As the usual regulatory framework did not fit well during the last Ebola outbreak, innovative thinking still needed. In the absence of an outbreak, randomised controlled trials of clinical efficacy in humans cannot be done, while during an outbreak such trials will continue to face significant practical, philosophical, and ethical challenges. This article argues that researchers should also test the safety and effectiveness of novel vaccines in wild apes by employing a pluralistic approach to evidence. There are three reasons to (...) test vaccines in wild populations of apes: i) protect apes; ii) reduce Ebola transmission from wild animals to humans; and iii) accelerate vaccine development and licensing for humans. Data obtained from studies of vaccines among wild apes and chimpanzees may even be considered sufficient for licensing new vaccines for humans. This strategy will serve to benefit both wild apes and humans. (shrink)

Purpose: This review identifies the prominent topics in the literature pertaining to the ethical, legal, and social issues raised by research investigating personalized genomic medicine. Methods: The abstracts of 953 articles extracted from scholarly databases and published during a 5-year period were reviewed. A total of 299 articles met our research criteria and were organized thematically to assess the representation of ELSI issues for stakeholders, health specialties, journals, and empirical studies. Results: ELSI analyses were published in both scientific and ethics (...) journals. Investigational research comprised 45% of the literature reviewed and the remaining 55% comprised normative analyses. Traditional ELSI concerns dominated the discourse including discussions about disclosure of research results. In fact, there was a dramatic increase in the number of articles focused on the disclosure of research results and incidental findings to research participants. Few papers focused on particular disorders, the use of racial categories in research, international communities, or special populations. Conclusion: Considering that strategies in personalized medicine increasingly target individuals’ unique health conditions, environments, and ancestries, further analysis is needed on how ELSI scholarship can better serve the increasingly global, interdisciplinary, and diverse PGM research community. (shrink)

The Common Anatomy Reference Ontology (CARO) is being developed to facilitate interoperability between existing anatomy ontologies for different species, and will provide a template for building new anatomy ontologies. CARO has a structural axis of classification based on the top-level nodes of the Foundational Model of Anatomy. CARO will complement the developmental process sub-ontology of the GO Biological Process ontology, using it to ensure the coherent treatment of developmental stages, and to provide a common framework for the model organism communities (...) to classify developmental structures. Definitions for the types and relationships are being generated by a consortium of investigators from diverse backgrounds to ensure applicability to all organisms. CARO will support the coordination of cross-species ontologies at all levels of anatomical granularity by cross-referencing types within the cell type ontology (CL) and the Gene Ontology (GO) Cellular Component ontology. A complete cross-species CARO could be utilized in other ontologies for cross-product generation. (shrink)

