The pathway from scientific knowledge (based on data, models, and forecasts) to societal implications and policy advice is a perilous one. The shift from "is" to "ought" may be slippery in terms of climate, biodiversity, regulations, and business. Yet, what is to be done if one's research discloses that fellow humans are unwittingly carrying out destructive actions on a large scale? If they are unaware of the dynamics within which they are (or are in danger of becoming) imprisoned, is there (...) then not an ethical obligation to respond beyond the scope of one's given role? This dilemma lies at the core of the issue of science-based activism, which the life and work of Jorgen Randers in many ways epitomizes. The best means of understanding science-based activism can be found in exploring Randers' steps, as this festschrift does. [Jorgen Randers (born 1945) co-authored The Limits to Growth in 1972 and its sequels in 1992 and 2004. He is a Professor of Climate Strategy at the Norwegian Business School in Oslo where he works on climate and energy issues, system dynamics, and green growth. Randers was President of the Norwegian Business School/BI 1981-89, and Deputy Director General of WWF International 1994-99. He chaired the Norwegian Commission on a Low-Emission Society which reported in 2006. In 2012, his work 2052 - A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years was published.] [Subject: Science, Ethics, Environmental Studies]. (shrink)

The current study investigated the adaptations which occur in visual search behaviour as a function of expertise in rugby union players when completing attacking scenarios. Ten experienced players and ten novice players completed 2 vs. 1 attacking game scenarios. Starting with the ball in hand and wearing a mobile eye tracker throughout, participants were required to score a try against a defender. The scenarios allowed for a pass to their supporting player or trying to run past the defender. No between (...) group differences were found in fixating on the supporting attacking player. However, EP increased the length and frequency looking at the area immediately ahead of the supporting player, particularly when executing a spin pass. NP fixated longer and more frequently at the defender, whilst EP fixated more frequently in the space the supporting player would run into in Switch and Dummy Switch scenarios. More successful passes were completed and tries scored by EP compared to NP. Differences in visual search behaviour between experienced and NP suggest that the experts extract information from areas directly related to guiding the motor action; the space immediately ahead of the support player to pass the ball in. Contrastingly, novices use a more allocentric perspective where the actions from the defender are used to guide their motor actions. (shrink)

The intellectual relationship between Carl Schmitt and Max Weber has been a point of controversy for at least half a century. At the 1964 convention of the German Sociological Association, in honor of Weber's centenary, Schmitt was famously referred to as Weber's ?legitimate student.? This article uses the chapter Schmitt specifically wrote for an edited volume in Weber's memory, published in 1923, as the starting point for juxtaposing the two scholars, and then expands the analysis to encompass a range of (...) sources and commentaries. The comparison focuses on the approach of each of the two scholars to methodology and didactics, theory and conceptual use, as well as to the society/social science nexus. The article concludes by arguing that Schmitt performed a double rhetorical move: while styling himself as Weber's student, he then drew on that authority to assault Weber's liberalism and concept of scientific integrity. (shrink)

When information activated in memory involves emotional associations, the ability to shift attention away from an emotional cue is impaired compared to an emotionally neutral cue. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how emotional stimuli modulate attentional processes, and how this is reflected in localised brain electrical activity. Eight emotion and eight neutral words served as cues in a covert attention spatial orienting task. The cues were either valid or invalid indicators of which hemifield the target would (...) be presented to. In the remaining trials, no cue was presented prior to the target. Twenty subjects were instructed to manually respond to the target as fast as possible. Event-related potentials (ERPs) showed an enhanced P3 component to the emotion words. The ERPs to the target showed enhanced P1 and P3 components on invalid trials, with emotional cues. There were faster reaction times (RTs) to validly cued targets, but only when the emotion words served as cues. The results demonstrated that the emotional cues elicited sustained focused attention, facilitating an engage mechanism of spatial orienting. (shrink)

