ABSTRACT This paper begins with a review of major difficulties with both extreme conservative and extreme liberal views on foetal moral status and the morality of abortion. There follows an outline and defence of a moderate position on abortion which is centred in an account of emergent foetal victimisability in being killed. Lastly, various perplexities about this view are explored, particularly the question whether, once victimisable at all, the victimisability of a foetus should reasonably be thought to increase proportionately with (...) further biological development. (shrink)

Apart from motor and behavioral dysfunctions, deficits in cognitive skills are among the well-documented sequelae of preterm birth. However, early identification of infants at risk for poor cognition is still a challenge, as no clear association between pathological findings based on neuroimaging scans and cognitive functions have been detected as yet. The Prechtl General Movement Assessment (GMA) has shown its merits for the evaluation of the integrity of the young nervous system. It is a reliable tool for identifying infants at (...) risk for neuromotor deficits. Recent studies on preterm infants demonstrate that abnormal general movements (GMs) also reflect impairments of brain areas involved in cognitive development. The aim of this systematic review was to discuss studies that included (i) the Prechtl GMA applied in preterm infants, and (ii) cognitive outcome measures in six data bases. Seven studies met the inclusion criteria and yielded the following results: (a) children born preterm with consistently abnormal GMs up to 8 weeks after term had lower intelligence quotients at school age than children with an early normalization of GMs; (b) from 3 to 5 months after term, several qualitative, and quantitative aspects of the concurrent motor repertoire, including postural patterns, were predictive of intelligence at 7–10 years of age. These findings in 428 individuals born preterm suggest that normal GMs along with a normal motor repertoire during the first months after term are markers for normal cognitive development until at least age 10. (shrink)

Every healthcare organisation enacts a multitude of policies, but there has been no discussion as to what procedural and substantive requirements a policy writing process should meet in order to achieve good outcomes and to possess sufficient authority for those who are asked to follow it.Using, as an example, the controversy about patient’s refusal of blood transfusions, I argue that a hospital wide policy is preferable to individual decision making, because it ensures autonomy, quality, fairness, and efficiency.Policy writing for morally (...) controversial medical practices needs additional justification compared to policies on standard medical practices and secures legitimate authority for HCO members by meeting five requirements: all parties directed by the policy are represented; the deliberative process encompasses all of the HCO’s obligations; the rationales for the policy are made available; there is a mechanism for criticising, and for evaluating the policy. (shrink)

Metaethical constructivism aims to explain morality’s authority and relevance by basing it in agency, in a capacity of the creatures who are in fact morally bound. But constructivists have struggled to wring anything recognizably moral from an appropriately minimal conception of agency. Even if they could, basing our reasons in our individual agency seems to make other people reason-giving for us only indirectly. This paper argues for a constructivism based on a social conception of agency, on which our capacity to (...) recognize ourselves as having reasons ties us inescapably to others. It argues that mutual recognition is a pervasive feature of linguistic concepts, and builds this into a view called transformative expressivism. (shrink)

In response to the so-called “paradox of deontology,” many have argued that the agent-relativity of deontological constraints accounts for why an agent may not kill one in order to prevent five others from being killed. Constraints provide reasons for particular agents not to kill, not reasons to minimize overall killings. In this paper, I tease out the significance of an underappreciated aspect of this agent-relative position, i.e. it provides no guidance as to what an agent ought to do when faced (...) with the prospect of killing one in order to prevent herself from killing five. After rejecting mere agent-relativity, the view that agents are morally permitted to violate constraints in order to minimize their overall violations, I offer a view that this is both agent- and time-relative, and show how this view exemplifies the underlying motivations for deontological constraints while successfully responding to both the inter- and intra-personal paradoxes of deontology. (shrink)

Commonsense morality seems to feature both agent-neutral and agent-relative elements. For a long time, the core debate between consequentialists and deontologists was which of these features should take centerstage. With the introduction of the consequentializing project and agent-relative value, however, agent-neutrality has been left behind. While I likewise favor an agent-relative view, agent-neutral views capture important features of commonsense morality.This article investigates whether an agent-relative view can maintain what is attractive about typical agent-neutral views. In particular, I argue that the (...) agent-relative reasons-wielding deontologist is ultimately able to capture those features ordinarily associated with agent-neutral views, while the agent-relative value wielding consequentialist is left with a dilemma. The consequentializer either succumbs to the concerns of her agent-neutral opponents or else abandons the distinctive and attractive features of her view. Either way, I conclude that agent-relative value is best left behind. (shrink)

