In their paper “Brain Data in Context: Are New Rights the Way to Mental and Brain Privacy?” Susser and Cabrera (2024) argue against the notion that specific rights may be necessary to protect “brai...

This article raises the question of whether bioethics qualifies as a discipline. According to a standard definition of discipline as “a field of study following specific and well-established methodological rules” bioethics is not a specific discipline as there are no explicit “well-established methodological rules.” The article investigates whether the methodological rules can be implicit, and whether bioethics can follow specific methodological rules within subdisciplines or for specific tasks. As this does not appear to be the case, the article examines whether (...) bioethics’ adherence to specific quality criteria (instead of methodological rules) or pursuing of a common goal can make it qualify as a discipline. Unfortunately, the result is negative. Then, the article scrutinizes whether referring to bioethics institutions and professional qualifications can ascertain bioethics as a discipline. However, this makes the definition of bioethics circular. The article ends by admitting that bioethics can qualify as a discipline according to broader definitions of discipline, for example, as an “area of knowledge, research and education.” However, this would reduce bioethics’ potential for demarcation and identity-building. Thus, to consolidate the discipline of bioethics and increase its impact, we should explicate and elaborate on its methodology. (shrink)

This essay examines three works by three women writers whose strategies for rewriting the past include a revisionary engagement with the cultural legacies of Ancient Greece and Rome: The Emperor’s Babe: A Novel, Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence, and Voyage of the Sable Venus. It argues that each embodies a mode of resistance that both protests the historic oppression of women of colour and asserts a black female agency, insisting on an empowered present and future. In achieving this, (...) all three transgress or subvert conventional generic distinctions between verse and prose, and, in Lewis’s case, between the cultural forms and academic disciplines of art, art history and literature. Each work insists on a transnational conception of black identity, implicitly tracing black diasporic experience through Africa, Europe and the Americas, and asserting the continued interconnections between these three. And, in their confrontations with the histories of colonialism, empire and slavery, each invokes not just the history of the seventeenth to twenty-first centuries ce but also the cultures of Ancient Greece and Rome, the legacies of which underpinned these modern European processes of domination. Of the three works discussed here, those by Evaristo and Lewis ultimately constitute works of greater subversive power than does that of Philip. (shrink)

Easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions take little ones through a grounding series of basic yoga poses. Simple, descriptive language invites young children to pretend to be a bear, moving their furry bodies into specific yoga poses designed to both energize and inspire bravery.

Žižek’s objective violence presents a radical contribution to understanding how violence occurs, and broadening our understandings of what can be theorized as violence. However, a full account of objective violence spans across multiple texts, and at times lacks full detail. This article addresses this problem by first giving an account for objective violence based on a variety of Žižek’s works, and then analyzing how other theorists outside philosophy have used this theoretical tool in their own research contexts. Through this method, (...) the conclusion is drawn that the lack of detail in Žižek’s work has created the capacity for a collaborative philosophical project whereby theorists have been able to appropriate key features of this tool in order to make it relevant to a variety of research contexts. (shrink)

Recognizing gaps in our present understanding of leader apologies, this investigation examines how followers appraise leader apologies and how these perceptions impact work-related outcomes. Results indicate that followers who viewed their leader as trustworthy or caring before a leader wrongdoing were more likely to perceive their leader’s apology to be sincere, as compared to followers who previously doubted their leader’s trustworthiness and caring. Attributions of apology sincerity affected follower reactions, with followers perceiving sincere apologies reporting greater trust in leadership, satisfaction (...) with supervision, leader–member exchange quality, affective organizational commitment, and forgiveness than those reporting insincere or no apologies. A mediation model was supported, showing that attributions of apology sincerity fostered perceptions of humility, which enhanced perceptions of transformational leadership, and consequently garnered more positive follower reactions. (shrink)

