Combining human embryonic stem cells with SCNT has been a gold standard of stem cell research. Adding a particular individual's genes to pluripotent stem cells might lead to the development of personalized tissue repair or replacement. Enthusiasm for human embryonic stem cell research had flagged in recent years due to controversy over the moral status of in vitro embryos, scientific misconduct by researcher Woo Suk Hwang, and the discovery that induced pluripotent stem cells could be produced from somatic cells. Energy (...) shifted to research on somatic cells, but three successes in the United States during 2013 and 2014 may reinvigorate embryonic stem cell research. (shrink)

Metaphors used to describe new technologies mediate public understanding of the innovations. Analyzing the linguistic, rhetorical, and affective aspects of these metaphors opens the range of issues available for bioethical scrutiny and increases public accountability. This article shows how such a multidisciplinary approach can be useful by looking at a set of texts about one issue, the use of a newly developed technique for genetic modification, CRISPRcas9.

Recently, in the mainstream media and cognitive science research, there has been a tendency not only to compare beliefs in conspiracy theories with clinical delusions but also to label as delusional various non-clinical beliefs that are considered epistemically problematic. Sam Wilkinson proposed that when we call a belief delusional, we express our common-sense epistemic disapproval for a belief that we do not share. In this respect, it is part of Wilkinson’s proposal that the attribution of delusional character to beliefs plays (...) an expressive rather than a descriptive role. The implication is that calling certain beliefs delusional is not mediated by the fact that those beliefs satisfy certain conditions, and the expression of disapproval cannot be further unpacked. In this article, we accept that calling beliefs ‘delusional’ is a way of expressing disapproval, but we resist the idea that the reasons for disapproval cannot be further unpacked. We propose that a belief is called ‘delusional’ when it is considered (1) implausible, in the sense that it has no appearance of truth because it is in tension with existing beliefs, and (2) unshakable, in the sense that it is not usually abandoned under the pressure of counterarguments or counterevidence. Although other features of the beliefs also shed light on why we call them delusional, we will focus on implausibility and unshakeability as epistemic criteria for the delusional character of beliefs. (shrink)

When anthropologists and other social scientists study health services in medical institutions, tensions sometimes arise as a result of the social scientists and health care professionals having different ideas about the ethics of research. In order to resolve this type of conflict and to facilitate mutual learning, we describe two general categories of research ethics framing: those of anthropology and those of medicine. The latter focuses on protection of the individual through the preservation of autonomy expressed through the requirement of (...) informed consent whereas the former focuses on broader political implications. After providing an example of a conflict, we outline four issues that characterize the occasional clashes between social scientists and medical staff: (1) a discrepancy in the way anthropologists perceive patients and medical staff; (2) ambiguity concerning the role of medical staff in anthropological research; (3) impediments to informed consent in qualitative research projects; and (4) property rights in data. Enhanced dialogue could serve to invigorate the ethical debate in both traditions. (shrink)

This paper explores Ronald Dworkin’s influential theory of constructive interpretation. It points out that this theory admits of two readings, which I call the “undemanding” and the “demanding” conceptions of constructive interpretation respectively. As I argue, Dworkin’s own presentation of the theory equivocates between these two conceptions, the former of which is utterly unproblematic, but the latter of which incorporates certain philosophical prejudices as to what it must mean for a practice to be purposive.

The antinomy of kitsch comprises two conflicting yet widely accepted claims: first, kitsch and art are incompatible; secondly, some art is kitsch. The key to solving this contradiction is distinguishing between kitsch as an aesthetic category and an aesthetic, art-critical property. As an aesthetic category, kitsch is an artifact, performance, or practice whose dominant function is to enable self-enjoyment by effortlessly evoking emotional reactions of the “soft” emotional spectrum with a “sweet” phenomenological quality in a large group of people. Based (...) on this definition, kitsch and art are two mutually exclusive aesthetic categories. As an aesthetic property, kitsch is the disposition to effortlessly evoke emotional reactions of the “soft” emotional spectrum with a “sweet” phenomenological quality by supervening on the kitsch typical features. So, everything kitsch is also kitschy, but not vice versa. Therefore, art can be kitschy, although it is not kitsch. (shrink)

