In the current era of the Sustainable Development Goals, many countries are attempting to strengthen their health system and achieving Universal Health Coverage. The Korean National Health Insurance system functions as a core element of health financing, contributing to achieving UHC by promoting public health and social security through insurance benefits for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, childbirth, and health promotion. The Republic of Korea achieved 100% NHI coverage of the target population in 1989, 12 years after the introduction of the (...) social insurance system. However, poor coverage of health services and lack of financial protection are major obstacles to achieving UHC. Therefore, the Korean government announced and implemented ‘Moon Jae-in Care’ in August 2017 to enhance the coverage rate of NHI by 70%. First, this study reviews the existing health insurance system in Korea from the perspective of health financing and UHC. Second, it analyses ‘Moon Jae-in Care’, based on the main framework of UHC. Third, it considers the ethical implications of these developments, with focus on the principles of equity, fairness, autonomy, and solidarity. Although the NHI reform is expected to propel Korean health care closer to UHC, many ethical, social, and political issues remain. (shrink)

This paper elucidates and rationalizes the ethical governance system for healthcare AI research, as outlined in the ‘Research Ethics Guidelines for AI Researchers in Healthcare’ published by the South Korean government in August 2023. In developing the guidelines, a four-phase clinical trial process was expanded to six stages for healthcare AI research: preliminary ethics review (stage 1); creating datasets (stage 2); model development (stage 3); training, validation, and evaluation (stage 4); application (stage 5); and post-deployment monitoring (stage 6). Researchers identified (...) similarities between clinical trials and healthcare AI research, particularly in research subjects, management and regulations, and application of research results. In the step-by-step articulation of ethical requirements, this similarity benefits from a reliable and flexible use of existing research ethics governance resources, research management, and regulatory functions. In contrast to clinical trials, this procedural approach to healthcare AI research governance effectively highlights the distinct characteristics of healthcare AI research in research and development process, evaluation of results, and modifiability of findings. The model exhibits limitations, primarily in its reliance on self-regulation and lack of clear delineation of responsibilities. While formulated through multidisciplinary deliberations, its application in the research field remains untested. To overcome the limitations, the researchers’ ongoing efforts for educating AI researchers and public and the revision of the guidelines are expected to contribute to establish an ethical research governance framework for healthcare AI research in the South Korean context in the future. (shrink)

I sketch here an intuitive picture of repeatable artworks as created types, which are individuated in part by historical paths (re)production. Although attractive, this view has been rejected by a number of authors on the basis of general claims about abstract objects. On consideration, however, these general claims are overgeneralizations, which whilst true of some abstracta, are not true of all abstract objects, and in particular, are not true of created types. The intuitive picture of repeatable artworks as created types (...) is, then, left in place. (shrink)

For twenty years, _Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice_ has been the definitive sourcebook of theoretical foundations, pedagogical and design frameworks, and curricular models for social justice teaching practice. Thoroughly revised and updated, this third edition continues in the tradition of its predecessors to cover the most relevant issues and controversies in social justice education in a practical, hands-on format. Filled with ready-to-apply activities and discussion questions, this book provides teachers and facilitators with an accessible pedagogical approach to issues of (...) oppression in classrooms. The revised edition also focuses on providing students the tools needed to apply their learning about these issues. Features new to this edition include: A new bridging chapter focusing on the core concepts that need to be included in _all_ SJE practice and illustrating ways of "getting started" teaching foundational core concepts and processes. A new chapter addressing the possibilities for adapting social justice education to online and blended courses. Expanded overview sections that highlight the historical contexts and legacies of oppression, opportunities for action and change, and the intersections among forms of oppression. Added coverage of key topics for teaching social justice issues, such as establishing a positive classroom climate, institutional and social manifestations of oppression, the global implications of contemporary SJE work, and action steps for addressing injustice. New and revised material for each of the core chapters in the book complemented by fully-developed online teaching designs, including over 150 downloadables, activities, and handouts on the book’s Companion Website. A classic for teachers across disciplines, _Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice_ presents a thoughtful, well-constructed, and inclusive foundation for engaging students in the complex and often daunting problems of discrimination and inequality in American society. (shrink)

