Afro-cultural research ethics is in a nascent phase within the field of research ethics as a whole and requires more attention and in-depth articulation. With specific case studies, this vital volume provides unique perspectives on topics such as social autonomy vis-a-vis interests of individuals.

Across a variety of situations, people strongly condemn plagiarizers who steal credit for ideas, even when the theft in question does not appear to harm anyone. Why would people react negatively to relatively harmless acts of plagiarism? In six experiments, we predict and find that these negative reactions are driven by people's aversion toward agents who attempt to falsely improve their reputations. In Studies 1–3, participants condemn plagiarism cases that they agree are harmless. This effect is mediated by the extent (...) to which participants perceive the plagiarizer to have falsely benefitted from plagiarizing. In Studies 4–5, we demonstrate that this effect is not explained solely by participants’ negative response to lies or violations of permission. In Study 6, participants condemn a plagiarism case in which the idea's original author actually benefits, providing the strongest evidence that people condemn plagiarism for reasons beyond perceived harm. We discuss how this work connects to broader questions of intellectual property and impression management. (shrink)

Is the leibnizian'doctrine of science laying on a doctrine of knowledge? This book demonstrates that there is not such a dependence in Leibniz'searlier writings in which the theory of science is established, independently of any doctrine of understanting.

This article analyses the way in which websites of conservation foundations organise the affective investments of viewers in animals by the use of webcams. Against a background of—often overly—general speculation on the influence of electronic media on our engagement with the world, it focuses on one particular practice where this issue is at stake. Phenomenological investigation is supplemented with ethnographic observation of user practice. It is argued that conservation websites provide caring spaces in two interrelated ways: by providing affective spaces (...) where users’ feelings are evoked, articulated and organised; and by opening up ethical space where the beauty of animals appears as an incentive to care. As an alternative to thinking of on- and off-line places as clearly delineated and of bodies and technologies as separate entities, the analysis focuses on trajectories of engagement that cut through these in various directions. In actual acts of looking and being affected, users, animals, places and technologies are intimately entwined. The article further suggests how focussing on trajectories of involvement can be developed to evaluate various websites and their user activity in relationship to clearly defined goals, e.g. conservation goals. (shrink)

The multiobjective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis method captures diverse features such as the criteria and alternatives of appraising a multiple criteria decision-making problem. At the same time, the multiple criteria problem includes a set of decision makers with diverse expertise and preferences. In fact, the literature lists numerous approaches to aid in this problematic task of choosing the best alternative. Nevertheless, in the MCDM field, there is a challenge regarding intangible information which is commonly involved in multiple (...) criteria decision-making problem; hence, it is substantial in order to advance beyond the research related to this field. Thus, the objective of this paper is to present a fused method between multiobjective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis and Pythagorean fuzzy sets for the choice of an alternative. Besides, multiobjective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis is utilized to choose the best alternatives. Finally, two decision-making problems are applied to illustrate the feasibility and practicality of the proposed method. (shrink)

This article addresses the art of living in a technological culture as the active engagement with technomoral change. It argues that this engagement does not just take the form of overt deliberation. It shows in more modest ways as reflection-in-action, an experimental process in which new technology is fitted into existing practices. In this process challenged values are re-articulated in pragmatic solutions to the problem of working with new technology. This art of working with technology is also modest in the (...) sense that it is not oriented to shaping one’s own subjectivity in relation to technology. It emanates from human existence as relational and aims at securing good relationships. The argument will be developed in relation to a case study of the ways in which homecare workers engaged with the value of privacy, challenged by tele-monitoring technology that was newly introduced into their work. (shrink)

