The use of implanted devices that apply therapeutic stimulation to areas of the brain, or deep brain stimulation (DBS), is currently being investigated as a possible therapeutic treatment for chron...

In the United Kingdom, a number of National Health Service Clinical Commissioning Groups have proposed controversial measures to restrict elective surgery for patients who either smoke or are obese. Whilst the nature of these measures varies between NHS authorities, typically, patients above a certain Body Mass Index and smokers are required to lose weight and quit smoking prior to being considered eligible for elective surgery. Patients will be supported and monitored throughout this mandatory period to ensure their clinical needs are (...) appropriately met. Controversy regarding such measures has primarily centred on the perceived unfairness of targeting certain health states and lifestyle choices to save public money. Concerns have also been raised in response to rhetoric from certain NHS authorities, which may be taken to imply that such measures punitively hold people responsible for behaviours affecting their health states, or simply for being in a particular health state. In this paper, we examine the various elective surgery rationing measures presented by NHS authorities. We argue that, where obesity and smoking have significant implications for elective surgical outcomes, bearing on effectiveness, the rationing of this surgery can be justified on prognostic grounds. It is permissible to aim to maximise the benefit provided by limited resources, especially for interventions that are not urgently required. However, we identify gaps in the empirical evidence needed to conclusively demonstrate these prognostic grounds, particularly for obese patients. Furthermore, we argue that appeals to personal responsibility, both in the prospective and retrospective sense, are insufficient in justifying this particular policy. Given the strength of an alternative justification grounded in clinical effectiveness, rhetoric from NHS authorities should avoid explicit statements, which suggest that personal responsibility is the key justificatory basis of proposed rationing measures. (shrink)

:Neuroprosthetic speech devices are an emerging technology that can offer the possibility of communication to those who are unable to speak. Patients with ‘locked in syndrome,’ aphasia, or other such pathologies can use covert speech—vividly imagining saying something without actual vocalization—to trigger neural controlled systems capable of synthesizing the speech they would have spoken, but for their impairment.We provide an analysis of the mechanisms and outputs involved in speech mediated by neuroprosthetic devices. This analysis provides a framework for accounting for (...) the ethical significance of accuracy, control, and pragmatic dimensions of prosthesis-mediated speech. We first examine what it means for the output of the device to be accurate, drawing a distinction between technical accuracy on the one hand and semantic accuracy on the other. These are conceptual notions of accuracy.Both technical and semantic accuracy of the device will be necessary for the user to have sufficient control over the device. Sufficient control is an ethical consideration: we place high value on being able to express ourselves when we want and how we want. Sufficient control of a neural speech prosthesis requires that a speaker can reliably use their speech apparatus as they want to, and can expect their speech to authentically represent them. We draw a distinction between two relevant features which bear on the question of whether the user has sufficient control: voluntariness of the speech and the authenticity of the speech. These can come apart: the user might involuntarily produce an authentic output or might voluntarily produce an inauthentic output. Finally, we consider the role of the interlocutor in interpreting the content and purpose of the communication.These three ethical dimensions raise philosophical questions about the nature of speech, the level of control required for communicative accuracy, and the nature of ‘accuracy’ with respect to both natural and prosthesis-mediated speech. (shrink)

We commend the authors for their comprehensive discussion on consent and episiotomies.1 They correctly observe that informed consent for all proposed interventions in maternity care is always necessary. The claim that consent for maternity health services does not always have to be fully informed or explicit, however, is erroneous. We are especially concerned with, and surprised by, the endorsement of ‘opt-out consent’. ‘Opt-out consent’ (a.k.a. substitute decision making) is already standard practice in maternity healthcare, with obstetric violence a normalised response (...) to conclusive refusals or requests for explanations. Informed consent is based on the fundamental human rights to bodily autonomy and integrity, which healthcare providers are obliged to respect. Healthcare structured around human rights violations is not care. It is cruel and inhumane treatment—a violation of yet another fundamental human right—and a reflection of poor-quality care. To be valid, consent must always be informed, specific, timely, freely given and reversible. The provider must provide information specific to each and every proposed intervention in a timely manner. The consumer has the right to consider, freely accept or refuse before providers can act. They can also change their mind at any time. Provider attempts to substitute consumer decision-making rights constitute assault and battery. Whether the infraction was major or minor is of no consequence to human rights law. National courts create artificial …. (shrink)

