Retractions solicited by authors following the discovery of an unintentional error—what we henceforth call a “self-retraction”—are a new phenomenon of growing importance, about which very little is known. Here we present results of a small qualitative study aimed at gaining preliminary insights about circumstances, motivations and beliefs that accompanied the experience of a self-retraction. We identified retraction notes that unambiguously reported an honest error and that had been published between the years 2010 and 2015. We limited our sample to (...) retractions with at least one co-author based in the Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany or a Scandinavian country, and we invited these authors to a semi-structured interview. Fourteen authors accepted our invitation. Contrary to our initial assumptions, most of our interviewees had not originally intended to retract their paper. They had contacted the journal to request a correction and the decision to retract had been made by journal editors. All interviewees reported that having to retract their own publication made them concerned for their scientific reputation and career, often causing considerable stress and anxiety. Interviewees also encountered difficulties in communicating with the journal and recalled other procedural issues that had unnecessarily slowed down the process of self-retraction. Intriguingly, however, all interviewees reported how, contrary to their own expectations, the self-retraction had brought no damage to their reputation and in some cases had actually improved it. We also examined the ethical motivations that interviewees ascribed, retrospectively, to their actions and found that such motivations included a combination of moral and prudential considerations. These preliminary results suggest that scientists would welcome innovations to facilitate the process of self-retraction. (shrink)

In the light of a vast political information ‘buffet’, so-called news-avoiders stay away from the news for indefinite periods of time. Recent research suggests that news avoidance can be intentional or unintentional. However, research has mostly focused on one form of news avoidance or has not differentiated at all. Based on survey data, this study (a) identifies and compares motivations for intentional and unintentional avoidance and (b) investigates drivers of different news avoidance motives. Findings suggest that, overall, avoidance (...) is rooted in the preference for other pastimes, with intentional avoiders also being tired of news and seeing it as too negative, biased, and unreliable. Further, different motives are driven by specific characteristics: Political knowledge and internal efficacy relate to ‘cognitive’ motives, empathy, and being negativity-prone to ‘emotional’ motives, while external efficacy relates to ‘political’ motives. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the role of quantity in the studies of communication. The first step in the examination of the quantity of participants involved in the process of communication was the transition from the telegraphic model to the orchestra model. This step was done by the representatives of the New communication as well as in the course of the development of the semiotics studies. The second step leads us to the city model that can be found (...) in Lévi-Strauss’ early works. The city model enables us to take into account not only the unconscious and unintentional activities of the participants, but also the effects of multiplicity. One of the most important achievements of this approach is the idea of a collective intelligence. (shrink)

Researchers have converged on the idea that a pragmatic understanding of communication can shed important light on the evolution of language. Accordingly, animal communication scientists have been keen to adopt insights from pragmatics research. Some authors couple their appeal to pragmatic aspects of communication with the claim that there are fundamental asymmetries between signalers and receivers in non-human animals. For example, in the case of primate vocal calls, signalers are said to produce signals unintentionally and mindlessly, whereas (...) receivers are thought to engage in contextual interpretation to derive the significance of signals. We argue that claims about signaler-receiver asymmetries are often confused. This is partly because their authors conflate two conceptions of pragmatics, which generate different accounts of the explanatory target for accounts of the evolution of language. Here we distinguish these conceptions, in order to help specify more precisely the proper explanatory target for language evolution research. (shrink)

What does mean in constitutional First Amendment law and in ordinary language and the philosophy of language? Under what circumstances does intentional action count as speech? Can communication be unintentional? And what follows (in law) from the fact that almost any action can be made expressive?

Community resilience, a system’s ability to maintain its essential functions despite disturbance, is a cornerstone of public health preparedness. However, as currently practiced, community resilience generally focuses on defined neighborhood characteristics to describe factors such as vulnerability or social capital. This ignores the way that residents of some neighborhoods (as ‘essential workers’’) were required during the COVID-19 pandemic to sacrifice their wellbeing for the sake of others staying at home in more affluent neighborhoods. Using the global care chain theory, we (...) analyze the way that the resilience of affluent neighborhoods depends on siphoning off the labor of other, less affluent neighborhoods, creating what we call the parasitic nature of resilience. We argue that understanding this neighborhood interdependence—and accounting for its parasitic nature— should be prioritized by public health authorities to prevent unintentional harm in future pandemics. Otherwise, any public health emergency response that relies on this labor (as did the COVID-19 pandemic response) depends on exploitative practices that produce the very disparities the response is trying to address. We explore the theoretical grounding and practical effects of this idea to provide the preparedness enterprise with an initial set of theoretical tools to move from a model of community resilience to one of community renewal. The community renewal model is based on an underlying ethics of care, in which systems are redesigned to become more prosocial during a public health response. We believe this model can more successfully address the tragic inequities in labor and health outcomes that we see during public health emergencies. (shrink)

Today, the earth is an interconnected globe humming with electronic transmissions-a chattering planet nestled in the provident silence of space. The ethical question is whether this is contributing to authentic human development and helping individuals and peoples to be true to their transcendent destiny. The new media are powerful tools for education, cultural enrichment, commercial activity, political participation, intercultural dialogue and understanding. They also can serve the cause of religion. Yet the new information technology needs to be informed and guided (...) by solidarity in the service of the common good bridging the digital divide within and among nations. The value-laden message of Western secular culture to people and traditional societies in many cases ill-prepared to evaluate it leads to widespread crisis, for example, in regard to marriage and family life. This technology can be a means for solving human problems, promoting the integral development of persons, creating a world governed by justice, peace, and love. It also can help men and women in their age-old search for self-understanding. Like today's world itself, the world of media, including the Internet, has been brought by Christ, inchoately yet truly, within the boundaries of the kingdom of God and placed in service to the word of salvation. (shrink)

This volume provides a comprehensive account of Wilhelm Röpke as a liberal political economist and social philosopher. Wilhelm Röpke was a key protagonist of transatlantic neoliberalism, a prominent public intellectual and a gifted international networker. As an original thinker, he always positioned himself at the interface between political economy and social philosophy, as well as between liberalism and conservatism. Röpke’s endeavors to combine these elements into a coherent whole, as well as his embeddedness in European and American intellectual networks of (...) liberal and conservative thinkers, are a central theme throughout the book. The volume includes papers by international experts from a conference in Geneva on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Röpke’s passing. The first part focuses on new biographical insights into his exile years in Istanbul and Geneva, while the second part discusses his business cycle theory in the context of the Great Depression, and the third part elaborates on his multifaceted social philosophy. Wilhelm Röpke was among the most important thinkers within the classical liberal revival post-WWII, with intriguing tensions between liberalism and conservatism. A highly recommended volume. –– Peter J. Boettke, 2016-2018 President of the Mont Pèlerin Society and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, George Mason University This important collection of papers provides an in-depth assessment of Wilhelm Röpke’s contributions, placing him in the context of his time. A fine contribution. –– Bruce J. Caldwell, Director of the Center for the History of Political Economy and Research Professor of Economics, Duke University. (shrink)

