Ethical analysis of armed drones has to date focused heavily on their use in foreign wars or counterterrorism operations, but it is important also to consider the potential use of armed drones in domestic law enforcement. Governments around the world are already making drones available to police for purposes including border control, criminal investigation, rescue missions, traffic management, and the monitoring of public assemblies. Unarmed and controlled remotely, these camera-equipped aircraft provide a powerful and mobile surveillance capacity that can be (...) highly effective in detecting suspicious activity and guiding police operations. In addition, for situations where criminal violence presents a danger to public safety, some governments appear to be readying their police to neutralize threats using drones that are also equipped with weapons. In anticipation of that potential development, this article discusses whether or how police should use armed drones. It applies some of the established ethical principles on police use of force (necessity, proportionality, and precaution), and it explores some of the challenges a drone-using, “tele-present” police officer is likely to face in seeking to adhere to those principles. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIm Rahmen des Modellvorhabens „Patienten als Partner—Tumorpatienten und ihr Mitwirken bei medizinischen Entscheidungen“ wurden zwischen März 2002 und August 2003 272 palliativ behandelte Tumorpatienten nach ihrer Einstellung zur Patientenverfügung und zur gewünschten Beteiligung an medizinischen Entscheidungen befragt. Von den Befragten kannten 30% Patientenverfügungen nicht, darunter signifikant mehr Befragte mit formal niedrigerem Bildungsabschluss. Es hatten bereits 11% eine Patientenverfügung abgeschlossen, 22% wollten wahrscheinlich eine abschließen, und 30% wollten keine abschließen. Es fand sich ein statistisch signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen dem Abschluss einer Patientenverfügung (...) und dem Wunsch nach mehr eigener Entscheidungsverantwortung. Die Einstellung zur Patientenverfügung und der Wunsch nach partizipativer Entscheidungsfindung stehen in keinem statistisch signifikanten Zusammenhang. Patienten mit schriftlichen Vorausverfügungen haben einen erhöhten Kommunikations- und Rückkopplungsbedarf, auf den Ärzte sensibel eingehen sollten. Bei der Information über Patientenverfügungen sollten Menschen mit niedrigerem Bildungsstand mehr als bisher berücksichtigt werden. (shrink)

Moral uncertainty surrounding the use of armed drones has been a persistant problem for more than two decades. In response, [this book] provides greater clarity by investigating the ways in which violent drone use is seen as just or unjust in a variety of circumstances. Adopting a broad-based approach to normative inquiry, this book organizes moral ideas around a series of concepts of drone violence, including warfare, violent law enforcement, tele-intimate violence and violence devolved from humans to artificial intelligence (AI) (...) technologies. Christian Enemark assesses these concepts to discern and address teh potential for armed drone systems to support moral progress or to generate injustice. (shrink)

–Whether celebratory or critical, STS research on science-industry relations has focused on the blurring of boundaries and hybridization of codes and practices. However, the vocabulary of boundary and hybrid tends to reify science and industry as separate in the attempt to map their relation. Drawing on interviews with the head of a research center in plant biology, this article argues that biology and biotech are symbionts. In order to be viable and productive, symbiosis needs to be carefully managed and given (...) room for divergence within mutual dependence. This process does not take place as the negotiation of a preexisting science-industry boundary. Rather, viability is obtained through a strategy of circumventing the science-industry food chain and sequestering biotech components within the research center. Symbiosis allows academic scientists to do biology while at the same time demonstrating entrepreneurial spirit. (shrink)

In this June 2004 interview, Julia Kristeva takes us through her long and extraordinary career as a writer, an intellectual, and an academic. She speaks of her early years as a radical poststructuralist, postmodern feminist, and discusses how her scope has broadened with the addition of psychoanalytical theory and practice. She answers questions about her work on the abject, melancholy, motherhood, and love, and reveals how personal experiences, like the death of her father, have shaped parts of her literary output.

