As COVID-19 drags on and new vaccines promise widespread immunity, the world's attention has turned to predicting how the present pandemic will end. How do societies know when an epidemic is over and normal life can resume? What criteria and markers indicate such an end? Who has the insight, authority, and credibility to decipher these signs? Detailed research on past epidemics has demonstrated that they do not end suddenly; indeed, only rarely do the diseases in question actually end. This article (...) examines the ways in which scholars have identified and described the end stages of previous epidemics, pointing out that significantly less attention has been paid to these periods than to origins and climaxes. Analysis of the ends of epidemics illustrates that epidemics are as much social, political, and economic events as they are biological; the “end,” therefore, is as much a process of social and political negotiation as it is biomedical. Equally important, epidemics end at different times for different groups, both within one society and across regions. Multidisciplinary research into how epidemics end reveals how the end of an epidemic shifts according to perspective, whether temporal, geographic, or methodological. A multidisciplinary analysis of how epidemics end suggests that epidemics should therefore be framed not as linear narratives—from outbreak to intervention to termination—but within cycles of disease and with a multiplicity of endings. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effect of the countervailing forces within organizations of formal systems that direct employees toward ethical acts and informal systems that direct employees toward fraudulent behavior. We study the effect of these forces on deception, a key component of fraud. The results provide support for an interactive effect of these formal and informal systems. The effectiveness of formal systems is greater when there is a strong informal “push” to do wrong; conversely, in the absence of a strong (...) push to do wrong, the strength of formal systems has little impact on fraudulent behavior. These results help to explain why the implementation of formal systems within organizations has been met with mixed results and identifies when formal systems designed to promote ethical behavior will be most efficacious. (shrink)

When applied in the health sector, AI-based applications raise not only ethical but legal and safety concerns, where algorithms trained on data from majority populations can generate less accurate or reliable results for minorities and other disadvantaged groups.

We first describe recent empirical research on racial cognition, particularly work on implicit racial biases that suggests they are widespread, that they can coexist with explicitly avowed anti-racist and tolerant attitudes, and that they influence behavior in a variety of subtle but troubling ways. We then consider a cluster of questions that the existence and character of implicit racial biases raise for moral theory. First, is it morally condemnable to harbor an implicit racial bias? Second, ought each of us to (...) suspect ourselves of racial bias, and therefore correct for it in ordinary activity, such as grading student papers? (shrink)

The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chemobyl have slowed the development of commercial nuclear fission in most industrialized countries, although nuclear proponents are trying to develop smaller, allegedly “fail-safe” reactors. Regardless of whether or not they succeed, we will face the problem of radioactive wastes for the next million years. After a brief, “revisionist” history of the radwaste problem, Isurvey some of the major epistemological and ethical difficulties with storing nuclear wastes and outline four ethical dilemmas common to many (...) technological and environmental controversies. I suggest two solutions to these ethical dilemmas and show why they are also economical and realistic proposals. (shrink)

Introduction: We discuss Carol Gilligan's original concept of mature care in the light of the altruistic approach to caring and good clinical judgment. Discussion: In particular, we highlight how the concept of mature care can capture important challenges in today's nursing. Further, we illuminate how mature care might differ normatively from an altruistic approach to caring and the traditional prudential virtues in nursing. We also discuss similarities between mature care and virtue ethics. Conclusion: For nursing and nurses' identity, in today's (...) health care system that is increasingly pressured to ‘produce' health, we believe it is important to both developing further theories on mature care and having normative discussions about care. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The science of ecology Peters and “hard ecology”: underdetermined theories Regier and soft ecology: untestable theories Problems with balance and stability Problems with appeals to holism Why ecology has limits What ecology can do A middle path: practical ecology Conclusion.