In this paper, I am going to cast doubt on an idea that is shared, explicitly or implicitly, by most contemporary pragmatic theories: that the inferential interpretation procedure described by Grice, neo-Griceans, or post-Griceans applies only to the interpretation of ostensive stimuli. For this special issue, I will concentrate on the relevance theory (RT) version of this idea. I will proceed by putting forward a dilemma for RT and argue that the best way out of it is to accept that (...) the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure ap- plies to certain non-ostensive stimuli, contrary to what is generally claimed within RT. In particular, I will argue that relevance theorists should accept that (ceteris paribus) non- ostensive emotional expressions in interactions guarantee a presumption of relevance such that they are interpreted through the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure. This leads me to propose what I call 'the expressive principle of relevance'. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China. By G.E.R. Lloyd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi + 175. Price not given.The Art of the Han Essay: Wang Fu's Ch'ien-Fu Lun. By Anne Behnke Kinney. Tempe: Center for Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1990. Pp. xi + 154. Paper $10.00.The Autobiography of Jamgön Kongtrul: A Gem of Many Colors. By Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrön (...) Thayé and translated by Richard Barron (Chökyi Nyima). Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2003. Pp. xxii + 549. Price not given.Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyō. By William R. LaFleur. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xiii + 173. Paper $14.95.Becoming the Compassion Buddha: Tantric Mahamudra for Everyday Life. By Lama Thubten Yeshe, edited by Robina Courtin, and foreword by Geshe Lhundub Sopa. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xi + 194. Paper $14.95.Between Two Worlds East and West: An Autobiography. By J. N. Mohanty. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 134. Hardcover RS 525.00.The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. Edited by Roman Malek, S.V.D. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica and China-Zentrum; and Nettetal, Germany: Steyler Verlag, 2002. Pp. 391. EUR 40.00.Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis. By Volker Scheid. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 407. Hardcover $69.95. Paper $23.95.Confucian Feminist: Memoirs of Zeng Baosun (1893-1978). Translated and adapted by Thomas L. Kennedy. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002. Pp. xxi + 170. Price not given.Consciousness Studies: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. By K. Ramakrishna Rao. Jefferson (North Carolina) and London: McFarland and Company, 2002. Pp. 367. Hardcover $65.00.Constituting Communities: Theravāda Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia. Edited by John Clifford Holt, Jacob N. Kinnard, and Jonathan S. Walters. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 224. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.Developments in Indian Philosophy from Eighteenth Century Onwards: Classical and Western. By Daya Krishna. Volume X Part 1 of History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, edited by D. P. Chattopadhyaya. New [End Page 110] Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2001. Pp. xxiii + 417. Hardcover RS 1200.East and West: Identità e dialogo interculturale. By Giangiorgio Pasqualotto. Venezia: Marsilo Editori, 2003. Pp. 210. EUR 16.00.Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. By Edward Slingerland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 352. Price not given.Encountering Kā lī: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Edited by Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xviii + 321. Hardcover $55.00, £37.95. Paper $21.95, £15.95.Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy. Edited by Antonio S. Cua. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xx + 1020. Hardcover $150.00.Essays on Indian Philosophy. By J. N. Mohanty and edited by Purushottama Bilimoria. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xxxvii + 347. Paper RS 525.00.Faith, Humor, and Paradox. By Ignacio L. Götz. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2002. Pp. 136. Hardcover $61.95.Four Illusions: Candrakīrti's Advice for Travelers on the Bodhisattva Path. Translated by Karen C. Lang. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xv + 240. Price not given.The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory. By David R. Loy. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. 223. Paper $16.95.The Hidden History of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. By Bryan J. Cuevas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 328. Price not given.Huang Di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text. By Paul U. Unschuld. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 520. Hardcover $75.00, £52.00.In Dewey's Wake: Unfinished Work of Pragmatic Reconstruction. Edited by William J. Gavin. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. vi + 249. Hardcover $71.50. Paper $23.95.Knowledge and Freedom in Indian Philosophy. By Tara Chatterjea. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2002. Pp. xvi + 159. Hardcover... (shrink)

Eye gaze plays an important role in communication but understanding of its actual function or functions and the methods used to elucidate this have varied considerably. This systematized review was undertaken to summarize both the proposed functions of eye gaze in conversations of healthy adults and the methodological approaches employed. The eligibility criteria were restricted to a healthy adult population and excluded studies that manipulated eye gaze behavior. A total of 29 articles—quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods were returned, with (...) a wide range of methodological designs. The main areas of variability related to number of conversants, their familiarity and status, conversation topic, data collection tools—video and eye tracking—and definitions of eye gaze. The findings confirm that eye gaze facilitates turn yielding, plays a role in speech monitoring, prevents and repairs conversation breakdowns and facilitates intentional and unintentional speech interruptions. These findings were remarkably consistent given the variability in methods across the 29 articles. However, in relation to turn initiation, the results were less consistent, requiring further investigation. This review provides a starting point for future studies to make informed decisions about study methods for examining eye gaze and selecting variables of interest. (shrink)

This paper builds on London and Hart’s critique that Prahalad’s best-selling book prompted a unilateral effort to find a fortune at the bottom of the pyramid. Prahalad’s instrumental, firm-centered construction suggests, perhaps unintentionally, a buccaneering style of business enterprise devoted to capturing markets rather than enabling new socially entrepreneurial ventures for those otherwise trapped in conditions of extreme poverty. London and Hart reframe Prahalad’s insight into direct global business enterprise toward “creating a fortune with the base of the pyramid” rather (...) than at the BoP. This shift in language requires a recalibration of strategic focus, we argue, and will necessitate implementation of “moral imagination” to formulate new mental models that can frame the possibility of local entrepreneurs working collaboratively and discursively with development partners drawn from civil society, corporate, and government sectors. Successful partnerships will arise from interactive processes of emergent, co-creative learning within a shared problem domain or “community of practice”. We call attention to three related pluralist framings of situated learning within such communities of practice: decentered stakeholder networks; global action networks; and a focus on “faces and places” as a cognitive lens to humanize and locally situate diverse inhabitants within base of the pyramid partnership projects. (shrink)

Communication about diagnosis and medical treatment for children suffering from life-threatening illnesses is complex. It is a primary step in involving underage patients and families in care and lays the foundation for obtaining parental permission and patient assent for treatment. In practice child participation in care is often difficult to obtain due to patients' different and sometimes fluctuating preferences, but also parents' protective strategies. Physicians may be susceptible to parental wishes to limit information and feel uncomfortable discussing issues related (...) to uncertainty of cure with patients. A qualitative study in Romanian paediatric oncology units was conducted to explore children's involvement from the perspectives of parents and oncologists. Interviews with participants discussed 18 patient cases. Data were transcribed and thematic analysis was used to interpret and mine patients' involvement during treatment. Different facets of patient participation were identified: restricting, widening and enhancing involvement. A fourth category, unintentional involvement, occurred for all patients due to children's observations during long-term hospitalisations and access to Internet. Uncertainty overarched parental attitudes regarding the extent to which children should be included. Physicians usually complied with parental wishes to limit involvement, but together with parents involved patients at least in a practical way. Adults' protective attitude may backfire, as adolescents' online searches often expose patients to worse-case scenarios. Further research should acknowledge the hazards of restricted diagnosis disclosure and develop clinician tools to support families in communicating with patients. This should be paralleled by physician efforts to elicit patients' needs regarding participation. (shrink)

Creative Unity This book is a result of an effort made by us towards making a contribution to the preservation and repair of original classic literature. In an attempt to preserve, improve and recreate the original content, we have worked towards: 1. Type-setting & Reformatting: The complete work has been re-designed via professional layout, formatting and type-setting tools to re-create the same edition with rich typography, graphics, high quality images, and table elements, giving our readers the feel of holding a (...) 'fresh and newly' reprinted and/or revised edition, as opposed to other scanned & printed (Optical Character Recognition - OCR) reproductions. 2. Correction of imperfections: As the work was re-created from the scratch, therefore, it was vetted to rectify certain conventional norms with regard to typographical mistakes, hyphenations, punctuations, blurred images, missing content/pages, and/or other related subject matters, upon our consideration. Every attempt was made to rectify the imperfections related to omitted constructs in the original edition via other references. However, a few of such imperfections which could not be rectified due to intentional\unintentional omission of content in the original edition, were inherited and preserved from the original work to maintain the authenticity and construct, relevant to the work. We believe that this work holds historical, cultural and/or intellectual importance in the literary works community, therefore despite the oddities, we accounted the work for print as a part of our continuing effort towards preservation of literary work and our contribution towards the development of the society as a whole, driven by our beliefs. We are grateful to our readers for putting their faith in us and accepting our imperfections with regard to preservation of the historical content. HAPPY READING! (shrink)

The publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859 ignited a public storm he neither wanted nor enjoyed. Having offered his book as a contribution to science, Darwin discovered to his dismay that it was received as an affront by many scientists and as a sacrilege by clergy and Christian citizens. To answer the criticism that his theory was a theory only, and a wild one at that, he published two volumes in 1868 to demonstrate that evolution was (...) obvious to anyone who cared to look at a bull in a pasture or a dog on a hearth. In response to those who insisted that species were distinct since creation, Darwin pointed to breeders of pigs and pigeons. In reply to those who protested that human intervention is one thing and natural selection another, he argued, "If organic beings had not possessed an inherent tendency to vary, man could have done nothing." To counter those who scorned his descriptions of species in exotic places, he submitted local evidence of cabbages and cauliflower. Based on a wide array of sources, from ancient pictographs to Polish roosters, from skins and from skeletons, from scientific journals and breeding manuals, Darwin assembled a mass of proof--and a hypothesis about species reversion that risked his reputation anew. The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication is a two-volume compilation of his thorough and intensive research and the revolutionary conclusions that resulted. The first portion of his work is dedicated to a meticulous analysis of various aspects of plant and animal life, including an inventory of varieties and their physical and behavioral characteristics, investigation of the impact of a species' surrounding environment and the role that both natural and forced changes in this environment have had. Darwin then turns to a richly detailed discussion of the roles of inheritance and crossing in the development of species. A wealth of illustrations further support and enhance his findings. This fascinating, invaluable, and courageous undertaking eventually formed the foundation for our current understanding of evolution. "In science as in politics the victors tend to write the history books. As a result, the record of the past is edited, intentionally or unintentionally, so that it focuses mainly on the precursors of contemporary orthodoxy. Such a focus may accurately represent the genealogy of modern ideas, but it almost inevitably misrepresents the historical experience of their progenitors... Even the powerful, persuasive, and ultimately triumphant theory of evolution by natural selection required not only defense, but repeated buttressing and revision. Variation showed Darwin hard at work on this rearguard action, using the materials he had at hand... His information was gleaned from the observations of fanciers, breeders, and amateur naturalists, as well as from the treatises of those on the cutting edge of zoology and botany. As hindsight narrows the historical spotlight, it imposes its own sense of hierarchy on the preoccupations of the past. But Darwin was interested in all of these topics, valued all of these sources, and belonged, to a greater or lesser extent, to all of these communities."--from the Introduction. (shrink)

Dog whistling—speech that seems ordinary but sends a hidden, often derogatory message to a subset of the audience—is troubling not just for our political ideals, but also for our theories of communication. On the one hand, it seems possible to dog whistle unintentionally, merely by uttering certain expressions. On the other hand, the intention is typically assumed or even inferred from the act, and perhaps for good reason, for dog whistles seem misleading by design, not just by chance. In (...) this paper, I argue that, to understand when and why it’s possible to dog-whistle unintentionally (and indeed, intentionally), we’ll need to recognize the structure of our linguistic practices. For dog whistles and for covertly coded speech more generally, this structure is a pair of practices, one shared by all competent speakers and the other known only to some, but deployable in the same contexts. In trying to identify these enabling conditions, we’ll discover what existing theories of communicated content overlook by focusing on particular utterances in isolation, or on individual speakers’ mental states. The remedy, I argue, lies in attending to the ways in which what is said is shaped by the temporally extended, socio-politically structured linguistic practices that utterances instantiate. (shrink)

Basic concepts of communicational elements are explained: culturally institutionalized or individually internalized conscious or unconscious, intentional and unintentional encoding and decoding systems of verbal and nonverbal behavior, metacommunicational cues, various modes of communication , the rôle of situational context and of background information.Examples of complex misunderstandings in interpersonal interactions are given and analysed. This analytical method has been useful in psychiatry as well as in daily life situations.

This essay explores the speech act of dogwhistling (sometimes referred to as ‘using coded language’). Dogwhistles may be overt or covert, and within each of these categories may be intentional or unintentional. Dogwhistles are a powerful form of political speech, allowing people to be manipulated in ways they would resist if the manipulation was carried outmore openly—often drawing on racist attitudes that are consciously rejected. If philosophers focus only on content expressed or otherwise consciously conveyed they may miss what (...) is most powerful and pernicious in the speech of political culture. This essay is a call to start paying attention to these more covert speech acts, and a first attempt at beginning to theorize them. It argues that dogwhistles present a complex and interesting case for the philosopher of language, and explores their implications for democratic politics. (shrink)

In this study, we investigated the relationships between judgments of intentionality and moral evaluation in individuals with High Functioning Autism (HFA) or Asperger Syndrome (AS). HFA or AS are neurodevelopmental disorders characterised by severe deficits in communication and social functioning. Impairments in Theory of Mind (ToM), i.e., the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and to others, are thought to be the core features of autism. Of all mental states, the concept of ‘intentional action’ is particularly important. People (...) normally distinguish between actions that are performed intentionally and those that are performed unintentionally and this distinction plays a crucial role in social understanding and moral judgment. Recently, Knobe (Analysis 63: 190–193, 2003a ), (Philosophical Psychology 16: 309–324, 2003b ) showed that people’s moral evaluations might serve as input to the process by which people intuitively arrive at the intentionality judgments. Here, by using two pairs of vignettes, the Knobe’s Harm/Help cases and Murder/Bull’s-eye cases, we showed that, as already observed in typical population, in individuals with HFA/AS judgment of intentional action is informed by the moral appreciation of the action outcome. However, the two groups differed on praise judgments and moral justifications, suggesting that these processes were poorly influenced by the agent’s psychological states. We concluded that, although under certain circumstances, individuals with HFA/AS and people with typical development have similar intuitive judgments of intentionality, over-assignment of praise judgments and the reduced use of folk-psychological concepts in moral judgment likely reflect difficulties using intentionality information for moral reasoning. (shrink)

Background Retraction is a mechanism for alerting readers to unreliable material and other problems in the published scientific and scholarly record. Retracted publications generally remain visible and searchable, but the intention of retraction is to mark them as “removed” from the citable record of scholarship. However, in practice, some retracted articles continue to be treated by researchers and the public as valid content as they are often unaware of the retraction. Research over the past decade has identified a number of (...) factors contributing to the unintentional spread of retracted research. The goal of the Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science: Shaping a Research and Implementation Agenda (RISRS) project was to develop an actionable agenda for reducing the inadvertent spread of retracted science. This included identifying how retraction status could be more thoroughly disseminated, and determining what actions are feasible and relevant for particular stakeholders who play a role in the distribution of knowledge. -/- Methods These recommendations were developed as part of a year-long process that included a scoping review of empirical literature and successive rounds of stakeholder consultation, culminating in a three-part online workshop that brought together a diverse body of 65 stakeholders in October–November 2020 to engage in collaborative problem solving and dialogue. Stakeholders held roles such as publishers, editors, researchers, librarians, standards developers, funding program officers, and technologists and worked for institutions such as universities, governmental agencies, funding organizations, publishing houses, libraries, standards organizations, and technology providers. Workshop discussions were seeded by materials derived from stakeholder interviews (N = 47) and short original discussion pieces contributed by stakeholders. The online workshop resulted in a set of recommendations to address the complexities of retracted research throughout the scholarly communications ecosystem. -/- Results The RISRS recommendations are: (1) Develop a systematic cross-industry approach to ensure the public availability of consistent, standardized, interoperable, and timely information about retractions; (2) Recommend a taxonomy of retraction categories/classifications and corresponding retraction metadata that can be adopted by all stakeholders; (3) Develop best practices for coordinating the retraction process to enable timely, fair, unbiased outcomes; and (4) Educate stakeholders about pre- and post-publication stewardship, including retraction and correction of the scholarly record. -/- Conclusions Our stakeholder engagement study led to 4 recommendations to address inadvertent citation of retracted research, and formation of a working group to develop the Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CORREC) Recommended Practice. Further work will be needed to determine how well retractions are currently documented, how retraction of code and datasets impacts related publications, and to identify if retraction metadata (fails to) propagate. Outcomes of all this work should lead to ensuring retracted papers are never cited without awareness of the retraction, and that, in public fora outside of science, retracted papers are not treated as valid scientific outputs. (shrink)

The Elementary Forms Of The Religious Life: Translated From The French By Joseph Ward Swain, M.A. This book is a result of an effort made by us towards making a contribution to the preservation and repair of original classic literature. In an attempt to preserve, improve and recreate the original content, we have worked towards: 1. Type-setting & Reformatting: The complete work has been re-designed via professional layout, formatting and type-setting tools to re-create the same edition with rich typography, graphics, (...) high quality images, and table elements, giving our readers the feel of holding a 'fresh and newly' reprinted and/or revised edition, as opposed to other scanned & printed (Optical Character Recognition - OCR) reproductions. 2. Correction of imperfections: As the work was re-created from the scratch, therefore, it was vetted to rectify certain conventional norms with regard to typographical mistakes, hyphenations, punctuations, blurred images, missing content/pages, and/or other related subject matters, upon our consideration. Every attempt was made to rectify the imperfections related to omitted constructs in the original edition via other references. However, a few of such imperfections which could not be rectified due to intentional\unintentional omission of content in the original edition, were inherited and preserved from the original work to maintain the authenticity and construct, relevant to the work. We believe that this work holds historical, cultural and/or intellectual importance in the literary works community, therefore despite the oddities, we accounted the work for print as a part of our continuing effort towards preservation of literary work and our contribution towards the development of the society as a whole, driven by our beliefs. We are grateful to our readers for putting their faith in us and accepting our imperfections with regard to preservation of the historical content. HAPPY READING! (shrink)

