On 11 September 2019, the verdict was read in the first prosecution of a doctor for euthanasia since the Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act of 2002 was installed in the Netherlands. The case concerned euthanasia on the basis of an advance euthanasia directive (AED) for a patient with severe dementia. In this paper we describe the review process for euthanasia cases in the Netherlands. Then we describe the case in detail, the judgement of the (...) Regional Review Committees for Termination of Life on Request and Euthanasia (RTE) and the judgement of the medical disciplinary court. Both the review committees and the disciplinary court came to the conclusion there were concerns with this case, which mainly hinged on the wording of the AED. They also addressed the lack of communication with the patient, the absence of oral confirmation of the wish to die and the fact that the euthanasia was performed without the patient being aware of this. However, the doctor was acquitted by the criminal court as the court found she had in fact met all due care criteria laid down in the act. We then describe what this judgement means for euthanasia in the Netherlands. It clarifies the power and reach of AEDs, it allows taking conversations with physicians and the testimony of the family into account when interpreting the AED. However, as a practical consequence the prosecution of this physician has led to fear among doctors about prosecution after euthanasia. (shrink)

The “impossibility results” in algorithmic fairness suggest that a predictive model cannot fully meet two common fairness criteria – sufficiency and separation – except under extraordinary circumstances. These findings have sparked a discussion on fairness in algorithms, prompting debates over whether predictive models can avoid unfair discrimination based on protected attributes, such as ethnicity or gender. As shown by Otto Sahlgren, however, the discussion of the impossibility results would gain from importing some of the tools developed in the philosophical literature (...) on feasibility. Utilizing these tools, Sahlgren sketches a cautiously optimistic view of how algorithmic fairness can be made feasible in restricted local decision-making. While we think it is a welcome move to inject the literature on feasibility into the debate on algorithmic fairness, Sahlgren says very little about what are the general gains of bringing in feasibility considerations in theorizing algorithmic fairness. How, more precisely, does it help us make assessments about fairness in algorithmic decision-making? This is what is addressed in this Reply. More specifically, our two-fold argument is that feasibility plays an important but limited role for algorithmic fairness. We end by offering a sketch of a framework, which may be useful for theorizing feasibility in algorithmic fairness. (shrink)

Science is fundamentally devoted to generating original knowledge, and therefore concepts of scientific originality are keys to understanding its very essence. Scientific originality has long been thought of as discovery, but new studies of the humanities and social sciences have shown that other, discipline-specific concepts of originality are used in these fields of study. Does this finding also hold for disciplines in the natural science, medicine, and engineering? Are concepts of originality scientifically grounded or do they instead reflect extrascientific modes (...) of originality? These questions lie at the heart of research proposals responding to an initiative explicitly calling for original scientific projects. The proposals undergo a two-step analysis based on grounded theory[Per style, reference citation is not allowed in abstract section. Hence, we have deleted Charmaz, 2006. Please approve.]. First, three empirically identified modes of scientific originality are described: temporal, partially different, and revolutionary. The three modes of originality are consistent with extrascientific ones such as those in art and fashion. Second, six disciplines—two each in the natural science, medical, and engineering—are analyzed for ways the three modes of originality are used and for their associated disciplinary characteristics in order to identify discipline-specific concepts of originality. (shrink)

The Problem of Political Normativity Understood as Functional Normativity.

Beauvoir's Second Sex seems to be acknowledged as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. However, its relation to structuralism still has to be elaborated. The aim of this chapter is to analyze Beauvoir's reliance on Lévi‐Strauss, his elementary structures of kinship and the exchange of women (and not men). As the very asymmetry of sexual division became a target of Beauvoir's attack, she came close to asking Lévi‐Strauss the same question as Althusser, namely: Why is this (...) possible, and not something else? We conclude that the later Althusser's “repressed” aleatory materialism could account for Beauvoir's reasoning as to why the point of view of psychoanalysis and historical materialism are insufficient, and that Beauvoir's place could be identified with the repressed of the repressed. (shrink)