A consensus view appears to prevail among academics from diverse disciplines that biological races do not exist, at least in humans, and that race -concepts and race -objects are socially constructed. The consensus view has been challenged recently by Robin O. Andreasen's cladistic account of biological race. This paper argues that from a scientific viewpoint there are methodological, empirical, and conceptual problems with Andreasen's position, and that from a philosophical perspective Andreasen's adherence to rigid dichotomies between science and society, facts (...) and values, nature and culture, and the biological and the social needs to be relinquished. DNA forensics is just one field of research that reveals how race remains both idea and object for human population biologists, an indication that it is premature to accept the existence of a no- race consensus across the disciplines. DNA forensics research also demonstrates ways in which race is reified by scientists by the representation of what is cultural or social as natural or biological, and of what is dynamic, relative, and continuous as static, absolute, and discrete. The philosophical analysis of foundational concepts of human population biology such as population, race, and ethnic group is best served by foregoing traditional objectivist approaches for a critical stance that recognises the inextricability of the biological and the social. Introduction Consensus view: biological races do not exist Andreasen's defence of the biological reality of races as clades Biological permutations of race Conclusion. (shrink)

This paper questions the prevailing historical understanding that scientific racism "retreated" in the 1950s when anthropology adopted the concepts and methods of population genetics and race was recognized to be a social construct and replaced by the concept of population. More accurately, a "populational" concept of race was substituted for a "typological one"-this is demonstrated by looking at the work of Theodosius Dobzhansky circa 1950. The potential for contemporary research in human population genetics to contribute to racism needs to be (...) considered with respect to the ability of the typological-population distinction to arbitrate boundaries between racist society and nonracist, even anti-racist, science. I point out some ethical limits of "population thinking" in doing so. (shrink)

Introduction to thematic issue of ESPES. The Slovak Journal of Aesthetics, Vol 13(2), 2024.

This article contributes to carework scholarship by examining the nexus of gender, class, and race in long-term care facilities. We draw out a family ideology at work that promotes good care of residents and thus benefits nursing homes. We also found that careworkers value fictive kin relationships with residents, yet we uncover how the family model may be used to exploit these low-income careworkers. Reflecting a subordinate and racialized version of being “part of the family,” we call for an ethic (...) of reciprocity and for concrete change toward valuing equally the humanity of those who need and those who give care. (shrink)

Impaired hand proprioception can lead to difficulties in performing fine motor tasks, thereby affecting activities of daily living. The majority of children with unilateral cerebral palsy experience proprioceptive deficits, but accurately quantifying these deficits is challenging due to the lack of sensitive measurement methods. Robot-assisted assessments provide a promising alternative, however, there is a need for solutions that specifically target children and their needs. We propose two novel robotics-based assessments to sensitively evaluate active and passive position sense of the index (...) finger metacarpophalangeal joint in children. We then investigate test-retest reliability and discriminant validity of these assessments in uCP and typically developing children, and further use the robotic platform to gain first insights into fundamentals of hand proprioception. Both robotic assessments were performed in two sessions with 1-h break in between. In the passive position sense assessment, participant's finger is passively moved by the robot to a randomly selected position, and she/he needs to indicate the perceived finger position on a tablet screen located directly above the hand, so that the vision of the hand is blocked. Active position sense is assessed by asking participants to accurately move their finger to a target position shown on the tablet screen, without visual feedback of the finger position. Ten children with uCP and 10 age-matched TDC were recruited in this study. Test-retest reliability in both populations was good >0.79). Proprioceptive error was larger for children with uCP than TDC, indicating discriminant validity. The active position sense was more accurate than passive, and the scores were not correlated, underlining the need for targeted assessments to comprehensively evaluate proprioception. There was a significant effect of age on passive position sense in TDC but not uCP, possibly linked to disturbed development of proprioceptive acuity in uCP. Overall, the proposed robot-assisted assessments are reliable, valid and a promising alternative to commonly used clinical methods, which could help gain a better understanding of proprioceptive impairments in uCP, facilitating the design of novel therapies. (shrink)

