Despite a strong sensitization to the corruption problem and a large body of interdisciplinary research, scientists have only rarely investigated which motivational, volitional, emotional, and cognitive components make decision makers in companies act corruptly. Thus, we examined how their interrelation leads to corruption by proposing an action model. We tested the model using a business simulation game with students as participants. Results of the PLS structural equation modeling showed that both an attitude and subjective norm favoring corruption led to a (...) desire to act corruptly. Given high perceived behavioral control, this desire was transformed into an intention that finally resulted in corrupt action. Components related to general private and professional goals did not allow for any prediction. Based on these results, we discuss preventative measures and methods for combating intra- and inter-organizational corruption. (shrink)

In Being and Time as well as in his later writings, Heidegger comes to distinguish between fundamental moods and everyday or inauthentic moods. He also claims that phenomenology, rather than psychology, is the appropriate method for examining moods. This article employs a schematic approach to investigate a phenomenology of fundamental moods in terms of its possibilities and limits. Since, in Being and Time, the distinction between fundamental moods and ordinary moods is tied to the division between authenticity and inauthenticity, the (...) latter concepts need to be addressed first. Guided by Klaus Held's article 'Fundamental Moods and Heidegger's Critique of Contemporary Culture', the second part of the article argues that Heidegger's phenomenology of moods is indeed one-sided, favouring anxiety at the expense of awe. Finally, I argue that, contrary to Held's claims, this one-sidedness cannot be amended by the means one finds in Heidegger's analyses. Instead, it is necessary to undertake closer examination of those moods which necessarily involve the other person. (shrink)

Reflective equilibrium —the idea that we have to justify our judgments and principles through a process of mutual adjustment—is taken to be a central method in philosophy. Nonetheless, conceptions of RE often stay sketchy, and there is a striking lack of explicit and traceable applications of it. This paper presents an explicit case study for the application of an elaborate RE conception. RE is used to reconstruct the arguments from Thomson’s paper “Turning the Trolley” for why a bystander must not (...) divert a runaway trolley from five workmen onto one. Analyzing Thomson’s resulting position with the RE-criteria has two main results: Firstly, the adjustment of one of her commitments can be defended. Secondly, no justified position in RE was reached. With respect to RE as a method, the main results from this application are: There is at least one conception of RE that is sufficiently specified to be applicable; the RE criteria put real constraints on the process of justification; and an explicit application of RE has benefits in terms of clarity while at the same time providing guidance for how the justificatory process could be continued. (shrink)

The literature states that both situational and individual factors contribute to corrupt behavior. This study investigates the influence of rarely empirically investigated situational factors - the size of the bribe, time pressure, and the degree of abstractness of the business code - on the Model of Corrupt Action that describes the subjective decision making process of corrupt actors. To test the effects, I used an experimental simulation design. Only few effects were found. Thus, my results show a certain robustness of (...) corrupt behavior against the examined situational influences. Based on these results, I discuss implications for the prevention of corruption in organizations. (shrink)

This paper integrates the inclusion and organizational ethics literatures to examine the relationship between employees’ perceptions of an organizational integration and learning approach to diversity and two employee outcomes: organizational citizenship behavior toward the organization and interpersonal workplace deviance. Findings across two field studies from the USA and Germany show that employees’ perceptions of an organizational integration and learning approach to diversity are positively related to perceived organizational ethical virtue. Perceived organizational ethical virtue further transmits the effect of employees’ perceptions (...) of an organizational integration and learning approach to diversity on both organizational citizenship behavior toward the organization and interpersonal workplace deviance. In addition, we find support for a moderated indirect effect model whereby the indirect effect of the perceived integration and learning approach to diversity on the dependent variables through perceived organizational ethical virtue is stronger when employees have high personal value for diversity rather than low personal value for diversity. These results underscore the importance of having a fit between employees’ perceptions of an organization’s approach to diversity and employees’ personal value for diversity in order for inclusion to result in positive employee behaviors. Results emphasize the ethical responsibility of organizations in terms of how they approach diversity. (shrink)