This article contributes to the debate among just war theorists about the ethics of using armed drones in the war on terror. If violence of this kind is to be effectively restrained, it is necessary first to establish an understanding of its nature. Because it is difficult to conceptualize drone-based violence as war, there is concern that such violence is thus not captured by the traditional jus ad bellum framework. Drone strikes probably do not constitute a law enforcement practice, so (...) the peacetime ethics of criminal justice do not apply either. One possible solution is to develop and apply a legitimization framework of jus ad vim in which vim is “force short of war,” although this depends upon a vim–bellum distinction being a sustainable one. Moving beyond discussion of these three alternative concepts of drone-based violence, the article suggests a fourth—vis perpetua —and explores the ethical implications thereof. As a form of violence that presents no physical risk to individual users of force, a program of drone strikes poses a moral problem if it is intended to continue indefinitely, leading to the systematic endangerment of innocents without the eventual promise of peace. (shrink)

In this June 2004 interview, Julia Kristeva takes us through her long and extraordinary career as a writer, an intellectual, and an academic. She speaks of her early years as a radical poststructuralist, postmodern feminist, and discusses how her scope has broadened with the addition of psychoanalytical theory and practice. She answers questions about her work on the abject, melancholy, motherhood, and love, and reveals how personal experiences, like the death of her father, have shaped parts of her literary output.

This essay assesses the morality of Ukraine's use of drones to attack targets inside Russia. Following its invasion by Russian forces, Ukraine has had a just cause to wage a war of self-defense. However, its efforts to achieve that cause remain subject to moral limits. Even a state that has been unjustly attacked may not, for example, respond by deliberately targeting the attacking state's civilian population. To do so would violate the jus in bello principle of discrimination. The essay first (...) describes how drone technology has frequently enabled long-range strikes against Russian military assets as well as other targets inside cities. It then explains why it would be morally wrong for Ukraine to attack its enemy's population centers. First, Russian civilians are not liable to attack, and this nonliability is undiminished by the injustice of Russia's invasion or by any in bello wrongs committed by the Russian military. Second, attacking Russian cities with drones would arguably achieve little or no self-defensive benefit for Ukraine, and it could even be counterproductive. (shrink)

This article takes the stance that the subjectivity of the researcher is an integral part of the research process. It should be studied as a key to understanding the interrelational processes of meaning in an interview situation. The article demonstrates how the subjectivity of the researcher can be made accessible methodologically and methodically by combining a psychodynamic approach with an autoethnographic approach. The methodical question is therefore how the researcher can conduct introspection and at the same time reflect upon and (...) analyse the central object of investigation. The approach is psychoanalytically informed, but autoethnography became the actual vehicle for moving beyond reflections on the psychodynamics represented in the texts. The researcher ventured into an introspection of not only the texts, but also her own feelings, fantasies, and bodily experiences at the time of the interview and also when bringing the data into new situations. The abstract reflections after the interview situation were left for a while, and instead a more experiential and sensual/bodily understanding appeared, based on narratives, feelings, and reflections from the research field. In doing so, the affective and experiential personal process became an important step in the interpretation. (shrink)

We define an evolutionary process of “economic Darwinism” for playing the field, symmetric games. The process captures two forces. One is “economic selection”: if current behavior leads to payoff differences, behavior yielding lowest payoff has strictly positive probability of being replaced by an arbitrary behavior. The other is “mutation”: any behavior has at any point in time a strictly positive, very small probability of shifting to an arbitrary behavior. We show that behavior observed frequently is in accordance with “evolutionary equilibrium”, (...) a static equilibrium concept suggested in the literature. Using this result, we demonstrate that generally under positive (negative) externalities, economic Darwinism implies even more under- (over-)activity than does Nash equilibrium. (shrink)

