Experts provide an alternative source of information to classical data collection methods such as surveys. They can provide additional insight into problems, supplement existing data, or provide insights when classical data collection is troublesome. In this paper, we explore the (dis)similarities between expert judgments and data collected by traditional data collection methods regarding the development of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSSs) in children with burn injuries. By means of an elicitation procedure, the experts’ domain expertise is formalized and represented in the (...) form of probability distributions. The method is used to obtain beliefs from 14 experts, including nurses and psychologists. Those beliefs are contrasted with questionnaire data collected on the same issue. The individual and aggregated expert judgments are contrasted with the questionnaire data by means of Kullback–Leibler divergences. The aggregated judgments of the group that mainly includes psychologists resemble the questionnaire data more than almost all of the individual expert judgments. (shrink)

Desde un enfoque ecológico, puede decirse que una persona trata de identificar la acción óptima para ella mediante un conjunto de diferentes acciones posibles a través de la intuición. El debate sobre las ‘teorías del proceso dual’ recoge esta idea y postula dos vías diferentes para evaluar las posibilidades de decisión: una vía lógico-analítica y otra intuitiva (Magrabi y Bach, 2013). Predominantemente, se asume que la vía lógico-analítica está relacionada con la racionalidad y, por tanto, es la vía a la (...) que hay que aspirar en la toma de decisiones racionales. Sin embargo, la ciencia ha demostrado que hay que asumir una racionalidad limitada. Por lo tanto, la cuestión de hasta qué punto las emociones o los sentimientos, y en este contexto también las intuiciones, son racionales ha pasado a primer plano (De Sousa, 1987; Evans y Cruse, 2004). En este trabajo, las intuiciones se consideran como un sentimiento con intencionalidad. Las intuiciones siempre se refieren a un entorno apropiado y se dirigen a una decisión que da lugar a una acción. Damásio (1994; 2013) demuestra que una intuición es un sentimiento que se distingue por actuar como un indicio o señal. Asumiendo el supuesto de racionalidad ecológica (Gigerenzer, Todd and ABC Research Group, 1999; Todd and Gigerenzer, 2012; Todd and Brighton, 2016), se puede demostrar que las decisiones intuitivas se basan en el conocimiento experiencial y el reconocimiento implícito de estructuras (Magrabi y Bach, 2013). En consecuencia, con el enfoque de racionalidad ecológica se puede demostrar que una decisión intuitiva es racional en el sentido de que una persona interactúa con éxito con su entorno de forma rápida y energéticamente adaptada y, por lo tanto, identifica la acción óptima para sí misma. Esto puede reconocerse como una ‘corazonada’ o ‘intuición’. En este artículo se explican dos retos: la influencia de un entorno negativo en las decisiones intuitivas y la confusión de una intuición con una emoción u otro sentimiento. (shrink)

Both during and after his long career, many political philosophies have been attributed to John Dewey. Perhaps most familiarly, Dewey is seen as a kind of communitarian or participatory democrat who provides a rich account of human nature requiring a moral state.2 Rob Talisse, for example, defines “Deweyan Democracy” as “a style of substantive democratic theory which emphasizes citizen participation in the shared cooperative undertaking of self-government at all levels of social association” (2003, 1). On this reading, Dewey’s account of (...) “thick” terms like “community” or “growth” and his inter-subjective view of human nature provide philosophical grounds for the normative superiority of participatory democracy. If .. (shrink)

To many in the Netherlands it seems that basic income’s time has come, following the wide appeal of several municipal experiments. These random-control trial designs study the effects on employment, social participation, health and well-being of exempting social assistance claimants from the duties of seeking work and participating in training activities under the workfare-oriented Participation Act. In some treatment groups, claimants also retain a larger percentage of earnings, thereby reducing the poverty trap. These two design features resemble an unconditional basic (...) income. I situate the experiments in the wider context of basic income and discuss their theoretical background and policy orientation. Under existing legal strictures, the experimental designs are too limited to judge the effects of replacing the conditional scheme of social assistance by an unconditional one. Yet these experiments point the way for future trials which can compare the effectiveness of basic income-oriented versus workfare-oriented treatments. (shrink)

It is often alleged that Cantor’s views about how the set theoretic universe as a whole should be considered are fundamentally unclear. In this article we argue that Cantor’s views on this subject, at least up until around 1896, are relatively clear, coherent, and interesting. We then go on to argue that Cantor’s views about the set theoretic universe as a whole have implications for theology that have hitherto not been sufficiently recognised. However, the theological implications in question, at least (...) as articulated here, would not have satisfied Cantor himself. (shrink)

