Background Post-September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has labeled thousands of Afghan war detainees "unlawful combatants". This label effectively deprives these detainees of the protection they would receive as "prisoners of war" under international humanitarian law. Reports have emerged that indicate that thousands of detainees being held in secret military facilities outside the United States are being subjected to questionable "stress and duress" interrogation tactics by U.S. authorities. If true, American military physicians could be inadvertently becoming complicit in detainee abuse. (...) Moreover, the American government's openly negative views towards such detainees could result in military physicians not wanting to provide reasonable care to detainees, despite it being their ethical duty to do so. Discussion This paper assesses the physician's obligations to treat war detainees in the light of relevant instruments of international humanitarian law and medical ethics. It briefly outlines how detainee abuse flourished in apartheid South Africa when state physicians became morally detached from the interests of their detainee patients. I caution U.S physicians not to let the same mindset befall them. I urge the U.S. medical community to advocate for detainee rights in the U.S, regardless of the political culture the detainee emerged from. I offer recommendations to U.S physicians facing dual loyalty conflicts of interest in the "war on terror". Summary If U.S. physicians are faced with a conflict of interest between following national policies or international principles of humanitarian law and medical ethics, they should opt to adhere to the latter when treating war detainees. It is important for the U.S. medical community to speak out against possible detainee abuse by the U.S. government. (shrink)

Participant safety and data integrity, critical in trials of new investigational drugs, are achieved through honest participant report and precision in the conduct of procedures. HIV prevention post-trial access studies in middle-income countries potentially offer participants many benefits including access to proven efficacious but unlicensed technologies, ancillary care that often exceeds local standards-of-care, financial reimbursement for participation and possibly unintended benefits if participants choose to share or sell investigational drugs. This case study examines the possibility that this combination of benefits (...) may constitute an undue inducement for some participants in middle-income countries, where economic challenges are prevalent. A case study is presented of a single participant in a cohort of 382 participants who used concealment, fabrication and deception to ensure eligibility for a post-trial access study of an unlicensed HIV prevention technology at potential risk to her health and that of her fetus. A root cause analysis revealed her desire to access HIV prevention during an unplanned pregnancy with a partner whose faithfulness was in question. Researchers should consider implementation of systems to efficiently identify similar cases without inconveniencing the majority of participants Trial registration number NCT01691768. (shrink)

Background Post-September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has labeled thousands of Afghan war detainees "unlawful combatants". This label effectively deprives these detainees of the protection they would receive as "prisoners of war" under international humanitarian law. Reports have emerged that indicate that thousands of detainees being held in secret military facilities outside the United States are being subjected to questionable "stress and duress" interrogation tactics by U.S. authorities. If true, American military physicians could be inadvertently becoming complicit in detainee abuse. (...) Moreover, the American government's openly negative views towards such detainees could result in military physicians not wanting to provide reasonable care to detainees, despite it being their ethical duty to do so. Discussion This paper assesses the physician's obligations to treat war detainees in the light of relevant instruments of international humanitarian law and medical ethics. It briefly outlines how detainee abuse flourished in apartheid South Africa when state physicians became morally detached from the interests of their detainee patients. I caution U.S physicians not to let the same mindset befall them. I urge the U.S. medical community to advocate for detainee rights in the U.S, regardless of the political culture the detainee emerged from. I offer recommendations to U.S physicians facing dual loyalty conflicts of interest in the "war on terror". Summary If U.S. physicians are faced with a conflict of interest between following national policies or international principles of humanitarian law and medical ethics, they should opt to adhere to the latter when treating war detainees. It is important for the U.S. medical community to speak out against possible detainee abuse by the U.S. government. (shrink)