La volonté présente du christianisme de nouer un dialogue fraternel avec le judaïsme pose au premier le problème de reconnaître exactement l'identité du second, et d'interpréter correctement la judaïté de Jésus et la notion de « texte commun », présupposées à la base de cette rencontre. La religion de Jésus n'était pas encore ce qui allait devenir, après l’instauration du rabbinisme, la religion des juifs actuels, fondée sur la rédaction d'une Torah orale. Le judaïsme moderne et le christianisme sont à (...) la fois en rupture et en continuité herméneutique avec l'Ancien Testament, mais ils ne le lisent pas avec la même clé d'interprétation, le second le lisant à partir de son « accomplissement » dans le Nouveau, le premier en fonction de son « ouverture » à une autre nouveauté, qui sera le Talmud. L'idée d'un « patrimoine commun » aux juifs et aux chrétiens est née, dans un premier temps, de l'idéologie des Lumières, créatrice d’une culture commune, «judéo-chrétienne », au prix d'une lecture « scientifique » et désacralisante de la Bible. Dans un second temps, l'Holocauste, qui détournait les juifs, orthodoxes ou sionistes, de cet « héritage commun », conduisait inversement de nombreux chrétiens à le revendiquer, dans un aveu de culpabilité à l'égard de l'antisémitisme, mais aussi dans la méconnaissnce de la différence inéluctable du peuple juif. L'idéologie du « commun » peut être un facteur de fermeture là où elle ne se vérifie pas ou d'assimilation indue là où elle efface la singularité de l'un et de l'autre. On peut espérer du dialogue entre juifs et chrétiens qu’il suscite une authentique théologie de la rencontre.Today, the desire of Christianity to engage in a fraternal dialogue with Judaism poses the problem of encountering precisely the identity of the latter, and of interpreting correctly the Judaism of Jesus and the notion of « common text » which is presupposed at the basis of this encounter. The religion of Jesus was not yet that which it was to become after the installation of rabbinism, the religion of present day Jews, which was founded on the composition of an oral Torah. Modern Judaism and Christianity are, at the same time, in rupture and hermeneutic continuity with the Old Testament. But they do not read it with the same key of interpretation : Christianity’s reading sees its « accomplishment » in the New Testament, Judaism in function of its « opening » to another newness, which will be the Talmud. The idea of a « common patrimony » for Jews and Christians was born, in the first instance, of the ideology of the Enlightenment, creator of a common culture, « Judeo-Christian », at the price of a « scientific» and profane reading of the Bible. In a second stage, the Holocaust, which turned Orthodox and Zionist Jews away from this « common heritage », inversely led numerous Christians to vindicate it in an acknowledgment of culpability as regards anti-Semitism, but also in ignoring the ineluctable difference of the Jewish people. The ideology of the « common » can be a factor of closing dialogue when it is not verified or of undue assimilation when it wipes out the singularity of each one. One can hope for a dialogue between Jews and Christians that promotes an authentic theology of encounter. (shrink)

This essay introduces a special report from The Hastings Center entitled Democracy in Crisis: Civic Learning and the Reconstruction of Common Purpose, which grew out of a project supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This multiauthored report offers wide‐ranging assessments of increasing polarization and partisanship in American government and politics, and it proposes constructive responses to this in the provision of objective information, institutional reforms in government and the electoral system, and a reexamination of cultural and (...) political values needed if democracy is to function well in a pluralistic and diverse society. The essays in the special report explore the norms of civic learning and institutions, social movements, and communal innovations that can revitalize civic learning in practice. This introductory essay defines and explains the notion of civic learning, which is a lynchpin connecting many of the essays in the report. Civic learning pertains to the ways in which citizens learn about collective social problems and make decisions about them that reflect the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. Such learning can occur in many social settings in everyday life, and it can also be facilitated through participation in the processes of democratic governance on many levels. Civic learning is not doctrinaire and is compatible with a range of public goals and policies. It is an activity that increases what might be called the democratic capability of a people. (shrink)

The following paper discusses Schiller’s interpretation of the German concept of Bildung. Bildung appears to be a central term in Germany’s culture, especially (but not limited to) the educational realm. As Bildung underwent massive transformations and has been re-interpreted multiple times throughout German history, this paper will start with a definitory exercise trying to organize the dynamics surrounding the term. Secondly, a two-fold historical context – firstly regarding the wider political and social dynamics of the time and secondly, a more (...) biographical approach focusing on Schiller – will be provided. These contextualizing efforts will be succeeded by elaborations on Schiller’s concept of Herzensbildung. The paper closes with a summary of key insights and further potential endeavors. (shrink)

The article reviews the recent debate about workplace democracy. It first presents and critically discusses arguments in favor of democratizing the firm that are based on the analogy with states, meaningful work, the avoidance of unjustified hierarchies, and beneficial effects on political democracy. The second part presents and critically discusses arguments against workplace democracy that are based on considerations of efficiency, the difficulties of a transition towards democratic firms, and liberal commitments such as the rights of employees and owners to (...) work for or invest in nondemocratic firms. The conclusion summarizes the debate and argues that experiments with democratic workplaces as what Erik Olin Wright calls “real utopias” could deliver new insights and thus move the discussion forward. (shrink)

In recent years, an interdisciplinary debate on the social and political role of business corporations has evolved. With this special issue, we would like to facilitate a comprehensive discussion of three questions that are especially pertinent in that debate: (1) How is the social and political agency of corporations to be understood? (2) How should the power of corporations be analyzed? (3) Under which conditions would the social and political roles of corporations be legitimate? In this introduction to the special (...) issue, we start with a short outline of the debate. In the next step, we provide an overview of the five contributions. We conclude by summarizing what can be learned from those contributions with respect to the three research questions. (shrink)

In “Obligations of the Gift,” Lee argues that ethical thinking regarding return of genetic research results has been too narrowly focused on individual consent and participants’ “right to kn...

