The Repugnant Conclusion served an important purpose in catalyzing and inspiring the pioneering stage of population ethics research. We believe, however, that the Repugnant Conclusion now receives too much focus. Avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion should no longer be the central goal driving population ethics research, despite its importance to the fundamental accomplishments of the existing literature.

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

In this empirical paper, Jay, Stone, Meksin, Merck, Gordon and Hirst examine whether jury deliberations, in which individuals collaboratively recall and discuss evidence of a trial, shape the jurors’ memories. In doing so, Jay and colleagues provide a highly ecologically valid baseline for future investigation into why, how and when selective recall either facilitates remembering or leads to forgetting during jury deliberations. In particular, Jay et al. explore the specific social and cognitive mechanisms that might lead to either memory facilitation (...) (RIFA – Retrieval Induced Facilitation) and forgetting (RIF ‐ Retrieval Induced Forgetting) during jury deliberation. (shrink)

Escapism as artistic politics: propaganda in Black Panther (2018) Escapism is omnipresent in contemporary mass art, even though it has a bad reputation. This article traces that reputation back to a pragmatist conviction that art should give expression to experiences, and morals, from everyday practical life. Through a philosophical conversation with two pragmatist aestheticians, W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul C. Taylor, and an art-critical discussion of an escapist film, Black Panther (2018), I provide a pragmatist defence of the use of (...) escapism as political-aesthetic motif. Works that set themselves the task of communicating standards of radical equality (among which: standards of racial equality applicable to white supremacist societies), cannot appropriately express what they want since they necessarily fail to appropriately address their audience. The only utopian course that remains is to react negatively to, by trying to escape, the norms that a present audience necessarily imports from white supremacist society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Future Directions for Oversight of Stem Cell Research in the United States: An UpdateMary A. Majumder (bio) and Cynthia B. Cohen (bio)On 9 March 2009, President Barack Obama (2009a) signed an executive order revoking the statement issued by President George W. Bush during a televised speech in August 2001, in which the latter had sharply restricted the scope of federally funded human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research to cell (...) lines derived (without federal funding) prior to 9:00 P.M. EDT on 9 August 2001. Action by President Obama to remove the cut-off date had been expected. It came as a surprise, however, that he gave authority to determine the scope of eligible research to the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), referencing only general concerns of responsibility, scientific worth, and legality.1 This contrasted not only with the approach of former President Bush, but also with that of former President Clinton, who had expressed personal opposition to the creation of embryos for research and had a distinction between hESCs derived from embryos created for research and those derived from spare embryos enshrined in NIH policy.President Obama’s remarks upon signing the executive order give some insight into the thinking behind his approach. Implicit in them are the views that earlystage human embryos outside the womb do not have full moral status and that the destruction of human embryos in the effort to care for and ease the suffering of human beings who do have full moral status does not devalue human life. The President also stressed that the decision to pursue hESC research reflected not only his opinion, but also a broad social consensus. He concluded with strong ethical commitments on two fronts:We will develop strict guidelines, which we will rigorously enforce, because we cannot ever tolerate misuse or abuse. And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.(Obama 2009b)The specific guarantee that President Obama gave against government support for the development of cloning techniques for human reproductive purposes made his silence on the use of cloning for research seem significant. Comments he had made in the course of the campaign (Obama 2008) suggested that he would affirm [End Page 195] the Clinton-era policy of limiting federal funding to hESCs derived from spare embryos. Did this silence mean that President Obama was opening the door to federal funding of research cloning when and if scientists might manage that feat?2009 NIH GuidelinesThe answer to this question and several others came on 17 April, when Raynard Kington, the acting director of NIH, released Draft NIH Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research (NIH 2009), developed by an NIH Stem Cell Task Force, along with a request for public comment within 30 days of their publication in the Federal Register.2 The 2009 Draft Guidelines exclude from federal funding the derivation of hESCs, a restriction mandated by the reenactment of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment as part of the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act (Public Law 111-8, Division F, Title V, § 509). The 2009 Draft Guidelines also exclude the use of hESCs derived from embryos created for research purposes, and so represent a refusal to open the funding door as broadly as the NIH interpretation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment might allow, at least for the time being.It appears that the drafters used as their starting point the 2000 NIH Guidelines for Research Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells (NIH 2000) dating from the Clinton Administration, rather than more recent guidelines from the National Academy of Sciences (National Research Council 2005; 2007; 2008) and other private bodies. Both the format and content of the 2000 and 2009 NIH efforts are similar, making the departures in the latter stand out in high relief. We highlight departures related to informed consent to embryo donation, creation of human-nonhuman chimeras, and the role of an NIH task force, updating our original comment (Cohen and Majumder 2009).Informed Consent to Embryo DonationThe 2009 NIH Draft Guidelines require that certain statements... (shrink)

