from a wide palette of disciplines to develop distinctive theories of becoming, of syntactical violence, and creative opportunities of limitation. The contributors of this volume offer a unique contribution to and for the humanities in the struggles of politics, economy, ecology, and the arts.

Children’s numeracy competencies are not only relevant for their academic achievement, but also later in life. The development of early numeracy competencies is influenced by children’s learning environment. Here, the home numeracy environment and parent’s own beliefs about mathematics play an important role for children’s numeracy competencies. However, only a few studies explicitly tested these associations separately for mothers and fathers. In our study, we assessed mothers’ and fathers’ mathematical gender stereotypes, self-efficacy and their beliefs on the importance of mathematical (...) activities at home, and tested their associations with parents’ numeracy activities and children’s numeracy competencies in a sample of N = 160 children with an average age of M = 59.15 months. Both, fathers and mothers regarded boys as being more competent in mathematics than girls. Fathers when compared to mothers reported a greater mathematical self-efficacy. Further, only mothers’ self-efficacy was associated with the frequency of numeracy activities with the study child. In contrast, only fathers’ beliefs on the importance of mathematics was associated with their numeracy activities which, in turn, predicted children’s numeracy competencies. However, the non-invariant constructs and varying results lead to the question whether a revision of existing scales assessing parental beliefs and home numeracy activities is needed to investigate differences of mothers and fathers and their potential associations with children’s numeracy outcomes. (shrink)

Illusion und Aufklärung: 1. Apologie der Illusion in Kants Opponenten-Rede gegen Johann Gottlieb Kreutzfeld. 2. Eine heilsame Illusion: wie die Kultur aus der Natur entsteht. 3. Acedia und das radikal Böse -- Praktiken der Illusion in der Moderne: 1. Nietzsches Tanz um die Philosophie. 2. Erzeugung von Zukunft. Sprachformen der Apokalypse bei Hermann Cohen. 3. Zu Benjamins Kritik des Scheins im Wahlverwandtschaftenaufsatz mit einem Exkurs zu Cohens Behandlung des Empfindungsproblems. 4. Heilsame Illusion und auratische Wahrnehmung. 5. Antigenealogische Revolte und Reproduktion (...) -- Nachspiel: Diffraktion Statt Reflexion. Die Fadenspiele von Donna J. Haraway: eine Methode mit kleinem "m.". (shrink)

The ability to read emotions in faces helps humans efficiently assess social situations. We tested how this ability is affected by aspects of familiarization with face masks and personality, with a focus on emotional intelligence. To address aspects of the current pandemic situation, we used photos of not only faces per se but also of faces that were partially covered with face masks. The sample, the size of which was determined by an a priori power test, was recruited in Germany (...) and consisted of healthy individuals of different ages [M = 24.8 years]. Participants assessed the emotional expressions displayed by six different faces determined by a 2 × 3 design. Each person was presented with six different emotional displays with or without a face mask. Accuracy and confidence were lower with masks—in particular for the emotion disgust but also for happiness, anger, and sadness. When comparing the present data collected in July 2021 with data from a different sample collected in May 2020, when people first started to familiarize themselves with face masks in Western countries during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we did not detect an improvement in performance. There were no effects of participants’ emotional intelligence, sex, or age regarding their accuracy in assessing emotional states in faces for unmasked or masked faces. (shrink)

How do we judge whether an action is morally right or wrong? If an action is wrong, what reason does that give us not to do it? Why should we give such reasons priority over our other concerns and values? In this book, T. M. Scanlon offers new answers to these questions, as they apply to the central part of morality that concerns what we owe to each other. According to his contractualist view, thinking about right and wrong is thinking (...) about what we do in terms that could be justified to others and that they could not reasonably reject. He shows how the special authority of conclusions about right and wrong arises from the value of being related to others in this way, and he shows how familiar moral ideas such as fairness and responsibility can be understood through their role in this process of mutual justification and criticism. Scanlon bases his contractualism on a broader account of reasons, value, and individual well-being that challenges standard views about these crucial notions. He argues that desires do not provide us with reasons, that states of affairs are not the primary bearers of value, and that well-being is not as important for rational decision-making as it is commonly held to be. Scanlon is a pluralist about both moral and non-moral values. He argues that, taking this plurality of values into account, contractualism allows for most of the variability in moral requirements that relativists have claimed, while still accounting for the full force of our judgments of right and wrong. (shrink)

Much has changed in maternal-fetal medicine since the early 2000s, when the previous ethical frameworks for fetal therapy trials were established. We applaud Hendriks and colleagues for taking on t...