Encountering the "anthropocene": setting the scene -- The conceptual politics of the anthropocene: science, philosophy and culture -- The "anthropocene" in global change science: expertise, the earth, and the future of humanity -- The "anthropocene" in philosophy: the neo-material turn and the question of nature -- The "anthropocene" in popular culture: narrating human agency, force and our place on earth -- Key concepts and the anthropocene: a reconsideration -- Power, world politics and thing-systems in the anthropocene -- Time and politics (...) in the anthropocene: too fast, too slow? -- Democracy in the anthropocene -- Global justice and the anthropocene: reproducing a development story -- The practices of political study in the anthropocene -- The "good anthropocene" and green political theory: rethinking environmentalism, resisting ecomodernism -- Co-producing knowledge and politics of the anthropocene: the case of the future earth program -- The ethics of political research in the anthropocene -- Epilogue: continuity and change in the anthropocene. (shrink)

How are emotions related to values? This book argues against a perceptual theory of emotions, which sees emotions as perception-like states that help us gain evaluative knowledge, and argues for a caring-based theory of emotions, which sees emotions as felt desires or desire satisfactions, both of which arise out of caring about something.

Slightly revised version of the author's habilitation--Universitèat Gèottingen, 2014.

Slightly revised version of the author's habilitation--Universitèat Gèottingen, 2014.

The children of today live in a time when the images of themselves and their childhood, their needs, interests, and skills, are discussed, researched, challenged, and changed. Childhood, education and educational settings for young children are to a great extent governed by temporality. In this paper, temporality and temporal notions in education are explored and discussed. We especially illuminate two different ways of thinking about children in education and care for younger children in the West— the predominant biased notions of (...) the child as becoming or being. The child as becoming, is manifested primarily in classical developmental psychology while the notion of the child as being, has been highlighted mainly by sociological researchers in their critique of developmental psychology. This latter notion is also visible in a totally different manner in the philosophy of Rousseau, emphasizing the free and natural child. In addition, we explore an alternative way of thinking about temporality and children. Drawing upon the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gilles Deleuze, we argue for a rethinking of temporality beyond linear views on time and biased notions of children as ‘either or’. A movement towards a perspective which not only combines notions, but where the whole is more than merely the sum of the parts, is proposed. This leads to an ambiguous, intertwined and ongoing connection between the temporal notions of have been, being and becoming, described by a novel concept—a chiasmic be(com)ing. We suggest that this alternative may be a fruitful way to overcome binary approaches and expand the discussion of temporality, and temporal notions of children, in education. Such an alternative could function as a counterweight to the predominant notions of education and teachers’ work. It may also be seen as a significant foundation for an ethical education since it is built upon ongoing and intertwined relationships, which appreciate openness and unpredictability. (shrink)

Background: Less sedated and more awake patients in the intensive care unit may cause ethical challenges. Research objectives: The purpose of this study is to describe ethical challenges registered nurses experience when patients refuse care and treatment. Research design: Narrative individual open interviews were conducted, and data were analysed using a phenomenological hermeneutic method developed for researching life experiences. Participants and research context: Three intensive care registered nurses from an intensive care unit at a university hospital in Norway were included. (...) Ethical considerations: Norwegian Social Science Data Services approved the study. Permission was obtained from the intensive care unit leader. The participants’ informed and voluntary consent was obtained in writing. Findings: Registered nurses experienced ethical challenges in the balance between situations of deciding on behalf of the patient, persuading the patient and letting the patient decide. Ethical challenges were related to patients being harmful to themselves, not keeping up personal hygiene and care or hindering critical treatment. Discussion: It is made apparent how professional ethics may be threatened by more pragmatic arguments. In recent years, registered nurses are faced with increasing ethical challenges to do no harm and maintain dignity. Conclusion: Ethically challenging situations are emerging, due to new targets including conscious and aware critical care patients, leaving an altered responsibility on the registered nurses. Reflection is required to adjust the course when personal and professional ideals no longer are in harmony with the reality in the clinical practice. RNs must maintain a strong integrity as authentic human beings to provide holistic nursing care. (shrink)