Common practices such as donating blood or selling hair assume rights of disposal over oneself that are similar to, if not indistinguishable from, property rights. However, a simple view of self‐ownership fails to capture relevant moral differences between parts of a person and other objects. In light of this, we require some account of the continuity in the form of ownership rights a person has over herself and other objects, which also acknowledges the normative differences between constitutive parts of a (...) person, on the one hand, and external objects, on the other. This paper provides such an account by arguing that there are reasons internal to a general justification of property rights to limit the extent of powers included in ownership of different kinds of object, depending on how the person is situated in relation to them. Rejecting a typical Hohfeldian view of property as a univocal, gradable concept allows us to make space for a new approach to property and self‐ownership: one which can make sense of various uses of the body as property without entailing that our relation to those parts is exhaustively characterised by an ordinary property right. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation has been of considerable interest to bioethicists, in large part because of the effects that the intervention can occasionally have on central features of the recipient’s personality. These effects raise questions regarding the philosophical concept of authenticity. In this article, we expand on our earlier work on the concept of authenticity in the context of deep brain stimulation by developing a diachronic, value-based account of authenticity. Our account draws on both existentialist and essentialist approaches to authenticity, and (...) Laura Waddell Ekstrom’s coherentist approach to personal autonomy. In developing our account, we respond to Sven Nyholm and Elizabeth O’Neill’s synchronic approach to authenticity, and explain how the diachronic approach we defend can have practical utility, contrary to Alexandre Erler and Tony Hope’s criticism of autonomy-based approaches to authenticity. Having drawn a distinction between the authenticity of an individual’s traits and the authenticity of that person’s values, we consider how our conception of authenticity applies to the context of anorexia nervosa in comparison to other prominent accounts of authenticity. We conclude with some reflections on the prudential value of authenticity, and by highlighting how the language of authenticity can be invoked to justify covert forms of paternalism that run contrary to the value of individuality that seems to be at the heart of authenticity. (shrink)

A speaker's manner of delivery of an utterance can affect a listener's pragmatic interpretation of the message. Disfluencies influence a listener's off-line assessment of whether the speaker is truthful or deceptive. Do listeners also form this assessment during the moment-by-moment processing of the linguistic message? Here we present two experiments that examined listeners’ judgments of whether a speaker was indicating the true location of the prize in a game during fluent and disfluent utterances. Participants’ eye and mouse movements were biased (...) toward the location named by the speaker during fluent utterances, whereas the opposite bias was observed during disfluent utterances. This difference emerged rapidly after the onset of the critical noun. Participants were similarly sensitive to disfluencies at the start of the utterance and in the middle. Our findings support recent research showing that listeners integrate pragmatic information alongside semantic content during the earliest moments of language processing. Unlike prior work which has focused on pragmatic effects in the interpretation of the literal message, here we highlight disfluency's role in guiding a listener to an alternative non-literal message. (shrink)

As big data techniques become widespread in journalism, both as the subject of reporting and as newsgathering tools, the ethics of data science must inform and be informed by media ethics. This article explores emerging problems in ethical research using big data techniques. It does so using the duty-based framework advanced by W.D. Ross, who has significantly influenced both research science and media ethics. A successful framework must provide stability and flexibility. Without stability, ethical precommitments will vanish as technology rapidly (...) shifts costs. Without flexibility, traditional approaches will rapidly become obsolete in the face of technological change. The article concludes that Ross's duty-based approach both provides stability in the face of rapid technological change and flexibility to innovate to achieve the original purpose of basic ethical principles. (shrink)

In this article, I propose that illness is philosophically revealing and can be used to explore human experience. I suggest that illness is a limit case of embodied experience. By pushing embodied experience to its limit, illness sheds light on normal experience, revealing its ordinary and thus overlooked structure. Illness produces a distancing effect, which allows us to observe normal human behavior and cognition via their pathological counterpart. I suggest that these characteristics warrant illness a philosophical role that has not (...) been articulated. Illness can be used as a philosophical tool for the study of normally tacit aspects of human existence. I argue that illness itself can be integral to philosophical method, insofar as it facilitates a distancing from everyday practices. This method relies on pathological or limit cases to illuminate normally overlooked aspects of human perception and action. I offer Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of the case of Schneider as an example of this method. (shrink)