BackgroundResearch using data from medical care promises to advance medical science and improve healthcare. Academia is not the only sector that expects such research to be of great benefit. The research-based health industry is also interested in so-called ‘real-world’ health data to develop new drugs, medical technologies or data-based health applications. While access to medical data is handled very differently in different countries, and some empirical data suggest people are uncomfortable with the idea of companies accessing health information, this paper (...) aims to advance the ethical debate about secondary use of medical data generated in the public healthcare sector by for-profit companies for medical research (ReuseForPro).MethodsWe first clarify some basic concepts and our ethical-normative approach, then discuss and ethically evaluate potential claims and interests of relevant stakeholders: patients as data subjects in the public healthcare system, for-profit companies, the public, and physicians and their healthcare institutions. Finally, we address the tensions between legitimate claims of different stakeholders in order to suggest conditions that might ensure ethically sound ReuseForPro.ResultsWe conclude that there are good reasons to grant for-profit companies access to medical data if they meet certain conditions: among others they need to respect patients’ informational rights and their actions need to be compatible with the public’s interest in health benefit from ReuseForPro. (shrink)

In this paper we attempt to identify which peer collaboration characteristics may be accountable for conceptual change through interaction. We focus on different socio‐cognitive aspects of the peer dialog and relate these with learning gains on the dyadic as well as the individual level. The scientific topic that was used for this study concerns natural selection, a topic for which students’ intuitive conceptions have been shown to be particularly robust. Learning tasks were designed according to the socio‐cognitive conflict instructional paradigm. (...) After receiving a short instructional intervention on natural selection, paired students were asked to collaboratively construct explanations for certain evolutionary phenomena while engaging in dialectical argumentation. Two quantitative coding schemes were developed, each with a different granularity. The first assessed discrete dialog moves that pertained to dialectical argumentation and to consensual explanation development. The second scheme characterized the dialog as a whole on a number of socio‐cognitive dimensions. Results from analyses on the dyadic as well as the individual level revealed that the engagement in dialectical argumentation predicted conceptual learning gains, whereas consensual explanation development did not. These findings open up new venues for research on the mechanisms of learning in and from peer collaboration. (shrink)

This article offers a hybrid rhetorical-qualitative discourse analysis of the FDA’s 2011 Avastin Hearing, which considered the revocation of the breast cancer indication for the popular cancer drug Avastin. We explore the multiplicity of stakeholders, the questions that motivated deliberations, and the kinds of evidence presented during the hearing. Pairing our findings with contemporary scholarship in rhetorical stasis theory, Mol’s (2002) construct of multiple ontologies, and Callon, Lascoumes, and Barthe’s (2011) “hybrid forums,” we demonstrate that the FDA’s deliberative procedures elides (...) various sources of evidence and the potential multiplicity of definitions for “clinical benefit.” Our findings suggest that while the FDA invited multiple stakeholders to offer testimony, there are ways that the FDA might have more meaningfully incorporated public voices in the deliberative process. We conclude with suggestions for how a true hybrid forum might be deployed. (shrink)

For Hume, one task of logic is “to explain the principles and operations of our reasoning faculties”; this chapter is a study of his logic of inductive reasoning, as presented in Book I of his Treatise and in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Like other early modern logics—especially those composed, as Hume’s was, under the influence of Locke—Hume’s logic is descriptive, explanatory, and normative. It also aspires to be revelatory. It is descriptive in documenting how our reasoning actually proceeds, explanatory (...) in telling us why it so proceeds, normative in telling us how it should proceed, and revelatory in using those findings to arrive at larger truths about human nature and human life. Hume formulates rules of inductive reasoning and ranks inductive arguments as better and worse. He also advocates the reform of intellectual disciplines. Yet his logic, it is argued, is at the same time deeply skeptical. (shrink)

Moderate deontologists hold that while it is wrong to kill an innocent person to save, say, five other individuals, it is indeed morally permissible to kill one if, say, millions of lives are at stake. A basic worry concerning the moderate’s position is whether the view boils down to mere philosophical wishful thinking. In permitting agents to ever kill an innocent, moderates require that agents treat persons as means, in opposition to traditional deontological motivations. Recently Tyler Cook argued that deontologists (...) can be moderate. However, there remains a gap in the literature concerning how such a view might function in practice, as well as why a deontologist might (or perhaps, should) hold the view. This paper works to fill these gaps. I first develop the view that agents can be constrained from an action even though there are instances in which an infringement of this constraint is permissible. Crucially, I appeal to the moral emotions that are fitting in cases of constraint infringements. I then go on to show how this view can be grounded in traditional deontological foundations. Respect for the dignity of persons, I argue, requires not only that we not treat others in certain ways, but also that we acknowledge the direct and indirect effects our actions and inactions have on all persons. This deontological motivation, in turn, leads to a moderate constraint on the actions of agents. (shrink)

