According to UNESCO guidelines, one of the four forms of bioethics committees in medicine are the Hospital Ethics Committees. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how the above guidelines are implemented in real practice. There were 111 hospitals selected out of 176 Polish clinical hospitals and hospitals accredited by Center of Monitoring Quality in Health System. The study was conducted by the survey method. There were 56 hospitals that responded to the survey. The number of HECs members fluctuated (...) between 3 and 16 members, where usually 5 members were part of the board committee. The composition of the HECs for professions other than physicians was diverse and non-standardized. Only 55 % of HECs had a professional set of standards. 98 % of HECs had specific tasks. 62 % of HECs were asked for their expertise, and 55 % prepared <6.88 % of the opinions were related to interpersonal relations between hospital personnel, patients and their families with emphasis on the interactions between superiors and their inferiors or hospital staff and patients and their families. Only 12 % of the opinions were reported by the respondents as related to ethical dilemmas. In conclusion, few Polish hospitals have HECs, and the structure, services and workload are not always adequate. To ensure a reliable operation of HECs requires the development of relevant legislation, standard operating procedures and well trained members. (shrink)

W świetle niektórych tez, wywodu i argumentacji zawartych w najnowszej książce Jacka Wojtysiaka Między ukryciem a jawnością. Esej z filozofii religii i teologii filozoficznej (2023) w niniejszym artykule prezentuję ważne elementy chrześcijańskiej koncepcji aktu stwórczego i relacji Bóg-–świat oraz wynikających z tego konsekwencji dla wyrażania istotnych składników doktryny religijnej. Argumentuję, że nie jest możliwe stworzenie świata z (względną) autonomią oraz (względną) ludzką wolnością, w którym nie ma zła naturalnego i zła moralnego. W tym kontekście podkreślam wagę aspektowego i racjonalnego ujęcia (...) relacji Stwórca–stworzenie oraz znaczenie teorii kenozy, w której akt kreacji przedstawiany jest jako swoiste samoograniczenie Boga. (shrink)

Výsledkem rozboru lexikálního pole vražda a jemu příbuzných pojmů je zjištění, že tento pojem už ve svém významu obsahuje negativní hodnocení, na rozdíl od okolních pojmů. Avšak současná etika lokalizuje hodnotovost tohoto pojmu do slova špatný a soustředí se na jeho opak, slovo dobrý, jehož čistě etický význam se snaží izolovat. Plodnější však je chápat slovo vražda analogicky k jeho užití v justičním procesu soudem, kde z něj, ve formě rozsudku, dokonce plynou performativní a právní důsledky.An analysis of the lexical (...) field murder and its neighbouring concepts shows that this concept itself contains a negative value, as opposed to the other notions. But contemporary ethics tries to localize this negativity into the predicate wrong and concentrates on its opposite, good, whose purely ethical meaning it purports to isolate. But perhaps it is more useful to view the word murder analogically to its use in the judicial process, where performative and legal consequences follow. (shrink)

Článek reaguje na monografii Homo Natura: Nietzsche, Philosophical Anthropology and Biopolitics (2020) současné akademičky Vanessy Lemmové zabývající se Nietzschovým úkolem „přesadit člověka zpět do přírody“, tzn. chápat jej jako bytost veskrze imanentní přírodě. Reakce směřuje především na jednu z hlavních tezí knihy, podle níž tato Nietzschova snaha otevírá možnost nového, postantropocentrického pohledu na člověka a jeho vztahu k přírodě – pohledu, v jehož centru zájmu již nestojí člověk, nýbrž život sám, resp. kontinuum života, jež se ztělesňuje v lidském druhu a (...) jehož je lidský druh rovnocennou součástí po boku ostatních organismů. Nietzschova myšlenka o homo natura podle Lemmové předznamenává myšlení současného posthumanismu vyznačujícího se právě snahou vytvořit takový pohled na člověka a jeho vztah k přírodě, který bybyl vhodným teoretickým rámcem pro sebepojetí člověka v epoše antropocénu. Článek tuto tezi doplňuje o Heideggerovu interpretaci Nietzschovy myšlenky nadčlověka podanou v sérii přednášek Co znamená myslet?, v níž je nadčlověk chápán jako ekologický ideál lidstva schopného zodpovědně převzít moc plynoucí z technického přetváření země. Cílem článku je ukázat, že, v souladu s interpretacemi Lemmové a Heideggera, u Nietzscheho lze nalézt způsob, jak by se lidstvo mohlo produktivně vyrovnat s realitou antropocénu, a to skrze přechod od „posledního člověka“ k „nadčlověku“, kde přechod k „nadčlověku“ je chápán jako idea nastolení nového vztahu mezi lidmi a přírodou, resp. mezi lidmi a zemí. (shrink)