The article describes the founding principles, work program, and accomplishments of a Reference Group with both expert and layperson stakeholders for the corrosion of copper canisters in a proposed deep repository in Sweden for spent nuclear fuel. The article sets the Reference Group as a participatory effort within a broader context of stakeholder and public participation. It is argued that for the future it will be necessary to more precisely define the roles of different approaches to public participation in relation (...) to the actual societal decision-making procedures, and the issue is raised whether an increasing level of their institutionalization is required. In particular, the focus is set on the safe-space approach to stakeholder participation designed to suit situations where independence and autonomy are crucial elements for the participants. To illustrate this we compare experiences from Sweden and the Czech Republic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 285-286 [Access article in PDF] Depersonalization and Feelings of Unreality:Significant Symptoms With a Variety of Meanings Kjell Modigh Evaluations and diagnostic procedures in clinical psychiatry depend mainly on how the patient communicates his or her subjective experiences and on the psychiatrist's ability to understand that message. This is critical not only for understanding and offering proper treatment, but also for developing diagnostic (...) classifications. Hence the paper by Radovic and Radovic deals with an important topic, aiming to clarify the variety of meanings of the closely related terms unreality and depersonalization. The latter occurs as a symptom in connection to some psychiatric disorder and also constitutes a separate syndromeI agree with the authors that the rather intense renewing of the diagnostic criteria is seldom balanced by corresponding ambitions to analyze and improve the distinctness of the words for the experiences and symptoms which define the diagnoses.It is indeed a difficult task to demarcate what should be included in the concepts feelings of unreality and depersonalization and even to decide whether they are synonyms or distinguishable. There is at least one clear agreement in the different diagnostic systems: psychotic, delusional experiences are excluded. The border between unreality feelings with largely intact reality-testing ability and psychotic disorders with grossly disturbed reality-testing is, however, not absolute and patients with psychotic disorders may of course experience feelings of unreality or depersonalizationThe authors present a useful scheme by which different meanings of derealization are separated and that also points out the differences between depersonalization and derealization, although they are mutually dependant. Category (a), which come closest to depersonalization, includes experiences related to the self, whereas category (c) refers to impressions that the external world is unreal. Category (b), in their scheme, refers to altered bodily sensations: "the body part of the self" (Are there any body parts of the self? Perhaps all psychoanalysts would not agree).In my view, this scheme is useful and corresponds to clinical realities. Symptoms belonging to category (a) can, for instance, occur in affective disorders of almost psychotic depth, due to a [End Page 285] pathologically changed self-esteem. Symptoms belonging to category (b)—experiences of having moved outside one's own body—mainly belong to the diagnostic category dissociative disorders and can be understood as defense reactions to earlier traumatic experiences. The self escaped from the body during repeated experiences of sexual abuse. The diagnosis of depersonalization disorder consequentlybelongs to the group of dissociative disorders. Conditions where the outer world seems unreal (category [c]) can occur when the amount of internal stimuli is increased beyond what is possible to handle and therefore the capacity to recognize the environment is limited. So is the case in severe panic anxiety. Feelings of unreality as part of grief reactions may also belong, at least partly, to category (c): when dramatic and emotionally unacceptable events occur in the environment. As the authors point out, expressions of unreality feelings during grief more often can be understood as metaphors or existential reflections. In conclusion, categories -(a) and (c) can serve to separate depersonalization experiences with different psychopathologic origin, although they are closely related.As a second step, the authors examine how the terms unreal and feels unreal can be understood. Two interpretations of unreal, "nonexistent" and "artificial," have high psychiatric relevance; a third meaning, relating to "quality," mainly has linguistic connections to the experiences on unreality and depersonalization. The word feels communicates the experience of something that appears unreal although the subject has an intact ability of reality testing.The authors propose an additional interpretation, which they describe as a quasisensory experience. They give the example that dreams with unrealistic contents in some meaning, probably related to their intensity, appear "real." A further connection to dreams is that a situation, when awake, may have dreamlike qualities because of intensity or similarities to fragments of dreams. Events that occur in an unusual sequences, for example, corresponding to ones aims and wishes ("to good to be true") perhaps have similarities to dreamlike experiences. One may... (shrink)

