Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the world’s most common sexually transmitted infection. It is a prerequisite for cervical cancer, the second most common cause of death in cancer among women worldwide, and is also believed to cause other anogenital and head and neck cancers. Vaccines that protect against the most common cancer-causing HPV types have recently become available, and different countries have taken different approaches to implementing vaccination. This paper examines the ethics of alternative HPV vaccination strategies. It devotes particular (...) attention to the major arguments for and against one strategy: voluntary, publicly funded vaccination for all adolescent boys and girls. This approach seems attractive because it would protect more people against cervical cancer and other HPV-related cancers than less inclusive alternatives, without the sacrifice of autonomy that a comparably broad compulsory programme would require. Also, the herd immunity that it would likely generate would protect those who remain unvaccinated, a major advantage from a justice perspective. However, there is a possibility that a HPV vaccination programme targeting all adolescents of both sexes is not considered sufficiently cost-effective. Also, it might pose more difficulties for achieving informed consent than comparable vaccination programmes against other diseases. Ultimately, society’s choice of HPV vaccination strategy requires careful consideration not only of the values at stake but also of available and emerging scientific evidence. (shrink)

Many countries are now implementing human papillomavirus vaccination. There is disagreement about who should receive the vaccine. Some propose vaccinating both boys and girls in order to achieve the largest possible public health impact. Others regard this approach as too costly and claim that only girls should be vaccinated. We question the assumption that decisions about human papillomavirus vaccination policy should rely solely on estimates of overall benefits and costs. There are important social justice aspects that also need to be (...) considered. Policy makers should consider how to best protect individuals who will remain unvaccinated through no fault of their own. This is especially important if these individuals are already disadvantaged in other ways and if vaccinating other people increases their risk of infection. (shrink)

Is the tendency to morally prioritize humans over animals weaker in children than adults? In two pre-registered studies (N = 622), 5- to 9-year-old children and adults were presented with moral dilemmas pitting varying numbers of humans against varying numbers of either dogs or pigs and were asked who should be saved. In both studies, children had a weaker tendency to prioritize humans over animals than adults. They often chose to save multiple dogs over one human, and many valued the (...) life of a dog as much as the life of a human. While they valued pigs less, the majority still prioritized ten pigs over one human. By contrast, almost all adults chose to save one human over even one hundred dogs or pigs. Our findings suggest that the common view that humans are far more morally important than animals appears late in development and is likely socially acquired. (shrink)

The concept of mutual responsiveness is currently based on little empirical data in the literature of Responsible Research and Innovation. This paper explores RRI’s idea of mutual responsiveness in the light of recent RRI case studies on private sector research and development. In RRI, responsible innovation is understood as a joint endeavour of innovators and societal stakeholders, who become mutually responsive to each other in defining the ‘right impacts’ of the innovation in society, and in steering the innovation towards realising (...) those impacts. Yet, the case studies identified several reasons for why the idea of mutual responsiveness does not always appear feasible or desirable in actual R&D situations. Inspired by the discrepancies between theory and practice, we suggest three further elaborations for the concept of responsiveness in RRI. Process-responsiveness is suggested for identifying situations that require stakeholder involvement specifically during R&D. Product-responsiveness is suggested for mobilising the potential of innovation products to be adaptable according to diverse stakeholder needs. Presponsiveness is suggested as responsiveness towards stakeholders that are not reachable at a given time of R&D. Our aim is to contribute to a more tangible understanding of responsiveness in RRI, and suggest directions for further analysis in upcoming RRI case studies. (shrink)

In this article, I present what I believe to be the core of Jürgen Habermas’s views on the morality, ethics, and regulation of emerging genetic and reproductive technologies in his bookThe Future of Human Nature.

Antinatalism is an emerging philosophy and practice that challenges pronatalism, the prevailing philosophy and practice in reproductive matters. We explore justifications of antinatalism—the arguments from the quality of life, the risk of an intolerable life, the lack of consent, and the asymmetry of good and bad—and argue that none of them supports a concrete, understandable, and convincing moral case for not having children. We identify concentration on possible future individuals who may or may not come to be as the main (...) culprit for the failure and suggest that the focus should be shifted to people who already exist. Pronatalism’s hegemonic status in contemporary societies imposes upon us a lifestyle that we have not chosen yet find almost impossible to abandon. We explicate the nature of this imposition and consider the implications of its exposure to different stakeholders with varying stands on the practice of antinatalism. Imposition as a term has figured in reproductive debates before, but the argument from postnatal, mental, and cultural imposition we launch is new. It is the hitherto overlooked and underdeveloped justification of antinatalism that should be solid and comprehensible enough to be used even by activists in support of their work. (shrink)

