Technoscientific ambitions for perfecting human-like machines, by advancing state-of-the-art neuromorphic architectures and cognitive computing, may end in ironic regret without pondering the humanness of fallible artificial non-normative personalities. Self-organizing artificial personalities individualize machine performance and identity through fuzzy conscientiousness, emotionality, extraversion/introversion, and other traits, rendering insights into technology-assisted human evolution, robot ethology/pedagogy, and best practices against unwanted autonomous machine behavior.

Abstract:Building on John Rawls’s account of the Law of Peoples, this paper examines the grounds and scope of the obligations of transnational corporations (TNCs) that are owned by members of developed economies and operate in developing economies. The paper advances two broad claims. First, the paper argues that there are conditions under which TNCs have obligations to fulfill a limited duty of assistance toward those living in developing economies, even though the duty is normally understood to fall on the (...) governments of developed economies. Second, by extending Rawls’s account to include a right to protection against arbitrary interference, the paper argues that TNCs can be said to have negative and positive obligations in the areas of human rights, labor standards, and environmental protection, as outlined in the U.N. Global Compact. More generally, the paper aims to further our understanding of the implications of Rawls’s account of justice. (shrink)

As medical technology advances and severely injured or ill people can be kept alive and functioning long beyond what was previously medically possible, the debate surrounding the ethics of end-of-life care and quality-of-life issues has grown more urgent. In this lucid and vigorous book, Craig Paterson discusses assisted suicide and euthanasia from a fully fledged but non-dogmatic secular natural law perspective. He rehabilitates and revitalises the natural law approach to moral reasoning by developing a pluralistic account of just why we (...) are required by practical rationality to respect and not violate key demands generated by the primary goods of persons, especially human life. Important issues that shape the moral quality of an action are explained and analysed: intention/foresight; action/omission; action/consequences; killing/letting die; innocence/non-innocence; person/non-person. Paterson defends the central normative proposition that ‘it is always a serious moral wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human person, whether self or another, notwithstanding any further appeal to consequences or motive’. (shrink)

IntroductionDementia diseases, especially Alzheimer’s disease (AD), are of considerable importance in terms of social policy and health economics. Moreover, against the background of the current Karlsruhe judgement on the legalisation of assisted suicide, there are also questions to be asked about medical humanities in AD.MethodologyRelevant literature on complementary forms of therapy and prognosis was included and discussed.ResultsCreative sociotherapeutic approaches (art, music, dance) and validating psychotherapeutic approaches show promise for suitability and efficiency in the treatment of dementia, but in some cases (...) still need to be scientifically tested. Biomarker-based early diagnosis of dementia diseases is increasingly becoming a subject of debate against the background of the Karlsruhe ruling.DiscussionNeeds-oriented and resource-enhancing approaches can make a significant contribution to improving the quality of life of people with dementia. The discussion on the issue of “assisted suicide” should include questions of the dignity and value of a life with dementia.OutlookThe integrative dementia therapy model can be complemented by a religion- and spirituality-based approach. Appropriate forms of psychotherapy should be scientifically evaluated. (shrink)

As globalization has deepened worldwide economic integration, moral and political philosophers have become increasingly concerned to assess duties to help needy people in foreign countries. The essays in this volume present ideas on this important topic by authors who are leading figures in these debates. At issue are both the political responsibility of governments of affluent countries to relieve poverty abroad and the personal responsibility of individuals to assist the distant needy. The wide-ranging arguments shed light on global distributive justice, (...) human rights and their implementation, the varieties of community and the obligations they generate, and the moral relevance of distance. This provocative volume will interest scholars in ethics, political philosophy, political theory, international law and development economics, as well as policy makers, aid agencies, and general readers interested in the moral dimensions of poverty and affluence. (shrink)

The purpose of this text is to tell the story of the implementation of the _Act Respecting End-of-Life Care,_ referred to hereafter as _Law 2_ (Gouvernement du Québec, 2014) with an emphasis on the ambiguous role of ethics in the Interdisciplinary Support Groups (ISGs), created by Quebec's _Ministère de la santé et des services sociaux_ (MSSS). As established, ISGs provide “clinical, administrative and ethical support to health care professionals responding to a request for Medical aid in dying (MAiD)” (Gouvernement du (...) Québec, 2015). It is suggested that their composition includes the participation of a person with an expertise in ethics. These ISGs represent an important innovation for stakeholders involved in MAiD. To date, no scientific research has specifically addressed ISGs and little research has been conducted in other jurisdictions on the roles, operations and practices of MAiD support structures, especially the implication of ethics. Several ISGs have certainly developed promising practices that could benefit all stakeholders in the wider field of ethics and end of life. We will explore the development of ISGs in Quebec as a support structure for MAiD by highlighting the role that ethics has played (and should play) in these morally and humanly challenging situations. (shrink)

Leon Kass's often-cited essay, “Death with Dignity and the Sanctity of Life,” provides the basis for a case study in the rhetorical function of definition in debates concerning bioethics. The study examines the way a particular definition of “human dignity” is used to maintain an advantage of power in the debate over the morality of physician-assisted suicide. It also considers sources of human dignity that are deflected from attention by the rhetoric of Kass's formulation.

