Biobanks correspond to different situations: research and technological development, medical diagnosis or therapeutic activities. Their status is not clearly defined. We aimed to investigate human biobanking in Europe, particularly in relation to organisational, economic and ethical issues in various national contexts. Data from a survey in six EU countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the UK) were collected as part of a European Research Project examining human and non-human biobanking (EUROGENBANK, coordinated by Professor JC Galloux). A total of (...) 147 institutions concerned with biobanking of human samples and data were investigated by questionnaires and interviews. Most institutions surveyed belong to the public or private non-profit-making sectors, which have a key role in biobanking. This activity is increasing in all countries because few samples are discarded and genetic research is proliferating. Collections vary in size, many being small and only a few very large. Their purpose is often research, or research and healthcare, mostly in the context of disease studies. A specific budget is very rarely allocated to biobanking and costs are not often evaluated. Samples are usually provided free of charge and gifts and exchanges are the common rule. Good practice guidelines are generally followed and quality controls are performed but quality procedures are not always clearly explained. Associated data are usually computerised (identified or identifiable samples). Biobankers generally favour centralisation of data rather than of samples. Legal and ethical harmonisation within Europe is considered likely to facilitate international collaboration. We propose a series of recommendations and suggestions arising from the EUROGENBANK project. (shrink)
The recent literature on social norms has stressed the centrality of emotions in explaining punishment and norm enforcement. This article discusses four negative emotions (righteous anger, indignation, contempt, and disgust) and examines their relationship to punitive behavior. I argue that righteous anger and indignation are both punitive emotions strictly speaking, but induce punishments of different intensity and have distinct elicitors. Contempt and disgust, for their part, cannot be straightforwardly considered punitive emotions, although they often blend with a colder form of (...) indignation to favor low-cost, indirect, and collective forms of punishment such as mockery, exclusion, and ostracism. (shrink)
It is widely agreed that humans have specific abilities for cooperation and culture that evolved since their split with their last common ancestor with chimpanzees. Many uncertainties remain, however, about the exact moment in the human lineage when these abilities evolved. This article argues that cooperation and culture did not evolve in one step in the human lineage and that the capacity to stick to long-term and risky cooperative arrangements evolved before properly modern culture. I present evidence that Homo heidelbergensis (...) became increasingly able to secure contributions form others in two demanding Paleolithic public good games (PPGGs): cooperative feeding and cooperative breeding. I argue that the temptation to defect is high in these PPGGs and that the evolution of human cooperation in Homo heidelberngensis is best explained by the emergence of modern-like abilities for inhibitory control and goal maintenance. These executive functions are localized in the prefrontal cortex and allow humans to stick to social norms in the face of competing motivations. This scenario is consistent with data on brain evolution that indicate that the largest growth of the prefrontal cortex in human evolution occurred in Homo heidelbergensis and was followed by relative stasis in this part of the brain. One implication of this argument is that subsequent behavioral innovations, including the evolution of symbolism, art, and properly cumulative culture in modern Homo sapiens , are unlikely to be related to a reorganization of the prefrontal cortex, despite frequent claims to the contrary in the literature on the evolution of human culture and cognition. (shrink)
The paper defends the idea that strong reciprocity, although it accounts for the existence of deep cooperation among humans, has difficulty explaining why humans lived for most of their history in band-size groups and why the emergence of larger societies was accompanied by increased social differentiation and political centralization. The paper argues that the costs of incurring an altruistic punishment rise in large groups and that the emergence of large-scale societies depends on the creation of institutions that render control of (...) these costs possible through a social division of sanction. Key Words: cooperation • strong reciprocity • cultural evolution • political evolution. (shrink)
Research on folk epistemology usually takes place within one of two different paradigms. The first is centered on epistemic theories or, in other words, the way people think about knowledge. The second is centered on epistemic intuitions, that is, the way people intuitively distinguish knowledge from belief. In this paper, we argue that insufficient attention has been paid to the connection between the two paradigms, as well as to the mechanisms that underlie the use of both epistemic intuitions and theories. (...) We contend that research on folk epistemology must examine the use of both intuitions and theories in the pragmatic context of the game of giving and asking for reasons and, more generally, understand how these practices take place within the broader context of normative social cognition. (shrink)
Peut-être que je devrais commencer par cette scène. Je me retrouve avec des inconnus dans le grand hall intérieur d’un bâtiment aux aspects brutalistes. En face de nous se situe l’autre partie de la construction, rendue visible par de longues baies vitrées, et où réside une famille. Lorsqu’à l’automne 2010, je suis en ce lieu, à attendre pour la première fois ce qui est clairement mis en scène comme une apparition, je connais bien les différents acteurs par des livres et (...) des films, je n’ai pa.. (shrink)
In this paper the relations between the almost unknown Spanish mathematician Ventura Reyes Prósper (1863-1922) with Charles S. Peirce and Christine Ladd-Franklin are described. Two brief papers from Reyes Prósper published in El Progreso Matemático 12 (20 December 1891), pp. 297-300, and 18 (15 June 1892) pp. 170-173 on Ladd-Franklin, and on Peirce and Mitchell, respectively, are translated for first time into English and included at the end of the paper.
