ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The governments and citizens of the developed nations are increasingly called upon to contribute financially to health initiatives outside their borders. Although international development assistance for health has grown rapidly over the last two decades, austerity measures related to the 2008 and 2011 global financial crises may impact negatively on aid expenditures. The competition between national priorities and foreign aid commitments raises important ethical questions for donor nations. This paper aims to foster individual reflection and public debate on (...) donor responsibilities for global health. METHODS: We undertook a critical review of contemporary accounts of justice. We selected theories that: (i) articulate important and widely held moral intuitions; (ii) have had extensive impact on debates about global justice; (iii) represent diverse approaches to moral reasoning; and (iv) present distinct stances on the normative importance of national borders. Due to space limitations we limit the discussion to four frameworks. RESULTS: Consequentialist, relational, human rights, and social contract approaches were considered. Responsibilities to provide international assistance were seen as significant by all four theories and place limits on the scope of acceptable national autonomy. Among the range of potential aid foci, interventions for health enjoyed consistent prominence. The four theories concur that there are important ethical responsibilities to support initiatives to improve the health of the worst off worldwide, but offer different rationales for intervention and suggest different implicit limits on responsibilities. CONCLUSIONS: Despite significant theoretical disagreements, four influential accounts of justice offer important reasons to support many current initiatives to promote global health. Ethical argumentation can complement pragmatic reasons to support global health interventions and provide an important foundation to strengthen collective action. (shrink)

In a recent global survey commissioned for the Millennium Summit of the United Nations, people around the world consistently mentioned good health as what they most desired.

This thesis investigates Habermas's attempt to establish a credible form of universalism in moral and political philosophy by means of the theoretical approach which he terms "discourse ethics." The central question motivating this study is whether Habermas succeeds in this ambition. Discourse ethics specifies a procedure which purports to enable all agents involved in a conflict of interest in which issues of justice are at stake to come to a rational and cooperative resolution. It proposes a position unique among contemporary (...) approaches to justice in the strength and character of its anti-relativist stance: the plurality of human cultures and the situated character of human understanding do not, according to this theory, bar the way to arriving at a minimal form of moral universalism. Although the procedure specified in communicative ethics elucidates only a narrow range of concerns--those pertaining to justice in the strict sense--it aims to do so in a way valid across all human cultures. ;Habermas's strategy for the defence of a species-wide moral universalism is, I argue, both the key feature of his position, and the least well understood. Discussion of discourse ethics to date has focussed almost exclusively on the question of its appropriateness to the context of modern, Western pluralism. An important reason for this focus has been the intricacy of Habermas's argumentative strategy, which links the recent work on discourse ethics to his longstanding project of developing a theory of communicative action. ;The principle aim of this thesis is to clarify Habermas's position by explicating his programme of justification. In so doing, I draw attention to several problems in his approach as a mechanism for cross-cultural conflict adjudication, and endeavour to provide a more perspicuous account of the relation of Habermas's theory to its main philosophical competitors, especially Rawlsian deontology, and contextualism. (shrink)

This document presents the Bonn PRINTEGER Consensus Statement: Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for research performing organisations. The aim of the statement is to complement existing instruments by focusing specifically on institutional responsibilities for strengthening integrity. It takes into account the daily challenges and organisational contexts of most researchers. The statement intends to make research integrity challenges recognisable from the work-floor perspective, providing concrete advice on organisational measures to strengthen integrity. The statement, which was concluded February 7th 2018, provides guidance on (...) the following key issues: § 1. Providing information about research integrity§ 2. Providing education, training and mentoring§ 3. Strengthening a research integrity culture§ 4. Facilitating open dialogue§ 5. Wise incentive management§ 6. Implementing quality assurance procedures§ 7. Improving the work environment and work satisfaction§ 8. Increasing transparency of misconduct cases§ 9. Opening up research§ 10. Implementing safe and effective whistle-blowing channels§ 11. Protecting the alleged perpetrators§ 12. Establishing a research integrity committee and appointing an ombudsperson§ 13. Making explicit the applicable standards for research integrity. (shrink)

Introduction Introducing Accessibility theory 0.1 On the role of context Utterances cannot be processed and interpreted on their own. ...