Abstract:Building on John Rawls’s account of the Law of Peoples, this paper examines the grounds and scope of the obligations of transnational corporations (TNCs) that are owned by members of developed economies and operate in developing economies. The paper advances two broad claims. First, the paper argues that there are conditions under which TNCs have obligations to fulfill a limited duty of assistance toward those living in developing economies, even though the duty is normally understood to fall on the (...) governments of developed economies. Second, by extending Rawls’s account to include a right to protection against arbitrary interference, the paper argues that TNCs can be said to have negative and positive obligations in the areas of human rights, labor standards, and environmental protection, as outlined in the U.N. Global Compact. More generally, the paper aims to further our understanding of the implications of Rawls’s account of justice. (shrink)

In service marketing, AI assistants and self-service technology have become popular. As a result, it is critical to enrich the understanding of whether consumers react differently in the artificial intelligence service context in comparison with the human service context. This study examines the effect of assistant type on consumers’ decision-making. Through three experiments, this research finds that variety seeking will be higher when consumers are making decision in AI service environment. Furthermore, we tested uncertainty as the underlying mechanism. Moreover, we (...) demonstrated that this pattern is moderated by situational involvement. Specifically, in consumption contexts of high involvement, the consumers are less likely to seek variety, and in consumption contexts of low involvement, they prefer more variety. This research offers service providers new insights by revealing how, why, and when the interaction of AI technology influences consumers’ decision-making in service marketing. (shrink)

Contemporary medical imaging technologies produce images on the level of human cells. As a result of such images, egg and sperm cells have become well-known artefacts of popular culture. Medical imaging technology has transformed these gametes from invisible matter integrated in biological processes within the body to identifiable objects. The visualisation of egg and sperm cells has literally lifted the process of human reproduction out of the female body and made the gametes appear as protagonists in the story of human (...) reproduction. The article argues that visualisation of the gametes and the central role they play in contemporary imaginations of reproduction may offer vital contributions to the rather rapid acceptance and normalisation of assisted reproduction. (shrink)

This book provides novel perspectives on ethical justifiability of assisted dying in the revised edition of New Directions in the Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. Going significantly beyond traditional debates about the value of human life, the ethical significance of individual autonomy, the compatibility of assisted dying with the ethical obligations of medical professionals, and questions surrounding intention and causation, this book promises to shift the terrain of the ethical debates about assisted dying. The novel themes discussed in the (...) revised edition include the role of markets, disability, gender, artificial intelligence, medical futility, race, and transhumanism. Ideal for advanced courses in bioethics and healthcare ethics, the book illustrates how social and technological developments will shape debates about assisted dying in the years to come. (shrink)

Assisted dying and human dignity are two extremely contested topics in Bioethics. This volume offers the first book-length attempt to bring both together. Its authors develop detailed philosophical analyses of dignity, and how it relates to assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Classic studies in human sensorimotor control use simplified tasks to uncover fundamental control strategies employed by the nervous system. Such simple tasks are critical for isolating specific features of motor, sensory, or cognitive processes, and for inferring causality between these features and observed behavioral changes. However, it remains unclear how these theories translate to complex sensorimotor tasks or to natural behaviors. Part of the difficulty in performing such experiments has been the lack of appropriate tools for measuring complex motor skills (...) in real-world contexts. Robot-assisted surgery (RAS) provides an opportunity to overcome these challenges by enabling unobtrusive measurements of user behavior. In addition, a continuum of tasks with varying complexity – from simple tasks such as those in classic studies to highly complex tasks such as a surgical procedure – can be studied using RAS platforms. Finally, RAS includes a diverse participant population of inexperienced users all the way to expert surgeons. In this perspective, we illustrate how the characteristics of RAS systems make them compelling platforms to extend many theories in human neuroscience, as well as, to develop new theories altogether. (shrink)

Assisted reproductive technology is a global market engaging a variety of local moral economies where the construction of the demand–supply relationship takes different forms through the operation of the politics of value. This paper analyzes how the market–culture relationship works in different settings, showing how power and resources determine what value will, or will not, accrue from that relationship. A commodity’s potential economic value can only be realized through the operation of the market if its cultural status is seen to (...) be legitimate. At the same time, local moral economies and their associated social orders are potentially susceptible to the destabilizing implications of new commodities. The formal or informal organization of power relationships in the market–culture interaction can enable potential value to become manifest and tangible over time or block its path. The interaction is steered through national institutional sources of cultural authority embedded in state and religion, where the visible contest in the politics of value is conducted. Increasingly, that interaction finds its expression in transnational institutions of governance where the struggle for control of the cultural agenda reflects the global nature of the ART market. (shrink)