The development of the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system has generated new possibilities for the use of gene drive constructs to reduce or suppress mosquito populations to levels that do not support disease transmission. Despite this prospect, social resistance to genetically modified organisms remains high. Gene drive open field research thus raises important questions regarding what is owed to those who may not consent to such research, or those could be affected by the proposed research, but whose consent is not solicited. (...) The precise circumstances under which informed consent must be obtained, and from whom, requires careful consideration. Furthermore, appropriate engagement processes should be central to any introduction of genetically modified mosquitos in proposed target settings. In this work, international guidance documents on informed consent and engagement are reviewed and applied to the genetically modified mosquito research context. Five analogous research endeavours that involve area-wide / open field experiments are reviewed. The approach of each in respect to the solicitation of individual informed consent and community engagement are highlighted. While the solicitation of individual informed consent in host settings of gene drive field trials may not be possible or feasible in some instances, local community and stakeholder engagement will be key to building trust towards the proposed conduct of such research. In this regard, the approaches taken by investigators and sponsors of political science field research and weather modification field research should be avoided. Rather, proponents of gene drive field research should look to the Eliminate Dengue field trials, cluster randomised trials, and pragmatic clinical trials for guidance regarding how the solicitation of individual informed consent of host communities ought to be managed, and how these communities ought to be engaged. (shrink)

The development of the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system has generated new possibilities for the use of gene drive constructs to reduce or suppress mosquito populations to levels that do not support disease transmission. Despite this prospect, social resistance to genetically modified organisms remains high. Gene drive open field research thus raises important questions regarding what is owed to those who may not consent to such research, or those could be affected by the proposed research, but whose consent is not solicited. (...) The precise circumstances under which informed consent must be obtained, and from whom, requires careful consideration. Furthermore, appropriate engagement processes should be central to any introduction of genetically modified mosquitos in proposed target settings. In this work, international guidance documents on informed consent and engagement are reviewed and applied to the genetically modified mosquito research context. Five analogous research endeavours that involve area-wide / open field experiments are reviewed. The approach of each in respect to the solicitation of individual informed consent and community engagement are highlighted. While the solicitation of individual informed consent in host settings of gene drive field trials may not be possible or feasible in some instances, local community and stakeholder engagement will be key to building trust towards the proposed conduct of such research. In this regard, the approaches taken by investigators and sponsors of political science field research and weather modification field research should be avoided. Rather, proponents of gene drive field research should look to the Eliminate Dengue field trials, cluster randomised trials, and pragmatic clinical trials for guidance regarding how the solicitation of individual informed consent of host communities ought to be managed, and how these communities ought to be engaged. (shrink)

Recruiting nurses from other countries is a long-standing practice. In recent years many countries in the developed world have more frequently recruited nurses from the developing world, causing an imbalance in the health services in often already impoverished countries. Despite guidelines and promises by developed countries that the practice should cease, it has largely failed to do so. A consortium of authors from countries that have experienced significant nurse poaching consider the ethical aspects behind this continuing practice.

South Africa has adopted a paternalistic stance on the minimum age of enrolment for HIV vaccine trials, and on the level of compensation for trial participants. Whilst this approach has presumably been taken to protect the interests of research participants an over-protective approach, however well-intended, does not always serve the interests of the particularly vulnerable. It will be argued that an inclusive approach, based on the principles of beneficence and justice, can better guide research in such a way that the (...) necessary data are generated while also furthering the interests of the particularly vulnerable members of a study population. (shrink)

The Médecins Sans Frontières ethics review board has been solicited in an unprecedented way to provide advice and review research protocols in an ‘emergency’ mode during the recent Ebola epidemic. Twenty-seven Ebola-related study protocols were reviewed between March 2014 and August 2015, ranging from epidemiological research, to behavioural research, infectivity studies and clinical trials with investigational products at early development stages. This article examines the MSF ERB’s experience addressing issues related to both the process of review and substantive ethical issues (...) in this context. These topics include lack of policies regarding blood sample collection and use, and engaging communities regarding their storage and future use; exclusion of pregnant women from clinical and vaccine trials; and the difficulty of implementing timely and high-quality qualitative/anthropological research to consider potential upfront harms. Having noticed different standards across ethics committees, we propose that when multiple ethics reviews of clinical and vaccine trials are carried out during a public health emergency they should be accompanied by transparent communication between the ECs involved. The MSF ERB experience should trigger a broader discussion on the ‘optimal’ ethics review in an emergency outbreak and what enduring structural changes are needed to improve the ethics review process. (shrink)

