Knowledge of the structure of ancestral genomes provides the basis of a new framework to better represent and interpret results from genomic and evolutionary studies. Because these ancestors lived tens of hundreds of million years ago, this knowledge will inevitably take the form of abstract representations, reconstructed on the basis both of experimental evidence collected on extant genomes and of our understanding of evolutionary processes. This is the field of Paleogenomics, a young discipline that is providing an increasingly precise picture (...) of our ancestral vertebrate genomes based on cytogenetic data, genome sequences and new algorithmic developments. Many recent studies have focused on the ancestral placental mammal and teleost fish genomes, although the outlines of even more distant pre‐vertebrate ancestors are being reported. BioEssays 30:122–134, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Despite advances in theory, often driven by feminist ethicists, research ethics struggles in practice to adequately account for and respond to the agency and autonomy of people considered vulnerable in the research context. We argue that shifts within feminist research ethics scholarship to better characterise and respond to autonomy and agency can be bolstered by further grounding in discourses from the social sciences, in work that confirms the complex nature of human agency in contexts of structural and other sources of (...) vulnerability. We discuss some of the core concepts and critiques emerging from the literature on women and children's agency in under‐resourced settings, highlighting calls to move from individualistic to relational models of agency, and to recognise the ambiguous, value‐laden, and heterogeneous nature of the concept. We then draw out what these conceptual shifts might mean for research ethics obligations and guidance, illustrating our analysis using a case vignette based on research ethics work conducted in South Africa. We conclude that if research practices are to be supportive of agency, it will be crucial to scrutinise the moral judgements which underpin accounts of agency, derive more situated definitions of and responses to agency, and enable people and participants to influence these based on their own experiences and self‐perceptions. (shrink)

This article explores Gerardus van der Leeuw’s view of phenomenology of religion. The phenomenological method he defended is basically a hermeneutical approach in which an observer relates personally and even existentially to the “phenomena” (s)he studies in order to determine their essence (Wesensschau). In his anthropology (that reflects on the basic structure of human beings) a similar way of relating to the world is discussed: the “primitive mentality” that is characterized by the “need to participate” (besoin de participation). Both phenomenology (...) and mentalité primitive imply a critique of modern scholarship. This fundamental criticism of the prevailing (historical) approach in the humanities including religious studies explains the growing distance between van der Leeuw and the majority of scholars of religion in the decades after his death in 1950. (shrink)

The current empirical research and normative arguments on physician-assisted dying in the Netherlands seem insufficient to provide ethical guidance to general practitioners in the practice of PAD, due to a gap between the evidence and arguments on the one hand and the uncertainties and complexities as found in everyday practice on the other. This paper addresses the problems of current ethical arguments and empirical research and how both seem to be profoundly influenced by the Dutch legislative framework on PAD and (...) a certain view on ethics. Furthermore, the paper elaborates on how other approaches to empirical research in bioethics, such as found in the broad field of narrative research, could supplement the empirical and ethical evaluation of PAD in the Netherlands. This paper also addresses the challenging question of how empirical data—in this case narratives—relate to normativity. The paper is written in the form of a personal narrative of the author, a young Dutch general practitioner and researcher in bioethics. This style is intentionally chosen, to illustrate how work context and professional background influence the observations one makes and the questions one may ask about the topic of PAD. In addition, by using this style, this paper not only gives a different perspective on a much-contested bioethical issue, but also on the challenges faced when a physician–bioethicist has to navigate different disciplinary fields and epistemological paradigms, especially since the ‘empirical turn’ in bioethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:…duplici modo Daemon homini carnaliter copulatur:Ludovico Maria Sinistrari's Alternative to Apostasy and Sorcery in Human-Incubus IntercourseBert RoestLodovico Maria Sinistrari d'Ameno (1632-1701), who joined the Riformati branch in 1647 in the Pavian Provincia di S. Diego, is one of the many productive seventeenth-century Franciscan authors whose works are not habitually discussed within the world of Franciscan scholarship. According to the existing bibliographical guides, Sinistrari authored under his own name and (...) under various pseudonyms (such as Panfilo, Clodoveo Farvamondi, Nicolò Turris, Lazaro Socio, and Lazaro Agostino Cotta) about 34 works, more or less half of which reached the printing press during his lifetime. These works cover a wide range of genres and topics, including comedies, religious and secular dramas, astrological, astronomical and scientific works (including polemics against works of other scholars, medical and embryological papers), defenses of the religious orders, sermons and funerary orations, treatises of sacramental theology, some atypical hagiographical texts, and works of religious disciplinary law. This production was linked to his acknowledged expertise in a variety of disciplines, which apparently made him a celebrated lecturer in Pavia within the order and in public schools, teaching the liberal arts, geometry, military architecture and theology. Some of his works are connected with his activities as a preacher, advisor, and later censor for the Holy Office, practicing exorcist, consultant for the Franciscan Minister General, and personal theologian of Alessandro Montecatini (Archbishop of Avignon) and Federico Caccia (Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan).1Within the order itself, his most enduring legacy might have been his three volume Practica criminalis illustrata, a work that is both a commentary on penal law within the Franciscan order, and a more wide-ranging manual for dealing with penitential and religious-criminal issues, written [End Page 191] to supplant older handbooks of such kind. He was initially tasked to compile such materials at the Franciscan general chapter celebrated at Rome in 1688. The first two volumes of the Practica criminalis illustrata appeared in print in 1693. They were again published posthumously in 1702.2 In between he finished another volume of the Practica with a somewhat different focus, also known under the title De delictis et poenis tractatus absolutissimus, and which was proposed as a useful guidebook for judges, lawyers, and prelates in ecclesiastical courts, as well as for confessors, exorcists, and lay practitioners of law. This work was issued for the first time in 1700.3Although a wished-for early eighteenth-century re-issue of this multi-volume Practica criminalis illustrata was put on hold when it was placed on the index of forbidden books in March 1709 donec corrigatur for suspicion of laxist tendencies,4 all three volumes did appear again with some modifications in a 1753-1754 opera omnia edition. It could be found in a significant number of Franciscan and non-Franciscan order libraries, and apparently remained for a long time an important resource for penitential and disciplinary policies.5 [End Page 192]Whereas Sinistrari, like so many early modern friars, is not a commanding presence in the scholarly and literary canon of present-day Franciscan order history, he became a figure of some fascination and even notoriety in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century esoteric circles, and also is known by modern scholars of early modern demonology and early modern sexuality. This is mainly due to the publication, in the later nineteenth century, of two of Sinistrari's works on demoniality and sodomy that as such were not printed in full during our friar's lifetime, but parts of which are included in Titulus 4 of his Latin De delictis et poenis tractatus absolutissimus, namely the crimes against chastity (which in De delictis et poenis, alongside of daemonialitas [which comes last], comprises constortium suspectum, sollecitatio ad turpia, fornicatio, stuprum, incestus, raptus, clausurae violatio, sacrilegium cum moniali, mollities, sodomia, and bestialitas).Hence, in 1875, the French book collector and editor Isidore Liseux issued for the first time De la démonialité et des animaux incubes et succubes où l'on prouve qu'il existe sur terre des créatures raisonnables autres que l'homme, ayant comme lui un corps et une âme, naissant et mourant comme... (shrink)

