The current pandemic period has triggered a series of changes in society, at both individual and collective behavioral levels. These changes were perceived as either positive or negative by the impacted bodies, leading to both social change and positive interactions in a tense context. In this paper, the authors will deal with Pandemica Panotpica, subjugation infiltrating all levels of society, and the approach adopted by several countries in trying to find countermeasures to combat the virus' proliferation. Our research scope began (...) at the onset of the pandemic and ended on early January 2021. (shrink)

Who gets to decide what it means to live a healthy lifestyle, and how important a healthy lifestyle is to a good life? As more governments make preventing obesity and diet-related illness a priority, it's become more important to consider the ethics and acceptability of their efforts. When it comes to laws and policies that promote healthy eating--such as special taxes on sugary drinks and the banning of food deemed unhealthy--critics argue that these policies are paternalistic, and that they limit (...) individual autonomy over food choices. In Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy: A Public Reason Approach, Anne Barnhill and Matteo Bonotti show that both paternalistic justifications for healthy eating efforts and anti-paternalistic arguments against them can be grounded in perfectionist views that overly prioritize some values over others. The authors therefore propose a more inclusive, public reason approach to healthy eating policy that will be appealing to those who take pluralism and cultural diversity seriously, by providing a framework through which different kinds of values, including but not limited to autonomy and health, can be factored into the public justification for healthy eating efforts. Additionally, the book adopts a 'farm to fork' approach to the ethics of healthy eating efforts: it engages with theories and debates in political philosophy, considers the implications of different theoretical positions for healthy eating efforts, and then develops a concrete tool for assessing policies that will be of interest to both scholars and policymakers. As well as offering a novel normative analysis of healthy eating policy, the authors offer a new theoretical framework that will be applicable to a wide range of public policy scenarios. (shrink)

Because of the transfer of responsibility from hospitals to community-based settings, providers in home-based care have more responsibilities and a wider range of tasks and responsibilities than before, often with limited resources. The increased responsibilities and the complexity of tasks and patient groups may lead to several ethical challenges. A systematic search in the databases MEDLINE, CINAHL, and SveMed+ was carried out in February 2019 and August 2020. The research question was translated into a modified PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, and (...) Outcome) worksheet. A total of 40 articles were included. The review is conducted according to the Vancouver Protocol. The main findings from the systematic literature review show that ethical challenges experienced by healthcare and social care providers in home-based care are related to autonomy and balancing ethical principles, decisions regarding intensity of care, challenges related to priority settings, truth-telling, and balancing the professional role. Findings regarding ethical challenges within home-based care are in line with findings from institutional healthcare and social care settings. However, some significant differences from the institutional context are also highlighted. (shrink)

Dignified care is a central issue in the nursing care of older adults. Nurses are expected to treat older adults with dignity, and older adults wish to be treated in a dignified manner. Researchers have recommended investigating the concept of dignity based on specific contexts and population groups. This meta-synthesis study aims to explore the understandings of dignity from the perspective of older adults in the Nordic countries. Synthesising findings from qualitative studies on older adults’ experiences of dignity has provided (...) important insight into what can be essential for dignified care in a Nordic context. The importance of visibility and recognition for the experience of dignity is an overarching theme in all the studies. The participants’ descriptions mostly implicated an existence dominated by a lack of recognition. The older adults do not feel valued as people or for their contribution to society and strive to tone down their illnesses in an attempt to become more visible and acknowledged as people. Toning down their illnesses and masking their needs can protect their independence. At the same time, becoming less visible can leave them without a voice. The metaphorical phrase protected and exposed by a cloak of invisibility is used to express the authors’ overall interpretation of the findings. Lack of recognition and being socially invisible is a genuine threat to older adults’ dignity. (shrink)