We used a multi-dimensional framework to assess current stereotypes of men and women. Specifically, we sought to determine (1) how men and women are characterized by male and female raters, (2) how men and women characterize themselves, and (3) the degree of convergence between self-characterizations and charcterizations of one’s gender group. In an experimental study, 628 U.S. male and female raters described men, women, or themselves on scales representing multiple dimensions of the two defining features of gender stereotypes, agency and (...) communality: assertiveness, independence, instrumental competence, leadership competence (agency dimensions), and concern for others, sociability and emotional sensitivity (communality dimensions). Results indicated that stereotypes about communality persist and were equally prevalent for male and female raters, but agency characterizations were more complex. Male raters generally descibed women as being less agentic than men and as less agentic than female raters described them. However, female raters differentiated among agency dimensions and described women as less assertive than men but as equally independent and leadership competent. Gender stereotypes also were evident in self-ratings, with female raters rating themselves as less agentic than male raters and male raters rating themselves as less communal than female raters, although there were exceptions (e.g., no differences in independence and sociability self-ratings for men and women). Comparisons of self-ratings and ratings of men and women in general indicated that women tended to characterize themselves in more stereotypic terms – as less assertive and less competent in leadership – than they characterized others in their gender group. Men, in contrast, characterized themselves in less stereotypic terms – as more communal. Overall, our results show that a focus on facets of agency and communality can provide deeper insights about stereotype content than a focus on overall agency and communality. (shrink)

Transitioning to sustainable agricultural systems is imperative to meet the global Sustainable Development Goals. Achieving more sustainable agricultural production systems will require significant additional capital, however this cannot be covered by the current financial market setup, which dissociates public and private funders. Blended finance, where concessionary development-oriented funding is used to mobilize additional private capital, is essential. To ensure that the limited pool of concessionary funding is used efficiently and effectively, a shared understanding of the roles and limitations of public (...) and private funders is necessary. In this paper, we describe the high-level funding gap for sustainable agriculture, the general landscape of agricultural finance, and the concept and potential roles of blended finance in this context. This paper introduces the conditions under which different financing mechanisms can contribute to addressing barriers related to sustainable agriculture investments. It highlights that multiple funding modalities must be utilized in order to achieve agricultural investment at a meaningful level and encourages greater exploration of the range of blended financing structures to increase SDG-related agriculture investments. (shrink)

This paper describes ongoing work towards a rich analysis of the social contexts of neologism use in historical corpora, in particular the Corpora of Early English Correspondence, with research questions concerning the innovators, meanings and diffusion of neologisms. To enable this kind of study, we are developing new processes, tools and ways of combining data from different sources, including the Oxford English Dictionary, the Historical Thesaurus, and contemporary published texts. Comparing neologism candidates across these sources is complicated by the large (...) amount of spelling variation. To make the issues tractable, we start from case studies of individual suffixes and people. By developing tools aiding these studies, we build toward more general analyses. Our aim is to develop an open-source environment where information on neologism candidates is gathered from a variety of algorithms and sources, pooled, and presented to a human evaluator for verification and exploration. (shrink)

This open access book provides the first explicit case study for an application of the method of reflective equilibrium (RE), using it to develop and defend a precautionary principle. It thereby makes an important and original contribution to questions of philosophical method and methodology. The book shows step-by-step how RE is applied, and develops a methodological framework which will be useful for everyone who wishes to use reflective equilibrium. With respect to precautionary principles, the book demonstrates how a rights-based precautionary (...) principle can be constructed and defended. The case study succeeds in demonstrating that RE can be successfully applied and puts real constraints on the justification process. This is all the more remarkable as the case study was designed as an open-ended process, without presupposing any specific results. This book will be highly relevant both to people interested in philosophical methodology and epistemology, as well as to researchers who are interested in using philosophical methods and tools and applying them to practical problems. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a growing public discourse regarding the influence AI will have on the future of work. Simultaneously, considerable critical attention has been given to the implications of AI on gender equality. Far from making precise predictions about the future, this discourse demonstrates that new technologies are instances for renegotiating the relation of gender and work. This paper examines how gender is addressed in news media discourse on AI and the future of work, focusing on Germany. (...) We approach this question from a perspective of feminist technology studies and discourse analysis, exploring a corpus of 178 articles from 2015 to 2021 from German newspapers and newsmagazines. The findings indicate that critical AI and gender knowledge circulates in public discourse in the form of specific discursive frames, thematizing algorithmic bias, automatization and enhancement, and gender stereotypes. As a result, we show that, first, the discourse takes up feminist and scholarly discourse on gender and discusses AI in a way that is informed by social constructivism and standpoint theories. Second, gender appears as a—to some extent intersectional—diversity category which is critical to AI, while at the same time omitting important perspectives. Third, it can be shown that there is a renegotiating of the ideal worker norm taking place, and finally, we argue that the gendered frame of the powerful men developer responsible for AI’s risk is a concept to be challenged. (shrink)

