Background In this study, we examined the ethical implications of Egypt’s new clinical trial law, employing the ethical framework proposed by Emanuel et al. and comparing it to various national and supranational laws. This analysis is crucial as Egypt, considered a high-growth pharmaceutical market, has become an attractive location for clinical trials, offering insights into the ethical implementation of bioethical regulations in a large population country with a robust healthcare infrastructure and predominantly treatment-naïve patients. Methods We conducted a comparative analysis (...) of Egyptian law with regulations from Sweden and France, including the EU Clinical Trials Regulation, considering ethical human subject research criteria, and used a directed approach to qualitative content analysis to examine the laws and regulations. This study involved extensive peer scrutiny, frequent debriefing sessions, and collaboration with legal experts with relevant international legal expertise to ensure rigorous analysis and interpretation of the laws. Results On the rating of the seven different principles (social and scientific values, scientific validity, fair selection of participants, risk-benefit ratio, independent review, informed consent and respect for participants) Egypt, France, and EU regulations had comparable scores. Specific principles (Social Value, Scientific Value, and Fair selection of participants) were challenging to directly identify due to certain regulations embodying 'implicit' principles more than explicitly stated ones. Conclusion The analysis underscores Egypt's alignment with internationally recognized ethical principles, as outlined by Emanuel et al., through its comparison with French, Swedish, and EU regulations, emphasizing the critical need for Egypt to continuously refine its ethical regulations to safeguard participant protection and research integrity. Key issues identified include the necessity to clarify and standardize the concept of social value in research, alongside concerns regarding the expertise and impartiality of ethical review boards, pointing towards a broader agenda for enhancing research ethics in Egypt and beyond. (shrink)

Home, digital technologies and data are intersecting in new ways as responses to the COVID-19 pandemic emerge. We consider the data practices associated with COVID-19 responses and their implications for housing and home through two overarching themes: the notion of home as a private space, and digital technology and surveillance in the home. We show that although home has never been private, the rapid adoption and acceptance of technologies in the home for quarantine, work and study, enabled by the pandemic, (...) is rescripting privacy. The acceleration of technology adoption and surveillance in the home has implications for privacy and potential discrimination, and should be approached with a critical lens. (shrink)

Non-Archimedean probability functions allow us to combine regularity with perfect additivity. We discuss the philosophical motivation for a particular choice of axioms for a non-Archimedean probability theory and answer some philosophical objections that have been raised against infinitesimal probabilities in general.

The Snow White problem is introduced to demonstrate how learning something of which one could not have learnt the opposite (due to observer selection bias) can change an agent’s probability assignment. This helps us to analyse the Sleeping Beauty problem, which is deconstructed as a combinatorial engine and a subjective wrapper. The combinatorial engine of the problem is analogous to Bertrand’s boxes paradox and can be solved with standard probability theory. The subjective wrapper is clarified using the Snow White problem. (...) Sample spaces for all three problems are presented. The conclusion is that subjectivity plays no irreducible role in solving the Sleeping Beauty problem and that no reference to centered worlds is required to provide the answer. (shrink)

The Snow White problem is introduced to demonstrate how learning something of which one could not have learnt the opposite (due to observer selection bias) can change an agent’s probability assignment. This helps us to analyse the Sleeping Beauty problem, which is deconstructed as a combinatorial engine and a subjective wrapper. The combinatorial engine of the problem is analogous to Bertrand’s boxes paradox and can be solved with standard probability theory. The subjective wrapper is clarified using the Snow White problem. (...) Sample spaces for all three problems are presented. The conclusion is that subjectivity plays no irreducible role in solving the Sleeping Beauty problem and that no reference to centered worlds is required to provide the answer. (shrink)

