Zusammenfassung. Truog hat eine brillante Zuspitzung der US-amerikanischen Kritik am „Hirntod”-Kriterium vorgelegt; sein kaum begründeter Vorschlag, Organtransplantationen durch (stellvertretende) Zustimmung bei Menschen mit „irreversibler Bewusstlosigkeit” und „unmittelbar bevorstehendem Tod” zu legitimieren, hält einer kritischen Überprüfung jedoch nicht stand und scheint denen in Deutschland recht zu geben, die im Rahmen der Transplantationsgesetzgebung (1996) mit Blick auf den (gescheiterten) alternativen Gesetzentwurf vor einem Dammbruch zur aktiven Euthanasie warnten. Dieser Aufsatz kritisiert Truogs Vorschlag und zeigt, warum Organentnahmen bei Menschen mit irreversiblem totalen Hirnversagen (...) gerechtfertigt werden können, wenn zum tragfähigen Todeskriterium des irreversiblen Herz-Kreislauf-Stillstands zurückgekehrt wird, ohne dass ein Präzedenzfall für die aktive Euthanasie entsteht. (shrink)

Definition of the problem:Truog’s critique of the ”brain death” concept outlines inconsistencies well understood in the U.S. ethical debate, while he is one of the first to suggest returning to the traditional, coherent concept of death, thus breaking with the ”dead-donorrule.” The German transplantation law of 1996 endorses equating ”brain death” with death. A defeated draft, however, had acknowledged that irreversible total brain failure is a death-near state with a zero prognosis; organ harvesting, then, was to be allowed only in (...) case of prior personal consent. The politically effective objection against this concept was its admitted violation of the dead-donorrule and thus its (incorrectly) alleged precedent potential for legalising active euthanasia. Truog’s suggestion to justify organ explantation on the grounds of ”consent and nonmaleficence” would have fuelled German counter-critics had they known it. The problem is how to justify organ harvesting after breaking the dead-donorrule. Arguments: With the allegation that ”imminent death” and ”irreversible coma” allow concluding that there is ”no harm,” Truog ironically returns to the weak arguments traditionally used to support the ”brain death” concept. His suggestion opens the door to a wide array of eligible organ donors (and, indeed, to a precedential case for active euthanasia). The euphemistic tradition of the ”brain death” concept, perhaps a prominent reason for public scepticism towards transplantation, will be perpetuated unless it is acknowledged that the interference of organ explantation with the donor’s dying process does as such constitute ”harm” to this individual. Organ harvesting, then, requires prior personal consent and needs to be clearly differentiable from any act of ”killing” if it is to be compatible with the law, acceptable to surgeons and not a precedent for active euthanasia. A close look at the actual procedure reveals that consent has invariably the effect of prolonging, not shortening the factual life span of the person in whom irreversible total brain failure has been diagnosed. This peculiarity distinguishes organ explantation from all other forms of terminating a person’s life and is not congruent with the ethical and legal notion of ”killing”. Conclusion: Breaking the dead-donorrule by allowing for the donor to give prior personal consent to organ explantation as a procedure that is going to interfere with his or her dying can be justified, informed consent provided, without setting foot on a slippery slope. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungTrotz aller Rationalisierungsbemühungen werden sich Leistungseinschränkungen im deutschen Gesundheitswesen nicht vermeiden lassen. Zwar sollten diese so weit möglich oberhalb der individuellen Arzt-Patient-Beziehung erfolgen, aus pragmatischen Gründen wird es sich aber nicht vermeiden lassen, dass Ärzte auch im Einzelfall Verantwortung für die Kosten ihrer Entscheidungen übernehmen, wie es bereits heute häufig der Fall ist. Der vorliegende Beitrag widmet sich deshalb der Frage, wie Ärzte in einer medizinisch rationalen und ethisch vertretbaren Art und Weise Kostenerwägungen in ihren Entscheidungen berücksichtigen können. Vorgeschlagen wird (...) ein vierstufiges Modell eines „ethischen Kostenbewusstseins“: 1) Unterlassung ineffektiver Maßnahmen im Sinne einer evidenzbasierten Medizin; 2) konsequente Berücksichtigung individueller Patientenpräferenzen; 3) Minimierung des diagnostischen und therapeutischen Aufwands für die Erreichung eines bestimmten Therapieziels; und 4) Verzicht auf teure Maßnahmen mit einem geringen/fraglichen Nutzengewinn für den Patienten. Stufen (1–3) sind durch die Prinzipien Wohltun, Nichtschaden und Respekt der Autonomie ethisch begründet, Stufe (4) durch das Prinzip der Gerechtigkeit. Für Entscheidungen auf der vierten Stufe sollten nach Möglichkeit lokale explizite Vorgaben wie z. B. kostensensible Leitlinien erarbeitet werden. Prozedurale Mindeststandards sind zu berücksichtigen, regelmäßige Kosten-Fallbesprechungen oder klinische Ethikberatung sollten zur Entscheidungsunterstützung verfügbar sein. Abschließend wird ein ethischer Algorithmus zur Abklärung des Einsatzes einer kostspieligen medizinischen Maßnahme vorgestellt. (shrink)