An empirically sensitive formulation of the norms of transformative criticism must recognize that even public and shared standards of evaluation can be implemented in ways that unintentionally perpetuate and reproduce forms of social bias that are epistemically detrimental. Helen Longino’s theory can explain and redress such social bias by treating peer evaluations as hypotheses based on data and by requiring a kind of perspectival diversity that bears, not on the content of the community’s knowledge claims, but on the beliefs and (...) norms of the culture of the knowledge community itself. To illustrate how socializing cognition can bias evaluations, we focus on peer-review practices, with some discussion of peer-review practices in philosophy. Data include responses to surveys by editors from general philosophy journals, as well as analyses of reviews and editorial decisions for the 2007 Cognitive Science Society Conference. (shrink)

The Theory of Moral Sentiments is Adam Smith's major contribution to ethical thought. Although it underwent six revisions during his lifetime, its primary arguments did not change, and this chapter focuses on those aspects that remain constant, beginning with an overview of Smith's theory followed by a discussion of the main elements of the theory. Smith presents morality as systems of overlapping spontaneous order that arise unintentionally based on continuous interactions, reactions, and responses to feedback. Although the philosopher can discover (...) the relative utility of specific aspects of a community's moral standards, and thus make recommendations or encouragements to increase utility, Smith agrees with Hume that moral distinctions are not derived from reason. (shrink)

This paper examines the potential role of metaphors in helping healthcare professionals to communicate honestly with patients and in helping patients gain a richer and more nuanced understanding of what is being explained. One of the ways in which doctors and nurses may intentionally, or unintentionally, avoid telling the truth to patients is either by using metaphors that obscure the truth or by failing to deploy appropriately powerful and revealing metaphors in their discussions. This failure to tell the truth may (...) partly account for the observation by clinicians that patients sometimes make decisions that, from the perspective of their clinician, and given all that the clinician knows, seem unwise. For example, patients with advanced cancer may choose to undergo further, aggressive, treatment despite the fact that they are likely to accrue little or no benefit as a result. While acknowledging that the immediate task of telling patients the truth can be difficult for all those concerned, I argue that the long-term consequences of denying patients autonomy at the end of life can be harmful to patients and can leave doctors and nurses distressed and confused. (shrink)

When someone steps on your toe on purpose, it seems to hurt more than when the person does the same thing unintentionally. The physical parameters of the harm may not differ—your toe is flattened in both cases—but the psychological experience of pain is changed nonetheless. Intentional harms are premeditated by another person and have the specific purpose of causing pain. In a sense, intended harms are events initiated by one mind to communicate meaning (malice) to another, and this could shape (...) the recipient’s experience. This study examined whether self-reported pain is indeed higher when the events producing the pain are understood as intentionally (as opposed to unintentionally) caused by another person. Although pain was traditionally conceived to be solely physical in nature (Aydede, 2005), its experience varies substantially with psychological context. The placebo analgesia effect, for example, is the reduction of pain without a change in physical stimulation when context, expectations, or sugar pills challenge the interpretation of a sensation as painful (e.g., Fields, 2008). The nocebo effect, in turn, is the experience of pain without any physical stimulation—as when participants report headaches when told that a (nonexistent) electric current is passing through their heads (Schweiger & Parducci, 1981). These variations in pain experience seem to depend on the meaning of the stimulus: A sugar pill is meant to decrease pain, whereas electric current is meant to increase pain. In an interpersonal context, the meaning of an action is derived from the would complete. perceiver’s perceptions of the actor’s intention (Clark, 1996). (shrink)

As a senior physicist colleague and our friend, Robert N. Boyd, wrote in a journal (JCFA, Vol. 1,. 2, 2022), Our universe is but one page in a large book [4]. For example, things and Beings can travel between Universes, intentionally or unintentionally. In this short remark, we revisit and offer short remark to Neil’s ideas and trying to connect them with geometrization of musical chords as presented by D. Tymoczko and others, then to Escher staircase and then to Jacob’s (...) ladder which seems to point to possibility to interpret Jacob’s vision as described in the ancient book of Genesis as inter dimensional or heavenly staircase, e.g. an inter dimensional bridge between heaven and earth (see also classic book: Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach). Jacob’s vision of angels going down to earth from that staircase has been depicted for instance in William Blake art etc. In our communication with others via physics literature and discussions etc, we came to several conclusions as follows: Firstly, possibility of quantum wormhole effect to mirror particle universe, which sometimes it is termed non-orientable wormhole. While such mirror particles effect have been more than 50 years predicted with the so-called parity violation (cf. Lee & Yang, 1950s), and that is called symmetry breaking. Secondly, a series of extended experiments on laser irradiated cold water may suggest possible transition from a phase of water to be at least partially fourth phase of water, which may be composed of crystalline water (see e.g. Gerald Pollack, and also Harold Aspden on liquid crystalline). If we can imagine laser cooling effect can be done in protracted time, then we can achieve a physical representation of Aspden’s liquid crystalline. Therefore, in subsequent article (Part II) we outlined simple model of such an effect of tunneling via quantum liquid crystalline Universe, which may likely be modeled with iced-water. It is interesting to remark here that certain experiments by Stockholm University scientists have shown that X-ray triggered water can exhibit properties just like liquid crystal (cf. PRL, 2020). That is why we consider it possible that there can be quantum phase transition where liquid water (comprised of iced cubes and water) can exhibit effects such as tunneling in quantum liquid crystalline Universe. Last but not least, we admit that what we outlined here is just an initial phase; and if you wish, perhaps we can call such experiments as “wormhole-at-lab” experiments (abbreviated: WHALE). (shrink)

Digital imaging has provided scientists with new opportunities to acquire and manipulate data using techniques that were difficult or impossible to employ in the past. Because digital images are easier to manipulate than film images, new problems have emerged. One growing concern in the scientific community is that digital images are not being handled with sufficient care. The problem is twofold: (1) the very small, yet troubling, number of intentional falsifications that have been identified, and (2) the more common (...) class='Hi'>unintentional, inappropriate manipulation of images for publication. Journals and professional societies have begun to address the issue with specific digital imaging guidelines. Unfortunately, the guidelines provided often do not come with instructions to explain their importance. Thus they deal with what should or should not be done, but not the associated ‘why’ that is required for understanding the rules. This article proposes 12 guidelines for scientific digital image manipulation and discusses the technical reasons behind these guidelines. These guidelines can be incorporated into lab meetings and graduate student training in order to provoke discussion and begin to bring an end to the culture of data beautification. (shrink)

As much as we can be squeamish and angry over what was being done in these studies, they force us to consider how we tell these stories and the policy we make now, as so much of our research is global and the risks and benefits of experimentation always in need of recalibration.Susan M. ReverbyA growing distrust exists among Latin American populations as past abuses in medical research have rightly been publicized, and as researchers continue to intentionally and unintentionally circumvent (...) the systems of regulation and oversight. Beyond the cultural gaps between researcher and subject, the Latin American people have their own perspectives about responsible conduct of research formed by sociopolitical thought and familial and community identity, which may be overlooked or ignored by the U.S. and other foreign nations. Just as the Havasupai Tribe in Arizona have challenged us to think about the role of culture and the need for improved regulations and practices in conducting research within the United States, through past abuses in human experimentation and the emergence of discourse between our Latin American neighbors, similar challenges confront us. (shrink)