This article examines three divergent constructions about the salience of legal gender in lay people’s everyday lives and readiness to decertify gender. In our interviews (and survey data), generally participants minimised the importance of legal gender. The central argument in this article is that feminist socio-legal scholars applying legal consciousness studies to legal reform topics should find scrutinizing the construction of interview talk useful. We illustrate this argument by adapting and applying Ewick and Silbey’s (1998) ‘The Common Place of Law: (...) Stories from Everyday Life', ‘before’, ‘with’ and ‘against’ typology to interview talk about legal gender, and critique their cognitivist approach by offering a constructionist alternative. In our analysis, we offer a detailed discursive explication of three key legal consciousness themes. These themes offer a balanced representation of a dataset problematically ‘skewed’ towards sex-based rights feminist perspectives, namely that ‘before’ legal gender is an anti-decertification account, decertification would be risky for natal females; a ‘with’ legal gender construction is neither for nor against decertification per se, though the impact of decertification is produced in accounts as limited and unimportant; and ‘against’ legal gender is a pro-decertification classification, as not abolished legal gender is constructed as harmful to already marginalised groups. In concluding, we explore the reasoning for the lack of readiness for decertification currently, and return to the value of examining the construction of lay discourse about legal matters as talk is a form of social action. We suggest that applying discursive analysis to themes in legal consciousness studies enables a refocusing on the how rather than purely the what of divergent legal consciousnesses, and that this approach is a fruitful addition to feminist socio-legal studies. (shrink)

Many manipulation arguments against compatibilism rely on the claim that manipulation is relevantly similar to determinism. But we argue that manipulation is nothing like determinism in one relevant respect. Determinism is a "universal" phenomenon: its scope includes every feature of the universe. But manipulation arguments feature cases where an agent is the only manipulated individual in her universe. Call manipulation whose scope includes at least one but not all agents "existential manipulation." Our responsibility practices are impacted in different ways by (...) universal and existential phenomena. And this is a relevant difference, especially on Strawsonian approaches to moral responsibility, which take facts about our responsibility practices to be deeply connected to the nature of responsibility itself. We argue that Strawsonian accounts of moral responsibility are immune to manipulation arguments, and no attempt to modify the scope of manipulation or determinism featured in these arguments will help incompatibilists secure their desired conclusion. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 2 Seiten: 247-269.

ObjectivesQuality of Life depends on the discrepancy between desired and current experiences, thus in chronic illness, adjustment of expectations and interpretation of the current situation are crucial. Depression is known to influence this gap, and the present study aims to further assess the role of resilience and health locus of control.MethodsA total of 94 patients with neurological disorders were screened via telephone regarding depression, resilience and HLC. Current and desired state of several life domains were assessed, such as Fitness, General (...) Health, Pain, Daily Activities, Finances, Leisure, and Family. Elastic net regularization and analyses of variance were used to disentangle the impact of depression, resilience, HLC, and sociodemographic factors on the perception of current and desired state, and the gap between both.ResultsA gap was present for all domains but largest for pain. Interpretation of the current state was linked to desired state, HLC, and age. All gaps were related to depression; certain domains were in addition influenced by resilience, HLC and sociodemographic factors. Of note, for most domains, patients did not select the highest possible desired state.ConclusionOlder patients with neurological disorders report a gap between current and desired state for many aspects of life. Adjusting expectations is beneficial in the face of declining health, but a reasonably increased desired state may positively influence the perception of the current situation. Depression negatively influences the interpretation of the Calman gap. (shrink)