Advocates of legalization of physician-assisted suicide usually argue that it is as matter of respect for human dignity that people get help in ending their lives (1) because the prohibition interferes with a fundamental liberty to conduct life according to one’s own preferences and (2) because sometimes suicide is an appropriate measure to avoid living an undignified life. In this chapter, it is argued that although the first argument is strong, the second argument is misguided. Hence, from an ethical perspective, (...) society should not legally prohibit physician-assisted suicide. Yet, the person him- or herself should not commit suicide either. In particularly, the person should not regard such a suicide as a demand of his or her dignity. (shrink)

Embryo litigation -- Access to ART treatment : insurance and discrimination -- General professional liability litigation -- Paternity and donor insemination -- Maternity and egg donation -- Traditional and gestational surrogacy arrangements -- Posthumous reproduction : access and parentage -- Same-sex parentage and ART -- Genetics (PGD) and ART -- ART-related embryonic stem cell legal developments -- ART-related adoption litigation -- ART-related fetal litigation and abortion-related litigation.

The lack of consensus in American society regarding the permissibility of assisted suicide and euthanasia is due in large part to a failure to address the nature of the human person involved in the ethical act itself. For Karol Wojtyla, philosopher and Pope, ethical action finds meaning only in an authentic understanding of the person; but it is through acting ( actus humanus ) alone that the human person reveals himself. Knowing what the person ought to be cannot be divorced (...) from what he ought to do; forWojtyla, the structure of the ethical “do” – the act itself – comes first. The current paper will focus on four arguments used to justify assisted suicide and euthanasia: (1) the argument from autonomy, (2) the argument from compassion, (3) the argument from the evil of suffering, and (4) the argument from the loss of dignity. It will seek to answer each claim from the perspective of Karol Wojtyla's philosophical anthropology. Much of this will come from his defining work in pure philosophy, The Acting Person (1969). The final part of the paper will suggest some positive solutions to the stalemate over the euthanasia debate, again drawn from Wojtyla's idea of human fulfillment through participation with the other, and with the community itself. (shrink)

What is the ethical impact of artificial intelligence assistants on human lives, and specifically how much do they threaten our individual autonomy? Recently, as part of forming an ethical framework for thinking about the impact of AI assistants on our lives, John Danaher claims that if the external automaticity generated by the use of AI assistants threatens our autonomy and is therefore ethically problematic, then the internal automaticity we already live with should be viewed in the same way. He takes (...) advantage of this paradox of internal automaticity to downplay the threats of external automaticity to our autonomy. We respond in this paper by challenging the legitimacy of the paradox. While Danaher assumes that internal and external automaticity are roughly equivalent, we argue that there are reasons why we should accept a large degree of internal automaticity, that it is actually essential to our sense of autonomy, and as such it is ethically good; however, the same does not go for external automaticity. Therefore, the similarity between the two is not as powerful as the paradox presumes. In conclusion, we make practical recommendations for how to better manage the integration of AI assistants into society. (shrink)

Discussions about assisted suicide have hitherto been based on accounts of dignity conceived only as an inherent value or as a status; accounts of dignity in which it appears as a (contingent) attitude, by contrast, have been neglected. Yet there are two good reasons to consider dignity to be an attitude. First, this concept of dignity best allows us to grasp a crucial aspect of everyday language: people often express fears of losing their dignity—and it is not possible to explain (...) this with an account in which dignity is inherent. Second, such a concept allows us to adduce new argumentation where the argument based on status ends. Dignity considered as a status provides grounds to argue for the moral permissibility of assisted suicide, in the sense that in such an account individuals possess the normative power to waive their right to life. But the question then remains of how to decide what counts as a good reason for assisted suicide—and this is where an argument based on dignity as an attitude can provide illumination. (shrink)

This article deals with a foreign policy question of extraordinary importance: what responsibilities do States have to provide economic and technical assistance to other States that have high levels of need affecting the health and life of their citizens? The question is important for a variety of reasons. There exist massive inequalities in health globally, with the result that poorer countries shoulder a disproportionate burden of disease and premature death. Average life expectancy in Africa is nearly 30 years shorter (...) than in the Americas or Europe. In one year alone, an estimated 14 million of the poorest people in the world died, while only an estimated four million would have died if this population had the same death rate as the global rich. (shrink)

I argue that the concept ‘physician-assisted suicide’ covers two procedures that should be distinguished: giving someone access to humane means to end his own life, and taking co-responsibility for the safe and effective execution of that plan. In the first section I explain the distinction, in the following sections I show why it is important. To begin with I argue that we should expect the laws that permit these two kinds of ‘assistance’ to be different in their justificatory structure. (...) Laws that permit giving access only presuppose that the right to self-determination implies a right to suicide, but laws that permit doctors to take co-responsibility may have to appeal to a principle of mercy or beneficence. Actually this difference in justificatory structure can to some extent be found in existing regulatory systems, though far from consistently. Finally I argue that if one recognizes a right to suicide, as Oregon and other American states implicitly do, and as the European Court of Human Rights has recently done explicitly, one is committed to permit the first kind of ‘assistance’ under some conditions. (shrink)