Trotz aller Rationalisierungsbemühungen werden sich Leistungseinschränkungen im deutschen Gesundheitswesen nicht vermeiden lassen. Zwar sollten diese so weit möglich oberhalb der individuellen Arzt-Patient-Beziehung erfolgen, aus pragmatischen Gründen wird es sich aber nicht vermeiden lassen, dass Ärzte auch im Einzelfall Verantwortung für die Kosten ihrer Entscheidungen übernehmen, wie es bereits heute häufig der Fall ist. Der vorliegende Beitrag widmet sich deshalb der Frage, wie Ärzte in einer medizinisch rationalen und ethisch vertretbaren Art und Weise Kostenerwägungen in ihren Entscheidungen berücksichtigen können. Vorgeschlagen wird (...) ein vierstufiges Modell eines „ethischen Kostenbewusstseins“: 1) Unterlassung ineffektiver Maßnahmen im Sinne einer evidenzbasierten Medizin; 2) konsequente Berücksichtigung individueller Patientenpräferenzen; 3) Minimierung des diagnostischen und therapeutischen Aufwands für die Erreichung eines bestimmten Therapieziels; und 4) Verzicht auf teure Maßnahmen mit einem geringen/fraglichen Nutzengewinn für den Patienten. Stufen (1–3) sind durch die Prinzipien Wohltun, Nichtschaden und Respekt der Autonomie ethisch begründet, Stufe (4) durch das Prinzip der Gerechtigkeit. Für Entscheidungen auf der vierten Stufe sollten nach Möglichkeit lokale explizite Vorgaben wie z. B. kostensensible Leitlinien erarbeitet werden. Prozedurale Mindeststandards sind zu berücksichtigen, regelmäßige Kosten-Fallbesprechungen oder klinische Ethikberatung sollten zur Entscheidungsunterstützung verfügbar sein. Abschließend wird ein ethischer Algorithmus zur Abklärung des Einsatzes einer kostspieligen medizinischen Maßnahme vorgestellt. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions on causal inference in medicine are stuck in dyadic camps, each defending one kind of evidence or method rather than another as best support for causal hypotheses. Whereas Evidence Based Medicine advocates the use of Randomised Controlled Trials and systematic reviews of RCTs as gold standard, philosophers of science emphasise the importance of mechanisms and their distinctive informational contribution to causal inference and assessment. Some have suggested the adoption of a pluralistic approach to causal inference, and an inductive (...) rather than hypothetico-deductive inferential paradigm. However, these proposals deliver no clear guidelines about how such plurality of evidence sources should jointly justify hypotheses of causal associations. We here develop such guidelines by first giving a philosophical analysis of the underpinnings of Hill’s viewpoints on causality. We then put forward an evidence-amalgamation framework adopting a Bayesian net approach to model causal inference in pharmacology for the assessment of harms. Our framework accommodates a number of intuitions already expressed in the literature concerning the EBM vs. pluralist debate on causal inference, evidence hierarchies, causal holism, relevance, and reliability. (shrink)