This paper seeks to defend the thesis that a justification of morality has to underline the role of the second person in addition to a perpetual and on-going change of perspective that likewise includes the third and first person. To support this argument, the paper conceptualises responsibility as a moral relationship whose core constitutes the encounter with the other whom we recognise as a second-person authority. It then sketches how this pre-cognitive dimension must be supplemented by a cognitive insight which (...) implies a dissociation from the second person and a consideration of third persons. on this basis, it finally provides an outline of how a possible tension between these different but all-together necessary perspectives could best be resolved. (shrink)

This article brings recent insights from political animal philosophy and critical animal studies concerning animal subjectivity and multispecies communities into conversation with Daoist philosophy. Daoism is currently underexplored in animal philosophy and multispecies justice theory. This is unfortunate since Daoist ontology and Daoist concepts such as wanwu (萬物) and wuwei (無為) include recognition of nonhuman agency and multispecies entanglements. They offer a fruitful starting point for rethinking the position of the human in the whole of things as well as relations (...) between human and nonhuman animals. (shrink)

The central question: "What is the Human?" is since Platon till today not answered. Kant distinguishes a physiological and a pragmatic anthropology: The Human knows the nature by senses, but himself by "pure apperception... from physical determinations independently personality (homo noumenon)..., different to... (homo phenomenon)". Kant's idea of the anthropology according to R. Brandt is a holistic totality with three spheres: phenomenal, pragmatic and moral-teleological. The philosophical (Gelen, Scheler), pedagogical (Roth, etc.), medical (V. von Weizsäcker, etc.), also the new anthropology (...) of Gadamer/Vogler considers the human multidimensional, but not enough holistic [Lit.: Michailov, Neu: Soc. Resp. Philos. In: Proc. 21st World Congr. Philos. Istanbul. Press FISP279‐280, 2003; J. Psychosom. Res. 58/6, 85‐86, 2005]. CONCEPTION: Philosophy as "the unique science, which considers a systematic interdependence and gives all other sciences a systematic unity" (Kant) in co-operation with the anthropological sciences could create an integral anthropology, i.e. a general - philosophical (normative), pedagogical (educative), medical (prophylactic/curative), based on a special anthropology (from biological to theological). The last oneshall consider the human [with his "spheres" somatic, psychical, mental/logical, philosophical (epistemology, ethics, aesthetics), spiritual/theological-metaphysical: individual] as well as his interaction with environment and society (natural, social anthropology) on the last level of knowledge, also under consideration of the big cultures – Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianism, Confucianism, Mohammedanism. CONCLUSION: An integral anthropology could give the way for a transformation of the "false programmed" (Steinbuch) "homo actualis" (Binswanger) by society, i.e. "zoon politicon" (Aristoteles), into a homo sanus, humanus et spiritualis (in context of illumination and perfection/Kant). Scientific and political support of anthropological research is conditio sine qua non for realization of UNO-Agenda 21, which aims are better health, education, ecology, economy in all countries. (shrink)

Nielsen and Stewart (2024) introduced a novel intra-group criterion of algorithmic fairness called ‘spanning’. Here, I propose an alternative intra-group criterion and argue that is has some salient advantages over spanning.

The editors present the essays that are collected in the volume and which are the outcome of talks given at the international conference “Kurt Gödel Philosopher: From Logic to Cosmology” that was held in Aix en Provence (France) in summer 2013. Many of the authors belong to a group of scientists who have contributed to an ANR project with the same title under the direction of Gabriella Crocco.

In this critique of Michael Goodhart's "Human Rights and Global Democracy," Eva Erman argues that Goodhart has reconceptualized democracy and therefore does not offer a better understanding of the relationship between human rights and global democracy.