BackgroundBurnout is a major societal issue adversely affecting employees’ health and performance, which over time results in high sick leave costs for organizations. Traditional rehabilitation therapies show suboptimal effects on reducing burnout and the return-to-work process. Based on the health-promoting effects of nature, taking clients outdoors into nature is increasingly being used as a complementary approach to traditional therapies, and evidence of their effectiveness is growing. Theories explaining how the combination of general psychological support and outdoor-specific elements can trigger the (...) rehabilitation process in outdoor therapy are often lacking, however, impeding its systematic research.AimThe study aims to develop an intervention and evaluation model for outdoor therapy to understand and empirically evaluate whether and how such an outdoor intervention may work for rehabilitation after burnout.Methodological ApproachWe build on the exemplary case of an outdoor intervention for rehabilitation after burnout, developed by outdoor clinical psychologists in Netherlands. We combined the generic context, process, and outcome evaluation model and the burnout recovery model as an overarching deductive frame. We then inductively specified the intervention and evaluation model of outdoor therapy, building on the following qualitative data: semi-structured interviews with outdoor clinical psychologists and former clients; a content analysis of the intervention protocol; and reflective meetings with the intervention developers and health promotion experts.ResultsWe identified six key outdoor intervention elements: physical activity; reconnecting body and mind; nature metaphors; creating relationships; observing natural interactions; and experiential learning. The results further showed that the implementation of these elements may facilitate the rehabilitation process after burnout in which proximal, intermediate, and distal outcomes emerge. Finally, the results suggested that this implementation process depends on the context of the therapist, therapy, and of the clients.ConclusionThe intervention and evaluation model for outdoor therapy shows how key outdoor intervention elements may contribute to the rehabilitation process after burnout. However, our model needs to be further tested among a larger group of clients to empirically evaluate whether and how outdoor therapy can support rehabilitation. (shrink)

The relation and collaboration of human and animal medicine had its ups and downs throughout history. The interaction between these two disciplines has been especially fruitful in the broad areas of patho-physiology and of epidemiology. An exploration of the interaction between the two disciplines, using historical and contemporary examples in comparative medicine, zoonoses, zooprophylaxis, and human-animal bond, reveals that a better understanding of animal and human disease, as well as societal changes such as interest in non-conventional medicine, are leading to (...) a broader concept of one medicine that includes animal and human medicine as well as social and other sciences. (shrink)

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick contrasts entitlement theories of justice and “traditional” theories such as Rawls', utilitarianism or egalitarianism, and advocates the former against the latter. What exactly is an entitlement theory of justice? Nozick's book offers two distinct characterizations. On the one hand, he explicitly describes “the general outlines of the entitlement theory” as maintaining “that the holdings of a person are just if he is entitled to them by the principles of justice in acquisition and transfer, (...) or by the principle of rectification of injustice ”. On the other hand, his famous “Wilt Chamberlain” argument against alternative theories is first said to apply to “non-entitlement conceptions”, and later to any “end-state principle or distributional patterned principle of justice” — which amounts to an implicit characterization of an entitlement conception as a conception of justice which is neither end-state nor patterned. (shrink)

According to the logic of collective action, mere awareness of the causes of environmental degradation will not motivate rational agents to reduce pollution. Yet some government policies aim to enlist citizens in schemes of voluntary cooperation, drawing on an ethos of collective responsibility. Are such policies doomed to failure? This book provides a novel application of rational choice theory to a large-scale survey of environmental attitudes in The Netherlands. Its main findings are that rational citizens are motivated to cooperate towards (...) a less polluted environment to a large extent, but that their willingness to assume responsibility depends on the social context of the collective action problem they face. This empirical study is an important volume in the development of a more consistent foundation for rational choice theory in policy analysis, which seeks to clarify major theoretical issues concerning the role of moral commitment, self-interest and reciprocity in environmental behaviour. (shrink)

This article challenges the general thesis that an unconditional basic income, set at the highest sustainable level, is required for maximizing the income-leisure opportunities of the least advantaged, when income varies according to the responsible factor of labor input. In a linear optimal taxation model (of a type suggested by Vandenbroucke 2001) in which opportunities depend only on individual productivity, adding the instrument of a uniform wage subsidy generates an array of undominated policies besides the basic income maximizing policy, including (...) a “zero basic income” policy which equalizes the post-tax wage rate. The choice among such undominated policies may be guided by distinct normative criteria which supplement the maximin objective in various ways. It is shown that most of these criteria will be compatible with, or actually select, the zero basic income policy and reject the basic income maximizing one. In view of the model's limited realism, the force of this main conclusion is discussed both in relation to Van Parijs' argument for basic income in Real Freedom for All (1995) and to some key empirical conditions in the real world. Footnotes1 I am grateful for useful comments on various stages of this paper by Marc Fleurbaey, Susan Hurley, Mathias Hild, Dirk Van de gaer, Frank Vandenbroucke, Alex Voorhoeve, Roland van der Veen, Andrew Williams, Chris Woodard and an anonymous referee. Above all I thank Loek Groot for his contribution. The research has also been supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), and the Social and Political Theory Program of the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. (shrink)

1. Bd. Moralia Horatiana; das ist, Die horazische Sittenlehre, von P. von Zesen.--2. Bd. La doctrine des moeurs, tiree de la philosophie des stoiques, par M. Le R. de Gomberville.