Although there is much research on the relationships of corporate social responsibility and employee-related outcomes, a systematic and quantitative integration of research findings is needed to substantiate and broaden our knowledge. A meta-analysis allows the comparison of the relations of different types of CSR on several different outcomes, for example to learn what type of CSR is most important to employees. From a theoretical perspective, social identity theory is the most prominent theoretical approach in CSR research, so we aim to (...) investigate identification as a mediator of the relationship between CSR and employee-related outcomes in a meta-analytical mediation model. This meta-analysis synthesizes research findings on the relationship between employees' perception of CSR (people, planet, and profit) and employee-related outcomes (identification, engagement, organizational attractiveness, turnover (intentions), OCB, commitment, and job satisfaction), thereby distinguishing attitudes and behavior. A total of 143 studies (N= 89,396) were included in the meta-analysis which was conducted according to the methods by Schmidt and Hunter (except of the meta-analytical structural equation model). Mean effect sizes for the relationship between CSR and employee-related attitudes and behaviors were medium-sized to large. For attitudes, the relationships were stronger than for behavior. For specific types of CSR, average effect sizes were large. Identification mediated the relation between CSR and commitment, job satisfaction, and OCB, respectively. Based on our results, we give recommendations concerning the design of CSR initiatives in a way that benefits employees. (shrink)

When someone close to us dies, we usually say that we are with them ‘in our thoughts’ or that they remain alive in our minds. The film Vital challenges this disembodied view of grief by posing the following question: what would grief be like if we could keep the dead with us not only in our memories, but materially? The film provides an intriguing answer to this question, provided through a unique setting, that of a medical school dissection class. Despite (...) the macabre setting, Tsukamoto’s aim is not to shock but to offer an intense meditation on the embodied nature of mourning. (shrink)

The assumption that a classical gravitational field interacts with a quantum system is shown to lead to violations of either momentum conservation or the uncertainty principle, or to result in transmission of signals faster thanc. A similar argument holds for the electromagnetic field.

When managing their emotions, individuals often recruit the help of others; however, most emotion regulation research has focused on self-regulation. Theories of emotion and aging suggest younger and older adults differ in the emotion regulation strategies they use when regulating their own emotions. If how individuals regulate their own emotions and the emotions of others are related, these theorised age differences may also emerge for interpersonal emotion regulation. In two studies, younger and older adults’ intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation strategy (...) choices were examined via self-report and behavioural assessments of regulating the emotions of another participant (Study 1; N = 80) and of a virtual human (Study 2; N = 100). Across both studies, younger adults reported greater intrapersonal suppression but not greater reappraisal. Younger and older adults were generally similar (supported by Bayesian analyses) for both self-reported and behavioural interpersonal emotion regulation strategies. Behavioural interpersonal emotion regulation was not related to self-reported intra- and interpersonal preferences. These results suggest interpersonal emotion regulation in ageing may show distinct patterns from theorised age differences in intrapersonal emotion regulation. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 2, February 2020, Page 1-4.

In many jurisdictions, an offender’s remorse is considered to be a relevant factor to take into account in mitigation at sentencing. The growing philosophical interest in the use of neurointerventions in criminal justice raises an important question about such remorse-based mitigation: to what extent should technologically facilitated remorse be honoured such that it is permitted the same penal significance as standard instances of remorse? To motivate this question, we begin by sketching a tripartite account of remorse that distinguishes cognitive, affective (...) and motivational elements of remorse. We then describe a number of neurointerventions that might plausibly be used to enhance abilities that are relevant to these different elements of remorse. Having described what we term the ‘moral value’ view of the justification of remorse-based mitigation, we then consider whether using neurointerventions to facilitate remorse would undermine its moral value, and thus make it inappropriate to honour such remorse in the criminal justice system. We respond to this question by claiming that the form of moral understanding that is incorporated into a genuinely remorseful response grounds remorse’s moral value. In view of this claim, we conclude by arguing that neurointerventions need not undermine remorse’s moral value on this approach, and that the remorse that such interventions might facilitate could also be authentic to the recipient of the neurointerventions that we discuss. (shrink)