The sociology of research and knowledge use, argue the authors, could be a way of linking important parts of sociology, such as organization studies, the sociology of science to each other. In the article, they discuss the idea that organizational responses to environments are related to research utilization. Based upon an empirical investigation of city welfare departments, four empirical “utilization strategies” are presented and shown to be related to power and control patterns. While negative utilization strategies are hostile to uncontrolled (...) research utilization and enhance the formation of bureaucratic expertise, conflict-oriented strategies are discursively productive and reinforce research use and alliance formation with social scientists to control the environment. (shrink)

Plastic changes in spinal cord function like neuronal wind-up and increased receptive field are too short-lived to explain chronic pain without structural changes. It is possible that learning could be a mechanism for longlasting changes in nociceptive regulation. A learning process localized to the spinal cord has been shown to be important for the development of tolerance to the analgetic effect of ethanol, suggesting that nociceptive control systems may be changed by learning. Long term potentiation (LTP) is regarded as a (...) useful model of learning and memory. LTP-like changes have been observed in invitro preparations from the spinal cord and in spinal cord field potentials. Recently a long term increase in spinal A-[beta] and C-fibre evoked responses after painful stimulation has been observed. [coderre & katz, dickenson, wiesenfeld-hallin et al.]. (shrink)

I present an analysis of Free Choice Items (FCIs), based on Scandinavian, where FCIs are complex and distinct from polarity sensitive items. Scandinavian FCIs are argued to have two components. One is a universal quantifying into modal contexts. The other is an operator mapping a type (s,t) expression onto itself, adjoining to the closest type t or (s,t) expression. Thus invoking Intensional Functional Application, this operator requires the presence of a modal in the scope of the universal quantifier. Facts concerning (...) ‘essential connections’ and ‘existential import’ are accounted for by assuming that the FC determiner has the option of acting like a quantifier. (shrink)

In the pursuit of a dramaturgy of telematics as a compositional practice, the author builds a position on technology as externalized technique, develops a dramaturgic strategy with notions of an extended theatre practice and reports on a realized telematized performance where a practical implementation was explored. The theatrical site is viewed as a construct of attention, generated by the performers through the performance composition. The composition determines the audience experience, orchestrated by how the construction of the site manages their perspectives, (...) and how the performers are situated in the consciousness site of the audience. In the performed event the performers articulate as a collective extended entity, incorporating the transformation of the performance site via the articulation strategies implemented in the staging. Telematics is argued to be a technology facilitating specific modes of thinking, generating specific modes of actions and presence, which enable new performance sites and new modes of situating performance. (shrink)

It is suggested how one can imaginatively use a design strategy utilizing performers as tools in the creation of augmented, performative artwork. In order to establish meaningful constructions of performative and augmentative technology, one can use the formal methodologies of advanced formal body language as a tool in the creation process, and thereby have ‘the actual experience’ present in the process as a monitor and a constructive tool. To use a human being as a design tool is a method that (...) uses the skilled performer as a ‘super-’ or ‘extra-’ human tool to investigate through action and analysis. It is a way to test how realities occur under fluid and dynamic conditions within a controlled environment of time and space. This ‘technical’ use of the body as an extra-human behavioural entity, involves the total complex spectrum of intellect, emotions, desires, memory, actions, etc. as a formalized ‘machine’. (shrink)

How questions are understudied in philosophy and linguistics. They can be answered in very different ways, some of which are poorly understood. Jaworski identifies several types: ‘manner’, ‘method, means or mechanism’, ‘cognitive resolution’, and develops a logic designed to enable us to distinguish among them. Some key questions remain open, however, in particular, whether these distinctions derive from an ambiguity in how, from differences in the logical structure of the question or from contextual underspecification. Arguing from two classes of responses, (...) adverbs and by gerunds, I give the answer that the logical structure of the question is indeed relevant: loosely, manners are adjuncts but methods are arguments. (shrink)

