This title examines the fields of value theory, normative and applied ethics on the issue of killing animals. It addresses a number of questions: Can painless killing harm or benefit an animal and, if so, why and under what conditions? Can coming into existence harm or benefit an animal? Is killing animals morally acceptable? Should animals have the legal right to life? In addressing these questions, animal rights and animal welfare positions are articulated and debated by some of the foremost (...) thinkers on these issues, with a distinction made between rights-based and utilitarian approaches. (shrink)

Im FolgendenKonsumvon Tieren soll das Nutzen von nicht-menschlichen Tieren sowie deren Produkte, Körperteile und Fähigkeiten durch uns Menschen zwecks Nahrungsmittel und Konsumgut aus ethischer Perspektive betrachtet werden. Die Ethik kann in drei Bereiche eingeteilt werden wovon zwei für das vorliegende Thema wichtig sind. Erstens kann mithilfe der Werttheorie gefragt werden, wie es bei der Nutzung um das tierische Wohlergehen gestellt ist. Zweitens kann im Rahmen der Frage nach normativen Handlungsgründen untersucht werden ob es gerechtfertigt ist Tiere zu nutzen. Im Folgenden (...) sollen gängige Positionen zu beiden Fragen angerissen werden. (Die Metaethik, als dritter Bereich der Ethik, soll hier außen vor bleiben.). (shrink)

To systematically compare welfare across species, it is first necessary to explore whether welfare subjects of different species have the same or rather a different capacity for welfare. According to what seems to be the dominant philosophical view, welfare subjects with higher cognitive capacities have a greater capacity for welfare and are generally much better off than those with lower cognitive capacities. Višak carefully explores and rejects this view and argues instead that welfare subjects of different species have the (...) same capacity for welfare despite different cognitive capacities. This book prepares the philosophical ground for comparisons of welfare across species. It will inform and inspire ethicists and animal welfare scientists alike, as well as a broader readership interested in wellbeing, animals, and ethics. (shrink)

The many well-publicized food scandals in recent years have resulted in a general state of vulnerable trust. As a result, building consumer trust has become an important goal in agri-food policy. In their efforts to protect trust in the agricultural and food sector, governments and industries have tended to consider the problem of trust as merely a matter of informing consumers on risks. In this article, we argue that the food sector better addresses the problem of trust from the perspective (...) of the trustworthiness of the food sector itself. This broad idea for changing the focus of trust is the assumption that if you want to be trusted, you should be trustworthy. To provide a clear understanding of what being trustworthy means within the food sector, we elaborate on both the concept of trust and of responsibility. In this way we show that policy focused on enhancing transparency and providing information to consumers is crucial, but not sufficient for dealing with the problem of consumer trust in the current agri-food context. (shrink)

Vanessa Carbonell argues that sacrifices of self, unlike most other sacrifices, cannot be analyzed entirely in terms of wellbeing. For this reason, Carbonell considers sacrifices of self as posing a problem for the wellbeing theory of sacrifice and for discussions about the demandingness of morality. In this paper I take issue with Carbonell’s claim that sacrifices of self cannot be captured as prudential harms. First, I explain why Carbonell considers sacrifices of self particularly problematic. In order to determine whether some (...) state of affairs is harmful for someone, it is necessary to assume a particular account of welfare. In this paper, I assume the self-fulfillment account of welfare. I introduce this theory and show that it can account for the harm of sacrifices of self. (shrink)

Driven by concern about the suffering of animals in nature, Christopher Belshaw argued that if we were exclusively concerned with these animals’ good, we should reduce the number of free-living animals. We should prevent free-living animals from coming into existence and, if this is not possible, we should painlessly end their lives as soon as we can. This holds, according to Belshaw, even if the future lives of these animals would contain much more enjoyment than suffering. Belshaw’s argument rests on (...) two premises. First, he assumes that death does not harm an animal in a way that matters. Second, he takes it that most free-living animals lead a life of uncompensated suffering because the enjoyments in an animal’s life, even if more predominant, cannot outweigh the animal’s suffering. Therefore, since uncompensated suffering exists in about every animal’s life and matters morally and killing the animal does not harm the animal in a way that matters, killing the animal is an appropriate intervention with the aim of preventing its suffering. This article criticizes both assumptions of Belshaw’s argument and shows that his conclusion is insufficiently supported. (shrink)

