Whether or not capitalism is compatible with ethics is a long standing dispute. We take up an approach to virtue ethics inspired by Adam Smith and consider how market competition influences the virtues most associated with modern commercial society. Up to a point, competition nurtures and supports such virtues as prudence, temperance, civility, industriousness and honesty. But there are also various mechanisms by which competition can have deleterious effects on the institutions and incentives necessary for sustaining even these most commercially (...) friendly of virtues. It is often supposed that if competitive markets are good, more competition must always be better. However, in the long run competition enhancing policies that neglect the nurturing and support of the bourgeois virtues may undermine the continued flourishing of modern commercial society. (shrink)

Keuze van artikelen uit het werk van de Vlaamse filosoof over wetenschap, milieu, en medische en biologische ethiek.

This article is intended to contribute to the discussion on the meaning of volunteering by investigating voluntary work from the viewpoint of volunteers active in Swedish civil society organizations.Meaning refers both to the cognitive meaning of concepts and to the perceived meaning in life. The aim to uncover the predicates that people attribute to the concept is an attempt to anatomize volunteering as a social construct. Five predicates emerged and they make up the phenomenological structure of volunteering. By contextualizing this (...) structure in contemporary Swedish society, it is demonstrated that the conceptual meaning of volunteering has significance for its existential meaning. The volunteers say that their authenticity is confirmed through the voluntary work since they are making themselves manifest in public. Following Hannah Arendt, the reasons for this is that authenticity demands that the volunteers conduct their actions in a public realm where their actions acquire an intrinsic value as neither coerced nor instrumental. (shrink)

In this survey and position paper, we discuss some issues in logical modeling of interactive behavior. We draw together a number of lines in current logics for social action, emphasizing uses of ‘small models’ rather than complex spaces.

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)

After more than a century of research on glycolysis, we have detailed descriptions of its molecular organization, but despite this wealth of knowledge, linking the enzyme properties to metabolic pathway behavior remains challenging. These challenges arise from multi‐layered regulation and the context and time dependence of component functions. However, when viewed as a system that functions according to the principles of supply and demand, a simplifying theoretical framework can be applied to study its regulation logic and to assess the coherence (...) of experimental interpretations. These principles are universally applicable, as they emphasize the common metabolic tasks of glycolysis: the provision of free‐energy carriers, and precursors for biosynthesis and stress‐related compounds. Here we will review the regulation of multi‐tasking by glycolysis and consider how an understanding of this central metabolic pathway can be pursued using general principles, rather than focusing on the biochemical details of constituent components. (shrink)

In het kader van de Leerstoel Rector Dhanis (UFSIA, Antwerpen) werd door een studiegroep bestaande uit artsen en verpleegkundigen, ethici en juristen, een interdisciplinaire studie ondernomen over 'klinische ethiek' en 'hoe recht en politiek omgaan met problemen die thuishoren in de klinische praktijk'. In deze bundel wordt het ethische denken in een aantal casussen betreffende neonatalen en dementerenden kritisch besproken. De adviezen van het Raadgevend Comite voor Bio-Ethiek over sterilisatie van mentaal gehandicapten en over klonering worden onderzocht op hun relevantie (...) voor de klinische praktijk. (shrink)

Met als uitgangspunt de theorie en wijsbegeerte van het wettenrecht wordt een inzicht gegeven in de ontwikkeling van recht en staat in de 20e eeuw.

Due to Swedish history, to date there has been a common understanding of the meaning of volunteering in Sweden. However, it seems as if the meaning of volunteering is changing in Sweden, at least in some atypical hybrid organizations. However, this change presupposes that there is a conception of volunteering that has been institutionalized by tradition. Hence, to understand this change, one has to capture the institutionalized meaning of volunteering. In the academic debate there is sometimes an implied opposition between (...) conceptual meaning and existential meaning. It is argued that this divide is unfortunate, the existential aspect presupposes the conceptual aspect of meaning. The study of the meaning of volunteering is an attempt to uncover existential meaning in everyday life. Neither the cognitive meaning nor the existential meaning of volunteering is an objective fact but fragile and dependent upon contextual factors. (shrink)

This letter responds to a letter by Moti Gorin in the same issue, September‐October 2024, of the Hastings Center Report.