It is "time," writes Reto Winteler in the introduction to this book, to take Nietzsche "seriously, as the sui generis philosopher that he understood himself to be". Since at least the writing of Z, Nietzsche saw the transvaluation of all values as his life's great mission. He had long planned to compose a magnum opus on this topic, but following the completion of A, he suddenly considered it already accomplished. Winteler argues that although this decision has been acknowledged by the (...) scholarly community, no one has convincingly explained it. According to Winteler, it was not that Nietzsche failed to complete his work and his philosophical mission. Instead, he argues, Nietzsche... (shrink)

This article is the lead piece in a special report that presents the results of a bioethical investigation into chimeric research, which involves the insertion of human cells into nonhuman animals and nonhuman animal embryos, including into their brains. Rapid scientific developments in this field may advance knowledge and could lead to new therapies for humans. They also reveal the conceptual, ethical, and procedural limitations of existing ethics guidance for human‐nonhuman chimeric research. Led by bioethics researchers working closely with an (...) interdisciplinary work group, the investigation focused on generating conceptual clarity and identifying improvements to governance approaches, with the goal of helping scholars, funders, scientists, institutional leaders, and oversight bodies (embryonic stem cell research oversight [ESCRO] committees and institutional animal care and use committees [IACUCs]) deliver principled and trustworthy oversight of this area of science. The article, which focuses on human‐nonhuman animal chimeric research that is stem cell based, identifies key ethical issues in and offers ten recommendations regarding the ethics and oversight of this research. Turning from bioethics’ previous focus on human‐centered questions about the ethics of “humanization” and this research's potential impact on concepts like human dignity, this article emphasizes the importance of nonhuman animal welfare concerns in chimeric research and argues for less‐siloed governance and oversight and more‐comprehensive public communication. (shrink)

Is it a requirement of justice to democratize private companies? This question has received renewed attention in the wake of the financial crisis, as part of a larger debate about the role of companies in society. In this article, we discuss three principled arguments for workplace democracy and show that these arguments fail to establish that all workplaces ought to be democratized. We do, however, argue that republican-minded workers must have a fair opportunity to work in a democratic company. Under (...) current conditions, this means that a liberal order must actively promote workplace democracy. (shrink)

FastNationalismusdiePatriotismus gesamte Welt ist in etwa 200 Staaten aufgeteilt. Nur für die hohe See und die Antarktis gilt dies nicht. Diese flächendeckende Staatlichkeit wird kaum grundsätzlich in Frage gestellt, wenn man von anarchistischenAnarchie Positionen einmal absieht.

Der Begriff der VerantwortungVerantwortungProbleme und Bedingungen der Zuschreibung von Verantwortung ist ein zentraler Grundbegriff der Angewandten Ethik. Darüber hinaus hat er eine zentrale Bedeutung für eigentlich alle Bereiche der praktischen Philosophie, aber auch für die Handlungstheorie und im Zusammenhang mit dem Problem der Willensfreiheit indirekt für die Philosophie des Geistes. Seine Bedeutung als Grundbegriff der Angewandten Ethik beruht vor allem auf zwei Punkten.

In der als wissenschaftliche Disziplin noch recht jungen WirtschaftsethikWirtschaftsethik geht es um das Verhältnis von Wirtschaft und Moral. Jemand kann – so die Grundannahme – wirtschaftlich handeln, ohne moralisch zu handeln und jemand kann moralisch handeln, ohne wirtschaftlich zu handeln. In den meisten wirtschaftsethischen Ansätzen wird der Moral ein normativer Vorrang vor der Wirtschaft eingeräumt.

