Avant la vogue du transhumanisme, Raymond Ruyer, le philosophe nancéen, dénonça dès les années 1950 les prestiges de la cybernétique. Comme le trans­humanisme, cette idéologie portée par les réussites des premiers ordinateurs digitaux, par la vague du modèle de l’information qui indifférenciait fonctionnement machinique et fonctionnement organique, contestait un privilège de l’humain, notamment celui du monopole de la finalité par l’homme, et remettait en question la nécessité d’une intériorité consciente pour rendre raison des comportements sensés. La critique de Ruyer, au (...) nom du scepticisme philosophique, nous convie à nous assurer si les problèmes dans notre actualité transhumaniste sont bien posés. (shrink)

Fruit de la collaboration de 95 chercheurs et chercheuses de renommée nationale et internationale, cet ouvrage se compose d’une vingtaine d’articles longs et d’une centaine de notices plus courtes, illustrés par 1 200 images (peintures, dessins, gravures, sculptures, affiches, cartes postales, photographies, presse, objets du quotidien, etc.). Ce format « beau-livre»s’impose au regard par une finition soignée. Volumineux, il est structuré en quatre parties couvrant tous les empires coloniau...

Since its origin, bioethics has attracted the collaboration of few social scientists, and social scientific methods of gathering empirical data have remained unfamiliar to ethicists. Recently, however, the clouded relations between the empirical and normative perspectives on bioethics appear to be changing. Three reasons explain why there was no easy and consistent input of empirical evidence into bioethics. Firstly, interdisciplinary dialogue runs the risk of communication problems and divergent objectives. Secondly, the social sciences were absent partners since the beginning of (...) bioethics. Thirdly, the meta‐ethical distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ created a ‘natural’ border between the disciplines. Now, bioethics tends to accommodate more empirical research. Three hypotheses explain this emergence. Firstly, dissatisfaction with a foundationalist interpretation of applied ethics created a stimulus to incorporate empirical research in bioethics. Secondly, clinical ethicists became engaged in empirical research due to their strong integration in the medical setting. Thirdly, the rise of the evidence‐based paradigm had an influence on the practice of bioethics. However, a problematic relationship cannot simply and easily evolve into a perfect interaction. A new and positive climate for empirical approaches has arisen, but the original difficulties have not disappeared. (shrink)

Ritualized behavior, intuitively recognizable by its stereotypy, rigidity, repetition, and apparent lack of rational motivation, is found in a variety of life conditions, customs, and everyday practices: in cultural rituals, whether religious or non-religious; in many children's complicated routines; in the pathology of obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD); in normal adults around certain stages of the life-cycle, birthing in particular. Combining evidence from evolutionary anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroimaging, we propose an explanation of ritualized behavior in terms of an evolved Precaution System geared (...) to the detection of and reaction to inferred threats to fitness. This system, distinct from fear-systems geared to respond to manifest danger, includes a repertoire of clues for potential danger as well as a repertoire of species-typical precautions. In OCD pathology, this system does not supply a negative feedback to the appraisal of potential threats, resulting in doubts about the proper performance of precautions, and repetition of action. Also, anxiety levels focus the attention on low-level gestural units of behavior rather than on the goal-related higher-level units normally used in parsing the action-flow. Normally automatized actions are submitted to cognitive control. This “swamps” working memory, an effect of which is a temporary relief from intrusions but also their long-term strengthening. Normal activation of this Precaution System explains intrusions and ritual behaviors in normal adults. Gradual calibration of the system occurs through childhood rituals. Cultural mimicry of this system's normal input makes cultural rituals attention-grabbing and compelling. A number of empirical predictions follow from this synthetic model. (Published Online February 8 2007) Key Words: childhood ritual; compulsion; event boundaries; evolutionary psychology; obsessive-compulsive disorder; ritual; thought intrusion. (shrink)