What capacities for discrimination must a subject possess in order to entertain singular thoughts? Evans has suggested that a subject must be able to discriminate his referent from all other entities in order to be able to do so; what he calls Russell's Principle. Evans' view has few followers, and he has been repeatedly accused of presenting no argument in its favour. In this paper I present what I take to be Evans' argument. I suggest that he has been misinterpreted (...) as introducing Russell's Principle for the purpose of fixing reference. Rather, he introduces it in order to ensure that our conceptual capacities have the functional complexity to allow for objective thought. I suggest that the logical types of our thought are constituted by their inferential potential and argue that, even though singular thought may be possible without the satisfaction of Russell's Principle, singular thought that forms part of an objective world view is not. (shrink)

This paper addresses the rift between the teacher’s sense of self as a causal agent and the experience of being in lack of control in the classroom, by way of Hans Vaihinger’s philosophy of ‘as if.’ It is argued that understanding agential control in terms of a valuable fiction—a practical fiction in Vaihinger’s vocabulary—can offer a way of bridging this rift and can help teachers make sense of the tension between their felt need to strive for control and their experience (...) of suffering from lack of control. A fiction, it is argued, is different from an illusion in that fictions can be affirmed without being believed. Unlike illusions, valuable fictions can be recognized as fictions and still retain some of their affective power over us, thereby allowing us to act ‘as if.’ In education, this is helpful as it means that we can make use of valuable fictions without assuming that these have to be protected from the critical gaze of non-believers. In fact, we can openly acknowledge that we rely on fictions as this is part and parcel of being a human being with a limited cognitive ability. (shrink)

In view of a better comprehension of the current bad situation of the municipal finances, the evolution of the expenses of the Belgian municipalities has been investigated. Although the attention is focussed on a descriptive analysis, some explanatory indications are also given by analysing the expenses in functionof the number of inhabitants and of the geographical situation. Special attention was given to the evaluation of the potential inffoence of the amalgamation of the municipalities, which in 1976 reduced their number from (...) 2 359 to 596.The global municipal expenses have increased by circa 25 %. The pattern of expenditures remained fairly stable. There was a positive - although not rectilinear, and important exceptions exist - correlation between the population number and the level of expenses. The number of inhabitants also infiuences the destination of the revenues in a significantway. The amalgamation process seems to have only an indirect repercussion on the expenses, particularly by the change in the spreading of the municipalities over the different categories.Especially the remarkable and relevant inter-regional differentiation of the expenses - W alloon municipalities spend more money per inhabitant and following other priorities - needs further research. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical enquiry into the educational consequences of Spinoza’s political theory. Spinoza’s political theory is of particular interest for educational thought as it brings together the normative aims of his ethical theory with his realistic depiction of human psychology and the ramifications of this for successful political governance. As such, the book aims to introduce the reader to Spinoza’s original vision of civic education, as a project that ultimately aims at the ethical flourishing of individuals, while being (...) carefully tailored and adjusted to the natural limitations of human reason. This author-meets-critics includes scholars in philosophy, education and Spinoza studies. (shrink)

One of the principles on how to act under moral uncertainty, My Favourite Theory, says roughly that a morally conscientious agent chooses an option that is permitted by the most credible moral theory. In defence of this principle, we argue that it prescribes consistent choices over time, without relying on intertheoretic comparisons of value, while its main rivals are either plagued by moral analogues of money pumps or in need of a method for making non-arbitrary intertheoretic comparisons. We rebut the (...) arguments that have been levelled against My Favourite Theory and offer some arguments against intertheoretic comparisons of value. (shrink)