In “Think Pragmatically: Investigators’ Obligations to Patient-Subjects When Research is Embedded in Care,” Morain and Largent 2023 persuasively argue that the prevailing ways of conceptualizing in...

Die Bezeichnung ‚Politische EthikEthikpolitische‘ lässt in Analogie zu Technikethik oder Medizinethik zunächst an eine spezifische Bereichsethik denken. Entsprechend wäre die Aufgabe dieser Bereichsethik eine moralische Reflexion des politischen Systems, seiner institutionellen Strukturen sowie des politischen Handelns. Doch so eindeutig lässt sich das Verhältnis von Ethik bzw. Moral und Politik nicht bestimmen.

Bereits mit Anfang Zwanzig, wohl zwischen 1829 und 1831, verfasst John Stuart Mill fünf Essays, die seine ersten ökonomischen Schriften darstellen. Mit der Ausnahme des fünften Essays werden diese allerdings erstmals 1844 veröffentlicht, zwei Jahre nach dem Erfolg von A System of Logic. Diese frühen Texte zeugen von Mills Fähigkeiten als Synthetisierer unterschiedlicher theoretischer Ansätze, aber ebenso von seiner oft verkannten Innovationskraft auf dem Feld der Ökonomie. Zudem zeigen sie ihn als Autor des Übergangs vom klassischen zum neoklassischen Paradigma. Mill (...) ist offen gegenüber Ideen, die nicht ohne Weiteres mit der Klassischen Nationalökonomie zu vereinbaren sind. Entsprechend findet sogar Karl Marx, trotz aller berechtigten Kritik an den Essays, lobende Worte für das „Schriftlein, das in der Tat alle originellen Ideen des Herrn J[ohn] St[uart] Mill über political economy enthält“ (MEW 26.3, 190). Für John R. Hicks sind die Essays „perhaps the freshest of Mill’s economic writings“ (Hicks 1983, 60). (shrink)

This study assessed self-reported health-related quality of life and psychological adjustment in 43 adolescents and young adults with congenital melanocytic nevi and examined associations with sociodemographic variables, characteristics of the CMN, perceived social reactions, and cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Outcome measures included the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ 4.0 and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Findings suggest impaired psychosocial health and psychological adjustment in youth with CMN compared to community norms. Impairments were associated with higher age of participants, lower socioeconomic (...) status, visibility of the skin lesion, perceived stigmatization, poorer perceived social support, and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies, but not with sex of participants, extent of the skin lesion, and surgical removal of the nevus. Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed. (shrink)

:In a recent paper in Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics on the necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research David DeGrazia and Jeff Sebo claim that the key requirements for morally responsible animal research are an assertion of sufficient net benefit, a worthwhile-life condition, and a no-unnecessary-harm condition. With regards to the assertion of sufficient net benefit, the authors claim that morally responsible research offers unique benefits to humans that outweigh the costs and harms to humans and animals. In this (...) commentary we will raise epistemic, practical, and ethical challenges to DeGrazia and Sebo’s emphasis on benefits in the prospective assessment of research studies involving animals. We do not disagree with DeGrazia and Sebo that, at the theoretical level, the benefits of research justify our using animals. Our contribution intends to clarify, at the practical level, how we should understand benefits in the prospective assessment and moral justification of animal research. We argue that ASNB should be understood as an assessment of Expectation of Knowledge Production in the prospective assessment and justification of animal research. EKP breaks down into two further claims: that morally responsible research generates knowledge worth having and that morally responsible research is designed and executed to produce generalizable knowledge. We understand the condition called knowledge worth having as scientists’ testing a hypothesis that, whether verified or falsified, advances an important interest, and production of generalizable knowledge in terms of scientific integrity. Generalizable knowledge refers to experimental results that generalize to a larger population beyond the animals studied. Generalizable scientific knowledge is reliable, replicable, and accurately descriptive. In sum, morally responsible research will be designed and carefully executed to successfully test a hypothesis that, whether verified or falsified, advances important interests. Our formulation of EKP, crucially, does not require further showing that an experiment involving animals will produce societal benefits. (shrink)