The most important parent of the idea of property in the person (self-ownership) is undoubtedly John Locke. In this article, we argue that the origins of this idea can be traced back as far as the third century BCE, to classical Stoicism. Stoic cosmopolitanism, with its insistence on impartiality and the moral equality of all persons, lays the foundation for the idea of self-ownership, which is then given support in the doctrine of oikeiosis and the corresponding belief that nature had (...) made all human beings equal, self-preserving, and self-regarding. On the Stoic account, self-ownership (or our preferred term self-guardianship) is a natural correlate and consequence of oikeiosis, the natural urge to self-preservation, proprioception, and the individuation that came with it. In recognising that people are separate and individual, and entrusting each individual’s welfare to herself, Zeus appears to make everyone a ‘self-guardian’. We uniquely argue that Locke was directly inspired by these Stoic ideas, which he then develops and incorporates into his own theory. (shrink)

back in about 1984 or 1985, when I'd been in graduate school for a couple of years at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, I started hanging around with three chemists who shared a house. They were colleagues of my roommate, a chemistry grad student. One of them, no kidding, was named Lloyd A. Bumm, who would always introduce himself by saying, "My name is the best joke I know." Lloyd was a quirky, curious guy who often explored unusual places around (...) the City, unlike the typical chemistry grad student. For instance, he frequently would head into Chicago on Sunday mornings to go to this crazy street market he knew about. He invited me to go with him one weekend; he was looking for a power supply, whatever... (shrink)

Although laws have been passed to promote disability inclusion in French workplaces, many companies face challenges complying with the required quota of disabled workers. Workplace ableism hinders the implementation of disability laws. To move from apathy to increased compliance, insider activists took proactive action, uncovered ableist practices, and mobilized colleagues at different levels. In this article, I study how some disability rights activists managed to obtain positions as disability managers in their companies in the late 2000s, gaining the ability to (...) design inclusive policies for their organizations. Using ethnographic interviews, I explore how they use their own identities to address ableism, mobilize colleagues to promote the inclusion of disabled workers, and empower disabled employees to obtain accommodation. This study sheds light on the individual, relational, and structural work necessary to move from anti-ableist laws to a concrete and recoupled implementation in the workplace. This also explains why companies offer positions to activists to develop blueprints for compliance. Activists’ work was recognized because regulations were ambiguous but created financial sanctions for non-compliance; ableist cultures created distrust among disabled workers; and organizations needed activists’ extra work to design programs, build expertise, and develop tools to promote inclusion. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

In this article, we examine the relationship between the World Health Organization International Health Regulations (IHR) and human rights and its implications for IHR reform, considering the evolution of human rights in the 2005 IHR, the role of human rights in IHR reforms and the implications of these reforms in key domains including equity and solidarity, medical countermeasures, core capacities, travel restrictions, vaccine certificates, social measures, accountability, and financing.

When working with literature in the philosophical classroom, teachers can take pupils on journeys through time, history, other cultures, and fictional universes. Since literature invites readers into the lives and minds of others, the pupils can try on another person’s thoughts, emotions, life experiences, perspectives, attitudes, and worldviews. Thus, literature offers a unique window of experiences that has great potential for the philosophical classroom. In this—primarily theoretical—article, it is argued that the combination of literature and philosophy is valuable when practicing (...) philosophy for children in the classroom. First, the combination may cultivate the pupils’ dispositions for being caring, creative, critical, and collaborative thinkers. Second, it may add to the pupils’ ethical formation with special attention to (i) the pupils’ understanding of values, (ii) their sense of individuality and sociality, (iii) the development of their cognitive flexibility and empathy, and (iv) their ethical awareness through ethical argumentation and reflection. In addition to presenting these points, this article will offer brief examples suggesting how school practitioners may use literary texts to prompt ethical reflections through philosophical questions and enquiry. (shrink)

