Past research on bathroom graffiti has utilized disparate collection and analysis methodologies. Here, we seek to devise a rigorous, unified methodological framework for the collection and analysis of latrinalia. We begin by reviewing the disjointed methodological approaches and findings of previous research on bathroom graffiti in order to trace the limitations which prevent generalizability across datasets in comparable, meaningful ways. We also target some of the specific arguments and research questions presented in previous studies. Then, using study of bathroom graffiti, (...) we sketch a replicable, scalable methodological framework for studying bathroom graffiti in order to analyze the discourse of a large corpus of latrinalia collected from the bathrooms of George Mason University in Virginia. This article as a whole illustrates that until the field aligns collection and analysis methods – defining what constitutes discourse, collecting data from male and female bathrooms, and accounting for the number of buildings, restrooms, and stalls – the seminal questions of the field will never be adequately addressed. We conclude by discussing the limitations of our research design and pointing toward potential future directions in latrinalia research. (shrink)

Sober (1992) has recently evaluated Brandon's (1982, 1990; see also 1985, 1988) use of Salmon's (1971) concept of screening-off in the philosophy of biology. He critiques three particular issues, each of which will be considered in this discussion.

BackgroundThe need for an ethical debate about the use of coercion in intensive care units (ICU) may not be as obvious as in other areas of medicine, such as psychiatry. Coercive measures are often necessary to treat critically ill patients in the ICU. It is nevertheless important to keep these measures to a minimum in order to respect the dignity of patients and the cohesion of the clinical team. A deeper understanding of what patients and their relatives perceive during their (...) ICU stay will shed different light on intensive care management. Patients' experiences of loss of control, dependency and abandonment may lead to a new approach towards a broader approach to the concept of coercion in intensive care. The aim of our research is to explore the experiences of patients and relatives in the ICU and to determine when it might be possible to reduce feelings and memories of coercion.MethodsWe conducted and analysed 29 semi-structured interviews with patients and relatives who had been in the ICU a few months previously. Following a coding and categorisation process in MAXQDA™, a rigorous qualitative methodology was used to identify themes relevant to our research.ResultsFive main themes emerged: memory issues; interviewees’ experiences of restricting measures and coercive treatment; patients’ negative perception of situational and relational dependency with the risk of informal coercion; patients’ perceptions of good care in a context of perceived dependency; progression from perception of coercion and dependency to respect for the person. All patients were grateful to have survived. However, coercion in the form of restraint, restriction of movement, and coercive treatment in the ICU was also acknowledged by patients and relatives. These included elements of informal coercion beyond restraints, such as a perceived negative sense of dependence, surrender, and asymmetrical interaction between the patient and health providers.ConclusionsTo capture the full range of patients' experiences of coercion, it is necessary to expand the concept of coercion to include less obvious forms of informal coercion that may occur in dependency situations. This will help identify solutions to avoid or reduce negative recollections that may persist long after discharge and negatively affect the patients' quality of life. (shrink)

The Irish poet W. B. Yeats once wrote, with great sapience and perception: Nor dread, nor hope attend A dying animal; A man awaits his end Dreading and hoping all. That death has ever been a problem to man is attested as far back as we can trace our species in the archaeological record—indeed, it seems to have been a problem even for that immediate precursor of homo sapiens, the so-called Neanderthal Man; for he buried his dead.

Brandon Absher demonstrates that the neoliberalization of higher education has led to a paradigm shift in contemporary philosophy in the United States. Neoliberal philosophy aims to produce human capital and profitable knowledge.

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly being used in healthcare, thanks to the high level of performance that these systems have proven to deliver. So far, clinical applications have focused on diagnosis and on prediction of outcomes. It is less clear in what way AI can or should support complex clinical decisions that crucially depend on patient preferences. In this paper, we focus on the ethical questions arising from the design, development and deployment of AI systems to support decision-making around (...) cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the determination of a patient’s Do Not Attempt to Resuscitate status (also known as code status). The COVID-19 pandemic has made us keenly aware of the difficulties physicians encounter when they have to act quickly in stressful situations without knowing what their patient would have wanted. We discuss the results of an interview study conducted with healthcare professionals in a university hospital aimed at understanding the status quo of resuscitation decision processes while exploring a potential role for AI systems in decision-making around code status. Our data suggest that (1) current practices are fraught with challenges such as insufficient knowledge regarding patient preferences, time pressure and personal bias guiding care considerations and (2) there is considerable openness among clinicians to consider the use of AI-based decision support. We suggest a model for how AI can contribute to improve decision-making around resuscitation and propose a set of ethically relevant preconditions—conceptual, methodological and procedural—that need to be considered in further development and implementation efforts. (shrink)