Scholars are divided over the question of whether managerial aspirational talk that contradicts current business practices can contribute to corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this conceptual article, we explore the rhetorical dynamics of aspirational talk that either impede or foster CSR. We argue that self-persuasive CSR rhetoric, as one enactment of aspirational talk, can attract attention and scrutiny from organizational members. Continued adherence to this rhetoric, however, creates and perpetuates tensions that lead to a vicious circle of disengagement. A virtuous (...) circle, by contrast, requires a shift toward an agonistic rhetoric that transcends tensions by rearticulating aspirations in concurrence with situated understandings of responsible corporate practice. Our arguments contribute to a better understanding of how communication becomes constitutive of CSR and address the debate on decoupling between talk and action. (shrink)

Pour la célébration des 10 ans de L'Homme. Z.F.G., en 2000, les rédactrices invitèrent lecteurs et membres du comité de soutien à revenir sur cette décennie. Les réactions furent très positives et variées et on put comparer les articles et les débats publiés dans la revue avec les buts affirmés dans le premier éditorial de 1990. « La théorie féministe et le travail empirique se développent dans la confrontation avec des disciplines bien établies, et d'abord avec l'histoire », écrivions-nous a...

The chapters of Judith Butler's Giving an Account of Oneself originally were given as the Spinoza Lectures for the Department of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam in the spring of 2002. In this work, Butler returns to the problem of subjectivity and subject formation, but this time in the context of ethics and ethical philosophy. Pulling together ethical considerations and theories of the self from authors including Nietzsche, Foucault, Adorno, and Levinas, Butler deftly and successfully decenters and refocuses ethical (...) analysis by claiming that the subject is not the ground for ethics but rather the problem for ethics. Central to this thesis is the claim that the self is inherently relational, and emerges .. (shrink)

The use of social media as a recruitment tool for research with humans is increasing, and likely to continue to grow. Despite this, to date there has been no specific regulatory guidance and there has been little in the bioethics literature to guide investigators and institutional review boards faced with navigating the ethical issues such use raises. We begin to fill this gap by first defending a nonexceptionalist methodology for assessing social media recruitment; second, examining respect for privacy and investigator (...) transparency as key norms governing social media recruitment; and, finally, analyzing three relatively novel aspects of social media recruitment: the ethical significance of compliance with website “terms of use”; the ethics of recruiting from the online networks of research participants; and the ethical implications of online communication from and between participants. Two checklists aimed at guiding investigators and IRBs through the ethical issues are included as appendices. (shrink)

Die zentrale Stellung des Po-Konzepts in der polynesischen Religion steht somit fest. Für die Polynesier war Po eine geistige Realität, etwas überaus Heiliges. Es war eine heilige Zeit am Urbeginn der Welt. Es war ewig und allgegenwärtig, ein erhabenes Kontinuum, das in der Nacht und im Kult weiter bestand. Po und Ao bildeten das Ordnungsprinzip der Welt; "Po gehörte den Göttern, Ao den Menschen"48. Mit Konsequenz und logischer Klarheit konstituierten Po und Ao die Ordnung aller Lebensphänomene. Sie erklärten den Ursprung (...) alles auf Erden Bestehenden und gaben allen Wesen, Dingen und Institutionen Sinn und Bedeutung. Sie bildeten ein holistisches Prinzip, das alle Lebensbereiche von Religion bis Sex umfaßte und durchdrang und Urzeit und Gegenwart, Zeit und Raum, Götter und Menschen, das Sakrale und das Profane, Fürsten und Volk, Lebende und Tote, Geburt und Tod in einem großartigen geistig-religiösen System zusammenschloß. (shrink)

Today, young people write in their leisure time far more than they did 15 years ago. Most often they use the new media to do their writing. This book explores whether the frequent writing of short messages and e-mails and participation in chats and social networks like Facebook have an influence on writing in school. Are there any similarities and relationships between the texts written in school and the private texts? For the first time, based on comprehensive data from Swiss (...) students, this book provides empirical answers to these questions. (shrink)

- Wo liegt Osteuropa? Mental mapping, Osteuropageschichte und Slawistik - Literaturen exemplarisch: russische und polnische Literatur im Kontext nationaler, ost- und gesamteuropäischer Geschichte - Literatur und nationale Identitätsbildung: Staat und Zensur, Subversion und Emanzipation - Aufklärung von oben, Romantik und Realismus, Moderne zwischen ästhetischem Aufbruch und sozialistischem Realismus, Postmoderne und die neue Lust am Fabulieren - Orientalismus, Stadt und Land, Genderdiskurs.