Severe acute respiratory syndrome‐coronavirus (SARS‐CoV)‐2′s origin is still controversial. Genomic analyses show SARS‐CoV‐2 likely to be chimeric, most of its sequence closest to bat CoV RaTG13, whereas its receptor binding domain (RBD) is almost identical to that of a pangolin CoV. Chimeric viruses can arise via natural recombination or human intervention. The furin cleavage site in the spike protein of SARS‐CoV‐2 confers to the virus the ability to cross species and tissue barriers, but was previously unseen in other SARS‐like CoVs. (...) Might genetic manipulations have been performed in order to evaluate pangolins as possible intermediate hosts for bat‐derived CoVs that were originally unable to bind to human receptors? Both cleavage site and specific RBD could result from site‐directed mutagenesis, a procedure that does not leave a trace. Considering the devastating impact of SARS‐CoV‐2 and importance of preventing future pandemics, researchers have a responsibility to carry out a thorough analysis of all possible SARS‐CoV‐2 origins. (shrink)

The low rates of regular exercise and overall physical activity (PA) in the general population represent a significant public health challenge. Previous research suggests that, for many people, exercise leads to a negative affective response and, in turn, reduced likelihood of future exercise. The purpose of this paper is to examine this exercise–affect–adherence relationship from an evolutionary perspective. Specifically, we argue that low rates of physical exercise in the general population are a function of the evolved human tendency to avoid (...) unnecessary physical exertion. This innate tendency evolved because it allowed our evolutionary ancestors to conserve energy for physical activities that had immediate adaptive utility such as pursuing prey, escaping predators, and engaging in social and reproductive behaviors. The commonly observed negative affective response to exercise is an evolved proximate psychological mechanism through which humans avoid unnecessary energy expenditure. The fact that the human tendencies toward negative affective response to and avoidance of unnecessary physical activities are innate does not mean that they are unchangeable. Indeed, it is only because of human-engineered changes in our environmental conditions (i.e., it is no longer necessary for us to work for our food) that our predisposition to avoid unnecessary physical exertion has become a liability. Thus, it is well within our capabilities to reengineer our environments to once again make PA necessary or, at least, to serve an immediate functional purpose. We propose a two-pronged approach to PA promotion based on this evolutionary functional perspective: first, to promote exercise and other physical activities that are perceived to have an immediate purpose, and second, to instill greater perceived purpose for a wider range of physical activities. We posit that these strategies are more likely to result in more positive (or less negative) affective responses to exercise, better adherence to exercise programs, and higher rates of overall PA. (shrink)

The institutional guarantees of modern labour law, that provide the keystone of progressive liberalism, are often only reactionary to the entrenched concepts of socialist law. Adoption of institutions of “workers rights”, and employment protection based upon contract, inevitably nullify the ideological promise of the inalienable “right to work”. China, among the last bastions of theoretical Marxist socialism, and among the first socialist countries ready to accept that it has been in desperate need of reforming uneconomical state enterprises, seems willing to (...) sacrifice ideological purity for economic development. Yet, if economic turnaround requires enterprise rationalisation in a market economy, it is understandable that Chinese labour requires the same kinds of protection against unbridled capitalism as progressive labour movements elsewhere. Doubtless, for those who have enjoyed no such institutional guarantees in the past, official commitment to improvement of labour conditions is better than no acknowledgment of need for reform of social policy whatever. Yet, the real question for students of social change is “Are these legislated reforms effective policy guides for local administration and the courts?”“|Or are they merely regulations for licensing compliance – primarily for foreign invested enterprises?”. In brief, “... to what extent are the new ‘workers’ rights’ realistically attainable sources of judicial remedies for individual workers?”. (shrink)

In this paper I wish to examine in detail the arguments which Spinoza uses in a very brief section of the Ethics, the lemmas following Proposition 13 of Part II. My aim in this analysis will be twofold: to attempt a preliminary sketch of the nature of a physical system in Spinoza’s view, and to clarify what Spinoza means by speaking of certain items as “individuals.” At least a partial fulfillment of the first aim is a necessary condition for the (...) second, since most of what Spinoza has to say about individuation in the Ethics and elsewhere is expressed in terms of individual bodies. His own solution of the mind-body problem entails that there will be correlative statements true at the ideational level; but, unfortunately, he usually leaves such correlations to his reader. I use the term “ideational” herein in preference to “mental” to avoid any dualistic connotation. Ideational and extensional levels for Spinoza refer to a dualism of denoting complexes, but not to a dualism of objects denoted by these. (shrink)

