Scholars have proposed a number of courses and programs intended to improve the ethical behavior of scientists in an attempt to maintain the integrity of the scientific enterprise. In the present study, we conducted a quantitative meta-analysis based on 26 previous ethics program evaluation efforts, and the results showed that the overall effectiveness of ethics instruction was modest. The effects of ethics instruction, however, were related to a number of instructional program factors, such as course content and delivery methods, in (...) addition to factors of the evaluation study itself, such as the field of investigator and criterion measure utilized. An examination of the characteristics contributing to the relative effectiveness of instructional programs revealed that more successful programs were conducted as seminars separate from the standard curricula rather than being embedded in existing courses. Furthermore, more successful programs were case based and interactive, and they allowed participants to learn and practice the application of real-world ethical decision-making skills. The implications of these findings for future course development and evaluation are discussed. (shrink)

The author makes the claim that human rights have become an important institution of international relations, their inherent powerlessness notwithstanding. In the first step of the analysis, the author discusses the positive correlation between a nationâs socioeconomic well-being and the safe guarantee of human rights. However, the social and political disembeddedness of human rights and their universalist character actually constitute their inherent weakness, which is analyzed in the second part. In the third part, which deals with the future development of (...) human rights, the author makes the claim that the process of globalization does not only create the functional networks of economic, political, and military power elites, but also offers hope for the emergence of a global moral community in which the idea of human rights may become an essential institutional pillar. (shrink)

Platónov Sókratés v záverečnom príhovore pred hlasovaním o svojej vine či nevine sudcom pripomína, že má rodinu, ktorá zahŕňa dospievajúceho syna a dvoch malých chlapcov. Pritom odkazuje na verše z Homérovej Odyssey, aby poukázal na skutočnosť, že sa nenarodil „ani z duba ani zo skaly“ (34d). Cieľom článku bude analyzovať a interpretovať zmysel uvedenej citácie v rámci Sókratovej argumentácie. V prvej časti sa autor sústredí na komparáciu Homérovho verša s jeho podobou v Platónovej Apológii. V druhej časti bude skúmať, akú (...) stratégiu Sókratés sledoval tým, keď sa odvolal na uvedený verš. V záverečnej časti sa zameria na otázku, z akého dôvodu Platónov Sókratés cituje Homéra napriek svojmu predchádzajúcemu vyhláseniu, že básnici nedisponujú múdrosťou. (shrink)

Problems, Phenomena, Explanatory Approaches Who is a German-Jewish Scientist? 1. The Einstein case and its paradoxes On 14 March 1929, Albert Einstein's ...

In the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus is not described as a visible event, and for this reason, the resurrection was not represented directly in visual arts for about 1,000 years. Direct representations of the resurrection as an event appeared only after 1000 C.E. They were concrete, and they objectivized and historicized the resurrection in a problematical way.

“The Role of the Individual in Evolution” is a prescient yet neglected 1941 work by the 20th century’s most important paleontologist, George Gaylord Simpson. In a curious intermingling of explanation and critique, Simpson engages questions that would become increasingly fundamental in modern biological theory and philosophy. Did individuality, adaptation, and evolutionary causation reside at more than one level: the cell, the organism, the genetically coherent reproductive group, the social group, or some combination thereof? What was an individual, anyway? In this (...) introduction, we highlight two points in a wider historical context. First, recognizing the political context of Simpson’s writing profoundly deepens our understanding of the development of his science as the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis infused biology. Second, this story illuminates the emergence of debates around what would eventually come to be called multilevel selection theory. The organism-centered concept of biological individuality defended by Simpson is situated in relation to the then-emerging Synthesis, in which he was a renowned player, and also in relation to the views he opposed: the “metaphysical” ideas of paleontologists such as Henry Fairfield Osborn, who claimed that some evolutionary trends derived from potentialities already implanted in the germplasm; and the organicist ideas of Ralph W. Gerard and the Chicago School of ecologists, which he derided as all too congenial to totalitarianism. We find parallels between the ways that Simpson thought then about human individuality under totalitarianism and the way he thought about individuality in evolution; not that any causal relationship linked the two, but that commonalities of hierarchical structure exist between single entities and groups in both instances. We then trace the subsequent development of Simpson’s political and philosophical takes on the role of the individual in evolution through the 1960s and lightly sketch out the later fate of the organicist ideas of the Chicago School. Simpson’s paper, originally published in the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, is available as supplementary material in the online version of this article, as part of the "Classics in Biological Theory" collection. (shrink)