BackgroundIn gender-affirming medical care (GAMC), ethical challenges in decision-making are ubiquitous. These challenges are becoming more pressing due to exponentially increasing referrals, politico-legal contestation, and divergent normative views regarding decisional roles and models. Little is known, however, about what ethical challenges related to decision-making healthcare professionals (HCPs) themselves face in their daily work in GAMC and how these relate to, for example, the subjective nature of Gender Incongruence (GI), the multidisciplinary character of GAMC and the role HCPs play in assessing (...) GI and eligibility for interventions. Given the relevance and urgency of these questions, we conducted a qualitative study among HCPs providing GAMC to transgender adults in the Netherlands.MethodsIn this qualitative research, we conducted 11 semi-structured interviews between May 2020 and February 2021 with HCPs (six mental health professionals, two HCPs in endocrinology, two in plastic surgery, and one in nursing) working in two distinct GAMC settings. We purposively sampled for professional background and years of experience in GAMC. We analyzed our interview data using thematic analysis. As some respondents were more inclined to speak about what should or ought to be done to arrive at good or right decision-making, we identified both ethical challenges and norms. Furthermore, in our analysis, we differentiated between respondents’ explicit and implicit ethical challenges and norms and ascertained the specific context in which these challenges emerged.ResultsRespondents’ ethical challenges and norms centered on (1) dividing and defining decisional roles and bounds, (2) negotiating decision-making in a (multidisciplinary) team, and (3) navigating various decision-making temporalities. These themes arose in the context of uncertainties regarding (1) GAMC’s guidelines, evidence, and outcomes, as well as (2) the boundaries and assessment of GI.ConclusionsThis interview study provides detailed empirical insight into both the explicit and implicit ethical challenges that HCPs experience and their ethical norms regarding decision-making. It also describes how uncertainties and (implicit) normativities concerning GAMC and GI pre-structure the moral environment in which these challenges and norms manifest. We provide normative reflections and recommendations on handling these ethical challenges in a way that is sensitive to the context in which they arise. (shrink)

Population obesity and associated morbidities pose significant public health and economic burdens in the United Kingdom, United States, and globally. As a response, public health initiatives often seek to change individuals’ unhealthy behavior, with the dual aims of improving their health and conserving health care resources. One such initiative—taxes on sugar‐sweetened beverages (SSB)—has sparked considerable ethical debate. Prominent in the debate are arguments seeking to demonstrate the supposed impermissibility of SSB taxes and similar policies on the grounds that they interfere (...) with individuals’ freedom and autonomy. Commentators have often assumed that a policy intended to restrict or change private individuals’ consumption behavior will necessarily curtail freedom and, as a corollary, will undermine individuals’ autonomy with respect to their consumption choices. Yet this assumption involves a conceptual mistake. To address the misunderstanding, it’s necessary to attend to the differences between negative liberty, freedom of options, and autonomy. Ultimately, concerns about negative liberty, freedom, and autonomy do not provide strong grounds for opposing SSB taxes. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of learning in organizational responses to sustainability. Finding meaningful solutions to sustainability challenges requires companies and other actors to broaden their thinking, go beyond organizational boundaries and engage more with their stakeholders. However, broadening organizational perspective and collaborating with diverse stakeholders involves inherent political and process-related tensions. Learning has been identified as a key organizing process for overcoming the challenges that arise through collaborative action for sustainability. In order to understand the role of learning in (...) organizational responses to sustainability, we conduct a cross-disciplinary systematic review of the literature on learning for sustainability and incorporate perspectives from diverse disciplines including business, management, environmental science, sociology, policy, urban planning, and development. The review explores how different disciplines conceptualize and operationalize learning for sustainability and identifies the common themes and challenges. Our findings highlight the different ways that power relations influence learning and decision-making processes, and how entrenched traditional value structures and ‘reflexive complicity’ limit practitioners and researchers alike in finding meaningful sustainability solutions. We conclude that shifting how we motivate business and management research on learning for sustainability, in a way that prioritizes sustainability outcomes over firm performance, could bring us a step closer to more meaningful responses to sustainability. Similarly, breaking patterns of ‘reflexive complicity’ by key actors in business could assist in shifting toward more radical and long-term responses to sustainability in practice. (shrink)

RAAAF [Rietveld Architecture-Art-Affordances] is an interdisciplinary studio that operates at the crossroads of visual art, experimental architecture and philosophy. RAAAF makes location- and context-specific artworks, an approach that derives from the respective backgrounds of the founding partners: Prix de Rome laureate Ronald Rietveld and Socrates Professor in Philosophy Erik Rietveld.