This paper defends four lines of argument that establish an ethical obligation for clinicians to be vaccinated against COVID-19. They are: (1) The obligation to protect patients against COVID-19 spread; (2) The obligation to maintain professional competence and remain available for patients; (3) Clinicians’ role and place in society in relation to COVID-19; (4) The obligation to encourage societal vaccination uptake. These arguments stand up well against potential objections and provide a compelling case to consider acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination a (...) duty for all clinicians. This duty brings with it the implication that vaccine refusal amounts to a dereliction of the professional’s ethical obligations, which means such clinicians should be subject to disciplinary action. Furthermore, this duty provides grounding for mandatory vaccination policies for clinicians. (shrink)

This chapter explores the character and normative foundations of Hobbes's international ethics. In Hobbes's case, international ethics is composed of three distinct sets of norms: natural rights, the laws of nature, and justice. In Leviathan, Hobbes's international ethics are informed by sovereign duties of care to national subjects – not unlike the tacit ethical assumptions of some modern realist theories of international relations. Commonwealths and pre‐statist individuals face different empirical conditions, making the international state of war a less wretched condition (...) for subjects than the prestatist war of all against all. Scholars have hitherto overlooked Hobbes's concomitant naturalistic conception of rights of war – justifying both preventive attacks and outright conquest. Both the English and Latin Leviathan reiterate the earlier equation of jus gentium with natural law. Hobbes thereby effectively made having a right intention the sole criterion for permissible resort to armed force. (shrink)

Enacting an AI system typically requires three iterative phases where AI engineers are in command: selection and preparation of the data, selection and configuration of algorithmic tools, and fine-tuning of the different parameters on the basis of intermediate results. Our main hypothesis is that these phases involve practices with ethical questions. This paper maps these ethical questions and proposes a way to address them in light of a neo-republican understanding of freedom, defined as absence of domination. We thereby identify different (...) types of responsibility held by AI engineers and link them to concrete suggestions on how to improve professional practices. This paper contributes to the literature on AI and ethics by focusing on the work necessary to configure AI systems, thereby offering an input to better practices and an input for societal debates. (shrink)

Modern logic is about information flow and communication far beyond its traditional agenda of inference and meaning. This makes it a player at a central academic interface between many disciplines, where normative and descriptive stances, often thought to be at odds, meet in creating new practices which also affect reality. This same theatre is where philosophy in general would thrive, if it so wished.

When cells are starved of their substrate, many nutrient transporters are induced. These undergo rapid endocytosis and redirection of their intracellular trafficking when their substrate becomes available again. The discovery that some of these transporters also act as receptors, or transceptors, suggests that at least part of the sophisticated controls governing the trafficking of these proteins has to do with their signaling function rather than with control of transport. In yeast, the general amino acid permease Gap1 mediates signaling to the (...) protein kinase A pathway. Its endocytic internalization and intracellular trafficking are subject to amino acid control. Other nutrient transceptors controlling this signal transduction pathway appear to be subject to similar trafficking regulation. Transporters with complex regulatory control have also been suggested to function as transceptors in other organisms. Hence, precise regulation of intracellular trafficking in nutrient transporters may be related to the need for tight control of nutrient‐induced signaling. (shrink)

_The Herschel Telescope of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences: An Instrument Biography_ The so called Herschel telescope is one of the key items in the artefact collection of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. The optics was commissioned from William Herschel in England in the mid-1780s and arrived a couple of years later, but the telescope as such was not finished until 1812. Even if it amounted to a considerable investment for the Academy, scientific speaking it turned out to (...) be a total failure. A biographical approach is used to study the instruments shifting roles in the formation of knowledge, from its completion in the early 19th century, until the present era. Since the telescope in its original configuration was unusable, it was firstly rebuild 1842, still without coming to any scientific use, and then reinterpreted as a cultural heritage object. As such, it has since served different roles in several exhibitions contexts. (shrink)