The relation and collaboration of human and animal medicine had its ups and downs throughout history. The interaction between these two disciplines has been especially fruitful in the broad areas of patho-physiology and of epidemiology. An exploration of the interaction between the two disciplines, using historical and contemporary examples in comparative medicine, zoonoses, zooprophylaxis, and human-animal bond, reveals that a better understanding of animal and human disease, as well as societal changes such as interest in non-conventional medicine, are leading to (...) a broader concept of one medicine that includes animal and human medicine as well as social and other sciences. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 59-60.

Politiek gaat over het verenigen van gemeenschappelijke en conflicterende belangen in bindende collectieve besluitvorming op een wijze die door winnaars en verliezers kan worden aanvaard. In dit artikel baseer ik mij op het politiek gezaghebbende duurzaamheidsconcept van de Brundtlandcommissie in Our Common Future: ‘Duurzame ontwikkeling is ontwikkeling die tegemoetkomt aan de behoeften in het heden zonder de mogelijkheid van toekomstige generaties om te voorzien in hun eigen behoeften in de weg te staan’ . Dan blijkt direct dat het vinden van (...) principes voor een duurzame politiek lastig is, want het gaat hier om een morele eis rekening te houden met de belangen van mensen in komende generaties die nu nog geen deel uitmaken van een politieke gemeenschap. (shrink)

Augmented Reality is itself a technology in which two ways of seeing are crossed. Our field of vision is thereby superimposed with digital information and images. But before this, the real environment is already perceived by machine seeing, it is redoubled by a 3D-model, scanned, located and linked. In this brief investigation, I will face the way of seeing in AR with traditional procedures, like ‘trompe-l'œil’ and the so-called ‘velo’, to distinguish between what remains classic and what has changed. It (...) is important to examine this as layering, because it is a very thin stack of techniques, technology, materials and media, we seek to watch through. Subsequently, I shall analyze a painting of the contemporary artist Laura Owens in which both ways are crossed, the traditional one and the one concerning AR. (shrink)

One major way of arguing for the moral attractiveness of luck egalitarianism is indirect; it consists in showing that the view follows from competing views on distributive justice which one actually endorses. Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen (KLR) claims that luck egalitarianism is indirectly supported in this way by Rawls’s intuitive argument for the difference principle. That argument begins by asserting that the impact of social and natural contingencies on distributive shares is unjust. After clarifying the notion of indirect support, I argue against (...) KLR’s claim. Whether the argument goes on to support luck egalitarianism is a matter of interpretation which can only be decided by looking closer at what Rawls has to say about the difference principle than KLR’s own treatment of the argument allows. In its most plausible reading, the intuitive argument veers away from luck egalitarianism in favor of a non-egalitarian view of the difference principle as a principle of compensating advantage. On this view, inequality due to bad luck is not in any respect unjust when the least advantaged cannot be made better off under alternative arrangements. In conclusion I explain why there are good reasons of fairness to understand the difference principle in this way. (shrink)

"Entitlement theories of justice: From Nozick to Roemer and beyond", Economics and philosophy 1/1 : 69-81.

Machine learning algorithms have begun to enter clinical settings traditionally resistant to digitalisation, such as psychiatry. This raises questions around how algorithms will be incorporated in professionals’ practices, and with what implications for care provision. This paper addresses such questions by examining the pilot of an algorithm for the prediction of inpatient violence in two acute psychiatric clinics in the Netherlands. Violence is a prominent risk in acute psychiatry, and professional sensemaking, corrective measures (such as patient isolation and sedation), and (...) quantification instruments (such as the Brøset Violence Checklist, henceforth BVC) have previously been developed to deal with it. We juxtapose the different ways in which psychiatric nurses, the BVC, and algorithmic scores navigate assessments of the potential of future inpatient violence. We find that nurses approach violence assessment with an attitude of doubt and precaution: they aim to understand warning signs and probe alternative explanations to them, so as not to punish patients when not necessary. Being in charge of quantitative capture, they incorporate this attitude of doubt in the BVC scores. Conversely, the algorithmic risk scores import a logic of pre-emption into the clinic: they attempt to flag targets before warning signs manifests and are noticed by nurses. Pre-emption translates into punitive attitudes towards patients, to which nurses refuse to subscribe. During the pilots, nurses solely engage with algorithmic scores by attempting to reinstate doubt in them. We argue that pre-emption can hardly be incorporated into professional decision-making without importing punitive attitudes. As such, algorithmic outputs targeting ethically laden instances of decision-making are a cause for academic and political concern. (shrink)