This paper draws on research exploring how men narrate their long-term experiences of Weight Loss Surgery [WLS] and is specifically focused on findings relating to male embodiment. Whilst there is concern about increasing obesity and the possible role of bariatric [WLS] surgery in ameliorating this, there has been little research to date exploring men’s longer-term experiences of this. For the purposes of the present study, interviews were conducted with five men who had undergone bariatric surgery at least four years previously. (...) The transcribed interviews were subjected to narrative analysis with the additional incorporation of Watson’s “male body schema” into this process in order to facilitate focus on the embodied nature of the storied accounts obtained. The findings suggested two seemingly contrasting storylines: “ongoing struggles” and “success”. Struggles related mainly to control over eating habits and the visceral challenges of long-term side effects following surgery. Despite these struggles, the men ultimately presented an overriding storyline of embodied “success” in how the surgery had assisted them to live more normatively male lives. Importantly, narratives around struggles were presented as more private stories in contrast to the public emphasis on success. The silencing dynamic implicit in this suggests the likelihood that other men encountering similar experiences would be reticent to reveal their struggles, thereby perpetuating their suffering and leaving popular obesity and weight loss narratives unchallenged. (shrink)

SummaryThe menarcheal age and frequency of menstrual disorders in mothers of dizygotic and monozygotic twins born in Denmark in 1984 or 1985 were compared with a control sample of mothers of singleton infants born in the same period. Compared to control mothers, mothers of DZ twins had a lower menarcheal age and a lower frequency of menstrual irregularities—menstrual cycles exceeding 5 weeks duration, varying length of menstrual cycles and episodes of menostasia. Mothers of MZ twins had a higher frequency of (...) intermenstrual bleeding compared to mothers of singletons. All results were adjusted for maternal age and parity. The findings are relevant to the interpretation of aetiological factors leading to twin births and support the hypothesis of differences in sex hormone activity of the mothers of DZ twins in comparison with other women. (shrink)

This paper is divided into two parts: in part one I give some examples from a study of how patient or client perspectives on treatment and life with cancer are “discovered”, addressed, included and shaped within cancer research and treatment after World War 2. In this first part I draw on analyses from my Ph.D. thesis about the concept of quality of life and psycho-social research on cancer, in which I focused on the development and interrelationships between (1) welfare state (...) forms of governance, (2) the practice of cancer treatment and its relation to research, and (3) client’s relations to treatment regimes and a life with cancer. I argue that the client’s perspective is represented in medical practice in many different, and often problematic, ways. A core problem is that this perspective is often represented from a third-person point of view, not from a direct first-person point of view. I find a number of reasons for this. The lack of first-person involvement is not isolated to medical practice but is also obvious in psycho-social practice that evolves in the relation to medical treatment and research in the last part of this century. The conflict around this is reflected in psychological theories about illness and disease that are formulated in this period. In the second part of the article I discuss the directions in which psychological theory has to develop in order to contribute to the recognition and involvement of first-person perspectives in medical treatment and research. The aim of this discussion is not limited to understanding how we as subjects handle everyday life with biological changes of bodily function. (shrink)

Editorial for issue 28 of Scandinavian Jewish Studies, 'Ethics and Aesthetics of Holocaust Memory'.

ZusammenfassungIm Rahmen des Modellvorhabens „Patienten als Partner—Tumorpatienten und ihr Mitwirken bei medizinischen Entscheidungen“ wurden zwischen März 2002 und August 2003 272 palliativ behandelte Tumorpatienten nach ihrer Einstellung zur Patientenverfügung und zur gewünschten Beteiligung an medizinischen Entscheidungen befragt. Von den Befragten kannten 30% Patientenverfügungen nicht, darunter signifikant mehr Befragte mit formal niedrigerem Bildungsabschluss. Es hatten bereits 11% eine Patientenverfügung abgeschlossen, 22% wollten wahrscheinlich eine abschließen, und 30% wollten keine abschließen. Es fand sich ein statistisch signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen dem Abschluss einer Patientenverfügung (...) und dem Wunsch nach mehr eigener Entscheidungsverantwortung. Die Einstellung zur Patientenverfügung und der Wunsch nach partizipativer Entscheidungsfindung stehen in keinem statistisch signifikanten Zusammenhang. Patienten mit schriftlichen Vorausverfügungen haben einen erhöhten Kommunikations- und Rückkopplungsbedarf, auf den Ärzte sensibel eingehen sollten. Bei der Information über Patientenverfügungen sollten Menschen mit niedrigerem Bildungsstand mehr als bisher berücksichtigt werden. (shrink)

