Children with developmental disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, are at high risk of school-refusal behavior compared with their peers. One of the most used scales to assess SRB is the school refusal behavior scale – revised. The SRAS-R has demonstrated good psychometric properties when used with the general population of children, but, recently, its validity has been questioned when used with children with developmental disorders. We tested the psychometric properties of the SRAS-R parental reports in 96 children with ADHD. Results (...) showed good model fit and internal consistency for the original four-factor structure. Three of the factors were strongly correlated, suggesting that SRB among children with ADHD is caused by several factors. (shrink)

miembro del Future of Humanity Institute de la Universidad de Oxford y experto en mejoramiento humano y transhumanismo, sobre cuestiones centrales de su labor investigadora.PALABRAS CLAVETRANSHUMANISMO, MEJORAMIENTO HUMANO, ANDERS SANDBERG, BIOTECNOLOGÍAABSTRACTInterview with Anders Sandberg, member of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University and expert in human enhancement and transhumanism, about central topics in his works.KEYWORDSTRANSHUMANISM, HUMAN ENHANCEMENT, ANDERS SANDBERG,BIOTECHNOLOGY.

Berg, J. Buñuels dagdröm.--Bergström, L. Pessimismens konsekvenser.--Furberg, M. Möjliga teser hos Johannes Climacus.--Halldén, S. Teckenrelationen och språkreglernas juridik.--Hedenius, I. Ett argument mot den rättsfilosofiska domstolsrealismen.--Mates, B. Om Platons argument "den tredje människan."--Marc-Wogau, K. Kant om lögnen.--Næss, A. Om filosofiske projekter som forener empirisk semantikk og metafysisk spekulasjon.--Ofstad, H. Får nazister lettere magesår enn humanister?--Prawitz, D. Om moraliska och logiska satsers sanning.--Stenius, E. Om Descartes' psykofysiska modell.--Tranøy, K. E. Filosofenes etiske ansvar.--Wright, G. H. von. En filosof ser på filosofien.

A wide range of gene knockout experiments shows that functional stability is an important feature of biological systems. On this backdrop, we present an argument for higher‐level causation based on counterfactual dependence. Furthermore, we sketch a metaphysical picture providing resources to explain the metaphysical nature of functional stability, higher‐level causation, and the relevant notion of levels. Our account aims to clarify the role empirical results and philosophical assumptions should play in debates about reductionism and higher‐level causation. It thereby contributes to (...) the development of a philosophical foundation for systems biology. †To contact the authors, please write to: CSMN/IFIKK, University of Oslo, Box 1020 Blindern, N‐0315, Oslo, Norway; e‐mail: anders[email protected] , [email protected]. (shrink)

The discretionary powers of welfare state professionals are in tension with the requirements of the democratic Rechtsstaat. Extensive use of discretion can threaten the principles of the rule of law and relinquish democratic control over the implementation of laws and policies. These two tensions are in principle ineradicable. But does this also mean that they are impossible to come to grips with? Are there measures that may ease these tensions? We introduce an understanding of discretion that adds an epistemic dimension (...) (discretion as a mode of reasoning) to the common structural understanding of discretion (an area of judgment and decision). Accordingly we distinguish between structural and epistemic measures of accountability. The aim of the former is to constrain discretionary spaces or the behaviour within them while the aim of the latter is to improve the quality of discretionary reasoning. The focus in this article is on epistemic measures that are internally related to the main characteristic of accountability, namely justified use of discretionary power. (shrink)

Inference has long been a concern in epistemology, as an essential means by which we extend our knowledge and test our beliefs. Inference is also a key notion in influential psychological or philosophical accounts of mental capacities, from perception via utterance comprehension to problem-solving. Consciousness, on the other hand, has arguably been the defining interest of philosophy of mind over recent decades. Comparatively little attention, however, has been devoted to the significance of consciousness for the proper understanding of the nature (...) and role of inference. It is commonly suggested that inference may be either conscious or unconscious. Yet how unified are these various supposed instances of inference? Does either enjoy explanatory priority in relation to the other? In what ways or senses, can an inference be conscious, or fail to be conscious, and how does this matter? This book brings together original essays from established scholars and emerging theorists that illustrate how several current debates in epistemology, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of mind can benefit from reflections on these and related questions about the significance of consciousness for inference. Contributors include: Kirk Ludwig and Wade Munroe; Michael Rescorla; Federico Bongiorno and Lisa Bortolotti; Berit Brogaard; Nicholas Allott; Jake Quilty-Dunn and Eric Mandelbaum; Corine Besson; Anders Nes; David Henderson, Terry Horgan, and Matjaž Potrč; Elijah Chudnoff; and Ram Neta. (shrink)