The field of bioethics is increasingly coming into contact with empirical research findings. In this article, we ask what role empirical research can play in the process of ethical clarification and decision-making. Ethical reflection almost always proceeds in three steps: the description of the moral question,the assessment of the moral question and the evaluation of the decision-making. Empirical research can contribute to each step of this process. In the description of the moral object, first of all, empirical research has a (...) role to play in the description of morally relevant facts. It plays a role in answering the “reality-revealing questions” (what, why,how, who, where and when), in assessing the consequences and in proposing alternative courses of action. Secondly, empirical research plays a role in assessing the moral question. It must be acknowledged that research possesses “the normative power of the factual,” which can also become normative by suppressing other norms. However, inductive normativity should always be balanced out by a deductive form of normativity. Thirdly, empirical research also has a role to play in evaluating the decision-making process. It can rule out certain moral choices by pointing out the occurrence of certain unexpected consequences or effects. It can also be useful, however, as a sociology of bioethics in which the discipline of bioethics itself becomes an object of research. (shrink)

Building a coherent discourse on professionalism is a challenge for corporate social responsibility practitioners, as there is not yet an established knowledge basis for CSR, and CSR is a contested notion that covers a wide variety of issues and moral foundations. Relying on insights from the literature on micro-CSR, new professionalism, and Boltanski and Thévenot’s economies of worth framework, we examine the discourses of 56 CSR practitioners in South Korea on their claimed professionalism. Our analysis delineates four distinct discourses of (...) CSR professionalism—strategic corporate giving, social innovation, risk management, and sustainability transition—that are derived from a plurality of more or less compatible moral foundations whose partial overlaps and tensions we document in a systematic manner. Our results portray these practitioners as compromise makers who selectively combine morally distant justifications to build their own specific professionalism discourse, with the aim to advance CSR within and across organizations. By uncovering the moral relationality connecting these discourses, our findings show that moral pluralism is a double-edged sword that can not only bolster the justification of CSR professionalism but also threaten collective professionalism at the field level. Overall, our study suggests paying more attention to the moral relationality and tensions that underlie professional fields. (shrink)

Résumé Considéré comme l’action individuelle par excellence, le dribble renvoie le plus souvent à l’exercice d’une maîtrise technique que seuls quelques protagonistes d’exceptions sont à même d’exécuter. Cette image purement descriptive, centrée sur le seul pratiquant, n’entretient qu’un lointain rapport avec la réalité de ce qui constitue la raison d’être profonde de cette action motrice. Le dribble, entendue comme un acte qui consiste à conduire un objet, – une balle, un palet –, en alternant des temps de contact et de (...) non contact, est avant tout à envisager dans sa dimension collective. Là est le point aveugle des analyses menées à son propos. Dans cette étude, on considérera le dribble comme un type de conduite motrice porteur d’intentions auxquelles sont attachées des significations de nature essentiellement sociale. Fondamentalement le dribble est relation, c’est-à-dire interaction. Il doit être envisagé sous l’angle de la sémiotricité, autrement dit des significations que les pratiquants lui accordent. Sa fonction est essentiellement d’annoncer les actions futures. À ce titre, il renvoie à une classe de comportements tactiques dont les significations relèvent d’une interprétation en situation sous la dépendance directe des règles du jeu sportif considéré. Loin d’être univoque, le dribble doit être envisagé comme un « signe » qui doit être décodé par les pratiquants en fonction de la grammaire du jeu considéré selon un double axe ; syntagmatique et sémantique. Ce travail à pour objectif de repérer les différentes significations possibles du « signe-dribble », considéré comme un praxème. (shrink)

The knowledge account of assertion (KAA) is the view that assertion is governed by the norm that the speaker should know what s/he asserts. It is not the purpose of this article to examine all the criticisms nor to try to give a full defence of KAA, but only to defend it against the charge of being normatively incorrect. It has been objected that assertion is governed by other norms than knowledge, or by no norm at all. It seems to (...) me, however, that a number of these criticisms are based on a number of misunderstandings of the notion of a norm and of the way it can regulated a given practice. Once we spell out in what sense knowledge can play a normative role in this context, the KAA appears much more plausible. (shrink)

