BackgroundDepression and anxiety create a large health burden and increase the risk of premature mortality. Mental health screening is vital, but more sophisticated screening and monitoring methods are needed. The Ellipsis Health App addresses this need by using semantic information from recorded speech to screen for depression and anxiety.ObjectivesThe primary aim of this study is to determine the feasibility of collecting weekly voice samples for mental health screening. Additionally, we aim to demonstrate portability and improved performance of Ellipsis’ machine learning (...) models for patients of various ages.MethodsStudy participants were current patients at Desert Oasis Healthcare, mean age 63 years. Two non-randomized cohorts participated: one with a documented history of depression within 24 months prior to the study, and the other without depression. Participants recorded 5-min voice samples weekly for 6 weeks via the Ellipsis Health App. They also completed PHQ-8 and GAD-7 questionnaires to assess for depression and anxiety, respectively.ResultsProtocol completion rate was 61% for both groups. Use beyond protocol was 27% for Group Positive and 9% for Group Negative. The Ellipsis Health App showed an AUC of 0.82 for the combined groups when compared to the PHQ-8 and GAD-7 with a threshold score of 10. Performance was high for senior participants as well as younger age ranges. Additionally, many participants spoke longer than the required 5 min.ConclusionThe Ellipsis Health App demonstrated feasibility in using voice recordings to screen for depression and anxiety among various age groups and the machine learning models using Transformer methodology maintain performance and improve over LSTM methodology when applied to the study population. (shrink)

On a rainy day in May 1988, a lowland gorilla named Willie B. stepped outdoors for the first time in twenty-seven years, into a new landscape immersion exhibit. Born in Africa, Willie B. had been captured by an animal collector and sold to a zoo. During the decades he spent in a cage, zoos stopped collecting animals from the wild and Americans changed the ways they wished to view animals in the zoo. Zoos developed new displays to simulate landscapes like (...) the Amazon River basin and African forests. Exhibits similar to animals' natural habitats began to replace old-fashioned animal houses. But such displays are only the most recent effort of zoos to present their audiences with an authentic experience of nature. Since the first zoological park opened in the United States in Philadelphia in 1874, zoos have promised their visitors a journey into the natural world. And for more than a century they have been popular places for education and recreation: every year more than 130 million Americans go to zoos to look at the animals and enjoy a day outdoors. The first book-length history of American zoos, Animal Attractions examines the meaning of nature in the city by looking at the ways zoos have assembled and displayed their animal collections. Situated literally and culturally in the American middle landscape, zoos are concrete expressions of longstanding tensions between wildness and civilization, science and popular culture, education and entertainment. In their efforts to promote nature appreciation, they reveal much about how our culture envisions the natural world and the human place in it and how these ideas have changed. (shrink)

Introduction: human rights in healthcare -- A right to treatment? the allocation of resouces in the National Health Service -- Ensuring quality healthcare: an issue of rights or duties? -- Autonomy and consent in medical treatment -- Treating incompetent patients: beneficence, welfare and rights -- Medical confidentiality and the right to privacy -- Property right in the body -- Medically assisted conception and a right to reproduce? -- Termination of pregnancy: a conflict of rights -- Pregnancy and freedom of choice (...) -- The right to life at the end of life -- The law and ethics of assisted dying: is there a right to die? (shrink)

In 2017, a Philadelphia research team revealed the closest thing to an artificial womb the world had ever seen. The ‘biobag’, if as successful as early animal testing suggests, will change the face of neonatal intensive care. At present, premature neonates born earlier than 22 weeks have no hope of survival. For some time, there have been no significant improvements in mortality rates or incidences of long-term complications for preterms at the viability threshold. Artificial womb technology, that might change these (...) odds, is eagerly anticipated for clinical application. We need to understand whether AWT is an extension of current intensive care or something entirely new. This question is central to determining when and how the biobag should be used on human subjects. This paper examines the science behind AWT and advances two principal claims. First, AWT is conceptually different from conventional intensive care. Identifying why AWT should be understood as distinct demonstrates how it raises different ethico-legal questions. Second, these questions should be formulated without the ‘human being growing in the AW’ being described with inherently value laden terminology. The ‘human being in an AW’ is neither a fetus nor a baby, and the ethical tethers associated with these terms could perpetuate misunderstanding and confusion. Thus, the term ‘gestateling’ should be adopted to refer to this new product of human reproduction: a developing human being gestating ex utero. While this paper does not attempt to solve all the ethical problems associated with AWT, it makes important clarifications that will enable better formulation of relevant ethical questions for future exploration. (shrink)