International migration of work force is presently a high amplitude phenomenon. Romanian people have emigrated for work around the world, being engaged both in the physically hardest jobs and in activities that require completion of specialized courses and certification in a particular field. This last category includes social workers who, following schooling and certification and even having a minimal experience in the home country, apply for jobs in the field of social assistance. These recruiters aim to distribute social workers (...) at the workplace of interest, according to certain well-defined criteria. In the present paper we describe international migration of work force, and we illustrate it by adding case studies of life experience of social workers who underwent the process of emigration to the United Kingdom. Throughout the emigration process, these workers experienced certain changes in their life principles, mentality, values, and were marked by professional dilemmas in extreme situations. (shrink)

In this article, Gostin and Archer explore the varied lenses through which governments are obligated to address humanitarian needs. States’responsibilities to help others derive from domestic law, political commitments, ethical values, national interests, and international law. What is needed, however, is clarity and detailed standards so that States can operationalize this responsibility, making it real for developing countries. Transnational cooperation needs to be more effective and consistent to provide assistance for the world's poorest and least healthy people.

Assisted migration is a controversial conservation measure that includes moving species threatened by climate change beyond their indigenous range. Sandler argues that assisted migration exhausts most of the value of the species moved and that assisted migration, thus, fails to be a workable conservation measure. We show how accepting the moral relevance of species' indigenous range helps to reconcile Sandler's argument with earlier arguments about value loss in ecosystem restoration by Elliot and Katz. Contrary to Sandler, they do not favour (...) losing a biological unit to retaining it in a human-influenced form. Drawing on the distinction between property- and history-based understandings of naturalness, we further argue that the outcomes of assisted migration to the predicted range are more natural in the property-based sense of the term, and thus retain more value, than the outcomes of "assisted migration" elsewhere. (shrink)

In this article, we present an ethics framework for health practice in humanitarian and development work: the ethics of engaged presence. The ethics of engaged presence framework aims to articulate in a systematic fashion approaches and orientations that support the engagement of expatriate health care professionals in ways that align with diverse obligations and responsibilities, and promote respectful and effective action and relationships. Drawn from a range of sources, the framework provides a vocabulary and narrative structure for examining the moral (...) dimensions of providing development or humanitarian health assistance to individuals and communities, and working with and alongside local and international actors. The elements also help minimize or avoid certain miscalculations and harms. Emphasis is placed on the shared humanity of those who provide and those who receive assistance, acknowledgement of limits and risks related to the contributions of expatriate health care professionals, and the importance of providing skillful and relevant assistance. These elements articulate a moral posture for expatriate health care professionals that contributes to orienting the practice of clinicians in ways that reflect respect, humility, and solidarity. Health care professionals whose understanding and actions are consistent with the ethics of engaged presence will be oriented toward introspection and reflective practice and toward developing, sustaining and promoting collaborative partnerships. (shrink)

Recent works on the concept of dignity have opened up the otherwise quite deadlocked debate about assisted death (AD). Rather than just reinforcing already fixed positions, it seems to me that these conceptions of dignity make room for a moderate and normatively richer position on the moral permissibility of AD. I do not think that we have seen the full potential of the said conceptions and interpretations. I try in this article to contribute my part. First, I briefly recapitulate some (...) of the paradoxical ways in which dignity is typically invoked in the debate and try to clear up some of the obvious confusions. Then, I go on to explore a particular Kantian line of thought in some recent works on dignity and AD that seems to pave the way for a moderate position with a more principled foundation than the usual compromise positions. (shrink)

Chapter one argues for the important contribution that a natural law based framework can make towards an analysis and assessment of key controversies surrounding the practices of suicide, assisted suicide, and voluntary euthanasia. The second chapter considers a number of historical contributions to the debate. The third chapter takes up the modern context of ideas that have increasingly come to the fore in shaping the 'push' for reform. Particular areas focused upon include the value of human life, the value of (...) personal autonomy, and the rejection of double effect reasoning. Chapter four engages in the task of pointing out structural weakness in utilitarianism and deontology. The thesis argues that major systemic weaknesses in both approaches can be overcome by a teleology of basic human goods. John Finnis' work becomes the underpinning of subsequent applied natural law analysis. Chapter five proceeds to argue for the defence of the intrinsic good of human life from direct attack. The thesis holds out for the proposition "that it is always a serious moral wrong to intentionally kill a human person, whether self or another, regardless of a further appeal to consequences or motive." In support of this, it defends the validity of double effect reasoning as an indispensable part of applied moral decision making. Chapter six critically assesses the arguments of anti-perfectionists that it is not the business of the state to enforce deep or substantive conceptions of the 'good life.' The chapter moves on to argue that the natural law conception of the person in society, centred on the common good, provides a solid framework for assessing both the justification for, as well as the limits on, the role of the state to use its power to legally impose certain moral standards. Chapter seven addresses the concrete relationship between natural law and legal policy by exploring the issue of assisted suicide in the constitutional context of the United States.