This anthology collects some of the most important papers on what is believed to be the major force in evolution, natural selection. An issue of great consequence in the philosophy of biology concerns the levels at which, and the units upon which selection acts. In recent years, biologists and philosophers have published a large number of papers bearing on this subject. The papers selected for inclusion in this book are divided into three main sections covering the history of the subject, (...) explaining its conceptual foundations, and focusing on kin and group selection and higher levels of selection.One of the book's interesting features is that it draws together material from the biological and philosophical literatures. The philosophical literature, having thoroughly absorbed the biological material, now offers conceptual tools suitable for the reworking of the biological arguments. Although a full symbiosis has yet to develop, this anthology offers a unique resource for students in both biology and philosophy.Robert N. Brandon is Professor in the Philosophy Department, Duke University. Richard M. Burian is Professor of Philosophy and Department Chairman, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.A Bradford Book. (shrink)

Living organ donation has developed into an important therapeutic option in transplantation medicine. However, there are some medico-ethical problems that come along with the increasing reliance on this organ source. One of these concerns is based on the observation that many more women than men function as living organ donors. Whereas discrimination and differential access have been extensively discussed in the context of cadaveric transplantation and other areas of health care, the issue of gender imbalance in living organ donation has (...) received less attention. This paper presents relevant data from the Eurotransplant and UNOS transplantation systems and discusses possible explanations for the documented gender discrepancies. The conclusion calls for are view of existing practice guidelines in order to secure effective protection of particularly vulnerable potential donors and an equitable donor-recipient-ratio in living organ donation. (shrink)

Pozzi1 has thoroughly analysed testimonial injustices in the automated Prediction Drug Monitoring Programmes (PDMPs) case. Although Pozzi1 suggests that ‘the shift from an interpersonal to a structural dimension … bears a significant moral component’, her topical investigation does not further conceptualise the type of collective knowledge practices necessary to achieve epistemic justice. As Pozzi1 concludes: ‘this paper shows the limitations of systems such as automated PDMPs, it does not provide possible solutions’. In this commentary, we propose that an Ubuntu perspective—which, (...) so far, has received little attention in connection with epistemic injustice in medical machine learning (MML)—can fill this gap. This perspective can be used to mitigate some of the harmful effects of epistemic injustices by encouraging community involvement and forward-looking responsibility. It may be instructive to note first and foremost that the debate on epistemic justice and artificial intelligence in medicine has mostly been restricted to the Western World, that is, Europe and North America. There has been very little insight or accommodation of insights from the Global South. Ubuntu is a concept originating from Southern Africa that focuses on the close connections and mutual …. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence has found its way into many areas of human life, serving a range of purposes. Sometimes AI tools are designed to help humans eliminate high-volume, tedious, routine tas...

Nikola Biller-Andorno ist eine deutsche Bioethikerin und lehrt seit über zehn Jahren an der Universität Zürich. Zuvor war sie an der Universität Göttingen, der Weltgesundheitsorganisation in Genf sowie der Charité in Berlin tätig. Ihr Zugang zu ethischen Fragen in Medizin und Biotechnologie ist geprägt von einer empirisch gut informierten Analyse praktisch relevanter Fragen, welche wenn immer möglich auch die Wahrnehmungen beteiligter Akteure berücksichtigt.

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 64 Heft: 6 Seiten: 951-977.

Population-level theories of evolution—the stock and trade of population genetics—are statistical theories par excellence. But what accounts for the statistical character of population-level phenomena? One view is that the population-level statistics are a product of, are generated by, probabilities that attach to the individuals in the population. On this conception, population-level phenomena are explained by individual-level probabilities and their population-level combinations. Another view, which arguably goes back to Fisher but has been defended recently, is that the population-level statistics are sui (...) generis, that they somehow emerge from the underlying deterministic behavior of the individuals composing the population. Walsh et al. label this the statistical interpretation. We are not willing to give them that term, since everyone will admit that the population-level theories of evolution are statistical, so we will call this the emergentist statistical interpretation. Our goals are to show that: This interpretation is based on gross factual errors concerning the practice of evolutionary biology, concerning both what is done and what can be done; its adoption would entail giving up on most of the explanatory and predictive projects of evolutionary biology; and finally a rival interpretation, which we will label the propensity statistical interpretation succeeds exactly where the emergentist interpretation fails. (shrink)