This dissertation argues that a sufficiently worked out concept of habit is crucial for understanding race, and specifically whiteness. It has become common for race theorists to think about white privilege as a matter of habit, but they have yet to realize the potential of this approach. This is in part because the existing accounts of white habit either omit or outright reject an explicitly phenomenological framework. This leads them to think only in terms of discrete habits of racism and (...) white privilege. I agree that racism and white privilege operate through specific habits of perception, cognition, and bodily response. But racism and racial privilege amount to more than individual problematic habits. To fully appreciate the extent to which habit structures racial categories, we need to historicize habit at a more fundamental level. That is to say, we need to understand the ways in which habituation itself––the ability to be oriented in and enabled by certain spaces, and to feel at home in them––tracks race. -/- I do this work through an account of racial habit that combines Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of habit as orientation, a Deweyan-pragmatist ontology of transaction, and a generally Du Boisian approach to race theory. It is not just the kinds of habits that differently racialized subjects acquire that determine their position within a socially and politically hierarchized landscape; it is the very ability to be oriented by and within certain spaces that constitutes one’s racial position. The differential ability to cultivate habits and to accrue the psychological, physiological, and affective benefits of habituation is a phenomenological asymmetry in our lived experience of race that constitutes a harm over and above the harms of individual racist habits. I give the name “anti-social habit” to those individual and collective habits that eventuate in this phenomenological asymmetry. I then draw on the framework of democratic egalitarianism to argue that this constitutes a distinct site of unjust social inequality. Finally, I argue for phenomenological disruption as a necessary form of social praxis and consider what this might look like in terms of political action. (shrink)

Background Professional ethics in nursing exist to guide care and allow for decision-making to be patient-centered. In the current medicolegal landscape post-Roe and in light of bans on gender-affirming care, the decision-making processes of emergency nurses in the clinical environment of care as informed by both professional and personal ethics are an important area of inquiry. Aim The aim of this study was to examine the contribution of moral courage to decision-making by emergency nurses. Research Design A mixed-methods exploratory sequential (...) approach was used, using a standard demographics form and the Nurses Moral Courage Scale to collect quantitative data. These data were used to inform an interview guide for qualitative data collection. Situational analysis was used to analyze the interview data. Ethical Considerations Prior to recruitment, this study was reviewed and approved by the University of Massachusetts IRB (#00003909). Participants were provided with an informed consent document at the time of registration and at the time of interview; participants provided both signed consent and verbal assent. Participants were assigned study codes to maintain anonymity and data were maintained in a secure University cloud. Participants and Research Context US-based emergency nurses working in environments with care limitations. Results 70% of respondents reported that they would speak up if they were aware of a situation that was ethically challenging. Respondents reported that it was fairly easy or very easy to defend their values when addressing ancillary staff, coworkers, authorities outside the organization, patients, and patient families. Respondents reported challenges in defending their professional values to charge nurses, physicians, or administrators. In response to a serious ethical problem, 65.8% of respondents answered that they would bring up the problem for discussion, 21.1% would file an internal report, and 13.2% would report externally. Interview participants reported significant social and professional barriers to acting in response to an ethical violation. Willingness to act centered on personal values and not professional codes of ethics. Conclusions While emergency nurses in this study reported high perceived levels of moral courage, they also reported low willingness to act directly, citing burnout and significant social and professional barriers. Adherence to professional codes of ethics is not the primary driver of moral courage. (shrink)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a description of an innovative web-based ethics module that was designed to integrate ethics education across four accounting courses over two years (second and third year courses) in a large Australian tertiary institution. Approach: The approach taken in designing the ethics web-based module was to base the foundations of the module on Rest’s (1976) ethical behavior model with the adoption of a longitudinal approach to thecoverage of financial reporting ethical issues. Practical (...) Implications: The key objectives of the module are to improve students’ awareness and sensitivity to accounting ethics, and to foster student learning in an interesting and stimulating manner, leading to in-depth understanding of accounting ethics. Originality/value of paper: This paper provides a description of an original web-based approach to delivering ethics education to accounting students across four university courses. Its value lies in not only the innovative and interactive ethics education approach but also in providing feedback from students and the profession. (shrink)