The present article was partly inspired by G. Pollack’s book, and also Dadoloff, Saxena & Jensen (2010). As a senior physicist colleague and our friend, Robert N. Boyd, wrote in a journal (JCFA, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2022), for example, things and Beings can travel between Universes, intentionally or unintentionally [4]. In this short remark, we revisit and offer short remark to Neil Boyd’s ideas and trying to connect them with geometry of musical chords as presented by D. Tymoczko and (...) others, then to Escherian staircase and then to Jacob’s ladder which seems to pointto possibility to interpret Jacob’s vision as described in the ancient book of Genesis as interdimensional staircase, e.g. an interdimensional bridge between heaven and earth (cf. classic book: Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach). Jacob’s vision of angels going down to earth from that staircase has been depicted for instance in William Blake art etc. In our communication with others via physics literature and discussions etc, we came to several conclusions as follows: Firstly, possibility of wormhole effect to mirror particle universe, which sometimes it is termed non-orientable wormhole. While such mirror particles effect have been more than 50 years predicted with the so-called parity violation (cf. Lee & Yang, 1950s), and that is called symmetry breaking. Secondly, a series of extended experiments on laser irradiated cold water may suggest possible transition from a phase of water to be at least partially fourth phase of water, which may be composed of crystalline water (see e.g. Gerald Pollack, and also Harold Aspden on liquid crystalline). If we can imagine laser cooling effect can be done in protracted time, then we can achieve a physical representation of Aspden‘s liquid crystalline. Therefore, in this article we outline a series of simple experiments of laser irradiated iced-water along with beryl and selenite crystals in order to see possibility of such a quantum tunneling via quantum liquid crystalline Universe hypothesis, which may likely be modeled with iced-water. It is interesting to remark here that certain experiments by Stockholm University scientists have shown that X-ray triggered water can exhibit properties just like liquid crystal (cf. PRL, 2020). That is why we consider it possible that there can be quantum phase transition where liquid water (comprised of iced cubes and water) can exhibit effects such as tunneling in quantum liquid crystalline Universe. Last but not least, we admit that what we outlined here is just aninitial phase; and if you wish, perhaps we can call such experiments as “wormhole-at-lab” experiments (abbreviated: WHALE). (shrink)

Data alteration requires consideration of: what are data, when should they be available and what is their quality. Alteration may be intended or unintended: scientific misconduct, scientific error, use of questionable research practices, or community-based and cultural interpretations of data relevance. Situations in which data alteration are at risk include those in which conflict of interest (and thus potential for bias) is endemic, and those in which powerful incentives that do not support research integrity are present. Consequences of intentional and (...) unintentional data alteration are morally important but are not uniformly addressed. Norm and governance changes from the current system are in initial stages of development and must address issues of the data revolution. Points of decision address ethical concerns and moral quandaries researchers will likely face in a system of research practice that does not comprehensively support research integrity. (shrink)

One of the best known approaches to the logic of agency are the ‘stit’ logics. Often, it is not the actions of an individual agent that bring about a certain outcome but the joint actions of a set of agents, collectively. Collective agency has received comparatively little attention in ‘stit’. The paper maps out several different forms, several different senses in which a particular set of agents, collectively, can be said to bring about a certain outcome, and examines how these (...) forms can be expressed in ‘stit’ and stit-like logics. The outcome that is brought about may be unintentional, and perhaps even accidental; the account deliberately ignores aspects such as joint intention, communication between agents, awareness of other agents’ intentions and capabilities, even the awareness of another agent’s existence. The aim is to investigate what can be said about collective agency when all such considerations are ignored, besides mere consequences of joint actions. The account will be related to the ‘strictly stit’ of Belnap and Perloff, 25–48 1993) and their suggestions concerning ‘inessential members’ and ‘mere bystanders’. We will adjust some of those conjectures and distinguish further between ‘potentially contributing bystanders’ and ‘impotent bystanders’. (shrink)

In this important study, first published in 1989, Thomas Halper examines the policies and practices of the British National Health Services in treating kidney disease. Technological advances since the 1960s mean that end-stage renal disease, an otherwise fatal condition, can usually be treated successfully. In Britain, however, the availability of resources necessary for treatment has been limited in past years and many people have gone untreated. Professor Halper discusses a number of issues, both ethical and political, that arise from having (...) to choose who does and does not get treated. These issues include: the right to health care; the interaction between political demands, government agencies, and public policy; the promise of technology in a society where resources are scarce; and duties owed the individual by the community. The book draws on numerous personal accounts, often moving or unintentionally revealing, and should prove interesting to professionals and students with an interest in philosophy, health care, public health, public policy and British politics. (shrink)

BackgroundCarefully planned research is critical to developing policies and interventions that counter physical, psychological and social challenges faced by young people living with HIV/aids, without increasing burdens. Such studies, however, must navigate a ‘vulnerability paradox’, since including potentially vulnerable groups also risks unintentionally worsening their situation. Through embedded social science research, linked to a cohort study involving Adolescents Living with HIV/aids (ALH) in Kenya, we develop an account of researchers’ responsibilities towards young people, incorporating concepts of vulnerability, resilience, and agency (...) as ‘interacting layers’.MethodsUsing a qualitative, iterative approach across three linked data collection phases including interviews, group discussions, observations and a participatory workshop, we explored stakeholders’ perspectives on vulnerability and resilience of young people living with HIV/aids, in relation to home and community, school, health care and health research participation. A total of 62 policy, provider, research, and community-based stakeholders were involved, including 27 ALH participating in a longitudinal cohort study. Data analysis drew on a Framework Analysis approach; ethical analysis adapts Luna’s layered account of vulnerability.ResultsALH experienced forms of vulnerability and resilience in their daily lives in which socioeconomic context, institutional policies, organisational systems and interpersonal relations were key, interrelated influences. Anticipated and experienced forms of stigma and discrimination in schools, health clinics and communities were linked to actions undermining ART adherence, worsening physical and mental health, and poor educational outcomes, indicating cascading forms of vulnerability, resulting in worsened vulnerabilities. Positive inputs within and across sectors could build resilience, improve outcomes, and support positive research experiences.ConclusionsThe most serious forms of vulnerability faced by ALH in the cohort study were related to structural, inter-sectoral influences, unrelated to study participation and underscored by constraints to their agency. Vulnerabilities, including cascading forms, were potentially responsive to policy-based and interpersonal actions. Stakeholder engagement supported cohort design and implementation, building privacy, stakeholder understanding, interpersonal relations and ancillary care policies. Structural forms of vulnerability underscore researchers’ responsibilities to work within multi-sectoral partnerships to plan and implement studies involving ALH, share findings in a timely way and contribute to policies addressing known causes of vulnerabilities. (shrink)

