(No abstract is available for this citation).

This chapter proposed a novel design methodology called Value-Sensitive Design and its potential application to the field of artificial intelligence research and design. It discusses the imperatives in adopting a design philosophy that embeds values into the design of artificial agents at the early stages of AI development. Because of the high risk stakes in the unmitigated design of artificial agents, this chapter proposes that even though VSD may turn out to be a less-than-optimal design methodology, it currently provides a (...) framework that has the potential to embed stakeholder values and incorporate current design methods. The reader should begin to take away the importance of a proactive design approach to intelligent agents. (shrink)

Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs) are robotic weapons systems, primarily of value to the military, that could engage in offensive or defensive actions without human intervention. This paper assesses and engages the current arguments for and against the use of LAWs through the lens of achieving more ethical warfare. Specific interest is given particularly to ethical LAWs, which are artificially intelligent weapons systems that make decisions within the bounds of their ethics-based code. To ensure that a wide, but not exhaustive, survey (...) of the implications of employing such ethical devices to replace humans in warfare is taken into account, this paper will engage on matters related to current scholarship on the rejection or acceptance of LAWs—including contemporary technological shortcomings of LAWs to differentiate between targets and the behavioral and psychological volatility of humans—and current and proposed regulatory infrastructures for developing and using such devices. After careful consideration of these factors, this paper will conclude that only ethical LAWs should be used to replace human involvement in war, and, by extension of their consistent abilities, should remove humans from war until a more formidable discovery is made in conducting ethical warfare. (shrink)

Davidson's anomalous monism, his argument for the identity between mental and physical event tokens, has been frequently attacked, usually demanding a higher degree of physicalist commitment. My objection runs in the opposite direction: the identities inferred by Davidson from mental causation, the nomological character of causality and the anomaly of the mental are philosophically problematic and, more dramatically, incompatible with his famous argument against the third dogma of empiricism, the separation of content from conceptual scheme. Given the anomaly of the (...) mental and the absence of psychophysical laws, there are no conceptual resources to relate mental and physical predicates. We fall in the third dogma if we claim that the very same token event is mental and physical. One of the premises must be rejected: I will claim that we do not need a law to subsume cause and effect to be entitled to speak of causation. Davidson has never offered an argument to back this premise. Against such a dogma I will sketch some ideas pointing towards a different conception of causality, singularist and undetachable from explanatory practices. (shrink)

Panarchy is a normative political meta-theory that advocates non-territorial states founded on actual social contracts that are explicitly negotiated and signed between states and their prospective citizens. The explicit social contract, or a constitution, sets the terms under which a state may use coercion against its citizens and the conditions under which the contract may be annulled, revised, rescinded, or otherwise exited from. Panarchy does not advocate any particular model of the state or social justice, but intends to encourage political (...) variety, innovation, experimentation, and choice. With its emphasis on explicit social contracts, Panarchy offers an interesting variation on traditional social contract theories. Today, Panarchist political thought is particularly relevant and interesting in the context of globalization, increased international migration, the weakening of national sovereignty, the rise of the internet "cloud" as a non-territorial locus of political and protopolitical social networks that are not geographic, the invention of cryptocurrencies that may replace national currencies, and the rise of urban centers where people of many different political identities live and work together. This is the first volume to bring together key philosophically and politically interesting yet often overlooked Panarchist texts. From the first published translation of de Puydt seminal 1860 article to contemporary Silicon Valley political theory, the volume includes Panarchist texts from different eras, cultures and geographical regions. The amassed wealth of theoretical insight enables readers to compare different texts in this tradition of political thought and distinguish different streams and varieties within this political tradition, in comparison with Cosmopolitanism, Contractarianism, and Anarchism. (shrink)

In this paper we consider an intuitionistic variant of the modal logic S4 (which we call IS4). The novelty of this paper is that we place particular importance on the natural deduction formulation of IS4— our formulation has several important metatheoretic properties. In addition, we study models of IS4— not in the framework of Kirpke semantics, but in the more general framework of category theory. This allows not only a more abstract definition of a whole class of models but also (...) a means of modelling proofs as well as provability. (shrink)