The pseudonymous works Kierkegaard wrote during the period 1843–46 have been responsible for establishing his reputation as an important philosophical thinker, but for Kierkegaard himself, they were merely preparatory for what he saw as the primary task of his authorship: to elucidate the meaning of what it is to live as a Christian and thus to show his readers how they could become truly Christian. The more overtly religious and specifically Christian works Kierkegaard produced in the period 1847–51 were devoted (...) to this task. In this book Sylvia Walsh focuses on the writings of this later period and locates the key to Kierkegaard’s understanding of Christianity in the “inverse dialectic” that is involved in “living Christianly.” In the book’s four main chapters, Walsh examines in detail how this inverse dialectic operates in the complementary relationship of the negative qualifications of Christian existence—sin, the possibility of offense, self-denial, and suffering—to the positive qualifications—faith, forgiveness, new life/love/hope, and joy and consolation. It was Kierkegaard’s aim, she argues, “to bring the negative qualifications, which he believed had been virtually eliminated in Christendom, once again into view, to provide them with conceptual clarity, and to show their essential relation to, and necessity in, securing a correct understanding and expression of the positive qualifications of Christian existence.”. (shrink)

Entrevista realizada durante a conferência proferida por Sylvia Serbin nas atividades do “Congresso Internacional Territorialidade e Saude: desigualdades raciais e sociais em contextos locais e globais”, organizado e coordenado pelo Nucleo de Estudos e Pesquisa em Psicanalise, Identidade, Negritude e Sociedade, ocorrido de 03 a 7 de setembro de 2014, no Centro de Ciências da Saude da Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia, em Santo Antonio de Jesus/BA.

Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can lead to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. FASD is a spectrum of structural, functional, and neurodevelopmental problems with often lifelong implications, affecting communities worldwide. It is a leading preventable form of intellectual disabilities and therefore warrants effective prevention approaches. However, well-intended FASD prevention can increase stigmatization of individuals with FASD, women who consume or have consumed alcohol during pregnancy, and non-biological parents and guardians of individuals with FASD. This narrative review surveyed the literature on stigmatization related (...) to FASD. Public stigma appears to be the most common form of stigma studied. Less is known about FASD-related self-stigma, stigma by association, and structural stigma. Accordingly, the current literature on FASD-related stigma does not appear to provide sufficient guidance for effectively reducing FASD-related stigma. However, lessons can be learned from other related health topics and the use of a systematic approach for the development of health promotion programs, namely Intervention Mapping. (shrink)

_Living Poetically_ is the first book to focus primarily on Kierkegaard's existential aesthetics as opposed to traditional aesthetic features of his writings such as the use of pseudonyms, literary techniques and figures, and literary criticism. _Living Poetically_ traces the development of the concept of the poetic in Kierkegaard's writings as that concept is worked out in an ethical-religious perspective in contrast to the aesthetics of early German romanticism and Hegelian idealism. Sylvia Walsh seeks to elucidate what it means, in (...) Kierkegaard's view, to be an authentic poet in the form of a poetic writer and to clarify his own role as a Christian poet and writer as he understood it. Walsh shows that, in spite of strong criticisms made of the poetic in some of his writings, Kierkegaard maintained a fundamentally positive understanding of the poetic as an essential ingredient in ethical and religious forms of life. Walsh thus reclaims Kierkegaard as a poetic thinker and writer from those who would interpret him as an ironic practitioner of an aestheticism devoid of and detached from the ethical-religious as well as from those who view him as rejecting the poetic and aesthetic on ethical or religious grounds. Viewing contemporary postmodern feminism and deconstruction as advocating a romantic mode of living poetically, Walsh concludes with a feminist reading of Kierkegaard that affirms both individuality and relatedness, commonalities and differences between the self and others, men and women, for the fashioning of an authentic mode of living poetically in the present age. (shrink)

