Recent brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have implicated insula and anterior cingulate cortices in the empathic response to another’s pain. However, virtually nothing is known about the impact of the voluntary generation of compassion on this network. To investigate these questions we assessed brain activity using fMRI while novice and expert meditation practitioners generated a loving-kindness-compassion meditation state. To probe affective reactivity, we presented emotional and neutral sounds during the meditation and comparison periods. Our main hypothesis (...) was that the concern for others cultivated during this form of meditation enhances affective processing, in particular in response to sounds of distress, and that this response to emotional sounds is modulated by the degree of meditation training. The presentation of the emotional sounds was associated with increased pupil diameter and activation of limbic regions (insula and cingulate cortices) during meditation (versus rest). During meditation, activation in insula was greater during presentation of negative sounds than positive or neutral sounds in expert than it was in novice meditators. The strength of activation in insula was also associated with self-reported intensity of the meditation for both groups. These results support the role of the limbic circuitry in emotion sharing. The comparison between meditation vs. rest states between experts and novices also showed increased activation in amygdala, right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), and right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) in response to all sounds, suggesting, greater detection of the emotional sounds, and enhanced mentation in response to emotional human vocalizations for experts than novices during meditation. Together these data indicate that the mental expertise to cultivate positive emotion alters the activation of circuitries previously linked to empathy and theory of mind in response to emotional stimuli.. (shrink)

Moral or ethical questions are vital because they affect our daily lives: what is the best choice we can make, the best action to take in a given situation, and ultimately, the best way to live our lives? Health ethics has contributed to moving ethics toward a more experience-based and user-oriented theoretical and methodological stance but remains in our practice an incomplete lever for human development and flourishing. This context led us to envision and develop the stance of a “living (...) ethics”, described in this inaugural collective and programmatic paper as an effort to consolidate creative collaboration between a wide array of stakeholders. We engaged in a participatory discussion and collective writing process known as instrumentalist concept analysis. This process included initial local consultations, an exploratory literature review, the constitution of a working group of 21 co-authors, and 8 workshops supporting a collaborative thinking and writing process. First, a living ethics designates a stance attentive to human experience and the role played by morality in human existence. Second, a living ethics represents an ongoing effort to interrogate and scrutinize our moral experiences to facilitate adaptation of people and contexts. It promotes the active and inclusive engagement of both individuals and communities in envisioning and enacting scenarios which correspond to their flourishing as authentic ethical agents. Living ethics encourages meaningful participation of stakeholders because moral questions touch deeply upon who we are and who we want to be. We explain various aspects of a living ethics stance, including its theoretical, methodological, and practical implications as well as some barriers to its enactment based on the reflections resulting from the collaborative thinking and writing process. (shrink)

When Locke mentions polygamy in his writings, he does not condemn the practice and, even seems to endorse it under certain conditions. This attitude is out of step with many of his contemporaries. Identifying the philosophical reasons that lead Locke to have this attitude about polygamy motivates our project. Because Locke never wrote a treatise on ethics, we look to number of different texts, but focus on An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Essays on the Law of Nature, in order (...) to outline his basic ethical theory. We argue that this theory, the elements of which include moral mixed modes, the law of nature, and the comparison of these modes with this law, is broad enough to accommodate practices like polygamy. Our interpretation shows that Locke’s line of thought on marriage is strikingly flexible for the 17th century, and even compared to some contemporary public debates on marriage. (shrink)

The field of nanoscience and nanotechnology is expanding rapidly, promising great benefits for society in the form of better medicine, more efficient energy production, new types of materials, etc. Naturally, in order for the science and technology to live up to these promises, it is important to continue scientific research and development, but equally important is the ethical dimension. Giving attention to the social, ethical and legal aspects of the field, among others, will help in developing a fully responsible—and thereby (...) capable—science and technology. Nanoethics has emerged as a field concerned with such ethical issues related to nanoscience and nanotechnology. Even though this field is relatively new, a significant amount of literature has already been published. This paper focuses on three of the major issues which are discussed in the literature of nanoethics, and also points to a certain bias in this literature. Each quite different in nature, these issues are: (1) The naming and (2) the timing of and approach to the field, as well as (3) the issue of safety. As will be seen, these issues are almost exclusively discussed by ethicists, (throughout the article, the term’ethicist’ is used in a broad definition covering philosophers, social and political scientists as well as philosophers of science) thus having no direct influence on the work being carried out by scientists. One can argue, therefore, that this bias creates a distortion of the ethical debate, making it insufficient and misleading. Ultimately, this bias is caused by the lack of communication and collaboration between ethicists on the one hand, and nanoscientists on the other. Thus, an argument is made for the different disciplines to begin collaborating, so as to more effectively and responsibly develop the field of nanoscience. (shrink)

