In contemporary debates on euthanasia, physician assisted suicide and withholding and withdrawing life prolonging treatments, besides commonly used reasons, which are based on presumption of freedom and avoidance of pain, there is also an idea of a duty to die. Given that individuals are also members of society, and that they have families and loved ones, it is necessary to discuss cases when illness causes severe burdens for lives of loved ones. We consider that patient’s just assessment of duty to (...) die can be legitimate candidate for justification of procedure of acceleration of death, taken care of necessary conditions of justified social support for patients and necessary aliment from family and society. In this paper we examine main features of duty to die thesis, extract objections, and offer guidelines for continued discussion. We also want to express the importance of establishing social circumstances and preconditions for protecting the individuals.U suvremenim raspravama o eutanaziji i liječnički potpomognutom samoubojstvu, te odustajanju od tretmana, osim uobičajenih razloga koji se temelje na slobodi i izbjegavanju patnje osobe koja traži ubrzavanje smrti, postoji i teza o dužnosti umiranja. S obzirom na to da je pojedinac ujedno i član zajednice, odnosno da ima obitelj i voljene, nužno je raspraviti o slučajevima kada bolest izaziva značajne teškoće za život njegovih bližnjih. Smatramo kako i pacijentova pravedna prosudba o dužnosti umiranja može biti legitiman kandidat za opravdanje postupaka ubrzavanja smrti, uz nužne preduvjete pravedne društvene podrške pacijentu i dužne skrbi od strane obitelji i društva. U ovom tekstu razlažemo osnovne značajke teze o dužnosti umiranja, izdvajamo prigovore i dajemo smjernice za nastavak rasprave te izražavamo važnost ustanovljavanja društvenih okolnosti i preduvjete za zaštitu pojedinaca. (shrink)

This paper is about the notions of the artistic, aesthetic, cognitive and moral value of art and their interconnectedness. The main concern is to try to advocate the cognitivist claim about the artistic value of artworks’ contribution to the advance of knowledge, as well as for the relevance of the moral dimension for artistic value. This is a discussion of the intersection of the debate about moral and aesthetic value. The central part of the paper is focused on a debate (...) with Peter Lamarque. The problem of immoral art-works and their cognitive value is discussed at the end of this paper in order to show that they are counterexamples of the thesis of artistic relevance of the moral dimension. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 5, May 2022.

BARBARA HERMAN, MORALITY AS RATIONALITY: A STUDY OF KANT’SETHICS, ROUTLEDGE, ABINGDON AND NEW YORK, 2016.Milica Smajević.

Human languages vary in terms of which meanings they lexicalize, but this variation is constrained. It has been argued that languages are under two competing pressures: the pressure to be simple (e.g., to have a small lexicon) and to allow for informative (i.e., precise) communication, and that which meanings get lexicalized may be explained by languages finding a good way to trade off between these two pressures. However, in certain semantic domains, languages can reach very high levels of informativeness even (...) if they lexicalize very few meanings in that domain. This is due to productive morphosyntax and compositional semantics, which may allow for construction of meanings which are not lexicalized. Consider the semantic domain of natural numbers: many languages lexicalize few natural number meanings as monomorphemic expressions, but can precisely convey very many natural number meanings using morphosyntactically complex numerals. In such semantic domains, lexicon size is not in direct competition with informativeness. What explains which meanings are lexicalized in such semantic domains? We will propose that in such cases, languages need to solve a different kind of trade‐off problem: the trade‐off between the pressure to lexicalize as few meanings as possible (i.e, to minimize lexicon size) and the pressure to produce as morphosyntactically simple utterances as possible (i.e, to minimize average morphosyntactic complexity of utterances). To support this claim, we will present a case study of 128 natural languages' numeral systems, and show computationally that they achieve a near‐optimal trade‐off between lexicon size and average morphosyntactic complexity of numerals. This study in conjunction with previous work on communicative efficiency suggests that languages' lexicons are shaped by a trade‐off between not two but three pressures: be simple, be informative, and minimize average morphosyntactic complexity of utterances. (shrink)

