This essay provides an analysis of the role of affectivity in Martin Heidegger's writings from the mid to late 1920s. We begin by situating his account of mood within the context of his project of fundamental ontology in Being and Time. We then discuss the role of Befindlichkeit and Stimmung in his account of human existence, explicate the relationship between the former and the latter, and consider the ways in which the former discloses the world. To give a more vivid (...) and comprehensive picture of Heidegger's account of mood, we focus on the experience of anxiety by articulating both its function within fundamental ontology and, relatedly, its revelatory nature. We conclude by considering the place of emotions in Heidegger's thinking from this period. In a companion essay, ‘Affectivity in Heidegger II: Temporality, Boredom, and Beyond’, we complement our present analysis by revisiting the issue of affectivity in terms of Heidegger's discussion of temporality in Division II of Being and Time. We also expand our present discussion by considering the fundamental mood of boredom and other specific moods that Heidegger considers within his later thinking. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between romantic love and polyamory. Our central question is whether traditional norms of monogamy can be excised from romantic love so as to harmonize with polyamory’s ethical dimensions (as we construe them). How one answers this question bears on another: whether ‘polyamory’ should principally be understood in terms of romantic love or instead some alternative conception(s). Our efforts to address these questions begin by briefly motivating our favored approach to romantic love, a “narratival” one inspired (...) by 1930s cultural theorist Denis de Rougemont, wherein such love is exclusive, supernatural or promising transcendence, painful, impeded, and, ultimately, fatal. We maintain that, even once exclusivity is removed as an official component, tensions with polyamory’s ethical dimensions remain: romantic love’s other elements rationalize acting and feeling in ways that privilege a singular beloved above others. A tempting solution is to further revise romantic love. However, we are skeptical that this leaves space for distinctively romantic love. Our tentative proposal, then, is that polyamory’s ethical dimensions favor rejecting romantic love as ultimately desirable. (shrink)

The standard approach to the core phenomenology of thought insertion characterizes it in terms of a normal sense of thought ownership coupled with an abnormal sense of thought agency. Recently, Fernández (2010) has argued that there are crucial problems with this approach and has proposed instead that what goes wrong fundamentally in such a phenomenology is a sense of thought commitment, characterized in terms of thought endorsement. In this paper, we argue that even though Fernández raises new issues that enrich (...) the topic, his proposal cannot rival the version of the standard approach we shall defend. (shrink)

Predatory grooming is a form of abuse most familiar from high-profile cases of sexual misconduct, for example, the Nassar case at Michigan State. Predatory groomers target individuals in a systematic effort to lead them into relationships in which they are vulnerable to exploitation. This is an example of a broader form of epistemic misconduct that Leydon-Hardy describes as epistemic infringement, where this involves the contravention of social and epistemic norms in a way that undermines our epistemic agency. In this chapter, (...) Leydon-Hardy looks at the distinctive epistemic harm caused by epistemic infringement. She argues that this harm cannot be understood simply as the victim’s having a false belief, or even as her being alienated from her belief-forming mechanisms. A deeper understanding of the harm caused by infringement shows that it stems from damage to one’s epistemic agency, and indeed, to one’s personhood. (shrink)

While Jameton’s (1984) definition of moral distress has been embraced by researchers and scholars for recognizing the many constraints that nurses experience on their moral agency, it has also been...