In this paper, I reflect on an important article by Bob Veatch in the inaugural issue of the Hastings Center Report, entitled “Experimental Pregnancy.” It is a report and elegant analysis of the Goldzieher Study, in which nearly 400 women were randomized to receive hormonal contraception or placebo absent consent or disclosure about placebo use, resulting in several pregnancies. Noting the study’s limited notoriety, I first consider the narratives that have instead dominated bioethics’ approach to pregnancy and research: thalidomide and (...) diethylstibesterol. These narratives have facilitated a narrow focus on avoiding fetal risk, to the exclusion of other ethically relevant considerations. I then revisit “Experimental Pregnancy” and offer two ways in which Bob’s analysis serves as an important corrective, first, by foregrounding research subjects, and second, by normalizing pregnancy and thus foregrounding foundational ethical considerations that are sometimes lost amidst pregnancy’s presumed exceptionalism. (shrink)

Eric Olson distinguishes his animalistic account of transtemporal personal identity from the apparently similar Bodily Criterion, among other things, by accusing the latter of being contaminated with Cartesian implications owing to its usage of the term ‚body‘. In contrast, Olson argues, Animalism is able to avoid these implications by substituting the concept of body for the concept of organism, which makes Animalism not only a distinct position, but also the better alternative to the Bodily Criterion. The paper critically reconstructs Olson’s (...) charge of Cartesianism against the Bodily Criterion, thereby differentiating between several variants of it. This eventually adds up to an evaluation of how suitable these criticisms are for defending Animalism at the expense of the Bodily Criterion. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore artificial moral agency by reflecting upon the possibility of a Moral Turing Test and whether its lack of focus on interiority, i.e. its behaviouristic foundation, counts as an obstacle to establishing such a test to judge the performance of an Artificial Moral Agent. Subsequently, to investigate whether an MTT could serve as a useful framework for the understanding, designing and engineering of AMAs, we set out to address fundamental challenges within (...) the field of robot ethics regarding the formal representation of moral theories and standards. Here, typically three design approaches to AMAs are available: top-down theory-driven models and bottom-up approaches which set out to model moral behaviour by means of models for adaptive learning, such as neural networks, and finally, hybrid models, which involve components from both top-down and bottom-up approaches to the modelling of moral agency. With inspiration from Allen and Wallace as well as Prior, we elaborate on theoretically driven approaches to machine ethics by introducing deontic tense logic. Finally, within this framework, we explore the character of human interaction with a robot which has successfully passed an MTT. Design/methodology/approach – The ideas in this paper reflect preliminary theoretical considerations regarding the possibility of establishing a MTT based on the evaluation of moral behaviour, which focusses on moral reasoning regarding possible actions. The thoughts reflected fall within the field of normative ethics and apply deontic tense logic to discuss the possibilities and limitations of artificial moral agency. Findings – The authors stipulate a formalisation of logic of obligation, time and modality, which may serve as a candidate for implementing a system corresponding to an MTT in a restricted sense. Hence, the authors argue that to establish a present moral obligation, we need to be able to make a description of the actual situation and the relevant general moral rules. Such a description can never be complete, as the combination of exhaustive knowledge about both situations and rules would involve a God eye’s view, enabling one to know all there is to know and take everything relevant into consideration before making a perfect moral decision to act upon. Consequently, due to this frame problem, from an engineering point of view, we can only strive for designing a robot supposed to operate within a restricted domain and within a limited space-time region. Given such a setup, the robot has to be able to perform moral reasoning based on a formal description of the situation and any possible future developments. Although a system of this kind may be useful, it is clearly also limited to a particular context. It seems that it will always be possible to find special cases in which a given system does not pass the MTT. This calls for a new design of moral systems with trust-related components which will make it possible for the system to learn from experience. Originality/value – It is without doubt that in the near future we are going to be faced with advanced social robots with increasing autonomy, and our growing engagement with these robots calls for the exploration of ethical issues and stresses the importance of informing the process of engineering ethical robots. Our contribution can be seen as an early step in this direction. (shrink)