Coffee producers in many parts of the world have the option of either becoming a member of and selling their coffee to a Fairtrade and organic co-operative, or selling it to a “coyote”, the Central American nickname for intermediary purchaser. This study investigates why different producers make different choices, looking at both material and immaterial costs and benefits of the two choices. A qualitative study from Chiapas finds that a main reason for not choosing the co-operatives is the production requirements (...) that follow organic certification. A survey on production costs confirms that members of an organic co-operative have more work hours than non-members in the same area. A probit analysis indicates that both coffee plot size and number of working household members influence the producers’ decision on sales channel. However, the study also finds that aspects not related to the organic production requirements can affect the choice, such as the level of trust in co-operative leadership, and the co-operatives’ payment systems. (shrink)

The worldwide decline in bees and other pollinating insects is a threat to biodiversity and food security, and urgent action must be taken to stop and then reverse this decline. An established cause of the insect decline is the use of harmful pesticides in agriculture. This case study focuses on the use of pesticides in Norwegian apple production and considers who among farmers, consumers and public authorities is most responsible for protecting bees against harmful pesticides. The extent to which these (...) three different groups consider themselves responsible and the degree to which they are trusted by each of the other groups are also studied. This empirical study involves both qualitative interviews with Norwegian apple farmers, consumers and public authorities and survey data from consumers and farmers. The results show that consumers consider public authorities and farmers equally responsible for protecting bees, while farmers are inclined to consider themselves more responsible. Farmers, consumers and public authorities do not consider consumers significantly responsible for protecting bees, and consumers have a high level of trust in both farmers and public authorities regarding this matter. This study also finds that a low level of consumer trust in farmers or public authorities increases consumers’ propensity to purchase organic food, suggesting that those who do not trust that enough action is adopted to protect the environment take on more individual responsibility. This paper adds to the existing literature concerning the allocation of responsibility for environmental outcomes, with empirical evidence focusing specifically on pesticides and bees. (shrink)

Looking at the ways in which anthropologists try to lead positive lives at work, this book investigates what kind of morality they perform in their occupations and what the impact of this morality is. The book includes ethnographic studies in four professional arenas: health care, business, management and interdisciplinary research. The discussion is positioned at the intersection of 'applied or public anthropology' and 'the anthropology of ethics' and analyses the ways in which anthropologists can carry out 'moral work' both inside (...) and outside of academia. (shrink)

Gehört die Fähigkeit, uns zu verlieben, zu unserem stammesgeschichtlichen Erbe? Ist das ein Trick der Natur, der Menschen dazu bewegt, Bindungen einzugehen? Ist Bindung Liebe? Ist Sexualität im Phänomenbereich der Liebe zu verorten? Ist Liebe überhaupt ein Gefühl oder besteht sie aus einem Netz von Gefühlen, Empfindungen und rationalen Einstellungen? Welche Rolle kommt dabei kulturell geprägten Überzeugungen und Vorstellungen zu? Und was wird daraus in der Kunst? Diesen und anderen Fragen gehen die Autorinnen und Autoren dieses Bandes aus philosophischer, biologischer, (...) ethnologischer, psychologischer, neurologischer sowie sozial- und literaturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive nach. Herausgekommen ist dabei ein Buch, in dem neuere wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse eng aufeinander bezogen und in einem gut verständlichen, anregenden Stil präsentiert werden. (shrink)