Photo ID 279661800 © Sidewaypics|Dreamstime.com ABSTRACT Decolonization is complex, vast, and the subject of an ongoing academic debate. While the many efforts to decolonize or dismantle the vestiges of colonialism that remain are laudable, they can also reinforce what they seek to end. For decolonization to be impactful, it must be done with epistemic and cultural humility, requiring decolonial scholars, project leaders, and well-meaning people to be more sensitive to those impacted by colonization and not regularly included in the discourse. (...) INTRODUCTION Decolonization is complex. To successfully achieve decolonization, projects should incorporate the voices of those subjugated or silenced. Including such voices requires sincerely exploring who has been affected by colonialism or neocolonialism and how, as well as cultural sensitivity. In its basic use, decolonization refers to countries under colonial rule gaining independence or freedom from forms of subjugation. Additionally, scholars use the term to refer to efforts to dismantle neocolonialism and vestiges of colonialism. The process includes de-silencing subjugated voices.[1] I use decolonization in the latter way to refer to countries with technical independence. While arguably colonization ended formally with independence from colonizing powers, neocolonialism is the indirect, informal, and sometimes subtle control of the people, their economy, and political life despite formal independence from colonizing authorities. I conceptualize neocolonialism as a system that involves direct and involuntary control of another’s political, economic, or social life, impacting their worldview and ways of encountering the world. Decolonization may target actions, places, or systems like health care or AI to overcome the ills of colonialism and neocolonialism. It also may target knowledge and require rethinking how people develop their knowledge base. For example, if people grew up seeing an outside colonizer as superior, they would need to change their knowledge of superiority. Decolonization may target power, for example, changing who owns and distributes COVID-19 vaccines and who distributors exclude in the distribution of vaccines. Decolonization could require looking at those disempowered in the distribution process. Additionally, decolonization may target autonomy of persons by freeing people, ensuring human and individual rights, and respecting cultural traditions. Decolonization projects that try to de-silence by including the voices of those affected by colonialism and neocolonialism must examine inclusiveness in the context of the culture of the subrogated individuals. Examples of decolonization projects include making datasets inclusive of diverse peoples and places, returning to traditional food and eating practices, making sure hospitals in developing countries are led by locals and respectful of cultural traditions, returning unethically obtained artefacts or objects. Another project would be laying the groundwork for equality in formerly colonized countries to ensure that business ownership, education, and financial success will flow fairly to those previously victimized by colonization. Summarily, there are many strategies for decolonizing. However, it is worth asking whether the strategies have risks that undermine the goal of decolonization. I. Understanding Decolonization Discourses Many fields, from AI to politics, economics, health care, aviation, and academia, discuss decolonization. The content of the discourse on decolonization depends on the region and field discussing it. Rather than just reporting on decolonization, the discussions may be calls to action. For example, decolonization discourses reflect activism for cognitive justice, such as equal consideration of Indian or African knowledge systems in global health discourses.[2] In politics and political science, some scholars frame decolonization as an anti-western, anti-colonial movement by Africans to emancipate Africa/ns from subjugation or shift the continent to postcolonialism and post-neo-colonialism. This framing walls off non-African participants and may undermine their capacity to benefit the conversation.[3] There are other political scientists who actively support decolonization and see it as a field of activism in support of anyone and countries where colonization harmed people and development.[4] The point is that two ways of conceptualizing decolonization in politics and political science are discernible. One conceptualization is less inclusive since it alienates scholars and professionals from Western, high-income, or developed countries. The other is more inclusive. In humanitarian studies, including philosophy, some decolonization articles and conversations are efforts to end the destructive force of colonization. They focus on either the form, such as ecocide, genocide, and many others, or the geographic location, such as Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania.[5] Finally, the feelings one brings into this conversation can adversely impact how one engages in them and who they listen to or are willing to hear from. For example, anger, rage, bitterness, and hatred are emotions that are not uncommon in spaces of decolonization conversations. Decolonization conversations that originate from a place of negativity risk deepening the psychological state of victimhood and prevent people from disrupting constructively or critically engaging in the conversation.[6] II. Understanding Decolonization Strategies Decolonization strategies mainly aim to de-silence victims of domination or subjugation. People have proposed many strategies for decolonizing. These strategies may be informed by what the target is for decolonization. Decolonization can target power relations in global health. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, public health organizations noted the power imbalance in vaccine distribution. Decolonization could involve de-silencing those affected by neocolonialism to bring about a more balanced distribution of power and a more fair distribution of the vaccine. By analyzing who was adversely impacted by the distribution and who ought to wield power, those engaged in decolonizing advocated for positive change and equitable power relations. Equally, when being is the target of decolonization, the language of unlearning or relearning and mental decolonization take centre stage in the decolonization discourse. For example, the quest to decolonize colonized minds aims to demythologize African inferiority and Western superiority. Demythologizing African inferiority enables those engaged in the decolonization discourse to cultivate and foster African agency.[7] Finally, when knowledge production is the target of decolonization, scholars use inclusion and cognitive justice. For example, they try to alter the knowledge that underlies global health ethics.[8] “[D]decolonizing researchers aim to respectfully understand and integrate theory from Other(ed) perspectives, while also critically examining the underlying assumptions that inform their Western research framework.”[9] One common strategy that scholars use in decolonization is inclusion. It is worth asking, does including people who have been subrogated foster decolonization? Whether that is effective depends on whether included people are more heard or whether the strategies to include them create new forms of silencing. III. Inclusion and the Quest to Decolonize Evaluating how effective inclusion is in the quest to de-silence subjugated voices is important. First, inclusive strategies are not neutral. They are epistemically situated. This situatedness constrains meaning-making in different ways: how and what questions are asked, how social roles are constructed, organized or assigned, and who is admitted to the room where these conversations occur.[10] Inclusion strategies may reinforce (unchallenged) assumptions. For example, to address prejudices and stereotypes in global health images, Arsenii Alenichev and his colleagues[11] successfully inverted “one stereotypical global health image” by prompting a generative AI to produce “an image of a traditional Indian or African healer healing a White Child.” Although there were some problems with the image of the White child, this innovation is a significant, useful effort to de-embed or strip global health images of problematic pictures that mythologize White superiority and Black inferiority. Yet it is possible that using categories like traditional Indian or African reinforces unchallenged assumptions, raising key questions regarding how language and words create new stereotypes. It is common to define traditional as non-conventional, unorthodox, and informal. Yet studies continue to reveal that non-scientifically appraised healing approaches in India or Africa are not only effective but also real, meaningful, fundamental, and primary care-seeking behaviours in many communities in these regions.[12] Suppose inclusive strategies are not un-situated. These conversations may be had within the structures, language, and spaces built by or connected to colonialism. The spaces, language, places, and structures in which these conversations occur can limit who can participate and how they participate. Importantly, some conditions are not conducive to participation as equals. The allocated time for the discussion could also constrain how individuals express themselves. It is unclear who is ultimately heard. Furthermore, epistemic situatedness of inclusion can impact decolonization conversations when participants are beneficiaries of, products of, and trained by structures and systems they seek to dismantle. To enhance the decolonization project and its goals, a pressing task is to unveil and question how the circumstances may inhibit activism. If the vestiges of colonialism continue to structure the decolonization discourse invisibly, the vestiges may undermine decolonization. For example, a public health discussion that includes white Western doctors and Western pharmaceutical executives in Africa may have many local Africans at the table but could still effectively devalue their input based on built-in assumptions and biases that are vestiges of colonialism. Second, exclusion and inclusion are also not binary. Individuals may experience exclusion, even while included (the phenomenon called internal exclusion). In other words, inclusion can fail to be substantial or become a means of enhancing optics, “a way of (un)consciously weakening the radical claims being pursued.”