In 1538–39 Francisco de Vitoria delivered two relections:De IndisandDe iure belli.This article distills from these writings the topic of free trade as a “human right” in accordance withius gentiumor the “law of peoples.” The right to free trade is rooted in a more fundamental right to communication and association. The rights to travel, to dwell, and to migrate precede the right to trade, which is also closely connected to the rights to preach, to protect converts, and to constitute Christian princes. (...) This has significant repercussions on the field of business ethics: the right to free trade is ultimately founded directly on natural law and indirectly on divine law; trade is not independent of ethics; and trade is presented as an opportunity to develop the virtues of justice and friendship, among other repercussions. Vitoria is portrayed as a defender of private initiative and free markets. (shrink)

Cultural diversity between residents and staff is significant in aged care homes in many developed nations in the context of international migration. This diversity can be a challenge to achieving effective cross‐cultural communication. The aim of this study was to critically examine how staff and residents initiated effective cross‐cultural communication and social cohesion that enabled positive changes to occur. A critical hermeneutic analysis underpinned by Giddens’ Structuration Theory was applied to the study. Data were collected by interviews with residents or (...) their family and by focus groups with staff in four aged care homes in Australia. Findings reveal that residents and staff are capable of restructuring communication via a partnership approach. They can also work in collaboration to develop communication resources. When staff demonstrate cultural humility, they empower residents from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to engage in effective communication. Findings also suggest that workforce interventions are required to improve residents’ experiences in cross‐cultural care. This study challenges aged care homes to establish policies, criteria and procedures in cross‐cultural communication. There is also the challenge to provide ongoing education and training for staff to improve their cross‐cultural communication capabilities. (shrink)

Nowadays many debates are going on that relate to the agricultural and food sector. It looks as if present technological and organizational developments within the agricultural and food sector are badly geared to societal needs and expectations. In this article we briefly present a toolkit for moral communication within the food chain. This toolkit is developed as part of a European research project. Next, we discuss what such a toolkit can bring about, given the characteristics of the present day agricultural (...) and food sector and its wider context. We defend that the toolkit can be seen as one of the mechanisms that can help enterprises in the agricultural and food sector to be accountable. It should, however, be complemented with other mechanisms, first, to empower the wider public and, second, to stimulate a dialogue, on a more equal footing, between public authorities, citizens, and economic actors. (shrink)

Deontological and teleological evaluations are widely utilized in the context of consumer decision-making. Despite their use, the differential effect of these distinct types of evaluations, and the conditions under which they hold, remains an unresolved issue. Thus, we conduct a meta-analysis of 316 effect sizes, from 53 research articles, to evaluate the extent to which deontological and teleological evaluations influence ethical judgments and intentions, and under what circumstances the influence occurs. The effect is explored across three categories of moderators: (1) (...) contextual elements of the ethical issue, (2) stakeholders, and (3) methodological characteristics of primary studies. We find that the overall effect of deontological evaluations on ethical judgments and intentions is stronger than for teleological evaluations; however, the magnitude of the effect is contingent on several moderators. Deontological evaluations are weaker in offline consumer contexts and stronger when there are financial implications of the ethical issue. Conversely, the effect of teleological evaluations is relatively stable across ethical consumer contexts. Teleological evaluations are stronger from a utilitarian perspective than from an egoist one. Furthermore, the effect of deontological evaluations is weaker, but the effect for teleological evaluations is stronger, when the decision-maker has a personal relationship (as compared to an organizational relationship) with the victim of the unethical act. Findings validate the effect of both deontological and teleological evaluations on ethical judgments and intentions and highlight their importance in consumers’ ethical decision-making. Implications for developing programs to prevent consumer unethical behavior are discussed. (shrink)

