Several approaches to clinical ethics consultation (CEC) exist in medical practice and are widely discussed in the clinical ethics literature; different models of CECs are classified according to their methods, goals, and consultant’s attitude. Although the “facilitation” model has been endorsed by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) and is described in an influential manual, alternative approaches, such as advocacy, moral expertise, mediation, and engagement are practiced and defended in the clinical ethics field. Our Clinical Ethics Center in (...) Paris was founded in 2002 in the wake of the Patients’ Rights Act, and to date it is the largest center that provides consultation services in France. In this article we shall describe and defend our own approach to clinical ethics consultation, which we call the “Commitment Model,” in comparison with other existing models. Indeed commitment implies, among other meanings, continuity through time, a series of coherent actions, and the realization of important social goals. By drawing on a recent consultation case, we shall describe the main steps of our consultation procedure: interviews with major stakeholders, including patients and proxies; case conferences; and follow up. We shall show why we have chosen the term “commitment” to represent our approach at three different but interrelated levels: commitment towards patients, within the case conference group, and towards society as a whole. (shrink)

Withdrawing Artificial Nutrition and Hydration in the neonatal intensive care units has long been controversial. In France, the practice has become a legal option since 2005. But even though, the question remains as to what the stakeholders’ experience is, and whether they consider it ethically appropriate. In order to contribute to the debate, we initiated a study in 2009 to evaluate parental and health care professionals perspectives, after they experienced WAHN for a newborn. The study included 25 cases from 5 (...) different clinical neonatology departments. We interviewed both the parents and some of the HCP who cared for the baby, at least 6 months after this latter deceased. We proceeded through in-depth individual qualitative interviews. Content was analyzed for themes and patterns that emerged from the data. Some parents expressed that WANH offered an opportunity to the family to spend a few demedicalized days with the baby before she dies, without any tubes and machines, and to be well supported by the HCP during this palliative stage. But others evaluated the practice in retrospect as a terrible ordeal. All said that, at least, the time of waiting for death to ensue should not last too long. After a few days, it becomes unbearable because of the transformation of the baby’s appearance and because they, as parents, began to wonder if she was not dying from starvation rather than from her initial disease. An important proportion of HCP also expressed some kind of ethical unease. This was due to the psychological violence involved in the decision for a human being to stop feeding a little one, and also to the difficulty to deal with the fundamental intention behind the decision of WANH: indeed, could it be claim that it does not presuppose the intention of provoking the infant’s death? The discussion focuses on the point to know if WANH can be considered as a source of progress from an ethical point of view, particularly in comparison with earlier practices—that in France could involve active euthanasia by lethal injection. We argue that when HCP are merely focused on avoiding that WAHN could be construed as a way of intending to hasten the baby’s death, the practice is at risk to be implemented in a way that becomes ethically counterproductive. Focusing on this intention easily distract the clinical teams from what should be their ultimate concern, namely the baby’s comfort during the dying process, as well as the support owned to her parents. To conclude, we suggest that the ethical priorities, when WANH is decided, should be the support due to the patient and her family on the one hand, and, on the other hand to implement it in such a way that at least the baby seems to have died of her initial disease and never of starvation. This means that HCP have a duty to control the timing of death, even though this might be incompatible with the worry to avoid the intention of hastening the baby’s death. (shrink)

Are there distinctively political values? Certain egalitarians seem to think that equality is one such value. Scheffler 's contribution to the symposium seeks to articulate a division of moral labour between norms of personal morality and the principles of justice that regulate social institutions, and using this suggests that the egalitarian critique of Rawls can be deflected. In this paper, instead, I question the status of equality as an intrinsic value. I argue that an egalitarianism which focuses on the status (...) of equality as valuable in itself embraces a theory of value with the worst elements of utilitarianism while leaving behind any of the intuitive appeal that utilitarianism has. In its place I press that we need a political conception of egalitarianism which stresses the role of equality as a political ideal without presupposing any values with which we engage beyond those found in the norms of personal morality. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

We agree with Nuñez that the Mundurucu do not master the formal propreties of number lines and logarithms, but as the term "intuition" implies, they spontaneously experience a logarithmic mapping of number to space as natural and "feeling right.".

Lors de la publication de sa thèse sur les collections complètes des Discours de Grégoire de Nazianze, en 1997, l'A. signalait que l'inventaire des colletions fourni était incomplet. Il publie donc, pour les autres témoins, une description correspondant à la classification utilisée dans sa thèse. Seuls les manuscrits conservés en Russie n'ont pu être accessibles.