Purpose– The medical advances and historical fluctuations in the demographics are contributing to the rise of the average age. These changes are increasing the pressure to organize adequate care to a growing number of individuals. As a way to provide efficient and cost-effective care, eHealth systems are gaining importance. However, this trend is creating new ethical concerns. Major issues are privacy and patients’ control over their data. To deploy these systems on a large scale, they need to offer strict privacy (...) protection. Even though many research proposals focus on eHealth systems and related ethical requirements, there is an evident lack of practical solutions for protecting users’ personal information. The purpose of this study is to explore the ethical considerations related to these systems and extract the privacy requirements. This paper also aims to put forth a system design which ensures appropriate privacy protection.Design/methodology/approach– This paper investigates the existing work in the area of eHealth systems and the related ethical considerations, which establish privacy as one of the main requirements. It lists the ethical requirements and data protection standards that a system needs to fulfil and uses them as a guideline for creating the proposed design.Findings– Even though privacy is considered to be a paramount aspect of the eHealth systems, the existing proposals do not tackle this issue from the outset of the design. Consequently, introducing privacy at the final stages of the system deployment imposes significant limitations and the provided data protection is not always to the standards expected by the users.Originality/value– This paper motivates the need for addressing ethical concerns in the eHealth domain with special focus on establishing strict privacy protection. It lists the privacy requirements and offers practical solutions for developing a privacy-friendly system and takes the approach of privacy-by-design. Additionally, the proposed design is evaluated against ethical principles as proposed in the existing literature. The aim is to show that technological advances can be used to improve quality and efficiency of care, while the usually raised concerns can be avoided. (shrink)

Political discourse is primarily identified as political action, the discourse of deliberating which course of action to follow in accordance with specific political goals. A pragmatic analysis of various sub-genres of political discourse can identify the preference for particular speech acts. The first aim of this paper is to analyze commissive and expressive illocutionary acts in political speeches, as indicators of personal involvement of political speakers, notorious for vagueness and avoiding commitment. A corpus of Serbian, American and British political speeches (...) that address the issue of economic standard of living has been examined to identify commissive illocutionary acts as indicators of politicians’ explicit commitment to a chosen course of action, and expressive illocutionary acts as indicators of politicians’ explicit attitudes to their own or other politicians’ chosen practices. The analysis classifies subtypes of commissives and expressives in the corpus and identifies illocutionary force indicating devices that constitute them in English and in Serbian, after which the resulting classifications are compared and contrasted. The research results are aimed at explaining the hypothesis that a specific use/lack of commissives and expressives can be the politician’s strategy for adding credibility to their speeches, and in that way, swaying public opinion to serve the politician’s interest; conversely, establishing the relation between the use/lack of these illocutionary acts and the politician’s commitment to actions can be a method for exposing the politician’s lack of credibility and accountability. (shrink)

Clanak se bavi konceptualnim razjasnjenjem razlike izmedju idealne i neidealne teorije. Analiza je radjena na osnovu teorije koju je Rols prezentovao u svojim knjigama?Teorija pravde? i?Pravo naroda?. Clanak ukazuje na znacaj idealne teorije, ali istovremeno i na to da je u razliku izmedju idealne i neidealne potrebno uneti dalja odredjenja. Clanak uvodi distinkciju na normativno i deskriptivno u idealnu, tj. neidealnu teoriju. Kroz ovu cetvorostruku distinkciju lakse je utvrditi funkciju svake od teorija i razdeliti polja delovanja izmedju filozofa, pravnika i (...) politicara. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the recurring concepts emerging in a transnational social-media arena focusing on Brexit in the period immediately after the June 2016 referendum. It mainly focuse...