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Proprioception has a crucial role in promoting or hindering motor learning. In particular, an intact position sense strongly correlates with the chances of recovery after stroke. A great majority of neurological patients present both motor dysfunctions and impairments in kinesthesia, but traditional robot and virtual reality training techniques focus either in recovering motor functions or in assessing proprioceptive deficits. An open challenge is to implement effective and reliable tests and training protocols for proprioception that go beyond the mere position sense (...) evaluation and exploit the intrinsic bidirectionality of the kinesthetic sense, which refers to both sense of position and sense of movement. Modulated haptic interaction has a leading role in promoting sensorimotor integration and it is a natural way to enhance volitional effort. Therefore, we designed a preliminary clinical study to test a new proprioception-based motor training technique for augmenting kinesthetic awareness via haptic feedback. The feedback was provided by a robotic manipulandum and the test involved 7 chronic hemiparetic subjects over three weeks. The protocol included evaluation sessions, that consisted of a psychometric estimate of the subject’s kinesthetic sensation, and training sessions, in which the subject executed planar reaching movements in the absence of vision and under a minimally assistive haptic guidance made by sequences of graded force pulses. The bidirectional haptic interaction between the subject and the robot was optimally adapted to each participant in order to achieve a uniform task difficulty over the workspace. All the subjects consistently improved in the perceptual scores as a consequence of training. Moreover, they could minimize the level of haptic guidance in time. Results suggest that the proposed method is effective in enhancing kinesthetic acuity, but the level of impairment may affect the ability of subjects to retain their improvement in time. (shrink)

Among the many applications of artificial intelligence (AI), virtual assistants are one of the tools most likely to grow in the future. The development of these systems may play an increasingly important role in many facets of our lives. Therefore, given their potential importance and present and future weight, it is worthwhile to analyze what kind of challenges they entail. In this chapter, we will provide an overview of the ethical aspects of artificial virtual assistants. First, we provide a conceptual (...) clarification of the term ‘virtual assistant’, including different types of interfaces and recommender systems. Second, we address three ethical issues related to the deployment of these systems: their effects on human agency and autonomy and the subsequent cognitive dependence they would generate; the human obsolescence that may cause a generalized extension of the dependence problem; and the invasions of privacy that virtual assistants may cause. Finally, we outline the debates about the use of virtual assistants to improve human moral decisions and some areas in which these systems can be applied. (shrink)

In this article, we present an ethics framework for health practice in humanitarian and development work: the ethics of engaged presence. The ethics of engaged presence framework aims to articulate in a systematic fashion approaches and orientations that support the engagement of expatriate health care professionals in ways that align with diverse obligations and responsibilities, and promote respectful and effective action and relationships. Drawn from a range of sources, the framework provides a vocabulary and narrative structure for examining the moral (...) dimensions of providing development or humanitarian health assistance to individuals and communities, and working with and alongside local and international actors. The elements also help minimize or avoid certain miscalculations and harms. Emphasis is placed on the shared humanity of those who provide and those who receive assistance, acknowledgement of limits and risks related to the contributions of expatriate health care professionals, and the importance of providing skillful and relevant assistance. These elements articulate a moral posture for expatriate health care professionals that contributes to orienting the practice of clinicians in ways that reflect respect, humility, and solidarity. Health care professionals whose understanding and actions are consistent with the ethics of engaged presence will be oriented toward introspection and reflective practice and toward developing, sustaining and promoting collaborative partnerships. (shrink)

Against the backdrop of an aging world population increasingly affected by a diverse range of abilities and disabilities as well as the rise of ubiquitous computing and digital app cultures, this paper questions how mobile technologies mediate between heterogeneous environments and sensing beings. To approach the current technological manufacturing of the senses, two lines of thought are of importance: First, there is a need to critically reflect upon the concept of assistive technologies as artifacts providing tangible solutions for a specific (...) disability. Second, the conventional distinction between user and environment requires a differentiated consideration. This contribution will first review James Gibson’s concept of “affordances” and modify this approach by introducing theories and methods of Science and Technology Studies and Actor-Network Theory. Then, we present two case studies where we explore the relations between recent “assistive” app technologies and human sensory perception. As hearing and seeing are key in this regard, we concentrate on two specific media technologies: ReSound LINX2, a hearing aid which allows for direct connect with iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, and Camassia, an IOS app for sonic wayfinding for blind people. We emphasize the significance of dis-/abling practices for manufacturing novel forms of hearing and seeing and drawing on sources like promotional materials by manufacturers, ads, or user testimonials and reviews. Our analysis is interested in the reciprocal relationships between users and their socio-technical and media environments. By and large, this contribution will provide crucial insights into the contemporary entanglement of algorithm-driven technologies, daily practices, and sensing subjects: the production of techno-sensory arrangements. (shrink)