The pseudonymous works Kierkegaard wrote during the period 1843–46 have been responsible for establishing his reputation as an important philosophical thinker, but for Kierkegaard himself, they were merely preparatory for what he saw as the primary task of his authorship: to elucidate the meaning of what it is to live as a Christian and thus to show his readers how they could become truly Christian. The more overtly religious and specifically Christian works Kierkegaard produced in the period 1847–51 were devoted (...) to this task. In this book Sylvia Walsh focuses on the writings of this later period and locates the key to Kierkegaard’s understanding of Christianity in the “inverse dialectic” that is involved in “living Christianly.” In the book’s four main chapters, Walsh examines in detail how this inverse dialectic operates in the complementary relationship of the negative qualifications of Christian existence—sin, the possibility of offense, self-denial, and suffering—to the positive qualifications—faith, forgiveness, new life/love/hope, and joy and consolation. It was Kierkegaard’s aim, she argues, “to bring the negative qualifications, which he believed had been virtually eliminated in Christendom, once again into view, to provide them with conceptual clarity, and to show their essential relation to, and necessity in, securing a correct understanding and expression of the positive qualifications of Christian existence.”. (shrink)

This study aimed to explore stakeholders’ perspectives on the ethical considerations for returning individual pharmacogenomics research results to people living with HIV. A qualitative approach to investigation involved five focus group discussions with 30 Community representatives, 12 key informant interviews with researchers, and 12 in-depth interviews with research ethics committee members. In total, 54 stakeholders who were involved in pharmacogenomics research and HIV treatment and care contributed to the data collection between September 2021 and February 2022. The study explored five (...) prominent themes: (i) defining the nature of research results to return to participants; (ii) preparing research participants to receive their results; (iii) obtaining informed consent for the return of results; (iv) opinions on health personnel to return the results to participants; and (v) opinions on how research results should be communicated to participants. Respondents identified various strategies for the return of individual results with minimal ethical risks including the setting up of a diverse and independent committee to undertake a risk-benefit assessment based on local context; ongoing discussions about the possible kinds of results and their implications throughout the study; and employing genetic counsellors to communicate results to participants. The strategies identified in this study should be further studied and independently verified. (shrink)

Noradrenergic pathways are involved in mediating the central and peripheral effects of physiological arousal. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of noradrenergic transmission in moral decision-making. We studied the effects in healthy volunteers of propranolol (a noradrenergic beta-adrenoceptor antagonist) on moral judgement in a set of moral dilemmas pitting utilitarian outcomes (e.g., saving five lives) against highly aversive harmful actions (e.g., killing an innocent person) in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group design. Propranolol (40 mg orally) (...) significantly reduced heart rate, but had no effect on self-reported mood. Importantly, propranolol made participants more likely to judge harmful actions as morally unacceptable, but only in dilemmas where harms were ‘up close and personal’. In addition, longer response times for such personal dilemmas were only found for the placebo group. Finally, judgments in personal dilemmas by the propranolol group were more decisive. These findings indicate that noradrenergic pathways play a role in responses to moral dilemmas, in line with recent work implicating emotion in moral decision-making. However, contrary to current theorising, these findings also suggest that aversion to harming is not driven by emotional arousal. Our findings are also of significant practical interest given that propranolol is a widely used drug in different settings, and is currently being considered as a potential treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in military and rescue service personnel. (shrink)

I respond to H. M. Collins's claim (1985, 1990, 1993) that experimental inquiry cannot be objective because the only criterium experimentalists have for determining whether a technique is "working" is the production of "correct" (i.e., the expected) data. Collins claims that the "experimenters' regress," the name he gives to this data-technique circle, cannot be broken using the resources of experiment alone. I argue that the data-technique circle, can be broken even though any interpretation of the raw data produced by techniques (...) is theory-dependent. However, it is possible to break this circle by eliminating dependence on even those theoretical presuppositions that are shared by an entire scientific community through the use of multiple independently theory-dependent techniques to produce robust bodies of data. Moreover, I argue, that it is the production of robust bodies of data that convinces experimentalists of the objectivity of their data interpretations. (shrink)

No thinker has reflected more deeply on the role of religion in human life than Søren Kierkegaard, who produced in little more than a decade an astonishing number of works devoted to an analysis of the kind of personality, character, and spiritual qualities needed to become an authentic human being or self. Understanding religion to consist essentially as an inward, passionate, personal relation to God or the eternal, Kierkegaard depicts the art of living religiously as a self through the creation (...) of a kaleidoscope of poetic figures who exemplify the constituents of selfhood or the lack thereof. The present study seeks to bring Kierkegaard into conversation with contemporary empirical psychology and virtue ethics, highlighting spiritual dimensions of human existence in his thought that are inaccessible to empirical measurement, as well as challenging on religious grounds the claim that he is a virtue ethicist in continuity with the classical and medieval virtue tradition. (shrink)