Teaching bioethics with visual education tools, such as movies and comics, is a unique way of explaining the history and progress of human research and the art and science of medicine to high school students. For more than a decade, bioethical concepts have appeared in movies, and these films are useful for teaching medical and research ethics in high schools. Using visual tools to teach bioethics can have both interpretational and transformational effects on learners that will enhance their overall understanding (...) of complex moral and legal issues in medicine and research.High school students are uniquely suited to learn bioethics because they will soon become legal adults. As adults, they will make moral decisions that may affect their health and wellbeing as well as that of their communities and societies.However, not all visual education tools are appropriate for bioethics pedagogy in high school. Bioethics film and comic producers must consider the specifics of student age, race, gender, belief, level of education, and sexual orientation. Such tools must not be dominated by either dystopic or utopic genres, must aim for objectivity, and must consider the complexity of ethical decision making. It is critical that the teacher, who is the final arbiter regarding the use of visual tools in the classroom, determines that the visual learning tool is acceptable for students in any particular education context. In addition, during the conceptualization and creation of these tools, bioethics film and comic producers must work harder to ensure that these visual tools are devoid of any form of stereotyping. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed the rise of chefs to a position of cultural prominence. This rise has coincided with increased consciousness of ethical issues pertaining to food, particularly as they concern animals. We rank cookbooks by celebrity chefs according to the minimum number of sentient animals that must be killed to make their recipes. On our stipulative definition, celebrity chefs are those with their own television show on a national network in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada or Australia. (...) Thirty cookbooks by 26 such chefs were categorized according to the total number of cows, pigs, chicken, fish and other species they included as ingredients. The total number of animals killed was divided by the number of non-dessert recipes to generate an average number of animal deaths per recipe for each book. We outline the rationale for our project and its methodology before presenting a ranked table of 30 cookbooks by celebrity chefs. This method generates several interesting findings. The first concerns the wide variation in animal fatalities among cookbooks. The chef with the heaviest animal footprint killed 5.25 animals per recipe, while the omnivorous chef with the smallest footprints killed 0.19 per recipe. Clearly, not all approaches to meat eating are equal when it comes to their animal mortality rate. Pigs and large ruminants are all substantially bigger than poultry, which are themselves bigger than many fish. The prime determinant of a chef’s place in the index was the number of small animals his or her recipes required. Whether a chef cooked in the style of a particular cuisine (Italian, French, Mexican etc.), by contrast, had no discernible influence on his or her ranking. We analyze how different chefs present themselves—as either especially sensitive or insensitive to ethical issues involving animals and food—and note cases where these presentations do or do not match their index ranking. -/- . (shrink)

Parsa-Parsi _et al_ systematically discuss and elucidate contentious and non-controversial ethical issues that emerged during the ICoME (International Code of Medical Ethics) revision process and the consensus they achieved. The ethical issues discussed include the physician’s duty to act in the best interests of patients and to ensure they are protected from the unjustifiable risk of harm, respect for patient autonomy and the duties of physicians during emergencies, among others. This paper examines paragraph 26, which requires doctors to provide only (...) medically justified remote treatment, ensure patients offer informed consent and adequately protect their confidentiality. 1 At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries in Europe and America implemented remote-by-default healthcare policies. At that time, the policy aimed to ensure that patients enjoyed continued access to care while protecting healthcare professionals’ health and well-being. After the COVID-19 pandemic, this policy remained in place. Regardless of the nature... (shrink)

J. Macgregor Wise and R. van de Vall kindly reviewed my analysis of the potential of webcams on nature conservation sites for developing networks of care. I am indebted to them for their subtle and intelligent deliberation and their valuable suggestions for further elaboration of the project. My focus, as stated in the article, is on the study of users, technology and animals as assemblages, bound together by physical, visual and affective bonds in the process of ‘doing something’.

Jeannette Pols and Tamar Sharon kindly reviewed my case study of the art of living with technology as an engagement with technomoral change. I am indebted to them for their careful reading and critical suggestions to further elaborate the project. In my response I focus on the question whose art we are talking about, while further elucidating the reflexivity addressed in my essay. I conclude with some remarks on what we can learn from micro studies like the one presented for (...) macro level thinking on the ‘art of becoming’ with technology in a surveillance society. (shrink)

Time was when you could bite a tomato and not ingest fish genes. Time was when you could eat french fries and just worry about the fat and salt, not the bacterial genes that produce insecticides in the potato. Those times are over, thanks to corporate control over both genetic engineering and the lack of food-labeling. Unless you are a “hard core” consumer of organic foods, you eat genetically engineered foods everyday. While 80-90% of US consumers believe genetically engineered foods (...) should be labeled, only 3% know they already on the market.[1] Today 60-70% of the food in a grocery store contains components from genetically modified crops. Moreover, this technology was unleashed on over 45 million acres of US farmland last year alone, after having been commercially introduced only four years ago.[2] Here we will provide a brief background on the types of genetically engineered crops that are being surreptitiously forced upon consumers, then argue against their current widespread use. (shrink)