Human adults are thought to possess two dissociable systems to represent numbers: an approximate quantity system akin to a mental number line, and a verbal system capable of representing numbers exactly. Here, we study the interface between these two systems using an estimation task. Observers were asked to estimate the approximate numerosity of dot arrays. We show that, in the absence of calibration, estimates are largely inaccurate: responses increase monotonically with numerosity, but underestimate the actual numerosity. However, insertion of a (...) few inducer trials, in which participants are explicitly (and sometimes misleadingly) told that a given display contains 30 dots, is sufficient to calibrate their estimates on the whole range of stimuli. Based on these empirical results, we develop a model of the mapping between the numerical symbols and the representations of numerosity on the number line. (shrink)

Cette monumentale etude d'Olivier Brunet reste assurement la reference majeure concernant la philosophie esthetique de David Hume (1711-1776). Les questions et les problemes relatifs au "beau", au "jugement de gout" ne se presentent pas, dans l'oeuvre du penseur ecossais, de maniere detachee, isolee du reste de sa philosophie. C'est l'un des merites d'Olivier Brunet d'avoir montre que les reflexions de Hume sur l'esthetique sont inseparables de ses concepts essentiels. Ainsi, lorsque l'on recherche les racines conceptuelles de la definition (...) du "jugement de gout" chez Hume, on retrouve les memes jalons qui structurent son ethique. En morale comme en esthetique, les "passions" jouent un role central et sont liees - chacune a leur facon - a l'"utile"; celui-ci participe a la cause du "plaisir esthetique" qui est lui-meme etroitement lie a la fameuse "sympathie", sentiment desinteresse reglant le comportement moral tel que definit par Hume. La boucle est-elle bouclee? Loin de la, car l'esthetique humienne serait encore impossible a saisir, sans y considerer l'usage que le fondateur de l'empirisme moderne fait de ses concepts-phares : la croyance, le scepticisme, l'experience, l'habitude. Olivier Brunet, enfin, ne borne pas son etude a la philosophie esthetique de Hume. De tres belles pages sont consacrees a la relation personnelle que ce dernier entretenait avec l'art, ainsi qu'aux vertus sociales, psychologiques et morales que l'auteur du Traite de la nature humaine deduisait de la contemplation du Beau. (shrink)

The French philosopher Renaud Barbaras remarked that late in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s career, “The phenomenology of perception fulfills itself as a philosophy of expression.” In _Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty: Aesthetics, Philosophy of Biology, and Ontology, _Véronique M. Fóti_ _addresses the guiding yet neglected theme of expression in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. She traces Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about how individuals express creative or artistic impulses through his three essays on aesthetics, his engagement with animality and the “new biology” in the second of his lecture courses (...) on nature of 1957–58, and in his late ontology, articulated in 1964 in the fragmentary text of _Le visible et l’invisible _. With the exception of a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s 1945 essay “Cezanne’s Doubt,” Fóti engages with Merleau-Ponty’s late and final thought, with close attention to both his scientific and philosophical interlocutors, especially the continental rationalists. Expression shows itself, in Merleau-Ponty’s thought, to be primordial, and this innate and fundamental nature of expression has implications for his understanding of artistic creation, science, and philosophy. (shrink)

Humans possess two nonverbal systems capable of representing numbers, both limited in their representational power: the first one represents numbers in an approximate fashion, and the second one conveys information about small numbers only. Conception of exact large numbers has therefore been thought to arise from the manipulation of exact numerical symbols. Here, we focus on two fundamental properties of the exact numbers as prerequisites to the concept of EXACT NUMBERS : the fact that all numbers can be generated by (...) a successor function and the fact that equality between numbers can be defined in an exact fashion. We discuss some recent findings assessing how speakers of Munduruc (an Amazonian language), and young Western children (3-4 years old) understand these fundamental properties of numbers. (shrink)

Constructive Neutral Evolution is an evolutionary mechanism that can explain much molecular inter-dependence and organismal complexity without assuming positive selection favoring such dependency or complexity, either directly or as a byproduct of adaptation. It differs from but complements other non-selective explanations for complexity, such as genetic drift and the Zero Force Evolutionary Law, by being ratchet-like in character. With CNE, purifying selection maintains dependencies or complexities that were neutrally evolved. Preliminary treatments use it to explain specific genetic and molecular structures (...) or processes, such as retained gene duplications, the spliceosome, and RNA editing. Here we aim to expand the scope of such explanation beyond the molecular level, integrating CNE with Multi-Level Selection theory, and arguing that several popular higher-level selection scenarios are in fact instances of CNE. Suitably contextualized, CNE occurs at any level in the biological hierarchy at which natural selection as normally construed occurs. As examples, we focus on modularity in protein–protein interaction networks or “interactomes,” the origin of eukaryotic cells and the evolution of co-dependence in microbial communities—a variant of the “Black Queen Hypothesis” which we call the “Gray Queen Hypothesis”. (shrink)