Just as burnout is manifested through changes in behavioural and communication patterns, it is important to examine whether certain aspects of communication can affect student burnout development. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between communication and academic burnout. To achieve this, the study proposes an integrated model examining the effects of three communication dimensions – support from academic staff, support from colleagues, and participation in decision-making – on four different dimensions of academic burnout, as well as students’ overall (...) burnout. The model is tested using structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis. High coefficients of determination regarding particular burnout dimensions validate the strength of the proposed model. The results show that support from academic staff and support from fellow students significantly and negatively influence academic burnout, and might be instrumental in its reduction. Unexpectedly, participation in decision-making is shown to be positively related to academic burnout. (shrink)

The present article discusses shared epistemological characteristics of two distinct areas of research: the field of first-person inquiry and the field of quantum mechanics. We outline certain philosophical challenges that arise in each of the two lines of inquiry, and point towards the central similarity of their observational situation: the impossibility of disregarding the interrelatedness of the observed phenomena with the act of observation. We argue that this observational feature delineates a specific category of research that we call the non-trivial (...) domain. Unlike the trivial domain, non-trivial research cannot assume the view from nowhere on which the observed phenomena could be regarded as existing independently of the process of observation. Presenting first-person inquiry and quantum mechanics as two of its examples, we show that non-trivial research violates several fundamental observational presuppositions of the trivial domain, exemplified in the principles of classical physics. Drawing on Niels Bohr’s philosophy of quantum mechanics and the constructivist notion of enaction, we stress the constructive, participatory, and irreversible nature of observation in the non-trivial domain. We discuss the possibility of developing a non-representationalist epistemology of the non-trivial, and consider the implications of our discussion for research in the non-trivial domain, as well as for the general understanding of the scientific inquiry. (shrink)

Background: Informal coercion, that is, situations where caregivers use subtle coercive measures to impose their will on patients, is common in adult psychiatric inpatient care. It has been described as ‘a necessary evil’, confronting nurses with an ethical dilemma where they need to balance between a wish to do good, and the risk of violating patients’ dignity and autonomy. Aim: To describe nurses’ experiences of being involved in informal coercion in adult psychiatric inpatient care. Research design: The study has a (...) qualitative, inductive design. Participants and research context: Semi-structured interviews with 10 Swedish psychiatric nurses were analysed with qualitative content analysis. Ethical considerations: The study was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. In line with the Swedish Ethical Review Act, it was also subject to ethical procedures at the university. Findings: Four domains comprise informal coercion as a process over time. These domains contain 11 categories focusing on different experiences involved in the process: Striving to connect, involving others, adjusting to the caring culture, dealing with laws, justifying coercion, waiting for the patient, persuading the patient, negotiating with the patient, using professional power, scrutinizing one’s actions and learning together. Discussion: Informal coercion is associated with moral stress as nurses might find themselves torn between a wish to do good for the patient, general practices and ‘house rules’ in the caring culture. In addition, nurses need to be aware of the asymmetry of the caring relationship, in order to avoid compliance becoming a consequence of patients subordinating to nurse power, rather than a result of mutual understanding. Reflections are thus necessary through the process to promote mutual learning and to avoid violations of patients’ dignity and autonomy. Conclusion: If there is a need for coercion, that is, if the coercion is found to be an ‘unpleasant good’, rather than ‘necessary evil’ considering the consequences for the patient, it should be subject to reflecting and learning together with the patient. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical evaluation of the arguments that Kleingeld and Bernasconi used to support their claims regarding the idea that Immanuel Kant held racist beliefs. Firstly, we will criticize the views on which they agree, aiming to emphasize our understanding of Kant’s thoughts on race. Secondly, we will assess the significance of Kant’s draft for Towards Perpetual Peace when considering the debate over Kant’s racism, and show that Bernasconi’s interpretation — according to which Kant presented racist views in (...) the third Critique and in his writings on history — is problematic. Although we will not systematically present our understanding of Kant’s thoughts on race, our critique of Kleingeld’s and Bernasconi’s claims will reflect our basic views: Kant was not a racist, and he never advocated for slavery and colonization. Kleingeld is right to insist that we must interpret Kant’s thoughts on race diachronically, as it is clear that his views evolved over the course of his life, but did not fundamentally change. (shrink)

The article presents the judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court from 26 February 2020 on assisted suicide. The statements regarding human dignity, human rights and the relationship between citizens and the state are examined. Furthermore, the consequences resulting from this interpretation of human dignity for states that are pluralistic and based on human rights will be laid out. The court’s judgment limits the power of parliaments and poses a challenge to many laws in states that see themselves as pluralistic, (...) human rights-based states. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