This article offers a discussion of the connection between technology and values and, specifically, I take a closer look at ethically sound design. In order to bring the discussion into a concrete context, the theory of Value Sensitive Design (VSD) will be the focus point. To illustrate my argument concerning design ethics, the discussion involves a case study of an augmented window, designed by the VSD Research Lab, which has turned out to be a potentially surveillance-enabling technology. I call attention (...) to a “positivist problem” that has to do with the connection between the design context and the use context, which VSD seems to presuppose, and I argue that it is necessary to clearly distinguish between the two, since the designers’ intentions do not always correspond with the users’ practice; in fact, the relation between design and use is very complex and principally unpredictable. Thus, a design theory must accept that foresight is limited to anticipation rather than prediction. To overcome the positivist problem, I suggest a phenomenological approach to technology inspired by Don Ihde’s concept of multistability. This argument, which is general in nature and thus applies to any theory of design ethics, is intended as a constructive criticism, which can hopefully contribute to the further development of design ethics. (shrink)

Anders, Rudi Mental conditioning is like gravity; it feels so normal and ever-present that it often goes unnoticed, but it influences much human behaviour. I am not free when I am not aware how my ideas and attitudes are absorbed from my culture, family, the media and peers. It takes courage to stand alone.

That wonder is educationally important will strike many people as obvious. And in a way it is obvious, because being capable of experiencing wonder implies an openness to experience and seems naturally allied to intrinsic educational motivation, an eagerness to inquire, a desire to understand, and also to a willingness to suspend judgement and bracket existing—potentially limiting—ways of thinking, seeing, and categorising. Yet wonder is not a single thing, and it is important to distinguish at least two kinds of wonder: (...) active wonder, which entails a drive to explore, to find out, to explain; and deep or contemplative wonder, which is not inherently inquisitive like active wonder and, as a response to mystery, may leave us lost for words. Claims for wonder's importance to education and science often do not distinguish between the two, but whereas for active wonder that importance seems obvious, this is much less so for deep wonder, which by its very nature rather seems to be anti-educational. Yet in this paper I explore exactly the educational importance of deep wonder. This importance is found to lie, not just in its motivational effects—real though they are—but in making us attend to the world for its own sake, and making us aware of the limits of our understanding. (shrink)

Anders, Rudi Sometimes it is nice to do something totally unconnected to the usual bustle of life, such as a walk in the park. This time I visit a German Lutheran church in Melbourne; I have never entered it before. The exterior and interior consistently retain the traditional design. The bluestone gives it a sense of permanence - timelessness. I rarely like modern churches; mixing modern and traditional never works for me. This church is not large and has an (...) intimate feel to it. The people are all smiles. I like people, regardless of their beliefs. Family groups look like they feel at home, and visitors like me are made welcome. I sit and admire the skill of the craftsmen who attended to every detail in the church. They didn't have the modern machines we take for granted. (shrink)