This paper aims to study the perception of color (representations, synesthesia, denominations, uses and classification) in specific writings such as recipe treatises written from 1520 to 1689. These treatises deal with the manufacture and stages of color in various objects (remedies, blushes and mainly gems). They reveals that color is not only an apparent surface but also a sensitive substance, in particular white and red colors. Although color is a principle of unity for diverse materials, it sometimes becomes contradictory when (...) it is associated with variable signified and signifiers, so that color also offers a play on naming: meaning is sometimes clear, sometimes obscure, and in any case mobile (azure, vermilion). The contemporary reader does not perceive color in the same way as the Renaissance craftsman. Finally, as a principle of classification, it shows an imbalance and hierarchy of colors which, while providing structure to recipes: it gives mainly a place of choice to red and its shades. (shrink)

This article deals with the complex personality and legacy of a mysterious saint known both as a Sufī (Ḥājji Ratan) and a Nāth Yogī (Ratannāth) and links his multiple identity as well as the religious movement originated from him, to the specific cultural context of the former North-West Indian provinces. The first part is devoted to Ratan in the Nāth Yogī tradition, the second to his many facets in the Muslim tradition, in connection with his dargāh in the Panjabi town (...) of Bhatinda. The third and main part explores a particular movement, the Har Śri Nāth tradition. Presently centered around a “ dargāh mandir ” in Delhi, this movement, with its two branches issued from Ratan and from his “son” Kāyānāth, was rooted in what is now Pakistan. The influence of location and history has led to many peculiarities which lead us to stress the blurred boundaries between Islam and Hinduism and the essential part played by charismatic figures in the construction of religious identities. (shrink)

This article offers a critical analysis of John Broome's conception of practical reasoning. I first introduce his main claims and then point out some of the difficulties raised by the notion of “double expression” and by some aspects of the cognitivism which he explicitly endorses. I then emphasize two consequences of these criticisms: one concerning the link he sees between belief and intention, and the other concerning the idea that our practical reasonings are inextricably linked to our theoretical reasonings. Finally, (...) I argue that the problem Broome seems to be facing has its source in the difficulty of distinguishing clearly between reasoning (a relation between mental states) and the description of its content (a relation between propositions). (shrink)

Sustainable Geography recalls the system and laws of geographical space production, tackles the hardcore of geography and presents models and organizations through a regional analysis and the dynamics of territorial structures and methods. The book also describes the general idea of discontinuities, trenches, the anti-dialectical and redivision-uniformity in the globalization and addresses the Transnational Urban Systems and Urban Network in Europe.

L'article donne une nouvelle édition de l'inscription de Pistiros (cf. BCH 118 [1994], p. 1-15). Le commentaire, conçu comme une introduction à l'ensemble des six études qui suivent, présente les problèmes d'interprétation du texte.

Bras armés de la mondialisation néo-libérale, la communication, l'information et les médias sont aussi un levier puissant des mouvements qui tentent de promouvoir des alternatives aux logiques dominantes. Dans le cadre des Forum sociaux mondiaux, des alternatives aux pratiques hégémoniques des médias traditionnels sont portées par des médias communautaires, alternatifs et activistes, et par les mouvements de l'Internet solidaire et du logiciel libre. Ces mouvements défendent les droits à la communication et entendent faire reconnaître que l'information est un bien commun (...) qui doit être accessible à tous.Armed wing of the neo-liberal globalization, communication, information and media is also a powerful movement trying to promote alternatives to the dominant logics. Within the framework of the World Social Forum, alternatives to the hegemonic practices of traditional media are supported by community media, alternative and activists, and movements of solidarity Internet and free software. These movements to defend human communication and intend to recognize that information is a public good that should be accessible to all. (shrink)

ZwangDie BegriffeGewalt (s. a. Folter, Krieg, Vergewaltigung) ‚Gewalt‘, ‚Macht‘, ‚Herrschaft‘ oder ‚Zwang‘ sind semantisch sehr eng verknüpft. Der Artikel geht auf den Ursprung des Wortes „Gewalt“ und seine Ambivalenz zurück und fragt unter anderem nach der Beziehung, die Gewalt mit Zwang im rechts- und politisch-philosophischen Sinne unterhält. Individuelle, institutionelleNötigung und strukturelle Gewalt werden auseinandergehalten und ihr Unterschied erläutert. Den Schluss bildet die Frage nach der Rechtfertigung der Gewalt.