Scarcity sharpens the conflict between short term gains and long term sustainability. Psychological research documents that decision makers focus on immediate needs under scarcity and use available resources more effectively. However, decision makers also borrow too much from future resources and overall performance decreases as a consequence. Using an online experiment, we study how scarcity affects borrowing decisions in groups. We first document that scarcity affects groups in a similar way as individuals. Then, we go on to show that the (...) negative effect of scarcity is weaker for groups than for individuals. Even in a minimal design that excludes direct interaction or communication, the fact that participants know that their own behavior affects and can be partly observed by another participant disciplines their use of scarce resources. Our results thus highlight the benefit of groups as units of human organization. (shrink)

This article analyzes rent seeking with multiple additive efforts for each of two players. Impact on rent seeking occurs even when a player exerts only one effort. This contrasts with models of multiplicative efforts with impact on rent seeking only when a player exerts all its available efforts. An analytical solution is developed when the contest intensities are below one, and equal to one for one effort. Then, additional efforts causing interior solutions give players higher expected utilities and lower rent (...) dissipation, which contrasts with earlier findings for multiplicative efforts. Players cut back on the effort with contest intensity equal to one, and exert alternative efforts instead. Accounting for solutions which have to be determined numerically, a Nash equilibrium selection method is provided. For illustration, an example with maximum two efforts for each player is provided. Equilibria are shown where both players choose both efforts, or one player withdraws from its most costly effort. Both players may collectively prefer to exclude one of their efforts, though in equilibrium, they may prefer both efforts. When all contest intensities are equal to one or larger than one, only the one most cost-effective effort is exerted, due to the logic of linear or convex production. Rent dissipation increases in the contest intensity, and is maximum when the players are equally advantaged determined by unit effort cost divided by impact. (shrink)

Axelord’s [(1970), Conflict of Interest, Markham Publishers, Chicago] index of conflict in 2 × 2 games with two pure strategy equilibria has the property that a reduction in the cost of holding out corresponds to an increase in conflict. This article takes the opposite view, arguing that if losing becomes less costly, a player is less likely to gamble to win, which means that conflict will be less frequent. This approach leads to a new power index and a new measure (...) of stubbornness, both anchored in strategic reasoning. The win probability defined as power constitutes an equilibrium refinement which differs from Harsanyi and Selten’s [(1988), A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games, MIT Press, Cambridge] refinement. In contrast, Axelrod’s approach focuses on preferences regarding divergences from imaginary outmost rewards that cannot be obtained jointly. The player who is less powerful in an asymmetric one-shot game becomes more powerful in the repeated game, provided he or she values the future sufficiently more than the opponent. This contrasts with the view that repetition induces cooperation, but conforms with the expectation that a more patient player receives a larger share of the pie. (shrink)

The quest for causes behind health and sickness proposes deeper causes like per- sonality and general view of life. Two such concepts have been shown to associate with health indicators in a systematic way, sense of coherence and view of life. Sense of coherence is defined as the sum of three factors, comprehensibility, manage- ability, and meaningfulness. View of life consists of three components, general theories of man and the world, a central value system, and a basic attitude. Two em- (...) pirical studies are summarized where the concepts are related to bereavement and health, respectively. It is concluded that there are many similarities between the two concepts. They both emphasize integration and coherence and connote basic struc- tures in belief systems. They can be related to personality structure and the coping process. The concepts differ in scope and depth. SOC can be considered as part of the connotation of VOL. SOC is quantitatively measurable while VOL presumes qualitative methods of assessment. In studies of health, where factors pertaining to world view or sense of coherence are not in focus, but studied rather as possible confoun- ders, methodological simplicity points to use of the SOC concept. In studies of health where the deeper causal structures are in focus, VOL should also be used, since it per- mits greater depth of analysis. Ideally, both concepts should be applied for a full un- derstanding between man's inner processes and health. (shrink)