This paper assesses great apes’ abilities for pantomime and action imitation, two communicative abilities proposed as key contributors to language evolution. Modern great apes, the only surviving nonhuman hominids, are important living models of the communicative platform upon which language evolved. This assessment is based on 62 great ape pantomimes identified via data mining plus published reports of great ape action imitation. Most pantomimes were simple, imperative, and scaffolded by partners’ relationship and scripts; some resemble declaratives, some were sequences of (...) several inter-related elements. Imitation research consistently shows great apes perform action imitation at low fidelity, but also that action imitation may not represent a distinct process or function. Discussion focuses on how findings may advance reconstruction of the evolution of language, including what great apes may contribute to understanding ‘primitive’ forms of pantomime and imitation and how to improve their study. (shrink)

Hannah James makes a persuasive case for the use of donated bodies and body parts in surgical training, enabling high fidelity training, improved competency of surgeons and reduced risk of harm to patients from trainees ‘learning on the job’.1 She also identifies some pertinent ethical questions that arise from this practice that should be considered by training organisations, regulatory authorities and the trainees themselves. Many countries throughout the world have regulated programmes, governed by strict ethical principles, for donating bodies, usually (...) to academic institutions for the purposes of medical education.2 In the UK the Human Tissue Authority sets out guiding principles for institutions licensed to handle human tissue including donation of bodies for anatomical examination, education and research; consent, dignity, quality, and honesty and openness.3 The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, in its 2011 report, Human Bodies: donation for medicine and research, identified a number of relevant ethical values including autonomy, altruism, justice, dignity, reciprocity, maximising welfare, and honesty and respect.4 While this report did not focus specifically on donation of human tissue for education and training the principles identified are equally relevant in this context. In terms of maximising welfare whole body donation for education and training provides benefit to many patients over a relatively short time frame …. (shrink)

The principled approach to theory building that has been a conspicuous mark of bioethical theory for the past generation has in recent years fallen under considerable critical scrutiny. Although some critics have confined themselves to reordering the dominant principles, others have rejected a principled approach entirely and turned to alternative paradigms. Prominent among critics are antiprin-ciplists, who want to jettison the principle-based approach altogether and adopt a casuistic model, and communitarians, who favor an eclectic model combining features of both the (...) casuistic model and a modified principled approach. Particularly conspicuous in virtually all such critiques is their challenge to the preeminence of the principle of autonomy. Critical barbs have been aimed not only at theories favoring a hierarchical ordering of moral principles that give first place to autonomy, but also at those that include autonomy among a set of ostensibly coequal principles. Though these critics have performed a valued function by displacing bioethical principles from their Olympian perch beyond actual decision-making contexts, some version of the principle of autonomy may, nonetheless, be well worth defending but for very different reasons than those put forward by its supporters. (shrink)

The Legendary Biographies of Tamerlane: Islam and Heroic Apocrypha in Central Asia. By Ron Sela. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. xvii + 164. $85.

Auteure en 2001 d’un ouvrage remarqué sur les couturières dans la France d’Ancien Régime (Fabricating Women. The Seamstresses of Old Regime France, 1675-1791), Clare Haru Crowston interroge dans cette nouvelle étude l’omniprésence du crédit dans la société française des xviie et xviiie siècles. Concept polysémique, envisagé ici dans sa dimension à la fois économique (délai de paiement) et culturelle (forme de pouvoir et d’influence conférée par la réputation), le crédit constitue une catégori...

Issu d’un colloque qui a réuni en 2009 de nombreux chercheuses et chercheurs en sciences humaines (anthropologie, sociologie, histoire, philosophie, droit…), ce livre s’empare d’un sujet assez peu étudié jusqu’ici dans l’histoire des guerres : les viols. Dès l’introduction, Raphaëlle Branche et Fabrice Virgili soulignent qu’il n’est pas facile de nommer l’acte du viol (qui peut se classer dans un vaste répertoire de violences sexuelles) ni de le comptabiliser en raison des lacunes persistante...