Unlike inert objects, organisms and their cells have the ability to initiate activity by themselves and thus change their properties or states even in the absence of an external cause. This crucial difference led us to search for principles suitable for the study organisms. We propose that cells follow the default state of proliferation with variation and motility, a principle of biological inertia. This means that in the presence of sufficient nutrients, cells will express their default state. We also propose (...) a principle of variation that addresses two central features of organisms, variation and historicity. To address interdependence between parts, we use a third principle, the principle of organization, more specifically, the notion of the closure of constraints. Within this theoretical framework, constraints are specific theoretical entities defined by their relative stability with respect to the processes they constrain. Constraints are mutually dependent in an organized system and act on the default state.Here we discuss the application and articulation of these principles for mathematical modeling of morphogenesis in a specific case, that of mammary ductal morphogenesis, with an emphasis on the default state. Our model has both a biological component, the cells, and a physical component, the matrix that contains collagen fibers. Cells are agents that move and proliferate unless constrained; they exert mechanical forces that act (i) on collagen fibers and (ii) on other cells. As fibers are organized, they constrain the cells’ ability to move and to proliferate. This model exhibits a circularity that can be interpreted in terms of the closure of constraints. Implementing our mathematical model shows that constraints to the default state are sufficient to explain the formation of mammary epithelial structures. Finally, the success of this modeling effort suggests a stepwise approach whereby additional constraints imposed by the tissue and the organism can be examined in silico and rigorously tested by in vitro and in vivo experiments, in accordance with the organicist perspective we embrace. (shrink)

In the last decade, the organization of pharmaceutical research on neglected tropical diseases has undergone transformative change. In a context of perceived “market failure,” the development of new medicines is increasingly handled by public-private partnerships. This shift toward hybrid organizational models depends on a particular form of exchange: the sharing of proprietary assets in general and of intellectual property rights in particular. This article explores the paradoxical role of private property in this new configuration of global health research and development. (...) Rather than a tool to block potential competitors, proprietary assets function as a lever to attract others into risky collaborative ventures; instead of demarcating public and private domains, the sharing of property rights is used to increase the porosity of that boundary. This reimagination of the value of property is connected to the peculiar timescape of global health drug development, a promissory orientation to the future that takes its clearest form in the centrality of “virtual” business models and the proliferation of strategies of deferral. Drawing on the anthropological literature on inalienable possessions, we reconsider property’s traditional exclusionary role and discuss the possibility that the new pharmaceutical “commons” proclaimed by contemporary global health partnerships might be the precursor of future enclosures. (shrink)

This project was provoked by the almost nonexistent pushback from the Democratic liberal establishment to the (2020) exoneration of Kyle Rittenhouse, despite his acknowledged killing of two Black Lives Matters protesters against the police murder of George Floyd. It builds on three prior articles arguing for the revival of ancient Dionysian practice, Haitian Vodou, and Indigenous South American shamanism to empower leftist revolution. In essence, I propose an assemblage of spiritual practices that are accessible today for the neo-colonized 99% of (...) the global population, by synthesizing and reconstructing three democratic, lower-SES, Indigenous religions, all of which share a militant defiance of their respective tyrannical plutocracies. To avoid cultural appropriation, I center these reconstructed spiritual practices on the figure of the “mage,” a psychosocial healer loosely analogous to a shaman. And the mage’s signature activity, “magic,” I redefine naturalistically as free interpersonal performative action, practiced using two theoretical disciplines (philosophy and psychology) and two practical disciplines chosen by each mage. More precisely, Spirit/Dance channels the “spirits” of dead ancestors, historical figures, legendary heroes, mythical beings, and fictional characters, into the three ultimate objectives of “mindfulness” for psyches/souls, “liberation” for mindful bodies, and “social justice” for liberated communities, indirectly empowering long-term revolution. (shrink)