Background: Cognitive Training may contribute to the maintenance and even enhancement of cognitive functions in healthy older adults. However, the question who benefits most from multi-domain CTs is still highly under-investigated.Objective: The goal is to investigate prognostic factors and models for changes in cognitive test performance in healthy older adults after a multi-domain CT.Methods: The data bases MEDLINE, Web of Science Core Collection, CENTRAL, and PsycInfo were searched up to July 2019. Studies investigating prognostic factors and/or models on cognitive outcomes (...) after conducting a multi-domain CT in healthy older adults were included. Risk of Bias was assessed using the QUIPS and the PROBAST tool.Results: 23 prognostic factor and model studies were included. Results indicate a high heterogeneity regarding the conducted multi-domain CTs, the investigated prognostic factors, the investigated outcomes, and the used statistical approaches. Age and neuropsychological performance at study entry were the most investigated predictors, yet they show inconsistent results.Conclusion: Data on prognostic factors and models of changes after multi-domain CT are still too rare and inconsistent to draw clear conclusions due to statistical shortcomings and low reporting quality. Approaches for future research are outlined.Registration:https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, ID: CRD42020147531. (shrink)

Stakeholder recognition constitutes a firm’s experience of affirmation and acknowledgment from stakeholders and is deemed essential for organizations to develop positive self-relations and a sense of themselves as morally responsible social actors. Through an in-depth case study, I show how a firm’s varied experiences of stakeholder recognition for its corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts alternately facilitated and hindered the performativity of its aspirational CSR talk through two key processes: (a) a recognition-attainment process whereby the experience of stakeholder recognition helped turn (...) aspirational CSR talk into “substantive” talk with the performative potential to catalyze other CSR practices; and (b) a subsequent recognition-commodification process induced by a perceived misrecognition that ultimately rendered such talk “ceremonial.” Elucidating stakeholder recognition as an undertheorized boundary condition of aspirational CSR talk, this study adds to performative approaches to CSR communication. It further contributes to research on recognition by demonstrating the explanatory potential of Axel Honneth’s notion of recognition in researching business and society interactions. (shrink)

Henry Bugbee was an American philosopher whose name is probably less familiar than other twentieth-century thinkers, yet his small volume of writings is deeply appreciated by those who have read him. A fondness for the man and his thought shines through the pages of this new collection edited by David Rodick, who hopes to introduce Bugbee to a new generation and to make him "more accessible to the wider public". This is a worthy goal, given the delightful idiosyncrasy of Bugbee's (...) writing.The introduction includes a short biographical sketch, attributing the denial of tenure at Harvard to Bugbee's preference for "experiential reflection" over formal writing; this "fateful event" led to the production... (shrink)

Richard, a sixty‐seven‐year‐old man, has been admitted to Midtown University Center for difficulty breathing. He has a significant medical history that includes pulmonary fibrosis and subsequent heart failure, and he depends on supplemental oxygen to breathe. Upon admission and after discussing his prognosis with his family and doctors, Richard decided to sign a do‐not‐resuscitate order stating that if his heart stops or he stops breathing, he does not want to undergo cardiopulmonary resuscitation or other life‐sustaining measures. On his third day (...) in the hospital, the nurse practitioner who is caring for Richard notices that his breathing is becoming more labored and that his blood pressure is steadily dropping. She thinks he requires closer observation and treatment in the cardiac intensive care unit. Dr. P, the physician in the intensive care unit at the time, Dr. P does not want to accept Richard into the CICU because of his prognosis and his DNR order. He believes that Richard should be cared for on a regular hospital floor, and that the last bed in the CICU should be held for its intended user—a patient suffering a life‐threatening heart attack who requires intensive care. Should Richard be admitted to the CICU? (shrink)