Sex offenders are sometimes offered or required to undergo pharmacological interventions intended to diminish their sex drive (anti-libidinal interventions or ALIs). In this paper, we argue that much of the debate regarding the moral permissibility of ALIs has been founded on an inaccurate assumption regarding their intended purpose—namely, that ALIs are intended solely to realise medical purposes, not correctional goals. This assumption has made it plausible to assert that ALIs may only permissibly be administered to offenders with their valid consent, (...) in line with the approach taken to most other interventions with a medical aim. However, we argue that, contrary to this assumption, the state's intention in relation to at least some ALIs is, at least in part, to achieve correctional objectives. We evaluate two legal regimes for ALI provision—section 645 of the California Penal Code and the mental health regime in England and Wales. In each case, we identify the state's implicit purpose in imposing ALIs and argue that the Californian and English regimes both serve as counterexamples to the view that ALIs are intended solely for medical purposes. While the moral implications of our argument are not straightforward, it raises the question whether consent is required for permissible imposition of ALIs, and more generally, whether the moral permissibility of crime-preventing interventions using medical means should be assessed against the standards of medical ethics or against those of criminal justice ethics. (shrink)

: Humility is a virtue that is helpful in a persons relationship with nature. A humble person sees value in nature and acts accordingly with the proper respect. In this paper, humility is discussed in three aspects. First, humility entails an overcoming of self-absorption. Second, humility involves coming into contact with a larger, more complex reality. Third, humility allows a person to develop a sense of perspective on herself and the world.

As a modern academic Ulysses, the historical scientist is enticed by numerous plausible scientific theories that can explain the historical data in search of the truth. However, the predicament of her work is to inevitably crash onto the rocks and cliffs of uncertainty. The problem discussed in this paper is that several scientific models can be suitable to account for the same empirical observations. The risk of falling into speculation is looming, and exceedingly dangerous in science. This is also the (...) case in archaeological sciences, such as bioarchaeology. A bioarchaeologist frequently encounters traces of disease in ancient skeletons, and pertinent patterns may often result from equally probable different causes. This is a methodological issue commonly encountered in the interpretation of pathological patterns in human remains, and constitutes part of the problem known in bioarchaeology as the osteological paradox. During an informal trilogue, three characters discuss the osteological paradox, and attempt to define it in philosophical terms. The aim of this work is to present the problems of scientists with the philosophical approach to the debate between scientific realism and antirealism, focusing in particular on the so-called problem of underdetermination. Our original approach is to apply the distinction between ‘how-possibly’ models and ‘how-actually’ models by Alisa Bokulich to archaeological issues, integrating various fields of science with a multidisciplinary and omnivorous approach. The trilogue ends providing the historical scientist with reasons and means to believe in her ability to conceive of true and reliable scientific models to interpret the historical past. (shrink)

Lisa Bortolotti introduces the arguments about whether dogs can have beliefs.

Free and informed choice is an oft-acknowledged ethical basis for living kidney donation, including parental living kidney donation. The extent to which choice is present in parental living kidney donation has, however, been questioned. Since parents can be expected to have strong emotional bonds to their children, it has been asked whether these bonds make parents unable to say no to this donation. This article combines a narrative analysis of parents’ stories of living kidney donation with a philosophical discussion of (...) conditions for parental decision-making. Previous research has shown that parents often conclude that it is “natural” to donate. Our study shows that this naturalness needs to be understood as part of a story where parental living kidney donation is regarded as natural and as a matter of non-choice. Our study also highlights the presence of a parenthood moral imperative of always putting one’s child’s needs before one’s own. On the basis of these results, we discuss conditions for decision-making in the context of parental LKD. We argue that the presence of a parenthood moral imperative can matter with regard to the decision-making process when parents consider whether to volunteer as living kidney donors, but that it need not hamper choice. We emphasise the need for exploring relational and situational factors in order to understand parental decision-making in the context of parental LKD. (shrink)