This book offers the first study that relates the works of Hegel and Husserl. It also offers a timely philosophical description of the Western world in crisis. The author explores how Husserl radicalises Hegel's philosophy by providing an account of historical movement as open.

In "Unambiguous Calling? Authenticity and Ethics in Heidegger's Being and Time", Tanja Staeler revisits the concept of authenticity in order to investigate several assumptions often taken for granted in secondary literature. She argues that the distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity should be read as a methodological and, more precisely, phenomenological distinction. Showing that authenticity cannot really be understood as a state one can be in, she argues that talk of a 'transition' to authenticity is, at best, unhelpful. Her argument, (...) consequently, moves to the notion of the 'call of conscience' in order to investigate the ethical implications of the notion of authenticity. She justifies the unambiguous character of the 'call of conscience' with the help of Lévinas' thought. (shrink)

This paper explores how consumers’ ethical food consumption practices, mediated by mobile phone applications (apps), are transformed into digital data. Based on a review of studies on the digitalization of ethical consumption practices and food apps, we find that previous research, while valuable, fails to acknowledge and critically examine the digital labor required to perform digitalized ethical food consumption. In this paper, we call for research on how digital labor underlies the digitalization of ethical food consumption and develop a conceptual (...) framework that supports this research agenda. Our proposed conceptual framework builds on three interconnected analytical concepts—datafication, affordances and digital labor—that enable the study of digital labor as an infrastructural element of digitalized food consumption. We illustrate our conceptual framework through our previous research concerning Buycott, a US-based mobile app whose stated aim is to facilitate consumers’ ethical purchasing decisions. Using the walkthrough method, we consider how the Buycott app engages user-generated data and what implications this holds for consumers. The app’s infrastructure, we suggest, connects ethical consumption and digital labor. A richer understanding of the digital food economy, we propose, enables social scientists not only to elucidate how consumers engage in digital labor, but also to contribute to the development of new data governance structures in the digital food economy. We therefore call for social scientists interested in food, consumption and the digital economy to contribute to a new research agenda for studying everyday food digitalization by empirically examining how ethical consumption apps implicate ethical consumers’ work. (shrink)

Since Clinical Ethics Consultation has become important in the public health sector in the last decade in Germany, there are on-going questions about effectiveness. Targets have been established by the Ethics Committees, in regard to assisting patients, families and health care teams at times of ethical conflicts during the decision-making process in medical care. Of all the ethics consultations over the last eight years at Erlangen University Hospital the consultations carried out in the pediatric department were chosen to be reviewed (...) by a pediatrician and an ethicist. These were evaluated on the basis of team formation, interdisciplinary orientation, ethical criteria, completeness and methods of documentation. Results of the analysis of those records show a well-organized consultation team with regard to its personnel composition. Discrepancies with ethical questions posed in the literature are revealed, and also some partially incomplete documentation regarding medical facts and descriptions of the patients' or parents' opinion. (shrink)

The basic idea underlying a precautionary principle is often summarized as “better safe than sorry.” Even if it is uncertain whether an activity will lead to harm, for example, to the environment or to human health, measures should be taken to prevent harm. This demand is partly motivated by the consequences of regulatory practices of the past. Often, chances of harm were disregarded because there was no scientific proof of a causal connection between an activity or substance and chances of (...) harm, for example, between asbestos and lung diseases. When this connection was finally established, it was often too late to prevent severe damage. However, it is highly controversial how the vague intuition behind “better safe than sorry” should be understood as a principle. As a consequence, we find a multitude of interpretations ranging from decision rules over epistemic principles to procedural frameworks. To acknowledge this diversity, it makes sense to speak of precautionary principles (PPs) in the plural. PPs are not without critices. For example, it has been argued that they are paralyzing, unscientific, or promote a culture of irrational fear. This article systematizes the different interpretations of PPs according to their functions, gives an overview about the main lines of argument in favor of PPs, and outlines the most frequent and important objections made to them. (shrink)

