L’auteure retrace les controverses qui ont émaillé l’histoire du principe de précaution en France dans les trente dernières années après son adoption au niveau international et européen. Elle montre que le principe de précaution constitue une dimension nouvelle de la rationalité adaptée aux défis de la société contemporaine.

Mhealth technology is mushrooming world-wide and, in a variety of forms, reaches increasing numbers of users in ever-widening contexts and virtually independent from standard medical evidence assessment. Yet, debate on the broader societal impact including in particular mapping and classification of ethical issues raised has been limited. This article, as part of an ongoing empirically informed ethical research project, provides an overview of ethical issues of mhealth applications with a specific focus on implications on autonomy as a key notion in (...) the debate. A multi-stage model of references to the potential of mhealth use for strengthening some or other form of self-determination will be proposed as a descriptive tool. It illustrates an assumed continuum of enhanced autonomy via mhealth broadly conceived: from patient to user autonomy, to improved health literacy, and finally to the vision of supra-individual empowerment and democratised, participatory health and medicine as a whole. On closer examination, however, these references are frequently ambivalent or vague, perpetuating the at times uncritical use of established autonomy concepts in medical ethics. The article suggests zooming in on the range of autonomy-related aspects against the backdrop of digital innovation and datafied health more generally, and on this basis add to existing frameworks for the ethical evaluation of mhealth more specifically. (shrink)

Beauchamp and Childress’ definition of autonomous decision‐making includes the conditions of intentionality, understanding, and non‐control. In genetics, however, a relational conception of autonomy has been increasingly recognized. This article aims to empirically assess aspects of social influence in genetic testing decision‐making and to connect these with principlist and relational theories of autonomy. We interviewed 18 adult genetic counsellees without capacity issues considering predictive genetic testing for cancer predisposition for themselves and two counselling physicians in Switzerland. We conducted a qualitative analysis, (...) building on a grounded theory study about predictive genetic testing decision‐making. We found that some participants agreed to predictive genetic testing predominantly because relatives wanted them to do it, with some even acting contrary to their own convictions. Others, in contrast, based their decision on purely individualistic reasons but expressed difficulties in explaining their decision to their social environment. Healthcare professionals had a critical influence on decision‐making in many cases without being manipulative, as perceived by counsellees. Still, cases of coercion and social pressure occurred within social relationships. In conclusion, predictive genetic testing decision‐making includes relational and individualistic aspects, and both are compatible with autonomous decision‐making. While the principlist and relational notions of autonomy compete on a theoretical level, they are two sides of the same coin when used as analytical lenses for genetic testing decision‐making. Social acceptance of refusal of testing should be improved to mitigate social pressure. Individuals should be encouraged to decide for themselves how much their social environment influences their decision regarding predictive genetic testing. (shrink)

The term ‘locked-in’ syndrome (LIS) describes a medical condition in which persons concerned are severely paralyzed and at the same time fully conscious and awake. The resulting anarthria makes it impossible for these patients to naturally communicate, which results in diagnostic as well as serious practical and ethical problems. Therefore, developing alternative, muscle-independent communication means is of prime importance. Such communication means can be realized via brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) circumventing the muscular system by using brain signals associated with preserved cognitive, (...) sensory, and emotional brain functions. Primarily, BCIs based on electrophysiological measures have been developed and applied with remarkable success. Recently, also blood flow–based neuroimaging methods, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), have been explored in this context. After reviewing recent literature on the development of especially hemodynamically based BCIs, we introduce a highly reliable and easy-to-apply communication procedure that enables untrained participants to motor-independently and relatively effortlessly answer multiple-choice questions based on intentionally generated single-trial fMRI signals that can be decoded online. Our technique takes advantage of the participants’ capability to voluntarily influence certain spatio-temporal aspects of the blood oxygenation level–dependent (BOLD) signal: source location (by using different mental tasks), signal onset and offset. We show that healthy participants are capable of hemodynamically encoding at least four distinct information units on a single-trial level without extensive pretraining and with little effort. Moreover, realtime data analysis based on simple multi-filter correlations allows for automated answer decoding with a high accuracy (94.9%) demonstrating the robustness of the presented method.. (shrink)

Is Plato’s philosophy still relevant for current issues in politics and political science? In order to answer this question, the contributions to this volume endeavour to re-read the Platonic dialogues and to interpret them in terms of textual hermeneutics on the one hand. On the other hand, they refer to Plato from a systematic point of view and apply his philosophy, in particular the method of Socratic dialogue, to discussions on contemporary political issues. The volume is dedicated to Barbara Zehnpfennig, (...) whose works aim at making Socratic–Platonic philosophy fruitful for the present on the basis of a new interpretation of Plato’s philosophy. With contributions by Anke Adamik, Sarah Al-Taher, Viktoria Bachmann, Philip Breuer, Johanna Falk-Seifert, Bettina Fröhlich, Benjamin A. Hahn, Hendrik Hansen, Thomas Haslböck, Raul Heimann, Johannes Frank Hoerlin, Vanessa Jansche, Peter Kainz, Christina Kast, Eva-Maria Kaufmann, Ulrich Kühn, Laura Martena, Julian Obenauer, Victor Peneff und Thomas Wimmer. (shrink)

