Various research groups with ongoing projects in the areas of personal data protection, reuse of public sector information and open data organised a seminar on October 29, 2020, on reuse and big data in the field of health in which researchers, managers and policymakers from different disciplines participated. Starting from the premise of the special importance that access to health data has as a resource for research, management and development of health products, treatments and interventions and, at the same time, (...) its consideration as a special category of data that is particularly sensitive, private and protected, this document seeks to systematise the main conclusions reached. (shrink)

Neuroimaging studies of brain-damaged patients diagnosed as in the vegetative state suggest that the patients might be conscious. This might seem to raise no new ethical questions given that in related disputes both sides agree that evidence for consciousness gives strong reason to preserve life. We question this assumption. We clarify the widely held but obscure principle that consciousness is morally significant. It is hard to apply this principle to difficult cases given that philosophers of mind distinguish between a range (...) of notions of consciousness and that is unclear which of these is assumed by the principle. We suggest that the morally relevant notion is that of phenomenal consciousness and then use our analysis to interpret cases of brain damage. We argue that enjoyment of consciousness might actually give stronger moral reasons not to preserve a patient's life and, indeed, that these might be stronger when patients retain significant cognitive function. (shrink)

If a doctor is trying to decide whether or not to provide a medical treatment, does it matter ethically whether that treatment has already been started? Health professionals sometimes find it harder to stop a treatment (withdraw) than to refrain from starting the treatment (withhold). But does that feeling correspond to an ethical difference? In this article, we defend equivalence—the view that withholding and withdrawal of treatment are ethically equivalent when all other factors are equal. We argue that preference for (...) withholding over withdrawal could represent a form of cognitive bias—withdrawal aversion. Nevertheless, we consider whether there could be circumstances in which there is a moral difference. We identify four examples of conditional nonequivalence. Finally, we reflect on the moral significance of diverging intuitions and the implications for policy. We propose a set of practical strategies for helping to reduce bias in end-of-life decision making, including the equivalence test. (shrink)

ABSTRACT It is accepted that treatment of previously competent, now incompetent patients can be limited if that is what the patient would desire, if she were now competent. Expressed past preferences or an advance directive are often taken to constitute sufficient evidence of what a patient would now desire. I distinguish between desires and rational desires. I argue that for a desire to be an expression of a person's autonomy, it must be or satisfy that person's rational desires. A person (...) rationally desires a course of action if that person desires it while being in possession of all available relevant facts, without committing relevant error of logic, and “vividly imagining” what its consequences would be like for her. I argue that some competent, expressed desires obstruct autonomy. I show that several psychological mechanisms operate to prevent a person rationally evaluating what future life in a disabled state would be like. Rational evaluation is difficult. However, treatment limitation, if it is to respect autonomy, must be in accord with a patient's rational desires, and not merely her expressed desires. I illustrate the implications of these arguments for the use of advance directives and for the treatment of competent patients. (shrink)

What is the correct concept behind measures of inflation? Does money cause business activity or is it the other way around? Shall we stimulate growth by raising aggregate demand or rather by lowering taxes and thereby providing incentives to produce? Policy-relevant questions such as these are of immediate and obvious importance to the welfare of societies. The standard approach in dealing with them is to build a model, based on economic theory, answer the question for the model world and then (...) apply the results to economic phenomena outside. Data come in, if at all, only in testing a limited number of the model's consequences. Despite some critical voices, economic methodology too has by and large subscribed to a "theory first" approach to applied economics. Error in Economics systematically develops an alternative to the theory-based orthodoxy. It places the methodical study of evidence at the centre of the scientific enterprise and thus provides a foundation for a methodology of evidence-based economics. But the book does not stop at the truism that claims should be based on the best available evidence. Rather, detailed studies in the areas of measurement, causal inference and policy analysis show what it means for a claim to be evidence-based in the context of a concrete case. The examples discussed concern topics as diverse as consumer price indices, radio spectrum auctions, the transmission mechanism, natural experiments on minimum wages and the evaluation of counterfactuals for policy. Error in Economics is essential reading for economic methodologists, philosophers of science and anyone interested in how claims about socio-economic matters are validated. (shrink)

Some of my colleagues will sadly not be attending the IAB World Congress in Qatar. Amongst other things, they wish to take a stand against Qatar’s human rights record and the treatment of women and...