Background: Patients undergoing invasive neurosurgical procedures offer researchers unique opportunities to study the brain. Deep brain stimulation patients, for example, may participate in research during the surgical implantation of the stimulator device. Although this research raises many ethical concerns, little attention has been paid to basic studies, which offer no therapeutic benefits, and the value of patient-participant perspectives.Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with fourteen individuals across two studies who participated in basic intraoperative research during their deep brain stimulator surgery. Interviews (...) explored interpretations of risks and benefits, enrollment motivations, and experiences of participating in awake brain research. Reflexive thematic analysis was conducted.Results: Seven themes were identified from participant narratives, including robust attitudes of trust, high valuations of basic science research, impacts of the surgical context, and mixed experiences of participation.Conclusion: We argue that these narratives raise the potential for a translational misconception and motivate intraoperative re-consent procedures. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This essay argues for the importance of formalizing public engagement efforts around bioethics as something we might call "bioethics communication," and it outlines the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics' plans for engaging in this effort. Because science is complex and difficult to explain to nonexperts, the field of science communication has arisen to meet this need. The field involves both a practice and a subject of empirical research. Like science, bioethics is also complex and difficult to explain, which is (...) why the world needs bioethics communication. The authors are engaged in a brand-new effort to establish the sort of public bioethics efforts that would constitute bioethics communication, through a program which they call the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg iDeas Lab. The authors invite colleagues to experiment and learn with them as they invest in the development of bioethics communicators and their products. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger is often credited as having offered one of the most thorough phenomenological investigations of the nature of boredom. In his 1929–1930 lecture course, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, he goes to great lengths to distinguish between three different types of boredom and to explicate their respective characters. Within the context of his discussion of one of these types of boredom, profound boredom [tiefe Langweile], Heidegger opposes much of the philosophical and literary tradition on boredom insofar (...) as he articulates how the experience of boredom can be existentially beneficial to us. In this chapter, we undertake a study of the nature of profound boredom with the aim of investigating its place within contemporary psychological and philosophical research on boredom. Although boredom used to be a neglected emotional experience, it is no more. Boredom’s causal antecedents, effects, experiential profile, and neurophysiological correlates have become topics of active study; as a consequence, a proliferation of claims and findings about boredom has ensued. Such a situation provides an opportunity to scrutinize Heidegger’s claims and to try to understand them both on their own terms and in light of our contemporary understanding of boredom. (shrink)

A number of anthropologists have argued that religious concepts are minimally counterintuitive and that this gives them mnemic advantages. This paper addresses the question of why people have the memory architecture that results in such concepts being more memorable than other types of concepts by pointing out the benefits of a memory structure that leads to better recall for minimally counterintuitive concepts and by showing how such benefits emerge in the real‐time processing of comprehending narratives such as folk tales. This (...) model suggests that memorability is not an inherent property of a concept; rather it is a property of the concept, the context in which the concept is presented, and the background knowledge that the comprehendor possesses about the concept. The model predicts how memorability of a concept should change if the context containing the concept were changed. The paper also presents the results of experiments carried out to test these predictions. (shrink)

Neurophenomenological (NP) methods integrate objective and subjective data in ways that retain the statistical power of established disciplines (like cognitive science) while embracing the value of first-person reports of experience. The present paper positions neurophenomenology as an approach that pulls from traditions of cognitive science but includes techniques that are challenging for cognitive science in some ways. A baseline study is reviewed for “lessons learned,” that is, the potential methodological improvements that will support advancements in understanding consciousness and cognition using (...) neurophenomenology. These improvements, we suggest, include (1) addressing issues of interdisciplinarity by purposefully and systematically creating and maintaining shared mental models among research team members; (2) making sure that NP experiments include high standards of experimental design and execution to achieve variable control, reliability, generalizability, and replication of results; and (3) conceiving of phenomenological interview techniques as placing the impetus on the interviewer in interaction with the experimental subject. (shrink)

Despite pronouncements about the inevitable diffusion of artificial intelligence and autonomous technologies, in practice, it is human behavior, not technology in a vacuum, that dictates how technology seeps into—and changes—societies. To better understand how human preferences shape technological adoption and the spread of AI-enabled autonomous technologies, we look at representative adult samples of US public opinion in 2018 and 2020 on the use of four types of autonomous technologies: vehicles, surgery, weapons, and cyber defense. By focusing on these four diverse (...) uses of AI-enabled autonomy that span transportation, medicine, and national security, we exploit the inherent variation between these AI-enabled autonomous use cases. We find that those with familiarity and expertise with AI and similar technologies were more likely to support all of the autonomous applications we tested (except weapons) than those with a limited understanding of the technology. Individuals that had already delegated the act of driving using ride-share apps were also more positive about autonomous vehicles. However, familiarity cut both ways; individuals are also less likely to support AI-enabled technologies when applied directly to their life, especially if technology automates tasks they are already familiar with operating. Finally, we find that familiarity plays little role in support for AI-enabled military applications, for which opposition has slightly increased over time. (shrink)