[13] For example, in South Africa, many institutions have made significant efforts to diversify their faculties due to the promulgation of the Employment Equity Act 55.[14] The act requires South African institutions to implement employment equity that redresses the history of harmful discrimination in the country. The act further requires transforming departments and institutional administrations. Although many recognize and support the need to transform departments in South Africa, the rhetoric of transformation departs sharply from the lived experiences.[15] This misalignment between the plan and practice is evident in the underrepresentation of black people and females in senior management teams, professorships in many universities and health departments, and positions of power in some South African institutions. Those selected in the transformation of the departments have also complained of being overworked. The burden of extra work undermines their ability to develop agency and voice in the space they now occupy or fulfil key requirements that have implications for their career trajectory.[16] This is called the minority tax. Notably, "the minority tax… is the burden of extra responsibilities [placed] on faculty of colour to achieve diversity and inclusion and contributes to attrition and impedes academic promotion."[17] One challenge for decolonializing projects will be for decolonial scholars and those selected for decolonization objectives to have the humility to decline invitations, requests, roles, and platforms for which they are either unqualified or lack the capacity to fulfil. At its heart, decolonization strategies must empower those included rather than weaken them. Finally, inclusion can lead to a phenomenon known as elite capture.[18] Elite capture occurs when socially advantaged individuals in a group monopolize or exploit activism to their own benefit at the expense of the larger, struggling group. Elite capture weakens decolonization efforts from within, revealing that those likely to benefit from global inclusive efforts are those who fulfil globally constructed standards, those “already present in the room.” There is no better strategy to weaken decolonial movements than weakening the project from within by strategically positioning individuals who share physical properties with the victims of exclusion and silencing but intellectually, behaviourally, psychologically, and emotionally share more common ground with the colonizer. Such insiders may be unaware they are furthering neocolonial conditions rather than decolonizing. In relation to decolonization, particularly in global health, elite capture reveals that those whose voices are loudest in the room are not necessarily those more impacted by colonialism. They may benefit more from reinforcing colonialism. Opportunism weakens meaningful activism from within, preventing good initiatives and strategies from having their intended impact or taking substantive root.[19] This paper cannot do justice to elite capture, but it is worth noting its negative impacts. IV. Improving the Impact of Decolonization To end neo-colonialism, it is important to understand how it manifests and what to do at each level. Beyond the academic discourse, many tangible efforts exist to decolonize through de-silencing. Examples of these efforts include the ME2 movement that seeks to centre the concerns and experiences of sexually abused or harassed victims in the public discourse. At the funding level, many grant-awarding agencies like Wellcome Trust have dedicated huge budgets to studies that help them understand how they may have perpetrated colonialism or neocolonialism and what they can do differently going forward.[20] In South Africa, promulgating the Employment Equity Act 55 was a tangible attempt to entrench decolonization concerns in a country's regulatory framework. Yet, these decolonization efforts could fail to be substantive if they do not reflect cultural sensitivity. Two key components of cultural sensitivity are worth highlighting here: epistemic and cultural humility. Epistemic humility is an intellectual virtue described as knowing one’s limitations and the limitations of the learning methods employed. At its simplest, it is the ability to admit when one is wrong. Cultural humility includes genuine attempts to learn about and embrace other cultures. Epistemic and cultural humility are signs of academic excellence and strength. Epistemic and cultural humility seriously acknowledge how the state of our knowledge, cognitive limitations, experiences, and backgrounds, while constraining us, also invite us to listen, learn, grow, and change. The limitations-owing account of epistemic and cultural humility suggests that “a person who is aware of her cognitive limitations and owns them is much better positioned to achieve such epistemic goods as true beliefs and understanding than someone who… simply has insight into the epistemic status of her beliefs.”[21] Epistemic and cultural humility may help prevent decolonization projects that unintentionally reinforce what they seek to dismantle. Epistemic humility calls on decolonizers to defer tasks for which they are not qualified to suitably qualified persons. Beyond this, humility supports brave scholarship that imagines and reimagines how featuring the same voices, faces, and perspectives possibly introduces new forms of domination or silencing. Cultural knowledge can lead to a more intentional way of seeking out the right people or a more diverse group than those frequently featured in decolonization conversations. This would give others more opportunities to navigate these spaces and should do so in ways that are familiar to them. One ought to be more sensitive to those who would ordinarily not be included in these conversations. Unless we radically and boldly reimagine these discussions, we risk alienating those most negatively impacted by neocolonialism. CONCLUSION Decolonization conversations are complex and the subject of academic debate. The strategies employed to decolonize can harm or help the victims of neo-colonialism. Inclusion of previously silenced individuals may not be enough to overcome the vestiges of colonialism, leading to a false inclusion, where those included feel excluded or contribute in ways reflecting their own biases and circumstances. Inclusion of an elite or people who do not truly represent the subjugated can lead to elite capture. For decolonization strategies to be impactful, for example, in the context of global health, project leaders and participants must engage in conversations employing epistemic and cultural humility. In many ways, epistemic and cultural humility can help us demythologize our assumptions of any cultural superiority or cognitive authority, allowing for diverse voices, cultures, and perspectives to emerge without domination. - [1] Caesar Atuire & Olivia Rutazibwa. 2021. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization [Online]. Available from: https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/african-reading-covid-19-pandemic-and-stakes-decolonization [Accessed July 29, 2021 2021]. [2] Bridget Pratt & Jantina De Vries 2023. Where is knowledge from the Global South? An account of epistemic justice for a global bioethics. Journal of Medical Ethics, medethics-2022-108291. [3] Anye-Nkwenti Nyamnjoh 2023. Is decolonisation Africanisation? The politics of belonging in the truly African university. Social Dynamics, 1-20. [4] Rianna Oelofsen 2015. Decolonisation of the African mind and intellectual landscape. Phronimon, 16, 130-146. [5] Caesar Atuire & Olivia Rutazibwa. 2021. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization [Online]. Available from: https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/african-reading-covid-19-pandemic-and-stakes-decolonization [Accessed July 29, 2021 2021]. [6] Pedro Alexis Tabensky 2008. The Postcolonial Heart of African Philosophy. South African Journal of Philosophy, 27, 285-295. [7] Nicholas M. Creary 2012. African Intellectuals and Decolonization, Ohio, Ohio University Press. [8] Bridget Pratt & Jantina De Vries 2023. Where is knowledge from the Global South? An account of epistemic justice for a global bioethics. Journal of Medical Ethics, medethics-2022-108291. [9] Vivetha Thambinathan & Elizabeth Anne Kinsella 2021. Decolonizing Methodologies in Qualitative Research: Creating Spaces for Transformative Praxis. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 20, 16094069211014766. [10] Abimbola Seye 2023. Knowledge from the global South is in the global South. Journal of Medical Ethics, 49, 337. [11] A. Alenichev, P. Kingori & K. P. Grietens 2023. Reflections before the storm: the AI reproduction of biased imagery in global health visuals. Lancet Glob Health. [12] Jonathan K. Burns & Andrew Tomita 2015. Traditional and religious healers in the pathway to care for people with mental disorders in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 50, 867-877. [13] Anye-Nkwenti Nyamnjoh & Cornelius Ewuoso 2023. What type of inclusion does epistemic injustice require? Journal of Medical Ethics, jme-2023-109091. [14] 1998. Employment Equity Act. In: GOVERNMENT, S. A. (ed.) 19370. [15] Dina Zoe Belluigi & Gladman Thondhlana 2019. ‘Why mouth all the pieties?’ Black and women academics’ revelations about discourses of ‘transformation’ at an historically white South African university. Higher Education, 78, 947-963. [16] Juliet Ramohai & Khomotso Marumo 2016. Women in Senior Positions in South African Higher Education: A Reflection on Voice and Agency. 231, 135-157. [17] J. Trejo 2020. The burden of service for faculty of color to achieve diversity and inclusion: the minority tax. Mol Biol Cell, 31, 2752-2754. [18] Olufemi Taiwo 2020. Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference. The Philosopher, 108, 7. [19] Margarita Kurbatova & Elena Kagan 2016. Opportunism of University Lecturers As a Way to Adaptate the External Control Activities Strengthening. Journal of Institutional Studies, 8, 116-136. [20] Jeremy Farrar. 2022. An update on Wellcome's anti-racist programme. An update on Wellcome's anti-racist programme [Online]. Available from: https://wellcome.org/news/update-wellcomes-anti-racism-programme [Accessed August 10, 2022 2022]. [21] Katherine Dormandy 2018. Does Epistemic Humility Threaten Religious Beliefs? Journal of Psychology and Theology, 46, 292-304. (shrink)

