Im Gegensatz zum drei Jahre jüngeren Schelling, dem er sein Leben lang verbunden blieb, wird Steffens nach seinem Tod nahezu vergessen; in der landläufigen Überlieferung hat er als der Überbringer der Romantik nach Dänemark überlebt. Erst mit Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts wird er als Naturforscher, als Philosoph und Universitätsreformer wiederentdeckt, nicht zuletzt auch im Diskurs-Zusammenhang um das Anthropozän. Steffens-Forscherinnen und Forscher aus Norwegen, Dänemark und Deutschland setzen sich mit dem romantischen Denken der Zeit, mit den Aspekten der nationalen Wiedergeburt in (...) Kultur, Politik und Wissenschaft auseinander, mit Naturgeschichte und Kunst: Marit Bergner, Marie-Theres Federhofer, Bernd Henningsen, Lore Hühn, Daniel Fulda, Norman Kasper, Jesper Lundsfryd Rasmussen, Jessika Piechocki, Anna Lena Sandberg und Elisabeth Décultot. (shrink)

Human presencing explores how people’s past encounters with others shape their present actions. In this paper, I present an alternative perspective on human embodiment in which the re-evoking of the absent can be traced to the intricate interplay of bodily dynamics. By situating the phenomenon within distributed, embodied, and dialogic approaches to language and cognition, I am overcoming the theoretical and methodological challenges involved in perceiving and acting upon what is not perceptually present. In a case study, I present strong (...) and weak dimensions of human presencing. In the former, a person uses their body in distinct ways and shapes their immediate ecology to make others present to them. In contrast, in the latter, a person’s past encounter with others powerfully shapes the projections they make onto written digital inscriptions. These findings have implications for how people act in online learning environments and how human activity shapes the machines we use every day. In this way, the paper highlights the complexity of a person as a social being and allows for different approaches to human embodiment in technology. (shrink)

This paper takes a step back from considering expertise as a social phenomenon. One should investigate how people become knowers before assigning expertise to a person’s actions. Using a temporal-sensitive systemic ethnography, a case study shows how undergraduate students form a social system out of necessity as they fabricate knowledge around an empty wording like ‘conscious living’. Tracing the engagement with students and tutor to recursive moments of coaction, I argue that, through the subtleties of bodily movements, people incorporate the (...) actions of others as they become knowers. Knowing for a person solidifies as they imbue concepts, terms, facts, etc. with their own understanding. While coaction refers to the interlocking of actions in a specific moment, the fabrication of knowledge resides in temporally distributed moments of coaction where students deliberately incorporate and build on past occurrences in a present moment. In so doing, people cannot be separated from their systemic embedding. Linking coaction with systemic cognition, people fabricate knowledge within wider systemic structures. Within these boundaries, knowers come to fabricate knowledge for themselves and a wider system. Thus, knowing must be seen as an active, embodied, dialogical and multiscalar activity. (shrink)

Research FocusThe promotion of domain-specific knowledge is a central goal of higher education and, in the field of medicine, it is particularly essential to promote global health. Domain-specific knowledge on its own is not exhaustive; confidence regarding the factual truth of this knowledge content is also required. An increase in both knowledge and confidence is considered a necessary prerequisite for making professional decisions in the clinical context. Especially the knowledge of human physiology is fundamental and simultaneously critical to medical decision-making. (...) However, numerous studies have shown difficulties in understanding and misconceptions in this area of knowledge. Therefore, we investigate how preclinical medical students acquire knowledge in physiology over the course of their studies and simultaneously gain confidence in the correctness of this knowledge as well as the interrelations between these variables, and how they affect the development of domain-specific knowledge.MethodIn a pre–post study, 169 medical students’ development of physiology knowledge and their confidence related to this knowledge were assessed via paper-pencil questionnaires before and after attending physiology seminars for one semester. Data from a longitudinal sample of n = 97 students were analyzed using mean comparisons, regression analyses, and latent class analyses. In addition, four types of item responses were formed based on confidence and correctness in the knowledge test.ResultsWe found a significant and large increase in the students’ physiology knowledge, with task-related confidence being the strongest predictor. Moreover, a significantly higher level of confidence at t2 was confirmed, with the level of prior confidence being a strong predictor. Furthermore, based on the students’ development of knowledge and confidence levels between measurement points, three empirically distinct groups were distinguished: knowledge gainers, confidence gainers, and overall gainers. The students whose confidence in incorrect knowledge increased constituted one particularly striking group. Therefore, the training of both knowledge and the ability to critically reflect on one’s knowledge and skills as well as an assessment of their development in education is required, especially in professions such as medicine, where knowledge-based decisions made with confidence are of vital importance. (shrink)

In the Philippines, all transplant centers are mandated by the Department of Health (DOH) to have a Hospital Transplant Ethics Committee (HTEC) to ensure that donations are altruistic, voluntary and free of coercion/commercial transactions. This study was undertaken primarily to describe the organizational and functional profile of existing HTECs and identify areas for improvement. This is a descriptive cross‐sectional study. There was variation in their logistical arrangements (support from hospital, filing systems, office spaces), operations (length and frequency of meetings, number (...) of referrals) and membership (composition, qualifications, occupation, training). The approval rate for donor‐recipient pairs is high with the majority of cases made by living non‐related donors. Appropriate reasons were cited for rejection. The perception of HTECs is that they are competent and confident in their decision‐making. However, there is a need to standardize HTEC composition, provide operating procedures and additional training which can be done by the DOH. (shrink)

The Supreme Court seems poised to overrule Roe v. Wade and hold that there is no constitutional right to choose abortion. The reversal of Roe seems to run counter to public opinion in the United St...