Case-based instruction has been regarded by many as a viable alternative to traditional lecture-based education and training. However, little is known about how case-based training techniques impact training effectiveness. This study examined the effects of two such techniques: (a) presentation of alternative outcome scenarios to a case, and (b) conducting a structured outcome evaluation. Consistent with the hypotheses, results indicate that presentation of alternative outcome scenarios reduced knowledge acquisition, reduced sensemaking and ethical decision-making strategy use, and reduced decision ethicality. Conducting (...) a structured outcome evaluation had no impact on these outcomes. Results indicate that those who use case-based instruction should take care to use clear, less complex cases with only a singular outcome if they are seeking these types of outcomes. (shrink)

In recent years, the phenomenon of moral distress has been critically examined—and for a good reason. There have been a number of different definitions suggested, some that claimed to be consistent with the original definition but in fact referred to different epistemological states. In this paper, we re‐examine moral distress by exploring its relationship with moral agency. We critically examine three conceptions of moral agency and argue that two of these conceptions risk placing nurses' values at the center of moral (...) action when it ought to be the patient's values that shape nurses' obligations. We propose that the conception of moral agency advanced by Aimee Milliken which re‐centers patient values, should be more broadly accepted within nursing. We utilize a case example to demonstrate a situation in which the values of a patient's parents (surrogates) justifiably constrained nurses' moral agency, creating moral distress. Through an examination of constraints on nurse agency in this case, we illustrate the problematic nature of ‘narrow' moral distress and the value of re‐considering moral distress. Finally, we provide an action‐oriented proposal identifying mediating steps that we argue have utility for nurses (and other healthcare professionals) to mediate between experiences of narrow moral distress and the exercise of moral agency. (shrink)

Precaution is usually associated with the intuition that it is better to be safe than sorry, and/or that it is sometimes necessary to act in advance of scientific certainty to prevent harmful outcomes. At this point, we cannot entirely prevent climate change, but we can affect how harmful such change is. Adaptation may therefore be understood as a precautionary measure against the damage due to climate change. 'The' precautionary principle alone is too vague to shape adaptation policy, but a limited (...) catastrophic precautionary principle may productively guide adaptation policy makers. I argue in this paper that an explicit commitment to a precautionary approach based on the catastrophic precautionary principle could and should be made to strengthen the adaptation policies introduced at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). (shrink)

Producing emotional tears is a universal and uniquely human behavior. Until recently, tears have received little serious attention from scientists. Here, we summarize recent theoretical developments and research findings. The evolutionary approach offers a solid ground for the analysis of the functions of tears. This is especially the case for infant crying, which we address in the first part of this contribution. We further elaborate on the antecedents and functions of emotional tears in adults. The main hypothesis that emerges from (...) this overview is that crying evolved as an emotional expression that signals distress and promotes prosocial behaviors in conspecifics. Further, shedding tears may influence the mood of the crier and his/her outlook on life primarily as a consequence of fulfillment of the proposed signaling function of tears. We also describe how cultural phenomena such as ritual weeping nicely fit within this framework, as they often aim to support a request for help to a powerful person or deity and promote social bonding. (shrink)

The “public charge” rule is a long-standing immigration policy that seeks to determine the likelihood that a prospective immigrant will become dependent on the government for subsistence. When the Trump administration sought to expand the criteria that would count against an applicant for permanent residency to include public benefits historically excluded from the calculation, thousands of commenters wrote to oppose or support the proposed changes. This paper explores the moral and practical reasons commenters provided for their position on the public (...) charge rule and considers the value of the public comment process for immigration, health, and social policy. (shrink)