Recent research on grapheme-colour synesthesia has focused on whether visual attention is necessary to induce a synesthetic percept. The current study investigated the influence of synesthesia on overt visual attention during an oculomotor target selection task. Chromatic and achromatic stimuli were presented with one target among distractors among multiple ‘5’s ). Participants executed an eye movement to the target. Synesthetes and controls showed a comparable target selection performance across conditions and a ‘pop-out effect’ was only seen in the chromatic condition. (...) As a pop-out effect was absent for the synesthetes in the achromatic condition, a synesthetic element appears not to elicit a synesthetic colour, even when it is the target. The synesthetic percepts are not pre-attentively available to distinguish the synesthetic target from synesthetic distractors when elements are presented in the periphery. Synesthesia appears to require full recognition to bind form and colour. (shrink)

In the second half of the twentieth century, ethics has gained considerable prominence within philosophy. In contrast to other scholars, Levinas proposed that it be not one philosophical discipline among many, but the most fundamental and essential one. Before philosophy became divided into disciplines, Plato also treated the question of the Good as the most important philosophical question. Levinas's approach to ethics begins in the encounter with the other as the most basic experience of responsibility. He acknowledges the necessity to (...) move beyond this initial, dyadic encounter, but has problems extending his approach to a larger dimension, such as community. To shed light on this dilemma, Tanja Staehler examines broader dimensions which are linked to the political realm, and the problems they pose for ethics. Staehler demonstrates that both Plato and Levinas come to identify three realms as ambiguous: the erotic, the artistic, and the political. In each case, there is a precarious position in relation to ethics. However, neither Plato nor Levinas explores ambiguity in itself. Staehler argues that these ambiguous dimensions can contribute to revealing the Other’s vulnerability without diminishing the fundamental role of unambiguous ethical responsibility. (shrink)

The past five years have brought important and rapid developments for the scientific bioethics community in Germany. Bioethics was institutionalized as an obligatory part of the undergraduate and graduate schedule in medical schools. Clinical ethics committees are spreading all over the country, and research on ethical issues of biomedicine is sponsored on a large scale, for example, by the German Ministry of Education and Research. Two main institutions, dealing with bioethics and biopolicies, were established and have worked on central bioethical (...) issues, mostly ending up with diametrically opposed recommendations: the Enquetekommission Recht und Ethik der Modernen Medizin, composed of parliamentarians of all political parties and appointed external experts, and the National Ethics Council, composed of experts, politicians, several stakeholders, and representatives of the Catholic and Protestant churches. (shrink)

This article gives an overview about the ethical dispute on preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), its legal status and its practical usage in Europe. We provide a detailed description of the situation in Germany wherein prenatal diagnosis is routinely applied, but PGD is prohibited on the basis of the internationally unique embryo protection act (EPA) that was put into force in 1991. Both PGD and stem cell research were vigorously debated in Germany during the last four years. As regards the PGD (...) debate specifically, the voices of the ones directly affected were not adequately taken into consideration. We describe the predominant lines of argumentation in this debate and some essential results of our "bioethical field study" of opinions on and usage of PGD in Germany and their implications for the German legislation and ethical theory. (shrink)