Objective: To determine whether a moral reasoning exercise can improve response quality to surveys of healthcare priorities Methods: A randomised internet survey focussing on patient age in healthcare allocation was repeated twice. From 2574 internet panel members from the USA and Canada, 2020 (79%) completed the baseline survey and 1247 (62%) completed the follow-up. We elicited respondent preferences for age via five allocation scenarios. In each scenario, a hypothetical health planner made a decision to fund one of two programmes identical (...) except for average patient age (35 vs 65 years). Half of the respondents (intervention group) were randomly assigned to receive an additional moral reasoning exercise. Responses were elicited again 7 weeks later. Numerical scores ranging from –5 (strongest preference for younger patients) to +5 (strongest preference for older patients); 0 indicates no age preference. Response quality was assessed by propensity to choose extreme or neutral values, internal consistency, temporal stability and appeal to prejudicial factors. Results: With the exception of a scenario offering palliative care, respondents preferred offering scarce resources to younger patients in all clinical contexts. This preference for younger patients was weaker in the intervention group. Indicators of response quality favoured the intervention group. Conclusions: Although people generally prefer allocating scarce resources to young patients over older ones, these preferences are significantly reduced when participants are encouraged to reflect carefully on a wide range of moral principles. A moral reasoning exercise is a promising strategy to improve response quality to surveys of healthcare priorities. (shrink)

The growing capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) word processing models have demonstrated exceptional potential to impact language related tasks and functions. Their fast pace of adoption and probable effect has also given rise to controversy within certain fields. Models, such as GPT-3, are a particular concern for professionals engaged in writing, particularly as their engagement with these technologies is limited due to lack of ability to control their output. Most efforts to maximize and control output rely on a process known (...) as prompt engineering, the construction and modification of the inputted prompt with expectation for certain outputted or desired text. Consequently, prompt engineering has emerged as an important consideration for research and practice. Previous conceptions of prompt engineering have largely focused on technical and logistic modifications to the back-end processing, remaining inaccessible and, still, limited for most users. In this paper, we look to the technical communication field and its methods of text generation—the rhetorical situation—to conceptualize prompt engineering in a more comprehensible way for its users by considering the context and rhetoric. We introduce a framework, consisting of a formula, to prompt engineering, which demands all components of the rhetorical situation be present in the inputted prompt. We present discussions on the future of AI writing models and their use in both professional and educational settings. Ultimately, this discussion and its findings aim to provide a means of integrating agency and writer-centric methods to AI writing tools to advance a more human-in-the-loop approach. As the use of generative AI and especially NLP-based technologies become common across societal functions, the use of prompt engineering will play a crucial role not just in adoption of the technology, but also its productive and responsible use. (shrink)

La fraternidad nace en la experiencia sensible y se eleva luego a concepto racional. Radica ahí la dificultad de la aprehensión de su doble naturaleza, así como su eficacia política. Próxima a conceptos como amistad cívica, solidaridad o humanismo, se diferencia de todos ellos. Al analizar la fraternidad tal y como emerge a lo largo de la Revolución francesa a través de distintos autores en un contexto histórico político bien particular de crisis económica que se transmuta en revolución y cambio, (...) llegamos a la conclusión de que la fraternidad es una fuerza de acción colectiva que emerge en ese impás entre lo individual y lo colectivo que hace necesaria una restructuración del orden económico y político establecido. Por consiguiente, si aceptamos que el ser humano es un ser político, la fraternidad nos revela algo de la real naturaleza política, entendida más allá del simple pacto social, a saber: cuando el ser humano se apodera de la palabra, dirigida siempre al otro, conjugándola con la acción. (shrink)

Replacements for corporate farm managers are increasingly hard to find. At the same time, there is a large pool of potential managers that has been hardly tapped into: young female professionals. Focusing on the supply side of the labor market for farm managers, we investigate how gender-specific life aspirations impact occupational intention. To explain gender-specific occupational intention, we operationalize two conceptual frameworks: a behavioral economic conceptualization that focuses on the material and non-material cost and benefits associated with occupational choice, and (...) a psychological conceptualization based on the theory of planned behavior. Our analysis of survey data among agricultural students shows that participating women are less inclined to pursue a farm manager position than participating men for two main reasons: first, they expect less internal benefits from such a position. Second, they believe to be less suited to meet the professional requirements. (shrink)

