Elaborates the author’s conception of plasticity by proposing a new way of thinking through Heidegger’s writings on change.

Diversity is often announced as a solution to ethical problems in artificial intelligence (AI), but what exactly is meant by diversity and how it can solve those problems is seldom spelled out. This lack of clarity is one hurdle to motivating diversity in AI. Another hurdle is that while the most common perceptions about what diversity is are too weak to do the work set out for them, stronger notions of diversity are often defended on normative grounds that fail to (...) connect to the values that are important to decision-makers in AI. However, there is a long history of research in feminist philosophy of science and a recent body of work in social epistemology that taken together provide the foundation for a notion of diversity that is both strong enough to do the work demanded of it, and can be defended on epistemic grounds that connect with the values that are important to decision-makers in AI. We clarify and defend that notion here by introducing emergent expertise as a network phenomenon wherein groups of workers with expertise of different types can gain knowledge not available to any individual alone, as long as they have ways of communicating across types of expertise. We illustrate the connected epistemic and ethical benefits of designing technology with diverse groups of workers using the examples of an infamous racist soap dispenser, and the millimeter wave scanners used in US airport security. (shrink)

In this article, I consider recent debates on the notion of procreative liberty, to argue that reproductive freedom can be understood as a form of positive freedom—that is, the freedom to make oneself according to various ethical and aesthetic principles or values. To make this argument, I draw on Michel Foucault’s later work on ethics. Both adopting and adapting Foucault’s notion of ethics as a practice of the self and of liberty, I argue that reproductive autonomy requires enactment to gain (...) meaning within the life contexts of prospective parents. Thus, I propose a shift away from the standard negative model of freedom that sees it solely as a matter of noninterference or nonimpedance, a view advocated by major commentators such as John Harris and John Robertson. Instead, reproduction should be understood as a deeply personal project of self-making that integrates both negative and positive freedom. (shrink)

Smoking is frequently presented as being particularly problematic when the smoker is a pregnant woman because of the potential harm to the future child. This premise is used to justify targeting pregnant women with a unique approach to smoking cessation including policies such as the routine testing of all pregnant women for carbon monoxide at every antenatal appointment. This paper examines the evidence that such policies are justified by the aim of harm prevention and argues that targeting pregnant women in (...) this way is likely to do more harm than good. Routine carbon monoxide testing is particularly problematic as it sends a message to pregnant women that they cannot be trusted either to truthfully answer questions as to whether or not they smoke, or to make decisions in the best interests of themselves and their future children in the way that non-pregnant individuals are. Further, if the aim is to reduce rates of prenatal harm, the evidence suggests that adopting a supportive and empowering approach to prenatal care is the most effective way to achieve this, something that the current policies aimed at pregnant women are in conflict with. (shrink)

Parameterized complexity has, so far, been largely confined to consideration of computational problems as decision or search problems. However, it is becoming evident that the parameterized point of view can lead to new insight into counting problems. The goal of this article is to introduce a formal framework in which one may consider parameterized counting problems.

Sanford Goldberg’s account of epistemic coverage constitutes a special case of Douglas Walton’s view that epistemic closure arises from dialectical argument. Walton’s pragmatic version of epistemic closure depends on dialectical norms for closing an argument, and epistemic coverage operates at the limits of argument closure because it minimizes dialectical exchange. Such closure works together with a shared hypothetical consideration to justify dismissal of surprising claims.

A conspicuous feature of contemporary modelling practices is the use of the same mathematical forms and modelling methods across different scientific domains. This model transfer raises many philosophical questions concerning, for example, the exact object of transfer, the relationship between the model and the target domain, the specific challenges such transfer confronts, and the ways in which model transfer relates to scientific progress. While the interest in studying model transfer has increased among philosophers of science in recent years, the phenomenon (...) has not yet received its due attention. The literature is scattered and much of it has addressed questions around the factors that might explain model transfer, such as whether the different target phenomena to which a model is applied eventually prove to be structurally and dynamically similar, or whether they have to share more fundamental ontological features that explain the interdisciplinary success of distinct models. This chapter surveys the existing literature on model transfer with the main goal of highlighting the main findings of existing discussions and pointing out open issues whose discussion would improve our understanding of this highly relevant phenomenon in science. (shrink)