Fundamental principles : the nature of the dispute -- Types of euthanasia -- Psychiatric assisted suicide -- Neonates -- Incompetent adults -- Human life is sacred -- The slippery slope -- Medical views -- Four methods of easing death and their effect on doctors -- Looking further ahead.

Could there be a power world? That is to say, could there be a world consisting of nothing but dispositional properties? If there couldn't be, then, obviously, the actual world is not such a world. That is one reason why answering this question is important. However, even if one thinks it is already obvious that the actual world is not a power world, answering this question is still important, because whether there could be a power world depends, in part, on (...) whether all the properties in a world could be dispositional . It also depends on whether dispositional properties require nondispositional bases. Could water solubility, for example, be a brute feature of salt, or must this disposition be explicable in terms of some further, nondispositional property that salt also possesses? Answering these questions about the nature of properties is clearly essential to arriving at a plausible ontology of the actual world. (shrink)

We hypothesize that effective collaboration is facilitated when individuals and environmental components form a synergy where they work together and regulate one another to produce stable patterns of behavior, or regularity, as well as adaptively reorganize to form new behaviors, or irregularity. We tested this hypothesis in a study with 32 triads who collaboratively solved a challenging visual computer programming task for 20 min following an introductory warm‐up phase. Multidimensional recurrence quantification analysis was used to examine fine‐grained (i.e., every 10 (...) s) collective patterns of regularity across team members' speech rate, body movement, and team interaction with the shared user interface. We found that teams exhibited significant patterns of regularity as compared to shuffled baselines, but there were no systematic trends in regularity across time. We also found that periods of regularity were associated with a reduction in overall behavior. Notably, the production of irregular behavior predicted expert‐coded metrics of collaborative activity, such as teams' ability to construct shared knowledge and effectively negotiate and coordinate execution of solutions, net of overall behavioral production and behavioral self‐similarity. Our findings support the theory that groups can interact to form interpersonal synergies and indicate that information about system‐level dynamics is a viable way to understand and predict effective collaborative processes. (shrink)

This research aimed to analyse inclusive practice in academic integrity in the teaching, support, policies and procedures involved at one UK HE institution. Data was collected through two sets of stakeholder interviews: three students from disadvantaged groups who had experienced academic conduct investigations; eleven staff with key roles in academic integrity. A third set of data comprised four institutional academic integrity documents which were analysed in terms of meeting Universal Design for Learning principles for inclusion. The four main findings emerging (...) from the study are: academic conduct processes create high levels of anxiety among students, particularly related to perceived judgement; students experience difficulty understanding academic integrity documents which lack consistency and do not meet inclusive criteria; students from certain backgrounds including widening participation, students with a disability and international non-native speakers need more institutional support in order to follow academic conduct processes and assimilate expected practice; there is a willingness among staff to try to develop more inclusive practice. The research findings led to a revised, more inclusive and educative institutional academic conduct procedure. The implication for practice is that attention is urgently needed to improve inclusive approaches to academic integrity. (shrink)

This book offers a defence of mathematical fictionalism, according to which we have no reason to believe that there are any mathematical objects. Perhaps the most pressing challenge to mathematical fictionalism is the indispensability argument for the truth of our mathematical theories (and therefore for the existence of the mathematical objects posited by those theories). According to this argument, if we have reason to believe anything, we have reason to believe that the claims of our best empirical theories are (at (...) least approximately) true. But since claims whose truth would require the existence of mathematical objects are indispensable in formulating our best empirical theories, it follows that we have good reason to believe in the mathematical objects posited by those mathematical theories used in empirical science, and therefore to believe that the mathematical theories utilized in empirical science are true. Previous responses to the indispensability argument have focused on arguing that mathematical assumptions can be dispensed with in formulating our empirical theories. This book, by contrast, offers an account of the role of mathematics in empirical science according to which the successful use of mathematics in formulating our empirical theories need not rely on the truth of the mathematics utilized. (shrink)

The #metoo movement has forced many fans to consider what they should do when they learn that a beloved artist has acted immorally. One natural thought is that fans ought to give up the artworks of immoral artists. In Why It's OK to Enjoy the Work of Immoral Artists, Mary Beth Willard argues for a more nuanced view. Enjoying art is part of a well-lived life, so we need good reasons to give it up. And it turns out good reasons (...) are hard to find. Willard show that it's reasonable to believe that most boycotts of artists won't succeed, so most of the time there's no ethical reason to join in. Someone who manages to separate the art from the artist isn't making an ethical mistake by buying and enjoying their art. She then considers the ethical dimensions of canceling artists and so-called "cancel culture," arguing that canceling is ethically risky because it encourages moral grandstanding. Willard concludes by arguing that the popular debate has overlooked the power of art to change our lives for the good. It's of course OK to decide to give up the artwork of immoral artists, but--as Willard shows in this provocative little volume--it's OK to continue to enjoy their art, as well. Key Features Offers accessible discussions of complicated philosophical topics like aesthetic value, collective action problems, and epistemic justice Provides a unique perspective and underexplored argument on the popular issue of cancellation Explores the role of aesthetic value in our lives, including its relation to our ethical decisions and our well being. (shrink)

In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis writes that Mary “wants to give birth to a new world... where there is room for all those whom our societies discard, where justice and peace are resplendent.” This essay explores the significance of Mary for a Christian vision of peace and justice through ethnographic research on the role of Mary in the lives of Palestinian Christian women and in popular religion in Palestine more broadly. Utilizing the methodology of theological ethnography, this essay centers the (...) personal experiences of Palestinian Christians and considers the implication their understanding of Mary has for Fratelli Tutti and Christian ethics. (shrink)