Das in der Tierethik sehr prominente Argument der Grenzfälle beruht auf dem in der Ethik recht allgemeinen Problem der Grenzfälle. In der Ethik wird häufig argumentiert, dass Menschen aufgrund bestimmter Eigenschaften moralisch zu berücksichtigen seien. Immanuel Kant beispielsweise wird im Allgemeinen so verstanden, dass er die Moralfähigkeit für die relevante Eigenschaft hält, aufgrund derer Menschen eine Würde und damit moralischer Stellenwert zukommt. Nun geht es in solchen Argumenten zur Begründung des moralischen Stellenwerts von Menschen allerdings oft um Eigenschaften, die nicht (...) alle Menschen haben. Es gibt zum Beispiel Menschen, die nicht moralfähig sind, weil sie dafür noch zu jung sind, oder weil ihnen aufgrund von schweren kognitiven Behinderungen die dafür notwendigen Fähigkeiten fehlen. Das Problem der Grenzfälle bezieht sich auf die Herausforderung, vor der viele Theorien stehen, nämlich aufzuzeigen ob und, wenn ja, aufgrund wovon auch solchen Menschen, welche die genannten Eigenschaften nicht haben, ein moralischer Stellenwert zukommt. (shrink)

In his paper “Eating Animals the Nice Way” McMahan : 66–76, 2008) explores whether there are ways of routinely using non-human animals for human consumption that are morally acceptable. He dismisses a practice of benign animal husbandry, in which animals are killed prematurely and believes that a practice in which animals were engineered to drop down dead instantaneously at the same age would be equally wrong, even though it would not involve killing. Yet, McMahan considers his intuition that both practices (...) are equally wrong with regard to our duties towards the involved animals hard to justify. This paper explains in more detail why this commonsensical intuition is indeed hard to justify and explores what it would take to justify it. It takes nothing less than a yet-to-be-specified plausible theory in population ethics and an account of welfare that deals in a plausible way with non-identity cases involving species- or breed-related differences in life expectancy. (shrink)

Jedes Jahr werden weltweit mehr als 65 Milliarden Landtiere für den menschlichen Verzehr getötet. Für einen durchschnittlichen amerikanischen Fleischkonsumenten sind das jährlich etwa 25 Landtiere, vor allem Hühner. Hinzu kommen etwa 12 Fische und 137 andere Meerestiere. Nicht nur für Fleisch werden Tiere getötet. Auch die Milch- und Eierproduktion geht mit dem Töten von Tieren einher. So werden zum Melken verwendete Kühe meist nach wenigen Lebensjahren wegen abnehmender Produktivität getötet, und deren männliche Kälber enden direkt in der Fleischindustrie. Ohne jährlich (...) geschwängert zu werden, geben die Kühe nämlich keine Milch, und die Hälfte der Kälber ist männlich und daher zur Milchproduktion ungeeignet. Auch die männlichen Küken der Legehennen werden direkt geschreddert oder vergast, da sie keine Eier legen und sich für die Fleischproduktion nicht eignen. Auch in anderen Kontexten töten Menschen Tiere, sowohl direkt – z. B. im Rahmen von Tierversuchen oder Automobilität – als auch indirekt, z. B. durch Umweltverschmutzung, den Klimawandel und die Vernichtung von natürlichen Lebensräumen. Unsere Essgewohnheiten gehen einher mit massiven, routinemäßigen und intentionalen Tötungen. Da es sich bei der Ernährung mit tierlichen Produkten meist nicht um eine Notwendigkeit handelt, sondern vielmehr Gewohnheit und geschmackliche Vorzüge eine Rolle spielen, und da den betroffenen Tieren im Allgemeinen ein moralischer Stellenwert zugesprochen wird, drängt sich die Frage nach der Rechtfertigung dieses Tötungszwecks auf. (shrink)

As a member of the British Oxford Group, psychologist Richard Ryder marked the beginning of the modern animal rights and animal welfare movement in the seventies. By introducing the concept “speciesism.” Ryder contributed importantly to the expansion of this movement. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to Ryder’s moral theory, “painism”, that aims to resolve the conflict between the two predominant rival theories in animal ethics, the deontological of Tom Regan and the utilitarian of Peter Singer. First, this paper examines (...) the kernel and historical sources of Ryder’s painist theory, linking it to the work of John Rawls and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Second, it examines Ryder’s critique of utilitarianism. It is argued that his critique of Singer’s use of the word “sentience” is unconvincing and that his critique of utilitarian aggregation as not taking a full account of the metaphysical separateness of persons, has already been countered and dealt with. Finally this paper looks at some of the counterintuitive implications of Ryder’s theory and argues that utilitarianism might have more resources for dealing with its own alleged counterintuitive implications than Ryder acknowledges. (shrink)