In recent years, functional connectivity in the developmental science received increasing attention. Although it has been reported that the anatomical connectivity in the preterm brain develops dramatically during the last months of pregnancy, little is known about how functional and effective connectivity change with maturation. The present study investigated how effective connectivity in premature infants evolves. To assess it, we use EEG measurements and graph-theory methodologies. We recorded data from 25 preterm babies, who underwent long-EEG monitoring at least twice during (...) their stay in the NICU. The recordings took place from 27 weeks postmenstrual age until 42 weeks PMA. Results showed that the EEG-connectivity, assessed using graph-theory indices, moved from a small-world network to a random one, since the clustering coefficient increases and the path length decreases. This shift can be due to the development of the thalamocortical connections and long-range cortical connections. Based on the network indices, we developed different age-prediction models. The best result showed that it is possible to predict the age of the infant with a root mean-squared error equal to 2.11 weeks. These results are similar to the ones reported in the literature for age prediction in preterm babies. (shrink)

This paper analyses the way in which discourse and argumentation may vary depending on participants’ educational level and gender. Men and women from three different educational levels (literacy, advanced level and university students) participated in discussion groups that debated about women and work, the sharing of housework and the way in which girls and boys are educated. The results showed important differences depending on participants’ educational level and gender. In general, the main differences were related to educational level, while gender (...) tended to interact with educational level, as a moderating factor. (shrink)

BackgroundWith the emergence of Brain Computer Interfaces, clinicians have been facing a new group of patients with severe acquired brain injury who are unable to show any behavioral sign of consciousness but respond to active neuroimaging or electrophysiological paradigms. However, even though well documented, there is still no consensus regarding the nomenclature for this clinical entity.ObjectivesThis systematic review aims to 1) identify the terms used to indicate the presence of this entity through the years, and 2) promote an informed discussion (...) regarding the rationale for these names and the best candidates to name this fascinating disorder.MethodsThe Disorders of Consciousness Special Interest Group of the International Brain Injury Association launched a search on Pubmed and Google scholar following PRISMA guidelines to collect peer-reviewed articles and reviews on human adults published in English between 2006 and 2021.ResultsThe search launched in January 2021 identified 4,089 potentially relevant titles. After screening, 1,126 abstracts were found relevant. Finally, 161 manuscripts were included in our analyses. Only 58% of the manuscripts used a specific name to discuss this clinical entity, among which 32% used several names interchangeably throughout the text. We found 25 different names given to this entity. The five following names were the ones the most frequently used: covert awareness, cognitive motor dissociation, functional locked-in, non-behavioral MCS and higher-order cortex motor dissociation.ConclusionSince 2006, there has been no agreement regarding the taxonomy to use for unresponsive patients who are able to respond to active neuroimaging or electrophysiological paradigms. Developing a standard taxonomy is an important goal for future research studies and clinical translation. We recommend a Delphi study in order to build such a consensus. (shrink)

The axiomatic approaches of quantum mechanics and relativity theory are compared with approaches in which the theories are thought to describe readings of certain measurement operations. The usual axioms are shown to correspond with classes of ideal measurements. The necessity is discussed of generalizing the formalisms of both quantum mechanics and relativity theory so as to encompass more realistic nonideal measurements. It is argued that this generalization favours an empiricist interpretation of the mathematical formalisms over a realist one.

This study offers a re-interpretation of basic elements of Aristotle's semantics and metaphysics on the basis of a meticulous reconstruction of his semantics. By eliminating anachronistic conceptions commonly ascribed to him, many shortcomings or obscurities he is accused of will disappear.

We investigate the problem of “wave packet reduction” in quantum mechanics by solving the Schrödinger equation for a system composed of a model measuring apparatusM interacting with a microscopic objects. The “instrument” is intended to be somewhat more realistic than others previously proposed, but at the same time still simple enough to lead to an explicit solution for the time-dependent density matrix. It turns out that,practically, everything happens as if the wave packet reduction had occurred. This is a consequence of (...) the fact that the apparatus is made up of a very large number of microsystems interacting withs. More precisely, our model shows that the “macroscopic size” of a measuring apparatus can lead by itself to a density matrix for the systemM + s which is physically equivalent to the density matrix of a statistical mixture corresponding to the reduced wave packet. (shrink)