To revitalize nursing science, there is a need for a new approach to guide nurse scientists in addressing complex problems in health care. By applying theoretical concepts from a revolutionary philosopher of science, Paul K. Feyerabend, new nursing knowledge can be produced using creativity and pluralistic approaches. Feyerabend proposed that methods within and outside of science can produce knowledge. Despite the recognition of Feyerabendian philosophy within science, there is currently a lack of literature regarding the relevance of Feyerabendian philosophy for (...) nursing science. We aim to (a) describe and critique Feyerabendian concepts, (b) discuss the potential application of Feyerabendian philosophy for knowledge production within gerontological nursing and (c) describe theoretical possibilities for nurse scientists in using Feyerabendian philosophy to guide nursing knowledge development. We begin by introducing Feyerabend's life and his inspirations for his theoretical concepts, epistemological anarchism, theoretical pluralism and humanitarianism, and conclude by offering suggestions of how to apply Feyerabendian philosophy in nursing research. (shrink)

Respected Catholic ethicists have recently defended the use of salpingostomy and methotrexate in the management of ectopic pregnancies.This article examines the arguments for the revised assessments to determine whether there are sound reasons to believe that these two methods do not constitute the direct and immediate killing of innocent human beings. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.1 (Spring 2011): 65–82.

In recent debates on phenomenal consciousness, a distinction is sometimes made, after Levine (2001) and Kriegel (2009), between the “qualitative character” of an experience, i.e. the specific way it feels to the subject (e.g. blueish or sweetish or pleasant), and its “subjective character”, i.e. the fact that there is anything at all that it feels like to her. I argue that much discussion of subjective character is affected by a conflation between three different notions. I start by disentangling the three (...) notions in question, under the labels of “for-me-ness”, “me-ness” and “mineness”. Next, I argue that these notions are not equivalent; in particular, there is no conceptual implication from for-me-ness to me-ishness or mineness. Empirical considerations based on clinical cases additionally suggest that the three notions may also correspond to different properties (although the claim of conceptual non-equivalence does not depend on this further point). The aim is clarificatory, cautionary but also critical: I examine four existing arguments from subjective character that are fuelled by an undifferentiated use of the three notions, and find them to be flawed for this reason. (shrink)

Retaliation against whistleblowers is a well-recognized problem, yet there is little explanation for why uninvolved peers choose to retaliate through ostracism. We conduct two experiments in which participants take the role of a peer third-party observer of theft and subsequent whistleblowing. We manipulate injunctive norms and descriptive norms. Both experiments support the core of our theoretical model, based on social intuitionist theory, such that moral judgments of the acts of wrongdoing and whistleblowing influence the perceived likeability of each actor and (...) ultimately influence intention to ostracize each actor and indicate more willingness to ostracize the whistleblower than the wrongdoer. When we vary norms for the wrongdoing in Experiment 1, we find that descriptive and injunctive norms indirectly influence intentions to ostracize both the wrongdoer and whistleblower. These relationships are serially mediated by the observers’ moral judgments of the act and likeability of the actor. When we vary norms for whistleblowing in Experiment 2, the injunctive norm manipulation affected moral judgment of the action of whistleblowing, and we do not observe any other significant effects of the norm manipulations on moral judgments of the actions of wrongdoing or whistleblowing. (shrink)

While Wallace disagreed with Darwin that domesticates provided a great deal of useful information on wild populations,71 Darwin continued to draw on his domesticated animals and plants to inform him on the workings of his theory. Unlike Wallace, his exposure to natural populations was extremely limited after his return from the Beagle voyage. By the 1850s, he had settled into a life at Down House and was becoming more and more withdrawn from London scientific circles. He turned to his network (...) of informants, visits from colleagues such as Hooker and T. H. Huxley, subscriptions to various journals, and his own experimental studies at Down.This work on domesticates was clearly related to other natural history studies conducted by Darwin and others during the same period. For example, during the 1850s when Darwin worked on domesticates, he was also engaged in questions of geographic distribution. To study the dispersal and subsequent viability of introduced seeds, he soaked various seeds in a tub filled with seawater and counted which of the seeds floated after a given period; later he planted the seeds in the yard at Down to look for potential viability. There was no attempt at controlled, replicated experiments in these studies, or in his work with domesticates, nor should there have been. To Darwin the results of one experiment represented a potential truth of nature, and he was quick to seize upon these results as supporting evidence for his theory.I have suggested in this paper that his work on domesticates was not simply meant to provide an analogy for natural selection but rather became a research program to investigate other aspects of his natural selection theory, especially inheritance and variability; these subjects were integral parts of his theory of natural selection, but by 1859 he had not found a mechanism to account for them. The experiments brought home the difficult problems of inheritance, and Darwin specifically formulated pangenesis to account for these problems. Pangenesis was not an afterthought but an integration of several decades of thinking on inheritance. It was a unified theory to explain the complicated results he witnessed in his own experiments.Much of the Darwin scholarship has focused on Darwin's path toward the discovery of natural selection. Natural selection per se was a major interest, but not the only area of interest to Darwin. Inheritance was an area of serious concern for him both before and after he had formulated natural selection. His experimentation with domesticates was an attempt to look beyond natural selection and to concentrate on the difficult subject of inheritance. He found inheritance especially troublesome, requiring a “provisional hypothesis” to account for it. To see domesticates, as they are described in the Origin, as merely an analogy for natural selection, does not account for the importance Darwin placed on them. For him they were not man's monstrous productions, but worthy experimental subjects providing him with crucial information on inheritance. (shrink)