A recurring concern about luck egalitarianism is that its implementation would make some individuals, in particular those who lack marketable talents, experience shame. This, the objection goes, undermines individuals’ self-respect, which, in turn, may also lead to unequal respect between individuals. Loss of (self-)respect is a concern for any egalitarian, including distributive egalitarians, inasmuch as it is non-compensable. This paper responds to this concern by clarifying the relationship between shame and (self-)respect. We argue, first, a luck egalitarian society and ethos (...) would be radically different from the current one and incompatible with shame over lack of talent, and, second, that while shame may still occur in a less than ideal luck egalitarian society, this kind of shame does not undermine egalitarian commitments. (shrink)

US testing of nuclear weapons has resulted in about 800,000 premature fatal cancers throughout the globe, and the nuclear tests of China, France, India, Russia, and the UK have added to this total. Surprisingly, however, these avoidable deaths have not received much attention, as compared, for example, to the smaller number of US fatalities on 9-11-01. This essay (1) surveys the methods and models used to assess effects of low-dose ionizing radiation from above-ground nuclear weapons tests and (2) explains some (...) of the epistemological and logical problems (with these methods and models) that have caused scientists to decide against health screening of the most likely test victims. It also (3) argues that, once the faulty presuppositions and question-begging frames about testing and screening are recognized, there are compelling arguments in favor of nuclear-test nations'' screening fallout victims, at least among their citizens. Finally, it (4) suggests that logically and epistemically flawed fallout studies/recommendations against screening are more like to occur when scientists adopt a Laudan-style comparativist rationality, rather than when they adopt a metascience more like that of Kuhn and others. (shrink)

Introduction: is multiculturism good for anyone? -- Do people like their cultures? -- A philosophical prelude: what is multiculturalism? -- The costs of multiculturalism -- The diversity trap: why everybody wants to be an X -- White privilege and the asymmetry of choice -- Communities: respecting the establishment of religion -- Multiculturalism and the good life -- The cult of cultural self-affirmation -- Identity-making -- Identity politics: the making of a mystique -- Policy.

The article argues for a shift of perspective in identity management (IDM) research and development. Accessibility and usability issues affect identity management to such an extent that they demand a reframing and reformulation of basic designs and requirements of modern identity management systems. The rationale for the traditional design of identity management systems and mechanisms has been security concerns as defined in the field of security engineering. By default the highest security level has been recommended and implemented, often without taking (...) end-user needs and accessibility issues into serious consideration. The article provides a conceptual framework for inclusive IDM, a brief overview of the regulatory status of inclusive IDM and a taxonomy of inclusive identity management methods. Several widespread IDM approaches, methods and techniques are analyzed and discussed from the perspective of inclusive design. Several important challenges are identified and some ideas for solutions addressing the challenges are proposed and discussed. (shrink)

Eighty percent of (commercial) genetically engineered seeds (GES) are designed only to resist herbicides. Letting farmers use more chemicals, they cut labor costs. But developing nations say GES cause food shortages, unemployment, resistant weeds, and extinction of native cultivars when “volunteers” drift nearby. While GES patents are reasonable, this paper argues many patent policies are not. The paper surveys GE technology, outlines John Locke’s classic account of property rights, and argues that current patent policies must be revised to take account (...) of Lockean ethical constraints. After answering a key objection, it provides concrete suggestions for implementing its ethical conclusions. (shrink)

Cross jurisdictional collaboration efforts and emergency vaccine plans that are consistent with Tribal sovereignty are essential to public health emergency preparedness. The widespread adoption of clearly written federal, state, and local vaccine plans that address fundamental assumptions in vaccine distribution to Tribal nations is imperative for future pandemic response.

PurposeThis study aims to examine the mediating role recovery plays in the relationship between resilience and posttraumatic growth among breast cancer patients.MethodsA cross-sectional study design was implemented between January 02, 2021 and April 29, 2021. A total of 789 breast cancer patients from eight hospitals in Liaoning province were selected for participation in this study. These participants completed questionnaires, which included the Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory, EGO Resilience Scale and the Questionnaire about the Process of Recovery. The associated factors of PTG (...) were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression. The proposed relationships among resilience, recovery, and PTG were checked by structural equation modeling analyses.ResultsThe average PTG score of breast cancer patients was 53.00 ± 28.30. PTG was positively correlated with both recovery and PTG.ConclusionBreast cancer patients were found to exhibit a moderate degree of PTG. Resilience was positively associated with PTG and recovery mediated the positive effect of resilience on PTG. Resilience might serve as a crucial protective factor that could explain positive growth in life-threatening illnesses through the mediating path of recovery. (shrink)