Over recent years, the research community has been increasingly using preprint servers to share manuscripts that are not yet peer-reviewed. Even if it enables quick dissemination of research findings, this practice raises several challenges in publication ethics and integrity. In particular, preprints have become an important source of information for stakeholders interested in COVID19 research developments, including traditional media, social media, and policy makers. Despite caveats about their nature, many users can still confuse pre-prints with peer-reviewed manuscripts. If unconfirmed but (...) already widely shared first-draft results later prove wrong or misinterpreted, it can be very difficult to “unlearn” what we thought was true. Complexity further increases if unconfirmed findings have been used to inform guidelines. To help achieve a balance between early access to research findings and its negative consequences, we formulated five recommendations: (a) consensus should be sought on a term clearer than ‘pre-print’, such as ‘Unrefereed manuscript’, “Manuscript awaiting peer review” or ‘’Non-reviewed manuscript”; (b) Caveats about unrefereed manuscripts should be prominent on their first page, and each page should include a red watermark stating ‘Caution—Not Peer Reviewed’; (c) pre-print authors should certify that their manuscript will be submitted to a peer-review journal, and should regularly update the manuscript status; (d) high level consultations should be convened, to formulate clear principles and policies for the publication and dissemination of non-peer reviewed research results; (e) in the longer term, an international initiative to certify servers that comply with good practices could be envisaged. (shrink)

Médecins Sans Frontières is one of the world’s leading humanitarian medical organizations. The increased emphasis in MSF on research led to the creation of an ethics review board in 2001. The ERB has encouraged innovation in the review of proposals and the interaction between the ERB and the organization. This has led to some of the advances in ethics governance described in this paper.

Ethical review systems need to build on their experiences of COVID-19 research to enhance their preparedness for future pandemics. Recommendations from representatives from over twenty countries include: improving relationships across the research ecosystem; demonstrating willingness to reform and adapt systems and processes; and making the case robustly for better resourcing.

Metaethical constitutivists seek to ground normativity in facts about what is constitutive of agency. One strand of constitutivism locates the foundations of normativity in constitutive aims, which are standardly conceived of in teleological terms. I present three challenges that show that the teleological conception of constitutive aims is inadequate for the constitutivist project. I then sketch an alternative conception of constitutive aims in the form of a commitment-based conception. On the commitment-based conception, actions and attitudes constitutively represent their objects as (...) having certain properties, and their constitutive aims are fixed by the accuracy-conditions of these representations. Because such representations constitutively involve a commitment on the part of the agent to the object’s having the relevant property, they generate authoritative norms for the agent. I conclude that, unlike the teleological conception, the commitment-based conception promises to yield a unified constitutivism that delivers authoritative normative standards for both actions and attitudes. (shrink)

Kagan ponders a series of important nodes of debate while challenging us to examine what we know and why we know it. Most critically he presents an elegant argument for functions of mind that cannot be replaced with sentences about brains while acknowledging that mind emerges from brain activity. He relies on the evidence to argue that thoughts and emotions are distinct from their biological and genetic bases. In separate chapters he deals with the meaning of words, kinds of knowing, (...) the powerful influence of social class, the functions of education, emotion, morality, and other issues. And without fail he sheds light on these ideas while remaining honest to their complexity." -- Publisher's description. (shrink)

A manifesto for the humanities in the digital age, A New Republic of Letters argues that the history of texts, together with the methods by which they are preserved and made available for interpretation, are the overriding subjects of humanist study in the twenty-first century. Theory and philosophy, which have grounded the humanities for decades, no longer suffice as an intellectual framework. Jerome McGann proposes we look instead to philology--a discipline which has been out of fashion for many decades (...) but which models the concerns of digital humanities with surprising fidelity. For centuries, books have been the best way to preserve and transmit knowledge. But as libraries and museums digitize their archives and readers abandon paperbacks for tablet computers, digital media are replacing books as the repository of cultural memory. While both the mission of the humanities and its traditional modes of scholarship and critical study are the same, the digital environment is driving disciplines to work with new tools that require major, and often very difficult, institutional changes. Now more than ever, scholars need to recover the theory and method of philological investigation if the humanities are to meet their perennial commitments. Textual and editorial scholarship, often marginalized as a narrowly technical domain, should be made a priority of humanists' attention. (shrink)