Na základě vlivné Augustinovy analýzy chápal středověk lež jako vždycky špatnou, zatímco pozdější renesanční a barokní autoři Grotius a Milton tvrdili, že v některých případech je lhát správné. Předkládaná kompromisní pozice tvrdí, že lež je vždycky špatná, protože je to vědomé pronesení nepravdy za účelem oklamat, ale ne vždy, když pronášíme vědomou nepravdu, tak lžeme.

The production of renewable energy in agricultural biogas plants is being widely criticized because—among other things—most of the feedstock comes from purpose-grown crops like maize. These activities generate competitive pressure to other crops that are used for feeding or food production, worsening their affordability. Unique pretreatment technology that allows substitution of the purpose-grown crops by farming residues was built 6 years ago on a commercial basis in Pěčín under modest funding and without publicity. The design of the concept; financial assessment (...) and moral viewpoint were analyzed based on practical operating data. It showed that the apparatus improves economic, environmental and moral acceptance as well. However, according to the government’s view, public funding for this type of processing was shortened, “because waste materials represent a lower cost”. The impact of such governance was analyzed as well. (shrink)

The unethical overuse of antibiotics to seek to achieve a shortening of the treatment period raises the cost of health services and poses a threat to humanity due to the gradual development of antibiotic resistance. Other consequences of our modern passion for antibiotics have appeared. Small concentrations of antibiotic residues in sewage waters slow down the metabolism of anaerobic microorganism thereby reducing the overall performance of the anaerobic fermentation used to detoxify and digest sewage and other collected organic wastes. Reduced (...) biogas yields represents a serious threat to the energy self-sufficiency of some waste-water treatment plants, so it might change them from energy producers into energy consumers. Morally justifiable production of renewable energy from bio-waste is also threatened by antibiotic residues that remain in the bio-waste. (shrink)

From the early days of philosophy, ethics and justice, there is wide consensus that the constancy of the laws establishes the legal system. On the other hand, the rate at which we accumulate knowledge is gaining speed like never before. Due to the recently increased attention of academics to climate change and other environmental issues, a lot of new knowledge has been obtained about carbon management, its role in nature and mechanisms regarding the formation and degradation of organic matter. A (...) multidisciplinary techno-economic assessment of current composting standards and laws that took into account the current state of knowledge about carbon management was carried out as a case study. Economic and environmental damage caused by outdated laws was revealed. In addition, it was found that the introduction of the best composts into the market is permitted, causing additional negative environmental as well as economic impacts. (shrink)

The trend of emerging biorefineries is to process the harvest as efficiently as possible and without any waste. From the most valuable phytomass, refined medicines, enzymes, dyes and other special reactants are created. Functional foods, food ingredients, oils, alcohol, solvents, plastics, fillers and a wide variety of other chemical products follow. After being treated with nutrient recovery techniques, biofuels or soil improvers are produced from the leftovers. Economic optimization algorithms have confirmed that such complex biorefineries can be financially viable only (...) when a high degree of feedstock concentration is included. Because the plant material is extremely voluminous before processing, the farming intensity of special plants increases in the nearest vicinity of agglomerations where the biorefineries are built for logistical reasons. Interdisciplinary analyses revealed that these optimization measures lead to significantly increased pollen levels in neighbouring urban areas and subsequently an increased risk of allergies, respectively costs to the national health system. A new moral dilemma between the shareholder’s profit and public interest was uncovered and subjected to disputation. (shrink)