In our experience, public health practitioners seeking to address a health problem often have just two very basic questions about the law: how can I use the law to create new interventions, or improve existing ones, to protect the public’s health; and will the law prevent me from successfully implementing certain interventions? In this way, the law is seen as either an opportunity for intervention to affect a public health problem, or an obstacle to enacting or implementing a desired intervention.In (...) addition, because some public health practitioners may not fully understand the intricacies of a given legal area, some possible obstacles to intervention may be either real or perceived. A real legal obstacle is not necessarily an insurmountable one, but it does have genuine legal force. A perceived obstacle has little, if any, true legal application to a given kind of intervention. (shrink)

Background: Understanding is an important goal of the informed consent process in research. We sought to assess the interrater reliability (IRR) and concurrent validity of two measures of understanding in child and young adult subjects and their parents. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey and interview-based study of children and young adults participating in a clinical trial for cancer, along with one parent per child or young adult subject. We estimated the IRR of the Semi-Structured Comprehension Interview (SSCI) and the (...) MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research (MacCAT-CR). We also estimated concordance between the SSCI, the MacCAT-CR, and the Quality of Informed Consent (QuIC). Results: For our sample of 32 subjects (16 parent–child pairs), IRR estimates were high for total score on the SSCI (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = 0.88, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.76–0.94), as well as on the understanding (ICC = 0.93, 95% CI = 0.86–0.97) and reasoning (ICC = 0.97, 95% CI = 0.94–0.98) subscales of the MacCAT-CR. IRR was lower for the appreciation subscale of the MacCAT-CR (ICC = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.47–0.84). Scores on the SSCI were strongly correlated with scores on the understanding subscale of the MacCAT-CR (Spearman's rho = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.48–0.85) and the QuIC (Spearman's rho = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.24–0.87). Mean administration time for the SSCI was 3.1 minutes (95% CI = 2.7–3.5 minutes). Conclusions: The SSCI is a valid and reliable measure of understanding for use with both pediatric and adult research participants. It is easy to administer and score consistently, even by nonprofessional raters. The SSCI is a promising tool for use by clinician-investigators to study, detect, and correct deficiencies in understanding among children, adolescents, and adults making decisions about research participation. (shrink)

Tentant de rompre avec une représentation de la sérendipité comme produit du hasard et de la chance relatifs à « l’esprit scientifique », il s’agit ici d’analyser comment la sérendipité peut être le produit d’une concordance des « temporalités de champs » résultant d’une combinatoire de temps d’habitus, d’activité et d’institution propres à chaque champ. Ces temporalités de champs rythmant leurs luttes pour le monopole de la pratique scientifique, elles constituent un point de concordance entre champs à partir desquels s’agencent (...) les conditions de production et d’identification d’une découverte « par sérendipité ». Une telle approche a, au reste, l’avantage de combler un point aveugle de la littérature sociologique et de proposer une analyse structuraliste du processus de découverte scientifique permettant de l’appréhender comme « pratique coordonnée d’institution ». (shrink)

Biomedical research is increasingly carried out in low- and middle-income countries. International consensus has largely been achieved around the importance of valid consent and protecting research participants from harm. But what are the responsibilities of researchers and funders to share the benefits of their research with research participants and their communities? After setting out the legal, ethical and conceptual frameworks for benefit sharing, this collection analyses seven historical cases to identify the ethical and policy challenges that arise in relation to (...) benefit sharing. A series of recommendations address possible ways forward to achieve justice for research participants in low- and middle-income countries. (shrink)