The law applicable to genomics in the United States is currently in transition and under debate. The rapid evolution of the science, burgeoning clinical research, and growing clinical application pose serious challenges for federal and state law. Although there has been some empirical work in this area, this is the first paper to survey and interview key scientific and legal stakeholders in the field of genomics to help ground identification of the most important legal problems that must be solved to (...) successfully integrate genomics into clinical care. The respondents in this study identified a wide range of interconnected issues, focusing specifically on the need for clear guidelines about how to use these data, fear of liability for those who use these data, and the need to protect patients from use of this information particularly by insurers, while endorsing data sharing. Developing legal strategies to support appropriate use of genomics now and in the future clearly will require making trade-offs, taking into account the full complexity of this legal ecosystem. (shrink)

The practice of recontact in genomic medicine has the power to help rectify long‐standing inequities in genetic testing. However, if not delivered systematically, recontacting practices also have the potential to reinforce these same inequities. Recontact, which occurs when contact between a clinician and patient is reinitiated after a relationship has ended, is often in search of or in response to updated interpretation or results. Currently, recontact is happening in a patient‐driven and ad hoc manner, undermining its potential to benefit all (...) patients. In this paper, the authors position justice as an additional argument in favor of systematic recontact and an argument against the predominantly patient‐initiated model. They argue that patients from equity‐deserving groups should be early beneficiaries of an emerging responsibility to recontact patients. The authors share illustrative clinical vignettes and propose role‐specific and systems‐level solutions to rightfully position recontact as a tool to promote a more equitable clinical genomics future. (shrink)

Discussions of harm are central in the climate ethics literature. Especially in the rapidly emerging body of work addressing the question of whether or not individuals are morally responsible for their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, whether or in what way individuals’ emissions are harmful is a hotly debated question. John Nolt’s recent paper, “How harmful are the average American’s greenhouse gas emissions?” illustrates the prevalence of this framing (Nolt 2011). Here I take a step back and ask what we mean (...) by the concept “harmful” when talking about climate change. I argue, as several respondents to Nolt have suggested (e.g., Attfield 2011, Odenbaugh 2011), that we should not be so quick to apply our standard .. (shrink)

ArgumentIn the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimony – the testimony of scientific experts. We argue that this expertise is best understoodfirstas related to the quality of the underlying scienceand thenin terms of who delivers it. Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA), a contemporary forensic science, serves as the vaulting point for our exploration of objectivity as a metric for the quality of a science in judicial contexts. We argue that BPA fails to meet the (...) minimal standard set by Helen Longino’s social-procedural account of objectivity (1990, 2002). In light of some pressing issues for social-procedural accounts, we offer an infrastructural account of objectivity. This account offers what amounts to a friendly amendment to Longino’s account and adds to the ways in which we might analyze social-procedural objectivity. Finally, we address an issue that is pressing in the legal context: given that scientific knowledge is delivered by individuals, not communities, at least in U.S. courts, we (may) need a way to evaluate individual scientific and epistemic agents. We suggest a means for making this evaluation that is derived from our infrastructural account of objectivity. (shrink)

Everyone, it seems, is talking and arguing about Evidence-Based Practice. Those therapies and assessments designated as EBP increasingly determine what is taught, researched, and reimbursed in health care. But exactly what is it, and how do you do it? The second edition of Clinician's Guide to Evidence-Based Practices is the concise, practitioner-friendly guide to applying EBPs in mental health. Step-by-step it explains how to conduct the entire EBP process-asking the right questions, accessing the best available research, appraising the research, translating (...) that research into practice, integrating that research with clinician expertise and patient characteristics, evaluating the entire enterprise, attending to the ethical considerations, and when done, moving the EBP process forward by teaching and disseminating it. This book will help you:. Formulate useful questions that research can address. Search the research literature efficiently for best practices. Make sense out of the research morass, sifting wheat from chaff. Incorporate patient values and diversity into the selection of EBP. Blend clinician expertise with the research evidence. Translate empirical research into practice. Ensure that your clients receive effective, research-supported services. Infuse the EBP process into your organizational setting and training methods. Identify and integrate ethics in the context of EBP Coauthored by a distinguished quartet of clinicians, researchers, and a health care librarian, the Clinician's Guide has become the classic for graduate students and busy professionals mastering EBP. ". (shrink)

