-/- Policy regulations of ethically controversial genetic technologies should, on the one hand, be based on ethical principles. On the other hand, they should be socially acceptable to ensure implementation. In addition, they should align with ethical theory. Yet to date we lack a reliable and valid scale to measure the relevant ethical judgements in laypeople. We target this lacuna. -/- We developed a scale based on ethical principles to elicit lay judgments: the Genetic Technologies Questionnaire (GTQ). In two pilot (...) studies and a pre-registered main study, we validated the scale in a representative sample of the US population. -/- The final version of the scale contains 20 items but remains highly reliable even when reduced to five. It also predicts behaviour; for example, ethical judgments as measured by the GTQ predicted hypothetical donations and grocery shopping. In addition, the GTQ may be of interest to policymakers and ethicists because it reveals coherent and ethically justified judgments in laypeople. For instance, the GTQ indicates that ethical judgments are sensitive to possible benefits and harms (in line with utilitarian ethics), but also to ethical principles such as the value of consent-autonomy. -/- In conclusion, the GTQ can be recommended for research in both experimental psychology and applied ethics, as well as a tool for ethically and empirically informed policymaking. (shrink)

The debate about embryonic stem cell research is a conflict not between “religion” and “science,” but between two ethical approaches to the dignity of human beings. The newer, more pragmatic ethic is not necessarily more conducive to rapid medical progress as is often assumed.

: Stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos is incompatible with Catholic moral principles, and with any ethic that gives serious weight to the moral status of the human embryo. Moreover, because there are promising and morally acceptable alternative approaches to the repair and regeneration of human tissues, and because treatments that rely on destruction of human embryos would be morally offensive to many patients, embryonic stem cell research may play a far less significant role in medical (...) progress than proponents believe. (shrink)

The philosophy of Christian Wolff is regarded to represent one of the most important schools of thought of the 18th century Enlightenment. The influence of this philosophy was based on a network of followers and disciples who propagated Wolff s work in the scholarly community and defended it against critics. This book, for the first time, explores the role of Ernst Christoph von Manteuffel. As imperial count, minister in the Cabinet of Poland Saxony and an agent of the Court of (...) Vienna, he was the decisive figure who initiated this network and led it for more than one and a half decades until his death in 1749. ". (shrink)

The ethical debate on embryo research, particularly on whether to destroy human embryos for stem cell research, is sometimes said to involve a confrontation between religion and science. The claim is misleading at best. Ironically, religious claims have not infrequently been invoked by those who support human embryonic stem cell research, who have said that such research will enable us to “answer the prayers of America’s families” or present us with “the biblical power to cure.” And even religious organizations have (...) often made the case against the ethical acceptability of this research relying on science, and on general ethical considerations that transcend religious divisions. The Catholic Church, in particular, maintains that the ethical norm against directly taking the life of any innocent human being can be understood and embraced by people of good will, with or without religious faith, and that the application of this norm to the present controversy depends on an understanding of some basic facts about early human development. (shrink)

Episodic memory has been analyzed in a number of different ways in both philosophy and psychology, and most controversy has centered on its self-referential,autonoeticcharacter. Here, we offer a comprehensive characterization of episodic memory in representational terms and propose a novel functional account on this basis. We argue that episodic memory should be understood as a distinctive epistemic attitude taken toward an event simulation. In this view, episodic memory has a metarepresentational format and should not be equated with beliefs about the (...) past. Instead, empirical findings suggest that the contents of human episodic memory are often constructed in the service of the explicit justification of such beliefs. Existing accounts of episodic memory function that have focused on explaining its constructive character through its role in future-oriented mental time travel do justice neither to its capacity to ground veridical beliefs about the past nor to its representational format. We provide an account of the metarepresentational structure of episodic memory in terms of its role in communicative interaction. The generative nature of recollection allows us to represent and communicate the reasons why we hold certain beliefs about the past. In this process, autonoesis corresponds to the capacity to determine when and how to assert epistemic authority in making claims about the past. A domain where such claims are indispensable are human social engagements. Such engagements commonly require the justification of entitlements and obligations, which is often possible only by explicit reference to specific past events. (shrink)

Bhartṛhari was not only a clever and well-informed philosopher but also a conservative Brahmin who maintained his own tradition's superiority against the philosophies developed in his time. He exploited a problem that occupied all his philosophical contemporaries to promote his own ideas, in which the Veda played a central role. Bhartṛhari and his thought are situated in their intellectual context. As it turns out, he dealt with issues that others had dealt with before him in India and suggested solutions to (...) existing problems. Indeed, it becomes clear that he was both a philosopher who dealt with current problems and challenges and a traditionalist who used the philosophical debate of his time to try to gain respectability for his own Vedic tradition. (shrink)

This article argues that in early Mīmāṃsā the view was current that there are objects in the world corresponding to all words of the Sanskrit language. Evidence to that effect is primarily found in passages from Bhartṛhari’s works, and in some classical Nyāya texts. Interestingly, Śabara’s classical work on Mīmāṃsā has abandoned this position, apparently for an entirely non-philosophical reason: the distaste felt for the newly arising group of Brahmanical temple-priests.

Despite sharing Catholic Social Teaching as their system of morals and both being confronted with marketisation pressures, working conditions at German and Belgian Catholic social service providers of elderly care differ. We argue that an interdisciplinary approach is needed to understand such differences, as interpretation of CST is mediated by local contexts. Working conditions result from interactions shaped by each country’s respective religious, legal and socio-economic contexts, providing players with different levels of discretion and power resources. In Belgium, working conditions (...) at Catholic elderly care providers tend to be better due to a strong Catholic trade union, encompassing labour market regulation and a universal legal system applying to all care providers. Moreover, there is strong interaction between these Catholic care providers and other Catholic institutions. By contrast, German CSSPs, operating as faith-based organisations with their own legal framework in a relatively liberalised and decentralised labour market, are able to use various flexibility practices which put pressure on working conditions. Using such practices is partially justified by the Catholic discourse on charity and altruism, stressing the particular nature of work in the Catholic care sector. Overall, the article demonstrates differences in the local application of CST. It also shows how transnational differences in working conditions at Catholic social service providers are the product of more than just local differences in the interpretation and application of CST principles, being shaped by interactions between a country’s specific religious, legal and socio-economic contexts. (shrink)