Unlike his contemporaries Virginia Woolf and Henry James, Kipling always denied he was a critic. But his letters, speeches, and stories are full of comments on writing and writers. This collection, including many formerly unpublished private letters and papers, details Kipling's response to the commercialisation of literature and the emerging role of the writer as celebrity in the turbulent literary world of the 1890s and beyond. They reveal a mind intensely concerned with questions of literary value, with language and imagination, (...) with truth, realism, and romanticism. Kipling's fame made him a significant spokesperson for important segments of the reading public - the soldiers, engineers, and functionaries central to Britain's imperial expansion. He profoundly influenced English literary language and our perception of English national character. This book offers access to the private and public history of a writer whose continuing influence is still a matter of fierce controversy. (shrink)

About one-third of Australians use the services of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM); but debate about the role of CAM in public healthcare is vociferous. Despite this, the mechanisms driving CAM healthcare choices are not well understood, especially in rural Australia. From 2016 to 2018, 2,679 persons from the Goulburn Valley, northern Victoria, were surveyed, 28% (755) of whom reporting visiting CAM practitioners. A Generalized Linear Mixed Model was used to assess associations between various socio-demographic variables and the use of (...) CAM services. The strongest significant inverse (p < 0.05) association with CAM use overall was being unemployed, with markedly lower odds of using CAM than those employed full-time (OR 0.22 [0.12, 0.41]). The next strongest inverse relationship was being retired (OR 0.44 [0.30, 0.65]). The strongest positive associations were with English spoken at home (OR 2.38 [1.34, 4.24]), private health insurance (hospital cover) (1.57 [1.28, 1.91]), being Australian born (OR 1.61 [1.14, 2.28]), and female sex (1.25 [1.02, 1.52])). Females had significantly higher odds of using osteopathy than males (OR 1.98 [1.33, 2.96]) but there were no significant sex differences for chiropractic or massage. This is the first such study conducted solely for a rural Australian population. The drivers of CAM use differed from previous nation-wide studies and they varied across modalities. The factors identified here as being associated with CAM use could be used by CAM practitioners in developing person-centred services. Similarly, the findings are relevant to primary-care services in understanding what sectors of society might eschew conventional health care for CAM in rural regions, where health services are often limited. (shrink)

Motivated by a conviction that mass incarceration and state execution are among the most important ethical and political problems of our time, the contributors to this volume come together from a diverse range of backgrounds to analyze, critique, and envision alternatives to the injustices of the U.S. prison system, with recourse to deconstruction, phenomenology, critical race theory, feminism, queer theory, and disability studies. They engage with the hyper-incarceration of people of color, the incomplete abolition of slavery, the exploitation of prisoners (...) as workers and as “raw material” for the prison industrial complex, the intensive confinement of prisoners in supermax units, and the complexities of capital punishment in an age of abolition. (shrink)

In this paper, I combine sources from environmental psychology with insights from the everyday aesthetics literature to explore the concept of ‘everyday heritage’, formerly introduced by Saruhan Mosler. Highlighting the potential of heritage in its everyday context shows that symbolic, aesthetic, and broadly conceived affective factors may be as important as architectural, historical, and artistic issues when it comes to conceiving of heritage value. Indeed, there seems to be more to a heritage site than its official inscription on the UNESCO (...) register. A place is included as part of our heritage primarily because it matters to us. People live in, form relationships with, and derive existential and affective meanings from it. Above and beyond its official significance, a heritage site is thus a living dimension that plays a vital role in the everyday life and social practices of people, who transform it into a place of human significance. (shrink)

Although the category “race” fails as a postulated natural kind, racial, ethnic, national, linguistic, religious, and other group designations might nonetheless be considered projectible insofar as they support inductive inferences in biomedicine. This article investigates what it might mean for group concepts in population genetics and genomics to be projectible and whether the projectibility of such predicates licenses the representation of their corresponding classes as natural kinds according to currently prevailing projectibility-based accounts of natural kinds. The article draws on a (...) case study from cancer genetics, specifically, breast cancer risk in Ashkenazi Jewish women. (shrink)