Age‐related and cancer‐related epigenomic modifications have been associated with enhanced cell‐to‐cell gene expression variability that characterizes increased cellular stochasticity. Since gene expression variability appears to be highly reduced by—and epigenetic and phenotypic stability acquired through—direct or long‐range cellular interactions during cell differentiation, we propose a common origin for aging and cancer in the failure to control cellular stochasticity by cell–cell interactions. Tissue‐disruption‐induced cellular stochasticity associated with epigenetic drift would be at the origin of organ dysfunction because of an increase in (...) phenotypic variation among cells, ultimately leading to cell death and organ failure through a loss of coordination in cellular functions, and eventually to cancerization. We propose mechanistic research perspectives to corroborate this hypothesis and explore its evolutionary consequences, highlighting a positive correlation between the median age of mass loss onset (a proxy for the onset of organ aging) and the median age at cancer diagnosis. (shrink)

Cognitive developmental evidence is sometimes conscripted to support ''naturalized epistemology'' arguments to the effect that a general epistemic stance leads children to build theory-like accounts of underlying properties of kinds. A review of the evidence suggests that what prompts conceptual acquisition is not a general epistemic stance but a series of category-specific intuitive principles that constitute an evolved ''natural metaphysics''. This consists in a system of categories and category-specific inferential processes founded on definite biases in prototype formation. Evidence for this (...) system provides a better understanding of the limited ''plasticity'' of ontological commitments as well as a computationally plausible account of their initial state, avoiding ambiguities about innateness. This may provide a starting point for a ''naturalized epistemology'' that takes into account evolved properties of human conceptual structures. (shrink)

Cognitive developmental evidence is sometimes conscripted to support ''naturalized epistemology'' arguments to the effect that a general epistemic stance leads children to build theory-like accounts of underlying properties of kinds. A review of the evidence suggests that what prompts conceptual acquisition is not a general epistemic stance but a series of category-specific intuitive principles that constitute an evolved ''natural metaphysics''. This consists in a system of categories and category-specific inferential processes founded on definite biases in prototype formation. Evidence for this (...) system provides a better understanding of the limited ''plasticity'' of ontological commitments as well as a computationally plausible account of their initial state, avoiding ambiguities about innateness. This may provide a starting point for a ''naturalized epistemology'' that takes into account evolved properties of human conceptual structures. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Publications are primarily a means of communicating scientific information to colleagues, but they are much more than that. Publications in peer reviewed journals are proof of academic competence, are used as a crucial component in evaluation criteria for academic promotion and fundraising and increase the prestige of research centres and universities. The urgent need for publications has also led to abuses in authorship. In the past the single‐author article was the rule, but over the past decades, the average number (...) of authors on scientific manuscripts has drastically increased. In the field of bioethics, however, no research has been undertaken to study whether the percentage of single‐author articles is decreasing, the proportion of multi‐author articles is increasing or the average number of authors per article is increasing. The objective of this research is to analyze these trends in authorship for the period 1990–2003 in peer reviewed journals in the field of bioethics. In the nine peer reviewed journals from the field of bioethics we studied, we observed a significant increase of the multi‐author article and of the average number of authors. This is mainly due to the increase in the number of publications with an empirical design. This growing trend is a challenge for the editors of journals in the field of bioethics to enhance awareness about the value and definition of authorship. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 33, Issue 2, Page 157-169, April 2024.

Volume 34, Issue 8, December 2020, Page 1608-1620.

How do people detect mental dysfunction? What is the influence of cultural models of dysfunction on this detection process? The detection process as such is not usually researched as it falls between the domains of cross-cultural psychiatry and anthropological ethno-psychiatry . I provide a general model for this “missing link” between behavior and cultural models, grounded in empirical evidence for intuitive psychology. Normal adult minds entertain specific intuitive expectations about mental function and behavior, and by implication they infer that specific (...) kinds of behavior are the result of underlying dysfunction. This suggests that there is a “catalogue” of possible behaviors that trigger that intuition, hence a limited catalogue of possible symptoms that feed into culturally specific folk-understandings of mental disorder. It also suggests that some mental dysfunctions, as they do not clearly violate principles of intuitive psychology, are “invisible” to folk-understandings. This perspective allows us to understand the cultural stability and spread of particular views of madness. It also suggests why certain types of mental disorder are invisible to folk-understandings. (shrink)