We discuss two inference patterns for inferring the coevolution of two characters based on their properties at a single point in time and determine when developmental interactions can be used to deduce evolutionary order. We discuss the use of the inference patterns we present in the biological literature and assess the arguments’ validity, the degree of support they give to the evolutionary conclusion, how they can be corroborated with empirical evidence, and to what extent they suggest new empirically addressable questions. (...) We suggest that the developmental argument is uniquely applicable to cognitive-cultural coevolution. (shrink)

Joan Scott’s ‘fantasy echo’ is deployed to analyse the trope of the mother/daughter relationship in contemporary laments about feminism’s failures, exemplified by Susan Faludi’s ‘American Electra: Feminism’s Ritual Matricide’ (2010). I demonstrate that Faludi’s primary argument – that young feminists do not respect the generations that precede them and therefore halt feminist progress – unreflectively relies upon a feminist maternal fantasy and ignores the prominent role spectacle culture plays in the circumscription of contemporary feminism. Building upon Scott’s attention to literature (...) to interrupt fantasy echoes and their inert visions of how feminism should appear, the article interprets The Portrait of a Lady (1908) through the tools of Scott’s historiography. I argue that Henry James’s novel, focused on an American ‘New Woman’, is an early account of how young women are sold fantasies of feminist freedom through spectacle culture and troubles the assumption that older women only forge benevolent relationships with younger women out of generosity. (shrink)

This paper addresses early modern botanical nomenclature, the practices of identifying and publishing synonyms in particular, as a collaborative “information science”. Before Linnaean nomenclature became the lingua franca of botany, it was inevitable that, over time, the same plant was given several names by different people, which created confusion and made communication among botanists increasingly difficult. What names counted as synonyms and actually referred to the same plant had to be identified by meticulously comparing living and dried specimens of this (...) and similar plants as well as relevant illustrations und descriptions in the botanical literature. Identifying synonyms required and generated an ever-expanding mass of data, which was used continuously to adjust and rearrange plant names. Despite the greatest care, judgements on synonyms were not definitive, which meant that published lists of synonyms for individual species of plants were in a state of flux and had to be constantly updated, corrected, and rewritten. This required long-term international collaborations, the accumulated results of which were not published once but consecutively, in augmented and corrected editions of a book. As a result of this networked approach, synonyms are networked names that reflect the epistemic interconnectedness of the botanical community. These questions will be discussed with a focus on the Dutch botanist Johannes Burman, who placed synonyms at the centre of his work as posthumous editor—and co-author—of the botanical manuscripts that were left behind by other botanists. (shrink)

Bilder in Kunst und Wissenschaft sind Orte des Denkens und Forschens.

The single greatest challenge facing managers in the developed countries of the world is to raise the productivity of knowledge and service workers. This challenge, which will dominate the management agenda for the next several decades, will ultimately determine the competitive performance of companies. Even more important, it will determine the very fabric of society and the quality of life of every industrialized nation. … Unless this challenge is met, the developed world will face increasing social tensions, increasing polarization, increasing (...) radicalization, possibly even class war. (shrink)

I end with another parable, but it is also a true story. Harvey Gushing, the famous surgeon after whom the Gushing Lectures are named, made an international reputation in his allegiance to quality. He badgered his profession to a higher standard of self-effacement and railed against the debasement of clinical skills and overemphasis on research and pursuit of personal gain. We honor him to this day because those were, and remain, important points. Yet, Harvey Gushing served as a surgeon during (...) World War I and at Ypres. Although the Allied mortality was as much as 50,000 soldiers a day, not counting the wounded, Gushing refused to operate on any more than two patients each day, arguing that to do so would have lowered his standard of care for his patients a – standard that made sense in one time but that became strikingly insensitive, and I suggest even unethical, in another when confronted with a different reality. (shrink)