Narrative allegory is distinguished from mythology as reality from symbol; it is, in short, the proper intermedium between person and personification. Where it is too strongly individualized, it ceases to be allegory […]. In the community of scholars of intermedia research, the above quoted citation is commonly regarded as Coleridge’s coining of the term “intermedium” or “intermediality”. However, a short glance at the discursive strategy of his argument emphasizes that his notion of “intermedium” must be closely linked to the poetics (...) and aesthetics of 19th-century romanticism. For the romantic poet, the term of “intermedium” does not point to media relations or intermedia processes but to.. (shrink)

According to the objective Bayesian approach to inductive logic, premisses inductively entail a conclusion just when every probability function with maximal entropy, from all those that satisfy the premisses, satisfies the conclusion. When premisses and conclusion are constraints on probabilities of sentences of a first-order predicate language, however, it is by no means obvious how to determine these maximal entropy functions. This paper makes progress on the problem in the following ways. Firstly, we introduce the concept of a limit in (...) entropy and show that, if the set of probability functions satisfying the premisses contains a limit in entropy, then this limit point is unique and is the maximal entropy probability function. Next, we turn to the special case in which the premisses are categorical sentences of the logical language. We show that if the uniform probability function gives the premisses positive probability, then the maximal entropy function can be found by simply conditionalising this uniform prior on the premisses. We generalise our results to demonstrate agreement between the maximal entropy approach and Jeffrey conditionalisation in the case in which there is a single premiss that specifies the probability of a sentence of the language. We show that, after learning such a premiss, certain inferences are preserved, namely inferences to inductive tautologies. Finally, we consider potential pathologies of the approach: we explore the extent to which the maximal entropy approach is invariant under permutations of the constants of the language, and we discuss some cases in which there is no maximal entropy probability function. (shrink)

We study questionnaire responses to situations in which sacrificing one life may save many other lives. We demonstrate gender differences in moral judgments: males are more supportive of the sacrifice than females. We investigate a source of the endorsement of the sacrifice: antisocial preferences. First, we measure individual proneness to spiteful behavior, using an experimental game with monetary stakes. We demonstrate that spitefulness can be sizable—a fifth of our participants behave spitefully—but it is not associated with gender. Second, we find (...) that gender is consistently associated with responses even when we account for individual differences in the propensity to spitefulness. (shrink)

As digital media becomes more central to the lives of adolescents, it also becomes increasingly relevant for their sexual communication. Sexting as an important image-based digital medium provides opportunities for self-determined digital communication, but also carries specific risks for boundary violations. Accordingly, sexting is understood either as an everyday, or as risky and deviant behavior among adolescents. In the affectedness of boundary violations gender plays an important role. However, it is still unclear to what extent digital sexual communication restores stereotypical (...) gender roles and restrictive sexuality norms or, alternatively, enables new spaces of possibility. In this sense, current research points to a desideratum regarding adolescents’ orientations toward sexting as a practice between spaces of possibility and boundary violations. This paper discusses the possibilities, but also the risks, of intimate digital communication among adolescents. The main question is, how adolescents themselves perceive sexting practices and how they position themselves between both spaces for possibility and for the exchange of unwanted sexual content. For this purpose, orientations toward normalities and gender of students are reconstructed. To answer these questions, twelve single-sex, group discussions were carried out with students aged 16 and 17 at five different secondary schools in northern Germany. A total of 20 boys and 22 girls took part. The group discussions were structured by a narrative generating guideline. The analysis draws its methodology from the Documentary Method, regarding implicit and explicit forms of knowledge and discourse. It results in a typology of three types with different orientations. The study shows, that most of the students consider sexting to be a risky practice; only one type shows normality in the use of sexting. At the same time, some of the young people are interested in experimenting with image-based intimate digital communication. Further, gender differences in use and affectedness are also documented. In this way, orientations toward gender stereotypes “favor” both the attribution of responsibility to girls, and overlook the responsibility of students who perpetrated the boundary violation. The orientations of adolescents should be taken more into account in research as well as in educational programs for the prevention of sexual violence. (shrink)