Contact investigation is an evidence-based intervention of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) to protect public health by interrupting the chain of transmission. In pursuit of contact investigation, patients’ MDR-TB status has to be disclosed to third parties (to the minimum necessary) for tracing the contacts. Nevertheless, disclosure to third parties often unintentionally leads the MDR-TB patients suffered from social discrimination and stigma. For this reason, patients are less inclined to reveal their MDR-TB status and becomes a significant issue in contact investigation. This (...) issue certainly turns into a negative impact on the public interest. Tension between keeping MDR-TB status confidential and safeguarding public health arises in relation to this issue. Regarding MDR-TB management, patient compliance with treatment and contact investigation are equally important. Patients might fail to comply with anti-TB therapy and be reluctant to seek healthcare due to disclosure concerns. In order to have treatment adherence, MDRTB patients should not live through social discrimination and stigma arising from disclosure and TB team has a duty to support them as a mean of reciprocity. However, implementation of contact investigation as a public health policy can still be challenging even with promising reciprocal support to the patients because MDR-TB patients are living in different contexts and situations. There can be no straight forward settlement but an appropriate justification for each distinct context is needed to strike a balance between individual confidentiality and public interest. (shrink)

In reply to commentary on our target article, we supply further evidence and hypotheses in the description of ritualized behaviors in humans. Reactions to indirect fitness threats probably activate specialized precaution systems rather than a unified form of danger-avoidance or causal reasoning. Impairment of precaution systems may be present in pathologies other than obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), autism in particular. Ritualized behavior is attention-grabbing enough to be culturally transmitted whether or not it is associated with group identity, cohesion, or with any (...) other social aspect of collective ceremonies. (Published Online February 8 2007). (shrink)

There are mental actions, and a number of epistemic attitudes involve activity. But can there be epistemic agency? I argue that there is a limit to any claim that we can be epistemic agents, which is that the structure of reasons for epistemic attitudes differs fundamentally from the structure of reasons for actions. The main differences are that we cannot act for the wrong reasons although we can believe for the wrong reasons, and that reasons for beliefs are exclusive in (...) a sense in which our reasons for actions are not. Epistemic agency is possible in the weak sense that we can be active, but not in the strong one in which we could have some elbow room for our epistemic reasons in reasoning leading to beliefs and other epistemic states. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework to investigate ‘CSP-FP relationship’ as a social construction on financial markets. The construction of such a relationship has become a crucial business problem since the legitimacy-building process of actors implied in markets related to corporate social responsibility evaluation and management is closely associated to the belief that ‘ethics and/or social responsibility pay’ – at least in the long run. Consequently, actors’ behaviours and beliefs on these markets can no longer (...) be considered as external to the CSP-FP debate, but should be integrated as an endogenous variable. Moreover, the diffusion of these behaviours and beliefs could also contribute to the effective realization of such a relationship on financial markets and, to some extent, in the business arena. These facts offer the opportunity to reframe theoretically the classical and over-studied debate around ‘the CSP-FP link’ and to propose a new framework describing the various processes of performativity through which actors enact and construct the positive relationship between CSP and FP. (shrink)

Réduction du temps de travail, 35 heures, flexibilité accrue, vieillissement de la population, développement des loisirs, usage croissant des nouvelles technologies de l'information, autant de facteurs souvent évoqués comme responsables de ce qui serait une fluidification progressive de nos rythmes de vie. Certains vont même jusqu'à anticiper une ville 24 h sur 24, perpétuellement en mouvement... Pourtant l'analyse par Jean-Pascal Lavielle d'une série d'Enquêtes Ménages Déplacements étalées - Urbanisme – Nouvel article.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests (GT) enable consumers to access a wide range of GT, without involving a healthcare professional, promoting an increasing disassociation of genetics from the clinical context. This study explores, through semi-structured interviews, the experiences and attitudes of European clinical geneticists towards DTCGT. Our results indicate that the participants have limited experience of consultations with patients regarding such tests. The majority of participants stated that consumers purchased tests out of curiosity and sought a general interpretation of test results (...) by a healthcare professional. Most respondents were skeptical of the quality of tests, especially regarding their clinical utility. The participants supported the importance of medical supervision and genetic counseling in this context. Finally, most respondents considered it their duty to accept consultations concerning DTCGT results. However, due to concerns over limited time and potential downstream costs, some participants supported that a prioritization system based on guidelines would be necessary. (shrink)