Summary This essay aims to elucidate the collaborative dimension of the knowledge-making process in eighteenth-century Linnaean botany. Due to its ever increasing and potentially infinite need for information, Linnaean botany had to rely more and more heavily on the accumulation and aggregation of contributions by many people. This, in turn, had a crucial impact on the genesis and form of botanical publications: the more comprehensive the project, the larger the effect. It was the botanist Carl Linnaeus who managed to establish (...) himself as the centre of this contributory knowledge-making process. Given the exponential growth in the number of known species and the resulting need for observation, this was the necessary condition which allowed him continuously to update and correct his systematic works, and allowed them to maintain their status as the central catalogues of a global botany for decades. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to understand and critically appraise science-based transgression dynamics in their whole complexity. It includes contributions from experts with different disciplinary backgrounds, such as philosophy, history and sociology. Thus, it is in itself an example of boundary transgression. Scientific disciplines and their objects have tended to be seen as permanent and distinct. However, science is better conceived as an activity that constantly surpasses, erases and rebuilds all kinds of boundaries, either disciplinary, socio-ethical or ecological. This (...) transgressive capacity, a characteristic trait of science and its applications, defines us as "knowledge societies." However, scientific and technological developments are also sources of serious environmental and social concerns. Contents Disciplinary Transgression of Boundaries - Extra-Disciplinary Transgression of Boundaries - Radical Transgression of Boundaries Target Groups Scientists and students of philosophy, sociology, history of science, and interdisciplinary fields such as technology assessment, sustainable development, science and technology studies - Practitioners in research management Editors Bettina-Johanna Krings (MA in sociology, political science and anthropology; PhD in sociology) is head of the research department "Knowledge Society and Knowledge Policy" at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Hannot Rodríguez (PhD in philosophy) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU. Anna Schleisiek (Dipl.-Soz.) is doing research on the role of economic principles in the scientific practice of research teams for her PhD project in sociology. <. (shrink)

This article explores how historians of emotions and historians of the senses can collaborate to write a history of emotional experience that takes seriously the corporeality of emotions. It invest...

While several recent evaluation studies have shown the efficacy of parent training programs for children with neurodevelopmental disorders, manual-based training in German is still scarce. To address this gap, we developed a specific modularized training program for parents of children from preschool to pre-adolescent age with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The overarching purpose of the FETASS intervention is to enhance social communication behavior and quality of life of the child by coaching parents. As a proximal target, the FETASS training aims to (...) provide families with behavior management and communication strategies. The development of the training was influenced by published behavioral parent trainings and autism-specific interventions. The training comprises eight weekly sessions and targets families whose children have a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder without intellectual and language impairments. As a preliminary pilot study, the purpose was to evaluate the acceptability of the training. Furthermore, the study aimed at initially evaluating social communication behavior, quality of life of the child, parental stress level, and parenting after training in comparison to a treatment as usual group. Exploratively, long-term effects were investigated after 6 months of training as well. In total, 57 families participated. Questionnaires about social communication behavior and quality of life of the child, parental stress, and parenting were administered at three time points. Primary outcome measures were the social communication behavior of the child and the parent’s proxy report on quality of life of the child. Secondary outcome measures were changes in parental stress and parenting behavior. Acceptability of the training was very high and we had almost no dropouts during training. Results for the primary outcome measure of social communication behavior, overall quality of life of the child, and long-term effects on social communication behavior were not significant. While long-term findings for parent stress reduction and for the quality of life of the child are promising, further research has to be done in a future randomized controlled trial. (shrink)

The act of thought-thought as an act-would precede the thought thinking or becoming conscious of an act. The notion of act involves a violence essentially: the violence of transitivity, lacking in the transcendence of thought... Totality and Infinity The work of Emmanuel Levinas revolves around two preoccupations. First, his philosophical project can be described as the construction of a formal ethics, grounded upon the transcendence of the other human being and a subject's spontaneous responsibility toward that other. Second, Levinas has (...) written extensively on, and as a member of, the cultural and textual life of Judaism. These two concerns are intertwined. Their relation, however, is one of considerable complexity. Levinas' philosophical project stems directly from his situation as a Jewish thinker in the twentieth century and takes its particular form from his study of the Torah and the Talmud. It is, indeed, a hermeneutics of biblical experience. If inspired by Judaism, Levinas' ethics are not eo ipso confessional. What his ethics takes from Judaism, rather, is a particular way of conceiving transcendence and the other human being. It owes to the philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber a logos of the world and of the holy, which acknowledges their incom mensurability without positing one as fallen and the other as supernal. (shrink)

This paper was prompted by some striking similarities between both the ritual and the medical use of placenta in Ming China and in premodern Europe. Contrary to most accounts, which focus either on the rise of chemiatric medicine or on the growing interest in “exotic” substances, the seventeenth century in Europe also reveals a revived interest in substances from animals, including materials from human bodies. The paper will analyse the use of words signifying the placenta, and follow the trace of (...) vernacular knowledge about the placenta and its role in birth-giving, and in medieval medical texts on women's medicine. I will then analyse how the placenta is treated in systems of signatures in the age of alchemy and will try to trace the advent of more complicated preparations in the seventeenth century, and how between the eighteenth and the twenty-first century, the placenta meandered between a token of folk medicine (re)productive material and pharmaceutical resource. (shrink)