Unternehmen sind nicht nur wirtschaftliche, sondern auch politische Akteure. Vor allem aber sind sie entgegen verbreiteter Ansichten auch moralische Akteure, das heißt, sie sind grundsätzlich fähig, den moralischen Standpunkt einzunehmen, auch wenn sie dies in der Praxis selten tun. Daraus erwächst eine politische und moralische Verpflichtung: Auch für Unternehmen gelten die Menschenrechte als moralischer und rechtlicher Maßstab, daran müssen sich ihr Handeln und erst recht ihr Unterlassen messen lassen. Christian Neuhäuser zeigt mit beeindruckenden philosophischen Mitteln und anhand exponierter Beispiele unternehmerischen (...) Handelns, inwiefern und inwieweit Unternehmen moralisch zur Rechenschaft gezogen werden können. Dies hat weitreichende philosophische, ethische und nicht zuletzt politische Konsequenzen. (shrink)

Rapid technological advancements, globalisation, environmental crises, and ongoing conflicts have contributed to an increasingly quickly changing social, cultural, and work environment for current and future generations. In this paper, we argue that the traditional schooling system and approaches to curriculum and pedagogy that are based on nineteenth century industrial age models might reach their limit to prepare students sufficiently for the expectations and challenges of life and work in future. While so-called 21st-century education has seen a nominal change in classroom (...) layouts and increased use of teaching technology, we would argue that not much has changed in terms of the underlying structures of schools and the mostly pre-described curriculum schools and teachers must operate under. While current education systems struggle with many challenges from teacher burnouts to increasing student dis-engagement (e.g. rising truancy in New Zealand), we posit that new challenges lie ahead that will further disrupt, if not implode, current approaches to schooling and curriculum. Drawing on theories such as Biesta’s World-Centred Education and Pinar’s notion of Currere to reconceptualise curriculum, we would argue that schooling needs to move away from the traditional ‘static map’ of curriculum content to a more dynamic approach to schooling that allows teachers and schools to chart new territory, together with their students, for a rapidly changing future. As guiding compass of sorts for dynamically exploring an uncertain future with students, we propose Teschers educational approach to Schmid’s Art of Living as a starting point. (shrink)

The growing concentration of wealth has acquired a new urgency in recent years. One particular view in this context is developed by Ingrid Robeyns in her ground-breaking work on limitarianism. According to this view, no one should have more than a certain amount of valuable goods, such as income and wealth. The contributors to this symposium, Brian Berkey, David Axelsen and Lasse Nielsen, Jessica Flanigan and Christopher Freiman, and Lena Halldenius, critically examine various aspects of limitarianism. In particular, they examine (...) how limitarianism should be interpreted and developed as a principle of justice, on what reasons speak in favour and against limitarianism, and on how limitarianism relates to other principles of distributive justice. Our hope is that this symposium will contribute to the ongoing debate in political philosophy about the concentration of wealth and economic justice. (shrink)

New techniques for the genetic modification of organisms are creating new strategies for addressing persistent public health challenges. For example, the company Oxitec has conducted field trials internationally—and has attempted to conduct field trials in the United States—of a genetically modified mosquito that can be used to control dengue, Zika, and some other mosquito-borne diseases. In 2016, a report commissioned by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine discussed the potential benefits and risks of another strategy, using gene drives. (...) Driving a desired genotype through a population of wild animals or insects could lead to irreversible genetic modification of an entire species. The NASEM report recommends community, stakeholder, and public engagement about potential uses of the technology, and it argues that the engagement should occur as research advances, well before gene drives are deployed. Yet what “engagement” means in practice is unclear. This article seeks clarity on this problem by offering a justification for community engagement and drawing out implications of this argument for the implementation and desired outcomes of community engagement. Community engagement is essential when it comes to research that would release genetically modified insects or animals into the environment. By contrast, obtaining informed consent from people who live near such a proposed field trial is neither necessary nor sufficient. Drawing on the epistemic and moral arguments for deliberative democracy, I propose two discrete mechanisms of community engagement: community advisory boards and deliberative forums, neither of which has been systematically incorporated into research governance. The proposed mechanisms would engender respect for persons who live near field trials, even when the results of deliberation override some individuals’ preferences. Community engagement foregrounds the community in our thinking about humans’ relationship to nature, and it implies that deciding to release genetically modified insects or animals into the wild ought to be a collective decision, not one made by product developers, policy-makers, private companies, research funders, or scientists alone. (shrink)