This paper describes the escape/intervention concept as it is used in the agent growing environment framework. The Escape and Intervention is used in many multi-disciplinary areas, including agent research, artificial intelligence, groupware and workflow, process support, software engineering, and social sciences. Based on an ontological perspective, this paper explains how an interaction-oriented agent architecture and language (used for modelling, simulation, and development) makes use of an interaction pattern that is inspired from social contexts seen as multi-agent systems.

Brain death has been accepted worldwide medically and legally as the biological state of death of the organism. Nevertheless, the literature has described persistent problems with this acceptance ever since brain death was described. Many of these problems are not widely known or properly understood by much of the medical community. Here we aim to clarify these issues, based on the two intractable problems in the brain death debates. First, the metaphysical problem: there is no reason that withstands critical scrutiny (...) to believe that BD is the state of biological death of the human organism. Second, the epistemic problem: there is no way currently to diagnose the state of BD, the irreversible loss of all brain functions, using clinical tests and ancillary tests, given potential confounders to testing. We discuss these problems and their main objections and conclude that these problems are intractable in that there has been no acceptable solution offered other than bare assertions of an ‘operational definition’ of death. We present possible ways to move forward that accept both the metaphysical problem - that BD is not biological death of the human organism - and the epistemic problem - that as currently diagnosed, BD is a devastating neurological state where recovery of sentience is very unlikely, but not a confirmed state of irreversible loss of all [critical] brain functions. We argue that the best solution is to abandon the dead donor rule, thus allowing vital organ donation from patients currently diagnosed as BD, assuming appropriate changes are made to the consent process and to laws about killing. (shrink)

This article explores Gerardus van der Leeuw’s view of phenomenology of religion. The phenomenological method he defended is basically a hermeneutical approach in which an observer relates personally and even existentially to the “phenomena” (s)he studies in order to determine their essence (Wesensschau). In his anthropology (that reflects on the basic structure of human beings) a similar way of relating to the world is discussed: the “primitive mentality” that is characterized by the “need to participate” (besoin de participation). Both phenomenology (...) and mentalité primitive imply a critique of modern scholarship. This fundamental criticism of the prevailing (historical) approach in the humanities including religious studies explains the growing distance between van der Leeuw and the majority of scholars of religion in the decades after his death in 1950. (shrink)