Purpose of the article is to present in two parts the selected aspects of application of monetary policy in the euro area pre and post 2008 as well as insitutional adaptations brought by the EU legislator. Methodology/methods In order to better explain these points, the article relies partially on a comparison with the framework and application of the monetary policy by the Federal Reserve as well as on a historic method when outlining the influence of definition of financial stability from (...) the ECB/eurosystem towards other prominent central banks. Scientific aim The article presents selected aspects of the monetary policy in the part of the EU where single currency was introduced in order to outline state of the art governance structure as well as a certain institutional creativity in application of powers conferred upon the central banks by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Protocol on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank. The goal is to prove the hypothesis of robustness of the framework and present the limits that can only be pushed further by the legislative power. The conclusions confirm on the one hand that the framework of monetary policy based on strong institutional safeguards such as legislative power and independence is very resilient and can prove efficient and creative enough to stabilise an innovative monetary system, however, on the other hand, validate the hypothesis that certain adaptations can only be performed on the basis of a legislative adaptations. (shrink)

In the article I compare two theories of existence in time: Simons’s conception of continuants and occurrents and Ingarden’s ontology of temporally determined objects (i.e. objects enduring in time, processes and events). They can be regarded as different positions in the controversy over substantialism. The main problem of this controversy can be expressed by the question: what is the primary way of being in time—endurance or perdurance? Ingarden and Simons admit that there exist objects characterized by both ways of being (...) but for Simons, unlike for Ingarden, perdurants are the basic objects which the world is composed of. My aim is not to assess both ontologies but to use the comparison of them as the basis of a reconstruction of the principal problems contained in the controversy over substantialism. (shrink)

Zaionc, M., λ-Definability on free algebras, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 51 279-300. A λ-language over a simple type structure is considered. There is a natural isomorphism which identifies free algebras with nonempty second-order types. If A is a free algebra determined by the signature SA = [α1,...,αn], then by a type τA we mean τ1,...,τn→0 where τi=0αi→0. It can be seen that closed terms of the type τA reflex constructions in the algebra A. Therefore any term of the (...) type n→τA defines some n-ary mapping in algebra A. The problem is to characterize λ-definable mappings in any free algebra. It is proved that the set of λ-definable operations is the minimal set that contains constant functions and projections and is closed under composition and limited recursion. This result is a generalization of the result of Schwichtenberg and Statman which characterize the λ-definable functions over the natural number type →, i.e algebra [1, 0], as well as of the result of Zaionc for λ-definable word operations over type n→, i.e algebra [1,...,1,0], and of the results about λ-definable tree operations , i.e in algebra [2, 0]. Some of the examples in Section 5 are based on a publication of Zaionc. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to provide a philosophical and historical background to current discussions about the changing relationships between the university and the state through revisiting the classical “Humboldtian” model of the university as discussed in classical German philosophy. This historical detour is intended to highlight the cultural rootedness of the modern idea of the university, and its close links to the idea of the modern national state. The paper discusses the idea of the university as it emerges (...) from the philosophy of Wilhelm von Humbold, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schleiermacher, as well as - in the 20th century - Karl Jaspers and Jürgen Habermas. More detailed questions discussed include the historical pact between the modern university and the modern nation-state, the main principles of the Humboldtian university, the process of the nationalization of European universities, the national aspect of the German idea of culture (Bildung), and the tension between the pursuit of truth and public responsibilities of the modern university. In discussing current and future missions and roles of the institution of the university today, it can be useful to revisit its foundational (modern) German idea. In thinking about its future, it can be constructive to reflect on the evident current tensions between traditional modern expectations of the university and the new expectations intensified by the emergence of knowledge-based societies and market-driven economies. From the perspective of the tensions between old and new tasks of the university, it is useful to look back at the turning point in its history. (shrink)

Paradoxe polonais : si l'apprentissage de l'anglais fait partie de la formation professionnelle, le français est plutôt le résultat d'un choix motivé et volontaire, signe qualificatif de distinction. Les Polonais sont de plus en plus conscients de la valeur de la notion de « francophonie », à ne pas confondre ave le « caractère français »Somewhat paradoxically, learning English is seen in Poland as a standard requirement of vocational training, while learning French is seen as a matter of personal choice (...) and motivation and a marker of social distinction. Yet Poles are growing increasingly aware of the value of the notion of "francophonie" - not to be confused with the "caractère français". (shrink)