In recent years, critics of modern obstetrics have cited technology as responsible for women's discontent regarding childbirth. In this essay, I investigate and pry apart the connection between the quality of childbirth experience and technology. After identifying three factors considered constitutive of a ‘good birth,’ I demonstrate how technology can either facilitate or hinder each, but how dominant strains of birthing practice that reinforce female shame consistently undermine them all. It is not technology per se, but its sensitive application, which (...) may most effectively promote an optimal and affirming birth experience. (shrink)

Stimuli that resemble humans, but are not perfectly human-like, are disliked compared to distinctly human and nonhuman stimuli. Accounts of this “Uncanny Valley” effect often focus on how changes in human resemblance can evoke different emotional responses. We present an alternate account based on the novel hypothesis that the Uncanny Valley is not directly related to ‘human-likeness’ per se, but instead reflects a more general form of stimulus devaluation that occurs when inhibition is triggered to resolve conflict between competing stimulus-related (...) representations. We consider existing support for this inhibitory-devaluation hypothesis and further assess its feasibility through tests of two corresponding predictions that arise from the link between conflict-resolving inhibition and aversive response: 1) that the pronounced disliking of Uncanny-type stimuli will occur for any image that strongly activates multiple competing stimulus representations, even in the absence of any human-likeness, and 2) that the negative peak of an ‘Uncanny Valley’ should occur at the point of greatest stimulus-related conflict and not (in the presence of human-likeness) always closer to the ‘human’ end of a perceptual continuum. We measured affective responses to a set of line drawings representing nonhuman animal-animal morphs, in which each continuum midpoint was a bistable image (Exp. 1), as well as to sets of human-robot and human-animal computer-generated morphs (Exp. 2). Affective trends depicting classic Uncanny Valley functions occurred for all continua, including the nonhuman stimuli. Images at continua midpoints elicited significantly more negative affect than images at endpoints, even when the continua included a human endpoint. This illustrates the feasibility of the inhibitory-devaluation hypothesis and the need for further research into the possibility that the strong dislike of Uncanny-type stimuli reflects the negative affective consequences of cognitive inhibition. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is threefold: to offer a vision of human flourishing in the academy premised upon ‘living in truth’, embracing lived experience and being in relation; to explore counterfactual thinking across the life-course, from the period of compulsory schooling to the end of life, with the emphasis on the latter; and to critique the practice of drawing upon philosophy to provide an interpretative framework through which to address the arts, drawing upon the work of Cora Diamond. The (...) movement towards death is explored through three vignettes, focusing on the lived experience of three ‘characters’ facing the prospect of their imminent demise: the philosopher Richard Rorty, the English television dramatist and screenwriter Dennis Potter and a consultant physician (the father of one of the authors). Drawing upon the work of the historian Timothy Snyder, the relevance of the claim made by Vaclav Havel that ‘essence precedes existence’ is explored in relation to the climate of the contemporary education system. The primacy of essence over existence is also a key feature of the vignettes of the lives of the three players that form the centrepiece of the article. These enable us to ‘think without thinking’, which is perhaps a counterfactual claim par excellence. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag erläutert anhand von zwei Aestheticscapes einer charismatischen katholischen Gemeinschaft, wie mit unterschiedlichen ästhetischen Strategien das Erleben beeinflusst wird. Das hat zur Folge, dass die religiöse Botschaft multimedial intensiv und nachhaltig bei den Teilnehmenden verankert wird. Zentrale und in der Literatur schon gut belegte These ist, dass dies über den Zustand einer Absorption stattfinden kann. In den beiden Ritualsequenzen der Fallbeispiele sind es jeweils unterschiedliche Elemente aus den multimodalen Aestheticscapes, die den hypnotischen Zustand einführen, und unterschiedliche semantische Inhalte, die (...) auf diese Weise in den ästhetischen Subjekten verankert werden. Wegen dieser impliziten ästhetischen Regulierung (governance) von Subjekten verändert das Ritual die Subjektivierungsform der Teilnehmenden und macht die kritische Analyse religionswissenschaftlich so geboten. Neu eingeführt wird als religionsästhetisches Konzept joint speech für die Analyse des Fürbittgebets für Stimme, Tönen, Sprechen, Singen allgemein. (shrink)