Doing research in a globalized context – regardless of the discipline – requires language decisions at different stages of the research process. Many of these language decisions have ethical implications. Existing literature and ethical guidance tend to focus on ethical concerns that arise in communication with participants who use a language different from the main research language. As this article shows, language decisions with potential ethical implications can occur in many additional ways. Two questions guided this work: how do language (...) decisions and research ethics intersect at different stages of the research process, and what potential harm is related to language decisions and how can such concerns be mitigated? Relevant literature – combined with practical research experiences – show that language decisions can potentially result in harm at the conception stage of research projects, when working with participants, during data analysis, interpretation, and dissemination, as well as when managing a research project. Thus, the article highlights that the role of language-related ethical dilemmas is not only organizational (e.g., ensuring participants can understand what the research is about), but also social (e.g., developing trust and relationships in research teams) as well as ideological (e.g., awareness of power structures and diverse worldviews). In order to support researchers in globalized contexts, this article offers a reflective framework that complements regulatory guidance issued by ethical bodies and facilitates a deeper awareness of ethical implications related to language decisions in a multilingual world. (shrink)

We generalize the concept of Nash equilibrium in mixed strategies for strategic form games to allow for ambiguity in the players' expectations. In contrast to other contributions, we model ambiguity by means of so-called lower probability measures or belief functions, which makes it possible to distinguish between a player's assessment of ambiguity and his attitude towards ambiguity. We also generalize the concept of trembling hand perfect equilibrium. Finally, we demonstrate that for certain attitudes towards ambiguity it is possible to explain (...) cooperation in the one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma in a way that is in accordance with some recent experimental findings. (shrink)

Background: In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of a mindfulness program including Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on the mental health of student teachers when offered at their educational institution in a real-life context.Methods: A parallel randomized controlled trial was conducted among self-selected student teachers at a Danish undergraduate program for teacher education in the autumns of 2019 and 2020. Participation was not recommended in case of clinical depression or a diagnosis of psychosis or schizophrenia, abuse of alcohol, drugs, (...) and/or medicine. Randomization was performed by a Statistician who was blinded to the identity of the students. Data was collected using self-reported questionnaires. The primary outcome was a change in perceived stress 3 months from baseline. Secondary outcome measures were symptoms of anxiety and depression, well-being, resilience, mindfulness, and thoughts and feelings during rest. The effects were analyzed according to the intention-to-treat principle using mixed-effect linear regression models. Mediating effects of mindfulness skills on the mental health outcomes were explored using structural equation modeling.Results: The study group included 67 student teachers with 34 allocated to the intervention group ; and 33 students allocated to a waiting list control group. At baseline, mean Perceived Stress Scale scores were 18.88 in the intervention group and 17.91 in the waiting list control group. A total of 56 students completed the questionnaire at a 3-month follow-up. Statistically significant effects of the intervention were found on perceived stress, symptoms of anxiety and depression, well-being, and on three of seven resting-state dimensions. No effects were found on resilience or mindfulness. Statistically significant mediated effects via resting-state dimensions were found.Conclusion The findings suggested that offering a mindfulness program at an undergraduate program for teacher education could significantly improve the mental health among self-selected students within 3 months. Results of mediation analysis supported the hypothesis that some of the effects might be explained by reduced distracting thoughts.Clinical Trial Registration: [www.ClinicalTrials.gov], identifier [NCT04558099]. (shrink)

Empathy as “Feelingly Grasping” Perhaps the central question concerning empathy is if and if so how it combines aspects of thinking and feeling. Indeed, the intellectual tradition of the past centuries has been marked by a dualism. Roughly speaking, there have been two pathways when it comes to understanding each other: 1) thinking or mind reading and 2) feeling or empathy. Nonetheless, one of the ongoing debates in psychology and philosophy concerns the question whether these two abilities, namely, understanding what (...) the other is thinking and “understanding” what the other is feeling, are separate or not. Most of the authors in this volume consider the cognitive and affective dimensions at work within empathy. Each author does this within and beyond their own field. Coming from the humanities, we propose the following definition for empathy: Empathy is a social feeling that consists in feelingly grasping or retracing the present, future, or past emotional state of the other; thus empathy is also called a vicarious emotion. We would like to highlight two aspects of this definition in particular: 1.) the peculiar position of “grasping” which involves a cognitive dimension and 2.) the social dimensions of relating to the emotions of another human being. (shrink)