In this paper I analyze the most controversial thesis of Aristotelian substantialism, namely, that substances cannot be composed of other substances. I call this position the Mereological Limitation Thesis (MLT). I find MLT valid and defend it. My argument for MLT is a version of the argument from the unicity of substantial form. Every substance can have only one substantial form, thus, if some substances compose the objectO, then what binds them is only a set of their accidental forms (relations) (...) and in the result thereofOis not a substance (Ois not informed by a substantial form). I argue against the relativization of the substantiality of forms to the level of composition by showing that substantial forms must be absolutely identity-independent. In the last section I specify the ontological status of parts of substances and argue that they are spatially distributed bundles of accidents of a compound substance itself. (shrink)

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection finds application far outside biology, for which it was originally invented. Its consequences for science proved far-going, influencing practically every field from thermodynamics to the humanities. While acting on biological systems, the Darwinian mechanism is a source of progress and the local-scale abandonment of the universe’s general tendency towards chaos. However, observations of changes taking place in selection-exposed organisms show that evolutionary success requires some essential limitations. The application of this (...) reasoning to social evolution may appear thought-provoking: stable evolution requires not only intense selection but also a conservative approach to ideas. (shrink)

In his life and work, Leszek Kołakowski traversed many paths, some more and some less well-known. The main focus here is on Kołakowski’s involvement in what one may call an anthropological variant of philosophy of culture. Anthropological philosophy of culture bases on the following assumptions:1. Human conduct is determined by culture. There is neither humanity without culture nor culture without humans.2. Human conduct is by nature referential, in other words, the factual alone is not enough for humans who tend to (...) reach beyond it in their search for the most elemental and ultimate truths.3. Culture is a dynamic phenomenon and a challenge on the path to self-awareness.4. Axiological sensitivity.5. The culture philosopher is immersed in the culture he studies and, by revealing that which it conceals, is a source of reflection on this culture. All these assumptions lie at the core of the philosophy of Leszek Kołakowski. (shrink)

Die Beiträge dieses Bandes aus verschiedenen Disziplinen, Philosophie, Literaturgeschichte und Kunstgeschichte schließen sich zum Bild einer Epoche zusammen, die einen Höhepunkt des deutschen Geisteslebens darstellt. Dabei treten bestimmte Züge heraus, welche die Genese dieser Kultur in relativ eng umgrenzten Kommunikationszentren zeigen: Königsberg - Düsseldorf - Jena - Weimar - freilich mit Ausstrahlung auf das übrige Deutschland. So etwa: die Stilisierung der Geselligkeit über den literarischen Dialog bis zur philosophischen Interpersonalitätslehre Fichtes und einer dem entsprechenden Dialektik des Dialogs; einer Staats- und (...) Gesellschaftsauffassung, die zwar noch in der klassischen Naturrechtslehre der Aufklärung gründete, aber den Rechtsbegriff so in sich zu gliedern wußte, daß er Implikationen verbindlich auch für das politische Handeln hergeben konnte und so aus dem Rechtsbegriff erstmals die Umsetzung des Völkerfriedens politisch fordern konnte. Es zeigt sich hier ein Grundmodell, das aller pragmatisch ausmachbaren Verallgemeinerungsfähigkeit überlegen ist, da die sittliche Person auch schon im Recht eine individuelle Aufforderung erhält, soll politisches Handeln von der öffentlichen Meinung anerkannt werden. Schließlich tritt eine neue Religiosität auf, die ein Naturverständnis einbezog, das ästhetischer Herkunft war, und die vielleicht deswegen ihren überzeugendsten Ausdruck in der Malerei fand. In allen diesen Bereichen aber werden Natur und Kunst im Lichte der neuentdeckten Freiheit des autonomen Individuums wiederbelebt. (shrink)

In 1536 the English Parliament under pressure from Henry VIII and the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, gave its consent for the dissolution of the lesser monasteries and abbeys in the king’s realm, and three years later with the sanction of MPs some of the greater religious houses also suffered the same fate. The principal aim of this paper is to assess the importance of this political decision with a view to examining the progress being made in the field of education (...) in England in the middle of the sixteenth century resultant upon this dissolution. The evaluation of the merits and demerits originating from the suppression of the English monasteries is made in terms of both primary and academic education. The answers to these key questions are preceded by a short analysis of the reputation monasteries and abbeys had acquired by that time. Also on a selective basis, some opinions have been presented here to provide an overall picture of the standing of the monks and nuns and their concomitant activities, as perceived through the eyes of English society; the eminent scholars and humanists in particular. Subsequently, before assessing the consequences resulting from the dissolution of the religious houses in England, some consideration is given to the reasoning and rationale which lay behind both Henry VIII and his Lord Chancellor’s political decisions. (shrink)