Geschiedwetenschap was lange tijd vooral geschiedschrijving. Historische verhalen werden gebruikt om heersende gebruiken en opvattingen in het heden te ondersteunen. In de 19de eeuw werd de geschiedbeoefening een echt academische wetenschap. Deze professionalisering heeft voor veel goeds gezorgd, maar kan soms ook een last blijken. Met name het ontstaan van elkaar al dan niet verketterende 'scholen' en 'richtingen' heeft ertoe geleid dat historici soms meer bezig waren met het bestrijden van elkaars opvattingen dan met het onderbouwen van hun eigen standpunten.0Een (...) keur aan auteurs brengt in dit boek deze 'last der geschiedenis' en hoe daarmee om te gaan in kaart. Op welke manieren gingen historici sinds de professionalisering van hun vak in de 19de eeuw gebukt onder dominante representaties en benaderingswijzen van het verleden? Hoe hebben zij soms getracht, tegen de stroom in, daarmee te breken, en wat heeft dat aan nieuwe inzichten opgeleverd? (shrink)

Family members do not have an official position in the practice of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide in the Netherlands according to statutory regulations and related guidelines. However, recent empirical findings on the influence of family members on EAS decision-making raise practical and ethical questions. Therefore, the aim of this review is to explore how family members are involved in the Dutch practice of EAS according to empirical research, and to map out themes that could serve as a starting point (...) for further empirical and ethical inquiry. A systematic mixed studies review was performed. The databases Pubmed, Embase, PsycInfo, and Emcare were searched to identify empirical studies describing any aspect of the involvement of family members before, during and after EAS in the Netherlands from 1980 till 2018. Thematic analysis was chosen as method to synthesize the quantitative and qualitative studies. Sixty-six studies were identified. Only 14 studies had family members themselves as study participants. Four themes emerged from the thematic analysis. 1) Family-related reasons to request EAS. 2) Roles and responsibilities of family members during EAS decision-making and performance. 3) Families’ experiences and grief after EAS. 4) Family and ‘the good euthanasia death’ according to Dutch physicians. Family members seem to be active participants in EAS decision-making, which goes hand in hand with ambivalent feelings and experiences. Considerations about family members and the social context appear to be very important for patients and physicians when they request or grant a request for EAS. Although further empirical research is needed to assess the depth and generalizability of the results, this review provides a new perspective on EAS decision-making and challenges the Dutch ethical-legal framework of EAS. Euthanasia decision-making is typically framed in the patient-physician dyad, while a patient-physician-family triad seems more appropriate to describe what happens in clinical practice. This perspective raises questions about the interpretation of autonomy, the origins of suffering underlying requests for EAS, and the responsibilities of physicians during EAS decision-making. (shrink)

Constructions of Intersubjectivity shows that the meaning of grammatical constructions often has more to do with the human cognitive capacity for taking other peoples' points of view than with describing the world. Treating pragmatics, semantics, and syntax in parallel and integrating insights from linguistics, psychology, and animal communication, Arie Verhagen develops a new understanding of linguistic communication. In doing so he shows the continuity between language and animal communication and reveals the nature of human linguistic specialization. Professor Verhagen uses Dutch (...) and English data from a wide variety of sources and considers the contributions of grammar to the coherence of discourse. He argues that important problems in semantics and syntax may be resolved if language is understood as an instrument for exerting influence and coordinating different perspectives. The grammatical phenomena he discusses include negative expressions, the let alone construction, complementation constructions, and discourse connectives.This powerfully argued and original explanation of the nature and operation of communication will interest a wide range of scholars and advanced students in linguistics, cognitive science, and human evolution. (shrink)