Some recent uses of artificial intelligence for facial recognition, evaluating resumes, and sorting photographs by subject matter have revealed troubling disparities in performance or impact based on the demographic traits of subject populations. These disparities raise pressing questions about how using artificial intelligence can work to promote justice or entrench injustice. Political theorists and philosophers have developed nuanced vocabularies and theoretical frameworks for understanding and adjudicating disputes about what justice requires and what constitutes injustice. The interdisciplinary community committed to understanding (...) and conscientiously using big data could benefit from this work. Thus, in the spirit of encouraging cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration, this piece examines contemporary scholarship in political theory and philosophy to illustrate some of the vocabularies and frameworks political theorists and philosophers have developed for thinking about justice and injustice. It then draws on these frameworks to illuminate how the use of artificial intelligence can implicate questions of justice, with a focus on institutional discrimination, structural injustice, and epistemic injustice. Ultimately, the piece argues that the use of artificial intelligence—far from representing a decision to take power out of human hands—represents a novel way of harnessing human power, making questions of justice central to its conscientious undertaking. (shrink)

_'Shirley zips into her skin-tight school uniform, which on the outside looks something like a ski suit. The lining of the suit in fact contains cabling that makes the suit a communication system and there are pressure pads where the suit touches skin that give a sense of touch. Next, she sits astride something that is a bit like a motorbike, except that it has no wheels and is attached firmly to the floor. Her feet fit on to something similar (...) to a brake and accelerator and her gloved hands hold onto handlebars. She shouts, "I'm off to school, Dad". Her father, who is taking time out from his teleworking, begins to remind her that the family are going teleshopping in the virtual city later in the day, but it is too late, his daughter has already donned her school helmet. She is no longer in the real world of her real home, she is in the virtual world of her virtual school.'_ Is this the shape of the future of education? This book presents a vision of what will happen to education and training as information technology develops. The argument is simple. To prepare people for life in an information society they need to be taught with the technology of an information society. But what shape will that take? Can the classroom as we know it - a communications system which has been in place for four thousand years - be replaced? The authors argue that through the development of telecommunications for telelearning a genuine revolution in education is in the making. The book describes how, through the convergence of a cluster of new technologies including virtual reality, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and the superhighways of telecommunications, a new educational paradigm will emerge in the form of a virtual class. Teachers, trainers and educators who worry about how best to prepare students for life in an ever-changing world will find much inspiration in this engagingly written and jargon-free book. (shrink)

In the late 1960s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a United States of America (US) intelligence agency, developed what is famously known as Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). Its mission was to surveil, misinform, misdirect and subvert or destroy black ‘subversive’ militant groups. The main intention of COINTELPRO was to ‘prevent the rise of a messiah’ who could ‘unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement’. This insight is important as it reveals how those outside of black life (FBI) would (...) invoke biblical language to define the possibility of revolution. This article through Black liberation theology seeks to present the idea of messianism as both an experience of Africans and oppressed peoples in the Global North and Global South. The idea of messianism is part of biblical reception in Africa and the African experience of colonialism. In South Africa, messianism would be observed from the perspective of African Christianity, while another form of messianism would be seen from Nat The Prophet Turner as well as the radical identity of Christ in Black liberation theology. The article will not take lightly the idea of surveillance of black militant groups in the same way as the priestly class surveillance Christ ministry. At the same time, the article would reflect on why lunacy is associated with those that seek to subvert oppression. This article seeks to discuss the role of messianism and militancy in Black or African Christianity and highlighting biblical reception and African affectivity. Contribution: This article explores the imaginative ways the Bible or its themes have been used by both the oppressor and the oppressed, often the latter using the Bible for its prerogative, namely, revolution and liberation. (shrink)

