The unknown nature of tomorrow’s research makes informed consent in biobank research a challenge. Whether the consent given by biobank participants is ‘broad’ or ‘narrow’, the ever present question remains the same: are new activities covered by the original consent? In this article, we focus on the meaning of, and the relation between, broad consent and re-consent in biobank research. We argue that broad consent should be understood as consenting to a framework—a framework which covers aims, core conditions for acceptable (...) use, governance and how these affect participants. Changes that alter the framework in a fundamental way call for re-consent. Three biobank cases of current international interest are used to debate when re-consent is an ethical necessity: whole-genome sequencing, data sharing and commercial utilization. These reflections give us a more nuanced view on what consent is for. We claim that the introduction of broad consents in biobank research has not represented a betrayal of individual participant interests, as some critics have asserted. Broad consents combined with the possible use of re-consent are in certain settings not inferior, but rather ethically superior to narrow consents. In population-based research biobanks, they allow for a reconciliation between individual interest and public matters in society at large. (shrink)

In the summer of 1997 one could scarcely enter a bookstore in Beijing without encountering Wang Xiaobo's pensive and defiant look on the cover of dozens of books displayed at the entrance. Wang had suddenly died in the spring of that year at the age of forty-five. Born in Beijing in 1952 to a family of intellectuals, he remained attached to China's capital despite periods of separation, such as during the Cultural Revolution, when he was sent to Yunnan to "learn (...) from the peasants" and taught in a "people-run-school" in Shandong, and also during the 1980s, when he studied in the United States . Wang always returned to Beijing, in the late 1970s to study economy and business at the People's University and in the late 1980s to teach there. After retiring in 1993, he devoted his time to writing: poetry, novels, essays, non-fiction, and a movie script. (shrink)

The Socio-Cultural pluralism and its fabrics in our society have been under the threat of religious fundamentalism and ideological extremism, which firmly believe that there can only one way of true expression and all other forms, are either substandard or false. This attitude has torn away the world into different isolated islands of human settlements. This state of affair is the outcome of multidimensional causes and one among them, no doubt, is related to one of the central issues of Philosophy, (...) i.e., the relation between ‘one and many’. The ontological dimension of the problem of ‘one and many’ cannot be solved withouthaving the proper understanding of epistemological solutions. The epistemic tools of the Advaita Vedanta are powerful enough to suggest pragmatic solutions to the good old problem of ‘one and many’ that attains new relevance in the era of Globalization. The logic of identity in difference and the logic of difference are the two types of logical systems, which are instrumental for the formulation of various types of claims to know of the western tradition. The logic of identity in difference has been clearly designed and defined by the classical logic or the Aristotelian logic. The symbolic logic encarves the various nuances of the logic of difference. The Advaita System has envisaged a new logic i.e., the logic of identity, which is implicit in the Upanisdic mahavakyya ‘Ayam Āthmam Brahma’. The paper intents to explore the possibility of application of the logic of identity in socio-cultural issues of the present day world. (shrink)

Increasingly, national governments across the globe are prioritizing investments in neuroscience. Currently, seven active or in-development national-level brain research initiatives exist, spanning four continents. Engaging with the underlying values and ethical concerns that drive brain research across cultural and continental divides is critical to future research. Culture influences what kinds of science are supported and where science can be conducted through ethical frameworks and evaluations of risk. Neuroscientists and philosophers alike have found themselves together encountering perennial questions; these questions are (...) engaged by the field of neuroethics, related to the nature of understanding the self and identity, the existence and meaning of free will, defining the role of reason in human behavior, and more. With this Perspective article, we aim to prioritize and advance to the foreground a list of neuroethics questions for neuroscientists operating in the context of these international brain initiatives. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Direct realism is less prone to internal incoherence as a theory of knowledge than alternative theories. The theory of Direct realism best grounds our capacity for cognition of the external world, whereas other epistemological theories claim to ground our capacity for cognition, but end in skepticism in the final analysis. I propose to show this contrast by bringing in different theories of a well-known Indirect realist, Bertrand Russell. Illustrating this point mainly through Russell makes (...) the approach purely historical in nature even when the paper includes a brief discussion of two theories in the current debate that support Direct realism. (shrink)