This article aims to show how the changes to NEPA by the Trump Administration are an act of environmental racism, defined as “[i]ntentional or unintentional racial discrimination in environmental policy‐making, enforcement of regulations and laws, and targeting of communities for the disposal of toxic waste and siting of polluting industries.”.

Medical research data is sensitive personal data that needs to be protected from unauthorized access and unintentional disclosure. In a research setting, sharing of data within the scientific community is necessary in order to make progress and maximize scientific benefits derived from valuable and costly data. At the same time, convincingly protecting the privacy of people participating in medical research is a prerequisite for maintaining trust and willingness to share. In this commentary, we will address this issue and the (...) pitfalls involved in the context of the PEP project1 that provides the infrastructure for the Personalized Parkinson’s Project,2 a large cohort study on Parkinson’s disease from Radboud University Medical Center, in cooperation with Verily life Sciences, an Alphabet subsidiary. (shrink)

Objectives: Although no genetic tests for violent behaviour are currently available, research is ongoing to isolate genes related to a propensity for violence. We explored the attitudes of parents and healthcare professionals toward behavioural genetic testing for violence.Design: The attitudes of healthcare professionals and the lay public about genetic testing of children were elicited for a range of conditions through interviews with healthcare professionals and focus groups with parents. All participants were informed that behavioural genetic testing was the only hypothetical (...) genetic test in our script and it was presented as the last condition.Participants: The healthcare professionals included both genetic professionals and paediatricians. Focus group participants were recruited through various community institutions in the southside of Chicago and nearby suburbs.Results: The healthcare professionals tended to medicalise behavioural genetics, and were opposed to testing unless treatment was available. They were also uniformly concerned about the potential harms of this information, including unintentional adverse effects from environmental changes. In contrast, parents wanted genetic testing for behavioural traits to be available even in the absence of proved medical treatments. Not all parents wanted to test their own children, and some parents were concerned about self-fulfilling prophecies. Some parents, however, felt the information was important for their understanding, and could be used to support environmental changes.Conclusions: While healthcare professionals medicalised behavioural genetics, parents focused on environmental causes and influences. Consequently, healthcare professionals do not want to offer testing if there is no clear treatment, while parents may want this information to shape environmental influences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Compassionate Justice: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue with Two Gospel Parables on Law, Crime, and Restorative Justice by Christopher D. MarshallGlen StassenCompassionate Justice: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue with Two Gospel Parables on Law, Crime, and Restorative Justice CHRISTOPHER D. MARSHALL Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012. 386 pp. $33.60Christopher Marshall is known to Society of Christian Ethics members for his highly acclaimed book on restorative justice, Beyond Retribution, and for his plenary (...) address at the SCE annual meeting published in the JSCE 27, no. 2 (2007). The plenary address forms one chapter of the present Compassionate Justice. Well [End Page 221] informed on ethics, criminal justice, and human rights, Marshall is a New Testament scholar at Victoria University in New Zealand.Marshall points out that the two best-known of Jesus’s parables—the Compassionate Samaritan, and the Prodigal Son—have been the most influential of Jesus’s parables in Western culture and legal theory. The Compassionate Samaritan is Jesus’s response to a lawyer’s question that answers a central legal question of the time: Who is my neighbor, whom I am obligated by Leviticus 19:7 to love as myself? In the Prodigal Son, the three main characters in legal offense are clearly portrayed as the offender, the victim, and the law-abiding community; in turn, as Marshall points out, “the older brother’s reaction centers directly on the justice of his father’s actions” (192–93). Marshall argues that present legal theory can learn from careful dialogue with these two parables. These parables are not only historically influential but also so insightfully and beautifully crafted that dialogue with them can bring incisive insights. In addition, dialogue with them presses Anglo-Saxon liberalism where it is weak and needs to grow.The parable of the Compassionate Samaritan opens up questions about the need for Good Samaritan laws that defend persons who come to the aid of a person in danger of death (e.g., from an accident, fire, or drowning) against liability for inadvertently and unintentionally causing damage. Under present Anglo-Saxon law, such good Samaritans can be sued for damages. This is not the case, however, in most European countries. Similarly, most European and Latin American countries have bad Samaritan laws: Where “victims are in mortal danger and unable to save themselves,” there is a legal duty for “those who are consciously aware of the victim’s predicament, who are close enough to intervene, and who have the effective means of intervention available to them” to come to the aid of the victims. “The most glaring exception to this pattern,” Marshall argues, “occurs in Anglo-American legal systems” because of liberalism’s maximization of individual liberty even against coercion to come to the aid of persons who would die if no help arrives (155). Samaritan laws “give formal expression to the supreme value of human life, to the bonds of solidarity and empathy that comprise human identity and that bind people together in social community, and to ongoing need human beings have to be committed to one another’s rescue and restoration when severe harm befalls them” (174).Responding to the parable of the Prodigal Son, Marshall argues that both compassion and repentance are crucial for understanding the humanity and the sufferings of persons being defended or judged by law. This does not replace the standard tools of legal interpretation; it takes account of the more holistic context (288–90). In fact, “unreflective compassion can be dangerous and distorting” (296). Marshall discusses the complications insightfully and in a balanced [End Page 222] way. He concludes with an extensive discussion and refutation of perhaps the most important book-length criticism of restorative justice.Marshall’s interpretation of these two parables surpasses any other that I have read. His sensitive and thoughtful analysis of the experience of victimization goes beyond any other interpretation of the Compassionate Samaritan that I have seen. In this he resembles Daniel Philpott’s interpretation of victimization in Just and Unjust Peace (Oxford University Press, 2012). His description of the shameful rupture of relationship with father, family, and community by the prodigal son goes well beyond what I have seen previously. I think... (shrink)

Using Giddens’s structuration theory and empirical data from a study with social enterprise stakeholders, the article explores how social entrepreneurs and the structure co-create one another. We show that the development of the contemporary significance of social entrepreneurialism lies in a combination of complex context-specific structural forces and the activities of agents who initiate, demand, and impose change. Social entrepreneurs intentionally tackle social challenges, but their actions bring unintentional results, such as the transfer of state responsibilities onto communities. Direct (...) outputs of their activities introduce indirect outcomes, bringing wider changes in culture and policy. The evolving nature of entrepreneurship and a number of factors that interplay in time and space, and enable and constrain social entrepreneurs, confirm the applicability of Giddens’s theory in the field of social entrepreneurship. The originality of this article derives from revealing mechanisms that enable social entrepreneurs to emerge and reasons for structural change. We also build a “co-creation model of structure and agency” that can be used to “engineer” the process of social entrepreneurship. (shrink)

This dissertation offers a robust philosophical examination of a phenomenon that is morally, socially, and politically significant – microaggressions. Microaggressions are understood to be brief and routine verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities that, whether intentional or unintentional, convey hostility toward or bias against members of marginalized groups. Microaggressions are rooted in stereotypes and/or bias (whether implicit or explicit) and are connected to broader systems of oppression. Microaggressions are philosophically interesting, since they involve significant ambiguity, questions about speech and (...) class='Hi'>communication, and the ability for our speech to encode and transmit bits of meaning. Microaggressions prompt reflection about the nature of blameworthiness and responsibility, especially for unintended acts and harms. They involve questions about how we perceive and treat one another, and whether or not people are treated as true equals in our social and political worlds. For all of these reasons, microaggressions are a critical area in need of philosophical reflection, specifically reflection in feminist philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy, and social and political philosophy. This dissertation seeks to advance the philosophy of microaggressions through three distinct aims: a conceptual aim (chapters 2 and 3), an epistemological aim (chapters 1 and 2), and a moral aim (chapters 4 and 5). The conceptual aim involves clarifying how we should understand and categorize microaggressions. The epistemological aim involves identifying some of the epistemological assumptions undergirding discussions of microaggressions in the literature, including assumptions made by critics of microaggression theory, and arguing for an alternative epistemological framework for theorizing about microaggressions. The moral aim involves better understanding the harms of microaggressions, including their role in reinforcing structures of oppression and unjust social hierarchy. Taken together, these chapters make some progress on the conceptual, epistemological, and moral questions that microaggressions generate, and which philosophers have not yet adequately analyzed. It thus offers a meaningful contribution to the conversations philosophers are beginning to have about the morally and politically salient phenomenon of microaggressions. (shrink)

‘Dogwhistle’ refers to a kind of political manipulation that some people carry out for political gains. According to Saul (2018), dogwhistles can be either intentional or unintentional depending on whether the speaker carried out the dogwhistle deliberately or not —although one cannot always recognize whether a particular case was intentional. In addition to being intentional or not, dogwhistles can also be overt or covert depending on whether the audience is aware or not of the dogwhistle. In the case of (...) overt dogwhistles, the speaker addresses a message to an audience with two possible interpretations. One of these is coded and affects only a subset the audience (Witten 2014). Covert dogwhistles, on the other hand, are not really about sending a “coded message.” Instead, they raise attitudes to salience, so people will act on them without realizing they are being moved on them. As Stanley (2015) points out, these kinds of dogwhistles work as a strategy for undermining democratic ideals without immediate rejection. Our key question is whether covert dogwhistles constitute a special form of implicit communication or whether they can be reduced to already existing forms of implicit communication such as presuppositions or implicatures. We will focus on covert dogwhistles because they seem more difficult to accommodate within the traditional categories of presuppositions and implicatures. To carry out this task, we compare the features of each of the mentioned phenomena and analyse how they behave in the face of retraction. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of the relation between political populism and mass media, and how this relation becomes problematic for democratic societies. It focuses on the fact that mass media, due to their purpose and infrastructure, can unintentionally reinforce populist messages. Research findings from communication science and political psychology are used to illustrate how, for example, a combination of mass media agenda setting and motivated reasoning can influence citizens’ political decisions and impair their political autonomy. This poses a (...) particular normative challenge for modern democracies: how to counter these populism-supporting effects within the constraints of democratic legitimacy? After showing how severely limited legal measures to curb populist media effects would be, the paper argues in favour of media competence education as a way of providing future citizens with an epistemic toolkit to navigate the media environment and strengthen their political autonomy. (shrink)

Much of the discourse surrounding plagiarism is one of fear—a fear of being caught and punished, but many plagiarism examples happen unintentionally as students struggle with a new language, new ideas, and new communities in tertiary education. Specifically, many students are challenged with the task of writing a research paper, which involves finding academic sources, reading those sources to answer a research question, and integrating direct quotations and paraphrasing. Because novice writers often struggle with these skills, what is a developmental (...) stage is instead interpreted as plagiarism. Much of the discussion of plagiarism involves implicit and explicit definitions of ownership, but there is little research about how students understand the concept of ownership in relation to ideas and language. In this qualitative study, we present data from 18 international students at an American-style university in the Middle East who write an introductory research paper as part of a composition course. Results show that perceptions of plagiarism changed in relation to owning ideas, owning language, and owning time spent on the research process and that distinguishing these boundaries is often difficult for students even within their own final research papers. We suggest teaching more robust note-taking strategies, discussing ownership in terms of a writer’s choices in guiding readers through the paper, and creating an environment where students can understand the complexities of plagiarism rather than simply fearing being caught. (shrink)