BackgroundHealth behavior change is among the top recommendations for improving health of patients with lifestyle-related chronic diseases. An array of behavior change techniques have been developed to support behavior change initiation and maintenance. These BCTs often show limited success when they are not informed by theory, leading to a mismatch between the intention of the BCT and patients’ needs or expectations. Previous studies have identified a number of resources which patients may require to initiate and maintain health behavior change. Indeed, (...) not yet well established is how BCTs address these resources, i.e., the functional mechanisms of BCTs.PurposeProvide a theoretical framework of the functional mechanisms of BCTs for developing and implementing successful interventions for health behavior change.MethodsConceptual review, including literature analysis and synthesis as well as conceptualization of a new model based on the synthesis.ResultsThrough the integration of dual-process models as well as reward and motivation proceeding, i.e., affective, emotional, or intuitive neurobiological cues, into the rational framework of rather linear cognitive or task-related decision progress, we categorize previously identified resources into three distinct sets: external, internal reflective, and internal affective resources. Based on this triad, we classify BCTs according to their functional mechanisms into facilitating, boosting, and nudging. Consequently, we present a simplified Behavior Change Resource Model that is centered on patients’ resources.ConclusionThe model can be applied to develop health behavior change interventions, which promote engagement and empowerment. Future studies should aim at testing the applicability and practicality of the BCRM. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that a number of Hume’s claims generate a putative inconsistency with regard to complex ideas and independent existence. I first provide a prima facie argument for the existence of this inconsistency. Then, I examine a number of attempts to rescue Hume from this problem, and argue that each of them fails, before proposing my own solution.

In this article, I analyze survey data from more than 1,000 financial services employees to understand how gender inequality manifests itself in employees' informal networks. I found that even when Black and white women had jobs in which they controlled organizational resources and had ties to powerful employees, they received less work-related help from their network members than did white men. Drawing on status characteristics theory, I explain that network members were less likely to invest in women than in white (...) men because of cultural beliefs that rank women below that of white men. While past research has documented how employers use gender to rank workers and distribute rewards unequally, my research indicates that workers use gender to categorize and rank their network members as well. (shrink)

Sacred Harp singers the world over gather weekly to sing out ofThe Sacred Harp, a collection of shape-note songs first published in 1844. Their tradition is highly ritualized, and it plays an important role in the lives of many participants. Following the implementation of lockdown protocols to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, groups of Sacred Harp singers quickly and independently devised a variety of means by which to sing together online using Zoom, Jamulus, and Facebook Live. The rapidity and creativity with (...) which Sacred Harp singers developed ways to sustain their activities attests to the strength and significance of this community of practice, and in this article I describe each modality and provide an account of how it came to be developed and widely used. As a participant-observer, I completed extensive fieldwork across these digital sites and conducted semi-structured interviews with 22 other singers. I found that online singing practices have reshaped the Sacred Harp community. Many singers who did not previously have the opportunity to participate now have access, while others have lost access due to technological barriers or lack of interest in online activities. At the same time, geographical barriers have disintegrated, and singing organizers must make an effort to maintain local identity. A stable community of singers has emerged in the digital realm, but it is by no means identical to the community that predated the pandemic. I also identify the ways in which online singing has proven meaningful to participants by providing continuity in their personal and communal practice. Specifically, online singing allows participants to access and celebrate their collective memories of the Sacred Harp community, carry out significant rituals, and continue to grow as singers. While no single modality replicates the complete Sacred Harp singing experience, together they function “like pieces in a puzzle”, allowing individual participants to access many of the elements of Sacred Harp singing that are most meaningful to them. (shrink)

The idea of a role in nursing that includes expertise in ethics has been around for more than 30 years. Whether or not one subscribes to the idea that nursing ethics is separate and distinct from bioethics, nursing practice has much to contribute to the ethical practice of healthcare, and with the strong grounding in ethics and aspiration for social justice considerations in nursing, there is no wonder that the specific role of the nurse ethicist has emerged. Nurse ethicists, expert (...) in nursing practice and the application of ethical theories and concepts, are well positioned to guide nurses through complex ethical challenges. However, there is limited discussion within the field regarding the specific job responsibilities that the nurse ethicist ought to have. The recent appearance of job postings with the title “nurse ethicist” suggest that some healthcare institutions have identified the value of a nurse in the practice of ethics and are actively recruiting. Discomfort about the possibility of others defining the role of the nurse ethicist inspired this paper (and special issue). If the nurse ethicist is to be seen as an integral part of addressing ethical dilemmas and ethical conflicts that arise in healthcare, then nurse ethicists ought to be at the forefront of defining this role. In this paper, we draw upon our own experiences as nurse ethicists in large academic healthcare systems to describe the essential elements that ought to be addressed in a job description for a nurse ethicist practicing in a clinical setting linked to academic programs. Drawing upon our experience and the literature, we describe how we perceive the nurse ethicist adds value to healthcare organizations and teams of professional ethicists. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 29-31.