In a recent publication, I argued that there is a conceptual difference between artificial womb (AW) technology, capable of facilitating gestation ex utero, and neonatal intensive care, providing incubation to neonates born prematurely. One of the reasons I provided for this distinction was that the subjects of each process are different entities. The subject of the process of gestation ex utero is a unique human entity: a ‘gestateling’, rather than a fetus or a newborn preterm neonate. Nick Colgrove wrote a (...) response to my paper, claiming that my distinction between the subject of an AW and a newborn (in intensive care) was false. He claims that I have not accounted for the proper definition of ‘birth’ and that gestatelings are not a distinct product of human reproduction. Further, Colgrove posits that even if I can successfully distinguish gestatelings from preterms, such a distinction is morally irrelevant because the entities would have the same moral status. In this paper, I address the three challenges raised and defend the claim that gestatelings are unique entities. Moreover, I argue that moral status should not be considered ipso facto determinative in the debate about AWs. (shrink)

Radical moral encroachment is the view that belief itself is morally evaluable, and that some moral properties of belief itself make a difference to epistemic rationality. To date, almost all proponents of radical moral encroachment hold to an asymmetry thesis: the moral encroaches on rational belief, but not on rational credence. In this paper, we argue against the asymmetry thesis; we show that, insofar as one accepts the most prominent arguments for radical moral encroachment on belief, one should likewise accept (...) radical moral encroachment on credence. We outline and reject potential attempts to establish a basis for asymmetry between the attitude types. Then, we explore the merits and demerits of the two available responses to our symmetry claim: (i) embracing moral encroachment on credence and (ii) denying moral encroachment on belief. (shrink)

In this commentary, I consider how Giulia Cavaliere’s arguments about the limited reach of the current justifications offered for full ectogenesis in the bioethical literature apply in the context of partial ectogenesis. I suggest that considering the extent to which partial ectogenesis is freedom or equality promoting is more urgent because of the more realistic prospect of artificial womb technology being utilised to facilitate partial gestation extra uterum as opposed to facilitating complete gestation from conception to term. I highlight concerns (...) about potentially harmful social narratives surrounding pregnancy and about the current legal framework surrounding gestation limiting access to technology in the advent of partial ectogenesis. I do not advocate that these concerns mean that we ought not develop artificial wombs, but like Cavaliere I suggest that we must be mindful of these concerns, and I posit that legal reform must accompany technological developments. Ectogenesis as a political perspective, through which we consider the value in social reproduction and the experiences of pregnant people, is useful to prevent political capture of this technology for regressive policies. Using this perspective to examine the law is also a useful tool to expose just how restrictive the law is in relation to gestation and female reproductive health. (shrink)

English law is unambiguous that legal personality, and with it all legal rights and protections, is assigned at birth. This rule is regarded as a bright line that is easily and consistently applied. The time has come, however, for the rule to be revisited. This article demonstrates that advances in fetal surgery and (anticipated) artificial wombs do not marry with traditional conceptions of birth and being alive in law. These technologies introduce the possibility of ex utero gestation, and/or temporary existence (...) ex utero, and consequently developing human beings that are novel to the law. Importantly, therefore, the concepts of birth and born alive no longer distinguish between human beings deserving of legal protection in the way originally intended. Thus, there is a need for reform, for a new approach to determining the legal significance of birth and what being legally alive actually encompasses. Investigating the law of birth is of crucial importance, because of the implications of affording or denying the subjects of new reproductive technologies rights and protections. A determination of the legal status of the subject of fetal surgery or an artificial womb will determine what can and cannot be done to each entity. Moreover, the status afforded to these entities will drastically impact on the freedoms of pregnant women. (shrink)

De Bie et al. posit thatthe best way to describe the person who would receive current AWT is as a “fetal neonate” or fetonate. Neonatal pertains to the fact that the subject is removed from the wom...

Heil's vision of the relationship between the manifest and scientific images is compelling. Central to his vision are the convictions that ordinary truths do not impose substantive constraints on the natures of their underlying truthmakers and, relatedly, that one and the same subject can be represented truly and aptly in different ways. But what exactly are the grounds or arguments for these convictions?

We citizens of the 21st century live in a world where division of epistemic labour rules. Most of what we know we learned from the spoken or written word of others, and we depend in endless practical ways on the technological fruits of the dispersed knowledge of others—of which we often know almost nothing—in virtually every moment of our lives. Interest has been growing in recent years amongst philosophers, in the issues in epistemology raised by this fact. One issue concerns (...) the depth and extent of our epistemic dependence on testimony, as we may label this broad epistemic source: Do we have any knowledge at all that is free of epistemic dependence on what we have learned from others? A related question is whether our entitlement to believe what we have learned from others can be explained without invoking any epistemic principles special to testimony. These questions concern, as it were, the macro-epistemology of testimony. In the present discussion I shall focus instead on the micro foundations. Testimony, in our broad sense, can occur through an extensive range of types of spoken and written means of purportedly factual communication, including telephone calls, e-mails and personal letters, lectures and radio broadcasts, newspapers, textbooks and encyclopaedias, personal diaries, and public records of all kinds. But the central paradigm—what started the whole communication thing off—is surely that of face-to-face spoken encounter, when one person tells something to another, thereby intending and hoping to share her knowledge with her audience. I begin by describing the speech act of telling, identifying what takes place in a felicitous act of telling. From the nature of the speech act of telling, we see precisely how it is that knowledge is, when all goes as it should, acquired from teller by trusting hearer, in such an act, and in acts of testimony more broadly. (shrink)