As a neo-liberal economy, India has become one of the new health tourism destinations, with commercial gestational surrogacy as an expanding market. Yet the Indian Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill has been pending for five years, and the guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research are somewhat vague and contradictory, resulting in self-regulated practices of fertility clinics. This paper broadly looks at clinical ethics in reproduction in the practice of surrogacy and decision-making in various procedures. Through empirical research in (...) New Delhi, the capital of India, from December 2011 to November 2012, issues of decision-making on embryo transfer, fetal reduction, and mode of delivery were identified. Interviews were carried out with doctors in eighteen ART clinics, agents from four agencies, and fourteen surrogates. In aiming to fulfil the commissioning parents’ demands, doctors were willing to go to the greatest extent possible in their medical practice. Autonomy and decision-making regarding choice of the number of embryos to transfer and the mode of delivery lay neither with commissioning parents nor surrogate mothers but mostly with doctors. In order to ensure higher success rates, surrogates faced the risk of multiple pregnancy and fetal reduction with little information regarding the risks involved. In the globalized market of commercial surrogacy in India, and with clinics compromising on ethics, there is an urgent need for formulation of regulative law for the clinical practice and maintenance of principles of reproductive ethics in order to ensure that the interests of surrogate mothers are safeguarded. (shrink)

Widowhood is common in old age, can be accompanied by serious health consequences and is often linked to substantial changes in social network. Little is known about the impact of social isolation on the development of depressive symptoms over time taking widowhood into account. We provide results from the follow-up 5 to follow-up 9 from the longitudinal study AgeCoDe and its follow-up study AgeQualiDe. Depression was measured with GDS-15 and social isolation was assessed using the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS-6). (...) The group was aligned of married and widowed people in old age and education through entropy balancing. Linear mixed models were used to examine the frequency of occurrence of depressive symptoms for widowed and married elderly people depending on the risk of social isolation. Our study shows that widowhood alone does not lead to an increased occurrence of depressive symptoms. However, "widowed oldest old", who are also at risk of social isolation, have significantly more depressive symptoms than those without risk. In the group of "married oldest old", women have significantly more depressive symptoms than men, but isolated and non-isolated do not differ. Especially for people who have lost a spouse, the social network changes significantly and increases the risk for social isolation. This represents a risk factor for the occurrence of depressive symptoms. (shrink)

This paper uses a two-dimensional version of a standard common consequence experiment to test the intransitivity explanation of Allais-paradox-type violations of expected utility theory. We compare the common consequence effect of two choice problems differing only with respect to whether alternatives are statistically correlated or independent. We framed the experiment so that intransitive preferences could explain violating behavior when alternatives are independent, but not when they are correlated. We found the same pattern of violation in the two cases. This is (...) evidence against intransitivity as an explanation of the Allais Paradox. The question whether violations of expected utility are mainly due to intransitivity or to violation of independence is important since it is exactly on this issue the main new decision theories differ. (shrink)

<I>Off Beat: Pluralizing Rhythm </I>draws attention to rhythm as a tool for analyzing various cultural objects. In fields as diverse as music, culture, nature, and economy, rhythm can be seen as a phenomenon that both connects and divides. It suggests a certain measure with which people, practices, and cultures may comply. Yet, for this very reason rhythm can also function as a field of exclusion, contestation, and debate. In that respect, rhythm possesses an underestimated meaning-creating potential. Whereas its connecting force (...) is often accentuated in the aesthetic, political, and commercial usage of the term, the divisive aspect of rhythm is at least as important. This volume wants to rid rhythm of its harmless, nearly esoteric, reputation as a cosmic unifier by understanding it in the light of the contemporary medial turn. In the present collection of essays, we have encouraged approaches that combine political, aesthetic, musical, and theoretical dimensions of rhythm. (shrink)