Francis of Assisi's embrace of a leper,2 and the initial identification of the Friars Minor with the outcasts of society, was echoed in the renown of a number of Franciscan saints and beati as miraculous healers and patron saints for those suffering from certain illnesses.3 Some of them were also known for hospital service during epidemics.4 All this has created a long-standing association between the Franciscan order family and the care for the sick. Yet despite significant involvement of individual friars, (...) and some Franciscan friaries, Clarissan convents and associated confraternities with hospitals and comparable institutions during the medieval period and after,5 there was no systemic Franciscan engagement with... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:This review essay has been inspired by Francesco Fiorentino's 2006 study Libertà e contingenza nel pensiero tardomedievale, which provides a detailed analysis and an edition of the 38th distinction of Francis of Meyronnes' 'Conflatus' . As with some of his earlier articles and book-length studies on Gregory of Rimini and other early fourteenth-century figures, Fiorentino grapples in this book with some central theological issues in the decades after Scotus's (...) teachings in Paris, namely the relation between God as omniscient and omnipotent creator and his contingent creation, and the reconciliation between God's foreknowledge and human freedom.There is a general understanding among specialists of late medieval Franciscan thought that the teachings of Scotus at Oxford and Paris had formed a watershed in dealing with these issues, and that most Franciscan theologians after Scotus took his teachings as a major point of departure. Yet the latest research indicates that this did not mean a slavish adherence to the Doctor Subtilis. The detailed studies and editions that are currently appearing show that we are confronted by significant independent masters, able to follow the depths of Scotus's arguments but willing to develop their own stance within the debates of their time.Francis of Meyronnes is without doubt one of the more important Franciscan theologians in this very period. As his name already indicates, he was born in Meyronnes , in a family that maintained close contacts with the Anjou dynasty . Francis joined the Franciscan Order at Digne , and received an education in logic and philosophy before he was allowed to pursue a lectorate course at the Paris studium generale , where he became acquainted with the theology of Scotus.After his studies to become a lector, he taught between 1307 and 1320 as a lecturer's assistant and as a philosophy and theology lector in consecutive assignments in the schools of the custody and in provincial studia in the French and Italian provinces of the Order. He also fulfilled in this period a stint as Custos of the Sisteron custody. Based on his teaching performance, which would have included philosophical teachings as well as a series of lectures on the Sentences of Lombard pro exercitio in the provincial school network, he was allowed to return to Paris to read the Sentences pro gradu between 1320-1322. Immediately following these Sentences lectures, Francis completed the obligatory post-sentential exercises through participation in a number of disputed and quodlibetal questions , in order to become eligible for the magisterium with the licentia ubique docendi. During this period between his Sentences lectures pro gradu and his promotion, he worked towards an edited version of his Sentences commentary and published some of his works on Augustine's De Trinitate, as well as several other texts related to his teaching and disputation activities.Francis was able to build on his family connections with the house of Anjou. This showed for example in his contacts with Elzéar of Sabran, preceptor of King Robert of Naples . Either through Francis's contacts with Elzéar or directly, King Robert obtained a sufficiently high opinion of Francis to sponsor his promotion to the magisterium theologiae. At the King's instigation, Pope John XXII wrote a papal letter to the chancellor of the University of Paris on 24 May 1323, asking him to bestow on Francis "the license to teach everywhere" . Thus, Francis became a magister bullatus. Yet it is a bit unfair to suggest, to quote Francesco Fiorentino, that he received the doctorate "secondo l'uso dell'epoca, senza alcun concorso competitivo." The procedure of.. (shrink)

Bernardino Ochino is one of the more intriguing and also more tragic leading figures within the sixteenth-century Franciscan Observant and early Capuchin order families, and epitomizes many of the conflicts and ambiguities in the positions of friars with a sincere commitment to religious reform in the turbulent first half of the sixteenth century. As is the case with other friars who eventually chose or were forced to leave order and Church to join the Protestant fold in one of its manifestations, (...) historians with a Franciscan and Capuchin order allegiance for a long time were hesitant to deal with his activities and writings head-on, limiting themselves often to very partial and opiniated contributions.... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionFrom the closing decades of the fourteenth century onwards, reform attempts within the various religious orders gained impetus under the banner of so-called Observant movements. In nearly all orders, these Observant movements advocated a return to the lifestyle of an imagined pristine beginning in the face of a real or perceived crisis.1Within the Clarissan world, there were a number of signs pointing towards such a crisis. Adherence to the (...) rule, as well as a viable form of communal religious life could be conspicuously absent by the later fourteenth century. This was not solely the result of failing religious stamina, due to the interference of lay benefactors or sheer lack of motivation among the choir nuns. From the later 1340s onwards, many religious houses suffered heavily from recurrent Plague epidemics and the effects of prolonged military campaigns.This was particularly visible in some areas in France that were touched by the Plague and the Hundred Years War. In Toulouse, the Clarissan monastic community was reduced from around 80 women in 1330 to just four by 1370. Other houses more or less disappeared altogether because of the Plague, as was the case in Carcassone, Lavaur, Narbonne and Samatan, and had to be refounded. The Clarissan monasteries of Auterive, Béziers, Boisset, Les Cassés, Gourdon, and Le Pouget were heavily damaged or completely destroyed by warfare, and needed rebuilding.2In many cases, surviving nuns from destroyed monasteries extra muros moved into town. They had to restart their community life under very difficult circumstances. To make ends meet, the women sometimes had to engage in forms of economic exploitation of their goods that were not in line with the requirements of their rule. To make up for extreme losses in population and revenue, they also had to resort to recruitment practices that brought in people not equipped to embrace the vows of poverty, abstinence and obedience.There was no uniformity in the ways in which reforms were initiated. Nor did they always have the same results. This becomes clear as soon as we take into account the choice for a specific rule, the implementation of additional reform constitutions and convent statutes, and the role played by nuns and abbesses, secular authorities, secular clergymen and, of course, leading Observant and non-Observant friars of the Franciscan order.The Tordesillas congregationAn early attempt at reform in Castile resulted in a congregation named after the Poor Clare monastery at Tordesillas. This royal foundation had been created around 1363 to perform intercessory prayers on behalf of Pedro I of Castile and his new wife Maria of Padiella. The house was well endowed, and papal privileges freed the house from episcopal oversight, in line with important Urbanist houses elsewhere.3 In 1377, this autonomy was augmented, when Pope Gregory XI, ‘for certain reasons’ , freed the house from control from the Franciscan provincial minister.4 This might have been motivated by thoughts towards religious reform.5In any case, the new Castilian ruler Juan I was not content with the nuns’ intercessory works for the royal family. He obtained several papal bulls from the Avignon Pope Clement VII to entice the monastery to return to its former “observance” of the rule and its prayer obligations. These bulls made the Franciscan confessor of the king, friar Fernando of Illescas, perpetual visitator of the Tordesillas house, with full powers for the duration of his life.6 He could remove the abbess from office and enter the monastic enclosure to correct abuses. He could also absolve nuns and monastic personnel from sins and excommunication, as well as appoint and dismiss confessors and deliver punishments.7From 1410 onwards, the Tordesillas reform model began to attract other monasteries, which coagulated into the reform congregation of Santa Maria la Real or Santa Clara de Tordesillas. By 1447.. (shrink)