People struggle with religion and spirituality in several ways, including challenges in trusting God, confronting supernatural evil, tolerating other perspectives on religion, maintaining moral propriety, finding existential meaning, and managing religious doubt. These religious and spiritual struggles relate to both physical and mental health independently of other religious and distress factors. Causality in this connection needs further study, but evidence supports many potential causes and moderators of the link between R/S struggle and health. These include personality, social, and environmental influences, (...) including traumatic experiences and subcultural differences. Many theoretical questions remain unresolved, including how change in R/S struggle can predict or be predicted by change in health and other connected constructs, and how one might intervene to aid those who struggle with religious or spiritual challenges. Nonetheless, research momentum has grown, having already produced a wealth of information that underscores the need for greater attention to this domain. R/S struggle poses an important exception to generally positive overall associations between religion and well-being, though even R/S struggle may promote growth. This review offers a brief introduction to emerging psychological theory and research on R/S struggle with an emphasis on its relevance to wellness and illness. (shrink)

The topic of professionalism has dominated the content of major academic medicine publications during the past decade and continues to do so. The message of this current wave of professionalism is that medical educators need to be more attentive to the moral sensibilities of trainees, to their interpersonal and affective dimensions, and to their social conscience, all to the end of skilled, humanistic physicians. Urgent calls to address professionalism from such groups as the Association of American Medical Colleges, the American (...) Board of Internal Medicine, and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, among others. In fact, at the 2004 annual meeting of the AAMC six separate presentations addressed professionalism with such titles as "Evaluating Humanism and Professionalism," Professionalism: Expectation, Education, Evaluation," or "Toward Assessing Professional Behaviors of Medical Students through Peer Observations". Professionalism, then, has become part of the current academic medicine parlance, used by administrators, clinical faculty, residency programs, and professional organizations with an expectation of shared meanings and goals. All of these stakeholders focus on what has become a consistent list of attributes deemed to be the essence of professionalism, which usually include variations on altruism, duty, excellence, honor and integrity, accountability, and respect. In fact, most of the scholarly work to date has been listing, describing, decrying, and measuring/evaluating it. In this collection of essays, we don’t argue with these attributes. Instead, we ask questions of the discourse from which they arise, how the specialized language of academic medicine disciplines has defined, organized, contained, and made seemingly immutable a group of attitudes, values, and behaviors subsumed under the label "professional" or "professionalism." This collection aims to be a critical text, one that questions the profession’s beliefs about the nature of its work and how such beliefs are enacted in medical education, particularly as they fuel the professionalism discourse. In addition, we will scrutinize how the discourse is enacted in both the formal and hidden curriculum, and in the larger medical environment. (shrink)

The field of nanotechnology and nanoscience is growing rapidly in many areas of research, from electronics to biomedicine to material science. Carbon nanotubes are receiving a lot of attention in the research due to their unique properties and many possible applications. This new material is a good example of how nanotechnology provides us with new opportunities, but at the same time leaves us a lot of unknowns to deal with. In order to deal with the unknowns we need to consider (...) both the science and the ethics of the different applications of this novel material. Nanoethics is the study of the ethical issues in nanotechnology. It is a relatively new field of study and a lot of different methods have been suggested in this area. In this article a method is suggested combining an existing ethical theory with a practical approach in order to do a case study of the ethical considerations of using carbon nanotubes in biomedicine. For the case study to be of practical significance the scientific characteristics and properties of carbon nanotubes are reviewed to give the reader an overview of the research field. (shrink)

During the education of scientists at the university level the students become more and more specialized. The specialization of the students is a consequence of the scientific research becoming specialized as well. In the interdisciplinary field of nanoscience the importance of specialization is also emphasized throughout the education. Being an interdisciplinary field of study the specialization in this area is not focused on scientific disciplines, but on the different branches of the research. Historically ethics has not been a priority in (...) science education, however, in recent years the importance of such teachings has been highly recognize especially in medicine, biotechnology and engineering. The rapid development, the many new and unknown areas and the highly specialized focus of nanotechnology suggest the importance of having ethically competent researchers. In this article the importance of ethical competence in nanoscience research is argued for by an example of a dilemma that could occur in a research project. The dilemma is analyzed using two different ethical views, generating two different choices for action. It is seen that the dilemma can have more than one solution and that ethical competence can help in justifying the choice of solution in a specific situation. Furthermore it is suggested that a way to reach this competence is through education in ethics incorporated into the nanoscience education curriculum. (shrink)

"Law week 2005 highlights." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (196), pp. 33.