This study synthesizes research on evolutionary psychology, emotional appeals, and viral advertising in order to develop a novel perspective on how sustainable luxury brands can be effectively promoted on social media. The results of two experiments show that the emotional appeals of pride and gratitude increase consumer intentions to spread electronic word-of-mouth about sustainable luxury brands via two discrete mechanisms. Study 1 establishes that featuring the pride appeal increases eWOM intentions by heightening the luxury dimension of sustainable luxury brands, whereas (...) featuring the gratitude appeal increases eWOM intentions by heightening the sustainability dimension of sustainable luxury brands. Study 2 shows that these discrete effects of emotional appeals influence consumers to adopt different types of eWOM behaviors toward sustainable luxury brands. Specifically, the pride appeal increases consumer intentions to broadcast eWOM via status attainment motives. In contrast, the gratitude appeal increases consumer intentions to narrowcast eWOM via affiliation seeking motives. The findings offer novel theoretical insights and provide managers with tools to promote sustainable luxury brands in a digital environment. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 213 Seiten: 197-211.

Russell had two theories of names and one theory of description. Logically proper names are Millian names, which have only denotation but no connotation. Ordinary names are not genuine names but disguised definite descriptions subject to quantificational analyses. Only by asserting that ordinary names are definite descriptions could Russell motivate his theory of description to solve three problems for Millian names, namely, Frege’s puzzle, empty reference and negative existentials. Critics usually discuss Russell’s theories of names and his theory of description (...) separately. This paper takes a new perspective and presents a dilemma for the overall project, arguing that it is hard to be a Russellian about names coherently. The central issue is whether contextualisation is semantic or pragmatic in nature, an issue very much alive in contemporary debates. This paper traces Russell’s ambiguity on this matter back to his conception of the roles of knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description in naming. (shrink)

Using Ritzer’s McDonaldization of Society thesis as a reference point, this article contributes sociologically to burgeoning critical obesity studies. It does this using qualitative data from a study of men and weightrelated issues undertaken in northern England. Taking a counter-intuitive approach, it explores whether slimming proceeds in accord with the rationalizing principles of the fast-food restaurant: calculability, efficiency, predictability and technological control. Rather than reproducing a simplified and ultimately stigmatizing account, where fatness is a pathological bodily state caused by fast (...) food, this article explores the degree to which fatness is actively made into a correctable problem using McDonaldized principles. Irrationalities and meaningful resistances associated with the public and private fight against fat are also considered. (shrink)

이 논문은 현대 사회의 절망이라는 현상에 주목하면서 실존적 의미에서의 인간의 절망이란 무엇이고 절망의 근본 원인이 무엇인지 살펴보고, 이를 통하여 이러한 절망을 어떻게 극복할 수 있는가에 대하여 논의한다. 불안과 절망이라는 중요한 철학적 심리학의 주제에 관하여 키에르케고어는 그의 저서인 『불안의 개념』과 『죽음에 이르는 병』에서 인간이 근본 조건으로서의 불안과 절망을 경험할 수밖에 없는 근거를 해명하고자 했다. 본 연구에서는 키에르케고어의 이해에 바탕한 불안과 절망에 대한 이론적 고찰로부터 현대 사회에서 인간이 겪는 구체적인 형태의 절망을 철학적으로 어떻게 바라볼 수 있는지를 논의한다. 나아가 현대 사회에서 인간이 경험하는 (...) 절망을 철학상담의 관점에서 재해석하고, 이를 토대로 ‘공감적 대화’와 ‘초월’이라는 철학상담의 기법을 통해 이들이 자신이 마주한 절망을 극복하도록 도울 수 있는 가능성을 제시한다. (shrink)