Tanja Klemm legt in dieser kunsthistorischen Studie ihr Augenmerkauf das Verhältnis von Bild, Wahrnehmung und Betrachterkörpern im Spätmittelalter und in der Renaissance. Medizin, Naturphilosophie, Theologie und Bildtheorie dieser Zeit nimmt sie unter der Perspektive einer historischen Phänomenologie der Verkörperung in den Blick: Sinnliche Wahrnehmung versteht sich vor dem Hintergrund zeitgenössischer Theorien vom lebendigen Körper (corpus animatum) in einem ganzkörperlichen Sinn; Wahrnehmung - in den Worten der Zeit perceptio bzw. conceptio - erfolgt als gesamtorganismischer Vorgang. In einem ersten Teil der (...) Studie liegt der Fokus auf der Lebendigkeit und Sinnlichkeit des corpus animatum aus medizinischer, theologischer und bildtheoretischer Sicht. Daraus entwickelt die Autorin eine Theorie des Bildes und der verkörperten Wahrnehmung, die bisher innerhalb der Renaissanceforschung nicht im Mittelpunkt des bild- und wahrnehmungsgeschichtlichen Interesses stand. In einem zweiten Teil exemplifiziert sie diese Theorie anhand von kunsthistorischen Studien zu Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer und Martin Schongauer. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungEines der medizinischen Felder, in dem die ethische Diskussion um die „wunscherfüllende Medizin“ am intensivsten geführt wird, ist die Reproduktionsmedizin, die die Erfüllung des „Kinderwunsches“ verspricht. Strittig ist besonders, ob Sterilität als Krankheit definiert wird, die eine medizinische Intervention rechtfertigt, ob sich aus der Sterilität oder Infertilität lediglich ein Abwehr- oder auch ein positives Anspruchsrecht auf medizinische Ressourcen ergibt, ob legitime Fortpflanzungsmedizin Grenzen hat. Nach einer Übersicht über Eckpunkte der nationalen und internationalen Debatte beschreiben wir im zweiten Teil Ansichten zum (...) Status ungewollter Kinderlosigkeit, zum Recht auf Fortpflanzungsmedizin und zur möglichen Legitimität ihrer Begrenzung anhand der Ergebnisse unserer vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) geförderten Studien. Während der letzten fünf Jahre haben wir u. a. Paare mit und ohne Sterilitätsproblematik sowie verschiedene Expertengruppen qualitativ und standardisiert befragt. Die stark divergierenden Auffassungen konfrontieren wir im dritten Abschnitt mit internationalen Standards, zum anderen mit dem „Capability-Ansatz“ und dem freiheitsfunktionalen Liberalismus von Sen und Pauer-Studer. Dies ergibt, dass die Bereitstellung verschiedener Möglichkeiten der In-vitro-Fertilisations-(IVF-)Behandlung nicht lediglich einen Wunsch auf Elternschaft erfüllt sondern als die gesollte Erfüllung eines normativen Bedürfnissanspruchs begriffen werden muss. (shrink)

Émile Durkheim zählt zu den Klassikern der Soziologie. Der Band greift erstmals unbekannte Rezeptionslinien Durkheims auf und zeigt ihn so in all seiner Komplexität und Aktualität: als Vorreiter einer transdisziplinären Sozialwissenschaft, als scharfsinnigen Theoretiker, als Denker des Materiellen und des Symbolischen. Neben ihm kommen auch seine Kollegen, Erben und zeitgenössischen Kritiker in den Blick. Dabei wird deutlich, dass Durkheims Werk nicht nur die Soziologie prägte, sondern auch der Ethnologie und der Philosophie grundlegende Impulse gab. Mit Beiträgen von Stéphane Baciocchi, Stefan (...) Beck, Tanja Bogusz, Heike Delitz, Emmanuel Désveaux, Jean-Louis Fabiani, Joachim Fischer, Marcel Fournier, Bruno Karsenti, Frédéric Keck, Wiebke Keim, Steven Lukes, Stephan Moebius, Lothar Peter, Devyani Prabhat, Anne W. Rawls, Thomas Scheffer, Michael Schillmeier, Robert Seyfert, Susan Stedman Jones und Jean Terrier. (shrink)