The Hippocratic Oath and the Declaration of Geneva of the World Medical Association are compared in terms of content and origin. Their relevance for current medical practice is investigated. The status which is ascribed to these documents will be shown and the status which they can reasonably claim to have will be explored. Arguments in favor of the Hippocratic Oath that rely on historical stability or historical origin are being examined. It is demonstrated that they get caught up in paradoxes. (...) Should doctors swear the Hippocratic Oath or the Declaration of Geneva? The Hippocratic Oath is a remarkable historic document, which contains important elements still relevant for medical ethics today. Its interpretation as a timeless, still valid medical code is unfounded. The historical arguments, that should justify its validity, are untenable. The Declaration of Geneva, and not the Hippocratic Oath, can legitimately claim to come close to representing the most important principles of professional medical conduct in today’s globalised world. (shrink)

It is often argued that Kant’s understanding of the right to revolution is contradictory. On the one hand, he expresses enthusiasm for the French Revolution and the ideas on which it rests, while on the other, he openly denies the existence of a legal right to revolution. This paper aims to make Kant’s position plausible by showing that he does not deny the right to revolution in all states, but only in those that fulfill the purpose for which they were (...) created, which is to protect the rights and freedoms of all citizens. (shrink)

Personalized medicine plays an important role in the development of current medicine. Among the numerous statements regarding the future of personalized medicine, some can be found that accord medicine a new scientific status. Medicine will be transformed from an art to a science due to personalized medicine. This prognosis is supported by references to models of historical developments. The article examines what is meant by this prognosis, what consequences it entails, and how feasible it is. It refers to the long (...) tradition of epistemological thinking in medicine and the use of historical models for the development of medicine. The possible answers to the question “art or science” are systematized with respect to the core question about the relationship between knowledge and action. The prediction for medicine to develop from an ‘empirical healing art’ to a ‘rational, molecular science’ is nonsensical from an epistemological point of view. The historical models employed to substantiate the development of personalized medicine are questionable. (shrink)

Despite downsides, it must, on balance, be good to reduce prejudice. Despite upsides, collective action can also have destructive outcomes. Improving intergroup relations requires multiple levels of analysis involving a broader approach to prejudice reduction, awareness of potential conflict escalation, development of intergroup understanding, and promotion of a wider human rights perspective.

In post-independence India secularism was almost taken for granted as a defining feature of the women?s movement with its rejection of the public expression of religious and caste identities. However, already by the 1980s, the assumption that gender could be used as a unifying factor was challenged, revealing that women from different social and religious backgrounds understand and sometime use their identities in ways that are not driven necessarily by some ideology, but by more immediate concerns and even opportunism. This (...) realization opened up a debate about new strategies to tackle women?s activism, especially in light of aggressive political activism of some women associated with right-wing parties in India, which has clearly shattered the perception, held by some, of women as inherently peace-loving, whose gender identity would override their caste and religious belonging. (shrink)

Die Frage, ob sie eine Kunst oder eine Wissenschaft sei, begleitet die Medizin seit der Antike. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Frage insbesondere im Hinblick auf den Einfluss Kants, Fichtes und Schellings auf das Selbstverstandnis der Medizin. Sie zeichnet die geschichtlichen Linien nach, die zum Verstandnis der gegenwartigen Situation fuhren und liefert wichtige Argumente zu einem zeitgemassen Selbstverstandnis der Medizin, das fur die wissenschaftstheoretische und ethische Diskussion in der Medizin von heute unverzichtbar ist. Since antiquity, the question has been whether (...) medicine is an art or a science. This work explores the question, in particular in view of Kants, Fichtes and Schellings influence on the self-conception of medicine. It traces the historical timelines which help to understand the current situation and provides important arguments for a timely self-conception of medicine which is indispensable for the discussion of scientific theory and ethics in todays medicine. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Artikel untersucht die Frage, ob es sinnvoll ist, Doping im Sport unter ärztlicher Kontrolle freizugeben. Dazu werden die Auswirkungen einer Freigabe untersucht, die stets nur eine begrenzte Freigabe wäre, allein wegen der Risiken. Die unangenehmen Begleiterscheinungen der Dopingkontrollen würden nicht entfallen. Die Auswirkungen einer Freigabe von Doping im Wettkampfsport wären entweder unsinnig oder aber mit Nachteilen behaftet. Es ist nicht notwendig, die Frage zu klären, was die „Idee des Sportes“ ausmacht und ob sie verändert werden darf. Allein unter praktischen (...) Aspekten zeigt sich, dass dem Sport mit einer Freigabe des Dopings keine Vorteile, aber viele Nachteile erwachsen. (shrink)