BackgroundEthical problems in everyday healthcare work emerge for many reasons and constitute threats to ethical values. If these threats are not managed appropriately, there is a risk that the patient may be inflicted with moral harm or injury, while healthcare professionals are at risk of feeling moral distress. Therefore, it is essential to support the learning and development of ethical competencies among healthcare professionals and students. The aim of this study was to explore the available literature regarding ethics education that (...) promotes ethical competence learning for healthcare professionals and students undergoing training in healthcare professions.MethodsIn this integrative systematic review, literature was searched within the PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycInfo databases using the search terms ‘health personnel’, ‘students’, ‘ethics’, ‘moral’, ‘simulation’, and ‘teaching’. In total, 40 articles were selected for review. These articles included professionals from various healthcare professions and students who trained in these professions as subjects. The articles described participation in various forms of ethics education. Data were extracted and synthesised using thematic analysis.ResultsThe review identified the need for support to make ethical competence learning possible, which in the long run was considered to promote the ability to manage ethical problems. Ethical competence learning was found to be helpful to healthcare professionals and students in drawing attention to ethical problems that they were not previously aware of. Dealing with ethical problems is primarily about reasoning about what is right and in the patient’s best interests, along with making decisions about what needs to be done in a specific situation.ConclusionsThe review identified different designs and course content for ethics education to support ethical competence learning. The findings could be used to develop healthcare professionals’ and students’ readiness and capabilities to recognise as well as to respond appropriately to ethically problematic work situations. (shrink)

Whether and how to intervene in nature to maintain or restore values is a contested issue among scholars within ecological restoration, protected area management and environmental ethics, but also among the practitioners and public officials who shape how nature is actually managed. This article analyses how the issue of intervention is debated in the case of protected forest area management in Sweden, a country with a traditionally strong preservationist discourse centred on maintaining areas as ‘untouched’ as possible. The analysis shows (...) how this traditional view is challenged by a more interventionist discourse centred on adaptive management for biodiversity, but also how there are still attempts to reaffirm a preservationist discourse and practice. The implications of this as-yet-unsettled debate are discussed, concluding by pointing to a need to examine critically not only the older preservationist discourse and ‘naturalness', but also the ascendant interventionist discourse and ‘biodiversity'. (shrink)

This article examines some of the difficulties of universalistic science in situations of deep conflict over global nature, using empirical material pertaining to ongoing controversies in the context of Japanese whaling practices. Within global-scale whaling assemblages since the 1970s, science has become a ‘‘post-sovereign’’ authority, unable to impose any stable definition of nature on all actors. Instead, across spaces of deep antagonistic differences, anti- and pro-whalers now ontologically enact a multiplicity of mutually irreconcilable versions of whales. Empirically, the article attempts (...) to map out a ‘‘cosmogram’’ of Japanese pro-whaling enactments of abundant and ‘‘killable’’ whales. Following the political ecology of Bruno Latour, the global-scale situation is conceptualized as one of cosmopolitics, the politics of forging a common world across divergences in nature-cultures. Pointing to tensions inherent in this concept, the article ends by suggesting a move toward ‘‘agonistic cosmopolitics,’’ in clarifying the constructive potentials of a Latourian anti-essentialist political ecology. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate the web-rhetoric of companies offering home-based personal health monitoring to patients and elderly people. Two main rhetorical methods are found, namely a reference to practical benefits and a use of prestige words like “quality of life” and “independence”. I interpret the practical benefits in terms of instrumental values and the prestige words in terms of final values. I also reconstruct the arguments on the websites in terms of six different types of argument. Finally, I articulate (...) a general critique of the arguments, namely that the websites neglect the context of use of personal health monitoring technologies. Whether or not a technology is good depends on the use of the technology by a particular individual in a particular context. The technology is not good–or bad–in itself. I support this critique with a number of more specific arguments such as the risk for reduced personal contact. For some elderly people social contact with care providers is more valuable than the independent living made possible by remote monitoring, for others independence is more important. (shrink)

This is the first English translation of “Die beweinte Zukunft,” a retelling of the story of Noah and the flood by Günther Anders (1902–1992). The German original was written in 1961 and first published in 1962 in the journal Alternative: Zeitschrift für Literatur und Diskussion in a slightly longer version, which also carried a subtitle that translates to “from the Molussian Apocrypha, translated by Günther Anders.” This link to Molussia, a fictious land of Anders’s invention that is (...) frequently evoked in his writings, was dropped upon the text’s republication in the shorter version included in the volume Gegen den Tod. Stimmen deutscher Schriftsteller gegen die Atombombe (1964). It was this publication that placed the story into the context of the anti-nuclear movement, a connection further strengthened when Anders selected “Die beweinte Zukunft” as the opening text in his 1971 collection Endzeit und Zeitenende: Gedanken über die atomare Situation. It was via this volume, which was republished in eight editions under the title Die atomare Drohung: Radikale Überlegungen zum atomaren Zeitalter, that the text found a wide readership. Today, this remarkable short parable is finding renewed interest in the context of discussions of the Anthropocene, the climate crisis and ongoing destruction of the ecosphere. (shrink)

Anders, Rudi A Melbourne suburb A short speech Congratulations..