La literatura nacida en ámbito monástico o asociada al mismo, ofrece aspectos ponderables sobre la antropología teológica. Señalaremos algunos conceptos al respecto, sobre todo a partir de la memoria y la construcción de la propia identidad. El Himno de la Perla se caracteriza por haber sido objeto de disímiles interpretaciones, siendo considerado desde un texto iranio a una composición gnóstica. Presentaremos una lectura narrativa, tomando como categorías de aproximación el recuerdo y el olvido, a partir de las cuales plantearemos un (...) posible vínculo entre el Himno de la Perla y el Pseudo-Macario. Quispel, ya en 1967, estableció un parentesco de Teología (Verwandschaft der Teologie), destacando que también se encuentran paralelismos de forma. Tomando en cuenta este notable aporte, procuraremos indagar en la literatura pseudo-macariana acerca de tales parentescos con el Himno de la Perla y la literatura sobre el apóstol Tomás. (shrink)

Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors-...

Living in the Borderland addresses the evolution of Western consciousness and describes the emergence of the "Borderland," a spectrum of reality that is beyond the rational yet is palpable to an increasing number of individuals. Building on Jungian theory, Jerome Bernstein argues that a greater openness to transrational reality experienced by Borderland personalities allows new possibilities for understanding and healing confounding clinical and developmental enigmas." "Living in the Borderland challenges the standard clinical model, which views normality as an absence (...) of pathology and which equates normality with the rational. Jerome S. Bernstein describes how psychotherapy itself often contributes to the alienation of Borderland personalities by misperceiving the difference between the pathological and the sacred. The case studies included illustrate the potential this has for causing serious psychic and emotional damage to the patient." "This challenge to the orthodoxies and complacencies of western medicine's concept of pathology will interest Jungian Analysts, Psychotherapists, Psychiatrists and other physicians, as well as educators of children. (shrink)

"No soy de los que deploran la especialización; en todo caso, dudo que sea posible, aunque fuere deseable, frenar la persecución de un saber especializado, en complejas sociedades. Pero es que la filosofía del Derecho ha descansado tradicionalmente en una perspectiva muy amplia, y hay que lamentar de modo especial la pérdida de sus funciones unitivas debido a la extraordinaria necesidad presente de comprender y mejorar las instituciones jurídicas. La situación actual no clama por la desvalorización de la especialización, sino (...) que, por el contrario, desafía a los estudiosos a trascender las especializaciones de la filosofía del Derecho, y cualquiera fuere la utilidad que con ello pudiera lograrse, a construir una jusfilosofía que satisfaga más adecuadamente las presentes demandas". Jerome Hall. (shrink)

The Great Illusion takes a scientific look at the brain itself, presenting research that supports the naturalistic stance that the mind is identical to the brain. Singh argues that if we take seriously the idea that the mind is the brain then it follows logically that free will must be an illusion, that there can be no consciousness independent of the brain, and that there can be no substantial self that exists independently from the brain. He further argues that (...) there can be no such thing as absolute moral responsibility. (shrink)

Essays on Sikh philosophy, ethos and politics ; previously published in Panjabi newspapers and magazines.

Year after year, our exposure to the Gita remains limited to these fleeting visual engagements as they become part of our muscle memory as we go about our chores.