This paper considers whether existing law could potentially be used to criminalize the transmission of genetic disease. The paper argues that even if an offence could be made out, the criminal law should not be involved in this context for many reasons, including the need to protect reproductive liberty and pregnant women’s rights. The paper also examines whether there might be scope for civil claims between reproductive partners for a ‘failure to warn’ of potential genetic harm and argues there are (...) strong policy grounds for resisting such claims. If such a duty were to exist, there might, in the future, be scope for a child to bring a claim under the Congenital Disabilities 1976. Such a claim could be for the failure by the child’s father to warn her mother, which in turn led to the loss of opportunity to have treatment in utero which could have prevented the disability. It is suggested that the same arguments which supported granting maternal immunity under the Act would also support paternal immunity and that, therefore the issue of the lack of paternal immunity under the Act should be revisited. (shrink)

Ethical reasoning and decision-making may be thought of as 'professional skills', and in this sense are as relevant to efficient clinical practice as the biomedical and clinical sciences are to the diagnosis of a patient's problem. Despite this, however, undergraduate medical programmes in ethics tend to focus on the teaching of bioethical theories, concepts and/or prominent ethical issues such as IVF and euthanasia, rather than the use of such ethics knowledge (theories, principles, concepts, rules) to clinical practice. Not surprisingly, many (...) students and clinicians experience considerable difficulty in using what they know about ethics to help them make competent ethical decisions in their day-to-day clinical practice. This paper describes the development of a seminar programme for teaching senior medical students a more systematic approach to ethical reasoning and analysis and clinical decision-making. (shrink)

This is a collection of original and soul-searching interviews with contemporary spiritual social activists.

Menu labelling is a public health policy intervention that applies principles of nutrition labelling to the eating out environment. While menu labelling has received a good deal of attention with regard to its effectiveness in shaping food choices for obesity prevention, its premises have not yet been fully explored in terms of its broader applications to social equity and population health. In the following case, we focus on the example of menu labelling within the context of food policy at the (...) local level, a fruitful substantive area of consideration for public health ethics. (shrink)

When Artificial Intelligence (AI) is applied in decision-making that affects people’s lives, it is now well established that the outcomes can be biased or discriminatory. The question of whether algorithms themselves can be among the sources of bias has been the subject of recent debate among Artificial Intelligence researchers, and scholars who study the social impact of technology. There has been a tendency to focus on examples, where the data set used to train the AI is biased, and denial on (...) the part of some researchers that algorithms can also be biased. Here we illustrate the point that algorithms themselves can be the source of bias with the example of collaborative filtering algorithms for recommendation and search. These algorithms are known to suffer from cold-start, popularity, and homogenizing biases, among others. While these are typically described as statistical biases rather than biases of moral import; in this paper we show that these statistical biases can lead directly to discriminatory outcomes. The intuitive idea is that data points on the margins of distributions of human data tend to correspond to marginalized people. The statistical biases described here have the effect of further marginalizing the already marginal. Biased algorithms for applications such as media recommendations can have significant impact on individuals’ and communities’ access to information and culturally-relevant resources. This source of bias warrants serious attention given the ubiquity of algorithmic decision-making. (shrink)

Visual research is a fast-growing interdisciplinary field. The flexibility and diversity of visual research methods are seen as strengths by their adherents, yet adoption of such approaches often requires researchers to negotiate complex ethical terrain. The digital technological explosion has also provided visual researchers with access to an increasingly diverse array of visual methodologies and tools that, far from being ethically neutral, require careful deliberation and planning for use. To explore these issues, the Symposium on Exploring Ethical Frontiers of Visual (...) Methods was held at the University of Melbourne, Australia, on 4 March 2014. The symposium was hosted by the Visual Research Collaboratory, a consortium of Australian and Canadian visual researchers, with support from Melbourne Social Equity Institute, University of Melbourne. The symposium represented the culmination of a process to develop a resource outlining principles of ethical practice for visual researchers and ethics committee members, the Guidelines for Ethical Visual Research Methods, which were launched at the event. The Guidelines present a framework for considering ethical matters in visual research, distinguishing six groups of issues united by an overarching theme: confidentiality; minimizing harm; consent; fuzzy boundaries; authorship and ownership; and representation and audiences. (shrink)