Philosophical descriptions of democratic music education frequently rely on “inclusion” and “participation” as the defining features of democratically oriented music programs. Democratic epistemic considerations, such as regulatory ideals of musical quality and excellence, however, are less commonly cited, if not actively avoided. This paper addresses several primary reasons for the paucity of epistemic considerations in democratic music education and problematizes current concerns about epistemic judgements from a democratic perspective. Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s influential concept of epistemic injustice, this paper argues (...) that democratic dialogue that respects values of diversity and inclusion cannot legitimately ignore epistemic dimensions because doing so occludes the epistemic dimensions of cultural, racial, and gender diversity in music education classrooms. (shrink)

Kairos has been a key concept in medicine for millennia and is frequently understood as “the right time” in relation to treatment. In this study we scrutinize kairos in the context of diagnostics. This has become highly topical as technological developments have caused diagnostics to be performed ever earlier in the disease development. Detecting risk factors, precursors, and predictors of disease (in biomarkers, pre-disease, and pre-pre-disease) has resulted in too early diagnoses, i.e., overdiagnoses. Nonetheless, despite vast advances in science and (...) technology, diagnoses also come too late. Accordingly, timing diagnostics right is crucial. In this article we start with giving a brief overview of the etymology and general use of the concepts of kairos and diagnosis. Then we delimit kairos in diagnostics by analysing “too early” and “too late” diagnosis and by scrutinizing various phases of diagnostics. This leads us to define kairos of diagnostics as the time when there is potential for sufficient information for making a diagnosis that is most helpful for the person. It allows us to conclude that kairos is as important in diagnostics as in therapeutics. (shrink)

The issue of trust has increasingly attracted attention in the business ethics literature. Our aim is to contribute further to this literature by examining how the use of the carbon copy function in email communication influences felt trust. We develop the argument that the use of cc enhances transparency—representing an important characteristic of workplace ethics—and hence promotes trust. We further argue that a downside of the cc option may be that it can also be experienced as a control mechanism, which (...) may therefore negatively affect trust. The results of our first study showed that the use of cc indeed enhances perceived transparency, but at the same time also leads to the experience of increased control. Building upon this insight, the findings of five subsequent studies consistently revealed that the use of cc negatively influences felt trust. More precisely, employees felt trusted the least when the supervisor was always included in cc. This effect on felt trust also negatively influenced how trustworthy the organizational climate was perceived. We further replicated these results in two field surveys, which showed that the negative effect of cc on felt trust lowered perceptions of psychological safety and contributed to a culture of fear. Taken together, our findings suggest that when transparency in email communications is experienced as a control mechanism, its use is perceived as unethical, rather than as ethical. Implications and recommendations for future business ethics research are discussed. (shrink)

In “Ethical Responsibilities for Companies that Process Personal Data” McCoy et al. (2023) proposed three substantive principles that should underlie corporations’ treatment of data: minimizing har...

Fred Dretske’s account of mental causation, developed in Explaining Behavior and defended in numerous articles, is generally regarded as one of the most interesting and most ambitious approaches in the field. According to Dretske, meaning facts, construed historically as facts about the indicator functions of internal states, are the structuring causes of behavior. In this article, we argue that Dretske’s view is untenable: On closer examination, the real structuring causes of behavior turn out to be markedly different from Dretske’s meaning (...) facts. Our argument proceeds in three steps. First, we set forth the problem of meaning individuation: We argue that the proposal that meaning facts are structuring causes of behavior commits Dretske to a very fine-grained individuation of meanings that is deeply counterintuitive. In a second step, we show that even these finely individuated meaning facts cannot do the job that they are supposed to do, since information facts—which are constitutive of, but distinct from Dretske’s meaning facts—are better candidates for the role of structuring causes. Finally, we argue that it is not even information facts, but facts of co-instantiation which are the real structuring causes of behavior. In concluding, we briefly consider the options that are left for Dretske if our arguments succeed. (shrink)

The compelling case that Anderson makes for neural reuse and against modularity as organizing principle of the brain is further supported by evidence from developmental disorders. However, to provide a full evolutionary-developmental theory of neural reuse that encompasses both typical and atypical development, Anderson's (MRH) could be further constrained by considering brain development across ontogeny.