BackgroundEvolving medical technology, advancing biomedical and drug research, and changing laws and legislation impact patients’ healthcare options and influence healthcare practitioners’ (HCPs’) practices. Conscientious objection policy confusion and variability can arise as it may occasionally be unclear what underpins non-participation. Our objective was to identify, analyze, and synthesize the factors that influenced HCPs who did not participate in ethically complex, legally available healthcare.MethodsWe used Arksey and O’Malley’s framework while considering Levac et al.’s enhancements, and qualitatively synthesized the evidence. We searched (...) Medline, CINAHL, JSTOR, EMBASE, PsychINFO, Sociological Abstracts, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global from January 1, 1998, to January 15, 2020, and reviewed the references of the final articles. We included articles written in English that discussed the factors that influenced physicians and registered nurses (RNs) who did not participate in end-of-life (EOL), reproductive technology and health, genetic testing, and organ or tissue donation healthcare areas. Using Covidence, we conducted title and abstract screening, followed by full-text screening against our eligibility criteria. We extracted the article’s data into a spreadsheet, analyzed the articles, and completed a qualitative content analysis using NVivo12.ResultsWe identified 10,664 articles through the search, and after the screening, 16 articles were included. The articles sampled RNs (n = 5) and physicians (n = 11) and encompassed qualitative (n = 7), quantitative (n = 7), and mixed (n = 2) methodologies. The care areas included reproductive technology and health (n = 11), EOL (n = 3), organ procurement (n = 1), and genetic testing (n = 1). One article included two care areas; EOL and reproductive health. The themed factors that influenced HCPs who did not participate in healthcare were: (1) HCPs’ characteristics, (2) personal beliefs, (3) professional ethos, 4) emotional labour considerations, and (5) system and clinical practice considerations.ConclusionThe factors that influenced HCPs’ who did not participate in ethically complex, legally available care are diverse. There is a need to recognize conscientious objection to healthcare as a separate construct from non-participation in healthcare for reasons other than conscience. Understanding these separate constructs will support HCPs’ specific to the underlying factors influencing their practice participation. (shrink)

Defends an account of mathematical knowledge in which mathematical knowledge is a kind of modal knowledge. Leng argues that nominalists should take mathematical knowledge to consist in knowledge of the consistency of mathematical axiomatic systems, and knowledge of what necessarily follows from those axioms. She defends this view against objections that modal knowledge requires knowledge of abstract objects, and argues that we should understand possibility and necessity in a primative way.

The myths of three famous Glauci - (1) Glaucus of Anthedon, (2) Glaucus of Potniae, and (3) Glaucus the son of Minos - whose story patterns mirror one another in some remarkable details have long suggested a common origin as the likely solution to their points of coincidence. In particular, scholars have focused on such similarities as the presence of a magic plant, death/initiation, and acquisition of prophetic powers. However, the elements common to each of these myths are not functional (...) equivalents and, perhaps more importantly, there is no evidence to suggest that the three Glauci were conflated in antiquity. The attempts by modern scholars to reconcile the thematic similarities as conflations of a single source myth are conjectural and depend upon misinterpretations of the ancient evidence. On the other hand, an analysis of the contexts in which the myths of each of the Glauci appear in ancient literature conclusively demonstrates the independent conception and purpose of each of the myths. (shrink)

The concept of self-motion is not only fundamental in Aristotle's argument for the Prime Mover and in ancient and medieval theories of nature, but it is also central to many theories of human agency and moral responsibility. In this collection of mostly new essays, scholars of classical, Hellenistic, medieval, and early modern philosophy and science explore the question of whether or not there are such things as self-movers, and if so, what their self-motion consists in. They trace the development of (...) the concept of self-motion from its formulation in Aristotle's metaphysics, cosmology, and philosophy of nature through two millennia of philosophical, religious, and scientific thought. This volume contains "Self-Movers" (David Furley), "Aristotle on Self-Motion" (Mary Louise Gill), "Aristotle on Perception, Appetition, and Self-Motion" (Cynthia Freeland), "Self-Movement and External Causation" (Susan Sauvé Meyer), "Aristotle on the Mind's Self-Motion" (Michael Wedin), "Mind and Motion in Aristotle" (Christopher Shields), "Aristotle's Prime Mover" (Aryeh Kosman), "The Transcendence of the Prime Mover" (Lindsay Judson), "Self-Motion in Stoic Philosophy" (David Hahm), "Duns Scotus on the Reality of Self-Change" (Peter King), "Ockham, Self-Motion, and the Will" (Calvin Normore), and "Natural Motion and Its Causes: Newton on the 'Vis Insita' of Bodies" (J. E. McGuire). Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

This 1997 book was the first English translation of all of Kant's writings on moral and political philosophy collected in a single volume. No other collection competes with the comprehensiveness of this one. As well as Kant's most famous moral and political writings, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Metaphysics of Morals, and Toward Perpetual Peace, the volume includes shorter essays and reviews, some of which have never been translated before. The volume has (...) been furnished with a substantial editorial apparatus including translator's introductions and explanatory notes to each text by Mary Gregor, and a general introduction to Kant's moral and political philosophy by Allen Wood. There is also an English-German and German-English glossary of key terms. (shrink)

This 1997 book was the first English translation of all of Kant's writings on moral and political philosophy collected in a single volume. No other collection competes with the comprehensiveness of this one. As well as Kant's most famous moral and political writings, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Metaphysics of Morals, and Toward Perpetual Peace, the volume includes shorter essays and reviews, some of which have never been translated before. The volume has (...) been furnished with a substantial editorial apparatus including translator's introductions and explanatory notes to each text by Mary Gregor, and a general introduction to Kant's moral and political philosophy by Allen Wood. There is also an English-German and German-English glossary of key terms. (shrink)