Qu'entendre par modernité? Résulte-t-elle d'une transposition des schèmes théologiques et des dispositifs théologico-politiques propres au christianisme médiéval, ou bien s'est-elle affirmée contre son propre passé théologique, en rupture avec les formes héritées du passé? Et comment situer, dans ce processus, les philosophies de Hobbes et de Spinoza, comprises tantôt comme héritières des théologies de la toute-puissance divine, de l'augustinisme ou de la Réforme, tantôt comme inaugurant le.

The author, the mother of two children in Amsterdam, describes her birth experiences, the first in the hospital, the second at home.

When the Argonauts reach the island of Lemnos, Apollonius of Rhodes tells us, they send their herald Aethalides to the ruler of the island. Such a means of establishing contact and requesting safe passage was the norm in the Homeric world; there heralds acted as intermediaries between commanders and subordinates or between groups of people. In preliterate societies, heralds facilitated communication: messages were transmitted through memorization and repetition rather than by means of writing. While verbatim repetition was no doubt a (...) necessary feature of this form of communication, its wholesale transference into Homeric poetry was not necessarily the logical corollary. Nonetheless, we know of such repetitions precisely because of their appearance in the Homeric poems. It is now widely accepted that such passages are a result of the oral style of composition in which the oral poet repeats passages just as he uses shorter formulaic phrases. The debate embedded in the A-scholia of the Iliad suggests that repeated passages were a source of contention already in antiquity. While it is more common to see the scholiasts trying to decide which passage is ‘correct’ and which should be athetized, this provides evidence that athetization was not a unanimous impulse. The scholiast defends 2.60–71, part of which is repeated for the third time, against Zenodotus. (shrink)

This article discusses the discourses of disability through a parallel `disabling' of its own text. It draws on literary as well as sociological sources in order to interrogate the nature and relations of the `tragic', the `heroic' and the `comic'. The authors offer the conclusion that the comic is never quite absent from the discourse of tragedy (after Kundera), and turn that insight back on their own text, in an attempt to refuse the solemnities and closures of their own narrative.

Several philosophical problems concerning the object of criticism in dance are identified and analyzed as preliminary to an eventual theory of evaluation of dance. Basic to philosophical adequacy is understanding the artform as it is actually practiced and appreciated, recognizing its complexity as a performing artform using unique human bodies as instruments. ;Definitions of "dance" proposed by philosophers, dance historians, and others are inadequate to specify necessary and sufficient conditions of dance, to distinguish dance from other human non-art phenomena, and (...) to distinguish dance from other artforms. Definitions can be adequate for a specific purpose, using descriptive characteristics and standards for evaluation and appreciation by an audience. ;The ontological status of dance is best understood as consisting of the primary media of movement by human bodies and music and secondary media of the visual dimensions of costumes, scenery, and lighting. Improved understanding of the artform is possible with this more comprehenive recognition of its complex multi-media status, as shown in an analysis of "appropriateness" of the various media, a typical criterion for evaluation. ;The identity of a work of art in dance can be established using a notational system in conjunction with a standard for acceptable compliance with that notation. "Substantial similarity," as determined by lay observers, the test for copyright infringement, provides a useful standard for dance. Other theories have required too much of an identity standard; its purpose is to identify a particular performance as one of a certain work, not to teach dancers to perform the work, nor to enable directors to produce it, nor to provide standards for a good performance of the work. ;A necessary condition of the proper object of criticism is perceivability. The considerable interest in the dance world in production and other factors not perceivable on stage during performance is best understood as a interest in the on-going skills of artists, as opposed to the evaluation of an aesthetic object. (shrink)

Some recent commentators have acquiesced in the efforts of some religious groups to co-opt concepts of morality, thus leading many—inappropriately, I believe—to think we must keep all morality out of our civic life and especially out of the reasoning in our legal system. I review examples of the confusion in characterizing the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision as a conflict between constitutional rights and religious moral precepts. I argue that this approach capitulates to particular views of morality as religious morality. (...) I consider the appeals to morality in the dissent and the ensuing confusion among commentators about the significance ofthis opinion. I review alternate readings of the Lawrence majority opinion, including proposals that it be considered from the perspectives of the ethicalframeworks of Locke, Mill, or Kant. (shrink)