Donald Davidson argues that ‘the stabbing of Caesar’ and ‘the killing of Caesar’ are two descriptions of the one event whereas Jaegwon Kim contends events are more fine-grained and two events occurred, related by supervenience. I argue that neither solution is satisfactory and, inspired by Lynne Rudder Baker, I develop a constitution relation governing cooccurring, co-located events such that the stabbing of Caesar comes to constitute the killing of Caesar when the stabbing occurs in the appropriate circumstances. According to my (...) view, the stabbing of Caesar is metaphysically distinct from the killing of Caesar such that the killing is dependent on the stabbing, yet is not identical to it. (shrink)

In the wake of recent corporate scandals, this paper traces the growing power of pension funds to provide managerial oversight of the firms they hold in their investment portfolios. Increasingly pension funds are exercising their legitimate rights as owners to raise the corporate governance standards of the firms they invest in. Within corporate governance generally, pension funds are shifting their attention away from managerial accountability and toward measures that increase transparency in firm-level decision-making. Pension funds use transparency to ensure that (...) shareholders are the primary interest being served by the firm. Transparency not only aligns managers and owners, it also raises issues of firm behaviour that allow other stakeholders to engage the corporation more broadly. I contend that secrecy is economically inefficient. When organizations are opaque and interests are secret, decision-making can and does distort efficiency. I examine recent pension fund corporate governance campaigns with particular reference to the California Public Employees Retirement System. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that exploring institutional racism also needs to examine interactions and communications between patients and providers. Exchange between bioethicists, social scientists, and life scientists should emphasize the biological effects—made evident through health disparities—of racism. I discuss this through examples of patient–provider communication in fertility clinics in South Africa and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to emphasize the issue of mistrust between patients and medical institutions. Health disparities and medical mistrust are interrelated problems of racism in healthcare provision.

In language, recombination of a discrete set of meaningless building blocks forms an unlimited set of possible utterances. How such combinatorial structure emerged in the evolution of human language is increasingly being studied. It has been shown that it can emerge when languages culturally evolve and adapt to human cognitive biases. How the emergence of combinatorial structure interacts with the existence of holistic iconic form-meaning mappings in a language is still unknown. The experiment presented in this paper studies the role (...) of iconicity and human cognitive learning biases in the emergence of combinatorial structure in artificial whistled languages. Participants learned and reproduced whistled words for novel objects with the use of a slide whistle. Their reproductions were used as input for the next participant, to create transmission chains and simulate cultural transmission. Two conditions were studied: one in which the persistence of iconic form-meaning mappings was possible and one in which this was experimentally made impossible. In both conditions, cultural transmission caused the whistled languages to become more learnable and more structured, but this process was slightly delayed in the first condition. Our findings help to gain insight into when and how words may lose their iconic origins when they become part of an organized linguistic system. (shrink)

Excerpt from Empfindung und Vorstellung: Ein Beitrag zur Klarung Psychologischer Grundbegriffe Vor kurzem erschien eine Abhandlung von Carl Stumpf uber Empfindung und Vorstellung, welche auf Grund feinfuhliger Selbstbeobachtungen und unter Berucksichtigung der grossen einschlagigen Literatur in die vielen Winkel und Dunkelheiten dieses Problems der deskriptiven Psychologie hineinleuchtet. Unter sorgfaltiger Analyse der von den verschiedenen Beobachtern gegebenen Beschreibungen und scharfsinniger Untersuchung der logischen Durchfuhrbarkeit jeder einzelnen der bisher ausgesprochenen Auffassungen versucht diese Abhandlung die Frage zu klaren, worin der wesentliche Unterschied beider (...) Erlebnisarten besteht. Als Ergebnis gelangt Stumpf in der Hauptsache zu einer Rechtfertigung der altuberlieferten Auffassung, nach der ein "spezifischer" Unterschied zwischen Empfindung und Vorstellung nicht vorliegt, sich die Vorstellungen vielmehr vor allem durch ihre geringere Intensitat von den Empfindungen unter-scheiden. Ausser an Intensitat fehlt es den Vorstellungen im Gegensatz zu den Empfindungen an Fulle und Bestandigkeit, ferner sind sie dadurch charakterisiert, dass sie willkurlich leichter modifizierbar sind, dass ihnen gegenuber der Glaube an die Realitat fur das erlebende Bewusstsein einer Rechtfertigung bedarf, und dass sie durchschnittlich schwachere Gefuhlswirkungen mit sich fuhren. Vorstellungen stellen sich so den Empfindungen gegenuber als "Erscheinungen zweiter Ordnung" dar: in dem Inhalt der Erlebnisse, nicht in den Akten des Erlebens, ist ihre Verschiedenheit zu suchen. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