Psychopathy is typically seen as a trait that is undesirable in any context, including the workplace. But several authors have suggested that people high in psychopathy might possess resources that preserve their ability to perform well in stressful contexts. We consider the possibility that primary psychopathy is adaptive—for the employee, if not for the organization—under conditions of abusive supervision. In particular, we draw from the multimotive model of interpersonal threat and the theory of purposeful work behavior to argue that high (...) primary psychopathy individuals possess characteristics that enable them to experience higher levels of well-being and lower levels of anger than their peers under abusive supervisors. Based on a scenario study and a time-lagged field study, we found support for a model in which abusive supervision moderates the relationships between primary psychopathy and positive work-related outcomes, such that these relationships are positive under conditions of abusive supervision and either diminished or negative under conditions of low abusive supervision. Abusive supervision also affected the relationship between primary psychopathy and anger in the field study such that high primary psychopathy individuals were less angry under more abusive supervisors. Thus, there appears to be some credence to the notion of a “psychopathic advantage” in that primary psychopaths do have access to greater psychological resources than their peers under abusive supervision. However, these findings also suggest that abusive supervisors may empower employees with characteristics that hold strong potential to damage the organization and its stakeholders. (shrink)

Given the increasing need for solid organ and tissue transplants and the decreasing supply of suitable allographic organs and tissue to meet this need, it is understandable that the hope for successful xenotransplantation has resurfaced in recent years. The biomedical obstacles to xenotransplantation encountered in previous attempts could be mitigated or overcome by developments in immunosuppression and especially by genetic manipulation of organ source animals. In this essay we consider the history of xenotransplantation, discuss the biomedical obstacles to success, explore (...) recent developments in transgenic sourcing of organs and tissues, and analyze the problem of infectious disease resulting from xenotransplantation (xenosis). We then apply a model of risk analysis to these risks. The conclusions of this risk analysis are used in an ethical evaluation of informed consent in xenotransplantation, with an ethical foundation in Kantian autonomy and Levinasian heteronomic alterity. Our conclusion is that individual and collective informed consent to the infectious disease risks of xenotransplantation requires an open, participatory and dialogical public policy process not yet seen in the United States and Europe. Until that process is created, we propose caution in xenotransplantation in general and a postponement of solid organ xenotransplants in particular. (shrink)

Agricultural diversification in the Midwestern Corn Belt has the potential to improve socioeconomic and environmental outcomes by buffering farmers from environmental and economic shocks and improving soil, water, and air quality. However, complex barriers related to agricultural markets, individual behavior, social norms, and government policy constrain diversification in this region. This study examines farmer perspectives regarding the challenges and opportunities for both corn and soybean production and agricultural diversification strategies. We analyze data from 20 focus groups with 100 participants conducted (...) in Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa through a combined inductive and deductive approach, drawing upon interpretive grounded theory. Our results suggest that when identifying challenges and opportunities, participants center economics and market considerations, particularly income, productivity, and market access. These themes are emphasized both as benefits of the current corn-soybean system, as well as challenges for diversification. Additionally, logistical, resource and behavioral hurdles– including the comparative difficulty and time required to diversify, and constraints in accessing land, labor, and technical support– are emphasized by participants as key barriers to diversification. Agricultural policies shape these challenges, enhancing the comparative advantage and decreasing the risk of producing corn and soybeans as compared to diversified products. Meanwhile, alternative marketing arrangements, farmer networks, family relationships, and improved soil health are highlighted as important opportunities for diversification. We contextualize our findings within the theories of reasoned action and diffusion of innovation, and explore their implications for farmer engagement, markets, and agricultural policy, and the development of additional resources for business and technical support. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 6, June 2022.