Augmented Reality (AR) is commonly defined as a digital layer of information viewed on top of the physical world through a smartphone, tablet or eyewear. Increasingly, this understanding of AR is shifting to a dynamic framework of ‘smart things’, including wearable technology, sensors and artificial intelligence (AI), with the ability to intercede in key moments and to deliver contextual and meaningful experiences. The things that come into context are the logical next steps in an evolutionary development towards computers that are (...) better able to show empathy in relation to people: even more human-oriented, anticipative and ubiquitous. Thus, this outsourcing of meaning to empathic technologies points to one of the fundamental questions concerning the relation of human and technology – the nature of the trust that users place in technology. (shrink)

This paper presents the contributions of Alcindo Flores Cabral, professor of Chemistry at the Faculdade de Agronomia Eliseu Maciel, nowadays part of the Universidade Federal de Pelotas, to chemistry teaching. It is a contribution almost unknown to the Brazilian chemical community, although recognized as valuable by several renowned chemists abroad, like W. Hückel, G. Charlot, F. Strong, E. Fessenden and others. Cabral’s innovative helical representation is presented in connection not only with contemporary representations, but also an incursion is made into (...) the first helical systems proposed, those of Hinrichs and of Baumhauer. Some comments are made not only on Cabral’s Classificação Natural dos Elementos, published in 1946, but also about other texts he wrote for an efficient chemistry teaching. (shrink)

Epistemic scoring rules are the en vogue tool for justifications of the probability norm and further norms of rational belief formation. They are different in kind and application from statistical scoring rules from which they arose. In the first part of the paper I argue that statistical scoring rules, properly understood, are in principle better suited to justify the probability norm than their epistemic brethren. Furthermore, I give a justification of the probability norm applying statistical scoring rules. In the second (...) part of the paper I give a variety of justifications of norms for rational belief formation employing statistical scoring rules. Furthermore, general properties of statistical scoring rules are investigated. Epistemic scoring rules feature as a useful technical tool for constructing statistical scoring rules. (shrink)

In this essay, we aim to provide an overview of the periodic table’s origins and history, and of the elements which conspired to make it chemistry’s most recognisable icon. We pay attention to Mendeleev’s role in the development of a system for organising the elements and chemical knowledge while facilitating the teaching of chemistry. We look at how the reception of the table in different chemical communities was dependent on the local scientific, cultural and political context, but argue that its (...) eventual universal acceptance is due to its unique ability to accommodate possessed knowledge while enabling novel predictions. Furthermore, we argue that its capacity to unify apparently disconnected phenomena under a simple framework facilitates our understanding of periodicity, making the table an icon of aesthetic value, and an object of philosophical inquiry. Finally, we briefly explore the table’s iconicity throughout its representations in pop art and science fiction. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta a contribuição de Alcindo Flores Cabral (1907-1982) - professor de química da Faculdade de Agronomia Eliseu Maciel, hoje incorporada à Universidade Federal de Pelotas - ao ensino de química, uma contribuição quase desconhecida pela própria comunidade química brasileira, embora reconhecida como relevante por diversos químicos estrangeiros importantes, como W. Hückel, G. Charlot, F. Strong, E. Fessenden e outros. A inovadora representação helicoidal de Cabral é apresentada não só em conexão com representações contemporâneas, mas também inclui-se uma incursão (...) pelos primeiros sistemas helicoidais propostos, os de Hinrichs e de Baumhauer. Apresentam-se alguns comentários não somente sobre a Classificação natural dos elementos, publicada em 1946, mas também sobre outros textos escritos para tornar mais eficaz o ensino de química. (shrink)