Mary Warnock steers a clear path through the web of complex issues underlying the use of new reproductive technologies. She begins by analysing what it means to claim something as a 'right', and goes on to discuss the cases of different groups of people. She also examines the ethical problems faced by particular types of assisted reproduction, including artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization, and surrogacy, and argues that in the future human cloning may well be a viable and acceptable form of (...) treatment for some types of infertility. (shrink)

I Norge har vi hatt kontroverser omkring regulering avhumanmedisinsk bioteknologi siden 1980-tallet. Denneartikkelen analyserer et lite utsnitt av disse reguleringsdebattene,nærmere bestemt kontroversen omkring forskningpå befruktede egg. Med utgangspunkt i skriftlig materialeknyttet til tre reguleringsrunder undersøker vi her hvordan ulike aktører arbeidet forå ramme inn denne kontroversen, bl.a. ved hjelp av ulikevitenskapelige og politiske representasjoner av det befruktedeegget.Vi finner at det i perioden 1987–2007 ble arbeidet medulike innramminger som utgangspunkt for retoriske ogpolitiske strategier: På den ene siden ser vi forsøk på (...) å innrammekontroversen i et risikorammeverk som først ogfremst fokuserte på de potensielle negative sidene vedhumanmedisinsk bioteknologi, og som spesielt vektlarespekten for det ufødte liv. På den andre siden ser vi atman arbeidet med en forventningsinnramming som lahovedvekten på håpet om nye behandlingsregimer foralvorlig syke mennesker.Forbudet mot forskning på befruktede egg som ble vedtatti 1987, ble opprettholdt i 1994 og 2003. Med lovendringeni 2008 fikk vi imidlertid et markant brudd i dennorske lovgivningspraksisen, da forskning på befruktedeegg ble tillatt på visse premisser. Vi argumenterer for at den viktigste årsaken til denne lovendringen var Mehmet-saken, en sak som medførtesåkalte «oversvømmelser» i begge innrammingsforsøkenesom er omtalt ovenfor. Mehmet-saken eksponerte samtidig et generelt demokratiskdilemma. Saken illustrerte hvor sårbare lovregler og etiske prinsippkan være for det som for allmennheten fremstår som helt urimelig, og dennesaken etterspør slik sett mer hybride måter å tenke forholdet mellom det universelleog det partikulære, mellom prinsipiell etikk og lekmannsskjønn, mellomfakta og verdier som utgangspunkt for politikkutforming.Nøkkelord: humanmedisinsk bioteknologi, forskning på befruktede egg,kontrovers, representasjoner, Mehmet-sakenEnglish abstract: Effective representations? Concerns and expectationsregarding research on fertilized eggsSince the 1980s, there have been several debates and controversies concerningthe regulation of medical biotechnology. In this article, we analyze three suchinstances in Norway, mainly the debates concerning research on fertilizedeggs. Analyzing the debates surrounding the regulations of 1994, 2003/2004and 2008, we investigate how different stakeholders strived to mobilize whatwe call different framings of the controversy, utilizing the different scientificand political representations of the fertilized egg.Framing involves creating baselines for rhetorical and political stratagems.Two framings appear more pronounced than others in the Norwegian debate.On one hand, we find attempts of framing the controversy in a risk centricframework, which mostly emphasizes the potential negative effects of medicalbiotechnology as it focuses on the universal reverence for the unborn life. Onthe other hand, we see attempts to mobilize a positive frame of expectationthat emphasizes on the hope of finding new and effective treatment options forthe severely ill.The ban against research on fertilized eggs that was passed in Norway in1987 was repeated in 1994 and 2003. However, with the changes introducedto the law in 2008, there was a noticeable shift in Norwegian legislation, asresearch on fertilized eggs became permissible if specific conditions were met.We argue that the turning point in this regulative change was the Mehmentcase, a particular case that entailed the so-called «overflowing» in both the negative and the positive frame. The Mehmet case exposed a moregeneral democratic and political dilemma. In our opinion, it illustrates howvulnerable can regulation that is based on general ethical principles be in theface of what appears to the laity as unreasonable. Thus, we argue that thisactualizes the need for more hybridized ways to view the relationship betweenthe universal and the particular, between principle-based ethics and theunderstandings of lay people, between facts, and values and actual cases inpolicy shaping and practice. (shrink)

This book examines contemporary structural social injustices from a feminist perspective. It asks: what makes oppression, discrimination, and domination wrongful? Is there a single wrongness-making feature of various social injustices that are due to social kind membership? Why is sexist oppression of women wrongful? What does the wrongfulness of patriarchal damage done to women consist in? In thinking about what normatively grounds social injustice, the book puts forward two related views. First, it argues for a paradigm shift in focus away (...) from feminist philosophy that is organized around the gender concept woman, and towards feminist philosophy that is humanist. This is against the following theoretical backdrop: Politically effective feminism requires ways to elucidate how and why patriarchy damages women, and to articulate and defend feminism's critical claims. In order to meet these normative demands an influential theoretical outlook has emerged: for emancipatory purposes feminist philosophers should articulate a thick conception of the gender concept woman around which feminist philosophical work is organized. However, Part I of the book argues that we should resist this move, and that feminist philosophers should reframe their analyses of injustice in humanist terms. Second, the book spells out a humanist alternative to the more prevalent gender-focus in feminist philosophy. This hinges on a notion of dehumanization, which Part II of the book develops. The argued for understanding of dehumanization is used to explicate the wrongness-making feature of social injustices, both in general and of those due to patriarchy. Dehumanization is not another form of injustice-rather, it is that which makes forms of social injustice unjust. The book's second part then provides a regimentation of social injustice from a feminist perspective in order to spell out the specifics of the proposed humanist feminism, and to demonstrate how it improves some non-feminist analyses of injustice too. (shrink)