Geometry, etymologically the “science of measuring the Earth”, is a mathematical formalization of space. Just as formal concepts of number may be rooted in an evolutionary ancient system for perceiving numerical quantity, the fathers of geometry may have been inspired by their perception of space. Is the spatial content of formal Euclidean geometry universally present in the way humans perceive space, or is Euclidean geometry a mental construction, specific to those who have received appropriate instruction? The spatial content of the (...) formal theories of geometry may depart from spatial perception for two reasons: first, because in geometry, only some of the features of spatial figures are theoretically relevant; and second, because some geometric concepts go beyond any possible perceptual experience. Focusing in turn on these two aspects of geometry, we will present several lines of research on US adults and children from the age of three years, and participants from an Amazonian culture, the Mundurucu. Almost all the aspects of geometry tested proved to be shared between these two cultures. Nevertheless, some aspects involve a process of mental construction where explicit instruction seem to play a role in the US, but that can still take place in the absence of instruction in geometry. (shrink)

L’article étudie comment l’humain peut être défini dans les rapports créés dans l’imaginaire entre le corps et l’alimentation. En s’appuyant sur des traités de médecine et de cuisine du Moyen Âge au xviie siècle, des essais d’humanistes et les travaux d’anthropologues, d’historiens et de sociologues contemporains, on découvre comment l’acte même de manger permet de définir et construire les frontières du corps humain et un imaginaire de l’alimentation : la nomination de l’aliment et la charge sémantique des métaphores empruntés à (...) l’alimentation définissent une éthique de l’humain et sa vision du corps humain et animal. Une approche médicale complète cette étude linguistique et montre que le fonctionnement des limites extérieures et internes du corps humain se modèle sur la représentation de l’aliment et de ses effets paradoxaux, bénéfiques et pathologiques. Enfin, le corps social du mangeur est délimité par la distance qui le sépare de l’aliment et le lieu assigné à l’animal destiné à être mangé. (shrink)

The origin of the notochord is one of the key remaining mysteries of our evolutionary ancestry. Here, we present a multi‐level comparison of the chordate notochord to the axochord, a paired axial muscle spanning the ventral midline of annelid worms and other invertebrates. At the cellular level, comparative molecular profiling in the marine annelids P. dumerilii and C. teleta reveals expression of similar, specific gene sets in presumptive axochordal and notochordal cells. These cells also occupy corresponding positions in a conserved (...) anatomical topology and undergo similar morphogenetic movements. At the organ level, a detailed comparison of bilaterian musculatures reveals that most phyla form axochord‐like muscles, suggesting that such a muscle was already present in urbilaterian ancestors. Integrating comparative evidence at the cell and organ level, we propose that the notochord evolved by modification of a ventromedian muscle followed by the assembly of an axial complex supporting swimming in vertebrate ancestors. (shrink)

Recent debates about the biological and evolutionary conditions for sentience have generated a renewed interest in fine-grained functionalism. According to one such account advanced by Peter Godfrey-Smith, sentience depends on the fine-grained activities characteristic of living organisms. Specifically, the scale, context and stochasticity of these fine-grained activities. One implication of this view is that contemporary artificial intelligence is a poor candidate for sentience. Insofar as current AI lacks the ability to engage in such living activities it will lack sentience, no (...) matter what its coarse-grained functions. In this paper, we review the case for fine-grained functionalism and show that there are contemporary machines that fulfil the fine-grained functional criteria identified by Godfrey-Smith, and thus are candidates for sentience. Molecular machines such as Brownian computers are analogous to metabolic activity in their scale, context and stochasticity, and can serve as the basis of AI. Molecular computation is a promising candidate for artificial sentience according to contemporary philosophical accounts of sentience. (shrink)

Geometry defines entities that can be physically realized in space, and our knowledge of abstract geometry may therefore stem from our representations of the physical world. Here, we focus on Euclidean geometry, the geometry historically regarded as “natural”. We examine whether humans possess representations describing visual forms in the same way as Euclidean geometry – i.e., in terms of their shape and size. One hundred and twelve participants from the U.S. (age 3–34 years), and 25 participants from the Amazon (age (...) 5–67 years) were asked to locate geometric deviants in panels of 6 forms of variable orientation. Participants of all ages and from both cultures detected deviant forms defined in terms of shape or size, while only U.S. adults drew distinctions between mirror images (i.e. forms differing in “sense”). Moreover, irrelevant variations of sense did not disrupt the detection of a shape or size deviant, while irrelevant variations of shape or size did. At all ages and in both cultures, participants thus retained the same properties as Euclidean geometry in their analysis of visual forms, even in the absence of formal instruction in geometry. These findings show that representations of planar visual forms provide core intuitions on which humans’ knowledge in Euclidean geometry could possibly be grounded. (shrink)

This piece is a response to Jean-Pierre Reed’s review of Bringing Back the Social into the Sociology of Religion published in Critical Research on Religion. Aside from his appreciation for the contributions of this volume, Jean-Pierre Reed’s critique concentrates on three fundamental issues in relation to the agenda for a critical sociology of religion we advance: scientificism, interdisciplinarity, and politics. This response focuses on scientificism and politics in particular, since they are intimately related and at the core of this book’s (...) evaluation of the subfield. (shrink)