Recent studies lead to the paradoxical conclusion that the act of affirming one's egalitarian or prosocial values and virtues might subsequently facilitate prejudiced or self-serving behavior, an effect previously referred to as ?moral credentialing.? The present study extends this paradox to the domain of academic misconduct and investigates the hypothesis that such an effect might be limited by the extent to which misbehavior is rationalizable. Using a paradigm designed to investigate deliberative and rationalized forms of cheating (von Hippel, Lakin, & (...) Shakarchi, 2005), we found that when participants had credentialed themselves (vs. a nonclose acquaintance) via a set of hypothetical moral dilemmas, they were more likely to cheat on a subsequent math task, but only if cheating was highly rationalizable. When cheating was difficult to rationalize, moral credentialing had almost no impact on cheating. (shrink)

The allocation of vaccines and therapeutics for Covid‐19 obviously raises ethical questions, and physicians and ethicists have begun to address them. Writers have identified various criteria that should guide allocation decisions, but the criteria often conflict and need to be balanced against one another. This article proposes a model for thinking about how different considerations that are relevant to the distribution of vaccines and scarce treatments for Covid‐19 could be integrated into an allocation procedure. The model employs the construct of (...) a weighted lottery, which is a construct that has been employed in other contexts that involve the distribution of scarce resources. The article highlights the advantages of applying a weighted lottery to the Covid‐19 context and offers an illustration for how it might work in practice. The primary aim of the article is to articulate the structural features of a weighted lottery for this context and to bring out its advantages over other methods for allocating Covid‐19 medications. (shrink)

Traditionally, the Swedish Agricultural Extension Service has delivered technical information to farmers with the aim of increasing productivity and efficiency in farming. Present problems with overproduction of food and the negative social and environmental consequences of present farm practices has brought this traditional mission in question. In a situation of budgetary constraints it has been suggested that the funding of the governmental Agricultural Extension Service should be cut down or even discontinued altogetherThe article argues that this would be a mistake. (...) The various negative consequences of modern agriculture indicate that we are far from an ideal mode of agricultural production. Instead, public opinion and new guidelines for agricultural and environmental policies call for substantial changes in Swedish agriculture with respect to pollution, preservation of non-renewable resources, maintaining an open rural landscape, ethical aspects of animal production, rural development etc.This reorientation of Swedish agriculture presumes that decision-makers, farmers, and the public at large get an opportunity to learn more about the complexities of agricultural production. In contributing to this learning process the Agricultural Extension Service would have an important mission. To be able to fulfill this mission, extension professionals must be provided an opportunity to learn a broader concept of productivity and efficiency in agriculture, for instance, how to extend cost-benefit analyses and technical criteria of efficiency to include social, environmental, and ethical aspects. Our present extension staff has not received adequate training for this task. It is suggested that all agricultural colleges need to create departments of Rural Sociology and Agricultural Humanities to provide agricultural students and professionals an opportunity to develop a better understanding of agriculture and make them prepared to take on the challenges and responsibilities they confront in developing our future agriculture. (shrink)

We have conducted a retrospective study of deaths on a paediatric medical intensive care unit over a two-year period and reviewed similar series from outside the UK. There were 89 deaths out of 651 admission (13.7% mortality). In almost two-thirds of the cases death occurred with a decision to limit medical treatment or withdraw mechanical ventilation, implying that additional or further therapy was considered futile. We highlight this as a crucially important issue in the practice of intensive care. More comprehensive (...) studies are needed to help clinicians derive consensus on what constitutes a futile intervention, and therefore when such an intervention should be withheld. This will help families and society better understand the limitations of intensive care. (shrink)

By way of mathematical demonstration proof is given that the Lorentz transformations can completely be based upon the theory of absolute time, i. e. upon the Galilei transformations . Thus, it becomes evident that the theory of special relativity does not imply a revolution of classical kinematics, let alone of idealistic theory of knowledge.