The analysis presented in this article reveals an ambiguity and tension in human rights theory concerning the delusional person’s freedom of belief and thought. Firstly, it would appear that the concepts ‘opinion’ and ‘thought’ are defined in human rights discussion in such a way that they do include delusions. Secondly, the internal freedom to hold opinions and thoughts is defined in human rights discussion and international human rights covenants as an absolute human right which should not be restricted in any (...) situation for any reason. These views, if understood literally, imply that a person has an absolute right to hold a delusion. However, this kind of conclusion has not been made in mental health laws, the ethical principles guiding psychiatric care or the practice of psychiatry. Instead, they assume that the use of involuntary antipsychotic medication is justified even thought its purpose is to influence delusions. The ambiguity and tension in human rights theory concerning the freedom of belief and thought challenge us to develop this theory within an interdisciplinary discussion so that people with delusions are taken into account properly. (shrink)

The analysis presented in this article reveals an ambiguity and tension in human rights theory concerning the delusional person’s freedom of belief and thought. Firstly, it would appear that the concepts ‘opinion’ and ‘thought’ are defined in human rights discussion in such a way that they do include delusions. Secondly, the internal freedom to hold opinions and thoughts is defined in human rights discussion and international human rights covenants as an absolute human right which should not be restricted in any (...) situation for any reason. These views, if understood literally, imply that a person has an absolute right to hold a delusion. However, this kind of conclusion has not been made in mental health laws, the ethical principles guiding psychiatric care or the practice of psychiatry. Instead, they assume that the use of involuntary antipsychotic medication is justified even thought its purpose is to influence delusions. The ambiguity and tension in human rights theory concerning the freedom of belief and thought challenge us to develop this theory within an interdisciplinary discussion so that people with delusions are taken into account properly. (shrink)

This paper examines various ways in which philosophy of science can be interdisciplinary. It aims to provide a map of relations between philosophy and sciences, some of which are interdisciplinary. Such a map should also inform discussions concerning the question “How much philosophy is there in the philosophy of science?” In Sect. 1, we distinguish between synoptic and collaborative interdisciplinarity. With respect to the latter, we furthermore distinguish between two kinds of reflective forms of collaborative interdisciplinarity. We also briefly explicate (...) how complexity triggers interdisciplinarity. In Sect. 2, we apply the distinctions of Sect. 1 to philosophy of science and analyze in which sense different styles of philosophy of science are interdisciplinary. The styles that we discuss are a synoptic-general, a reflective-general, a reflective-particular, a particular-embedded and a descriptive or normative style. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem of how scientific knowledge, which is always locally generated, becomes accepted in other sites. The analysis suggests that there are a small number of strategies that enable scientists to resituate knowledge and that these strategies are generic: they are not restricted to specific disciplines or modes of doing science but rather are found in a variety of different forms across the sciences.

This paper deals with two issues. First, it identifies structured propositions with logical procedures. Second, it considers various rigorous definitions of the granularity of procedures, hence also of structured propositions, and comes out in favour of one of them. As for the first point, structured propositions are explicated as algorithmically structured procedures. I show that these procedures are structured wholes that are assigned to expressions as their meanings, and their constituents are sub-procedures occurring in executed mode. Moreover, procedures are not (...) mere aggregates of their parts; rather, procedural constituents mutually interact. As for the second point, there is no universal criterion of the structural isomorphism of meanings, hence of co-hyperintensionality, hence of synonymy for every kind of language. The positive result I present is an ordered set of rigorously defined criteria of fine-grained individuation in terms of the structure of procedures. Hence procedural semantics provides a solution to the problem of the granularity of co-hyperintensionality. (shrink)

Cresp, Mary; Tranter, Janice Entanglements were part of Julian Edmund Tenison Woods' life from the time of his birth in London on 15 November 1832. His mother, Henrietta Tenison, daughter of a Church of Ireland rector, had several relatives in the Anglican clergy, including Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Edmund Tenison, Bishop of Ossory. Julian's father, James Dominic, was the son of a Cork businessman and studied law in Ireland. He was Catholic, but not practising during his working years. (...) James and Henrietta married in London, raising their family there. James joined 'The Times' as parliamentary reporter; their home was a centre for Irish writers, newspaper men and those in the medical and legal professions. His brother, Nicholas, following duty as surgeon with the East India Company Civil Service, joined the Woods household with his two daughters after his wife's death. Stories of India and his uncle's collections of 'curiosities of various kinds' fascinated Julian and 'served to form [his] taste for natural history'. (shrink)

The author applies Albert Hirschman's "Exit, Voice and Loyalty" framework to the dilemmas faced by humanitarian aid workers in complex settings where local or international political and military realities may "taint" the purposes and uses of aid. She reviews the pro and con arguments surrounding the difficult choices of whether to go or not, whether to stay or leave and whether to speak out or remain silent in such circumstances. Because international humanitarians insert themselves into circumstances that are not their (...) own where they see there is need for a humanitarian response, the author suggests a fourth category of choice should be added to Hirschman's three - namely that of "engagement." This option involves entering and/or staying, coupled with a quiet, off-the-record voice intended to work with and try to change from within nefarious circumstances. Concluding that none of the four options is "pure" in that all have direct impacts on the welfare and likelihood of survival of suffering people, the author argues for making each decision on its own particular merits, weighing both the personal/moral and practical/political realities of that situation. She offers guides for how such decisions may best be made, relying on differences of analyses and opinion offered by colleagues to provide grounding for one's own difficult choice. (shrink)