I agreed to review this book based on the title alone (coupled with a cover picture of a adult pig and several piglets outdoors in the grass). My decision was justified, since it offers a coherent, detailed response to an important problem in animal ethics and animal welfare: the question of humane (or “animal friendly”) animal husbandry, especially in the meat industry, in which animals are raised with the end of being killed long before the end of their natural lifespan.Humane (...) animal husbandry is based on two distinct assumptions. The first is that animals’ welfare matters, so that they should have pleasant lives and avoid unnecessary suffering. The second is that killing animals for food is morally justified. This is commonly justified, in both popular and philosophical discourse, with the claim that “the animals are granted pleasant lives, usually in connection with the claim that they would not exist at all if it were not for the purpose of our consumption. By consuming and farmin. (shrink)

Academic integrity determines the trust that society has in the quality of education and the results of scientific research. More broadly, it influences honesty, respect for ethical principles, and the fair behaviour of society members. Accordingly, higher education institutions should have clear, transparent and well-communicated policies to defend academic integrity among all stakeholders. Taking into account the worldwide dependence on digital technologies, online communication channels should be also used for this purpose. Using qualitative content analysis, this paper aims to investigate (...) how academic integrity is framed by Latvian and Lithuanian state-financed universities in online public spaces in relation to the criteria of an exemplary academic integrity policy. Given the limited content of publicly available university documents, the research findings indicated a poor correspondence to the mentioned criteria. (shrink)

Many problems that arise when providing pharmacy services may contain some ethical components and the aims of this study were to develop and validate a scale that could assess difficulties of ethical issues, as well as the frequency of those occurrences in everyday practice of community pharmacists. Development and validation of the scale was conducted in three phases: generating items for the initial survey instrument after qualitative analysis; defining the design and format of the instrument; validation of the instrument. The (...) constructed Ethical Issue scale for community pharmacy setting has two parts containing the same 16 items for assessing the difficulty and frequency thereof. The results of the 171 completely filled out scales were analyzed. The Cronbach’s α value of the part of the instrument that examines difficulties of the ethical situations was 0.83 and for the part of the instrument that examined frequency of the ethical situations was 0.84. Test–retest reliability for both parts of the instrument was satisfactory with all Interclass correlation coefficient values above 0.6,. The 16-item scale, as a self assessment tool, demonstrated a high degree of content, criterion, and construct validity and test–retest reliability. The results support its use as a research tool to asses difficulty and frequency of ethical issues in community pharmacy setting. The validated scale needs to be further employed on a larger sample of pharmacists. (shrink)

Researching ethical problems and their frequency could give us a complex picture and greater insight into the types of ethical issues that pharmacists face in providing health care. The overall aim of this study was to assess the pharmacist’s perception of difficulty and frequency of selected ethical issues encountered by the community pharmacists in their everyday practice. A quantitative cross sectional multicenter study was performed using a validated survey instrument - Ethical Issue Scale for Community Pharmacy. The results of the (...) analysis of 690 completely filled out instruments showed the difference between the ethical issues which always occurred, and the ones that pharmacists found most difficult. The majority of respondents were familiar with the Code of Ethics but the correlation between the familiarity and the perceived usefulness of the code in resolving problems in everyday practice was negative. Results showed that patients’ well-being had a high influence on pharmacists’ behavior. The results provided quantitative data by the examination of specific ethical issues and their occurrence. Further empirical research is recommended in order to systematically identify the ethical issues faced by community pharmacists. (shrink)

Wittgenstein ist auf vielschichtige Weise mit Rußland verbunden: als Kriegsfreiwilliger an der Ostfront, als eifriger Leser von Tolstoi und Dostojewski, als Freund Nikolai Bachtins und als Reisender in der Sowjet-Union. Wittgensteins Verhältnis zu Nikolai Bachtin - eine Geistesverwandtschaft vor dem Hintergrund humanistischer Bildung, Religiosität, Askese, Patriotismus und Weltbürgertum - und zu dessen Bruder Michail sowie beider Einfuß auf seine Philosophie, speziell in den Philosophischen Untersuchungen, werden im Detail untersucht. Seine Kontakte zu anderen Exilrussen (bes. Fanja Pascal), die Beziehungen der Bachtin-Brüder (...) zum Brenner-Kreis und Wittgensteins Motive für seine Rußlandreise sowie seinen vagen Plan, sich dort niederzulassen, werden anhand von Tagebuchaufzeichnungen und Korrespondenzen rekonstruiert. (shrink)