Enck and Condley (2025) put forward a robust and plausible account of agent-regret. The authors argue that agent-regret, originating from the work of Bernard Williams, highlights two problems with...

We agree that human culture is unique. However, we also believe that an understanding of the evolution of culture requires a comparative approach. We offer examples of collaborative behaviors from dolphin play, and argue that consideration should be given to whether various forms of culture are best viewed as falling along a continuum or as discrete categories.

While solid organ transplantation for patients with substance use issues has attracted ethical discussion, a typology of the ethics themes has not been articulated in the literature. We conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed literature on solid organ transplantation and substance use published between January 1997 and April 2016. We aimed to identify and develop a typology of the main ethical themes discussed in this literature and to identify gaps worthy of future research. Seventy articles met inclusion criteria and underwent (...) inductive content analysis. Four main ethical themes were identified: (1) personal responsibility; (2) utility; (3) moral character; and (4) fairness. Each theme had multiple sub-themes and there was substantial overlap between themes. This scoping review identified a disproportionate emphasis in the literature regarding personal responsibility, which was referenced by each of the other themes, and a narrow focus on alcohol and liver. We recommend future research further investigate these connections between ethical themes and focus on ethical issues associated with transplants from organ groups other than liver for patients who use substances other than alcohol. (shrink)

Traditional health sciences (including nursing) paradigms, conceptual models, and theories have relied heavily upon notions of the ‘person’ or ‘patient’ that are deeply rooted in humanistic principles. Our intention here, as a collective academic assemblage, is to question taken‐for‐granted definitions and assumptions of the ‘person’ from a critical posthumanist perspective. To do so, the cinematic works of filmmaker David Cronenberg offer a radical perspective to revisit our understanding of the ‘person’ in nursing and beyond. Cronenberg's work explores bodily transformation and (...) mutation, with the body as a fragile and malleable vessel. Cronenberg's work allows us to interrogate the body in all its complexity, contingency, and hybridity and provides avenues of rupture within current understandings of ‘the person’. Reinventing the definition of what it means to be human, critical posthumanism offers opportunities to both critique humanist theories and build affirmative futurities. Also drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, specifically, their concept of becoming, we propose a critical posthumanist alternative to the conceptualization of the person in the health sciences, that of the becoming‐mutant, so frequently explored in Cronenberg's films. Such a conceptualization permits the inclusion of various technological interventions of the contemporary subject: The postperson. This position offers the health science disciplines a radical reconceptualization of the conceptual and theoretical approaches, extending beyond those trapped within the quagmire of humanistic principles. (shrink)

Clark and Fischer argue that people see social robots as depictions of social agents. However, people's interactions with virtual assistants may change their beliefs about social robots. Children and adults with exposure to virtual assistants may view social robots not as depictions of social agents, but as social agents belonging to a unique ontological category.

The relationship between dementia and criminal behavior perplexes legal and health care systems. Dementia is a progressive clinical syndrome defined by impairment in at least two cognitive domains that interferes with one's activities of daily. Dementia symptoms have been associated with behaviors that violate social norms and constitute criminal actions. A failure to address a gap in policies that support appropriate management of individuals with dementia reflects a failure in our social obligation to care for those who are most vulnerable (...) amongst us. Categorical protections, informed by precedent models applied to juveniles and individuals with psychiatric illness, could help meet a social obligation to provide protections to individuals with dementia. We propose an approach that integrates affirmative defenses to mitigate criminal liability and sentencing restrictions to prevent cruel and unusual punishment. (shrink)

Assessment is a necessary task in all areas of education, but there is no agreement on how to assess the impacts of different approaches to sex education, both on an individual level and on a population level over time. The history of mid-20th Century Family Life Education in the United States illuminates some of the obstacles that have made assessing sex education programmes so difficult: control groups, access to large numbers of research subjects and the means to verify self-reporting are (...) elusive. These persistent challenges have to do with the nature of the subject, which is, in contrast to most subjects, not supposed to be practised at school. Standards of reliability, validity and classroom authenticity, therefore, apply partially at best. We argue that some approaches to sex education are valuable whether or not they are assessable, and that some things that are assessable may not be valuable in the way they are thought to be. (shrink)