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence systems has generated a means whereby assistive bionic prosthetics can become both more effective and practical for the patients who rely upon the use of such machines in their daily lives. However, de lege lata remains relatively unspoken as to the legal status of patients whose devices contain self-learning CIS that can interface directly with the peripheral nervous system. As a means to reconcile for this lack of legal foresight, this article approaches the topic (...) of CIS-nervous system interaction and the impacts it may have on the legal definition of “persons” under the law. While other literature of this nature centres upon notions of transhumanism or self-enhancement, the approach herein approached is designed to focus solely upon the legal nature of independent CIS actions when operating alongside human subjects. To this end, it is hoped that further discussion on the topic can be garnered outside of transhumanist discourse to expedite legal consideration for how these emerging relationships ought to be received by law-generating bodies internationally. (shrink)

This article presents a novel set of ten play scenarios for robot-assisted play for children with special needs. This set of scenarios is one of the key outcomes of the IROMEC project that investigated how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging children with special needs to discover a range of play styles, from solitary to collaborative play. The target user groups in the project were children with Mild Mental Retardation,1 children with Severe Motor Impairment and children with Autism. The (...) play scenarios were developed against specific educational and therapeutic objectives that were discussed with panels of experts in various countries, during several user panel meetings for each of the above mentioned target user groups. These objectives were classified with reference to the ICF-CY, the International Classification of Functioning – version for Children and Youth. The article presents a detailed description of the play scenarios, each with its relevant educational and therapeutic objectives in five key developmental areas. While the play scenarios described in this paper originally were developed for and tested with the above user groups and with the IROMEC robot, the play scenarios can potentially be applied to other user groups and to a wide range of other applications involving human-robot interaction using different robotic toys. Keywords: human-robot interaction; assistive technology; play scenarios; autism; mild mental retardation; sever motor impairment; assisted play. (shrink)

Human-Computer Interaction and games set a new domain in understanding people’s motivations in gaming, behavioral implications of game play, game adaptation to player preferences and needs for increased engaging experiences in the context of HCI serious games. When the latter relate with people’s health status, they can become a part of their daily life as assistive health status monitoring/enhancement systems. Co-designing HCI-SGs can be seen as a combination of art and science that involves a meticulous collaborative process. The design elements (...) in assistive HCI-SGs for Parkinson’s Disease patients, in particular, are explored in the present work. Within this context, the Game-Based Learning design framework is adopted here and its main game-design parameters are explored for the Exergames, Dietarygames, Emotional games, Handwriting games, and Voice games design, drawn from the PD-related i-PROGNOSIS Personalized Game Suite holistic approach. Two main data sources were involved in the study. In particular, the first one includes qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, involving 10 PD patients and four clinicians in the co-creation process of the game design, whereas the second one relates with data from an online questionnaire addressed by 104 participants spanning the whole related spectrum, i.e., PD patients, physicians, software/game developers. Linear regression analysis was employed to identify an adapted GBL framework with the most significant game-design parameters, which efficiently predict the transferability of the PGS beneficial effect to real-life, addressing functional PD symptoms. The findings of this work can assist HCI-SG designers for designing PD-related HCI-SGs, as the most significant game-design factors were identified, in terms of adding value to the role of HCI-SGs in increasing PD patients’ quality of life, optimizing the interaction with personalized HCI-SGs and, hence, fostering a collaborative human-computer symbiosis. (shrink)

Arguments concerning central issues of contemporary Medical Ethics often not only bear similarities, but also derive their sheer essence from notions which belong to the celebrated history of Ethics. Thus, argumentation pro euthanasia and assisted suicide which focus on the detainment of dignity and the ensuring of posthumous reputation on behalf of the moral agent is shown to echo stoic views on arête and the subordination of life to the primary human goal, namely the achievement of virtue. The progress made (...) in palliative care when seen alongside the — steadily increasing — requests for suicide, is indicative of the fact that, though pain now days can be effectively controlled, moral agents often consider the preservation of their life detrimental to the detainment of virtue or posthumous reputation. The stoic view is considered to justify elective death as a personal choice, but is deemed inadequate as well as inconsistent in the broader context of a coherent value theory. (shrink)

Legalisation of assisted suicide presents a dilemma for society. This arises because of a lack of consensus regarding the precedence to be accorded freedom of choice versus the inviolability of human life. A combination of factors has served to throw this dilemma into sharper focus in recent times. These include population aging,1,2 increased openness regarding end-of-life care,3 development of patients' rights, and increasing secularisation and multiculturalism in society. Against this backdrop and within a context where several countries have addressed legislation (...) of …. (shrink)