Durch Migrationsprozesse und zunehmenden Pluralismus ist in Deutschland das Thema „kulturelle Diversität“ in der Medizin aktueller denn je. In der medizinischen Fachliteratur und im gesellschaftlichen Diskurs wird vermehrt von interkulturellen Konflikten im Kontakt zwischen Arzt und Patient berichtet, was die Frage nach der Rolle von Interkultureller Kompetenz für die klinische Praxis aufwirft. Zunächst widmet sich der Beitrag kritisch den verschiedenen Auffassungen des Begriffs „Kultur“ im medizinischen Kontext, um anschließend eine Methode der interkulturellen Philosophie als eine Möglichkeit für eine kultursensitive Ethik (...) zu skizzieren. Anschließend wird aufgezeigt, welche Schwierigkeiten mit dem Begriff der Interkulturellen Kompetenz verbunden sind und weshalb die Autoren diesen trotzdem als unerlässlich für die Wahrnehmung potentieller Konfliktfelder als auch für den Umgang mit diesen erachten. Schließlich werden derzeitige Entwicklungen in der medizinischen Ausbildung sowie konkrete Beispiele für eine kultursensible Ethikberatung illustriert. Es zeigt sich, dass international zahlreiche Ausgestaltungen Interkultureller Kompetenz in Form von Leitfäden und konkreten Schulungsmodulen existieren, aber auch, dass es in Deutschland an konkreten Umsetzungen in der Breite mangelt und die Zusammenarbeit wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen sowie der betroffenen Institutionen derzeit noch ausbaufähig ist. (shrink)

Following publication of the original article [1], the author reported that the values for LV1, LV2, LV3 and LV4 in row “Website section” of Table 2 should be corrected as follows.

An academic integrity policy usually specifies the university’s ethical principles and values, the forms of appropriate academic behaviour, the penalties for academic malpractice and the procedures for handling policy violations. However, the policy does not itself create academic integrity, but needs to be consistently and effectively communicated, implemented, and applied. This paper presents a case study investigating the extent to which students at Riga Technical University are informed about the university’s academic integrity policy. This quantitative research was performed by surveying (...) two groups of respondents: domestic students in the first year of their bachelor’s studies and the heads of the corresponding study programmes. The results revealed a low level of students’ awareness of the university policy on academic integrity and a lack of systematic institutional approach to promoting academic integrity. The study results also indicated that students with a higher awareness of the university policy on academic integrity were less tolerant towards violations and perceived academic integrity as an essential aspect for both the academic community and student life. These findings establish a foundation for a more extensive discussion of academic integrity issues in Latvia. They can also serve as impetus for similar studies in other Latvian universities, as well as research taking an international comparative perspective. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDurch Migrationsprozesse und zunehmenden Pluralismus ist in Deutschland das Thema „kulturelle Diversität“ in der Medizin aktueller denn je. In der medizinischen Fachliteratur und im gesellschaftlichen Diskurs wird vermehrt von interkulturellen Konflikten im Kontakt zwischen Arzt und Patient berichtet, was die Frage nach der Rolle von Interkultureller Kompetenz für die klinische Praxis aufwirft. Zunächst widmet sich der Beitrag kritisch den verschiedenen Auffassungen des Begriffs „Kultur“ im medizinischen Kontext, um anschließend eine Methode der interkulturellen Philosophie als eine Möglichkeit für eine kultursensitive Ethik (...) zu skizzieren. Anschließend wird aufgezeigt, welche Schwierigkeiten mit dem Begriff der Interkulturellen Kompetenz verbunden sind und weshalb die Autoren diesen trotzdem als unerlässlich für die Wahrnehmung potentieller Konfliktfelder als auch für den Umgang mit diesen erachten. Schließlich werden derzeitige Entwicklungen in der medizinischen Ausbildung sowie konkrete Beispiele für eine kultursensible Ethikberatung illustriert. Es zeigt sich, dass international zahlreiche Ausgestaltungen Interkultureller Kompetenz in Form von Leitfäden und konkreten Schulungsmodulen existieren, aber auch, dass es in Deutschland an konkreten Umsetzungen in der Breite mangelt und die Zusammenarbeit wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen sowie der betroffenen Institutionen derzeit noch ausbaufähig ist. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungWie ist die Auswahl zukünftiger Kinder in moralischer Hinsicht zu beurteilen? Der Beitrag untersucht diese Frage auf der Basis eines liberalen Prinzips der reproduktiven Freiheit, welches Handlungsspielräume und Privatsphäre in Fragen der Fortpflanzung verteidigt, wenn nicht gewichtige moralische Gründe aufgezeigt werden können, welche den Handlungen der beteiligten Personen Grenzen setzen. Er beschränkt sich auf die negative Auswahl, d. h. die Auswahl von gesunden Kindern anstelle von zukünftigen Kindern mit Behinderung oder gesundheitlicher Beeinträchtigung. Erörtert werden selektionsbefürwortende Überlegungen, welche das Wohlergehen des (...) zukünftigen Kindes in den Fokus rücken, und zwei grundsätzlich selektionskritische Argumente. Das erste verweist auf parentale Tugenden, welche mit der Auswahl zukünftiger Kinder unvereinbar wären. Bei dem zweiten handelt es sich um den Einwand der Diskriminierung von Menschen mit Behinderung. Das Ergebnis der Diskussion ist, dass es zukünftigen Eltern in den meisten Fällen freisteht, die Entscheidung über die Auswahl ihrer Kinder im Licht ihrer Ziele und Werte zu treffen. (shrink)

