Adolescent pregnancy results from the complex interaction between various internal and external vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities persist after the infant's birth when the adolescent becomes a parent. Adolescent parents are unfairly stereotyped as unmotivated and incompetent. Some legislations prohibit adolescents from giving consent on the grounds of incompetency. Despite being different, “competency” is frequently used interchangeably with “capacity”; thus, incompetent individuals are often mistaken to lack capacity. Consequently, legally incompetent adolescents who became parents are frequently disregarded during their infant's decision-making process. (...) This article discusses the distinction between the competence and capacity of adolescent parents, the various vulnerabilities that contribute to an adolescent's incompetency, and advocates respect for the adolescent's capacity in making decisions for her infant. We propose a workflow for obtaining informed consent for infants born to adolescents ethically guided by the respect for individuals principle while staying within the country's legal framework. (shrink)

The possibility of AI consciousness depends much on the correct answer to the mind–body problem: how our materialistic brain generates subjective consciousness? If a materialistic answer is valid, machine consciousness must be possible, at least in principle, though the actual instantiation of consciousness may still take a very long time. If a non-materialistic one (either mentalist or dualist) is valid, machine consciousness is much less likely, perhaps impossible, as some mental element may also be required. Some recent advances in neurology (...) (despite the separation of the two hemispheres, our brain as a whole is still able to produce only one conscious agent; the negation of the absence of a free will, previously thought to be established by the Libet experiments) and many results of parapsychology (on medium communications, memories of past lives, near-death experiences) suggestive of survival after our biological death, strongly support the non-materialistic position and hence the much lower likelihood of AI consciousness. Instead of being concern about AI turning conscious and machine ethics, and trying to instantiate AI consciousness soon, we should perhaps focus more on making AI less costly and more useful to society. (shrink)

"I have a tree, which grows here in my close, / That mine own use invites me to cut down, / And shortly I must fell it" (Shakespeare 2001, 168)—Timon's lament, which in Shakespeare's rendition occurs shortly before its utterer's demise "upon the beached verge of the salt flood" (2001, 168) beyond the perimeter of Athens, is an indictment of the nature that Timon finds unable to escape. Having given away his wealth in misguided generosity to a host of parasitic (...) sycophants, Timon turns misanthropic when his "friends" reject his requests for help in kind to repay his debts, eventually exiling himself from the city with the intent of sustaining himself on nothing but water and roots. Yet he soon finds that removing .. (shrink)

Since the first draft of the human genome was published in 2001, DNA sequencing technology has advanced at a remarkable pace. Launched in 1990, the Human Genome Project sought to sequence all three billion base pairs of the haploid human genome, an endeavor that took more than a decade and cost nearly three billion dollars. The subsequent development of so-called “next generation” sequencing methods has raised the possibility that real-time, affordable genome sequencing will soon be widely available. Currently, NGS (...) methods can be used to sequence up to 60 billion base pairs per day. Whole-genome sequencing costs an estimated $5,000-10,000, with that number predicted to fall to $1000 in the near future.In the past few years, the availability of high-throughput NGS methods has led to a proliferation of potential and actual clinical applications for NGS. NGS therefore has the potential to usher in the long-awaited era of personalized medicine. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Photo-credit to Chicago Sun-Times and James Mescall. 4 "The town is beastly and the weather was vile": Bertrand Russell in Chicago, 1938-1939 Visiting Chicago in 1867, Lord Amberley offered his wife an appreciation of the city: "The country around Chicago is flat and ugly; the town itself has good buildings but has a rough unfinished appearance which does not contribute to its attractions."l While Bertrand Russell is known to (...) have accepted and developed particular aspects of his father's thought, it is more likely that his own visits to Chicago, rather than this nineteenth -century appraisal, brought him to the opinion that "the town is beastly and the weather was vile."z One might suppose Russell's longest stay reaffirmed his image of the city suggested in a 1922 article expressing fear of "a slow destruction of the civilization of China" through which "the big towns will become like Chicago."3 Here, Russell appears to have envisioned this city as an amorphous collection of streets and structures manifesting the least desirable values of American capitalism. In his Autobiography a single paragraph is devoted to his 1938-1939 experience of "the bleak hideousness of Chicago" (II, p. 332). Yet there was far more to Russell's six-month sojourn than the little he chose to recall in print. One-half year is a significant period in anyone's life, even for a man who lived ninety-seven (and a half) years. This article, then, presents an account of Russell's coming to and departure from Chicago and his diverse activities while a professor at the University of Chicago. The need to secure some permanent academic position was strongly felt by Russell in the mid-1930s. His ~aertrand and Patricia Russell, The Amberley Papers (London: Allen and Unwin, 1966), p. 57. zThe Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (Boston: Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1968), II, p. 332. 3"How Washington Can Help China", New Republic, 4 Jan. 1922, p. 154. / 5 second marriage had ended and a third was beginn~ng; ~ar­ ticipation in the Beacon Hill experimen~ w~s behlnd hlmj and journalistic writing, though ~ contlnulng so~rce of income, was ceasing to be attractlve: No~ a d~slre to return to philosophical work, recurrlng fl~anclal troubles, and the fear of another, far m~r~ destr~ctlve.European~ar all contributed toward his declslon to lnvestlgate Amerlcan possibilities. My feelings are threefold: (a) I' have a lot of ideas in,my head that I long to work at and believe important (b) I am faced with such poverty that I may be unable to give a proper education to the child that is coming (c) That Europe is no place for children with the imminent risk of war--particularly England, which is ' 4 likely to suffer most in the next war. At first, with the help of his American publisher, Warder Norton, Russell approached Princeton University hoping for a research post "on the foundations of mathematics and philosophy" (letter to Norton, 13 Jan. 1937). But no prospect materialized, and he requested Norton to inquire at universities such as Columbia and Harvard. Finally in the spring of 1937 Russell received a letter from Professor Scott Buchanan who then represented the University of Chicago's Committee on the Liberal Arts (COTLA). Buchanan offered a place on COTLA with only minor teaching duties. Writing to Norton that this "seems a very agreeable job", Russell nevertheless suggested the post "may be reactionary and the sort of thing my radical friends would think I ought not to be connected with. '" it is a committee concerned with a conservative reform of education." But the invitation promised adequate time for independent research, and Russell, quite characteristically, concluded "my wish is to accept, but not if doing so would be wicked" (letter of 30 Apr. 1937). However, Buchanan, having soon thereafter left the University of Chicago for a Maryland college, corresponded no further with Russell. The COTLA job offer was officially withdrawn. Only in January 1938 did Russell again hear from a University of Chicago spokesman. Aware that Russell had been somewhat brusquely treated, Professor Richard P. McKeon of the Department of Philosophy now wrote "in the... (shrink)