Synthetic biology" is the label of a new technoscientific field with many different facets and agendas. One common aim is to "create life", primarily by using engineering principles to design and modify biological systems for human use. In a wider context, the topic has become one of the big cases in the legitimization processes associated with the political agenda to solve global problems with the aid of (bio-)technological innovation. Conceptual-level and meta-level analyses are needed: we should sort out conceptual ambiguities (...) to agree on what we talk about, and we need to spell out agendas to see the disagreements clearly. The book is based on the interdisciplinary summer school "Analyzing the societal dimensions of synthetic biology", which took place in Berlin in September 2014. The contributions address controversial discussions around the philosophical examination, public perception, moral evaluation and governance of synthetic biology. (shrink)

Voluntary actions and their distal effects are intimately related in conscious awareness. When an expected effect follows a voluntary action, the experience of the interval between these events is compressed in time, a phenomenon known as ‘intentional binding’ . Current accounts of IB suggest that it serves to reinforce associations between our goals and our intention to attain these goals via action, and that IB only occurs for self-generated actions. We used a novel approach to study IB in the context (...) of shared intentions and actions. Pairs of participants judged the time of occurrence of actions and events attributed either to oneself or to another agent. We found that IB and subjective agency are not mutually predictive when an action can be attributed to only one of two ‘co-intending’ agents. Our results pose a complication for the prevailing view that IB and subjective agency reflect a common mechanism. (shrink)

Neoclassical economists have been telling us for years that if we behave in egoistic, individualistic ways, the invisible hand of the market will guide us to efficient and sustainable futures. Many contemporary Greens also have been assuring us that if we behave in holistic ways, the invisible hand of ecology will guide us to health and sustainable futures. This essay argues that neither individualism nor holism will provide environmental sustainability. There is no invisible hand, either in economics or in ecology. (...) Humans have no guaranteed tenure in the biosphere. Likewise there is no philosophical quick fix for environmental problems, either through the ethical individualism of Feinberg, Frankena, and Regan, or through the ecological holism of Callicott and Leopold. The correct path is more complex and tortuous than either of these ways. The essay argues that the best way to reach a sustainable environmental future probably is through a middle path best described as "hierarchical holism.". (shrink)

Although we are likely unaware of it, in one troubling respect nearly all of us today wear the ring of Gyges. Because we are “invisible,” we use the ring to harm others with impunity. What is our ring of Gyges? It is our use/release of epigenetically toxic environmental pollutants (ETEP), such as endocrine disruptors, metals, and some pesticides. For developmentally/pre- and-postnatally-exposed children, ETEP often cause heritable gene-expression changes, developmental toxicity (DT) that increases later-life disease/dysfunction/death, including asthma/allergy, cancer, cardiovascular disease, depression, (...) diabetes, hypertension, immune/precocious autoimmune diseases, infertility, neuro-developmental/neuro-degenerative diseases, obesity, osteoporosis, puberty, and schizophrenia.Yet, like Gyges, we offenders are “invisible” in at least two senses: (i) invisible before the law, because current regulations do not prohibit ETEP exposures able to cause DT; (ii) invisible as perpetrators, because most child-DT harms appear later in life. This paper (1) uses ETEP and DT to explain how we cause severe, hidden, pollution harms to children and future generations, (2) argues that no major ethical theory can justify allowing avoidable ETEP, and (3) shows that we have justice-based duties to help stop avoidable ETEP exposures, because, to varying degrees, we help cause ETEP and profit from them. Finally, the paper (4) answers objections to (3). (shrink)

Informed consent represents a cornerstone of the endeavours to make health care research ethically acceptable. Based on experience of qualitative research on power dynamics in nursing care in acute psychiatry, we show that the requirement for informed consent may be practised in formalistic ways that legitimize the researcher's activities without taking the patient's changing perception of the situation sufficiently into account. The presentation of three patient case studies illustrates a diversity of issues that the researcher must consider in each situation. (...) We argue for the necessity of researchers to base their judgement on a complex set of competencies. Consciousness of research ethics must be combined with knowledge of the challenges involved in research methodology in qualitative research and familiarity with the therapeutic arena in which the research is being conducted. The article shows that the alternative solution is not simple but must emphasize the researcher's ability to doubt and be based on an awareness of the researcher's fallibility. (shrink)