Ontology development methodologies emphasise knowledge gathering from domain experts and documentary resources, and knowledge representation using an ontology language such as OWL or FOL. However, working ontologists are often surprised by how challenging and slow it can be to develop ontologies. Here, with a particular emphasis on the sorts of ontologies that are content-heavy and intended to be shared across a community of users (reference ontologies), we propose that a significant and heretofore under-emphasised contributor of challenges during ontology development is (...) the need to create, or bring about, consensus in the face of disagreement. For this reason reference ontology development cannot be automated, at least within the limitations of existing AI approaches. Further, for the same reason ontologists are required to have specific social-negotiating skills which are currently lacking in most technical curricula. (shrink)

In this paper, I interrogate an ethical obligation to participate in genomics research on the basis of solidarity. I explore two different ways in which solidarity is used to motivate participation in genomics research: as an appeal to participate in genomic research because it cultivates solidarity and as an appeal to participate in genomic research because it expresses solidarity. I critique those appeals and draw lessons from them for how we ought to understand solidarity. The working definition of solidarity that (...) I defend is that solidarity involves recognizing another creature, person, or persons as, like ourselves, vulnerable to injustice and entails acting in ways that contribute to creating, reforming, and participating in institutions that are aimed at enhancing their flourishing. I argue that participating in genomics research is not an expression of solidarity. Participation in research may be praiseworthy, a “good thing to do,” but actually cultivating and expressing solidarity requires much more of us. (shrink)

The concept of human dignity, despite its growing importance in legal texts and declarations in the last decades, is notoriously contested in moral philosophy and legal theory. There is no agreement either on what human dignity is or whether one should care much about it. We will show how these questions could be answered given the assumption that the expression ‘human dignity’ is to be read literally, as dignity of humans, where ‘dignity’ is understood as dignity proper, i.e. dignity as (...) it is usually ascribed outside of legal contexts. Dignity proper has played an important role in the history of mankind. It is sometimes also called ‘social dignity’ because it is bound to social relations, or ‘contingent dignity’, on the assumption that having dignity proper is due to contingencies of life and one's own behaviour (in contrast to human dignity as an essential feature of humankind). Dignity proper therefore depends on being treated with respect by others and on being able to present oneself as being of equal dignity in various practical contexts. Dignity proper is part of an extended conceptual space of evaluative terms which are important in moral life, including, among others, decency, nobility, rank, honour, respect, esteem, grace, decorum, merit, self-respect, coolness, offence, humiliation, degradation, shame. It is obvious, historically, that the concept of dignity proper must have played some role in the development of the concept of human dignity. (shrink)

The goal of the 2010 Ontology Summit was to address the current shortage of persons with ontology expertise by developing a strategy for the education of ontologists. To achieve this goal we studied how ontologists are currently trained, the requirements identified by organizations that hire ontologists, and developments that might impact the training of ontologists in the future. We developed recommendations for the body of knowledge that should be taught and the skills that should be developed by future ontologists; these (...) recommendations are intended as guidelines for institutions and organizations that may consider establishing a program for training ontologists. Further, we recommend a number of specific actions for the community to pursue. (shrink)

Recent reports and papers on chimeric research highlight the promise of chimeric models of human neuropsychiatric disorders to ameliorate human suffering due to autism spectrum disorders, depression, and schizophrenia. These calls, however, typically do not acknowledge, much less address, criticisms of model creation and validation, or concerns about scientific conduct more generally. The ethical justification for the use of nonhuman animals in research depends on the production of benefits to humans based on such research. But the assessment and production of (...) benefits are highly uncertain and rife with both practical and conceptual challenges. This essay provides a general framework for classifying the benefits of biomedical research and then focuses on two factors that directly impact—and threaten—the production of knowledge in research that models neuropsychiatric disorders. (shrink)