This study investigates switching costs in landmark-based wayfinding using olfactory and visual landmark information. It has already been demonstrated that there seem to be no switching costs, in terms of correct route decisions, when switching between acoustically and visually presented landmarks. Olfaction, on the other hand, is not extensively focused on in landmark-based wayfinding thus far, especially with respect to modality switching. The goal of this work is to empirically test and compare visual and olfactory landmark information with regard to (...) their suitability for wayfinding including a modality switch. To investigate this, an experiment within a virtual environment was conducted in which participants were walked along a virtual route of 12 intersections. At each intersection, landmark information together with directional information was presented, which was to be memorized and recalled in the following phase, either in the same or in the other modality. The results of the study show that, in contrast to the no-switching costs between auditory and visual landmarks in previous studies, switching costs occur when switching modality from visual to olfactory and vice versa. This is indicated by both longer decision times and fewer correct decisions. This means that a modality switch involving olfactory landmark information is possible but could lead to poorer performance. Therefore, olfaction may still be valuable for landmark-based-wayfinding. We argue that the poorer performance in the switching-condition is possibly due to higher cognitive load and the separate initial processing of odors and images in different cognitive systems. (shrink)

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia which is estimated to impact 350,000 people over 65 years of age in Canada. The lack of effective treatment and the growing number of people who are expected to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in the near future are compelling reasons why continued research is in this area is necessary. With additional research, there needs to be greater recognition of the complexity of seeking ongoing informed consent from those with Alzheimer’s disease. (...) This complexity is because the impairment of memory and cognitive ability does not diminish in a linear manner, but rather fluctuates between periods of impairment and relatively normal cognitive lucidness. There is limited discussion in the guidelines of those progressing from early stages of Alzheimer’s disease who have intermittent cognitive function. Guidelines to research and Research Ethics Boards require further development to facilitate researcher including those with Alzheimer’s disease while protecting this growing pool of potential participants. (shrink)

In his works for a few decades since the 1960s, Theodore Roszak, professor of California State University, has made an emphatic call to rethink all the fundamental objectives and values of the techno-scientific civilization and consumer society. His name became famous when he published his book “The Making of a Counterculture. Reflections on the Technotronic Society and Its Youthful Opposition” (New York, 1968), supporting the oppositional movement of the young Americans which he named counterculture. Theodore Roszak came to the conclusion (...) that the consumer society did not bring happiness to all people, that it could rapidly bring mankind to an environmental disaster, and that it is a blind alley in terms of social development. (shrink)

What role should the political ideal of non-domination play in theorizing global justice? The importance of this ideal is defended most prominently in neo-republican political thought where non-domination embodies a conception of political freedom and serves as the foundational ideal of state citizenship [Pettit, Philip. 1997. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Laborde, Cecile. 2008. Critical Republicanism. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press]. It has been argued, however, that these theories can be extended to the global (...) political community and yield a separate framework for global justice. This paper agrees with proponents of non-domination that there is a significant critical and normative potential in the ideal's capacity to speak to the structural inequalities of power in the global order and to make them central, in a way that not only encompasses but also moves beyond questions of redistribution. Yet it argues that this should be conceived as a complement to existing approaches to global justice, rather than a full-fledged alternative. Non-domination's central contribution lies in reframing our perspective on the political authority of states and global institutions. As such it should be viewed as a freestanding principle to assess the political legitimacy of institutionalized global power relations. (shrink)