Anders, Rudi The articles in AH I like best are the ones with which I disagree to a greater or lesser degree, because they force me to re-think and clarify my position. One such article was by John Perkins, titled 'Let's admit that Islam is a problem'. Although the article is very well-written, and I admire John's fact-finding regarding Islam, I think he misses the elephant in the room. Namely, Christian Europe and North America killed far more people than (...) Islam ever did. Buddhist and Shinto Japan did shocking things in the last world war. Jews in Israel ignore the rights of Palestinians. The atheist communist Soviet Union was as bad as Christian Czarist Russia. There is gross injustice in Hindu India. I don't think Islam should be singled out as a problem. I agree that religion can be a problem but the many atheist dictators, for example: Napoleon Bonaparte, Mussolini and Stalin, are also a problem, so atheism as such is not a guarantee of justice. (shrink)

Anders, Rudi I enjoy mixing with people who hold different beliefs from mine. Belief is a very complex and rather odd thing. I am particularly interested in the psychology of belief. Sometimes belief is the cause of terrible conflict and suffering.

Anders, Rudi Mathematics is objective and unambiguous, but as soon as mathematics is applied to anything in the human world, human values complicate the issues. Two apples for two people equals one apple for each person, but compassion for a starving person, or other human values, can alter the outcome.

Values in Bioethics (ViB), co-sponsored by the International Association of Bioethics, makes available original philosophical books in all areas of bioethics, including medical and nursing ethics, health care ethics, research ethics, environmental ethics, and global bioethics. --.

Today, many liberal philosophers of education worry that certain kinds of education may frustrate the development of personal autonomy, with negative consequences for the individuals concerned, the liberal state, or both. Autonomy liberals hold not only that we should promote the development of autonomy in children, but also that this aim should be compulsory for all schools, private or public, religious or nonreligious. In this article, Anders Schinkel provides a systematic overview, categorization, and analysis of liberal arguments for compulsory (...) autonomy‐promoting education. He finds that none of these arguments can justify compulsory autonomy‐promoting education, whether because they depend on empirical evidence that is not available, because they have as their basis an overly demanding concept of autonomy, or because they are intrinsically flawed in some way or another. Schinkel concludes with some suggestions as to what this means for the direction future research should take. (shrink)