Humanitarian aid professionals frequently encounter situations in which one is conscious of the morally appropriate action but cannot take it because of institutional obstacles. Dilemmas like this are likely to result in a specific kind of stress reaction at the individual level, labeled as moral stress. In our study, 16 individuals working with international humanitarian aid and rescue operations participated in semistructured interviews, analyzed in accordance with a grounded theory approach. A theoretical model of ethical decision making from a moral (...) stress perspective was developed. The practical implications of the study are discussed. (shrink)

Different types of well-being are likely to be associated with different kinds of behaviors. The first objective of this study was, from a subjective well-being perspective, to examine whether harmony in life and satisfaction with life are related differently to cooperative behaviors depending on individuals’ social value orientation. The second objective was, from a methodological perspective, to examine whether language-based assessments calledcomputational language assessments(CLA), which enable respondents to answer with words that are analyzed using natural language processing, demonstrate stronger correlations (...) with cooperation than traditional rating scales. Participants reported their harmony in life, satisfaction with life, and social value orientation before taking part in an online cooperative task. The results show that the CLA of overall harmony in life correlated with cooperation (all participants:r= 0.18,p 0.05). No significant correlations (measured by the CLA or traditional rating scales) were found between satisfaction with life and cooperation. In conclusion, our study reveals an important behavioral difference between different types of subjective well-being. To our knowledge, this is the first study supporting the validity of self-reported CLA over traditional rating scales in relation to actual behaviors. (shrink)

Next SectionBackground International and national agencies play a major role in setting HIV care-and-treatment priorities in low-income-countries. Little is known about priority setting at lower health-system levels. The objective of this article is to explore experiences of HIV priority decisions, at what levels these decisions are made and how they might influence the distribution of health benefits in a high-endemic region in Tanzania. Methods This is a qualitative study using observations, key documents and semistructured focus-group and individual interviews (43) with (...) health workers, patients and administrators at one regional and one district hospital. The analysis was based on an editing analysis style. Results Health workers did not perceive themselves as bedside rationing agents and they reported following national recommendations and felt they have little impact on important priority decisions. Health benefit distributions were largely determined by priority decisions made at a national level. External factors, such as eligibility criteria, inadequate funding and barriers to access seemed to play a major role in the actual distribution of health services and benefits in the region. Patient groups who were actually given high priority were the sickest patients, those living near a facility and those who could afford long journeys and frequent visits. Low-priority groups were those experiencing other co-morbidities or treatment failure, children, asymptomatic patients and the poorest. Conclusions/significance The interaction of priority setting across health-system levels and their impact on distribution of health outcomes in the population has been underestimated. The distributional pattern of health outcomes calls for further normative assessment. (shrink)

Some propositional attitude verbs require that the complement contain some “subjective predicate”. In terms of the theory proposed by Lasersohn, these verbs would seem to identify the “judge” of the embedded proposition with the matrix subject, and there have been suggestions in this direction. I show that it is possible to analyze these verbs as setting the judge and doing nothing more; then according to whether a judge index or a judge argument is assumed, unless the complement contains a subjective (...) predicate, the whole matrix is redundant or there is a type conflict. I further show that certain clear facts argue for assuming a judge argument which can be filled by a contextually salient entity–or by the subject of a subjective attitude verb. (shrink)

Enormous gaps between HIV burden and health care availability in low-income countries raise severe ethical problems. This article analyzes four HIV-priority dilemmas with interest across contexts and health systems. We explore principled distributive conflicts and use the Atkinson index to make explicit trade-offs between health maximization and equality in health. We find that societies need a relatively low aversion to inequality to favor treatment for children, even with large weights assigned to extending the lives of adults: higher inequality aversion is (...) needed to share resources equally between high-cost and low-cost treatment; higher inequality aversion is needed to favor treatment rather than prevention, and the highest inequality aversion is needed to favor sharing treatment between urban and rural regions rather than urban provision of treatment. This type of ethical sensitivity analysis may clarify the ethics of health policy choice. (shrink)