This new reading of Jean-Jacques Rousseau challenges traditional views of the eighteenth-century political philosopher's attitudes toward women and his perceived pessimism about human experience. Mira Morgenstern finds in Rousseau an appreciation of the complexities and multidimensionality of life that allowed him to criticize various easy dualisms promoted by his fellow liberal thinkers and point to the crucial mediating role that women fulfill between the private and public spheres. Morgenstern sees Rousseau as an important contributor to the feminist thoughts and (...) concerns that animate so much of our public and private discourse today. While Rousseau is commonly seen as a patriarchal misogynist, Morgenstern finds evidence in his writing that belies much of this claim. Rousseau was very much a man of his time, but he also believed that women were the key to transmitting his ideals of personal and political authenticity, thereby transforming his theory from ephemeral ideas into practical reality. A careful evaluation of Rousseau's writings on women reveals his highly complex sense of reality, especially his awareness that the solutions to life's complex problems are often temporary and must be renegotiated over time. Rousseau is more persistent than most in highlighting the weaknesses and pitfalls of liberal political thought, whose fundamental characteristic is its categorization of life on the basis of dualistic categories: public and private, outside and inside, male and female. Ultimately, what makes Rousseau worth reading today, argues Morgenstern, is his ability to illuminate critical weaknesses in the dualisms of liberal political theory and his pointing out, if only by implication, alternative ways of reaching the full measure of our individual and communal humanity. In honoring the traditional liberal emphasis on individual liberty and self-development, Rousseau’s meditations on the proper aim of political life are especially helpful to those today who seek ways to expand liberalism's promise of freedom and authenticity, while not losing sight of the common threads of meaning and community that continue to bind us together. (shrink)

This new reading of Jean-Jacques Rousseau challenges traditional views of the eighteenth-century political philosopher's attitudes toward women and his perceived pessimism about human experience. Mira Morgenstern finds in Rousseau an appreciation of the complexities and multidimensionality of life that allowed him to criticize various easy dualisms promoted by his fellow liberal thinkers and point to the crucial mediating role that women fulfill between the private and public spheres. Morgenstern sees Rousseau as an important contributor to the feminist thoughts and (...) concerns that animate so much of our public and private discourse today. While Rousseau is commonly seen as a patriarchal misogynist, Morgenstern finds evidence in his writing that belies much of this claim. Rousseau was very much a man of his time, but he also believed that women were the key to transmitting his ideals of personal and political authenticity, thereby transforming his theory from ephemeral ideas into practical reality. A careful evaluation of Rousseau's writings on women reveals his highly complex sense of reality, especially his awareness that the solutions to life's complex problems are often temporary and must be renegotiated over time. Rousseau is more persistent than most in highlighting the weaknesses and pitfalls of liberal political thought, whose fundamental characteristic is its categorization of life on the basis of dualistic categories: public and private, outside and inside, male and female. Ultimately, what makes Rousseau worth reading today, argues Morgenstern, is his ability to illuminate critical weaknesses in the dualisms of liberal political theory and his pointing out, if only by implication, alternative ways of reaching the full measure of our individual and communal humanity. In honoring the traditional liberal emphasis on individual liberty and self-development, Rousseau’s meditations on the proper aim of political life are especially helpful to those today who seek ways to expand liberalism's promise of freedom and authenticity, while not losing sight of the common threads of meaning and community that continue to bind us together. (shrink)

Inspired by the Enlightenment readings of Hebrew biblical texts generated in the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, Mira Morgenstern's _Reframing Politics in the Hebrew Bible_ goes beyond the pioneering interpretations of various biblical texts penned by such noted Bible students as Spinoza, Rousseau, and Angelina Grimké to present an introduction to the Hebrew Bible as a whole from the perspective of a modern-day political theorist. In doing so, it offers a brilliant thematic guide to the Hebrew Bible's most politically (...) salient passages, complete with text and commentary. Morgenstern's account of the significance of these ancient yet strangely modern texts will fascinate students of both ancient and modern political theory—as well as all readers of the Hebrew Bible itself. (shrink)

“Postnatal depression” denotes the syndrome of dysphoria, debility, and anxiety that follows childbirth in about 10–20% of women (as variously estimated). Its etiology is seen to be lodged in a variety of psychosocial as well as biological factors, among which the isolating and pressured culture of contemporary society (especially for women/mothers) is commonly singled out as a powerful precipitator. This view is extended here through the evolutionary perspective which casts maternal distress as a set of adaptive responses with the function, (...) in ancestral environments, of soliciting support for a mother who feels that her maternal responsiveness may be threatened. As continuous caretaking of the infant is the active expression of evolved maternal responsiveness, departures from this pattern result in anxiety and distress that seek resolution. Manifestations of maternal distress in contemporary society are dysfunctional, however, since the present social structure does not provide spontaneous and immediate support that can spring forth within small, closely knit social units. Furthermore, for present-day mothers distress is self-perpetuating since the ingrained tendency toward continuing responsiveness rarely finds practical expression and is thus converted into anxious vigilance and depression. This view generates the hypothesis that the emotional and cognitive contents of maternal vigilance are associated with the needs of the infant and will therefore be focused on crying and feeding. A number of qualitative studies of women’s experiences during the postpartum bear out this prediction and support the feasibility of the evolutionary hypothesis of “postnatal depression” as a set of adaptive responses, now out of place in a novel environment. (shrink)