Chronobiologists argue that their scientific findings have implications for prevention of sleep problems. They claim that some sleep problems are caused by the fact that people live against their individual body clock rather than adjusted to it. They also claim that by taking the findings of chronobiology seriously in policy-making some sleep problems can be prevented. I investigate applications of chronobiology in two social areas—school schedules and shift work—and show that in order for these applications to be justified certain implicit (...) presumptions have to be justified. The first presumption is explanatory, namely that a chronobiological explanation is an adequate explanation of the sleep problems at hand. In addition I analyse three ethical presumptions. The first ethical presumption is that sleep is of vital value. The second is that sleep is not an exclusively private issue. The third ethical presumption is that the preventive measures to be undertaken are ethically acceptable. My main point is that it is not possible to simply “read off” policy measures from the empirical findings of chronobiology. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the topic of the emergence of Christianity and Judaism as related but distinct religious traditions, as an example of a process of religious and cultural change, which has had an enormous impact on Western and other societies around the world. At the heart of this question lies what appear to be contradictions between normative practices in antiquity and those we know of today, leading us to consider the historical and hermeneutical issue of continuity and change over (...) time; its how, when and why. Rejecting the idea that theological differences between Judaism and Christianity necessitated a ‘parting of ways’ between them, it is argued that social, political and colonial decision-making was essential to this process, and that, furthermore, a historical focus on institutional realities in the ancient Mediterranean world, including in Jewish society, will challenge many long-held assumptions about the origins not only of Christianity but also of Judaism. The general historical reconstruction offered is then applied to a specific archaeological site, Capernaum, showing how traces of the larger pattern of development from the first to the fifth century CE may be seen in the histories of two buildings in this town. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of interviews, focus groups and workshops with employees in the technical administration in the municipality of Copenhagen in the year after it won a prestigious Smart City award. The administration is interpreted as a ‘most likely’ to succeed in translating the idealised version of the smart city into a workable bureaucratic practice. Drawing on the work of Orlikowski and Gash, the empirical analysis identifies and describes two incongruent ‘technological frames’ that illustrates different ways of making (...) sense of data and the smart city within this single organisational unit. One is called the experimentalist’s credo and it is characterised by inspiration from the development of an Internet of Things as well as a readiness to learn from the open source community in software development. The other is called the data-owners vocation and it is characterised by a more situated approach that interprets data as strategic and political. It is argued that the existence of these frames provides two insights relevant for the literature on smart cities. First, they illustrate that one should be careful not to reify the smart city as a phenomenon that can be criticised in generic terms. Second, they suggest that even if there exists a transition toward the implementation of a technocratic smart city paradigm across public administrations, this paradigm is not unique in its focus on markets and evidence in governance. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is today one of the most influential theories of justice. In her earlier works on the capabilities approach, Nussbaum only applies it to humans, but in later works she extends the capabilities approach to include sentient animals. Contrary to Nussbaum’s own view, some scholars, for example, David Schlosberg, Teea Kortetmäki and Daniel L. Crescenzo, want to extend the capabilities approach even further to include collective entities, such as species and ecosystems. Though I think we have strong (...) reasons for preserving ecosystems and species within the capabilities approach, there are several problems with ascribing capabilities to them, especially if we connect it with the view that species and ecosystems are subjects of justice. These problems are partly a consequence of the fact that an ascription of capabilities to species and ecosystems needs to be based on an overlapping consensus between different comprehensive doctrines, in accordance with the framework of political liberalism on which the capabilities approach builds. First, the ascription of capabilities to species and ecosystems presupposes the controversial standpoint that they are objectively existing entities. Second, the ascription of capabilities to ecosystems and species and the view that they are subjects of justice is justified by claiming that they have integrity and agency, but these characteristics have different meanings when applied to collective entities and humans, respectively. Third, the view that species and ecosystems are subjects of justice seems to require the controversial assumption that they have interests of their own, which differ from the interests of the sentient beings that are part of them. However, even if we do not ascribe capabilities to species and ecosystems and regard them as subjects of justice, there are still strong reasons to protect them within the capabilities approach, as the preservation of ecosystems and species is an important precondition for many human and animal capabilities. (shrink)

How should one understand comparisons in which neither of two alternatives is at least as good as the other? Much recent literature on comparability problems focuses on what the appropriate explanation of the phenomenon is. Is it due to vagueness or the possibility of non-conventional comparative relations such as parity? This paper argues that the discussions on how to best explain comparability problems has reached an impasse at which it is hard to make any progress. To advance the discussion we (...) suggest a new classification of comparability problems that focuses on the problems they cause for practical reasoning. (shrink)

Background Working as an ambulance nurse involves facing ethically problematic situations with multi-dimensional suffering, requiring the ability to create a trustful relationship. This entails a need to be clinically trained in order to identify ethical conflicts. Aim To describe ethical conflicts in patient relationships as experienced by ambulance nursing students during clinical studies. Research design An exploratory and interpretative design was used to inductively analyse textual data from examinations in clinical placement courses. Participants The 69 participants attended a 1-year educational (...) programme for ambulance nurses at a Swedish university. Ethical considerations The research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Participants gave voluntary informed consent for this study. Findings The students encountered ethical conflicts in patient relationships when they had inadequate access to the patient’s narrative. Doubts regarding patient autonomy were due to uncertainty regarding the patient’s decision-making ability, which forced students to handle patient autonomy. Conflicting assessments of the patient’s best interest added to the conflicts and also meant a disruption in patient focus. The absence of trustful relationships reinforced the ethical conflicts, together with an inadequacy in meeting different needs, which limited the possibility of providing proper care. Discussion Contextual circumstances add complexity to ethical conflicts regarding patient autonomy, dependency and the patient’s best interest. Students felt they were fluctuating between paternalism and letting the patient choose, and were challenged by considerations regarding the patient’s communication and decision-making ability, the views of third parties, and the need for prioritisation. Conclusion The essence of the patient relationship is a struggle to preserve autonomy while focusing on the patient’s best interest. Hence, there is a need for education and training that promotes ethical knowledge and ethical reflection focusing on the core nursing and caring values of trust and autonomy, particularly in situations that affect the patient’s decision-making ability. (shrink)