Many ecologists have dismissed alleged ecological laws as tautological or trivial. This essay investigates the epistemological status of one prominent such "law," the population-growth thesis, and argues for 4 claims: (1) Once interpreted, the thesis cannot be denied the status of empirical law on the grounds that it is always and everywhere untestable. (2) Contrary to Peters' (1991) claim, some interpretations of the thesis have significant heuristic power. (3) One can use the reasoning of Brandon (1990), Lloyd (1987), and Sober (...) (1984) to show that some interpretations of the thesis are not a priori. (4) Even if the thesis is a priori, it has explanatory power as a "schematic law.". (shrink)

Background: International developments suggest that providing clinical ethics services to help clinicians negotiate ethical issues that arise in clinical practice is beneficial and reflects best practice in promoting high ethical standards and patient-centered care. The aim of this study was to explore the needs and experiences of clinical staff members to inform the development of future clinical ethics support. Methods: Health professionals at a large regional health service completed an online survey containing questions about the frequency of ethical and legal (...) issues encountered in clinical practice, the type of situations that gave rise to the ethical and/or legal uncertainty or concern, how clinicians currently address these issues, and what support would be welcome. Results: The survey was completed by 369 staff members, including 61% with more than 10 years in the profession and 51% in nursing/midwifery. Two-thirds (66%) indicated they often considered ethical implications of their clinical decisions, and half (49%) often considered the legal implications. More than half (58%) were often/occasionally concerned about the ethically right thing to do. Patient requests for borderline treatment (47%), staff disagreements about patient care (48%), and patients declining recommended treatment (54%) were the most frequent reasons given for ethical or legal uncertainty. Sixty-nine percent of respondents indicated that the way their department addressed ethical issues could be improved and 85% agreed that there is a need for more discussion on ethical issues. The majority (82%) of respondents had encountered ethically challenging clinical situations where additional support would have helped. Common approaches to issues were discussion with colleagues/supervisor (91.1%), discussion at handover/group forums (50.8%), and consultation with guidelines/protocols (60.9%). Conclusions: A majority of clinical staff members surveyed have encountered ethically/legally challenging cases daily for which they have often sought additional advice. This study indicates that many clinical staff members would welcome some form of additional clinical ethics support including advice and education. (shrink)

Despite the growing literature on childhood obesity and lifestyle intervention programmes focusing on weight loss, few studies have examined young persons’ experiences of being identified as candidates for such programmes and of participating in them. This paper does so. Juxtaposing insights from phenomenology with an approach inspired by Foucault, the paper shows how teenage girls’ bodily self-perception and bodily self-awareness are shaped in intercorporeal assemblages comprising other people and specific features or elements of the lifestyle programme.Inspired by van Manen’s hermeneutic-phenomenological (...) approach, with its point of departure in lived experience, this paper draws on interviews with Norwegian teenage girls participating in the same lifestyle programme and identifies three core thematic aspects of the girls’ experiences: being identified as a candidate for a lifestyle programme and not wanting this; negotiating the lack of weight loss and the scales; and bodily situated agency – feeling good and being able. Permeating all three themes are two central, interrelated phenomena: agency and resistance. Furthermore, the paper shows how a combination of Foucauldian insights and a phenomenological understanding of intercorporeality can help to shed light on the power, affective, material and temporal dimensions of dys-appearance (i.e., when one’s body appears as bad or wrong), as well as those of eu-appearance (i.e., when one’s body appears as healthy or strong), and thus contribute to the understanding of the girls’ narrated lived experiences.On the basis of these findings, we argue that weight-related treatment goals are not necessarily compatible with the strengthening of adolescents’ body images and self-esteem. However, whilst being obliged to attend to their bodies while in the programme, the girls also encountered unexpected, positive bodily feelings and experiences. Such events, we suggest, offer a means of resisting the more troubling dys-appearing bodily situations our participants described so powerfully. (shrink)