In his classic paper, ‘Why abortion is immoral’, Don Marquis argues that what makes killing an adult seriously immoral is that it deprives the victim of the valuable future he/she would have otherwise had. Moreover, Marquis contends, because abortion deprives a fetus of the very same thing, aborting a fetus is just as seriously wrong as killing an adult. Marquis’ argument has received a great deal of critical attention in the two decades since its publication. Nonetheless, there is a potential (...) challenge to it that seems to have gone unnoticed. A significant percentage of fetuses are lost to spontaneous abortion. Once we bring this fact to our attention, it becomes less clear whether Marquis can use his account of the wrongness of killing to show that abortion is the moral equivalent of murder. In this paper, I explore the relevance of the rate of spontaneous abortion to Marquis’ classic anti-abortion argument. I introduce a case I call Unexpected Death in which someone is about to commit murder, but, just as the would-be murderer is about to strike, his would-be victim dies unexpectedly. I then ask: what does Marquis’ account of killing imply about the moral status of what the would-be murderer was about to do? I consider four responses Marquis could give to this question, and I examine what implications these responses have for Marquis’ strategy of using his account of the wrongness of killing an adult to show that abortion is in the same moral category. (shrink)

Reshaping our methodological research tools for adequately capturing injustice and domination has been a central aspiration of feminist philosophy and social epistemology in recent years. There has been an increasingly empirical turn in recent feminist and political theorization, engaging with case studies and the challenges arising from conducting research in solidarity with unequal partners. I argue that these challenges cannot be resolved by merely adopting a norm and stance of deference to those in the struggle for justice. To conduct philosophical (...) research in an engaged and solidaristic manner, I suggest that deference be supplemented by three methodological and normative principles: 1) epistemic humility, 2) accountability, and 3) co-producing knowledge. I situate these principles within contemporary philosophical work on solidarity, and show how they might help confront power imbalances and other methodological hazards that arise when conducting research in solidarity with others. I arrive at these principles in part by critically reflecting on my own attempt to conduct research in solidarity with women’s rights activists in Senegal. (shrink)

One of the core problems with engineering ethics education is perceptual. Although ethics is meant to be a central component of today’s engineering curriculum, it is often perceived as a marginal requirement that must be fulfilled. In addition, there is a mismatch between faculty and student perceptions of ethics. While faculty aim to communicate the nuances and complexity of engineering ethics, students perceive ethics as laws, rules, and codes that must be memorized. This paper provides some historical context to better (...) understand these perceptual differences, and suggests that curriculum constraints are important contributing factors. Drawing on the growing scholarship of student engagement approaches to pedagogy, the paper explores how students can be empowered to effect change in the broader engineering curriculum through engineering ethics. The paper describes a student engagement approach to pedagogy that includes students as active participants in curriculum design—a role that enables them to critically reflect about why ethics is a requirement. Including students in the process of curriculum design leads students to reframe ethics as an integrative tool with the capacity to bring together different engineering departments and build bridges to non-engineering fields. This paper argues that students can and should play an active and important role in relocating ethics from the periphery to the core of the engineering curriculum. (shrink)

Emotions are often portrayed as subjective judgments that pose a threat to rationality and morality, but there is a growing literature across many disciplines that emphasizes the centrality of emotion to moral reasoning. For engineers, however, being rational usually means sequestering emotions that might bias analyses—good reasoning is tied to quantitative data, math, and science. This paper brings a new pedagogical perspective that strengthens the case for incorporating emotions into engineering ethics. Building on the widely established success of active and (...) collaborative learning environments, in particular the problem-based learning philosophy and methodology, the paper articulates new strategies for incorporating emotion into engineering ethics education. An ethics education pilot study is analyzed to explore how PBL can engage students’ emotions. Evidence suggests that PBL empowers students to cultivate value for engineering ethics and social responsibility, and in doing so, redefine the societal role of the engineer. Taking students’ emotions seriously in engineering ethics offers an effective strategy to meaningfully engage students in ethical learning. (shrink)

By a potential person I shall mean an entity which is not now a person but which is capable of developing into a person, given certain biologically and/or technologically possible conditions. This is admittedly a narrower sense than some would attach to the term ‘potential'. After all, people of the twenty-fifth century, if such there will be, are in some sense potential people now, even though the specific biological entities from which they will develop, i.e. the particular gametes or concepti, (...) do not yet exist. For there do exist, in the reproductive capacities of people now living and in the earth's resources, conditions adequate to produce these future people eventually, provided of course that various possible catastrophes are avoided. Indeed, in some sense of ‘potential’ there have been countless billions of potential people from the beginning of time. But I am concerned not with such remote potentialities but with currently existing entities that are capable of developing into people. (shrink)

The author applies Albert Hirschman's "Exit, Voice and Loyalty" framework to the dilemmas faced by humanitarian aid workers in complex settings where local or international political and military realities may "taint" the purposes and uses of aid. She reviews the pro and con arguments surrounding the difficult choices of whether to go or not, whether to stay or leave and whether to speak out or remain silent in such circumstances. Because international humanitarians insert themselves into circumstances that are not their (...) own where they see there is need for a humanitarian response, the author suggests a fourth category of choice should be added to Hirschman's three - namely that of "engagement." This option involves entering and/or staying, coupled with a quiet, off-the-record voice intended to work with and try to change from within nefarious circumstances. Concluding that none of the four options is "pure" in that all have direct impacts on the welfare and likelihood of survival of suffering people, the author argues for making each decision on its own particular merits, weighing both the personal/moral and practical/political realities of that situation. She offers guides for how such decisions may best be made, relying on differences of analyses and opinion offered by colleagues to provide grounding for one's own difficult choice. (shrink)