Antisemitism is on the rise. Recently, discussions have considered so-called “no-go zones for Jews” (city areas Jews should avoid to reduce the likelihood of being attacked). In this context and drawing from attribution theory, we examined if news consumers perceive a Jewish hate crime victim as partly responsible for being attacked when news coverage explicitly emphasizes that the victim displayed religious symbols (kippah) in a certain inner-city location. We conducted a quota-based survey experiment (N = 392) in Germany (4 groups, (...) between-subjects design) and randomly exposed participants to news coverage about an anti-Semitic attack. The article either emphasized that the Jewish victim displayed religious symbols (kippah) or not, and highlighted the specific location of the attack (Berlin synagogue vs. deprived inner-city district of Berlin). Moderated mediation analysis suggested that participants perceived the victim’s behavior to be more provocative when the news article highlighted that the victim displayed religious symbols and when the attack occurred in a deprived Berlin district. Yet, effects were only detected for individuals with low (vs. high) levels of education. Perceived provocativeness in turn increased victim blaming indicating that some individuals indirectly regarded the Jewish victim to be partly responsible for being attacked. (shrink)

Simon Blackburn has shown that there is an analogy between the problem of moral motivation in ethics (how can moral reasons move us?) and the problem of what we might call the power of logical reasons (how can logical reasons move us, what is the force of the 'logical must?'). In this paper, I explore further the parallel between the internalism problem in ethics and the problem of the power of logical reasons, and defend a version of psychologism about reasons, (...) although not one of the Humean form. I discuss two forms of cognitivism: (i) a pure cognitivism and 'hard' realism modelled after Dancy's parallel conception in ethics: when we grasp logical reasons we grasp facts, which are directly known to us; (ii) a Kantian form of cognitivism, based on the idea that compulsion by reason goes with the capacity of reflection. I argue that (i) is implausible, and that (ii) fails to meet the internalist requirement. One would then seem to be left with what Dancy calls, about practical reasoning, psychologism about reasons. I sketch what might be such a psychologism. But it fails to account for the objectivity of logical reasons. I argue that the relevant state here is a form of dispositional knowledge of logical reasons. (shrink)

Presumed catholic or christian influence inside the french speaking green party of Belgium is a very strong stereotype since 1981. Nevertheless no scientific work has ever proved that supposition. Starting from a large survey among the 2 500 Ecolo's members, the authors examine and analyze the inventory of fixtures. They present the main features of the members and distinguish the outlines of catholic and non-catholic's members.

This article concerns the study of the agricultural policy of the Belgian State in the period of 1844-1845. Behind the technical formulations of diverse and even contradictory laws and regulations, the interest is to reveal the political and economical interests and strategies of the main political actors. This period is at the end of the well-known belgian "Unionism" that means the alliance of the dominant farces, catholics and liberals. The study shows that this period is not exempt of conflicts between (...) those farces, with behind them respectively agricultural and industrial interests, with a more predominant wheight of the latters than the usual theory of modernization usually had assessed. (shrink)

This analysis concentrates on the linguistic laws of1921 and 1932 concerning the linguistic statuts of the civil servants, and on their contribution to the quest for political identity of Flanders. It exhibits the real political signification of the parliamentary debates on unilinguism and bilinguism. This debate is in the same time paradoxical and instructive for the future of the country. The paradox is that the Flemish circles were in favour of the bilinguism of the civil servants, and the Frenchspeakings for (...) the other solution. The unilinguist solution which was decided will certainly f acilitate the federalization of the civil services beginning in the sixties. In fact, every solution was in favour of Flanders: either the bilinguism would increase the number of Flemish civil servants, either the unilinguism would create the bases for Flemish own civil services. (shrink)

Por the last decade, Belgian telecommunication policy has been characterised by a defensive, and sometimes even obstructive, attitude towards the liberalisation program of the European Commission. This paper analyses this policy on the basis of official governmental and administrative sources, corporate documents and insights gained through frequent contacts with the government and corporate representatives. The aim of this analysis is twofold. Firstly, this paper explains the Belgian attitude towards telecommunication as the result of a highly politicised corporatist national system of (...) decision making. Secondly, this paper assesses this policy in terms of its international performance. By means of conclusion, a number of suggestions are made for a more proactive policy. (shrink)