Spinoza semble adopter une position pleinement norninaliste lorsqu’il discue des notions universelles dans l’Ethique, mais on y trouve aussi plusieurs arguments où, semble-t-il, des universaux sont présupposés. La solution avancé par plusieurs commentateurs, y compris Haserot, est que Ie système spinoziste est d’inspiration platoniste, et qu’il faut réinterpréter les passages d’apparence nominaliste pour les accorder avec Ie platonisme ou l’essentialisme. J’argurnente qu’un tel procédé n’est justifié ni par Ie texte ni par la structure du système de Spinoza. L’interprétation du spinozisme (...) que je propose Ie place dans Ie cadre logique du nominalisme contemporain, à I’instar du système de Nelson Goodman, par exemple. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to introduce an original and radical phenomenology of life into Heidegger’s earliest lectures at Freiburg University. The motivation behind this aim lies in the exclusion of life from the existential analytic despite Heidegger’s preoccupation with the question of life during this very early period. Principally, the essay demonstrates how Husserl’s phenomenological insight into the intentionality of life has the potential to be transformed into a living aporia. Although this demonstration is set within the general (...) context of obtaining knowledge in and of life, it is achieved via a reciprocal critique of the possibility of a philosophy of life and Husserlian phenomenology to reveal the congruence life philosophy has with the project of phenomenology. In contrast to fundamental ontology, the essay ends by exposing Heidegger’s latent and inexplicit formulation of phenomenology in terms of a radical correlation that holds aporetically between living and unliving experience. (shrink)

Executives of many publicly held firms agree to compensation packages that create immense exposure to their employer’s stock. Corporate boards, aspiring to motivate executives to make value-maximizing decisions, often tie an executive’s earnings to stock price performance through stock or option awards. However, this engenders a significant ethical dilemma for many executives who are uncomfortable with sizable, firm-specific risk and desire to reduce it through hedging activities. Recent research has shown that executive hedging has become more prevalent. In essence, managers (...) are unwinding the acute economic incentive to act in the best interest of the owners. This appears to violate the spirit of the compensation contract and from a normative standpoint, is not how executives should act. In this article, we describe how some executives are acting in regard to this issue (descriptive ethics), how they should act (normative ethics) and how they can be helped to get from what they are doing, to what they should be doing (prescriptive ethics). (shrink)

Without doubt, Weighing Lives, like its precursor, Weighing Goods, is an excellent and thought-provoking piece of work. In the first place, it addresses a question of the most fundamental importance, namely: how should we aggregate the well-being of past, present and future members of the human race under the various possible states of the world that may, in the event, prevail? This involves, amongst other things, dealing with questions of aggregation across time, people and different states of the world; the (...) issue of what constitutes a “neutral” state of well-being and what is, in fact, the value of continuing to survive. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life by Fabrizio AmeriniPatrick LeeAquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life. By Fabrizio Amerini. Translated by Mark Henninger. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013. Pp. xxii + 260. $29.95 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-674-07247-3.This book provides a comprehensive and textually grounded presentation of Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on embryology and an assessment of its bioethical implications. Despite (what I regard as) (...) some mistakes on the application of that teaching to contemporary embryological data, it is an invaluable sourcebook for Aquinas on this issue. At times, Amerini’s “aporetic” style makes for convoluted arguments, but it raises challenging questions and thus will assist anyone working through these issues. (As the title indicates, it also treats the end of life—but only very briefly, in a couple of pages near the end of the book.)The first two chapters examine Aquinas’s general principles regarding matter, form, and substantial generation (the coming to be of a substance), and his positon on the human soul as both subsistent and the substantial form of the human body. Amerini’s treatment is thorough and provides an extensive bibliographical guide to this issue. However, it seems to me that Amerini is less than clear on the distinctiveness of substantial change. Since there are (according to Aquinas and Aristotle) no degrees in the category of substance, generation is not a process but an instantaneous change. Amerini’s frequent use of the term “process of generation,” as well as the position he later proposes on the identity of the embryo, seems to conflict with that point. [End Page 489]Chapters 3 and 4 contain detailed exposition of Aquinas’s basic embryological position, and chapter 4 raises various questions about this position (including doubts that Amerini evidently has about the unicity of the human being’s substantial form). Applying his basic metaphysical principles to what he at the time believed were the embryological facts, Aquinas concluded that the human being with a rational soul is not present until forty days after fertilization for males or ninety days for females. The father and the mother generate the offspring, but the mother provides only the material cause in the form of menstrual blood; the father is the efficient and formal cause, acting through the semen as an instrumental cause. With the power (virtus) of the principal cause in it, the semen gradually organizes the menstrual blood provided by the mother to form, first, a being with a vegetative soul, then an animal, and finally an animal with a body suited to be formed by a rational soul, which God then infuses into it. Aquinas holds that, unlike a sensitive or vegetative soul, a rational soul must be directly created by God, since the rational soul is the source of operations that are independent of matter, that is, performed by the human being but without a bodily organ. Only matter that is suited to a form can receive it. Therefore the matter must be suitably disposed. Just as one can make a knife only with matter capable of supporting its function—and so the matter must be hard and capable of being sharp—so only a body with sense organs, and thus capable of supporting those actions prerequisite to rational operations, can receive a rational soul.Chapter 5 sets out in detail Amerini’s exposition and interpretation of Aquinas on the identity of the embryo. Amerini recognizes, of course, Aquinas’s mistakes and ignorance regarding basic embryological facts—inevitable given the time in which he wrote. Still, Amerini holds that Aquinas’s main conclusion regarding delayed hominization is still valid. He agrees with Aquinas that the general proportionality requirement implies that the embryo/fetus must first possess sensory organs to have a body apt for the reception of a rational soul.On the other hand, Amerini also advances what he believes is a via media between proponents of delayed hominization and proponents of immediate hominization. He argues that although the embryo is not numerically identical with the human being (which comes to be only with the infusion of the rational soul), nevertheless, the embryo from... (shrink)