Definition of the problem: The ELSI (Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues) program of the Human Genome Project is the biggest bioethical research project to date. However, it has met with fairly critical reception. Arguments: ELSI is nevertheless an important element in current bioethics. We can learn not just from the results and methodology of the numerous studies that received ELSI funding, but also by looking at the pros and cons of its close institutional integration into the Human Genome Project. Finally, (...) excellent didactic resources have been developed, providing helpful tools for the improvement of medical ethics teaching. Conclusion: A critical analysis of the ELSI program can be instrumental in developing new perspectives in medical ethics. (shrink)

Dada’s Subject and Structure argues that Dadaist praxis was far more theoretically incisive than previous scholarship has indicated. The book combines theoretical frameworks surrounding ideological subject formation with critical media and genre histories in order to more closely read Dadaist techniques (e.g. montage, irony, nonsense, etc.) across multiple works. These readings reveal both Dada’s preternatural focus on the discursive aspects of subject formation—linguistic sign, literary manifesto, photographic image, commodity form/aesthetics, which comprise the project’s chapters—and on Dada’s performative sabotage and subversion (...) of them. In addition to highlighting commonalities between Dadaist works, artists, and chapters previously imagined disparate, the book shows how Dada simultaneously prefigured structuralist theories of subject formation and pre-performed post-structuralist critiques of those theories. (shrink)

"On the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, assassination, his political thought remains underappreciated. Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry, along with a cast of distinguished contributors, engage critically with King's understudied writings on a wide range of compelling, challenging topics and rethink the legacy of this towering figure."--Provided by publisher.

Transplanting organs from emotionally related donors has become a fairly routine procedure in many countries. However, donors have to be chosen carefully in order to avoid not just medically, but also morally, questionable outcomes. This paper draws attention to vulnerabilities that may affect the voluntariness of the donor's decision. Suggestions are made as to how to approach the evaluation and selection of potential donors.

I provide a transcription of an inscription written by Josiah Royce in a copy of his The Spirit of Modern Philosophy which pertains to William James’ opinion of that book and of Royce’s work in general, followed by some brief remarks thereon.

The future of medicine will be predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory. Recent technological advancements bolster the realization of this vision, particularly through innovations in...

The paper considers the problem of defining concepts within formal ontologies. A number of distinct modes of definition are identified, which represent alternative viewpoints on the classification of objects. The nature of these modes is examined and interactions and correlations between them are considered. This analysis is used to characterise a number of key problems that confront the attempt to analyse the meanings of natural language concepts by means of a precise formal ontology. Some proposals are made as to how (...) these problems might be overcome. It is argued that specification of precise formal semantics requires clear separation between aspects of meaning that are based on different modes of classification. But, to provide an adequate ontological framework to describe the semantics of natural language terms, additional formal apparatus is required to synthesise their meaning by combining the different modes. This meta-level ontological formalism must articulate the interactions between the different modes. (shrink)

Theories of how religion shapes business tend to focus on dominant religious institutions. What happens in the case of minority religions, where the alignment of religion with other dominant institutions may be weak at best? To answer this question, I first develop an emergentist account of religion, explaining how macro-level conditioning shapes meso- and micro-level interactions in religious contexts, leading to either structural change or stasis in business contexts. I illustrate this account by examining how Roman Catholicism as a minority (...) religion shapes corporate capitalism in two cities: Bangalore, India, and Dubai, UAE. Drawing on in-depth interviews (N=200) and 12 months of participant observation, I show how countervailing mechanisms create both assets and liabilities for Catholic professionals’ success in workplaces, contributing to morphostasis rather than change. I argue that such processes cannot be adequately understood without specifying their “macrofoundations,” and identify corresponding macro-level influences at global and local levels. By specifying such macro-micro linkages, this article improves our understanding of how religion shapes business. (shrink)

Research on animal behavior is typically organized according to a combination of two influential frameworks: Ernst Mayr’s distinction between proximate and ultimate causes, and Niko Tinbergen’s “four questions”. My aim is to debunk two common interpretive misconceptions about Mayr’s proximate–ultimate distinction and its relationship to Tinbergen’s four questions, and to offer a new interpretation that avoids both. The first misconception is that the proximate–ultimate distinction maps cleanly onto Tinbergen’s four questions, marking a boundary between Tinbergen’s evolutionary and survival value questions (...) versus developmental and mechanistic questions. The second is that Mayr’s proximate–ultimate distinction is meant to rule out the relevance of proximate causes to evolutionary explanations. I argue that neither is plausible given the text and Mayr’s philosophical aims, namely, to argue that evolutionary biology cannot be reduced to either the physical sciences or to other areas of biology. Through a reconstruction of Mayr’s anti-reductionist argument, I develop an interpretation according to which the proximate–ultimate distinction marks two ways that teleological reasoning can be naturalistically grounded in biology, corresponding to Mayr’s distinction between teleonomic and adapted systems. Mayr distinguishes reduction, which the proximate–ultimate distinction is meant to block, from analysis, through which he allows that proximate causes, causes that are neither proximate nor ultimate, and chance can all contribute to evolutionary explanations. I conclude by suggesting some ways in which the interpretation defended here reframes our understanding of Mayr’s disagreements with some evolutionary-developmental biologists. (shrink)