Discover the great wonder and wild freedom the fear of the Lord can bring. What does the Bible mean when it says we are to fear God' Is it difficult for you to reconcile the two sides of God's nature'His wrath and His love' Mattie Montgomery teaches that a right pursuit of the fear, fire, and fullness of God can lead you into the knowledge of a side of God you may never have imagined before. He notes that the fear (...) of God does not mean that we should be afraid of God; but rather, that we should be afraid to be against Him. And, if we abide in Christ, we can live in the continual awareness of the mighty Warrior King who calls us beloved. That realization is the glorious convergence of respect, awe, reverence, adoration, instruction, honor, worship, discipline, confidence, thanksgiving, love, and yes...'fear. The result'a joyful experience of God's grandeur and a grateful realization that only through Him do we receive His provisions and protection and are able to echo the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 8:31, "If God is for me, who can be against me'. (shrink)

The aim of this article was to illuminate the issue of basic research in nursing and to problematize its relevance for our discipline. First, we asked leading nursing scholars in the Nordic countries to share their views on basic research in nursing. Thereafter, the ideas, views and suggestions of the scholars were amalgamated with insights from the literature and from the discussions in our project team. Our two guiding questions were: What role can basic research be assigned? Which, if any, (...) forms of basic research can be identified? We found that basic nursing research may be seen as a necessary basis for applied research, as a contribution to applied research, or that the whole issue is seen as a pseudo-issue. We further found that basic nursing research can be seen as either contextual or general as well as either intradisciplinary or multidisciplinary in form. We conclude by the following three succinct remarks or assertions: that basic nursing research is not to be equated with biomedical conceptions of basic research; that basic nursing research may take place on several theoretical levels; and finally, that an indiscriminate dismissal of basic research in nursing may affect the cognitive autonomy of our discipline. (shrink)

Metaontology – the study of the nature of ontological issues – has flourished in recent years. The focus of this summary will be on some views and arguments that are central to today’s debate. One theme will be that of how seriously to take ontology: whether there is reason to take a skeptical or deflationary attitude toward ontological claims, as theorists like Rudolf Carnap, Hilary Putnam, and Eli Hirsch in different ways have urged. The other theme will be that of (...) the viability of the Fregean and Quinean approaches to ontology that have been and still are central to analytic philosophy. (shrink)

In this article, I present what I believe to be the core of Jürgen Habermas’s views on the morality, ethics, and regulation of emerging genetic and reproductive technologies in his bookThe Future of Human Nature.

I distinguish two kinds of contribution that have been made by recent minimalist accounts of joint action in philosophy and cognitive science relative to established philosophical accounts of shared intentional action. The “complementarists” seek to analyze a functionally different kind of joint action from the kind of joint action that is analyzed by established philosophical accounts of shared intentional action. The “constitutionalists” seek to expose mechanisms that make performing joint actions possible, without taking a definite stance on which functional characterization (...) of joint action is the appropriate one. I elucidate the contrasting methodological underpinnings of these minimalist research programs in accordance with Bechtel and Richardson’s account of the heuristics of decomposition and localization as a research strategy for the study of complex systems. (shrink)

We think of the world as consisting of objects, with properties and standing in relations. There are, to be sure, different views on what objects etc. there are, and on what their natures are. And some theorists want to subtract some elements from this picture. For example, the ontological nihilist says that there are no objects. But still, the view described is very much orthodoxy—so much orthodoxy that one may need to be reminded that the view that the world consists (...) of objects, with properties and standing in relations is, precisely, a view. I here investigate the possibility that this view is false: that there is what may be called alien structure. And I investigate the relationship between alien structure and some important themes from the history of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

This paper argues for theoretical modeling and model-construction as central types of activities that philosophers of social ontology engage in. This claim is defended through a detailed case study and revisionary interpretation of Raimo Tuomela’s account of the we-perspective. My interpretation is grounded in Ronald Giere’s account of scientific models, and argued to be compatible with, but less demanding than Tuomela’s own description of his account as a philosophical theory of the social world. My approach is also suggested to be (...) applicable to many other methodologically naturalist accounts of collective intentionality and social ontology. (shrink)

This paper analyzes three contrasting strategies for modeling intentional agency in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and action, and draws parallels between them and similar strategies of scientific model-construction. Gricean modeling involves identifying primitive building blocks of intentional agency, and building up from such building blocks to prototypically agential behaviors. Analogical modeling is based on picking out an exemplary type of intentional agency, which is used as a model for other agential types. Theoretical modeling involves reasoning about intentional agency in (...) terms of some domain-general framework of lawlike regularities, which involves no detailed reference to particular building blocks or exemplars of intentional agency. Given the contrasting procedural approaches that they employ and the different types of knowledge that they embody, the three strategies are argued to provide mutually complementary perspectives on intentional agency. (shrink)

This paper analyses the various effects of threats and offers on freedom. Both threats and offers are related to social power. Threats are part of coercion and they are constraints. We try to say why this is so. Offers are more problematic. We identify soft and hard offers, or offers that can be refused and those that cannot. Hard offers have several interesting features, especially in relation to individual preference orders and sets of action alternatives. This paper studies problems which (...) are implicit in Thomas Wartenberg’s study of the various forms of social power in this issue of Analyse & Kritik. (shrink)

The concepts we use to value and prescribe are historically contingent, and we could have found ourselves with others. But what does it mean to say that some concepts are better than others for purposes of action-guiding and deliberation? What is it to choose between different normative conceptual frameworks?