Rasmussen (1993) argues that, because electron microscopists did not use robustness and would not have been warranted in using it as a criterion for the reality or the artifactuality of mesosomes, the bacterial mesosome serves as a test case for robustness that it fails. I respond by arguing that a more complete reading of the research literature on the mesosome shows that ultimately the more robust body of data did not support the mesosome and that electron microscopists used and were (...) warranted in using robustness as a criterion for the artifactuality of mesosomes. (shrink)

Der Affekt der Verachtung wurde im Gegenübertragungserleben des Analytikers bislang kaum beschrieben. Wenn der Analytiker diesen nicht ausschließlich als Resultat der projektiven Identifizierung des Patienten versteht, kann er oder sie in Konflikte mit dem Über-Ich geraten, was zu einer Verleugnung dieses schwierigen Gegenübertragungsgefühls führen kann. Die Autorin beschreibt in zwei Fallvignetten, wie verächtliche Gefühle in der Gegenübertragung auftauchten und welche Über-Ich-Konflikte in ihr aktiviert wurden. Verachtung als schwieriger Affekt wird auf dem Hintergrund der Unterscheidung des normalen Über-Ichs von einem pathologischen (...) Über-Ich untersucht. Ein pathologisches Über-Ich wird insbesondere dann im Analytiker aktiviert, wenn das Ich-Ideal durch die Wahrnehmung von Verachtung angegriffen scheint. Entscheidend ist dann, ob das pathologische Über-Ich im Analytiker mithilfe einer differenzierenden Selbstanalyse bearbeitet und modifiziert werden kann, um Verachtung als mögliche Abwehrbewegung im Kontext von schwer erträglichem traumatischem Material verstehen zu können. (shrink)

USA. Monograph examining the dilemmas of power (incl. Workplace power) and ethics in business management - demonstrates manifestations of power in sciences, business and political power, shows the channels for its control in human relations, and analyses creative uses in negotiation, etc.

This collection of essays on Kierkegaard consists of various articles published in academic journals over the course of several decades. They address dominant and consistent themes in Kierkegaard's authorship, demonstrating the importance of these topics for understanding his authorship as a whole and for contemporary discussions of these issues. In particular, these articles seek to bring his thought into conversation with woman and gender studies in contemporary feminist philosophy and hermeneutics as well as other forms of interpretation. Many of the (...) essays appeared in the International Kierkegaard Commentary edited by fellow Kierkegaard scholar, Robert L. Perkins, and it is in his memory that they are dedicated. (shrink)

Søren Kierkegaard's 13 communion discourses constitute a distinct genre among the various forms of religious writing composed by Kierkegaard. Originally published at different times and places, Kierkegaard himself believed that these discourses served as a unifying element in his work and were crucial for understanding his religious thought and philosophy as a whole. Written in an intensely personal liturgical context, the communion discourses prepare the reader for participation in this rite by emphasizing the appropriate posture for forgiveness of sins and (...) confession. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

This essay argues that ideals of cooperation or adversariality in argumentation are not equally attainable for women. Women in argumentation contexts face oppressive limitations undermining argument success because their authority is undermined by gendered norms of politeness. Women endorsing or, alternatively, transgressing feminine norms of politeness typically defend their authority in argumentation contexts. And yet, defending authority renders it less legitimate. My argument focuses on women in philosophy but bears the implication that other masculine dis- course contexts present similar double (...) binds that urge social and political change. (shrink)