The essays in Powerful Arguments reconstruct the standards of validity underlying argumentative practices in a wide array of late imperial Chinese discourses, from the Song through the Qing dynasties. The fourteen case studies analyze concrete arguments defended or contested in areas ranging from historiography, philosophy, law, and religion to natural studies, literature, and the civil examination system. By examining uses of evidence, habits of inference, and the criteria by which some arguments were judged to be more persuasive than others, the (...) contributions recreate distinct cultures of reasoning. Together, they lay the foundations for a history of argumentative practice in one of the richest scholarly traditions outside of Europe and add a chapter to the as yet elusive global history of rationality. (shrink)

In April 2017, scientists took to the streets in a historically unprecedented Global March for Science. The event was seen as symbolic of a crisis in the relationship of science and society. This book considers the Global March for Science from a postcolonial perspective to inquire into the toolkit that the academic field of Science & Technology Studies (STS) has to offer. It argues that new concepts and analytical approaches are necessary to investigate current global dynamics in science, technology and (...) society, so as to deliver insights that the recent expansion of STS scholars beyond Western Europe and North America alone is unlikely to provide. The book presents a Programme in Science Studies Elsewhere (SSE) to demonstrate the urgent need to carry postcolonial issues right into the centre of STS's intellectual programme. (shrink)

From the seventeenth century onwards, English Reformed ministers engaged in lively correspondence and publishing exchanges with men from different countries and Protestant traditions. In the eighteenth century, appreciation of their shared intellectual and cultural heritage and a desire to sustain the patterns for religious living it encouraged inflected the content and style of textual interactions among Halle Pietists, English dissenters and New England Congregationalists. Interest in the present state of religious life was also important, and therefore news about awakenings and (...) materials for pastoral care circulated around Europe and North America through existing channels and by new means. Their encounters and the texts that they produced were mutually generative, and the language and manner of the participants' personal interactions were important features of published works. These personal associations, publishing activities and discursive styles can be understood as aspects of the literary sociology of a religious culture that valued intellectual and emotional engagements and sought to inculcate religion through education and friendship. (shrink)

Warren and Dresang comment on the contributions from a psycholinguistic perspective, highlighting close relations between the respective research on events and proposing that, for example, verbs may indeed directly pre‐activate templates of the typically involved event participants.

The objective of this article is to analyse the value-ladenness of technology in the context of medicine. To address this issue several characteristics of technology are investigated: i) its interventive capacity, ii) its expansiveness and iii) its influence on the concept of disease, iv) its generalising character, v) its independence of the subjective experience of the patient. By this analysis I hope to unveil the double face of technology: Technology has a Janus-face in modern medicine, and the opposite of its (...) factual face is evaluative. (shrink)

Human actions have diverse consequences. Some consequences are intended, others are considered side effects, although they too, such as climate-damaging CO2 emissions, can be ethically relevant. Ethically speaking, considering consequences in a differentiated way is therefore clearly unavoidable. After discussing the influential concepts of utilitarianism and moral theology, the author presents his own approach to considering consequences.

According to a classical causal account of perception, to perceive that object x is F is to fulfill the following conditions: (i) one has an experience as of x's being F, (ii) x is F, and (iii) one's experience of x's being F depends causally on x's being F. This is the core of Grice's causal theory of perception, and it is initially quite plausible (Grice 1961).