In many biological experiments, due to gene-redundancy or distributed backup mechanisms, there are no visible effects on the functionality of the organism when a gene is knocked out or down. In such cases there is apparently no counterfactual dependence between the gene and the phenotype in question, although intuitively the gene is causally relevant. Due to relativity of causal relations to causal models, we suggest that such cases can be handled by changing the resolution of the causal model that represents (...) the system. By decreasing the resolution of our causal model, counterfactual dependencies can be established at a higher level of abstraction. By increasing the resolution, stepwise causal dependencies of the right kind can serve as a sufficient condition for causal relevance. Finally, we discuss how introducing a temporal dimension in causal models can account for causation in cases of non-modular systems dynamics. (shrink)

En esta introducción, enunciamos algunas de las preguntas principales que surgen de la reflexión sobre los lugares del conflicto en la filosofía política. Apoyándonos en los artículos del dossier, nos centramos, por un lado, en las interrogaciones referidas al topos de la política, en particular, en los rasgos distintivos de los espacios de conflictividad, sus condiciones, configuraciones y riesgos. Por otro lado, en los desafíos que imponen al pensamiento filosófico la elección de ciertos lugares concretos del conflicto o la preferencia (...) por determinadas escenas de antagonismo. (shrink)

This paper explores the condition of stultitia, which is described by Michel Foucault in The Hermeneutics of the Subject as a condition one is in, before having started to care for the self. The purpose is to shed light on one of the paradoxes of patient education by introducing and elaborating an aspect of Foucault’s literary activities, which has not, to my knowledge, been investigated empirically before. To illustrate this condition, the paper targets the relation between type 2 diabetes, contemporary (...) norms of healthy living, diabetes education, and the situation that sometimes occurs when individuals are not capable of, or motivated to, taking care of themselves. It specifically targets a situation, which is both incomprehensible to health professionals and patients alike; when patients desire a healthy life, but at the same time do not pursue it according to the recommendations. Thus, it is a condition of madness, which is investigated; madness in the sense that patients have internalised a rationality, against which their own behaviour rebels. (shrink)

As part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this essay examines the role of institutional soft balancing in bringing forth peaceful change in international relations. Soft balancing is understood as attempts at restraining a threatening power through institutional delegitimization, as opposed to hard balancing, which relies on arms buildup and formal alignments. We argue that soft balancing through international institutions can be an effective means to peaceful change, spanning minimalist goals, which aim at incremental change without the use (...) of military force and war, and maximalist goals, which seek more profound change and transformation in the form of continuous interstate cooperation aimed at a more peaceful and just world order. However, the success of soft-balancing strategies in fostering peaceful change varies widely, even in today's globalized and institutionalized international environment. We explore these variations and identify three conditions for success that can inform both academic analysis and political practice: inclusion, commitment, and status recognition. We draw lessons from two historical examples: the Concert of Europe in the early nineteenth century and the League of Nations in the early twentieth century, and discuss how current threats to the liberal international order challenge soft balancing for peaceful change. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that sufficientarian principles are indispensable in the set of principles that have bearing on issues in distributive ethics. I provide two arguments in favor of this claim. First, I argue that sufficientarianism is the only framework that allows us to appropriately analyze what sort of obligations we have toward individuals who are badly off due to their own faults and choices. Second, I argue that sufficientarianism is the only theory that provides an adequate framework for (...) thinking about the desperately badly off. (shrink)