I argue that naturalistic pictures provide a guide and a justification for our concept of colour. The crucial relation between pictures and colours is to be brought out, not by reference to the ‘internal’ relations between colours (for example, what differentiates green from red), but by considering how colours are differentiated from the wider range of visually discriminable qualities. Naturalistic pictures effect such a differentiation by simulating colour-like qualities such as gold, amber, and blond, while requiring nothing beyond the three-dimensional (...) manifold of colour space. The seeming simplicity and salience of colour in our visual experience should be recognized as depending on our familiarity with this reductive power of naturalistic pictures. While some sense of these issues has been given expression by many thinkers, the idea is significantly articulated in remarks of Wittgenstein's that were prompted by his reading of a letter the painter Runge wrote to Goethe. (shrink)

This article, drawing on Marsilius of Padua's Defensor Pacis, discusses Marsilius's theory of dominium, situating that theory within the context of the debate with Pope John XXII and William of Ockham. The author also reintroduces the long unsettled question of the extent of Marsilius's legal knowledge and training. The article closes by calling for a more sustained investigation of Marsilius's knowledge of Roman law, and of his relation to the poverty controversy and especially Ockham.

In 1976, John Immerwahr published a classroom simulation designed to illustrate Hobbes’ model of the mutual transfer of rights in the formation of the social contract. The game is fruitfully seized upon in classrooms from a broad range of disciplines because the lesson of Hobbes’ state of nature and Immerwahr’s game can both be represented and elucidated by principles of game theory. This paper reintroduces a new generation of teachers to what the author calls “one of the finest philosophy simulations (...) ever designed”, offers suggestions on conducting the game and on how Immerwahr’s implementation of it can be improved, and discusses its game-theoretic implications. Whereas Immerwahr’s version of the game approximates the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the version presented in this paper more closely resembles the “Assurance Game”. Accordingly, the results of the author’s game indicate that, if given the chance to cooperate, students do so, and the average student finishes the game better off than in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The author relates the results of his game to the theories of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and concludes by underscoring the richness of the game for philosophical analysis. (shrink)

Previous research, for example in English, French, German, and Spanish, has investigated the interplay between grammatical gender information and stereotype gender information (e.g., that secretaries are usually female, in many cultures), in the interpretation of both singular noun phrases (the secretary) and plural nouns phrases, particularly so-called generic masculines—nouns that have masculine grammatical gender but that should be able to refer to both groups of men and mixed groups of men and women. Since the studies have been conducted in cultures (...) with broadly similar stereotypes, the effects generally reflect differences in the grammatical systems of the languages. Russian has a more complex grammatical gender system than the languages previously studied, and, unlike those languages frequently presents examples in which grammatical gender is marked on the predicate (in an inflection on the verb). In this study we collected stereotype norms for 160 role names in Russian, providing a useful resource for further work in this language. We also conducted a reading time study examining the interaction of grammatical and stereotype gender information in the interpretation of both Russian singular noun phrases, and plurals that were (potentially) generic masculines. Our results show that, although both types of gender information are used, when available, the effects of grammatical marking on the predicate are not as strong as those of such marking on subject noun phrases. (shrink)