In the multi-faceted trajectory of post-Kantian thought, Schelling—both the person and his philosophy—has always been a controversial figure. Popular historical accounts focus on his precocious interventions as part of the ‘Jena set’, initially building on Fichte's philosophy of the ‘I’, but quickly coming to challenge his predecessor's philosophical dominance. In the crucial period of the late 1790s, Schelling's most notable intervention was to develop a philosophy of nature alongside the Kantian and Fichtean theories of transcendental subjectivity, which caught the attention (...) of Goethe and led to his appointment, at the age of twenty-three, as professor of philosophy at the University of Jena. But Schelling's life and philosophical work continued well beyond this well-documented period, culminating in a late system in which he developed key ideas surrounding freedom, existence, modality and the history of human consciousness that all revolved around a distinction between what he called negative and positive philosophy. This distinction, and his insistence on the need for the development of the latter mode of philosophy, came to challenge some of the core assumptions of the largely rationalist German idealist project and it remains, to this day, perhaps the most powerful alternative to the Hegelian system that rose to dominance already within Schelling's own lifetime, but also well beyond it. (shrink)

To what extent should we focus on implicit bias in order to eradicate persistent social injustice? Structural prioritizers argue that we should focus less on individual minds than on unjust social structures, while equal prioritizers think that both are equally important. This article introduces the framework of transactive memory into the debate to defend the equal priority view. The transactive memory framework helps us see how structure can emerge from individual interactions as an irreducibly social product. If this is right, (...) then debiasing interventions are structural interventions. One upshot is that the utility of the individual versus structural distinction is not apparent for the purposes of intervention. (shrink)

We study the Turing degrees which contain a real of effective packing dimension one. Downey and Greenberg showed that a c.e. degree has effective packing dimension one if and only if it is not c.e. traceable. In this paper, we show that this characterization fails in general. We construct a real $A\leq_T\emptyset''$ which is hyperimmune-free and not c.e. traceable such that every real $\alpha\leq_T A$ has effective packing dimension 0. We construct a real $B\leq_T\emptyset'$ which is not c.e. traceable such (...) that every real $\alpha\leq_T B$ has effective packing dimension 0. (shrink)

Collection of articles on philosophy and Buddhist morality in relation to social conditions in Thailand.

1. Sasang ŭi hyŏngsŏng -- 2. Saenggak kwa silch'ŏn -- 3. Ssial, saengmyŏng, p'yŏnghwa.

Medication error is the most common and consistent type of error occurring in hospitals. This article attempts to explore the ethical issues relating to the nursing management of medication errors in clinical areas in Macau, China. A qualitative approach was adopted. Seven registered nurses who were involved in medication errors were recruited for in-depth interviews. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis. Regarding the management of patients, the nurses acknowledged the mistakes but did not disclose the incidents to (...) patients and relatives. Concerning management of the nurses involved by senior staff, most participants experienced fairness, comfort and understanding during the process of reporting and investigation. The ethical issues relating to the incidents were discussed, particularly in the Chinese context. There is a need for further study relating to the disclosure of medication incidents to patients and some suggestions were made. (shrink)

Background Caring practice begins with awareness of the suffering of patients in a given context. Understanding the interrelationship between the perceived ethical climate of the clinical environment and the ethical sensitivity and caring efficacy of nurses is crucial for strengthening the caring competency of nurses. Research aim This study aimed to examine the associations between the ethical climate of the clinical environment and the ethical sensitivity and caring efficacy of nurses and to investigate the mediating effect of ethical sensitivity on (...) the association between ethical climate and caring efficacy. Research design This was a quantitative study with a cross-sectional descriptive correlational design. The participants completed an online survey that measured the ethical climate, ethical sensitivity and caring efficacy using the Hospital Ethical Climate Survey, Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire-Revised and Caring Efficacy Scale, respectively. Participants and research context The study recruited 293 nurses from two general hospitals that provided acute in-patient and extended care in Hong Kong. Ethical considerations Ethical approval was obtained from the ethics committee of the university and the hospitals involved. Written consent was obtained from the participants. Results Ethical climate was associated with caring efficacy ( β = 0.340, p <.001) and ethical sensitivity ( β = 0.197, p <.001). After adjusting for ethical climate, ethical sensitivity was associated with caring efficacy ( β = 0.860, p <.001). Ethical sensitivity showed a significant mediating effect on the association between ethical climate and caring efficacy (indirect effect = 0.169, 95% confidence interval: 0.097 to 0.261), which accounted for 50% of the total effect. Conclusions The study reveals the complex and interwoven relationship between contextual and personal factors that affect nurses’ caring efficacy from an ethical perspective. It provides insights into the significant roles of ethical climate and ethical sensitivity in strengthening caring efficacy. The results suggest theoretical and clinical implications for professionalisation. (shrink)