Christine Delphy is a major architect of materialist feminism, a radical feminist perspective which she developed in the context of the French women's movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She has always been controversial and continues to make original and challenging contributions to current feminist debates. This informative volume profiles Delphy and discusses topics including her opposition to the idea that femininity and masculinity are natural phenomena. Her insistence that women and men are social categories, defined by (...) the hierarchical relationship between them rather than by biology, typifies the materialist school within French feminism. In this lucid introduction to Delphy's work, Stevi Jackson recounts the events in Delphy's life as a feminist activist and the social and political context of her work. This text is essential reading for anyone with an interest in feminism or cultural history, this is a readable and accessible introduction to a key thinker in the modern women's movement. (shrink)
The idea that there is such an analytic connection will hardly come as news. It amounts to no more and no less than an endorsement of the claim that all reasons are 'internal', as opposed to 'external', to use Bernard Williams's terms (Williams 1980). Or, to put things in the way Christine Korsgaard favours, it amounts to an endorsement of the 'internalism requirement' on reasons (Korsgaard 1986). But how exactly is the internalism requirement to be understood? What does it (...) tell us about the nature of reasons? And where-in lies its appeal? My aim in this paper is to answer these ques- tions. (shrink)
According to the "recognitional" view of practical reason, rational practical reasoning consists in trying to figure out which of the available options are good things to do, and then choosing accordingly. According to the rival "constructivist" view, rational practical reasoning consists in complying with certain conditions of purely formal coherence or procedural rationality. Christine Korsgaard objects that recognitional views cannot answer the "normative question". But constructivist views are vulnerable to the same objection. One version of the recognitional view is (...) immune to this objection, and can also be defended against David Velleman's charge that it is empty and without content. (shrink)
Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting It Right is written in a manner that is accessible to all. Frankfurt’s arguments are, as usual, clear and persuasive. Korsgaard’s, Bratman’s, and Dan-Cohen’s comments are thought provoking. There are, however, two main areas in which Frankfurt’s arguments need clarification (the notion of wholehearted identification, and the concept of ambivalence), and there are misunderstandings of Frankfurt at work in Korsgaard’s (relationship between the self and the will, and concept of the will for Frankfurt) and Bratman’s (...) (meaning of "necessity" for Frankfurt) comments. (shrink)
Some concepts, such as colour concepts or value concepts, seem to bear traces of the mind's own make-up. For instance, the character of perceptually-determined colour concepts seems in some sense derivative from the character of the visual system. Thus, it has seemed plausible to claim that the corresponding colour properties are dispositions to elicit certain visual experiences in normal observers under suitable conditions. Much the same has been suggested for value concepts. An extreme position would be that colours and values (...) therefore are not in the world at all, they instead are mere projections that tell us more about the users of response-dependent concepts than about the world they inhabit. But even setting aside such extreme views, a number of important philosophical and psychological questions remain open. What exactly is response-dependence, and does any concept have this feature? What is the appropriate metaphysics for properties represented by response-dependent concepts, and for these concepts themselves? What determines the extension of such properties? How are we to account for knowledge expressed in terms of response-dependent concepts? What mechanisms correctly explain the origins of response-dependent concepts, and their role in representation? This volume brings together a wide range of views on these questions. (shrink)
Bosse-de-Nage, singe papion Ha ha. Alfred Jarry, Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien (1898), II, x, et passim. Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, savant humain L’homme rend par un signe extérieur ce qui se passe au-dedans de lui, il communique sa pensée par la parole, ce signe est commun à toute l’espèce humaine, l’homme sauvage parle comme l’homme policé, & tous deux parlent naturellement, & parlent pour se faire entendre : aucun des Animaux n’a ce signe de la pensée, ce (...) n’e.. (shrink)
The author argues against Christine Korsgaard's influential interpretation of Kant's contradiction in conception test of the categorical imperative. Korsgaard's rejection of the ‘teleological' interpretation is shown to be based on a misunderstanding of the role that teleology plays for Kant in ruling out immoral maxims, and her defence of the ‘practical' interpretation is shown to be less faithful to the text than the competing ‘logical' interpretation. The works of Barbara Herman and Allen Wood are also discussed and evaluated.