Colour has been shown to facilitate the recognition of scene images, but only when these images contain natural scenes, for which colour is ‘diagnostic’. Here we investigate whether colour can also facilitate memory for scene images, and whether this would hold for natural scenes in particular. In the first experiment participants first studied a set of colour and greyscale natural and man-made scene images. Next, the same images were presented, randomly mixed with a different set. Participants were asked to indicate (...) whether they had seen the images during the study phase. Surprisingly, performance was better for greyscale than for coloured images, and this difference is due to the higher false alarm rate for both natural and man-made coloured scenes. We hypothesized that this increase in false alarm rate was due to a shift from scrutinizing details of the image to recognition of the gist of the image. A second experiment, utilizing images without a nameable gist, confirmed this hypothesis as participants now performed equally on greyscale and coloured images. In the final experiment we specifically targeted the more detail-based perception and recognition for greyscale images versus the more gist-based perception and recognition for coloured images with a change detection paradigm. The results show that changes to images are detected faster when image-pairs were presented in greyscale than in colour. This counterintuitive result held for both natural and man-made scenes and thus corroborates the shift from more detailed processing of images in greyscale to more gist-based processing of coloured images. (shrink)

“Partout et nulle part”. L’ambiguïté explorée à partir de la phénoménologie et de la danseOn ménage ici, à l’aide du concept d’ambiguïté, une rencontre entre le théâtre dansé de Pina Bausch et la phénoménologie de Merleau-Ponty. Le concept d’ambiguïté est au centre de la philosophie de Merleau-Ponty, qu’on a d’ailleurs pu considérer comme une « philosophie de l’ambiguïté ». Néanmoins, le concept phénoménologique d’ambiguïté n’a pas encore été discuté dans la littérature secondaire. Cette étude distingue plusieurs sens de l’ambiguïté dans (...) la Phénoménologie de la perception, avant de se tourner vers la différence entre bonne et mauvaise ambiguïté, telle que Merleau-Ponty a pu la proposer.Il apparaîtra que la chorégraphie de Pina Bausch et la philosophie de Merleau-Ponty sont deux voies d’approche complémentaires des différentes dimensions de l’ambiguïté :les dimensions corporelle, spatiale et culturelle. L’étude montre que l’approche merleau-pontienne de l’ambiguïté et l’approche par Pina Bausch du théâtre dansé parviennent toutes deux à instaurer un type de communication humaine ne s’évanouissant ni dans un relativisme vide ni dans un universalisme formel : « Ce qu’il faut comprendre, c’est que je suis présent ici et maintenant et, pour la même raison, présent ailleurs et toujours, et aussi que je m’absente d’ici et de maintenant, ainsi que de tout lieu et de tout temps. L’ambiguïté n’est pas une imperfection de la conscience ou de l’existence, c’est leur définition même » (PhP).“Ovunque e in nessun luogo”. Esplorare l’ambiguità con la fenomenologia e la danzaProponiamo qui, sul filo del concetto di ambiguità, un incontro tra il teatro danza di Pina Bausch e la fenomenologia di Merleau-Ponty. Il concetto fenomenologico di ambiguità, pur non essendo stato veramente discusso nella letteratura critica, risulta centrale nella filosofia di Merleau-Ponty, che è stata appunto definita filosofia dell’ambiguità.Questo saggio individua i diversi significati di ambiguità contenuti in Fenomenologia della percezione, prima di rivolgersi alla differenza tra buona e cattiva ambiguità, così come viene proposta da Merleau-Ponty.Si scoprirà come il lavoro coreografi co di Pina Bausch e la filosofia merleaupontiana siano due modi complementari di approcciare le diverse dimensioni dell’ambiguità: ambiguità corporea, ambiguità spaziale, ambiguità culturale. Il saggio sostiene infatti la tesi che l’approccio merleaupontiano all’ambiguità e l’approccio di Pina Bausch al teatro-danza trovino entrambi delle modalità per stabilire un tipo di comunicazione umana che riesca a non collassare né in un vuoto relativismo né in un universalismo formalistico: “Dobbiamo comprendere che la medesima ragione mi rende presente qui ed ora e presente altrove e sempre, assente da qui e da ora e assente da ogni luogo e da ogni tempo. Questa ambiguità non è un’imperfezione della coscienza o dell’esistenza, ma ne è una definizione” (Fenomenologia della percezione). (shrink)