This essay argues that the ethics of humanitarian intervention cannot be readily subsumed by the ethics of just war without due attention to matters of political and moral motivation. In the modern era, a just war draws directly from self-benefitting motives in wars of self-defense, or indirectly in wars that enforce international law or promote the global common good. Humanitarian interventions, in contrast, are intuitively admirable insofar as they are other-regarding. That difference poses a challenge to the casuistry of humanitarian (...) intervention because it makes it difficult to reason by analogy from the case of war to the case of humanitarian intervention. The author develops this point in dialogue with Michael Walzer, the U.S. Catholic bishops, and President Clinton. He concludes by showing how a casuistry of intervention is possible, developing a motivational rationale that draws on the Golden Rule. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14.1 (2004) 97-114 [Access article in PDF] Stem Cell Research in the U.S. after the President's Speech of August 2001 Cynthia B. Cohen On 9 August 2001, in a nationally televised speech, President Bush addressed the contentious question of whether to provide federal funds for human embryonic stem cell research (White House 2001).1 This research involves taking the primordial cells found in embryos and (...) transforming them into certain specialized cells, such as those of the heart, nerves, and muscles, with the ultimate goal of transferring these cells into patients to repair damaged cells and tissues. In his remarks, the President authorized funding for research only on stem cells already harvested from remaining embryos at in vitro fertilization (IVF) centers as of 9 August 2001, the date of the speech. In a "Fact Sheet" about embryonic stem cell research, he added the ethical requirements that (1) the donors of embryos gave informed consent to the derivation of stem cells from their embryos, (2) the embryos were created solely for reproductive purposes, and (3) no financial inducements were given to the embryo donors. The President also prohibited federally funded research on embryonic stem cells derived from embryos after 9 August 2001, as well as the creation of embryos for research purposes and the cloning of human embryos for both reproductive and research purposes. He did not seek to ban the pursuit of embryonic stem cell research with private funds. "This allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem-cell research without crossing a fundamental moral line by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of embryos," the President stated (White House 2001).The President's speech stirred intense controversy. Many applauded the new policy because it allowed some embryonic stem cell research to proceed, thereby raising hope that treatments might be developed for those suffering from such conditions as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetes. Others supported it on grounds that it would discourage the future destruction of embryos in stem cell research. They maintained that although it was wrong to have derived stem cells from embryos, this wrong was no longer remediable and it therefore was justifiable to allow research using such embryos to proceed. Some, however, objected to the new policy because they held that it unduly limited the [End Page 97] number of embryonic stem cells available for federally funded research. Still others opposed it on grounds that it made the federal government complicit in what they took to be the wrongful destruction of human embryos that had taken place prior to 9 August 2001. The President established the President's Council on Bioethics by executive order in November 2001 and charged it, among other tasks, with monitoring stem cell research and recommending guidelines and regulations for biomedical innovations.Questions about the moral status of human embryos have so captured public attention since the President issued his remarks that other significant ethical and policy issues raised about stem cell research inside the Beltway have remained in the shadows. A number of individuals and organizations—legislators, scientists, patient groups, the President's Council on Bioethics, ethicists, religious task forces, and social commentators—have attempted to bring these other issues to legislative and public attention. They also have revisited the more publicly prominent question of what sorts of protections we owe to human embryos. In response, Congress has attempted to address several of these newly emerging issues at hearings and in legislation. I review these efforts, consider developing issues and arguments, and conclude by exploring possible future directions for federal and private sector stem cell policy. The Availability of Embryonic Stem Cell Lines to Federally Funded Researchers President Bush, in developing his stem cell research policy, accepted a distinction between the "derivation" and the "use" of embryos enunciated by the General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services toward the end of the Clinton administration. This distinction was adopted to avoid contravening the Dickey-Wicker Amendment (added... (shrink)

In 1997 President Clinton apologized to the survivors of the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study. Since then, two of his recommendations have received little attention. First, he emphasized the need to remember the shameful past so we can build a better future for racial'ethnic minority populations. Second, he directed the creation in partnership with higher education to prepare training materials that would instruct biomedical researchers on the application of ethical principles to research with racial/ethnic minority populations. This article (...) proposes the inclusion of these issues in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. It asks, What is the right or good thing to do? What are our obligations to one another? Two challenges are examined: (a) Conducting research with African Americans without knowledge of bioethics specific to this population, and (b) the ethical dilemma of conducting research that does not adequately take into account the diversity within the Black population that is a contributing factor in health disparities. Training and policy recommendations responsive to President Clinton's Apology are presented. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Journal of Ancient History Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 2 Seiten: 323-356.