Ethical climate (EC) has been broadly described as how well institutions respond to ethical issues. Developing a tool to study and evaluate EC that aims to achieve sustained improvements requires a contemporary framework with identified relevant drivers. An extensive literature review was performed, reviewing existing EC definitions, tools and areas where EC has been studied; ethical challenges and relevance of EC in contemporary paediatric intensive care (PIC); and relevant ethical theories. We surmised that existing EC definitions and tools designed to (...) measure it fail to capture nuances of the PIC environment, and sought to address existing gaps by developing an EC framework for PIC founded on ethical theory. In this article, we propose a Paediatric Intensive Care Ethical Climate (PICEC) conceptual framework and four measurable domains to be captured by an assessment tool. We define PICEC as the collective felt experience of interdisciplinary team members arising from those factors that enable or constrain their ability to navigate ethical aspects of their work. PICEC both results from and is influenced by how well ethical issues are understood, identified, explored, reflected on, responded to and addressed in the workplace. PICEC encompasses four, core inter-related domains representing drivers of EC including: (1) organisational culture and leadership; (2) interdisciplinary team relationships and dynamics; (3) integrated child and family-centred care; and (4) ethics literacy. Future directions involve developing a PICEC measurement tool, with implications for benchmarking as well as guidance for, and evaluation of, targeted interventions to foster a healthy EC. (shrink)

Tüm dünyayı etkisi altına alan koronavirüs pandemisinin siyasi tutumlarla ilişkisini öğrenmek ve siyasetin kriz durumlarında halkın tutum ve davranışlarını yönlendirip yönlendirmediğini öğrenmek amacıyla 767 kişiyle çevrimiçi anket yapılmıştır. Yapılan nicel araştırma sonucunda, alınan önleyici tedbirlere uymanın, bu tedbirlerin yerinde oluşuna/haklılığına olan tutumun, aşı olma niyetinin ve aşının koruyuculuğuna olan inancın siyasi görüşlere göre farklılaştığı bulunmuştur. Ayrıca katılımcıların yapılan Covid-19 açıklamaları bakımından siyasi partilerine, parti temsilcilerinden daha çok güvendikleri, alınan önlem ve tedbirleri kısmen yerinde/haklı buldukları ve çok büyük çoğunluğun bu önlemlere (...) uyduğu görülmüştür. Araştırma sonucunda virüsün kökenine yönelik inançlar bakımından virüsün gerçek olduğuna inanıldığı, ortaya çıkış nedeni bakımından ise ülkelerin ekonomilerini kötüleştirmek ve dünya nüfusunu azaltmak için ortaya çıktığına inanıldığı görülmüştür. Araştırmadan çıkan bir başka sonuç ise katılımcıların televizyon, dergi ve gazetelerin ideolojik nedenlerle ve siyasi yanlılıklarına bağlı olarak virüs haberlerini halka farklı yansıttığını düşündükleridir. Sosyal medyadaki haberlerin ise yanıltıcı, yanlış olduğu görüşündelerdir. Bu çalışma sonucunda salgın hastalık, afet, savaş, ekonomik krizler gibi olağanüstü durumlarda siyasetin, siyasi görüşlerin dikkate alınmasının hem krizin üstesinden gelmede hem de toplumun tüm üyelerini kapsamada önemli bir rol oynayacağı vurgulanmaktadır. (shrink)

In this article, I build on my recent conceptions of law as poetry and of justice as dance by articulating three new conceptions of the relationship between law and justice. In the first, “poetry-based justice”, justice consists of a rigid choreography to a kind of musical recitation of the law’s poetry. In the second, “dancing-based law”, justice consists of spontaneous, freely improvised movement patterns that the poetry of the law tries to capture in a kind of musical notation. And in (...) the third, “reciprocal-legal justice”, justice and law consist of a reciprocally determining artistic collaboration between the democratic dancing masses and the aristocratic poetising elites. Given that each of these predominates in one of three types of community, I then present a reclassification of right-leaning, centrist and leftist societies as dominated by “literalist”, “kinetic” and “mutualist” communities (respectively), and offer suggestions for legislators and activists working in each type. In conclusion, law and justice, qua poetry and dance, become more flexible, inclusive and open to creative improvising and collaboration, a new form that I name, after Astraea, Greek goddess of divine justice, “astral legal justice”. (shrink)