Aktuelna pandemija virusa korona navela je mnoge pojedince da preispitaju usvojene obrasce ponašanja. Savremeni čovek, naviknut da najčešće odlučuje i dela u skladu sa sopstvenim interesima i željama, suočava se danas sa zahtevom da svoje postupke podredi opštem dobru. U doba pandemije kada svaki vid neopreznog i nesavesnog delanja može predstavljati opasnost kako po samog delatnika, tako i po njegove bližnje, postavlja se pitanje: kako treba postupati i u skladu sa kojim načelima? Odgovor na ovu važnu nedoumicu možemo pronaći ispitivanjem (...) etičke doktrine Imanuela Kanta. Jedna od glavnih odlika njegove etike jeste eksplicitna zabrana postavljanja pojedinca i njegovih ličnih težnji i ciljeva u prvi plan. Kantov vrhovni moralni princip nije utemeljen u čulima i iskustvu, nego u čovekovoj racionalnoj prirodi i njegovom umu, što mu daje opšte važenje. Ovaj princip važi jednako za sva racionalna bića. Cilj ovog teksta je da pokaže kako Kantov vrhovni moralni princip (izražen u formi kategoričkog imperativa) i čuveni test univerzalizacije mogu da nam posluže kao neka vrsta vodiča za ispravno postupanje. Videćemo da prilikom svakog odlučivanja moramo prvo da se zapitamo šta bi se desilo kada bismo svi postupili na određeni način, odnosno, da li možemo hteti da živimo u svetu koji bi u tom slučaju nastao. Ukoliko je odgovor potrvdan, onda je predloženi postupak moralno ispravan. (shrink)

La désinstitutionnalisation des services de santé mentale a créé un espace pour la création de solutions nouvelles et communautaires dans les pays occidentaux. Toutefois, le domaine semble encore manquer de dispositifs idéologiques et pratiques cohérentes. Cet article a pour objectif d’examiner les caractéristiques des services de logement conçus pour soutenir les individus atteints d’un handicap psychique en Suède, et s’appuie sur les expériences des prestataires de services locaux. L’accent est mis sur le cadre organisationnel des services, l’orientation principale et le (...) contenu conceptuel. L’article se fonde sur une étude de cas sur de multiples individus et portant sur dix municipalités suédoises. Les données consistent principalement en des entretiens avec des informateurs clés de l’organisation de services sociaux. Les conclusions soulignent l’émergence d’une nouvelle génération d’utilisateurs de services ayant des besoins complexes et qui remettent en question à la fois l’organisation et la nature des services offerts. Les foyers collectifs et l’aide au logement mobile ont été considérés comme les piliers de l’offre de services. Toutefois, un certain nombre de solutions locales pragmatiques ont également été identifiées, ainsi que des initiatives ayant pour objectif de réduire l’étendue des structures de type institutionnel. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Die Forschungs- und Regulierungsebene bei datenintensiver Forschung in der Medizin liegen auseinander. Ein heterogenes Feld aus regulierenden Institutionen mit regional ungleichen Regelungen, sowohl hinsichtlich der Dichte als auch der Restriktivität von Regelungen, steht einer globalen Entwicklung der Technologien entgegen. Trotz oder gerade wegen mangelnder global-gültiger Regulierungen können auch unverbindliche oder nur bedingt verbindliche normative Vorgaben der Orientierung dienen. Doch wie soll eine solche normative Regulierung angesichts datenintensiver Forschung in der Medizin ausgestaltet werden und woran soll sie sich orientieren? Die (...) Frage, wie konkret und detailliert man eine solche Forschung regulieren sollte, lässt sich nur im Einzelfall für bestimmte Situationen und Institutionen beantworten. Ob dabei neue Normen oder Gewichtungen von Normen vorgenommen werden sollen, oder ob die Normen und deren Gewichtung weiterhin bestehen bleiben sollen, lässt sich nur mit Verweis auf starke normative Argumente beantworten. An zwingenden Argumenten für neue Normen angesichts der datenintensiven medizinischen Forschung mangelt es bisher. Dennoch ist eine Umsetzungsarbeit von Normen, egal ob neue oder alte, und deren Anwendung auf eine neue Methode oder Technologie allemal zu erbringen. Es bedarf daher – wie schon bisher – beider: sowohl etablierter und transparent kommunizierter Normen als auch des unabhängigen Urteils zur Anwendung dieser Normen. Angesichts der besonderen Eignung für diese Aufgabe sollten auch weiterhin Ethik-Kommissionen als prozedurale Instanz bei der Bewilligung von datenintensiver Forschung in der Medizin gefordert und befähigt werden, die als unabhängige Institution ein Urteil im Einzelfall anhand vorgegebener Normen fällen. Nichtsdestotrotz können sich die veränderten Praktiken datenintensiver Forschungsprojekte auch in neuen Anforderungen an Ethik-Kommissionen niederschlagen, denen mit Reformen der Arbeitsweise begegnet werden sollte. (shrink)