Two main methods for analysing de re readings of definite descriptions in intensional contexts coexist: that of evaluating the description in the actual world, whether by means of scope, actuality operators, or non-local world binding, and that of substituting another description, usually one expressing a salient or ‘vivid’ acquaintance relation to an attitude holder, prior to evaluation. Recent work on so-called descriptive indexicals suggests that contrary to common assumptions, both methods are needed, for different ends. This paper aims to show (...) that there is indeed a division of labour between the two methods of analysis and to identify criteria for choosing among alternative ways to model the second, substitutional method. (shrink)

It is argued in this article that the concept of practice is one of the key concepts in Wittgenstein's later philosophy. It partly replaces his earlier talk about the inexpressible. ?The practice has to speak for itself, as Wittgenstein succinctly puts it. The concept of practice not only points to the ways in which the unity of our concepts are underpinned, as Gordon Baker has it, it also comprises the skills involved in handling the conceptualized phenomena, our prereflective familiarity with (...) them, expressed in the sureness in our behaviour towards them, and the judgmental power exercised in applying or withholding a given concept on a particular occasion. These factors are all relevant to the establishment of knowledge, but they cannot themselves be fully and straightforwardly articulated by verbal means. Nevertheless, they represent what we go by when we apply concepts and other types of rules. To follow a rule is what Wittgenstein calls a practice. The sketched analysis of this concept makes us understand better how it is possible to apply a rule without the support of another rule. It also makes us realize in what sense one is justified in talking about tacit knowledge in connection with the application of concepts and rule?following in general. Quite a lot hangs on seeing the world aright at this point. (shrink)

Attitudes toward repository projects cannot be explained merely on the basis of perceived risks, trust, or technical information. Issues of justice and fairness frequently arise when burdens and benefits are to be allocated. A fair distribution across the various parts of a given territory of the waste to be stored is unlikely to be accomplished as it is contingent on appropriate geological formations and other factors. The process by which the specific distribution is determined and accomplished needs to be taken (...) into account as well. Thus, justice evaluations of both the distributive outcome and the process itself, by which the outcome is accomplished, are likely to affect people’s attitudes toward and acceptance of siting decisions. Data from a number of methodically different studies conducted over the last eight years on site selection in Switzerland suggest that a fair procedure is more essential than a fair distribution to a consensus about the decisions made. As a consequence, even normative assessments of the fairness of a distribution of nuclear waste must consider procedural justice as a valuable indicator, independently of the particular shape of the distribution. However, contextual factors, such as the wider nuclear energy strategy of a country, may compete with procedural fairness in terms of importance. Even though fairness is a requirement it does not guarantee acceptance. It may, however, enhance acceptability from a moral standpoint. (shrink)

This paper discusses the interrelationship between wisdom, science and craft from the perspective of the Wittgenstein concept of tacit knowledge. It challenges the notion of the ‘rules-model’ as put forward by Logical Positivists, and shows the limitation of this model for describing the tacit dimension of knowledge. The paper demonstrates the crucial role of practice in ‘rule-following’ in the real world. It is held that ‘to follow a rule’ is to practice a custom, a usage or an institutional practice. Hence, (...) rules can only exist as a link in social life.The dream of the ‘precise’ language can only be realised in a closed scientific world. It is inadequate for reflecting the user's relationship to language and its content and practice in varied ‘use situations’. It is only through examples that we learn to deal with, describe, interpret and learn from the new situations.The rule-based models which are used to acquire and describe human knowledge in syntactic and propositional forms are, in effect, an impoverishment of the description of reality. It is argued that expert knowledge and linguistic knowledge are linked together and emerge as two sides of the same subject as the pragmatic perspective of reality. The tacit dimension of expert knowledge is, in many cases, more significant than the linguistic knowledge, especially in the case of the vocational and aesthetic world.The challenge to AI researchers, therefore, is to recognise that knowledge based systems which ignore the tacit dimension of expert knowledge not only distance the user from reality but also impoverish the learning process itself. (shrink)