This study describes the theoretical assumptions and the application for health‐promoting conversations, as a communication tool for nurses when talking to patients and their families. The conversations can be used on a promotional, preventive and healing level when working with family‐focused nursing. They are based on a multiverse, salutogenetic, relational and reflecting approach, and acknowledge each person's experience as equally valid, and focus on families’ resources, and the relationship between the family and its environment. By posing reflective questions, reflection is (...) made possible for both the family and the nurses. Family members are invited to tell their story, and they can listen to and learn from each other. Nurses are challenged to build a co‐creating partnership with families in order to acknowledge them as experts on how to lead their lives and to use their own expert knowledge in order to facilitate new meanings to surface. In this way, family health can be enhanced. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.3 (2002) 369-406 [Access article in PDF] The Body And Its Representations In Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazousai:Where Does The Costume End? Eva Stehle Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazousaiis a rich and funny play, but it gives the impression of lacking a sustained point. Theater directors can happily stage it, subverting Aristophanes by casting women and recasting the text to speak to modern disputes over gender, sex, and politics, as Mary-Kay (...) Gamel has done so wonderfully (see her article in this volume). But the student of comedy who wishes to study the play in the context of its original production in 411, probably at the City Dionysia, has a harder time. Because it has no overt political theme it was for long passed over as a paignion, an escape from relevance in the tense atmosphere of that spring. As a "woman play" it seems less satisfactory than Lysistrata or Ekklesiazousai because it has no female lead character and Euripides' nameless kinsman (whom I call "Inlaw") upstages the women and their concerns. 1 With the current interest in performance and the metatheatrical aspects of comedy, Thesmophoriazousai has finally come into its own as a sly dialogue on theater and ritual, comedy versus tragedy, and gender. 2 But the older view remains in effect that the play has no politics. At the same time, it is assimilated to Aristophanes' other plays in its thematics, while its striking anomalies go unremarked. As a result, it still does not quite come into focus. [End Page 369]As a play about ritual and theater, Thesmophoriazousai is said to absorb women's ritual and restage it within its own festival setting at the City Dionysia. Yet this is the only one of Aristophanes' surviving plays in which the principal male characters exit the stage before the end of the play. Here they flee, in female dress to boot, leaving the chorus to play out the final scene with the Scythian slave. 3 Euripides and Inlaw do not share in the fun of sending the slave running in one wrong direction then another. And the play ends as it began, on Nesteia, the day of fasting for the women performing the Thesmophoria. 4 No revelry brings on the transition to feast and renewal that the audience probably expected. No procession points the way to a new instauration created by the comedy. 5 Given the importance of processions in Athenian life as an expression of community revival, this is a speaking absence. 6As a play about tragedy and comedy, Thesmophoriazousai is said to show the triumph of comedy over tragedy as the more encompassing and flexible art form. The plots of tragedy fail to rescue Inlaw, while a comic plot succeeds: Euripides brings on a dancing girl, Elaphion, who seduces the Scythian slave away for sex while Euripides frees Inlaw. But Euripides' final trick is no comic plot. In the Aristophanic comic plot the [End Page 370] hero wins a desirable young woman, often one whose name promises new fertility, peace, or power; he does not give one away to the blocking figure. 7 Euripides also capitulates to the women, promising never to speak ill of them again. Only by relinquishing both triumph and sex (and thereby also festivity) does he salvage his poor kinsman's life. Euripides' plot fit for a "barbarian nature" (1129) is rather a farcical version of his own rescue-play plot: like Helen and Andromeda it involves deceiving the blocking figure, which allows the principals to escape while leaving others (chorus or a god) to thwart the chase. But its success is based on abandoning pure representation and giving the "real" (within the world of the play) woman away to the internal audience in order to rescue a pseudo-woman.As for gender representation in the play, most analysis holds that men prevail. Different commentators take Aristophanes to be revealing that women on stage are all really men, or questioning what a woman really is since she is the very figure of mimesis, or showing that women deserve... (shrink)