Context: Philosophical and - more recently - empirical approaches to the study of mind have recognized the research of lived experience as crucial for the understanding of their subject matter. Such research is faced with self-referentiality: every attempt at examining the experience seems to change the experience in question. This so-called “excavation fallacy” has been taken by many to undermine the possibility of first-person inquiry as a form of scientific practice. Problem: What is the epistemic character and value of reflectively (...) acquired phenomenological data? Can the study of experience, despite the excavation fallacy, rely on the act of reflection on lived experience and make sense and use of its results? Method: Through a philosophical discourse, informed by empirical first-person inquiry, we explore the experiential structure of the act of reflection and the formation of the corresponding belief about past experience. Results: We present a provisional first-person model of the experiential dynamics of retrospective reflection, in which the reflective act is characterized as enaction of belief about past experience that co-determines - rather than distorts - its results. From a constructivist perspective on the inevitable interdependence between the act of observing and the observed, the excavation “fallacy” is recognized as an intrinsic characteristic of reflection. Reflection is described as an iterative, self-referential process, guided by a context- and subject-specific horizon of expectations. Implications: Knowing the characteristics of the formation of beliefs about experience is essential for understanding first-person data and for the possibility of their acquisition and use in scientific practice, particularly in the context of second-person approaches to the study of experience. Constructivist content: We relate the proposed understanding of reflection to constructivist epistemology and argue that constructivism provides an epistemological foundation for the empirical study of experience more suitable than the traditional epistemological objectivism of cognitive science. We suggest that the constructive nature of the process of reflection calls for a collaboration between the fields of constructivism, phenomenology, and first-person research, and points towards the potential for their mutual enrichment. (shrink)

Michel Bitbol offers a well-thought-out system of metaphysical coordinates. Despite the elegance and soundness of the proposed system, I nevertheless have concerns about the very need for a tailor-….

I critically examine possible advantages of the introduction of a “naturalistic” setting to empirical phenomenological inquiry. As an alternative, I suggest taking the sum of factors ….

Moral Repair examines the ethics and moral psychology of responses to wrongdoing. Explaining the emotional bonds and normative expectations that keep human beings responsive to moral standards and responsible to each other, Margaret Urban Walker uses realistic examples of both personal betrayal and political violence to analyze how moral bonds are damaged by serious wrongs and what must be done to repair the damage. Focusing on victims of wrong, their right to validation, and their sense of justice, Walker presents (...) a unified and detailed philosophical account of hope, trust, resentment, forgiveness, and making amends - the emotions and practices that sustain moral relations. Moral Repair joins a multidisciplinary literature concerned with transitional and restorative justice, reparations, and restoring individual dignity and mutual trust in the wake of serious wrongs. (shrink)