Flanders will complete the migration from analog to digital terrestrial television by the end of 2008. Despite the cable dominated television landscape, the Flemish government is aiming at a smooth transition from analog to digital terrestrial television. Therefore, a multi-methodical study has been set up by order of the Flemish government to understand the specific features and needs of analog antenna viewers and their expectations for the analog switch-off. The study shows that there are three distinctive types of analog antenna (...) viewers. The results demonstrate that the antenna viewers are rather badly informed about the upcoming analog switch-off, which may lead to a negative attitude and may impede a smooth transition. Finally, antenna viewers seem to be rather conservative viewers: they wish to keep on watching the same television programs from the same channels. Moreover, digital terrestrial television is their preferred alternative. (shrink)

There is an increasing awareness of the importance of food security, of which the UN’s Millennium Development Goals are the best measure. Although some progress has been made in some regions, much progress still needs to be made in Sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture largely remains subsistence and personal savings extremely low, and where population growth outstrips economic growth.Thus, there has been a renewed effort to bring these problems back on the development agenda. Food insecurity is a major manifestation of poverty, (...) and hence agricultural development is the most effective way out of rural poverty.The ethical imperative is to bring about the political will to effect such development. Institutions must be built that focus on smallholder development as an engine of economic growth. Along with classic issues of development , the rural poor, who respond well to market-based development and are thus good micro-credit risks, must be given access to markets and finances.The drive to bring the rural poor into the market is frustrated, however, by the subsidies that the Northern nations use to prop up their own markets and farmers. One of the most pressing ethical questions, then, remains how the North can continue to support its subsidy system, while, at the same time, contributing to development work. (shrink)

Continuous sedation at the end of life is a practice that has attracted a great deal of attention. An increasing number of guidelines on the proposed correct performance of the practice have been drafted. All of the guidelines stress the importance of using sedation in proportion to the severity of the patient’s symptoms, thus to reduce the patient’s consciousness no more than is absolutely necessary. As different patients can have different experiences of suffering, the amount of suffering should, ideally, be (...) assessed subjectively; that is, via communication with the patient. Continuously sedated patients are often unable to communicate, however, making subjective methods of pain assessment unusable. For these patients, the degree of consciousness is the sole available measure. It therefore seems important to adequately measure how deeply the patient is sedated, thereby allowing sedation to be increased when it is too light and decreased when it is too heavy. This is in accordance with the idea that reducing consciousness is not an ethically neutral act.Although consciousness measuring techniques are a hot topic in anesthesiology, almost no research exists on the use of such techniques in the context of continuous sedation at the end of life. This article aims to review existing techniques to measure consciousness and to evaluate their applicability, efficiency, and invasiveness for patients who are continuously sedated until death.Techniques commonly used to assess the depth of sedation in continuously sedated patients are basic clinical assessment and sedation scales, as they are often considered reliable and noninvasive. These techniques might not be very reliable, however, since it is known that some patients are nonresponsive and yet aware. Moreover, sedation scales require stimulation of the patient (for example prodding, shaking, or providing painful stimuli), and can thus be considered invasive of one’s bodily integrity or dignity. Other techniques, such as EEG (electroencephalography) derivatives, may score better on reliability and invasiveness. Yet these have so far never been compared to sedation scale scores for patients receiving continuous sedation at the end of life.Therefore, we conclude that, for both clinical and ethical reasons, research into the efficiency and applicability of other techniques, such as derivatives of EEG, are urgently needed. (shrink)

This study explores the association between different types of morally challenging interactions during military deployment and response strategies, as well as the mediating role of moral emotions. Interviews with Dutch servicemen who participated in military operations were content coded. We found a relationship between local-cultural and team-related interactions and moral justification; these effects were mediated by other-condemning emotions. Similarly, other-condemning emotions mediated the relationship between local-cultural interactions and relativism. This study points at the importance of other-condemning emotions in shaping military (...) reactions to frequently occurring morally challenging interactions. (shrink)

We study conditions for a topological space to be metrizable, properties of metrizable spaces, and the role the axiom of choice plays in these matters.

Some theorists think that the more we get to know about the neural underpinnings of our behaviors, the less likely we will be to hold people responsible for their actions. This intuition has driven some to suspect that as neuroscience gains insight into the neurological causes of our actions, people will cease to view others as morally responsible for their actions, thus creating a troubling quandary for our legal system. This paper provides empirical evidence against such intuitions. Particularly, our studies (...) of folk intuitions suggest that (1) when the causes of an action are described in neurological terms, they are not found to be any more exculpatory than when described in psychological terms, and (2) agents are not held fully responsible even for actions that are fully neurologically caused. (shrink)

We investigate, within the framework of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory ZF, the interrelations between weak forms of the Axiom of Choice AC restricted to sets of reals.

Tracer des ponts entre la philosophie et la théologie, à travers un discours qui ne sacrifie jamais la raison sur l'autel de la foi, mais qui utilise l'éclairage de la Parole de Dieu pour stimuler la réflexion philosophique, tel est le pari de Charles-Éric de Saint Germain dans ses Écrits philosophico-théologiques sur le christianisme.