Background Institutional review board (IRB) expertise is necessarily limited by maintaining a manageable board size. IRBs are therefore permitted by regulation to rely on outside experts for review. However, little is known about whether, when, why, and how IRBs use outside experts.Methods We conducted a national survey of U.S. IRBs to characterize utilization of outside experts. Our study uses a descriptive, cross-sectional design to understand how IRBs engage with such experts and to identify areas where outside expertise is most frequently (...) requested.Results The survey response rate was 18.4%, with 55.4% of respondents reporting their institution’s IRB uses outside experts. Nearly all respondents who reported using outside experts indicated they do so less than once a month, but occasionally each year (95%). The most common method of identifying an outside expert was securing a previously known subject matter expert (83.3%). Most frequently, respondents sought consultation for scientific expertise not held by current members (69.6%). Almost all respondents whose IRBs had used outside experts reported an overall positive impact on the IRB review process (91.5%).Conclusions Just over half of the IRBs in our sample report use of outside experts; among them, outside experts were described as helpful, but their use was infrequent overall. Many IRBs report not relying on outside experts at all. This raises important questions about what type of engagement with outside experts should be viewed as optimal to promote the highest quality review. For example, few respondents sought assistance from a Community Advisory Board, which could address expertise gaps in community perspectives. Further exploration is needed to understand how to optimize IRB use of outside experts, including how to recognize when expertise is lacking, what barriers IRBs face in using outside experts, and perspectives on how outside expert review impacts IRB decision-making and review quality. (shrink)

This article draws attention to the ethical complexity researchers may be confronted with during fieldwork should an adult participant with intellectual disabilities disclose that harm or an illegal activity is occurring or has occurred in the past. The need to gain ethical approval and the positioning of people with intellectual disabilities as vulnerable within ethics review procedures can result in the adoption of paternalistic approaches as researchers are encouraged to break confidentiality to report concerns to other professionals. Whilst this may (...) fulfil a researcher’s duty to ensure no harm occurs to participants, if it takes place against the participant’s wishes it may also violate participant autonomy, reinforce unequal relations of power, and may unwittingly contribute to subsequent harm occurring. Whilst the article begins from our experience as two UK-based researchers working with people with intellectual disabilities, it draws on existing literature and guidelines to expose the ethical tensions which may be encountered. It is intended that the paper acts as a starting point for researchers wishing to reflect on their practice and ethical decision-making, whilst contributing to wider debates on the position of people with intellectual disabilities within society. (shrink)

We explain libertarian thought about family and children, including controversial issues in need of serious attention. To begin our discussion of marriage, we distinguish between procedural and substantive contractarian approaches to marriage, each endorsed by various libertarians. Advocates of both approaches agree that it is a contract that makes a marriage, not a license, but disagree about whether there are moral limits to the substance of the contract with only advocates of the substantive approach accepting such. Either approach, though, offers (...) advantages over the current licensing system, so we discuss paths from that to a contractarian system. We also discuss the concept of marriage itself, the ages of consent for marriage, sexual activity, and reproduction, as well as how marriages can be dissolved, and coercion that sometimes occurs in marriage. We then turn to children. We first discuss reproductive freedom and then discuss the moral relationship between children and parents, especially considering stewardship, propertarian, and best interests approaches (we also touch on anti-natalism). One of the biggest issues facing parents is how to properly raise and educate children; we discuss this in depth and consider the sort of schooling that should be offered in a free society. Since children lack the requisite ability to consent, they cannot choose their education; how to respond to this is of the utmost importance for libertarians. As we note, the same issue of consent looms large for many forms medical treatment of children. (shrink)