In an era of fiscal austerity and dualization of social protection, has organized labor become increasingly split along skill and industry lines? Against recent political science accounts of trade union involvement in social policymaking, this paper argues that, in the specific area of pensions, unions representing high-skilled workers and the core industrial sectors of the economy have paradoxically been led to increase their cooperation with unions representing the less privileged segments of labor, in order to improve coverage of private pensions (...) across the board. These unions’ motivations for doing so and the strategies they have employed have nonetheless differed according to the preexisting institutional design of domestic pension systems. The argument is supported with case studies of British, French, German, and Belgian unions’ involvement in contemporary pension reform. (shrink)

On Conditions of Participation: The Deficits of Public Reason The paper analyzes the conditions of civic participation that are elucidated by criticism of the deficits of public reason. The interpretation proceeds in three steps. First, the idea of public reason and discourse is analyzed, followed by an explanation of democratic deficit and of the social deficit in the second and third steps, respectively. These deficits are analyzed as an essential limit to political and social conditions of the participation of citizens. (...) The analysis focuses thereby on the theory of public reason by one of the most influential political philosophers of the last decades, John Rawls. The paper identifies two main pitfalls in his theory: first, the deficit following from an inadequate integration of an individual into society, which, in this case, represents democratic deficit, second, the deficit linked with underrating the socio-distributive dimension of justice, which means a social deficit. (shrink)

Artykuł poświęcony jest problemowi możliwości analizy faktów istnienia. Fakty istnienia są specyficznymi stanami rzeczy. Stany rzeczy są ontycznymi odpowiednikami sądów. Fakty istnienia są korelatami sądów egzystencjalnych. Stany rzeczy różne od faktów istnienia dadzą się analizować jako złożenia z prostszych składników, np. podmiotu i własności. Są filozofowie, którzy uważają, że w analogiczny sposób da się analizować fakty istnienia. Według tej analizy polegają one na tym, że rzeczy posiadają istnienie, ale rozumiane w sensie zasady istnienia czy też aktu istnienia — niesamodzielnego składnika (...) rzeczy. Argumentuję przeciwko możliwości takiej analizy. Jeśli jest ona konsekwentnie przeprowadzona, to wiedzie do tezy, że istnienie-zasada jest całkiem zewnętrzne wobec rzeczy. Poza tym pokazuję, że niesamodzielność istnienia-zasady blokuje przypisywaną jej funkcję urealniania. Fakt istnienia uznaję za nieanalizowalny i w związku z tym odrzucam sensowność pytania o realną różnice między istotą a istnieniem. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to examine whether the relationship between the ratio of job-related positive to negative emotions and job burnout is best described as linear or curvilinear. Participants were 89 police officers and 86 firefighters. The positivity ratio was evaluated using the Job-related Affective Wellbeing Scale. Exhaustion and disengagement, two components of job burnout, were measured using the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory. The results of regression analysis revealed that curvilinear relationships between the positivity ratio and two components of (...) job burnout appeared to better fit the data than linear relationships. The relationship between the positivity ratio and exhaustion was curvilinear with a curve point at around 2.1. A similar curvilinear relationship, but with a lower curve point, i.e., around 1.8, was observed for disengagement. It seems that beyond certain values there may be hidden costs of maintaining positive emotions at work. Also, the unequal curve points for subscales suggest that different dimensions of work-related functioning are variously prone to such costs. (shrink)