This article addresses the question how philosophy should be evaluated in a research-grant funding environment. It offers a new conception of philosophy that is inclusive and builds on familiar elements of professional, philosophical practice. Philosophy systematically questions the questions we ask, the concepts we use, and the values we hold. Its product is therefore rarely conclusive but can be embodied in everything we do. This is typical of explorative research and differentiates it from exploitative research, which constitutes the bulk of (...) funded research activity. This article argues that exploratory research is crucial for long-term progress and requires a distinct evaluative regime. (shrink)

This is a continuation of [2]. We study the Tychonoff Compactness Theorem for various definitions of compactness and for various types of spaces . We also study well ordered Tychonoff products and the effect that the multiple choice axiom has on such products.

It is widely assumed that the identity relation is, among other things, transitive. Some have proposed that the identity relation might hold between objects contingently or occasionally. If, on those proposals, identity is shown to not be transitive, then there is reason to reject such proposals. One such argument attempts to show that the identity relation on such proposals violates transitivity in cases of ‘simultaneous’ fissions and fusion. I argue that, even in those cases, contingent identity and occasional identity are (...) transitive. (shrink)

Few views are as widely held as the Standard View of Identity. Here I am concerned with minority views that depart from the standard account. First, I attempt to illuminate such views and the debates concerning them by identifying the principles of identity at issue, articulating some of the assumptions underlying the debates, and presenting some of the evidence used against the Standard View of Identity. Second, I enter two of these debates myself. I first defend two Non-Standard Views of (...) Identity from the charge that they violate a principle of identity, namely the Transitivity of Identity. I then present an overlooked consequence of another Non-Standard View of Identity that challenges the view on one of its own methodological principles. Third, I draw on recent work in ontological and parthood pluralism to show how one might be led to think that there is more than one way of being identical. That is, I show how one might be an identity pluralist. (shrink)

Theorists, historians, and artists address the precarious futurity of the notion of the future. Not long ago, a melancholic left and a manic neoliberalism seemed to arrive at an awkward consensus: the foreclosure of futurity. Whereas the former mourned the failure of its utopian project, the latter celebrated the triumph of a global marketplace. The radical hope of realizing a singularly different, more equitable future displaced by a belief that the future had already come to pass, limiting post-historical society to (...) an uneventful life of endless accumulation. Today, amidst an abundance of neofuturisms, posthumanisms, futurologies, speculative philosophies and accelerationist scenarios, there is as well an expanding awareness of a looming planetary catastrophe driven by the extractionist logic of capitalism. Despite this return to the future, the temporal horizon of our present moment is perhaps more aptly characterized by the “shrinking future” of just-in-time production, risk management, high-frequency trading, and the futures market. In Futurity Report, theorists, historians, and artists address the precarious futurity of the notion of the future itself. Contributors McKenzie Wark, China Miéville, Kerstin Stakemeier, Diedrich Diederichsen, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Marina Vishmidt, Johannes Paul Raether, Felicity D. Scott, Silvia Maglioni, Graeme Thomson, Doreen Mende, Pedro Neves Marques, Achille Mbembe, Kodwo Eshun, Haytham El-Wardany, T. J. Demos, Ana Teixeira Pinto. (shrink)

Ce premier numéro des Cahiers Eric Weil contient deux textes d'Eric Weil: une réédition de "Violence et langage" de 1967 et un inédit de 1974: "L'avenir de la philosophie". Il contient également des études sur la philosophie de Weil.Ont...

Unfair offers in bargaining may have disruptive effects because they may reduce interpersonal trust. In such situations future trust may be strongly affected by social accounts (i.e., apologies vs. denials). In the current paper we investigate when people are most likely to demand social accounts for the unfair offer (Experiment 1), and when social accounts will have the highest impact (Experiment 2). We hypothesized that the need for and impact of social accounts will be highest when the intentions of the (...) other party are uncertain. The results provided support for this reasoning. (shrink)

ObjectiveThis study aims to analyze sociohistorically how the normative patterns of hegemonic masculinity produced impacts on men’s health/mental health in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsA qualitative study from a socio-historical perspective was conducted with 50 men based on an online survey. A semistructured form was applied. The data were analyzed by the Collective Subject Discourse method, interpreted in the light of the context of epidemic disease and hegemonic masculinity.ResultsThe experience of the pandemic exposed the normative patterns of masculinities from (...) the consummation of acts representative of the pandemic context, which incited men to deny the existence of COVID-19 disease and to delay the understanding and adoption of measures to protect and control COVID-19. As a repercussion, men presented conflicts in the regulation of emotions; presented emotional suppression; were more reactive; felt threatened regarding the loss of the role of family provider, virility; and revealed a sense of invulnerability, added to the weakening of self-care.ConclusionThe discourse revealed that the men’s behaviors are consistent with the characteristics of hegemonic masculinity, but express signs of recognition that this behavior causes harm to themselves and their health. (shrink)

De-extinction raises anew ontological and epistemological problems that have engaged environmental philosophers for decades. This essay re-examines these issues to provide a fuller understanding—and a critique—of de-extinction. One of my claims is that de-extinction as a philosophical problem merely recycles old issues and debates in the field (hence, “zombie” arguments). De-extinction is a project that arises out of the assertion of human domination of the natural world. Thus the acceptance of de-extinction as an environmental policy is an expression of a (...) human-nature relationship that disvalues the natural world and subjugates nature completely to the interests of humanity. (shrink)

We study the relationships between definitions of compactness in topological spaces and the roll the axiom of choice plays in these relationships.