Francesco Guala once wrote that ‘The problem of extrapolation is a minor scandal in the philosophy of science’. This paper agrees with the statement, but for reasons different from Guala’s. The scandal is not, or not any longer, that the problem has been ignored in the philosophy of science. The scandal is that framing the problem as one of external validity encourages poor evidential reasoning. The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative—an alternative which constitutes much better evidential (...) reasoning about target systems of interest, and which makes do without consideration of external validity. (shrink)

Chantal Mouffe ha criticado con vehemencia la propuesta deliberativa de Jürgen Habermas por lo que interpreta como una negación del conflicto político. El objetivo de este trabajo es reconsiderar esta objeción. Para ello se reconstruye la crítica mouffeana a partir de cuatro diferentes planos analíticos en lo que refiere a las posibilidades de comprensión y aceptación del antagonismo. En contra de lo sostenido por Mouffe, afirmamos que a pesar de que el modelo deliberativo coloca un énfasis prioritario en la dimensión (...) consensual de la práctica comunicativa, el conflicto constituye un supuesto necesario e irreductible que está presente en la base del edificio teórico de la propuesta habermasiana. Chantal Mouffe has strongly criticized the Jürgen Habermas' deliberative proposal for what she asserts is the negation of political conflict. In this paper we reconsider this objection by rebuilding this critique through four different dimensions which consider the possibilities of comprehension and acceptation of antagonism. Thus, in opposition to what Mouffe supports, we assert that even though his deliberative model emphasizes the consensual dimension of the communicative practice, conflict lays on the basis of the Habermas' theoretical structure as a necessary and unavoidable concept. (shrink)

In 2002, I wrote an editorial in this Journal arguing that it was time to review the structure and function of ethics committees in the USA, Australia and the UK.1 This followed the deaths of Ellen Roche and Jesse Gelsinger, which were at least in significant part due to the poor functioning of research ethics committees in the USA.2 In the case of Ellen Roche, it was the failure to require a systematic review of the existing literature which led to (...) her death. Iain Chalmers and I had previously documented in 1996 the failure of ethics committees to require systematic review.3 In 1998, at the time of revising the previous guidelines and forming the first Australian National Statement on Research Ethics, I made a public submission to the Australian Health Ethics Committee arguing that the new guidelines for RECs should include a person with skills in conducting systematic reviews of the literature and that the requirement to have a religious representative on the committee be replaced with the requirement to have an ethicist. Neither of these changes was made. I argued, ‘It is time to ask whether institutional RECs should be abandoned in favour of expert committees that cover many institutions—suprainstitutional specialist committees. Supraregional specialist ethics committees could specialise—for example, in genetic research, cancer clinical trials, dermatology, respiratory physiology and each of the specialist areas of medical research. An example of such a committee is provided by the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand research ethics committee, which reviews multicentre trials of respiratory drugs’.4 Around that time, I was involved ‘at the coal face’ as Chair of the Department of Human Services Ethics Committee in Victoria. In a public presentation, I arguedThere are two philosophical views of what ethics review is. On the …. (shrink)

We consider whether intervening in the criminal tendency of future children is ethically justifiable. We argue that, if avoidance of.

This paper aims (a) to provide characterizations of realism and instrumentalism that are philosophically interesting and applicable to economics; and (b) to defend instrumentalism against realism as a methodological stance in economics. Starting point is the observation that ‘all models are false’, which, or so I argue, is difficult to square with the realist's aim of truth, even if the latter is understood as ‘partial’ or ‘approximate’. The three cheers in favour of instrumentalism are: (1) Once we have usefulness, truth (...) is redundant. (2) There is something disturbing about causal structure. (3) It's better to do what one can than to chase rainbows. (shrink)

The genus problem of populism presents one of the most vexing conceptual questions across the social sciences: Some theorists believe that populism is nothing more than an assembly of discursive patterns, while others maintain that populism is a strategy to gain political power. Then there are those that argue that populism is a thin ideology that lacks a coherent set of guiding principles. The paper intervenes in this debate in two ways: First, it offers a methodological apparatus for evaluating and (...) developing contested concepts such as populism. Second, it puts forward and defends the claim that populism can be fruitfully understood as a coherent ideology that rests on four foundational principles. These principles, I will argue, are necessary for explaining the paradigmatic beliefs and dispositions exhibited by exponents of populism. One of the key characteristics of populism, on the account developed in this paper, is its peculiar epistemic stance. (shrink)

I argue that Brierley et al are wrong to claim that parents who request futile treatment are acting against the interests of their child. A better ethical ground for withholding or withdrawing life-prolonging treatment is not that it is in the interests of the patient to die, but rather on grounds of the limitation of resources and the requirements of distributive justice. Put simply, not all treatment that might be in a person's interests must ethically be provided.