Among the many applications of artificial intelligence (AI), virtual assistants are one of the tools most likely to grow in the future. The development of these systems may play an increasingly important role in many facets of our lives. Therefore, given their potential importance and present and future weight, it is worthwhile to analyze what kind of challenges they entail. In this chapter, we will provide an overview of the ethical aspects of artificial virtual assistants. First, we provide a conceptual (...) clarification of the term ‘virtual assistant’, including different types of interfaces and recommender systems. Second, we address three ethical issues related to the deployment of these systems: their effects on human agency and autonomy and the subsequent cognitive dependence they would generate; the human obsolescence that may cause a generalized extension of the dependence problem; and the invasions of privacy that virtual assistants may cause. Finally, we outline the debates about the use of virtual assistants to improve human moral decisions and some areas in which these systems can be applied. (shrink)

In 1968, the Harvard criteria equated irreversible coma and apnea with human death and later, the Uniform Determination of Death Act was enacted permitting organ procurement from heart-beating donors. Since then, clinical studies have defined a spectrum of states of impaired consciousness in human beings: coma, akinetic mutism, minimally conscious state, vegetative state and brain death. In this article, we argue against the validity of the Harvard criteria for equating brain death with human death. Brain death does not disrupt somatic (...) integrative unity and coordinated biological functioning of a living organism. Neurological criteria of human death fail to determine the precise moment of an organism’s death when death is established by circulatory criterion in other states of impaired consciousness for organ procurement with non-heart-beating donation protocols. The criterion of circulatory arrest 75 s to 5 min is too short for irreversible cessation of whole brain functions and respiration controlled by the brain stem. Brain -based criteria for determining death with a beating heart exclude relevant anthropologic, psychosocial, cultural, and religious aspects of death and dying in society. Clinical guidelines for determining brain death are not consistently validated by the presence of irreversible brain stem ischemic injury or necrosis on autopsy; therefore, they do not completely exclude reversible loss of integrated neurological functions in donors. The questionable reliability and varying compliance with these guidelines among institutions amplify the risk of determining reversible states of impaired consciousness as irreversible brain death. The scientific uncertainty of defining and determining states of impaired consciousness including brain death have been neither disclosed to the general public nor broadly debated by the medical community or by legal and religious scholars. Heart-beating or non-heart-beating organ procurement from patients with impaired consciousness is de facto a concealed practice of physician-assisted death, and therefore, violates both criminal law and the central tenet of medicine not to do harm to patients. Society must decide if physician-assisted death is permissible and desirable to resolve the conflict about procuring organs from patients with impaired consciousness within the context of the perceived need to enhance the supply of transplantable organs. (shrink)

The use of robots in therapy for children with autism spectrum disorder raises issues concerning the ethical and social acceptability of this technology and, more generally, about human–robot interaction. However, usually philosophical papers on the ethics of human–robot-interaction do not take into account stakeholders’ views; yet it is important to involve stakeholders in order to render the research responsive to concerns within the autism and autism therapy community. To support responsible research and innovation in this field, this paper identifies a (...) range of ethical, social and therapeutic concerns, and presents and discusses the results of an exploratory survey that investigated these issues and explored stakeholders’ expectations about this kind of therapy. We conclude that although in general stakeholders approve of using robots in therapy for children with ASD, it is wise to avoid replacing therapists by robots and to develop and use robots that have what we call supervised autonomy. This is likely to create more trust among stakeholders and improve the quality of the therapy. Moreover, our research suggests that issues concerning the appearance of the robot need to be adequately dealt with by the researchers and therapists. For instance, our survey suggests that zoomorphic robots may be less problematic than robots that look too much like humans. (shrink)

The title of Hare’s book refers to the gap between the demand that morality places on us and our natural capacity to live by it. Such a gap is paradoxical if we accept the “‘ought’ implies ‘can”’ principle. The solution, Hare argues, is that the gap is filled by the Christian God. So we ought to be moral and can do so—with divine assistance. Hare’s statement and defense of the existence of the gap combines a rigorously Kantian notion of (...) the moral demand with a rigorously Calvinist notion of human depravity. As such, many readers will find the gap exaggerated, but most people will admit that there is some sort of gap here to be faced, and any gap at all is a problem. (shrink)