Abstract:While many aspects of stock and option based compensation for corporate officers remain controversial, we suggest that the growing trend for similar practices in favor of boards of directors will prove to be even more contentious. High-ranking corporate managers do not set their own salaries nor authorize their own stock options. By contrast, boards of directors do, in fact, set their own compensation packages. Other potential conflicts of interest include setting option performance targets, stock buybacks, stock option resets and reloads, (...) consolidations (mergers and acquisitions), and service on multiple boards. As trust is the most valuable commodity in a capitalist society, we suggest that these potential conflicts of interest and related outcomes may ultimately serve to erode any anticipated benefits of director stock compensation. (shrink)

The referral is the key source of information that enables radiologists and radiographers to provide quality services. However, the frequency of suboptimal referrals is widely reported. This research reviews the literature to illuminate the challenges suboptimal referrals present to the delivery of care in radiology departments. The concept of suboptimal referral includes information, that is; missing, insufficient, inconsistent, misleading, hard to interpret or wrong. The research uses the four ethical principles ofnon-maleficence, beneficence, AutonomyandJusticeas an analytic framework.Suboptimal referrals can causeharmby hindering (...) safe contrast-media administration, proper radiation protection by justification of procedures, and compassionate patient care. Suboptimal referrals also hinder promoting patientbenefitsfrom the correct choice of imaging modality and protocol, an optimal performed examination, and an accurate radiology report. Additionally, patientautonomyis compromised from the lack of information needed to facilitate benefit–risk communication. Finally, suboptimal referrals challengejusticebased on lack of reasonable patient prioritising and the unfairness caused by unnecessary examinations.These findings illuminate how suboptimal referrals can inhibit good health and well-being for patients in relation to safety, missed opportunities, patient anxiety and dissatisfaction. The ethical challenges identified calls for solutions. Referral-decision support tools and artificial intelligence may improve referral quality, when implemented. Strategies addressing efforts of radiology professionals are inevitable, including gatekeeping, shared decision-making and inter-professional communication; thereby raising awareness of the importance of good referral quality and promoting commitment to ethical professional conduct. (shrink)

The Metaphysical Society was founded in 1869 at the instigation of James Knowles (editor of the Contemporary Review and then of the Nineteenth Century) with a view to 'collect, arrange, and diffuse Knowledge (whether objective or subjective) of mental and moral phenomena' (first resolution of the society in April 1869). The Society was a private dining and debate club that gathered together a latter-day clerisy. Building on the tradition of the Cambridge Apostles, they elected talented members from across the Victorian (...) intellectual spectrum: Bishops, one Cardinal, philosophers, men of science, literary figures, and politicians. The Society included in its 62 members prominent figures such as T. H. Huxley, William Gladstone, Walter Bagehot, Henry Edward Manning, John Ruskin, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 6, Page 21-22, June 2011.

Infants' knowledge need not have the same structure as the mature knowledge that develops from it. Fundamental to an understanding of number are concepts of equivalence and less-than and greater-than relations. These concepts, together with the concept of unit, are posited to be the starting points for the development of numerical knowledge.

Although interest in the subject of human-resource marketing is growing among researchers and practitioners, there have been remarkably few studies on the effects on employees of how benevolent their organization is. This article looks at the link between the presumption of organizational benevolence and the well-being of employees at work. The results of an empirical study of 595 employees show that the presumption of organizational benevolence is positively linked to employee well-being. The effect is indirect, as it is mediated by (...) the perceived level of organizational support. The existence of a link between employee well-being and intention to quit the company is also confirmed. (shrink)

The ability to distinguish between our own actions and those of an external agent is a fundamental component of normal human social interaction. Both low- and high-level mechanisms are thought to contribute to the sense of movement agency, but the contribution of each is yet to be fully understood. By applying small and incremental perturbations to realistic visual feedback of the limb, the influence of high-level action intentions and low-level motor predictive mechanisms were dissociated in two experiments. In the first, (...) participants were induced to claim agency over movements that were subject to large perturbations and to deny agency over self-produced unperturbed movements despite the application of motor corrections by low-level mechanisms. A control experiment confirmed that if reaches met with their intended goal then they were more likely to be attributed to the agent, regardless of the discrepancy between the actual and seen positions of the limb. (shrink)

Leading scholars explore the relationship between deconstructive theory and process thought.