This research replicates Weber's 1995 study of a large financial services firm that found that ethical subclimates exist within multi-departmental organizations, are influenced by the function of the department and the stakeholders served, and are relatively stable over time. Relying upon theoretical models developed by Thompson (1967) and Victor and Cullen (1998), hypotheses are developed that predict the ethical subclimate decision-making dimensions and type for diverse departments within a large steel manufacturing firm and that these ethical subclimate types will be (...) stable across the two periods of time when the data were collected. Employees were surveyed in 1995 and again in 1999 using Victor and Cullen's Ethical Climate Questionnaire. Response rates of 88 and 94 percent were achieved. Contrary to Weber's findings, our results imply that, in both samples, ethical subclimates may be determined by the strength of an organization's overall ethical climate, rather than the department's function. However, we did find support for Weber's earlier contention that these subclimates are relatively stable. Our results also suggest that differences may exist across industries, that is when comparing a large steel manufacturer, as we did in our study, with a large financial services organization, as Weber did in his 1995 study. (shrink)

Depuis plusieurs décennies, la numérisation des textes anciens et les progrès du TAL pour les traiter et les interroger ont largement modifié nos habitudes de travail. Il est désormais possible d’obtenir des données quantitatives massives qui affinent notre perception des phénomènes linguistiques et stylistiques dans des corpus écrits dans des états de langue anciens. Les corpus numériques créés depuis maintenant près d’un quart de siècle permettent d’envisager plus facilement la dynamique du...

Abstract An important strand of theories of practice stress that individuals' practical knowledge, i.e., their ability to act in appropriate and/or effective ways, is mainly tacit. This means that the social scientist cannot find out about this knowledge by simply asking the individuals she studies to articulate how it is appropriate and/or effective to act in various circumstances. In this paper, I pursue the proposal that the method of participant observation may be used to find out about individuals' practical knowledge. (...) Surprisingly, the literature does not contain any systematic and comprehensive discussion of this suggestion. I distinguish and exemplify four types of observation that are indicative of individuals' practical knowledge. The observations may serve as a basis for the social scientist's formulations of this knowledge. Further, I point to two main ways in which things may go wrong when the social scientist uses participant observation to find out about individuals' practical knowledge. I argue that the social scientist can make reasonably sure to avoid these two potential difficulties. Accordingly, I conclude that these difficulties do not undermine the effectiveness of the method. In this sense, social scientists are right to use the method of participant observation to find out about individuals' practical knowledge. (shrink)

Ivancovsky et al.'s Novelty-Seeking Model suggests several mechanisms that might underlie developmental change in creativity and curiosity. We discuss how these implications both do and do not align with extant developmental findings, suggest two further elements that can provide a more complete developmental account, and discuss current methodological barriers to formulating an integrated developmental model of curiosity and creativity.

In the recent methodological individualism-holism debate on explanation, there has been considerable focus on what reasons methodological holists may advance in support of their position. We believe it is useful to approach the other direction and ask what considerations methodological individualists may in fact offer in favor of their view about explanation. This is the background for the question we pursue in this paper: Why be a methodological individualist? We start out by introducing the methodological individualism-holism debate while distinguishing two (...) forms of methodological individualism: a form that says that individualist explanations are always better than holist accounts and a form that says that providing intervening individualist mechanisms always makes for better explanations than purely holist ones. Next, we consider four lines of reasoning in support of methodological individualism: arguments from causation, from explanatory depth, from agency, and from normativity. We argue that none of them offer convincing reasons in support of the two explanatory versions of individualism we consider. While there may well be occasions in which individualists’ favorite explanations are superior, we find no reason to think this always must be the case. (shrink)

In the 30 years since its inception under the auspices of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the field devoted to examining the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) of g...

This article discusses what is involved in having full moral status, as opposed to a lesser degree of moral status and surveys different views of the grounds of moral status as well as the arguments for attributing a particular degree of moral status on the basis of those grounds.