Against those who question that ethical character should be considered as convincing factor of the human constitution based on empirical reasons, Obiora F. Ike gives good arguments, based on the agenda of the human development and education across the planet, to reaffirm some truth about character formation. There should be no question that simplifications, related to some sort of skepticism over the moral character, are at best purely theoretical fanciness, at worst irresponsible. Passivity in a world made of urgent challenges (...) around education and economic inequalities is not acceptable. Our need to believe, to trust and to act in the real world, lead us to praise some dogmatism on the ground assumption that we act accordingly to our [moral] character. Education has shown us the value of developing moral character. Cross-situational consistency of integrity needs to be shared across cultures, against the impression that it opens a room for abuses, as integrity is also a social construct. (shrink)

The 30 chapters of this book form a panorama across various disciplines on five key themes integrating education or research ethics as research ethics and 1) administration, 2) business/finance, 3) education, 4) environment, 5) justice and law. The goals of this book is to gather contributions in various disciplines on contemporary ethics in education and research in the global context and to show by conceptual argumentation how some normative ethical views have a global value and manage to overcome local controversy (...) and disagreement and have an essential relevance for the ethics of research or education. (shrink)

This book on the topic of ethics and poetry consists of contributions from different continents on the subject of applied ethics related to poetry. It should gather a favourable reception from philosophers, ethicists, theologians and anthropologists from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America and allows for a comparison of the healing power of words from various religious, spiritual and philosophical traditions. The first part of this book presents original poems that express ethical emotions and aphorism related to a philosophical questioning (...) of the grounding of our values for life. The poems are written by twelve authors coming from four continents, for whom poetic emotions are sources of artistic inspiration and that can be used for conflict resolution. In the second part, which features short essays, nine authors tackle how poems, symbolic representations, metaphorical narratives and lies impact the space of possibilities, in which we are moved to action, knowledge formation, and how we imagine the world together. (shrink)

_Clinical Trials and the African Person_ offers an account of the African notion of the self/person within the clinical trials context. As opposed to autonomy-based principlism, this other-regarding/communalist perspective is touted as the preferred alternative model particularly in multicultural settings.

Physicians who care for critically ill people with opioid use disorder frequently face medical, legal, and ethical questions related to the provision of life-saving medical care. We examine a complex medical case that illustrates these challenges in a person with relapsing injection drug use. We focus on a specific question: Is futility an appropriate and useful standard by which to determine provision of life-saving care to such individuals? If so, how should such determinations be made? If not, what alternative decisionmaking (...) framework exists? We determine that although futility has been historically utilized as a justification for withholding care in certain settings, it is not a useful standard to apply in cases involving people who use injection drugs for non-medical purposes. Instead, we are welladvised to explore each patient's situation in a holistic approach that includes the patient, family members, and care providers in the decision-making process. The scope of the problem illustrated demonstrates the urgent need to definitively improve outcomes in people who use injection drugs. Increasing access to high quality medication-assisted treatment and psychiatric care for individuals with opioid use disorder will help our patients achieve a sustained remission and allow us to reach this goal. (shrink)

A wide body of research in the field of happiness economics shows that individuals adapt to both prosperity and to adversity and return to their usual levels of happiness. In this paper we used novel methods and data to assess the effects of the deep economic crisis of 2008-2009 on well-being in the United States. We found, as expected, that the crisis had profound effects on happiness levels, as well as on individuals' assessments of their standards of living and of (...) their future. These attitudes varied significantly depending on respondents' socioeconomic cohort, the industry that they were employed in, and their pre-existing states of mental and physical health. Our most notable finding, though, is a clear, U-shaped trend in reported happiness, with levels falling sharply with the onset of the crisis in mid-08 and trending downward until late March 2009 — around the time that stock markets stopped their free fall. From that point on, happiness levels increased, eventually surpassing the levels that they were in the pre-crisis period of early 2008. This general pattern supports our previous research suggesting that although people react negatively to unpleasant events, they adapt to unpleasant certainty better than they do to uncertainty. (shrink)