Recently, many AI researchers and practitioners have embarked on research visions that involve doing AI for “Good”. This is part of a general drive towards infusing AI research and practice with ethical thinking. One frequent theme in current ethical guidelines is the requirement that AI be good for all, or: contribute to the Common Good. But what is the Common Good, and is it enough to want to be good? Via four lead questions, the concept of Ethics Pen-Testing identifies challenges (...) and pitfalls when determining, from an AI point of view, what the Common Good is and how it can be enhanced by AI. The current paper reports on a first evaluation of EPT. EPT is applicable to various artefacts that have ethical impact, including designs for or implementations of specific AI technology, and requirements engineering methods for eliciting which ethical settings to build into AI. The current study focused on the latter type of artefact. In four independent sessions, participants with close but varying involvements in “AI and ethics” were asked to deconstruct a method that has been proposed for eliciting ethical values and choices in autonomous car technology, an online experiment modelled on the Trolley Problem. The results suggest that EPT is well-suited to this task: the remarks made by participants lent themselves well to being structured by the four lead questions of EPT, in particular, regarding the question what the problem is and about which stakeholders define it. As part of the problem definition, the need became apparent for thorough technical domain knowledge in discussions of AI and ethics. Thus, participants questioned the framing and the presuppositions inherent in the experiment and the discourse on autonomous cars that underlies the experiment. They transitioned from discussing a specific AI artefact to discussing its role in wider socio-technical systems. Results also illustrate to what extent and how the requirements engineering method forces us to not only have a discussion about which values to “build into” AI systems, the substantive building blocks of the Common Good, but also about how we want to have this discussion at all. Thus, it forces us to become explicit about how we conceive of democracy and the constitutional state and the procedural building blocks of the Common Good. (shrink)

The Liverpool Care Pathway is an interdisciplinary protocol, aiming to ensure that dying patients receive dignified and individualized treatment and care at the end-of-life. LCP was originally developed in 1997 in the United Kingdom from a model of cancer care successfully established in hospices. It has since been introduced in many countries, including Norway. The method was withdrawn in the UK in 2013. This review investigates whether LCP has been adapted and validated for use in nursing homes and for dying (...) people with dementia. This systematic review is based on a systematic literature search of MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, and Web of Science. The search identified 12 studies, but none describing an evidence-based adaption of LCP to nursing home patients and people with dementia. No studies described the LCP implementation procedure, including strategies for discontinuation of medications, procedures for nutrition and hydration, or the testing of such procedures in nursing homes. No effect studies addressing the assessment and treatment of pain and symptoms that include dying nursing home patients and people with dementia are available. LCP has not been adapted to nursing home patients and people with dementia. Current evidence, i.e. studies investigating the validity and reliability in clinically relevant settings, is too limited for the LCP procedure to be recommended for the population at hand. There is a need to develop good practice in palliative medicine, Advance Care Planning, and disease-specific recommendations for people with dementia. (shrink)

We consider the problem of choosing the location of a public facility either (a) on a tree network or (b) in a Euclidean space. (a) (1996) characterize the class of target rules on a tree network by Pareto efficiency and population-monotonicity. Using Vohra's (1999) characterization of rules that satisfy Pareto efficiency and replacement-domination, we give a short proof of the previous characterization and show that it also holds on the domain of symmetric preferences. (b) The result obtained for model (a) (...) proves to be crucial for the analysis of the problem of choosing the location of a public facility in a Euclidean space. Our main result is the characterization of the class of coordinatewise target rules by unanimity, strategy-proofness, and either replacement-domination or population-monotonicity. (shrink)

The Prometheus Syndrome includes eight essays which focus on a Promethean figure in the fields of science, theology, or literature, or as fictional character.

From a marketing point of view, front labels play a crucial role in the consumers' relatively quick decisionmaking process when buying wine in retail stores. The aim of this paper was to reveal which semiotic code systems, in particular, colors, visual representations, and designs, as well as verbal representations, Austrian wine producers use on the front labels of their red wine bottles. For that purpose, the method of content analysis was applied on a representative corpus of red wine labels. Our (...) empirical study showed that the wine labels analyzed especially appeal to price sensitive customers through the employment of light colors. In addition, wine producers do not seem to apply the “visualtotaste lexicon” as the labels rarely show the color “red.” Furthermore, in a large number of cases the wine producers use their family names as brand names of their wines. Moreover, both the depiction of crests and landscapes and the application of indexical brand names, emphasize the Austrian origin of wines. Finally, the extensive use of English brand names appears to connect wines to the social stereotypes of modernity, prestige, and progress. (shrink)