This article surveys and discusses the core points of contact between notions of information structure and notions of presupposition. Section 1 is devoted to the ‘weak’ presuppositional semantics for focus developed by Mats Rooth, describing its properties with regard to verification and accommodation and showing that it can successfully account for a wide range of phenomena. Section 2 examines the stronger thesis that focus–background structures give rise to existential presuppositions, and finds the counterarguments that have been raised to carry considerable (...) weight. Section 3 looks into the relationship between Givenness and run-of-the-mill presuppositions, finding that this relationship is looser than might be expected, mainly because a presupposition may be in need of focus marking instead of givenness marking. (shrink)

Recent global advances in available technology to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission necessitate a rethinking of contemporary and previous ethical debates on HIV testing as a means to preventing vertical transmission. In this paper, we will provide an ethical analysis of HIV-testing strategies of pregnant women. First, we argue that provider-initiated opt-out HIV testing seems to be the most effective HIV test strategy. The flip-side of an opt-out strategy is that it may end up as involuntary testing in a clinical setting. (...) We analyse this ethical puzzle from a novel perspective, taking into account the moral importance of certain hypothetical preferences of the child, as well as the moral importance of certain actual preferences of the mother. Finally, we balance the conflicting concerns and try to arrive at an ethically sound solution to this dilemma. Our aim is to introduce a novel perspective from which to analyse testing strategies, and to explore the implications and possible benefits of our proposal. The conclusion from our analysis is that policies that recommend provider-initiated opt-out HIV testing of pregnant mothers, with a risk of becoming involuntary testing in a clinical setting, are acceptable. The rationale behind this is that the increased availability of very effective and inexpensive life-saving drugs makes the ethical problems raised by the possible intrusiveness of HIV testing less important than the child's hypothetical preferences to be born healthy. Health care providers, therefore, have a duty to offer both opt-out HIV testing and available PMTCT (preventing mother-to-child transmission) interventions. (shrink)

In this article I attack the scandalous one-sidedness of traditional philosophical epistemology. I make clear its total dependence on one and only one paradigm of knowledge – propositional knowledge. Such knowledge presupposes that we are always capable of fully articulate our knowledge verbally or notationally and support it by empirical or formal reasons. On this basis it becomes quite impossible to say anything sensible about, for instance, professional knowledge, not to speak of aesthetical or moral knowledge. Some of us have (...) been aware of this for quite a while as Michael Polanyi already in 1958 pointed it out in his book Personal Knowledge. His most famous statement is: «We know more than we can tell». And he argues that we possess a great amount of tacit knowledge. Therefore we need appropriate categories for handling the various kinds of knowledge which cannot be articulated as propositional knowledge. And that is Polanyi’s weak spot. Inspired by Wittgenstein’s remark in Philosophical Investigations § 78 concerning knowing and saying how high Mont Blanc is, how the word «game» is used and how a clarinet sounds, I have developed an alternative approach where becomes propositional knowledge, becomes various forms of practical knowledge and becomes various kinds of knowledge by familiarity. is a sort of first person knowledge which we are quite unable to express verbally to someone who is unfamiliar with the instruments of the Western musical tradition. On this basis I sketchily analyse the paradigm of knowledge in traditional philosophical epistemology and point out a series of its shortcomings. In the second part of my article I take a close look at a rather new contribution to the discussion of tacit knowledge, written by one of the leading figures within the research field called «the sociology of scientific knowledge» – Harry Collins. His book is called Tacit and Explicit Knowledge and was published in 2010. And his primary aim of the book is to «reconstruct the idea of tacit knowledge from first principles so that the concept’s disparate domains have a common conceptual language». I perform a close reading of his development of the common conceptual language and conclude that he does not succeed. He creates a monstrous terminology which just alienates us from the subject instead of making us see the connections between the «disparate domains» of tacit knowledge. (shrink)