Epistemic structuralism, the idea that social structures have an immense influence on our inquiries and epistemic behavior, presents a unique challenge to the emerging field of vice epistemology. The most extreme application of this challenge results in the rejection of vice explanations in favor of structural explanations for epistemic behavior. Some vice epistemologists have expressed the intuitive idea that vice explanations and structural explanations may be synthesized, but the exact details of such a synthesis have yet to be adequately examined. (...) This paper starts by trying to gain clarity about structuralism and structuralist explanations in epistemology, then it discusses how a well-developed vice-structural explanation can be done. I end this paper by briefly noting a few crucial issues that demand further investigation. (shrink)

Comparative risk assessment is playing an ever-increasing role in environmental policy priority setting, as manifested in national and numerous subnational comparative risk projects. It is widely accepted that public values, interests, and concerns should play an important role in CRA. However, the philosophical basis for public involvement in CRA has not been adequately explored, nor have comparative risk projects always made explicit their rationales for public involvement. The author examines the political, normative, and epistemic rationales for public involvement and explores (...) the case for public involvement in the making of ethical, valuation, and evidentiary judgments. The author considers key issues each rationale raises, problems eachfaces, and some of the implications of each for specific aspects of CRA. (shrink)

This article challenges a reductive analysis of social practices by distinguishing five kinds of reason for following the rules of conventional practices. Depending on one’s preferred intellectual tradition, conventional practices enable coordination, facilitate cooperation, constitute activities, fulfil reciprocity, or specify abstract rights. Instead of being rival theories of social practices, these different models complement one another in a normative analysis of social practices. By distinguishing five kinds of reasons to follow conventional rules, this paper supports a more dynamic conventionalist analysis (...) of subjects like property, the law, professional obligation, civic responsibility, and culture. (shrink)

That which constitutes a ‘good death’, or dying well, has long been of interest to philosophers and clinicians alike. While difficult to define due to its deeply personal nature and dependency on spiritual and cultural beliefs and past experiences, Wilkinson1 has drawn parallels from art and music to consider key ethical components. Few in clinical practice would dispute that a ‘good death’ is one that does not rob the person of a valuable life, is aligned with the preferences of the (...) patient and/or their family, where comfort and solace is provided, distress to family and caregivers is minimised or even that dying is not prolonged. However, what is more contentious is how tensions within the principles of a ‘good death’ should be managed or prioritised. In the context of caring for critically ill babies and children, the tension often takes the form of prolonging the dying process through providing life-sustaining interventions to meet the needs of, and to lessen the longer term distress of, the bereaved family, who must live with the decisions that are made. Though often justifiable, such interventions may result in considerable moral distress within caregivers—particularly, as often the case, when interventions are perceived by some clinicians to be of greater benefit to the family than the patient. Some clinicians may have difficulty …. (shrink)

Paternalist policies in public health often aim to improve people’s well-being by reducing their options, regulating smoking offering a prime example. The well-being challenge is to show that people really are better off for having their options reduced. The distribution challenge is to show how the policies are justified since they produce losers as well as winners. If we start from these challenges, we can understand the importance of the empirical evidence that a very high proportion of smokers regret smoking. (...) In short, it is important that they regret it and important that the proportion is so high. This paper explains how, philosophically, regret can relate to well-being and it considers some of the strengths and weakness in the empirical research that the explanation brings out. The regret case for regulating smoking is indeed strong, although not as strong as the empirical researchers think. It is much weaker for paternalistic intervention in other public health problems, such as obesity and binge drinking. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Rawls and Human Rights Minimalism State Sovereignty and the Role of Human Rights Rawls's Political Liberalism and the Doctrine of Human Rights in LoP The Importance of the Role in LoP of Rawls's Narrow Doctrine of Human Rights Rawls's Arguments for the Narrow Doctrine ldquo;Ideal” and “Non‐ideal” Theory in LoP Strategies for the International Enforcement of Respect for Human Rights Conclusion Notes.