ArgumentSeveral Yiddish medical publications of various profiles appeared in independent Poland until 1939. These print media were associated with OZE and TOZ organizational structures and aimed to promote modern concepts of health and healthcare among the Jewish population in its native tongue. Some of these magazines offered space for direct consultations, which took the form of a correspondence corner. Questions sent in by readers ranged from apparently neutral topics, such as a healthy diet or hygiene, to controversial matters tormenting individuals (...) in provincial milieus. The correspondence gives us an insight into popular ways of thinking about health and disease and indicates issues of high importance for a society in the process of modernization. The present paper discusses the questions and answers as they appeared in the Yiddish medical press (particularly in theFolksgezuntandDer Doktor), and presents the most crucial aspects of Jewish life they shed light on, including the historical and cultural background. (shrink)

The issue of whistleblower protection has been gaining more attention in recent years, especially after the passing of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of October 23, 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law. However, there is a fundamental question as to whether the regulations are sufficient to provide real protection for whistleblowers in organizations. In this regard, it seems crucial that the various actors (legislators, managers, employees) work together to (...) create an appropriate social environment. In this context, it is worth considering the use of knowledge of human decision-making processes, with particular emphasis on the possibility of modifying choice architecture and influencing decisions without imposing specific solutions. Nudging can be used in the “foreground” of legal regulation, by adjusting the social environment in such a way that legal regulation can work effectively. The paper provides an introduction to the application of nudge theory in the context of legal protection of whistleblowers. (shrink)

According to recent discussion, cross-explanatory integration in cognitive science might proceed by constraints on mechanistic and dynamic-mechanistic models provided by different research fields. However, not much attention has been given to constraints that could be provided by the study of first-person experience, which in the case of multifaceted mental phenomena are of key importance. In this paper, we fill this gap and consider the question whether information about first-person experience can constrain dynamic-mechanistic models and what the character of this relation (...) is. We discuss two cases of such explanatory models in neuroscience, namely that of migraine and of epilepsy. We argue that, in these cases, first-person insights about the target phenomena significantly contributed to explanatory models by shaping explanatory hypotheses and by indicating the dynamical properties that the explanatory models of these phenomena should account for, and thus directly constraining the space of possible explanations. (shrink)

Earlier research by the author brought about findings suggesting that people in a special way process words related to demands of a problem they previously solved, even when they do not consciously notice this relationship. The findings concerned interference in the task in which the words appeared, a shift in affective responses to them that depended on sex of the participants, and impaired memory of the words. The aim of this study was to replicate these effects and to find out (...) whether they are related to working memory span of the participants, taken as a measure of the individual’s ability to control attention. Participants in the experimental group solved a divergent problem, then performed an ostensibly unrelated speeded affective classification task concerning each of a series of nouns, and then performed an unexpected cued recall task for the nouns. Afterwards, a task measuring WM span was administered. In the control group there was no problem-solving phase. Response latencies for words immediately following problem-related words in the classification task were longer in the experimental than in the control group, but there was no relationship between this effect and WM span. Solving the problem, in interaction with sex of the participants and, independently, with their WM span, influenced affective responses to problem-related words. Recall of these words, however, was not impaired in the experimental group. (shrink)

The Uppsala School in philosophy and the Vienna Circle are prima facie similar currents in contemporary philosophy. Both reject metaphysics, claim that reality is a spatio­‑temporal realm and adhere to noncognitivism in terms of values. However, justifications of these assumptions are quite different. In the following article we reconstruct main theses of both mentioned currents and then we indicate their impact on one of the major jurisprudential movements, namely Scandinavian Legal Realism. We focus on Alf Ross’ legal philosophy, as it (...) was an attempt to accommodate both: the philosophy of the Uppsala School and of the Vienna Circle. We trace those two sources of inspiration in Ross’ theory of legal validity and of legal concepts. (shrink)

Autor stawia w centrum rozważań koncepcję historii Cieszkowskiego i Hessa. "Prolegomena…" Cieszkowskiego wywarły silne wrażenie na Hessie. Autor "Heiligen Geschichte" przejął koncepcję filozofii czynu Cieszkowskiego, która nie ograniczała się do spekulacji, lecz przenosiła nas do sfery społecznej praktyki.

The character of norms is a relevant issue in the contemporary legal philosophy and in the metaethics. The analysis of Lewis’ sugguestions concerning the fictional statements (sentences “describing” the fiction) prima facie may seem to be useless from the perspective of law. However, the situation is different, due to the fact that it is possible to treat the legal text as the description of possible world. The issue is analyzed in the paper.