Brain death is accepted in most countries as death. The rationales to explain why brain death is death are surprisingly problematic. The standard rationale that in brain death there has been loss of integrative unity of the organism has been shown to be false, and a better rationale has not been clearly articulated. Recent expert defences of the brain death concept are examined in this paper, and are suggested to be inadequate. I argue that, ironically, these defences demonstrate the lack (...) of a defensible rationale for why brain death should be accepted as death itself. If brain death is death, a conceptual rationale for brain death being equivalent to death should be clarified, and this should be done urgently. (shrink)

A classic example of the arbitrary relation between the way a word sounds and its meaning is that microorganism is a very long word that refers to a very small entity, whereas whale is a very short word that refers to something very big. This example, originally presented in Hockett's list of language's design features, has been often cited over the years, not only by those discussing the arbitrary nature of language, but also by researchers of sound symbolism. While the (...) two groups disagreed regarding the role of arbitrariness and sound symbolism in language, they both agreed there is a nonsound symbolic relation between word length and entity size in this case. This paper shows that the length of the words whale and microorganism in fact reflects a sound symbolic pattern. An analysis of >600 languages from >100 language families shows that languages use longer words to denote the concept small than they do to denote the concept big. The paper thus shows how explicit judgments might differ from implicit cognitive association and the problem of relying on these in sound symbolism research. (shrink)

This study extends the theory of planned behavior framework by introducing three further variables to explain how behavioral intention and actual behavior are induced by situational factors as well as green advertising from the company. Then, this study has four objectives. First, this study will assess the direct effect of personal factors and contextual factors on learning experience and the direct effect of personal factors on subjective norms. Second, this study will assess the direct effect of learning experience on social (...) cognitive factors for a specific green product. Third, this study will assess the direct effect of social cognitive factors on intention purchasing behavior. Finally, this study will assess the role of green marketing as a moderating variable for the relationship between intention and purchasing behavior. Data used in this study were primary data, which were collected through closed questionnaires with a five-point Likert scale. This study succeeded in obtaining 602 valid data from the results of filling out questionnaires by participants. This study uses the partial least square method with SmartPLS 3.0 for data processing. The result of data processing indicated that outcome expectation, self-efficacy, and subjective norms had significant positive effects on purchase intention for green personal care products. This study also found that the learning experience influenced both outcome expectation and self-efficacy. Although weak, the learning experience was influenced by demographic factors and contextual factors. The demographic factors that affect learning experience were gender and level of education. The contextual factor has a more substantial influence on learning experience in developing consumption-related attitudes to green personal care products than the demographic factor. Finally, this study also found the direct effect of intention on actual purchase behavior and the positive role of green marketing as the moderating variable. (shrink)

All articles in May 2019’s special issue of Bioethics offer profound insights into the issue of “being a burden to others” in relation to wishes to die, which are highly relevant for ethical debates about end‐of‐life care and physician‐assisted dying. In this reply, we wish to stress the importance of acknowledging and analyzing the sociopolitical context of the phenomenon “being a burden” in relation to wishes to die and we will show how this analysis could benefit from a care ethical (...) approach. As discussions in care ethics have made clear, caring practices are both social and political practices. An empirical and ethical analysis of “being a burden” therefore needs to take institutional and societal norms and structures into account, in addition to first‐person experiences and concepts such as caring needs, relational autonomy, and interdependency. Besides the relevance of the sociopolitical context for the phenomenon “being a burden” as such, the sociopolitical context also seems relevant for the investigation of the phenomenon, which we will illustrate by reflecting on “being a burden” in relation to the practice of physician‐assisted dying in the Netherlands. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 45, Issue 11, November 2021.