The chemist Max von Pettenkofer studied with Justus von Liebig, and after leaving Giessen in 1844 did not immediately find an academic position. During the period 1844/1845 he wrote a cycle of 16 Chemical Sonnets, but published them only in 1886. The Sonnets have with few exceptions a historiographical character. We present a translation of the Sonette into Portuguese as well as commentaries about their content and their philosophical significance. We also comment rather briefly on Pettenkofer’s career as an empirical (...) chemist and later as a somewhat heterodox hygienist. (shrink)

Over the past few years, the Virtual Organization (VO) paradigm has been emerging as an ideal solution to support collaboration among globally distributed entities (individuals and/or organizations). However, due to rapid technological and societal changes, there has also been an astonishing growth in technologies and services for mobile users. This has opened up new collaborative scenarios where the same participant can access the VO from different locations and mobility becomes a key issue for users and services. The nomadicity and mobility (...) introduces additional challenges for managing collaboration in VO environments. This paper focuses on the Identity Management challenge in a Mobile Dynamic VO environment, which is a VO that takes into account nomadicity and seamless mobility aspects as elaborated within the EU funded project Akogrimo (Access to Knowledge through the Grid in a mobile world). The resulting work is the design of the Akogrimo Identity Management system supporting the authentication and authorization process across the different administrative domains of the Mobile Dynamic VO. This design follows the service oriented approach and integrates the different perspectives: that of the network, that of the user and that of the service provider. Such an integration requires facing challenges; both from the architectural and technological viewpoints because different ‘worlds’ (i.e. network and service level) leverage different (and sometimes conflicting) approaches when addressing Identity Management. (shrink)

This paper elaborates on discussions in Germany regarding some of the ethical and legal issues in the area of the use and patenting of inventions involving human tissue. The issues discussed pertain to the benefits and problems regarding informed consent and the issue of property rights as they relate to the donation of cells and tissue.

According to the Variety of Evidence Thesis items of evidence from independent lines of investigation are more confirmatory, ceteris paribus, than e.g. replications of analogous studies. This thesis is known to fail Bovens and Hartmann, Claveau. How- ever, the results obtained by the former only concern instruments whose evidence is either fully random or perfectly reliable; instead in Claveau, unreliability is modelled as deterministic bias. In both cases, the unreliable instrument delivers totally irrelevant information. We present a model which formalises (...) both reliability, and unreliability, differently. Our instruments are either reliable, but affected by random error, or they are biased but not deterministically so. Bovens and Hartmann’s results are counter-intuitive in that in their model a long series of consistent reports from the same instrument does not raise suspicion of “too-good-to- be-true” evidence. This happens precisely because they neither contemplate the role of systematic bias, nor unavoidable random error of reliable instruments. In our model the Variety of Evidence Thesis fails as well, but the area of failure is considerably smaller than for Bovens and Hartmann, Claveau and holds for realistic cases. The essential mechanism which triggers VET failure is the rate of false to true positives for the two kinds of instruments. Our emphasis is on modelling beliefs about sources of knowledge and their role in hypothesis confirmation in interaction with dimensions of evidence, such as variety and consistency. (shrink)

Data from further human experiments touch four open questions in the target article. (1) Extinction of reward acquisition postulated by Depue & Collins's model could not be confirmed if correlating craving for, liking of, and satisfaction from smoking. (2) Intraindividual correspondence between responsivity to dopamine agonists and antagonists could likewise not be confirmed. (3) Nicotine craving and drug-induced hormone responses were not substantially correlated. (4) Low serotonin can be the cause and not just the moderator of dopaminergic sensitivity, and personality (...) correlates of low dopamine/low MAO (aggressive impulsive traits) can hardly be related to the positive emotion associated with dopaminergic activity. (shrink)