In this commentary, I raise a few questions about Schmidt’s argument against (R-E): whether facts about incoherence are directly reasons for suspension on particular propositions, as opposed to reasons against sets of attitudes; whether (R-E) should really be formulated in terms of a broad category of “doxastic attitudes” that includes transitional attitudes like suspension; and whether incoherence-based reasons really must fit into the category of “epistemic reasons,” as opposed to be a more general category of right-kind reasons. Though my questions (...) reflect some skepticism about the specifics of Schmidt’s argument, I conclude that it succeeds in what I take to be its broader aim. (shrink)

Our concern in this paper lies with a common argument from racial discrimination to realism about races: some people are discriminated against for being members of a particular race (i.e., racial discrimination exists), so some people must be members of that race (i.e., races exist). Error theorists have long responded that we can explain racial discrimination in terms of racial attitudes alone, so we need not explain it in terms of race itself. But to date there has been little detailed (...) discussion of whether it is better to explain racial discrimination in terms of race or in terms of racial attitudes alone. Our goal is to offer a novel and detailed argument in defense of explaining racial discrimination in terms of racial attitudes alone, by attending to the neglected phenomenon of misperception discrimination, which involves differential treatment due to misperceived race. We argue that the discriminatory action in misperception cases must be explained in the same way as cases where (according to the realist) the victim’s race is accurately perceived. Thus, the victim’s actual race cannot provide the best explanation. The main upshot of our argument is that explanatory arguments from racial discrimination to realism about race fail. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In his ‘Rationality versus Normativity’, John Broome argues against the view that rationality is reducible to normativity. Broome’s argument rests on the claim that while rationality supervenes on the mind, normativity does not. In this commentary, I argue that Broome's arguments succeed only against views on which reasons and normativity are univocal. Once we admit of multiple kinds of normative reasons, some fact-given and others non-factive, a version of the reasons-responsiveness view emerges that is untouched by Broome's arguments. On (...) such a view, rationality supervenes on non-factive reasons, not on fact-given ones, so rationality supervenes on a kind of normativity that supervenes on the mind. This shows that Broome has not refuted reasons-responsiveness views wholesale. Moreover, because Broome’s arguments do refute univocal versions of reasons-responsiveness views, they provide a justification for preferring non-univocal versions of reasons-responsiveness views to univocal ones. (shrink)

Evaluative Conditioning (EC) refers to changes in our liking or disliking of a stimulus due to its pairing with other positive or negative stimuli. In addition to stimulus-based mechanisms, recent research has shown that action-based mechanisms can also lead to EC effects. Research, based on action control theories, has shown that pairing a positive or negative action with a neutral stimulus results in EC effects (Stimulus-Response binding). Similarly, research studies using Operant Conditioning (OC) approaches have also observed EC effects. The (...) aim of the present study is to directly compare EC effects elicited by two different response-based approaches – S-R bindings and OC. To this end, participants were randomly assigned to an S-R binding procedure and an OC procedure. EC effects were measured in conditions and compared. Implications for EC theory are discussed. (shrink)

This article examines the idioms of ‘modernity’ with specific focus on indigenous peoples and their engagement with larger society in respect of culture, development and jurisprudence. This engagement in the past 50 years has largely been within the terms of the nation-state system, and related international fora. It is argued that these indigeneous communities, in all their great diversity across the world, have nevertheless been largely successful in carving out adequate political spaces to stake their claims as distinct ‘peoples’ rather (...) than simply being recognized as one among the several ethnic groups or minorities of a nation-state polity. This distinction is crucial and this paper shows why and how. This is not to say that the indigenous communities the world over have similar terms of engagement as their own heterogeneity defies any neat typological schema. At the same time, the multiple idioms of the current indigenous discourse, however, should not be treated as cacophonic but as embodying consciously crafted tools for boundary negotiations and voicing indigenous identities. This article reflects on this achievement by providing a survey of these developments even as it critically explores the terms of the discourses themselves. (shrink)

Implemented gradually since 2002 and following in the footsteps of the “Bologna Process” initiated in the late 1990s, successive reforms of university education in France have profoundly changed the landscape of higher professional degrees. The Diplômes d’Enseignement Supérieur Spécialisé (DESS) (Specialized Higher Education Diplomas), which have become professional Masters, offer a paradigmatic example of the tensions between the former aims of professionalization in universities and the teaching to, by, or for research present in these diplomas. The case of the professional (...) Master’s degree in “Strategy and Engineering in Adult Training” (SIFA) at Rennes 2 University illustrates this problem. (shrink)