In this article, we introduce our interactive art installation Neuro Mirror that was developed in 2017 for the Cybernetic Consciousness [?] exhibition that was held in 2017 at the ITAU Cultural in Sao Paulo. This artwork enables participants to interact with their own images and those of their alter egos with the help of digital mirrors. The installation consists of three screens. The middle one shows a live image of the participant that is somewhat distorted. The one on the left (...) side also displays an image of the interacting person, but with a time delay of a few seconds. On the right screen, however, another person is shown – a young man, who is acting and moving his head. In fact, this person is programmed to be an avatar or an alter ego who reacts to the participant. He ‘learns’ new behaviours by observing and imitating the participant and reacts accordingly. A neural network programme was developed to enable him to predict the participant’s next actions from his previous ones. (shrink)

The practice of corporate social responsibility has often been described as a balance of profitability and social or societal responsibility by scholars as well as practitioners. It is assumed that regulations and guidelines of CSR practices link competitiveness and responsibility together. While recognising that formal CSR statements represent a goal-oriented managerial approach to CSR, we argue based on the description of a qualitative case study that the relationship between profitability and social or societal responsibility is not as clear and simple (...) as it is often described. Instead, CSR should be considered as a continuously negotiated process between companies and stakeholders. Hence, the creation of a constructive link between profitability and social or societal responsibility is dependent on the amount of effort that has been put into exploring the concerns of the stakeholders, vis-a-vis the company, while simultaneously accepting changes when they are necessary. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking work, Christa Davis Acampora offers a profound rethinking of Friedrich Nietzsche’s crucial notion of the agon. Analyzing an impressive array of primary and secondary sources and synthesizing decades of Nietzsche scholarship, she shows how the agon, or contest, organized core areas of Nietzsche’s philosophy, providing a new appreciation of the subtleties of his notorious views about power. By focusing so intensely on this particular guiding interest, she offers an exciting, original vantage from which to view this (...) iconic thinker: Contesting Nietzsche. Though existence—viewed through the lens of Nietzsche’s agon—is fraught with struggle, Acampora illuminates what Nietzsche recognized as the agon’s generative benefits. It imbues the human experience with significance, meaning, and value. Analyzing Nietzsche’s elaborations of agonism—his remarks on types of contests, qualities of contestants, and the conditions in which either may thrive or deteriorate—she demonstrates how much the agon shaped his philosophical projects and critical assessments of others. The agon led him from one set of concerns to the next, from aesthetics to metaphysics to ethics to psychology, via Homer, Socrates, Saint Paul, and Wagner. In showing how one obsession catalyzed so many diverse interests, Contesting Nietzsche sheds fundamentally new light on some of this philosopher’s most difficult and paradoxical ideas. (shrink)

In this astonishingly rich volume, experts in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, aesthetics, history, critical theory, and hermeneutics bring to light the best philosophical scholarship on what is arguably Nietzsche's most rewarding but most challenging text. Including essays that were commissioned specifically for the volume as well as essays revised and edited by their authors, this collection showcases definitive works that have shaped Nietzsche studies alongside new works of interest to students and experts alike. A lengthy introduction, annotated (...) bibliography, and index make this an extremely useful guide for the classroom and advanced research. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ Hélène Cixous a écrit de nombreux essais, consacrés pour la plupart à l’écriture, la sienne et celle d’autres auteurs. Pourtant la place que le genre de l’essai occupe dans l’œuvre de l’auteure est loin d’être claire. Face aux fictions cixousiennes appréciées comme étant les véritables “essais” au sens montaignien du terme, se trouvent les essais en question, souvent écrits à la suite d’une demande extérieure. L’essai même constitue-t-il un genre cixousien à part entière? Une analyse diachronique, qui nous mènera (...) des grands textes qu’Hélène Cixous a écrits en réponse aux urgences de son époque aux textes plus récents dédiés à l’intimité du processus de l’écriture, situera l’essai et son évolution à l’intérieur du développement de son œuvre. (shrink)

This short personal essay considers the principles behind housing reform in New York at the turn of the last century in light of the controversies around the ghetto law in contemporary Denmark. I take the example of documentary journalist and reformer Jacob Riis, who photographed housing conditions in immigrant neighbor-hoods on the Lower East Side in New York at the turn of the twentieth century, as a case study for considering the ways that race informed—and continues to inform—ideals around urban (...) planning. Conversely, I also consider contemporary controversies around the ghetto law, and activism by community members as a way of re-thinking a research approach to historical urban reforms. (shrink)