Prominent research programs dealing with the nature and mechanisms of interpersonal social coordination have emerged in cognitive science, developmental psychology and evolutionary anthropology. I argue that the mechanistic approach to explanation in contemporary philosophy of science can facilitate interdisciplinary integration and division of labor between these different disciplinary research programs. By distinguishing phenomenal models from mechanistic models and structural decomposition from functional decomposition in the process of mechanism discovery, I argue that behavioral and cognitive scientists can make interlocking contributions to (...) families of mechanism models representing a) what central forms of interpersonal social coordination consist in, b) what types of agents engage in such forms of coordination, c) what types of cognitive mechanisms give rise to such forms of coordination, d) how the operation of such mechanisms is modulated by the natural and social environments that the agents populate. Thus mechanistic philosophy of science can play a heuristic role in guiding the research strategies of scientists in different scientific disciplines in a manner that is complementary to the research strategies of scientists in other disciplines and thereby efficient from the point of view of the division of epistemic labor. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Can philosophers come up with persuasive reasons to allow or to ban human reproductive cloning? Yes. Can philosophers agree, locally and temporarily, which practices related to cloning should be condoned and which should be rejected? Some of them can. Can philosophers produce universally convincing arguments for or against different kinds of human cloning? No. This paper analyses some of the main arguments presented by philosophers in the cloning debate, and some of the most important objections against them. The clashes (...) between the schools of thought suggest that philosophers cannot be trusted to provide the public authorities, or the general public, a unified, universally applicable view of the morality of human reproductive cloning. (shrink)

Consciousness seems to be an enigmatic phenomenon: it is difficult to imagine how our perceptions of the world and our inner thoughts, sensations and feelings could be related to the immensely complicated biological organ we call the brain. This volume presents the thoughts of some of the leading philosophers and cognitive scientists who have recently participated in the discussion of the status of consciousness in science. The focus of inquiry is the question: "Is it possible to incorporate consciousness into science?" (...) Philosophers have suggested different alternatives -- some think that consciousness should be altogether eliminated from science because it is not a real phenomenon, others that consciousness is a real, higher-level physical or neurobiological phenomenon, and still others that consciousness is fundamentally mysterious and beyond the reach of science. At the same time, however, several models or theories of the role of conscious processing in the brain have been developed in the more empirical cognitive sciences. It has been suggested that non-conscious processes must be sharply separated from conscious ones, and that the necessity of this distinction is manifested in the curious behavior of certain brain-damaged patients. This book demonstrates the dialogue between philosophical and empirical points of view. The writers present alternative solutions to the brain-consciousness problem and they discuss how the unification of biological and psychological sciences could thus become feasible. Covering a large ground, this book shows how the philosophical and empirical problems are closely interconnected. From this interdisciplinary exploration emerges the conviction that consciousness can and should be a natural part of our scientific world view. (shrink)

Should we make people healthier, smarter, and longer-lived if genetic and medical advances enable us to do so? Matti Häyry asks this question in the context of genetic testing and selection, cloning and stem cell research, gene therapies and enhancements. The ethical questions explored include parental responsibility, the use of people as means, the role of hope and fear in risk assessment, and the dignity and meaning of life. Taking as a starting point the arguments presented by Jonathan Glover, (...) John Harris, Ronald M. Green, Jürgen Habermas, Michael J. Sandel, and Leon R. Kass, who defend a particular normative view as the only rational or moral answer, Matti Häyry argues that many coherent rationalities and moralities exist in the field, and that to claim otherwise is mistaken"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Social ontological inquiry has been pursued in analytic philosophy as well as in the social scientific tradition of critical realism. These traditions have remained largely separate despite partly overlapping concerns and similar underlying strategies of argumentation. They have also both been the subject of similar criticisms based on naturalistic approaches to the philosophy of science, which have addressed their apparent reliance on a transcendental mode of reasoning, their seeming distance from social scientific practice, and their (erroneous?) tendency to advocate global (...) solutions to local and pragmatic problems. Two approaches aiming to naturalize these two traditions of social ontology have been proposed in recent years: one drawing on a Gierean, model-based approach to scientific practice, the other drawing on inference to the best explanation. In our paper, we compare and contrast these naturalistic approaches to social ontology in terms of their capacity to respond to the aforementioned challenges. We also defend a form of methodological pluralism, according to which there are multiple different naturalistically acceptable approaches to social ontology, which emphasize contrasting procedural continuities between social scientific research and philosophical practice. (shrink)

Derivational robustness may increase the degree to which various pieces of evidence indirectly confirm a robust result. There are two ways in which this increase may come about. First, if one can show that a result is robust, and that the various individual models used to derive it also have other confirmed results, these other results may indirectly confirm the robust result. Confirmation derives from the fact that data not known to bear on a result are shown to be relevant (...) when it is shown to be robust. Second, robustness may increase the degree to which the robust result is indirectly confirmed if it increases the weight with which existing evidence indirectly confirms it. This may happen when it strengthens the connection between the core and the robust result by showing that auxiliaries are not responsible for the result. (shrink)