I identify two versions of the scientific anti-realist’s selectionist explanation for the success of science: Bas van Fraassen’s original and K. Brad Wray’s newer interpretation. In Wray’s version, psycho-social factors internal to the scientific community – viz. scientists’ interests, goals, and preferences – explain the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success. I argue that, if Wray’s version were correct, then science should resemble art. In art, the artwork-selection practices that explain artwork-success appear faddish. They are prone to radical change over time. (...) Theory-selection practices that explain theory-success in science are however not faddish. They are mostly stable; that is, long-lived and consistent over time. This is because scientists (explicitly or implicitly) subscribe to what I will call the testability norm: scientific theories must make falsifiable claims about the external physical world. The testability norm and not psycho-sociology explains the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success in science. Contra Wray, scientific anti-realists can then maintain that the external physical world (as expressed in the testability norm) explains theory-success. (shrink)

Both the concept of a Darwinian tree of life (TOL) and the possibility of its accurate reconstruction have been much criticized. Criticisms mostly revolve around the extensive occurrence of lateral gene transfer (LGT), instances of uptake of complete organisms to become organelles (with the associated subsequent gene transfer to the nucleus), as well as the implications of more subtle aspects of the biological species concept. Here we argue that none of these criticisms are sufficient to abandon the valuable TOL concept (...) and the biological realities it captures. Especially important is the need to conceptually distinguish between organismal trees and gene trees, which necessitates incorporating insights of widely occurring LGT into modern evolutionary theory. We demonstrate that all criticisms, while based on important new findings, do not invalidate the TOL. After considering the implications of these new insights, we find that the contours of evolution are best represented by a TOL. (shrink)

Despite the opening of the market and partial privatization of state‐owned companies in China, the state still represents the controlling shareholder in larger companies. By analyzing the weaknesses of Chinese corporate governance we illustrate the framework for harmful corruption. China is characterized by a weak legal system and strong influences of traditions such as guanxi. In this article we analyze the influence of guanxi on the Chinese corporate governance system. We find that guanxi is in general a double‐edged sword, but (...) business‐to‐government guanxi in particular can harm the weak Chinese corporate governance system and hamper its further economic development and growth. (shrink)

William Whewell’s 19th century philosophy of science is sometimes glossed over as a footnote to Kant. There is however a key feature of Whewell’s account worth noting. This is his appeal to Aristotle’s form/matter hylomorphism as a metaphor to explain how mind and world merge in successful scientific inquiry. Whewell’s hylomorphism suggests a middle way between rationalism and empiricism reminiscent of experience pragmatists like Steven Levine’s view that mind and world are entwined in experience. I argue however that Levine does (...) not adequately explain exactly how mind and world entwine. He could nonetheless do so if he appealed to Whewell’s hylomorphic metaphor. We may prefer a reductive metaphysical explanation, but I suggest that pragmatists only have recourse to metaphor in this case. Both reductive and metaphorical explanations can enjoy great explanatory power if they exhibit a suitable measure of what I will call sematic distance. Semantic distance measures how close or how far apart explanandum and explanans are from each other in meaning. Metaphorical explanation - as evident in Whewell’s hylomorphism and as detailed via the notion of semantic distance - presents a valuable new explanatory tool to those who hold that mind and world are entwined sans recourse to metaphysics. (shrink)

Prima facie, we make successful decisions as we act on and intervene in the world day-to-day. Epistemologists are often concerned with whether rationality is involved in such decision-making practices, and, if so, to what degree. Some, particularly in the post-structuralist tradition, argue that successful decision-making occurs via an existential leap into the unknown rather than via any determinant or criterion such as rationality. I call this view radical voluntarism (RV). Proponents of RV include those who subscribe to a view they (...) call Critical Complexity (CC). In this paper, I argue that CC presents a false dichotomy when it conceives of rationality in Cartesian – i.e. ideal and transcendental – terms, and then concludes that RV is the proper alternative. I then outline a pragmatist rationality informed by recent work in psychology on bounded rationality, ecological rationality, and specifically embodied rationality. Such a pragmatist rationality seems to be compatible with the tenets of post-structuralism, and can therefore replace RV in CC. (shrink)