Since the Fall of 1993, at the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur l'Apprentissage et le D/span>veloppement en /span>ducation of the Universit/span> du Qu/span>bec /span> Montr/span>al, two mathematicians and one philosopher have collaborated to design and develop a research project involving philosophy, mathematics and sciences. Previous observations in the classroom had led the researchers to realize that, within the school curriculum, children like some subject matters and dislike others. Most of them usually succeed in arts, physical education and language arts, but (...) many have difficulties in succeeding in mathematics. Why? On the one hand, as Matthew Lipman advocates, the school curricula are not sufficiently "meaningful" for children. On the other hand, some studies in the field of mathematics suggest that there are myths and prejudices about mathematics in primary schools and that the school system is partly responsible for this. Indeed, the school system does not invite children to express emotions in class about mathematics nor does it favor creativity. It does not allow dialogue among peers about mathematical concepts and problems, nor the construction of mathematical knowledge by the students themselves. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14.4 (2004) 411-425 [Access article in PDF] Vulnerability, Vulnerable Populations, and Policy Mary C. Ruof "Special justification is required for inviting vulnerable individuals to serve as research subjects and, if they are selected, the means of protecting their rights and welfare must be strictly applied."Guideline 13: Research Involving Vulnerable Persons International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects Council for International Organizations of (...) Medical Sciences (CIOMS) and World Health Organization (WHO) Geneva, Switzerland, 2002 Within medical research and healthcare certain groups are afforded special protections and services because of their designation as vulnerable. The vulnerable require special justification to participate in human subject research in order to eliminate potential human rights abuses. The Nuremberg Code of 1947 was written in response to the extreme human subject abuses that occurred under the Nazi regime, and, although the intent of the 1947 Code was to protect human rights, rigid voluntary consent requirements deprived some individuals of the right to participate in clinical trials. Recent human research guidelines, such as the CIOMS/WHO guidelines referenced above and the guidelines referenced in Section V of this Scope Note, attempt to balance both protection from abuse in research and access to new, experimental treatments for the vulnerable.Although various protective guidelines stipulate special protections for vulnerable populations, the concept of vulnerability and consequently the criteria designating vulnerable populations remain vague. Precisely who are the vulnerable? The word "vulnerability" stems from the Latin vulnerare, "to wound." (Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary 1995). In clinical research, the term [End Page 411] vulnerable generally is applied to individuals who are unable to give informed consent or who are susceptible to coercion. The Common Rule (45 CFR 46, Subpart A) includes as vulnerable research subjects: children, prisoners, pregnant women, and persons who are handicapped, mentally disabled, economically disadvantaged, or educationally disadvantaged. Although the Common Rule specifies certain vulnerable categories, the guidelines were not intended to be exclusive, leaving open the interpretation of vulnerability.In medical research and health policy, vulnerability is an abstract concept that has concrete effects both for those labeled vulnerable and for those not. Clinical researchers, healthcare workers, ethical reviewers, and policymakers must be able to identify vulnerable subjects to establish how healthcare resources will be allocated and who will qualify for special protections and socialized benefits. Attempts to quantify vulnerability in clear, measurable ways have met little if any consensus. As Alexander Morawa (II, 2003, p. 150) states, "There is no single approach to definition of vulnerability. In fact, there is no purposeful categorisation at all."Difficulties in defining vulnerability have prompted discourse surrounding its utility as a qualifying factor in the allocation of health resources and its appropriateness as a guiding principle in bioethics. Some of the authors cited in this Scope Note argue against the labeling and categorization of vulnerable individuals and populations. "Labeling individuals as 'vulnerable' risks viewing vulnerable individuals as 'others' worthy of pity, a view rarely appreciated" (III, Danis and Patrick 2002, p. 320). The categories of vulnerable groups listed under the Common Rule have been the source of controversy, "for example, many find the suggestion that pregnant women are vulnerable to be quite sexist" (IV, DeBruin 2001, p. 7). Instead of creating categories of vulnerable populations, would it not be better to derive an account of just treatment from a just social policy at large that encompasses human vulnerabilities (II, Brock 2002, p. 283).For some of the authors listed here, the concept of vulnerability is essential to bioethics. Robert Goodin (I, 1985, p. 107) writes that the vulnerability of other human beings is the source of our special responsibilities to them. In contrast to the four American principles of biomedical ethics—autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice—the four principles of European bioethics and biolaw include vulnerability along with autonomy, dignity, and integrity. According to, Jacob Dahl Rendtorff and Peter Kemp (I, 2000, p. 274) "the principle of vulnerability is ontologically prior to the other [European] principles, it expresses better than all of the other ethical principles... the finitude of the human condition."Some of the... (shrink)

Ornaments are the most common and ubiquitous art form of the Late Pleistocene. This fact suggests a common, fundamental function somewhat different to other kinds of Paleolithic art. While the capacity for artistic expression could be considerably older than the record of preserved art would suggest, beads signal a novel development in the efficiency and flexibility of visual communication technology. The Upper Paleolithic was a period of considerable regional differentiation in material culture, yet there is remarkable consistency in the dominant (...) shapes and sizes of Paleolithic beads over more than 25,000 years and across vast areas, even though they were made from diverse materials and, in the case of mollusc shells, diverse taxonomic families. Cultural and linguistic continuity cannot explain the meta-pattern. The evidence indicates that widespread adoption of beads of redundant form was not only about local and subregional communication of personal identity or group affinity, but also an expansion in the geographic scale of social networks. The conformity of the beads grew spontaneously and in a self-organizing manner from individuals’ interest in tapping into the network as a means for spreading social and environmental risk. (shrink)

Despite the social, economic and ethical problems facing government in the Czech Republic, there are positive signs of a growing concern for ethical business, including the development of codes of conduct and a striking example of new corporate social responsibility. Dr Bohatá is a member of the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences, Politickych Veznu 7, 111 21 Prague 1, and an Associate Editor of this Review.