This chapter helps explain why energy ethics has not prevailed, despite thousands of years of energy pollution–caused deaths. Section 1 outlines the harms created by fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Section 2 surveys environmental ethicists’ responses to these harms. Because energy harms are so obvious and well established, most environmental ethicists have not spent time arguing against them. Instead, as section 3 explains, most environmental ethics work on energy has been at the level of third-order analyses—responding to those who attempt (...) to justify continued use of dirty energy, often by saying other power sources are unavailable or too expensive. Sections 4 through 8 provide brief third-order ethical analyses of five major second-order ethical excuses for not moving to clean, renewable energy: namely, the readiness, intermittency, expense, regulation, and intention excuses. The final section outlines how future energy-related ethics research is likely to develop. Because other chapters in this volume address climate this one does not do so. (shrink)

The main international standard-setting agencies for ionizing radiation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) both subscribe to principles which (they claim) lead to equitable protection for all generations exposed to radioactive pollution. Yet, when one examines the practices both groups support, it is clear that these practices discriminate against future generations with respect to radioactive pollution. After showing (I) that the IAEA and ICRP rhetoric of equity does not match their policies and (...) practices, the essay argues (2) that current people ought to try to treat members of future generations equitably with respect to protection from radioactive pollution. The essay also argues (3) that current policies of permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste do not meet the second criterion, and therefore (4) that society ought to investigate whether another strategy for managing the waste would provide better equal protection among all generations. (shrink)

Neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism affect one-eighth of all U.S. newborns. Yet scientists, accessing the same data and using Bradford-Hill guidelines, draw different conclusions about the causes of these disorders. They disagree about the pesticide-harm hypothesis, that typical United States prenatal pesticide exposure can cause neurodevelopmental damage. This article aims to discover whether apparent scientific disagreement about this hypothesis might be partly attributable to questionable interpretations of the Bradford-Hill causal guidelines. Key scientists, who claim to employ Bradford-Hill causal guidelines, yet (...) fail to accept the pesticide-harm hypothesis, fall into errors of trimming the guidelines, requiring statistically-significant data, and ignoring semi-experimental evidence. However, the main scientists who accept the hypothesis appear to commit none of these errors. Although settling disagreement over the pesticide-harm hypothesis requires extensive analysis, this article suggests that at least some conflicts may arise because of questionable interpretations of the guidelines. (shrink)

Leitkonzepte wie Nachhaltigkeit bedürfen, sollen sie erfahrbar werden, der konkreten Umsetzung. Nachhaltiges Denken in Form von Gedankenentwürfen muss demnach in nachhaltiges Handeln in Form entsprechender Initiativen überführt werden. Dabei geht nachhaltiges Denken weit über Unternehmensgrenzen hinaus und ragt in alle gesellschaftlichen Systeme hinein. Eine besonders wichtige "Keimzelle" des komplementären nachhaltigen Denkens und Handelns sind die Kommunen. Sie sind zum einen als Handlungseinheiten klein genug, um Nachhaltigkeit mit konkreten Initiativen ein Gesicht zu geben. Zum anderen sind sie aber auch groß genug, (...) um Nachhaltigkeit in einen übergeordneten Zusammenhang zu stellen und entsprechende Aktivitäten zu koordinieren und zu fördern. Mit dem inhaltlichen Fokuspunkt Wirtschaft und dem kommunalen Fokuspunkt Hannover wird mit diesem Werk ein konkreter und praxisnaher Forschungsbereich näher beleuchtet. Die kombinierte Forschungs- und Praxisperspektive des Werkes wurde ausgewählt, um sowohl den theoretischen Diskussionsstand widerzuspiegeln und mit dem integrativen Ansatz anzureichern als auch exemplarisch den praxisnahen Anwendungs- und Ausprägungsstand abzubilden. Das Buch richtet sich an Experten*innen im Bereich Kommunales Management aber auch an Wissenschaftler*innen und Studierende in Studiengängen zum Thema Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement und Regionale Entwicklung. Der Inhalt Konzeptionelle Grundlagenbeiträge Schnittstelle Kommune - Wirtschaft: Triebfeder für lokale und regionale Nachhaltigkeit Referenzbeispiele für (integriertes) kommunales Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement Die Herausgeber*innen Prof. Dr. Kristin Butzer-Strothmann ist Professorin für Allgemeine BWL, insbesondere Marketing und Empirische Sozialforschung an der Leibniz-Fachhochschule in Hannover. Prof. Dr. Friedel Ahlers ist Professor für Allgemeine BWL, insbesondere Unternehmensführung und Personalwirtschaft an der Leibniz-Fachhochschule in Hannover. (shrink)