Traditional approaches to theory structure and theory change in science do not fare well when confronted with the practice of certain fields of science. We offer an account of contemporary practice in molecular biology designed to address two questions: Is theory change in this area of science gradual or saltatory? What is the relation between molecular biology and the fields of traditional biology? Our main focus is a recent episode in molecular biology, the discovery of enzymatic RNA. We argue that (...) our reconstruction of this episode shows that traditional approaches to theory structure and theory change need considerable refinement if they are to be defended as generally applicable. 1This paper emerged from discussions between us, and we are both equally responsible for its errors. We would like to thank Yvonne Paterson for helpful comments. (shrink)

It has long been thought that the ancient Greeks did not take mechanics seriously as part of the workings of nature, and that therefore their natural philosophy was both primitive and marginal. In this book Sylvia Berryman challenges that assumption, arguing that the idea that the world works 'like a machine' can be found in ancient Greek thought, predating the early modern philosophy with which it is most closely associated. Her discussion ranges over topics including balancing and equilibrium, lifting (...) water, sphere-making and models of the heavens, and ancient Greek pneumatic theory, with detailed analysis of thinkers such as Aristotle, Archimedes, and Hero of Alexandria. Her book shows scholars of ancient Greek philosophy why it is necessary to pay attention to mechanics, and shows historians of science why the differences between ancient and modern reactions to mechanics are not as great as was generally thought. (shrink)

This article discusses how the concept of a fair finite lottery can best be extended to denumerably infinite lotteries. Techniques and ideas from non-standard analysis are brought to bear on the problem.

This paper attempts to outline an autonomous feminism; a feminism with its own voice, and one that will transcend the binaries in which Marxism and liberalism are still caught. Its first step is to make clear the semio-linguistic foundations of all human social systems. These foundations consist of an open-ended set of social imaginary signifiers embedded in complex abduction or analogy-producing schemas, the creative conjugating of which makes possible the establishing of social orders such as families, monarchies or patriarchies. The (...) second is to show that the semiotics of these orders require dominant or central signifiers, such as father or king, that must be supported by subordinate or peripheral ones. Third, the paper shows that women have consistently functioned as subordinate signifiers in these order-producing semio-linguistic codes. Fourth and finally, the paper details the semiotic difficulties of overthrowing this underlying governing code and thus breaking women out of their assigned subordinate positions. (shrink)

The history of U.S. women scientists’ organizations from the 19th century until the 1960s reflects both women’s relative powerlessness within the science community and their reluctance to challenge discrimination against them. Since the 1960s, feminist activism, together with the increase in the number of women trained in science, have made discrimination against women in science more obvious and less tolerable. The founding of the first explicitly equity-seeking organization, the Association of Women in Science (AWIS), in 1971 is a watershed. Today, (...) women scientists are willing to band together so long as the promises of meritocracy remain unfulfilled. (shrink)

Sylvia Berryman offers a fresh understanding of Aristotle's ethical theory, challenging the common belief that he aimed to give it a biological foundation in human nature. Berryman reinterprets Aristotle's views as a 'middle way' between the metaphysical grounding offered by Platonists and sceptical or subjectivist alternatives.

Arguments in the neuroenhancement debate are sometimes based upon idealistic scenarios involving the assumption of using a drug that has no or negligible side effects. At least it is often implicitly assumed – as technology and scientific knowledge advances - that there soon will be a drug with no or negligible side effects. We will review evidence from neuroscience, complex network research and evolution theory and demonstrate that - at least in terms of psychopharmacological intervention – on the basis of (...) our understanding of brain function it seems inconceivable that there ever will be a drug that has the desired effect without undesirable side effects. We will illustrate this by reference to enhancing edge detection in V2 in monkeys and demonstrate that even for this localised single neuron coded function there would be numerous side effects. Taking the more realistic case of pharmacological enhancement that is inevitably associated with side effects will change consequentialist arguments for neuroenhancement and have implications for the conception of autonomy, specifically in the case of performance enhancement. We conclude that a neuroethics debate that aims to inform policy decisions should take these findings into account. We hope that our article will precipitate more interdisciplinary research in neuroscience and philosophy. (shrink)

Sylvia Walsh explores Kierkegaard's understanding of Christianity and the existential mode of thinking theologically appropriate to it in the context of the ...