Abstract.In Canada, food assistance is provided through a widespread network of extra-governmental, community-based, charitable programs, popularly termed “food banks”. Most of the food they distribute has been donated by food producers, processors, and retailers or collected through appeals to the public. Some industry donations are of market quality, but many donations are “surplus” food that cannot be retailed. Drawing on insights from an ethnographic study of food bank work in southern Ontario, we examined how the structure and function of (...) food banks operate to facilitate the distribution of foods not marketed through the retail system. Our findings indicate that the handling of industry donations of unsaleable products is a labor-intensive activity, made possible by the surfeit of unpaid labor in food banks, the neediness of food bank clients, and clients’ lack of rights in this system. The marshalling of volunteer labor to serve a corporate need might be construed as a “win-win” situation because the work of salvaging edible foodstuffs from among industry “surplus” helps to “feed the hungry” while also diminishing the amount of refuse deposited in landfill sites, sparing corporations disposal costs and landfill tipping fees, and helping them forge an image of good corporate citizenship. However, the reliance of food banks on industry donations means that food assistance becomes defined as that which the corporate sector cannot retail. Moreover, the intertwining of food bank work with corporate needs may function to further entrench this ad hoc secondary food system and mitigate against initiatives to develop more effective responses to problems of hunger and food insecurity in our communities. (shrink)

Recent results from studies on animals suggest that functional germ cells may be generated from human pluripotent stem cells, giving rise to three possibilities: research with these so‐called artificial gametes, including fertilization experiments in vitro; their use in vivo for therapy for the treatment of human infertility; and their use in assisted reproductive technologies in vitro. While the legal, philosophical, and ethical questions associated with these possibilities have been already discussed intensively in other countries, the debate in Germany is still (...) at its beginning. A systematic and detailed analysis of the legal framework in Germany is provided with regard to the three possibilities, including the applicable statutory laws as well as the constitutional law. The question emerges as to whether the statutory laws as well as the constitution justify a distinction to be made between embryos of artificial and natural origin. This question is subject to philosophical analysis, discussing the distinction between person and thing, dignity and price, personality and property, and nature and technique. As a result, the criterion of naturalness alone may not be sufficient to differentiate between embryos of natural and artificial origin, and other criteria need to be identified. (shrink)

Religion has a considerable influence over the public’s attitudes towards science and technologies. The objective of the paper is to understand the ethical and religious problems concerning the use of embryo for research in assisting conception for infertile couples from the perspective of Catholic Christians. This paper seeks to explain our preliminary reflections on how religious communities particularly the Catholic Christian communities respond to and assess the ethics of reproductive technologies and embryo research. Christianity as a whole lacks a unified (...) and definitive statement on when an embryo becomes a person, although fundamentalist Christians tend to be opposed to embryo experimentation. Roman Catholics tend to believe that the embryo should be treated as human life from the moment of conception or fertilisation. As opposed to this preconception I have tried to point out that a foetus is a clump of cells and lacks individuality as a conscientious human being and thus can be used for research for therapeutic reason. The paper concluded that the Church accepts techniques on embryo that respect their life. So they would allow procedures that are akin with healing and improvement of life without involving undue risks. The Church feels children should arise out of act of love between man and his wife in co-operation with God. In this regard, it may be pointed out though the creation of a child through a conjugal act in a wed lock is the preferred method since it is the most natural, least expensive one. But that does not mean, it should be the only acceptable means to conception. To state a child born using ARTs would be less perfect compared to a child born through conjugal act of husband and wife is absurd one to be mentioned. (shrink)

Of the requisites for economic development, human capital is the most “policy-proof,” is the one which developed nations can most effectively render on large scale, and is that which American colleges of Agriculture are uniquely equipped to render. Graduate study in agricultural economics is a popular choice of third world students as it occupies a pivotal position between agricultural science and the liberal arts, giving it substantial relevance to economic development. It is necessary to understand the history, economics, sociology, and (...) psychology of the institutions that are central to economic development. Graduate programs in agricultural economics have fallen short of their potential to contribute to human capital and hence to the process of economic development. It is recommended that these programs capitalize on the disciplinary ties to both agricultural science and to the liberal arts, and in particular, 1) place greater emphasis on international aspects of macroeconomics, 2) include in the study of microeconomics more realistic treatment of what prices and markets can and cannot accomplish, and 3) emphasize the importance of effective communication in preparing returning third world students for their responsibilities in bridging the gap between research and policy. (shrink)

Human organizations’ adoption of the paradigm of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is associated with the growth of techno-empowerment, which is the process of transferring autonomy in decision-making to intelligent machines. Particular persuasive strategies have been identified that may coax people to use intelligent devices. However, there is a substantial research gap regarding what antecedents influence human intention to assign decision-making autonomy to artificial agents. In this study, ethological and evolutionary concepts are applied to explain the drivers for autonomous assistants’ techno-empowerment. (...) The method used in the study was a 4 × 2 between-subject experiment made with 278 persons. The research tool used to collect the data was an online survey. The results show that more positive attitudes and higher trust, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use are correlated with higher intention to allow the autonomous assistant independence in decision-making. Second, the results suggest that the more human-like a non-human agent is, the higher the intention to empower it—but only if this agent simultaneously provides functional and visual anthropomorphic cues explainable by the mimicry effect. (shrink)