Florijn analyzes the ruling of the Court of Appeal in the Heringa case, focusing on the role of patient autonomy in physician assisted death (Florijn 2022). His analysis of the case shows that in Dutch euthanasia law patient autonomy as self-determination is limited by the reciprocal physician-patient relationship. Yet, it also gives an unbalanced view of the Dutch euthanasia regulation and its ethical foundation. By focusing on patient autonomy, the importance of unbearable and irremediable suffering as a prerequisite for euthanasia (...) becomes less visible. The requirement of irremediable suffering means that only a physician is allowed to perform euthanasia, since medical expertise is needed to establish whether there are still treatment options to alleviate suffering. We will discuss the importance of suffering, and its consequences for the “tired of life” debate. (shrink)

This study investigated the relationship between the development of students? self-regulated learning and students? perceptions of the learning environment in terms of autonomy support, the emphasis on relevance and collaborative learning. In addition, we compared innovative learning environments that aim to enhance self-regulated learning with traditional learning environments. Questionnaires for measuring self-regulated learning and perceptions of the learning environment were administered by 648 students. Self-regulated learning was measured at the start of secondary education and again half way through the first (...) year. The results point to the importance of how students perceive the learning environment for self-regulated learning. There was a positive relationship between autonomy support and relevance and self-regulated learning. Furthermore, students in innovative environments perceived more autonomy support, more emphasis on relevance and more collaborative learning than those in traditional environments. Students in innovative environments, however, reported no more self-regulated learning than students in traditional environments. (shrink)

BackgroundBayesian estimation with informative priors permits updating previous findings with new data, thus generating cumulative knowledge. To reduce subjectivity in the process, the present study emphasizes how to systematically weigh and specify informative priors and highlights the use of different aggregation methods using an empirical example that examined whether observed mother-adolescent positive and negative interaction behavior mediate the associations between maternal and adolescent internalizing symptoms across early to mid-adolescence in a 3-year longitudinal multi-method design.MethodsThe sample consisted of 102 mother-adolescent dyads. (...) Mothers and adolescents reported on their internalizing symptoms and their interaction behaviors were observed during a conflict task. We systematically searched for previous studies and used an expert-informed weighting system to account for their relevance. Subsequently, we aggregated the priors using three methods: linear pooling, logarithmic pooling, and fitting a normal distribution to the linear pool by means of maximum likelihood estimation. We compared the impact of the three differently specified informative priors and default priors on the prior predictive distribution, shrinkage, and the posterior estimates.ResultsThe prior predictive distributions for the three informative priors were quite similar and centered around the observed data mean. The shrinkage results showed that the logarithmic pooled priors were least affected by the data. Most posterior estimates were similar across the different priors. Some previous studies contained extremely specific information, resulting in bimodal posterior distributions for the analyses with linear pooled prior distributions. The posteriors following the fitted normal priors and default priors were very similar. Overall, we found that maternal, but not adolescent, internalizing symptoms predicted subsequent mother-adolescent interaction behavior, whereas negative interaction behavior seemed to predict subsequent internalizing symptoms. Evidence regarding mediation effects remained limited.ConclusionA systematic search for previous information and an expert-built weighting system contribute to a clear specification of power priors. How information from multiple previous studies should be included in the prior depends on theoretical considerations, and may also be affected by pragmatic considerations regarding the impact of the previous results at hand. (shrink)

Background The European Union aims to optimize patient protection and efficiency of health-care research by harmonizing procedures across Member States. Nonetheless, further improvements are required to increase multicenter research efficiency. We investigated IRB procedures in a large prospective European multicenter study on traumatic brain injury, aiming to inform and stimulate initiatives to improve efficiency. Methods We reviewed relevant documents regarding IRB submission and IRB approval from European neurotrauma centers participating in the Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in Traumatic Brain Injury. (...) Documents included detailed information on IRB procedures and the duration from IRB submission until approval. They were translated and analyzed to determine the level of harmonization of IRB procedures within Europe. Results From 18 countries, 66 centers provided the requested documents. The primary IRB review was conducted centrally or locally and primary IRB approval was obtained after one, two or three review rounds with a median duration of respectively 50 and 98 days until primary IRB approval. Additional IRB approval was required in 55% of countries and could increase duration to 535 days. Total duration from submission until required IRB approval was obtained was 114 days and appeared to be shorter after submission to local IRBs compared to central IRBs. Conclusion We found variation in IRB procedures between and within European countries. There were differences in submission and approval requirements, number of review rounds and total duration. Research collaborations could benefit from the implementation of more uniform legislation and regulation while acknowledging local cultural habits and moral values between countries. (shrink)