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Looking at the philosophical issues raised by food this short and accessible book questions the place food should have in our individual lives. It shows how traditional philosophy and its classic texts can illuminate an everyday subject.

This editorial to the special issue addresses the often overlooked question of the ethical nature of social enterprises. The emerging social entrepreneurship literature has previously been dominated by enthusiasts who fail to critique the social enterprise, focusing instead on its distinction from economic entrepreneurship and potential in solving social problems. In this respect, we have found through the work presented herein that the relation between social entrepreneurship and ethics needs to be problematized. Further, we find that a range of conceptual (...) lenses and methodological approaches is valuable as the social entrepreneurship field matures. (shrink)

Despite increasing interest in the figure of Socrates and in love in ancient Greece, no recent monograph studies these topics in all four of Plato's dialogues on love and friendship. This book provides important new insights into these subjects by examining Plato's characterization of Socrates in Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis and the often neglected Alcibiades I. It focuses on the specific ways in which the philosopher searches for wisdom together with his young interlocutors, using an art that is 'erotic', not in (...) a narrowly sexual sense, but because it shares characteristics attributed to the daimon Eros in Symposium. In all four dialogues, Socrates' art enables him, like Eros, to search for the beauty and wisdom he recognizes that he lacks and to help others seek these same objects of erôs. Belfiore examines the dialogues as both philosophical and dramatic works, and considers many connections with Greek culture, including poetry and theater. (shrink)

It has recently been reported that some hospitals in the UK have placed a blanket restriction on the provision of maternal request caesarean sections as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pregnancy and birthing services are obviously facing challenges during the current emergency, but we argue that a blanket ban on MRCS is both inappropriate and disproportionate. In this paper, we highlight the importance of MRCS for pregnant people’s health and autonomy in childbirth and argue that this remains crucial during (...) the current emergency. We consider some potential arguments—based on pregnant people’s health and resource allocation—that might be considered justification for the limitation of such services. We demonstrate, however, that these arguments are not as persuasive as they might appear because there is limited evidence to indicate either that provision of MRCS is always dangerous for pregnant people in the circumstances or would be a substantial burden on a hospital’s ability to respond to the pandemic. Furthermore, we argue that even if MRCS was not a service that hospitals are equipped to offer to all pregnant persons who seek it, the current circumstances cannot justify a blanket ban on an important service and due attention must be paid to individual circumstances. (shrink)

Intractable political disagreements threaten to fracture the common ground upon which we can build a political community. The deepening divisions in society are partly fueled by the ways social media has shaped political engagement. Social media allows us to sort ourselves into increasingly likeminded groups, consume information from different sources, and end up in polarized and insular echo chambers. To solve this, many argue for various ways of cultivating more responsible epistemic agency. This chapter argues that this epistemic lens does (...) not reveal the complete picture and therefore misses a form of moral respect required to reestablish cooperation across disagreements in a divided society. The breakdown of discourse online provides renewed reasons to draw out not an epistemic but a moral basis for political cooperation among diverse citizens—one inspired by Rawlsian political liberalism. We need ways to cultivate mutual respect for our fellow citizens in order to reestablish common moral ground for political debate. (shrink)

Reflecting upon the recent growth of interest in feminist ideas of philosophy of science, this book traces the development of the subject within the confines of feminist philosophy. It is designed to introduce the newcomer to the main ideas that form the subject area with a view to equipping students with all the major arguments and standpoints required to understand this burgeoning area of study. Arranged thematically, the book looks at the spectrum of views that have arisen in the debate. (...) It is broadly arranged into sections dealing with concepts such as the notion of value free-science, values, objectivity, point of view and relativism, but also details the many subsidiary ideas that have sprung from these topics. (shrink)

The risk of executing innocent persons is a decisive objection to the institution of capital punishment in the United States. Consequentialist arguments for the death penalty are inconclusive at best; the strongest justification is a retributive one. However, this argument is seriously undercut if a significant risk of executing the innocent exists. Any criminal justice system carries the risk of punishing innocent persons, but the punishment of death is unique and requires greater precautions. Retributive justifications for the death penalty are (...) grounded in respect for innocent victims of homicide; but accepting serious risks of mistaken executions demonstrates disrespect for innocent human life. United States Supreme Court decisions of the 1990’s illustrate the existence of serious risk and suggest some explanations for it. (shrink)

This essay addresses various moral objections to polyamory and argues that none succeeds. Brake also argues that in some respects polyamory can be superior to monogamy given that polyamorists often endorse ideals such as radical honesty, non-possessiveness, and rejection of jealousy. Moreover, Brake argues that the effects of polyamory in a society in which it is widespread can be very beneficial.