Teacher-student dialogue plays a central role in facilitating the ongoing growth of those engaged in education, particularly dialogue that invites student reflection on the instruction being given and the teacher herself. Dialogue should aid students in articulating self-awareness regarding their behaviour and learning habits and the learning process and its results at the same time as assessing their quality and the ways in which they may be improved. One of the reasons behind our increasing inability to break down the inherent (...) barrier between teachers and students is due to a lack of engagement in ongoing dialogical reflection as a means of advancing the teaching-learning process within the school. This article summarizes the philosophical concepts of a ten years of teacher education program which was designed according to the principals of Philosophy with Children. The program fostered creativity and self-reflective thinking in schools and in teacher education and offered dialogical methods. It is based also on six dimensions that are the basis of Philosophy with Children: learning from a place of questions, community of learning that resists the educational hierarchy that boasts of omniscience, coordinator as a participant in the learning process, learning in the real present, legitimization of improvisation as a way of learning, learning as liberating the learner from disciplinary boundaries. All six dimensions view Philosophy with Children as a pedagogy of searching at whose center lies the pursuit of meaning that facilitates personal development—and thus self-direction and capability. (shrink)

The use of qualitative research in empirical bioethics is becoming increasingly popular, but its implementation comes with several challenges, such as difficulties in aligning moral epistemology and methods. In this paper, we describe some problems that empirical bioethics researchers may face; these problems are related to a tension between the different poles on the spectrum of scientific paradigms, namely a positivist and interpretive stance. We explore the ideas of narrative construction, ‘genres’ in medicine and dominant discourses in relation to empirical (...) research. We also reflect on the loss of depth and context that may occur with thematic or content analyses of interviews, and discuss the need for transparency about methodologies in empirical bioethics. Drawing on insights from narrative approaches in the social sciences and the clinical-educational discipline of Narrative Medicine, we further clarify these problems and suggest a narrative approach to qualitative interviewing in empirical bioethics that enables researchers to ‘listen (and read) in new ways’. We then show how this approach was applied in the first author’s research project about euthanasia decision-making. In addition, we stress the important ethical task of scrutinizing methodologies and meta-ethical standpoints, as they inevitably impact empirical outcomes and corresponding ethical judgments. Finally, we raise the question whether a ‘diagnostic’, rather than a ‘problem-solving’, mindset could and should be foregrounded in empirical ethics, albeit without losing a commitment to ethics’ normative task, and suggest further avenues for theorizing about listening and epistemic (in)justice in relation to empirical (bio)ethics. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to revisit the curve fitting problem using the reliability of inductive inference as a primary criterion for the ‘fittest' curve. Viewed from this perspective, it is argued that a crucial concern with the current framework for addressing the curve fitting problem is, on the one hand, the undue influence of the mathematical approximation perspective, and on the other, the insufficient attention paid to the statistical modeling aspects of the problem. Using goodness-of-fit as the (...) primary criterion for ‘best', the mathematical approximation perspective undermines the reliability of inference objective by giving rise to selection rules which pay insufficient attention to ‘accounting for the regularities in the data'. A more appropriate framework is offered by the error-statistical approach, where (i) statistical adequacy provides the criterion for assessing when a curve captures the regularities in the data adequately, and (ii) the relevant error probabilities can be used to assess the reliability of inductive inference. Broadly speaking, the fittest curve (statistically adequate) is not determined by the smallness if its residuals, tempered by simplicity or other pragmatic criteria, but by the nonsystematic (e.g. white noise) nature of its residuals. The advocated error-statistical arguments are illustrated by comparing the Kepler and Ptolemaic models on empirical grounds. ‡I am grateful to Deborah Mayo and Clark Glymour for many valuable suggestions and comments on an earlier draft of the paper; estimating the Ptolemaic model was the result of Glymour's prompting and encouragement. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Economics, Virginia Tech 3019 Pamplin Hall (0316), Blacksburg, VA 24061; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

For Hannah Arendt, some of the most distinctive features of the modern age derived from the adoption of a process-imaginary in science, history, and administration. This article examines Arendt’s work, identifying what it calls the ‘process-frame’ in her criticism of imperialism, economy, and the biologization of politics. It discusses an interpretation in which ‘natality’ presents a completely alternative mode of temporality, a resistance to the process-frame. This interpretation, it is argued, needs to be specified by taking into account that political (...) action both interrupts and starts processes of its own. To confine and overcome the negative effects of process-framing, it is important to emphasize action as a world-building activity – something capable of establishing a relatively stable area of the common world by initiating processes of its own. Second, it is also important to cultivate ways of thinking and perceiving particular acts as meaningfully independent of all-embracing processes. (shrink)