In this paper I confront what I take to be the crucial challenge for fictional realism, i.e. the view that fictional characters exist. This is the problem of accounting for the intuition that corresponding negative existentials such as ‘Sherlock Holmes does not exist’ are true (when, given fictional realism, taken literally they seem false). I advance a novel and detailed form of the response according to which we take them to mean variants of such claims as: there is no concrete (...) x such that x is Sherlock Holmes. (shrink)

The development of an information society and information technologies does not result in positive consequences only. Individuals with criminal intent also find their niche. Information security includes the creation of the input, processing and output processes of protection. The objective of information security is to protect the system of values, to protect and ensure accuracy and integrity and to minimize losses that may be incurred if the information is modified or destroyed. In the development of an information society, the new (...) visible changes in the legislation for the classification of crimes–crimes against computers–altered the concept of electronic crime data and information system security concepts. This article presents a brief analysis on the concept of the change of crimes against security of electronic data and information systems, the legislation analysis, the crimes against security of electronic data systems and information dynamics and its relationship with business factors. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to applications of algebraic logic to databases. In databases a query is represented by a formula of first order logic. The same query can be associated with different formulas. Thus, a query is a class of equivalent formulae: equivalence here being similar to that in the transition to the Lindenbaum-Tarski algebra. An algebra of queries is identified with the corresponding algebra of logic. An algebra of replies to the queries is also associated with algebraic logic. These (...) relations lie at the core of the applications.In this paper it is shown how the theory of Halmos (polyadic) algebras (a notion introduced by Halmos as a tool in the algebraization of the first order predicate calculus) is used to create the algebraic model of a relational data base. The model allows us, in particular, to solve the problem of databases equivalence as well as develop a formal algebraic definition of a database's state description. In this paper we use the term "state description" for the logical description of the model. This description is based on the notion of filters in Halmos algebras. When speaking of a state description, we mean the description of a function which realizes the symbols of relations as real relations in the given system of data. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to discuss the criminalization of conduct based on human dignity arguments. It proposes a modest version of integrating human dignity into discussions about criminalization. After a critical examination of both the notion of “human dignity as an objective value” and the assumption that the meaning of human dignity can be explained by referring to Kant’s moral philosophy, human dignity violations are characterized as severe humiliations.

This paper focuses on a crucial and insufficiently examined issue of the conflict between legality and legitimacy, seen as a key element in securing continuity and providing the intellectual justification of the Francoist regime. Without analyzing the tension between legality and legitimacy, it is impossible to comprehend and successfully dismantle the thesis of the regime's intellectuals, recently revitalized by revisionist historians, according to which Francoism succeeded in re-establishing historical continuity and political normalcy in Spanish society. In the context of the (...) Cold War, it was crucial for Spanish legal scholars to portray Francoism not as a bastion of anti-liberalism, but as a regime whose survival entailed an original interpretation of notions such as freedom, rule of law, sovereignty and authority. They argued that the significance of Francoism consisted not only in defeating liberalism in Spain but in offering an alternative interpretation of its main tenets. By aspiring to justify and overcome its own historical exceptionality, the Francoist regime sought to avoid the inevitability of its demise. By virtue of its failure to do so, Francoism remained outside the European political norm, to which only democratic Spain would be re-admitted. (shrink)