Following an archaeological and archaeometric study of the 4th century pottery on Thasos, laboratory research was carried out in a regional framework, with the assistance of the Ephorates concerned, on samples from the sites of Amphipolis, Abdera, Mesembria-Zoni, Maroneia and Samothrace. The results thus obtained in a particular region and at a precise period serve as the basis for a more general set of problems. We attempt to show to what extent this type of approach can lead to a better (...) understanding of the craftsmen and of the techniques used for manufacturing black-glaze pottery, as well as common and cooking pottery. (shrink)

Some authors have talken about the problem of the future contingents Aristotle exposed in De Interpretatione IX. But most of them do not explain the role of that chapter in his own work. Last analysis always try to find a formal solution. And this is very significative because De Interpretatione is a treatise that belongs to the semantic of the Organon. In this article we show that: 1. The aim of the problem of future contigents is not only formal and (...) the frame of the Aristotle’s solution. 2. Its implication with others important concepts in his philosophy like “substance”, “truth” and “dialectics”. (shrink)

Se justifican tres tesis. Primera, el sentido mítico-religioso tradicional de la justicia como castigo de la [palabra en griego] quedó desacreditado durante la Guerra del Peloponeso, como bien lo muestra Tucídides. Segunda, en tiempos de Aristóteles, tal sentido ya habría desaparecido en favor de un nuevo paradigma basado en el concepto de [palabra en griego]. Tercera, la obra de Platón constituye uno de los últimos intentosde recuperar ese sentido mítico-religioso tradicional tratando de interpretar la Guerra del Peloponeso a través del (...) mecanismo del castigo de la [palabra en griego] . --- “The notion of ‘hybris’ in Plato’s Critias”. The following theses are basically justified: (1) the traditional mythical-religious sense of justice as punishment of the [greek word] was discredited during the Peloponnesian War, as Thucydide shows. (2) In times of Aristotle such a sense had already disappeared in favour of a new paradigm based on the concept of [greek word]. (3) Plato’s work constitutes one of the last attempts to recover the traditional mythical-religious sense trying to interpret the Peloponnesian War through the mechanism of punishment of the [greek word]. (shrink)

In the autumn of 1667, the young Leibniz published a «new method» for the science of law. Producing a revised edition of that early work was to become his lifelong project, to the purpose of which he wrote, in the 1690s, a succession of new versions of most of its sections. The main reason for this enduring interest was probably the fact that the juridical part of the treatise was preceded with a more general one, encapsulating in a few pages (...) a systematic overview of the disciplines composing the baroque encyclopaedia, after the model of Johann Heinrich Alsted’s monumental Encyclopaedia septem tomis distincta. If Leibniz still depended on Alsted’s notion of philosophy as the «circle of disciplines», he deeply transformed that pre-Cartesian conception of knowledge by two decisive innovations: following Bacon, he defines each branch of demonstrative science as bearing on one single «quality», abstracted from the subjects in which it inheres; yet, contrary to Bacon, he no longer conceives of these qualities as the ultimate components of reality, but as those of our experience of it, marking the limit of the explanatory capacity of language. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has established that, until the mid-1670s, Leibniz did not hold the possibilist ontology which, in his mature philosophy, provides the foundation for both his account of human freedom and of eternal truth. Concentrating on the Mainz period , this paper examines the conciliation, in those early writings, of an actualist ontology and a conception of necessary truth as analytical. The first section questions the view that Leibniz was educated in a “Platonist” tradition; the second section presents the actualist (...) metaphysics that he adopted in the wake of his teachers; the third section shows how Leibniz could, contrary to those same teachers, hold an analytical view of eternal truth, even without the support of his later possibilist ontology and doctrine of real definitions. (shrink)

Une rapide prospection a permis de localiser six ateliers amphoriques à Paros et deux à Naxos. Cette découverte a permis de préciser les conditions d'installation de ces poteries, de caractériser les argiles employées, de tenter une première esquisse typologique des amphores de Paros (époque hellénistique et impériale) et de Naxos (IVe siècle) et enfin de se fonder sur les échantillons provenant de ces ateliers pour identifier leur composition par thermoluminescence et les comparer avec d'autres vases provenant de sites de consommation.