More than 300 million people use the gamified mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) application (app) Duolingo. The challenging tasks, reward incentives, systematic levels, and the ranking of users according to their achievements are just some of the elements that demonstrate strong gamification elements within this popular language learning application. This application’s pervasive reach, flexible functionality, and freemium business model has brought significant attention to gamification in MALL. The present systematic review aims to summarize different methods, frameworks, settings, and research samples used (...) to assess Duolingo’s design and impact on various learning outcomes. We carried out a complete database search for articles focused on the issues of design, application, and pedagogies in the use of Duolingo. Three hundred and sixty-seven records were initially found, and 35 of those were selected for final inclusion based on language choice, theoretical frameworks, design, sampling, data collection, and analyses (see Appendix 1 for full list). The results indicated that the majority of research from 2012-2020 was design-focused, quantitative in nature, and used non-probability sampling methods. The focus on app design marks an emphasis on the creation of tools rather than the process and outcomes of language learning from using these tools. Additional results revealed preferences for performance-based research questions, for English as language of choice in research, and for the USA as the most prominent context for Duolingo research studies. Furthermore, our review highlights research gaps specific to Duolingo, yet generalizable to other MALL applications. The results are useful to researchers seeking to assess, evaluate, and understand MALL, gamification, and Duolingo as well as to practitioners interested in utilizing MALL in formal and informal learning environments. (shrink)

The aim of this review is to show the fruitfulness of using images of facial expressions as experimental stimuli in order to study how neural systems support biologically relevant learning as it relates to social interactions. Here we consider facial expressions as naturally conditioned stimuli which, when presented in experimental paradigms, evoke activation in amygdala–prefrontal neural circuits that serve to decipher the predictive meaning of the expressions. Facial expressions offer a relatively innocuous strategy with which to investigate these normal variations (...) in affective information processing, as well as the promise of elucidating what role the aberrance of such processing might play in emotional disorders. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Artificial intelligence-driven technology increasingly shapes work practices and, accordingly, employees’ opportunities for meaningful work (MW). In our paper, we identify five dimensions of MW: pursuing a purpose, social relationships, exercising skills and self-development, autonomy, self-esteem and recognition. Because MW is an important good, lacking opportunities for MW is a serious disadvantage. Therefore, we need to know to what extent employers have a duty to provide this good to their employees. We hold that employers have a duty of beneficence to design (...) for opportunities for MW when implementing AI-technology in the workplace. We argue that this duty of beneficence is supported by the three major ethical theories, namely, Kantian ethics, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. We defend this duty against two objections, including the view that it is incompatible with the shareholder theory of the firm. We then employ the five dimensions of MW as our analytical lens to investigate how AI-based technological innovation in logistic warehouses has an impact, both positively and negatively, on MW, and illustrate that design for MW is feasible. We further support this practical feasibility with the help of insights from organizational psychology. We end by discussing how AI-based technology has an impact both on meaningful work (often seen as an aspirational goal) and decent work (generally seen as a matter of justice). Accordingly, ethical reflection on meaningful and decent work should become more integrated to do justice to how AI-technology inevitably shapes both simultaneously. (shrink)

When evidence-based policymaking is so often mired in disagreement and controversy, how can we know if the process is meeting its stated goals? We develop a novel mathematical model to study disagreements about adequate knowledge utilization, like those regarding wild horse culling, shark drumlines and facemask policies during pandemics. We find that, when stakeholders disagree, it is frequently impossible to tell whether any party is at fault. We demonstrate the need for a distinctive kind of transparency in evidence-based policymaking, which (...) we call transparency of reasoning. Such transparency is critical to the success of the evidence-based policy movement, as without it, we will be unable to tell whether in any instance a policy was in fact based on evidence. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of internet access across various aspects of life, from remote work and online education to healthcare services and social connections. As we transition to a post-pandemic era, a pressing need arises to update our understanding of the multifaceted nature of internet access. This study is one of the first attempts to do so. Using survey data from New Zealand adult internet users (n=960), it compares internet connection types, frequency of internet use at home, social (...) media use, and concerns about online risk between people with and without disabilities. Results show people with disabilities have restricted fibre access and higher wireless broadband (a much slower connection type). People with disabilities use social media platforms less and are more concerned about certain online risks. The findings highlight persistent disparities in internet access for people with disabilities in the post-pandemic era. Implications of the study are discussed. (shrink)