This multidisciplinary book brings together a series of critical engagements regarding the notion of ethical practice. As a whole, the book explores the question of how the current neo-liberal socio-political moment, and its relationship to the historical legacies of colonialism, white settlement, and racism, informs and shapes our practices, pedagogies, and understanding of encounters in diverse settings. Drawing largely on the work of Sara Ahmed’s Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality, each chapter in this book takes up a particular encounter (...) and unravels the elements that created these meetings in specific times and spaces. Sites of encounters included in this volume range from the classroom to social work practice and from literary to media interactions, and take place both within Canada and internationally. Paramount to the discussions is a consideration of how relations of power and legacies of oppression shape self and others, and draw boundaries between bodies within an encounter. From a social justice perspective, Unravelling Encounters exposes the political conditions that configure our meetings with one another, and inquires into what it means to care, to respond, and to imagine oneself as an ethical subject. (shrink)

Assessing the hydrogeological modeling at the Yucca Mountain and Maxey Flats nuclear repositories reveals a number of important ways in which theory choice can go wrong. The two cases suggest that there are at least six important criteria for evaluating the suitability of scientific models to be used for predictions intended to serve public policy. More generally, the paper argues that applied philosophy of science, as practiced in environmental policymaking, requires one to employ ethical rationality as well as scientific rationality, (...) to heed the advice of the moral philosopher, not merely that of the epistemologist or philosopher of science. (shrink)

Although we agree that historical myths function to increase cooperation in the groups that share them, we propose that the mechanisms at work may include affective states. We suggest that sharing historical myths can create a felt sense of intimacy, similarity, and security among group members, which increases trust and motivates cooperation, even without particular beliefs about population structure.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated advances in bioethical approaches to medical decision-making. This paper develops an alternative method for rationing care during periods of resource scarcity. Typical approaches to triaging rely on utilitarian calculations; however, this approach introduces a problematic antihumanist sentiment, inviting the proposition of alternative schemata. As such, we suggest a feminist approach to medical decision-making, founded in and expanding upon the framework of Eva Kittay’s Ethics of Care. We suggest that this new structure addresses (...) the issue of medical decision-making during times of resource scarcity just as well as pure utilitarian approaches while better attending to their significant theoretical concerns, forming a coherent alternative to the current bioethical consensus. (shrink)

We seek to constitute the extended mind’s fourth wave, socially distributed group cognition, and we do so by thinking with Hegel. The extended mind theory’s first wave invokes the parity principle, which maintains that processes that occur external to the organism’s skin should be considered mental if they are regarded as mental when they occur inside the organism. The second wave appeals to the complementarity principle, which claims that what is crucial is that these processes together constitute a cognitive system. (...) The first two waves assume that cognitive systems have well-defined territories or boundaries, and that internal and external processes do not switch location. The third wave rejects these assumptions, holding instead that internal processes are not privileged, and internal and external processes can switch, and that processes can be distributed among individuals. The fourth wave would advocate socially distributed group cognition. Groups are deterritorialized collective agents; they are ineliminatively and irreducibly real, they have mental states. Individuals constitute groups, but groups also constitute individuals. What counts as an individual and a group is a function of the level of analysis. And they are conflicted. (shrink)

In their article, Cho and Martinez-Martin (2023) argue that developers and users of digital simulacra for modelling health and disease should involve a continued focus on causality of health states...