Geocentric Greek astronomers called seven heavenly bodies visible to the naked eye (sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) πλανητες—wanderers—because unlike all the other αστρα, their relative positions were constantly changing. While the Romans changed the Greek names of the individual planets to those still in use, they retained the generic name, which now occurs in many European languages. In acentric modern astronomy a planet is a satellite of a star. In addition to the five actual planets known to (...) the Greeks, Earth, Uranus, and Neptune also orbit the sun, a smallish star about half the distance from the centre of the Milky Way to its outer reaches. Earth is the only planet on which life is known for certain to exist. The search is on for concrete evidence of existing or formerly existing life on Mars (Dunbar B. et al. Perseverance Mars rover. NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/perseverance. Retrieved 06/16/2021, 2021). Technology for detecting the chemical signature of life in the atmospheres of some planets of other stars may become available in the near future (Fujii Y. et al. Astrobiology 18 (6): 739–778, 2018)—proving a point made by (Lovelock J. Gaia: A new look at life on earth. Oxford University Press, New York, 1979) that life is a whole-planet phenomenon. That is, the Earth does not just harbour or support life; it has a life of its own. The Earth is a living planet in relationship to which individual organisms are as ephemeral cells (Vernadsky VI. Am Sci 33:1–12, 1945). (shrink)

The major contributions of operationism have been negative, largely because operationists failed to distinguish logical theories of reference from empirical accounts of language. Behaviorism never finished an adequate formulation of verbal reports and therefore could not convincingly embrace subjective terms. But verbal responses to private stimuli can arise as social products through the contingencies of reinforcement arranged by verbal communities.

In the face of environmental crises such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss—which all adversely impact on health—Gils-Schmidt and Salloch explore whether physicians can be justified in taking climate issues into account in clinical care.1 While their approach centres on the ‘climate-sensitive’ decisions, physicians can carry out on the micro-level of clinical decision-making, they encourage further discussions on how climate-related issues can be included across different levels of decision-making in healthcare. We propose a list of tasks and a model (...) to assist with navigating the range of factors and structural elements an environmentally sensitive ethics must address. Stephen Gardiner’s notion of a perfect moral storm is central to understanding these issues.2 Gardiner describes how a perfect moral storm occurs in the centre of three overlapping conditions for human action and policymaking in the face of climate change. This storm is driven by: (1) a lack of interest among current generations to meet global needs and accommodate the well-being of future generations, (2) a lack of ecological concerns for other parts of nature than humans and (3) weak ethical and political theories and institutions shaping policy decisions on issues with severe implications across borders and generations. Moreover, these conditions are embedded in the existing, complex world of ethically unjustified power imbalances and social injustice. The growing awareness of healthcare’s climate footprint has amplified and accelerated global, grassroots action to make healthcare more environmentally friendly. This includes incorporating environmental impacts into quality improvement methodologies, building communities of practice to explore how to make …. (shrink)

Human adults possess the extraordinary ability to produce mental imagery about a wide variety of non-occurrent events. We can, for example, simulate the perception of different places, different times, different possibilities, or others’ perspectives. Findings from cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and cognitive neuroscience suggest that all of these capacities rely on the same neuro-cognitive mechanism: episodic simulation. This ability produces mental imagery by constructively recombining elements of past experiences to simulate event representations. However, if episodic simulation indeed produces mental imagery, it (...) remains unclear how the non-imagistic aspects of its outputs become cognitively determined. In this article, I argue that there are (at least) four such non-imagistic ‘dimensions’ of episodic simulation: specificity, temporal orientation, subjectivity, and factuality. Further, I propose an account of the mechanisms which might be responsible for determining where a given output of episodic simulation falls within this dimensional space. According to this view, episodic simulation relies on propositional ‘scope-operators’ either deployed as inputs to the simulation process itself or produced by post-hoc monitoring processes operating over its outputs. This view has consequences for how we should view the operation, development, and evolution of episodic simulation. (shrink)

Between Saying and Doing aims to reconcile pragmatism with analytic philosophy. It investigates the relations between the meaning of linguistic expressions and their use. Giving due weight both to what one has to do in order to count as saying various things and to what one needs to say in order to specify those doings, makes it possible to shed new light on the relations between semantics and pragmatics. Among the vocabularies whose interrelated use and meaning are considered are: logical, (...) indexical, modal, normative, and intentional vocabulary. As the argument proceeds, new ways of thinking about the classic analytic core programs of empiricism, naturalism, and functionalism are offered, as well as novel insights about the ideas of artificial intelligence, the nature of logic, and intentional relations between subjects and objects. (shrink)

_The VaKE Handbook: Theory and Practice of Values and Knowledge Education_ presents a theoretical model and many examples in various fields of education and training for the realization of the principle "Values without knowledge are blind, while knowledge without values is irresponsible".