This critical note responds to Guiaşu and Tindale’s “Logical fallacies and invasion biology,” from our perspective as ecologists and philosophers of science engaged in debates about invasion biology and invasive species. We agree that “the level of charges and dismissals” surrounding these debates might be “unhealthy” and that “it will be very difficult for dialogues to move forward unless genuine attempts are made to understand the positions being held and to clarify the terms involved.” Although they raise several important scientific, (...) conceptual, and ethical issues at the foundations of invasion biology, we believe Guiaşu and Tindale’s attempts to clarify the debate were unsuccessful. Like some other critics of the field, they tend to misrepresent invasion biology by cherry-picking and constructing “straw people,” inaccurately portraying invasion biology, and thus failing to elevate the dialogue. In this critique, we clarify areas in the invasion biology literature misrepresented by Guiaşu and Tindale. We attempt to provide a more balanced view of areas of reasonable debate within invasion biology, including disputes about empirical evidence, diverse risk attitudes, and other diverse ethical commitments. (shrink)

Research Ethics, Volume 18, Issue 1, Page 64-83, January 2022. Automated, wearable cameras can benefit health-related research by capturing accurate and objective information about individuals’ daily experiences. However, wearable cameras present unique privacy- and confidentiality-related risks due to the possibility of the images capturing identifying or sensitive information from participants and third parties. Although best practice guidelines for ethical research with wearable cameras have been published, limited information exists on the risks of studies using wearable cameras. The aim of this (...) literature review was to survey risks related to using wearable cameras, and precautions taken to reduce those risks, as reported in empirical research. Forty-five publications, comprising 36 independent studies, were reviewed, and findings revealed that participants’ primary concerns with using wearable cameras included physical inconvenience and discomfort in certain situations. None of the studies reviewed reported any serious adverse events. Although it is possible that reported findings do not include all risks experienced by participants in research with wearable cameras, our findings suggest a low level of risk to participants. However, it is important that investigators adopt recommended precautions, which can promote autonomy and reduce risks, including participant discomfort. (shrink)

Phenomenology, perhaps more than any other single movement in philosophy, has been key in bringing emotions to the foreground of philosophical consideration. This is in large part due to the ways in which emotions, according to phenomenological analyses, are revealing of basic structures of human existence. Indeed, it is partly and, according to some phenomenologists, even primarily through our emotions that the world is disclosed to us, that we become present to and make sense of ourselves, and that we relate (...) to and engage with others. A phenomenological study of emotions is thus meant not only to help us to understand ourselves, but also to allow us to see and to make sense of the meaningfulness of our worldly and social existence.Within the last few decades, the emotions have re-emerged more generally as a topic of great philosophical interest and importance. Philosophers, along with psychologists, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists have engaged in inter- and intra-disciplina .. (shrink)

We explain libertarian thought about family and children, including controversial issues in need of serious attention. To begin our discussion of marriage, we distinguish between procedural and substantive contractarian approaches to marriage, each endorsed by various libertarians. Advocates of both approaches agree that it is a contract that makes a marriage, not a license, but disagree about whether there are moral limits to the substance of the contract with only advocates of the substantive approach accepting such. Either approach, though, offers (...) advantages over the current licensing system, so we discuss paths from that to a contractarian system. We also discuss the concept of marriage itself, the ages of consent for marriage, sexual activity, and reproduction, as well as how marriages can be dissolved, and coercion that sometimes occurs in marriage. We then turn to children. We first discuss reproductive freedom and then discuss the moral relationship between children and parents, especially considering stewardship, propertarian, and best interests approaches (we also touch on anti-natalism). One of the biggest issues facing parents is how to properly raise and educate children; we discuss this in depth and consider the sort of schooling that should be offered in a free society. Since children lack the requisite ability to consent, they cannot choose their education; how to respond to this is of the utmost importance for libertarians. As we note, the same issue of consent looms large for many forms medical treatment of children. (shrink)

Machery proposes that the construct of detracts from research progress. However, ignoring development also detracts from research progress. Developmental research has advanced our understanding of how concepts are acquired and thus is essential to a complete theory. We propose a framework that both accounts for development and holds great promise as a new direction for thinking about concepts.