Population-level theories of evolution—the stock and trade of population genetics—are statistical theories par excellence. But what accounts for the statistical character of population-level phenomena? One view is that the population-level statistics are a product of, are generated by, probabilities that attach to the individuals in the population. On this conception, population-level phenomena are explained by individual-level probabilities and their population-level combinations. Another view, which arguably goes back to Fisher but has been defended recently, is that the population-level statistics are sui (...) generis, that they somehow emerge from the underlying deterministic behavior of the individuals composing the population. Walsh et al. label this the statistical interpretation. We are not willing to give them that term, since everyone will admit that the population-level theories of evolution are statistical, so we will call this the emergentist statistical interpretation. Our goals are to show that: This interpretation is based on gross factual errors concerning the practice of evolutionary biology, concerning both what is done and what can be done; its adoption would entail giving up on most of the explanatory and predictive projects of evolutionary biology; and finally a rival interpretation, which we will label the propensity statistical interpretation succeeds exactly where the emergentist interpretation fails. (shrink)

Bioethics in a globalized world is meeting a number of challenges – fundamentalism in its different forms, and a focus on economic growth neglecting issues such as equity and sustainability, being prominent among them. How well are we as bioethicists equipped to make meaningful contributions in these times? The paper identifies a number of restraints and proceeds to probe potential resources such as the capability approach, care ethics, cosmopolitanism, and pragmatism. These elements serve to outline a perspective that focuses on (...) the preconditions for flourishing human relationships as a way to address bioethical challenges in a globalized world. (shrink)

Dieser Band präsentiert einen Überblick über die Medizinethik. Er stellt konzeptuelle und methodische Zugänge zum Fach dar und bietet Einblicke in zentrale Themenfelder. Kurze Einführungen und Lektürefragen zu ausgewählten Texten erleichtern die systematische Einordnung der verschiedenen theoretischen und praktischen Fragestellungen der Medizinethik.

Living organ donation is developing increasingly into an important therapeutic option in transplantation medicine. In spite of the existence of a normative-legal frame, medico-ethical questions remain open. Among these are in particular 1) who should be taken into consideration as a donor, 2) how information concerning the possibility of living organ donation should be passed on, and 3) what an adequate medical-psychosocial evaluation of potential donors should look like. The paper presents the results of a survey based on questionnaires, which (...) addresses the current practice in German transplantation centers as well as the opinions of clinical practioners regarding these three topics. The empirical data form the context for the formulation of medico-ethical ideas and suggestions concerning living organ donation in Germany. (shrink)

Further discussion of the ongoing human cloning debate.In the late 1990s cloning was still the subject of passionate debate. While philosophers were crossing swords about the implications of the “Dolly technique” for the meaning of human identity, sweeping declarations were made by major international bodies such as the World Medical Association, UNESCO, and the World Health Organization that unanimously condemned human reproductive cloning as ethically unacceptable and/or contrary to human dignity. By now, the topic elicits a mere frown, sneer, sigh, (...) or yawn from most bioethicists, depending on their temperament or mood. The same may hold true for those delegates at the United Nations who sat through many sessions that included the ominous agenda item entitled “international convention against reproductive cloning of human beings”.Human cloning became an issue at the United Nations when the item was introduced at the request of France and Germany in 2001. The two countries limited their proposal to reproductive cloning. This move, although aiming quite reasonably at the formulation of a minimal consensus among member states, got at least Germany into some trouble at home, as critical voices from different parts of the political spectrum argued that Germany should rather pursue a comprehensive ban on human cloning for any purpose, which would be more in accordance with its own national …. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the ways in which human bodies, payback, and comestibility become inescapably entangled in cultures in which honor is the prevailing virtue. Shakespeare was deeply sensitive to the social and psychological processes through which these concepts become entwined when honor is at stake—to the ways in which, as a means of corrective response, men who transgress a code of honor can be rightly reduced to their bodies, similar to how those who are not allowed to be (...) full participants in an honor culture (most particularly women) always already are. I begin by examining Shakespeare’s earliest depictions of honor cultures in Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucrece, and then briefly discusses how the ideas they trade in are further developed and complicated later in his career, focusing specifically on Othello. -/- . (shrink)