In our multicultural, globalised and increasingly postmodern world, people live within competing and contradicting philosophies, and the question of ethics becomes extremely pertinent. It is within this context that this article sheds light on ethics by comparing ubuntu, as part of the African philosophical tradition, and transimmanence, as part of the Western deconstructionist philosophical tradition. As divergent as these traditions may be, ethics are a key feature in both and a crucial point of overlap. Notions of identity, personhood, the community (...) and sense (meaning), for example, play a pivotal role in ubuntu and transimmanence. A reading of these two contrasting philosophical traditions (ubuntu and transimmanence), each through the lens of the other, helps one to develop a better understanding of each of these traditions with regard to their respective ethics and eventually to develop a better understanding of ethics per se. (shrink)

Agricultural intensification and extensification are standard responses to ecological and economic vulnerability among smallholder communities. Climate change has exacerbated this vulnerability and thrown the complexity of and critical need for managing a healthy natural resource base while increasing on-farm productivity into sharp light. Sustainable intensification is one of many mechanisms for accomplishing this balancing act. This study examines the adoption of sustainable intensification practices, namely input packages focused on tef row planting—designed to boost yield and promote more efficient use of (...) inputs. This study utilized a mix methods approach to survey 115 smallholder farmers in the South Wollo zone of the Amhara region in Ethiopia. This study found that cash and capital, more so than contact with the AIS, influenced farmers’ decisions to adopt row planting input packages. Khat production was an important source of cash for inputs and was more likely to be available to farmers with irrigation schemes. Long-term, farmers who cultivate khat may not successfully engage in SI, as khat replaces traditional food crop production in the region. Yet, for farmers who do not grow khat, long-term investment in SI practices is unlikely unless access to affordable credit options is improved. (shrink)

In this article, three new concepts of dehumanization are proposed in order to distinguish clearly between three different kinds of phenomena that are frequently conflated and misrepresented in current research: subjective dehumanization, detrimental conditions, and objective dehumanization. The article offers (i) a more fine-grained understanding of these three kinds of dehumanization phenomena, which in turn (ii) illuminates new strategies for conflict prevention. This is achieved through a process of conceptual engineering, where the boundaries of our concepts are redrawn, so they (...) are better suited for the dealing with the phenomena in question. (shrink)

Through a careful analysis of Jane Austen's novels that is sure to be controversial, Ruderman offers a unique interpretation of her subject's political philosophy. Her study challenges prevailing Austen scholarship, particularly contemporary feminist readings of Austen which impose historicist conventions upon her works. Locating and examining Austen's thought within a broad political and philosophical context, she concludes that Austen's conservative endorsement of marriage was motivated by her concern with happiness rather than with tradition.

Latest research in environmental humanities often presumes the necessity of some kind of an ontological “shift” in thinking and living, while the question of the possibility of such a shift on an experiential level, is still to be answered. In this article, I am (re) visiting Latvian folk epistemologies as a sample case of alternate yet already “present” ontogenealogies that could be applied for reinventing ways to experience environed embodiment. While it is not possible, or desirable to recapture the past, (...) alternate ontogenealogies of the Global North—partly local, yet always also entangled with closer and farther regions, can provide insight into the building of future societies upon the idea of meaningful, senseful materiality. Especially—in context of pre-Christian sacrality of naturecultures that place meaning beyond and before human I-consciousness, thus, capturing the idea of consciousness as the result, not the source of senseful agency of materiality. Moreover, such inquiry allows diluting the presumption of a homogeneous Global North, instead demonstrating the heterogenous genealogical background that co-constitutes our experiences and materialities today. Within this article, I focus on the topics of life and nature in Latvian folksongs—Dainas, expressed through the elemental worldings of stone and forest, to demonstrate old Latvian epistemologies as a fruitful ground for an affirmative environmental ethics in the future. (shrink)