Levinas maintains that there is a lasting significance to hedonism if we consider the important role of pleasures for our embodied existence. In this essay, we go back to Plato to explore the nature of pleasure, different kinds of pleasures, and their contribution to the good life. The good life is a considerate mixture of pleasures which requires knowing, understanding and remembering. Pleasures take us to the most basic level of existence which the Presocratics can help us understand through their (...) idea of elements. With the help of Levinas, we can expand the concept of elements to include elemental states. As a result, we see how our embodied existence opens us up to various levels of otherness. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungEines der medizinischen Felder, in dem die ethische Diskussion um die „wunscherfüllende Medizin“ am intensivsten geführt wird, ist die Reproduktionsmedizin, die die Erfüllung des „Kinderwunsches“ verspricht. Strittig ist besonders, ob Sterilität als Krankheit definiert wird, die eine medizinische Intervention rechtfertigt, ob sich aus der Sterilität oder Infertilität lediglich ein Abwehr- oder auch ein positives Anspruchsrecht auf medizinische Ressourcen ergibt, ob legitime Fortpflanzungsmedizin Grenzen hat. Nach einer Übersicht über Eckpunkte der nationalen und internationalen Debatte beschreiben wir im zweiten Teil Ansichten zum (...) Status ungewollter Kinderlosigkeit, zum Recht auf Fortpflanzungsmedizin und zur möglichen Legitimität ihrer Begrenzung anhand der Ergebnisse unserer vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) geförderten Studien. Während der letzten fünf Jahre haben wir u. a. Paare mit und ohne Sterilitätsproblematik sowie verschiedene Expertengruppen qualitativ und standardisiert befragt. Die stark divergierenden Auffassungen konfrontieren wir im dritten Abschnitt mit internationalen Standards, zum anderen mit dem „Capability-Ansatz“ und dem freiheitsfunktionalen Liberalismus von Sen und Pauer-Studer. Dies ergibt, dass die Bereitstellung verschiedener Möglichkeiten der In-vitro-Fertilisations-(IVF-)Behandlung nicht lediglich einen Wunsch auf Elternschaft erfüllt sondern als die gesollte Erfüllung eines normativen Bedürfnissanspruchs begriffen werden muss. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungEines der medizinischen Felder, in dem die ethische Diskussion um die „wunscherfüllende Medizin“ am intensivsten geführt wird, ist die Reproduktionsmedizin, die die Erfüllung des „Kinderwunsches“ verspricht. Strittig ist besonders, ob Sterilität als Krankheit definiert wird, die eine medizinische Intervention rechtfertigt, ob sich aus der Sterilität oder Infertilität lediglich ein Abwehr- oder auch ein positives Anspruchsrecht auf medizinische Ressourcen ergibt, ob legitime Fortpflanzungsmedizin Grenzen hat. Nach einer Übersicht über Eckpunkte der nationalen und internationalen Debatte beschreiben wir im zweiten Teil Ansichten zum (...) Status ungewollter Kinderlosigkeit, zum Recht auf Fortpflanzungsmedizin und zur möglichen Legitimität ihrer Begrenzung anhand der Ergebnisse unserer vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung geförderten Studien. Während der letzten fünf Jahre haben wir u. a. Paare mit und ohne Sterilitätsproblematik sowie verschiedene Expertengruppen qualitativ und standardisiert befragt. Die stark divergierenden Auffassungen konfrontieren wir im dritten Abschnitt mit internationalen Standards, zum anderen mit dem „Capability-Ansatz“ und dem freiheitsfunktionalen Liberalismus von Sen und Pauer-Studer. Dies ergibt, dass die Bereitstellung verschiedener Möglichkeiten der In-vitro-Fertilisations-Behandlung nicht lediglich einen Wunsch auf Elternschaft erfüllt sondern als die gesollte Erfüllung eines normativen Bedürfnissanspruchs begriffen werden muss. (shrink)

Robots equipped with artificial intelligence pose a huge challenge to traditional ontological differentiations between the spheres of the human and the non-human. Drawing mainly from neo-animistic and perspectivist approaches in anthropology and science and technology studies, the paper explores the potential of new forms of interconnectedness and rhizomatic entanglements between humans and a world transcending the boundaries between species and material spheres. We argue that intelligent robots meet virtually all criteria Western biology came up with to define ‘life’ and that (...) it ultimately makes sense to recognize them as a new species that is part of our social universe. Contrasting dualistic concepts of man and nature with a monistic approach, we show that traditional properties of life (agency, self-replication, etc.) may apply to artefacts and that, once we accept the idea that social relationships are ultimately open connections to matter of any kind, the seemingly strict boundaries between species and material spheres can no longer be sustained. Instead, we propose to include ‘matter’ and ideas into the sphere of the social as agents in their own right to form a _relational ontology of multi-species assemblages_ (ROMA). (shrink)