Many believe that the ethical problems of donation after cardiocirculatory death (DCD) have been "worked out" and that it is unclear why DCD should be resisted. In this paper we will argue that DCD donors may not yet be dead, and therefore that organ donation during DCD may violate the dead donor rule. We first present a description of the process of DCD and the standard ethical rationale for the practice. We then present our concerns with DCD, including the following: (...) irreversibility of absent circulation has not occurred and the many attempts to claim it has have all failed; conflicts of interest at all steps in the DCD process, including the decision to withdraw life support before DCD, are simply unavoidable; potentially harmful premortem interventions to preserve organ utility are not justifiable, even with the help of the principle of double effect; claims that DCD conforms with the intent of the law and current accepted medical standards are misleading and inaccurate; and consensus statements by respected medical groups do not change these arguments due to their low quality including being plagued by conflict of interest. Moreover, some arguments in favor of DCD, while likely true, are "straw-man arguments," such as the great benefit of organ donation. The truth is that honesty and trustworthiness require that we face these problems instead of avoiding them. We believe that DCD is not ethically allowable because it abandons the dead donor rule, has unavoidable conflicts of interests, and implements premortem interventions which can hasten death. These important points have not been, but need to be fully disclosed to the public and incorporated into fully informed consent. These are tall orders, and require open public debate. Until this debate occurs, we call for a moratorium on the practice of DCD. (shrink)

ArgumentIn this article we examine how a leading Israeli hospital gradually became a large biomedical research facility, resembling a huge laboratory. For Chaim Sheba (1908-1971), the founder and first director of Tel-Hashomer Hospital, the massive immigration to Israel in the 1950s was a unique opportunity for research of diverse human populations, especially Jews who had arrived to Israel from Asia and Africa. The paper focuses on the way research and medical practices were integrated and their boundaries blurred, and studies the (...) conditions under which an entire hospital became a research field. Using the case of one of Israel’s prominent medical institutes, we explore and expand upon the idea of “the hospital as a laboratory,” arguing that, for Sheba, it was not only the hospital but the entire country that functioned as a great research site—a vast laboratory that “had no walls.”. (shrink)

The article revisits the large n problem as it relates to the Jeffreys-Lindley paradox to compare the frequentist, Bayesian, and likelihoodist approaches to inference and evidence. It is argued that what is fallacious is to interpret a rejection of as providing the same evidence for a particular alternative, irrespective of n; this is an example of the fallacy of rejection. Moreover, the Bayesian and likelihoodist approaches are shown to be susceptible to the fallacy of acceptance. The key difference is that (...) in frequentist testing the severity evaluation circumvents both fallacies but no such principled remedy exists for the other approaches. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 12, Page 70-72, December 2011.

This study offers a fresh reappraisal of the philosopher, political thinker, and historian of ideas Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) from childhood to the height of his intellectual career. It provides the first historically contextualized study of Berlin's formative years and identifies different stages in his intellectual development, allowing a reappraisal of his theory of liberalism. Applying a 'double perspective' that examines Berlin both as an East European Jewish émigré; as well as a British Liberal intellectual, author Arie Dubnov stresses the (...) very ambivalent relation between Berlin's liberal philosophy and his pro-Zionist sentiments. (shrink)

Resumo. Hannah Arendt. Educação inicial. Agostinho de Hipona. Este artigo faz parte de uma investigação em andamento, na qual exploramos a leitura de arendtiana do Agostinho de Hipona, partindo da obra inicial, El concepto de amor en San Agustín (2001). Consideramos que a investigação da dissertação doutoral, obra tão pouco explorada pelos seus mais relevantes interpretes, pode brindarmos novas chaves de leitura da teoria política de Hannah Arendt, tornando mais complexo nossa abordagem na sua leitura heterodoxa da tradição do pensamento (...) filosófico. Segundo nossa hipótese é a tese doutoral de 1929, onde a dimensão política do problema num sentido amplo começa a emergir, a partir da questão do que é especificamente humano, sempre sujeito à constante tensão entre um “não mais” e um “ainda não” (Arendt, 2001: 311; Agustín, 2005: XI, 21,27). Somente em posteriores trabalhos a leitura da fonte agostiniana –focada cada vez mais nas Confesiones (2005) y na Ciudad de Dios (1958) fica articulada explicitamente com a elaboração da trama mais conhecida da fenomenologia da ação política; na qual numerosos e importantes interpretes tenham situado o giro embora da política da aluna do Heidegger e Jaspers (Young Bruehl, 2006; Canovan, 2002; Benhabib, 2000; Forti, 2001). Embora essas autoras reconheçam a formação inicial e sua influencia sobre a filósofa Arendt, em geral, todas elas acentuam a ruptura com todo o seu escopo de formação universitária em filosofia e teologia. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 6, Page 687-698, July 2022.