As algorithms have become ubiquitous in consequential domains, societal concerns about the potential for discriminatory outcomes have prompted urgent calls to address algorithmic bias. In response, a rich literature across computer science, law, and ethics is rapidly proliferating to advance approaches to designing fair algorithms. Yet computer scientists, legal scholars, and ethicists are often not speaking the same language when using the term ‘bias.’ Debates concerning whether society can or should tackle the problem of algorithmic bias are hampered by conflations (...) of various understandings of bias, ranging from neutral deviations from a standard to morally problematic instances of injustice due to prejudice, discrimination, and disparate treatment. This terminological confusion impedes efforts to address clear cases of discrimination. -/- In this paper, we examine the promises and challenges of different approaches to disambiguating bias and designing for justice. While both approaches aid in understanding and addressing clear algorithmic harms, we argue that they also risk being leveraged in ways that ultimately deflect accountability from those building and deploying these systems. Applying this analysis to recent examples of generative AI, our argument highlights unseen dangers in current methods of evaluating algorithmic bias and points to ways to redirect approaches to addressing bias in generative AI at its early stages in ways that can more robustly meet the demands of justice. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S29-S31, March‐April 2022.

In this position paper, we introduce a new epistemic lens for analyzing algorithmic harm. We argue that the epistemic lens we propose herein has two key contributions to help reframe and address some of the assumptions underlying inquiries into algorithmic fairness. First, we argue that using the framework of epistemic injustice helps to identify the root causes of harms currently framed as instances of representational harm. We suggest that the epistemic lens offers a theoretical foundation for expanding approaches to algorithmic (...) fairness in order to address a wider range of harms not recognized by existing technical or legal definitions. Second, we argue that the epistemic lens helps to identify the epistemic goals of inquiries into algorithmic fairness. There are two distinct contexts within which we examine algorithmic harm: at times, we seek to understand and describe the world as it is, and, at other times, we seek to build a more just future. The epistemic lens can serve to direct our attention to the epistemic frameworks that shape our interpretations of the world as it is and the ways we envision possible futures. Clarity with respect to which epistemic context is relevant in a given inquiry can further help inform choices among the different ways of measuring and addressing algorithmic harms. We introduce this framework with the goal of initiating new research directions bridging philosophical, legal, and technical approaches to understanding and mitigating algorithmic harms. (shrink)

Over the past decade, radical questioning of the grounds of Western epistemology has revealed that some antinomies of the aesthetic experience can be viewed as a general, yet necessarily open, model for human understanding. This book is a rigorous _explication de texte_ of a central text for this thesis, Kant's Analytic of the Sublime.

... [T]here manifestly is not one drop of principle in the whole vast reservoir of established scientific theory that has sprung from any other source than the power of the human mind to originate ideas that are true. But this power, for all it has accomplished, is so feeble that as ideas flow from their springs in the soul, the truths are almost drowned in a flood of false notions; and that which experience does is gradually, and by a sort (...) of fractionation, to precipitate and filter off the false ideas, eliminating them and letting the truth pour on in its mighty current. But precisely how does this action of experience take place? It takes place by a series of surprises. Throughout the.. (shrink)

Today, data and intervening digital media provide critical lines of communication with our social and business connections. Even those we know personally will typically connect to us via digital means. As a consequence, data and the digital space add a third dimension to the individual: we are now mind, body and digitality. This essay considers how digitality affects outcomes for the individual by exploring the mechanisms of digital influence. By using Peirce’s theory of semiosis to explain the process of digital (...) translation, this essay demonstrates how digitality influences the development of the individual, undermines personal autonomy and changes the nature of legal personhood thereby providing points for future legal intervention. (shrink)

This article examines the barriers to quality health care for transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people (TGE) who become pregnant and give birth, identifying three central themes that emerge from the literature. These insights suggest that significant reform will be necessary to ensure access to safe, appropriate, gender-affirming care for childbearing TGE people. After illustrating the need for systemic changes that untether rigid gender norms from the provision of perinatal care, the article proposes that the Midwives Model of Care offers a (...) set of values and clinical practices that are well-suited to meet the needs of many TGE patients during pregnancy and childbirth and which should be incorporated into the healthcare system more broadly. (shrink)