_In _Diverse Families, Desirable Schools_, Mira Debs offers a richly detailed study of public Montessori schools, which make up the largest group of progressive schools in the public sector._ As public Montessori schools expand rapidly as alternatives to traditional public schools, the story of these schools, Debs points out, is a microcosm of the broader conflicts around public school choice. Drawing on historical research, interviews with public Montessori educators, and ethnographic case studies, Debs explores the forces that pull intentionally (...) diverse, progressive schools toward elitism. At the heart of Debs’s book is a thoughtful analysis of the notion of “fit” between parents and schools—an idea that is central to school choice, which is often marketed as an opportunity for parents to find the perfect fit for their kids. By exploring parents’ varied motivations in choosing these schools and observing how families experience—or fail to experience—a “good fit” _after_ having chosen a particular school, Debs makes an original contribution to the literature on school choice and sheds light on the dilemmas entailed in maintaining diversity in progressive charter and magnet schools. (shrink)

Despite ever‐increasing accumulation of genomic data, the fundamental question of how individual genes are switched on during development, lineage‐specification and differentiation is not fully answered. It is widely accepted that this involves the interaction between at least three fundamental regulatory elements: enhancers, promoters and insulators. Enhancers contain transcription factor binding sites which are bound by transcription factors (TFs) and co‐factors expressed during cell fate decisions and maintain imposed patterns of activation, at least in part, via their epigenetic modification. This information (...) is transferred from enhancers to their cognate promoters often by coming into close physical proximity to form a ‘transcriptional hub’ containing a high concentration of TFs and co‐factors. The mechanisms underlying these stages of transcriptional activation are not fully explained. This review focuses on how enhancers and promoters are activated during differentiation and how multiple enhancers work together to regulate gene expression. We illustrate the currently understood principles of how mammalian enhancers work and how they may be perturbed in enhanceropathies using expression of the α‐globin gene cluster during erythropoiesis, as a model. (shrink)

Since the late 1970s, disruptions and “failure” of maternal-infant bonding have been causally linked to postpartum depression. Part I of this paper examines the grounds for this connection while tracing the ramifications of bonding theory (Klaus and Kennell 1976) through obstetrics, pediatrics, and psychiatry, as well as in the (mis)representations of it in the popular media. This discussion resolves into a view of maternal attachment as a long-term development progressively established through intensive mother-infant interaction. The forms of this interaction are (...) phylogenetically determined, albeit culturally and personally mediated. Flowing from this premise, Part II of the paper casts postpartum depression as an adaptive response to threat (from whatever cause) to adequate mothering, and develops an argument for the evolutionary role of enacted social ties in the establishment of maternal responsiveness. (shrink)

For Maria Markus, a significant feature of ‘decency’ of a society is respect for the dignity of each person. Here I contemplate the notion of ‘respect’ in the light of Sennett’s (2004) inquiry into the role of respect in encounters between individuals and institutions. Underlying this question is the structure/ agency dynamic. As Markus points out, decent institutions do not necessarily presuppose decent individuals (and vice versa). Yet the separation of these entities is analytic; in life, they are intertwined and (...) the resulting fabric rarely loses its opacity under sociologists’ inquiring gaze. One task of this article is to consider Sennett’s approach to the problem. But methodology is not my primary concern. More important is Sennett’s investigation of the vicissitudes of respect in the context of sundry inequalities. With reference to Markus’s discussion of ‘decency’, this article elucidates Sennett’s views concerning the necessary conditions for the generation and maintenance of respect in the face of obstacles put in its way by both social arrangements and human nature. (shrink)