From its inception, philosophy for/with children (P4wC) has sought to promote philosophical discussion with children based on the latter’s own questions and a pedagogic method designed to encourage critical, creative, and caring thinking. Communities of inquiry can be plagued by power struggles prompted by diverse identities, however. These not always being highlighted in the literature or P4wC discourse, this article proposes a two-stage model for facilitators as part of their ethical responsibility. In the first phase, they should free themselves from (...) assumptions and closed-mindedness. They should liberate themselves from pedagogy of fear and “banking education” in order to act freely in an educational space characterized by improvisation that cultivates participation of the children. Here, the text is based on normalizing education principles, counter-education and diasporic-education approaches in order to ensure openness and inclusiveness. In the second, they should embrace enabling-identity views and practices in order to make the community of inquiry as identity-broad and -rich as possible, recognizing and legitimizing the participants’ differences. Here, the text is based on principles such as recognizing power games as part of the community, ensuring multi-narratives human environment and enabling epistemic justice in order to ensure perspectival multiplicity, multiple identities, and the legitimization of difference characterized by pedagogy of search. (shrink)

Ariès traces Western man's attitudes toward mortality from the early medieval conception of death as the familiar collective destiny of the human race to the modern tendency, so pronounced in industrial societies, to hide death as if it were an embarrassing family secret.

This discussion note offers a preliminary analysis of what recent developments in human germline gene editing tell us about the effectiveness of speculative and anticipatory modes of techno-ethics. It argues that the benefits of speculative discussions are difficult to detect thus far, and that pushing the focal point of ethical discourse well ahead of the current state of technology may prematurely undermine existing norms long before a broad consensus would justify moving beyond them.

This article examines two medieval sermons that examine philosophic and halakhic issues: the Passover sermon of Hasdai Crescas, which discusses the laws of Passover, and a sermon of Zerahia Halevi Saladin, a disciple of Crescas, which probes an aspect of the laws of vows ( nedarim ). In the analysis of Zerahia's sermon, a comparison is made between his discussion and Thomas Aquinas's examination of vows in his Summa Theologica . The comparison establishes the dependency of Zerahia on Aquinas regarding (...) this issue. Likewise, Zerahia's sermon is compared with Crescas's, and the relationship between the legal theories of Crescas and Zerahia is investigated. The articles concludes with a brief examination of the significance of the analysis these sermons for understanding of the impact of scholastic sources on Spanish-Jewish philosophy and the relationship between law and philosophy in the writings of Hasdai Crescas and his students. (shrink)

The study of imitation and other mechanisms of social learning is an exciting area of research for all those interested in understanding the origin and the nature of animal learning in asocial context. Moreover, imitation is an increasingly important research topic in Artificial Intelligence and social robotics which opens up the possibility ofindividualized social intelligencein robots that are part of a community, and allows us to harness not only individual learning by the single robot, but also the acquisition of new (...) skills by observing other members of the community. After an introduction to the main research issues in research on imitation in various fields, we motivate the particular focus of this work, namely thecorrespondence problem. We describeAction Learning for Imitation via Correspondences between Embodiments, an implemented generic framework for solving the correspondence problem between differently embodied robots. Alice enables a robotic agent to learn a behavioral repertoire suitable to performing a task by observing a model agent. Importantly, the model agent could possibly possess a different type of body, e.g. a different number of limbs or joints, a different height, different sensors, a different basic action repertoire, etc. Previously, in a test-bed where the agents differed according to their possible movement patterns, we demonstrated that the character of imitation achieved will depend on the granularity of subgoal matching, and on the metrics used to evaluate success.In our current work, we implemented Alice in a new test-bed calledRabitwhere simple simulated robotic arm agents use various metrics for evaluating success according to actions, states, effects, or weighted combinations.We examine the roles ofsynchronization,looseness of perceptual matching, and ofproprioceptive matchingby a series of experiments. Also, we study how Alice copes withchanges in the embodimentof the imitator during learning. Our simulation results suggest thatsynchronizationandloose perceptual matchingallow for faster acquisition of behavioral compentencies at low error rates.Social learning plays a role as areplicationmechanism for behaviors and results invariabilitywhen the transmitted behavior differs from the model’s behavior, thus providing theevolutionary substrate for cultureand its pre-cursors. Social learning in robotics could therefore serve as the basis for culture in societies whose members include artificial agents. We address the use of imitative social learning mechanisms like Alice for transmission of skills between robots, and give first examples of transmission of a skill despite differences in embodiment of agents involved. In the particular setup, transmission occurs through a chain, as well as emerging in cyclic arrangements of robots. These simple examples demonstrate that by using social learning and imitation,cultural transmissionis possible among robots, even in heterogeneous groups of robots. (shrink)

This article calls into question the charge that frequentist testing is susceptible to the base-rate fallacy. It is argued that the apparent similarity between examples like the Harvard Medical School test and frequentist testing is highly misleading. A closer scrutiny reveals that such examples have none of the basic features of a proper frequentist test, such as legitimate data, hypotheses, test statistics, and sampling distributions. Indeed, the relevant error probabilities are replaced with the false positive/negative rates that constitute deductive calculations (...) based on known probabilities among events. As a result, the ampliative dimension of frequentist induction—learning from data about the underlying data-generating mechanism—is missing. *Received August 2009; revised January 2010. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Economics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)