In this paper we draw attention that there have been significant increases in activity relating to child sexual abuse and exploitation on both the surface web and dark web during the COVID-19 lockdown period. This paper aim is an analyse about how the COVID-19 pandemic is presently modifying the trends and threats of child sexual exploitation and abuse offences, which were already at high levels prior to the pandemic. This article highlights the trends and threats in the current COVID-19 context (...) compared to pre-pandemic measures, what impact these are having in the short-term, and what changes we have seen when COVID-19 measures are reduced. It contributes to the space of the dark web during lockdown by manifestation on the ongoing organised business model that has evolved as technology expands and the level of threat that it poses to children. The objective is to share these trends across the global law enforcement community and science in order to improve the monitoring and detection of child sexual exploitation and abuse online, further investigations and global police response. (shrink)

Levinas se kljub številnim antičnim mitološkim in širšim literarnim reminiscencam in kljub svoji zakoreninjenosti v judovskem duhovnem izročilu vedno znova vrača k izražanju, ki bi lahko doseglo vsakega človeka in ki bi bilo torej v tem smislu univerzalno, ker bi ga bilo mogoče izraziti z razumsko opredeljivimi pojmi. To pa ne pomeni, da bi želel omejiti filozofijo na golo formo logičnih kategorij in jo prikrajšati za njeno pravico do legitimnih vprašanj, ki od samih izvorov dalje ostajajo srčika filozofije v njenem (...) etimološkem pomenu, torej ljubezni do modrosti, ki je veliko več kot samo razum. Ali še bolje – Levinas bo širil polje razuma z novo pojmovnostjo, a njegova modrost ostaja še vedno razumna. V kakšnem smislu pa gre pri Levinasu za »drugačno razumost«, je mogoče odkrivati le postopoma, skozi plasti njegovega »palimpsesta«. (shrink)

Eating disorders (EDs) are characterized by marked cognitive distortions and maladaptive schemas. Cognitive models of EDs highlight the direct impact of cognitive dysfunctions on eating-related disturbances, insofar as specific cognitive contents such as thoughts about diet rules and food or loss of control may trigger disturbed eating behavior. Moreover, early maladaptive schemas that reflect perfectionist standards and relate to achievement and performance seem to be associated with disturbed eating, e.g. via their impact on situation-specific appraisals. However, so far, no study (...) has investigated these assumptions. Hence, the present study sought to demonstrate whether and how cognitive content exerts an impact on eating behavior in daily life, and whether maladaptive core schemas impact the occurrence of binge eating via dysfunctional ED cognitions in eating-related contexts. N = 29 females with Bulimia Nervosa (BN), n = 31 females with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and n = 30 female controls without EDs (NC) participated in the study. All participants received a handheld computer for a 48-hour period to capture antecedents of disturbed eating behavior in daily life. Event-sampling (meals, binge eating, purging, stressful situations) and signal-sampling (five times a day) methods were applied. EMA included a short questionnaire to assess dysfunctional cognitions and level of craving and to capture information about situational contexts. Early maladaptive schemas were assessed using a short version of the Young Schema Questionnaire at baseline. The main results showed specific patterns of dysfunctional eating-related cognitions for BED and BN. Binge eating was predicted by thoughts about loss of control (positively) and dietary restraint (negatively). For meal situations, no significant differences between the two ED groups emerged. All three domains exerted indirect effects on craving via thoughts about ‘eating/loss of control’, whereas neither a direct nor an indirect effect emerged regarding thoughts about ‘dietary restraint’. These results fit well with previous studies and support cognitive models of EDs; schema therapeutic approaches may be a valuable contribution to enhance treatment of EDs. Further studies should explore whether the findings from emerging adulthood can be generalized to younger age groups. (shrink)