Economic environmental valuation remains a much debated and contested issue. Concerns have been voiced that it is unable to capture the manifold immaterial values of ecosystems due to conceptual and methodological issues. Thus, additional value categories (social values) as well as novel valuation approaches like deliberative (monetary) valuation are areas of growing interest, yet the theoretical foundations are rather weak. Against this background, this article aims to develop a consistent conceptual framework for making sense of social values in economic environmental (...) valuation. Based on a holistic view of society and individuals, the role of institutions, the social environment, culture and transcendental values is emphasised. To synthesise diverging concepts of value into an economic concept and to account for the multidimensionality of social values, the framework consists of three spheres: social, natural and contextual. The novel framework demonstrates that social values may be integrated into a preference-based utility framework when denoting a holistic understanding of social preferences and human embeddedness in nature and society. (shrink)

We examine the philosophical and ethical issues associated with conjoined twins and their surgical separation. In cases in which there is an extensive sharing of organs, but nevertheless two distinguishable functioning brains, there are a number of philosophical and ethical challenges. This is because such conjoined twins: 1. give rise to puzzles concerning our identity, about whether we are identical to something psychological or biological;2. force us to decide whether what matters from an ethical point of view is the biological (...) life of our organisms or the existence of our consciousness or mind; 3. raise questions concerning when, if ever, it is morally acceptable to sacrifice one of us to save another;4. force us to reflect on the conditions for ownership of organs and the justification of removal of organs for transplantation which causes the death of the donor; 5. raise questions about who should take decisions about life-risking treatments when this cannot be decided by patients themselves.We examine and suggest answers to these questions. (shrink)

The knowledge norm of assertion is the subject of a lively debate on when someone is in a position to assert something. However, not much has been said about the logic that underlies such debate. In this paper, I propose a formalisation of the knowledge norm in a deontic logic that aims to be explanatory and conceptually sound. Afterwards, I investigate some problems that this formalisation makes visible. This reveals some significant limitations of the underlying logic: it can neither contain (...) Axiom 4 nor Axiom C4. Moreover, sentences of the form p and I have not asserted that p appear to licence a violation of deontic rules. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone estudiar la noción de expresión en los dos libros que Deleuze publica en 1968: _Spinoza y el problema de la expresión _y _Diferencia y repetición. _Se trazarán las correspondencias entre las formas de expresión en el primero y los planos ontológicos del segundo, para luego considerar en qué consiste el _renversement _ del spinozismo que Deleuze propone. Se mostrará que este no consiste en invertir el rol del fundamento entre lo Uno y lo múltiple, sino en (...) liberar las formas de expresión del cuádruple cepo de la razón suficiente, y darle a cada una su lógica y potencia propias. (shrink)

Resumen: Deleuze y Guattari caracterizan el capitalismo como una serie de relaciones diferenciales entre flujos: trabajo / capital; medios de pago / moneda de financiamiento; códigos científicos y tecnológicos / mercado. Al mismo tiempo consideran las formas de lucha a partir del operaismo italiano. Este artículo muestra cómo se articulan ambas dimensiones de lo político a partir de establecer que son respectivamente la aplicación de los dos conceptos ontológicos fundamentales de Diferencia y repetición : la Idea diferencial y la intensidad (...) como factor de individuación. Para ello, se concentra en la relación monetaria, a partir de la teoría de los economistas que Deleuze y Guattari usan como fuente y la lucha a nivel monetario planteada por Berti.: Deleuze and Guattari characterize Capitalism as a series of differential relations between flows: labor / capital; means of payment / financing currency; scientific and technological codes / market. At the same time, they think the ways of struggle through the Italian operaismo. This paper shows the articulation of the two dimensions of politics by holding that they are an application of the two fundamental ontological concepts of Difference and Repetition : differential Idea and intensity as factors of individuation. To do that, we will focus on the monetary relation, using the theory of the economists who are source for Deleuze and Guattari and the struggle at a monetary level proposed by Berti. (shrink)

This chapter questions the causal-constitution fallacy raised against the extended mind. It does so by presenting our signature temporal thesis about how to understand constitutive relations in the context of the extended mind, and with respect to dynamical systems, more broadly. We call this thesis diachronic constitution. We will argue that temporalising the constitution relation is not as remarkable (nor problematic) as it might initially seem. It is (arguably) inevitable, given local interactions between microscale and macroscale states of (coupled) dynamical (...) systems. We focus primarily on the metaphysics of the extended mind in this paper. However, we also show how our account of diachronic constitution has important implications for the metaphysics of dependence relations more generally as well as an emerging literature on inter-level explanations in the mechanistic framework applied to the discussion over extended, enactive and embodied cognition. (shrink)

Katerina Jennings and Esther Braun identify an important problem with the current approach to defining categories of competitors in sport (Jennings and Braun 2024). They make a significant contribu...

Suppose we morally ought to maximize social welfare. Suppose profit maxi­mization is a means to maximize social welfare. Does this imply that we morally ought to maximize profits? Many proponents of the view that we have a moral obligation to maximize profits (tacitly) assume the validity of this argument. In this paper, we critically assess this assumption. We show that the validity of this argument is far from trivial and requires a careful argumentative defence.