Knut Olav Almås. Solum, 1994. 295 s. ISBN 82-560-0936-5 Den østerrrikske filosofen Wittgenstein var ikke bare opptatt av den norske vestlandsnaturen, men også fascinert av menneskene som levde der. Denne bio-grafien om ham har hans forhold til Norge som hovedtema. Her har en sett på hans bakgrunn for gjentatte Norges-besøk, og dokumentert hans relasjoner tilSkjolden-bygda i Sognefjorden. Her kan en presentere en rekke korrespondansemed mennesker fra Skjolden, alt for å kaste lys over Wittgenstein som både filosof og person. Det norske (...) filosofiske miljøet er svært preget av Witt- gensteins tenkning. (shrink)

Background:Organ donation and transplantation have made it possible to both save life and to improve the quality of life for a large number of patients. In the last years there has been an increasing gap between the number of patients who need organs and organs available for transplantation, and the focus worldwide has been on how to meet the organ shortage. This also rises some ethical challenges.Objective:The objective of this study was to explore healthcare professionals' experience of ethics related to (...) care and interaction with critically ill patients with severe brain injuries and their families.Research design:A hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used to explore the participants' experiences. Methods for collecting data were a combination of participant observations and in-depth interviews.Participants and research context:Two ICUs in a Norwegian university hospital were recruited for data collection. A total of 12 cases were observed, and 32 of the healthcare professionals involved were interviewed.Ethical considerations:The study was approved by the Regional Committee for Research Ethics. Permission to the study in the ICUs was obtained from the Chief Physician in the two ICUs respectively. The right of the participants was ensured by written, voluntary, and informed consent.Findings:From the thematic analysis, a structure of the participants' experiences emerged as a process. While the patients' condition was clarified through phases of prognostic ambiguity, gradual clarification and prognostic certainty, interaction with the families was characterized by ambiguity that involved withholding. The prognostic process had a great impact on how the healthcare professionals interacted with the family. The interaction challenged the participants' caring values in various ways and captured an important structure in their experiences of the ethical interaction with the patients' families. These challenges distinguish caring for families in donation situations from caring for relatives of critically ill patients in general.Discussion:In the discussion we have illuminated how professional ethics may be threatened by more pragmatic and utilitarian arguments contained in regulations and transplant act.Conclusion:Ethical questions should be discussed more both in educations of healthcare professionals and in clinical practice. (shrink)

BackgroundPrevious studies have indicated that failure to report ethical approval is common in health science articles. In social sciences, the occurrence is unknown. The Swedish Ethics Review Act requests that sensitive personal data, in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), should undergo independent ethical review, irrespective of academic discipline. We have explored the adherence to this regulation. MethodsUsing the Web of Science databases, we reviewed 600 consecutive articles from three domains (health sciences with and without somatic focus (...) and social sciences) based on identifiable personal data published in 2020. ResultsInformation on ethical review was lacking in 12 of 200 health science articles with somatic focus (6%), 21 of 200 health science articles with non-somatic focus (11%), and in 54 of 200 social science articles (27%; p < 0.001 vs. both groups of health science articles). Failure to report on ethical approval was more common in (a) observational than in interventional studies (p < 0.01), (b) articles with only 1–2 authors (p < 0.001) and (c) health science articles from universities without a medical school (p < 0.001). There was no significant association between journal impact factor and failure to report ethical approval.ConclusionsWe conclude that reporting of research ethics approval is reasonably good, but not strict, in health science articles. Failure to report ethical approval is about three times more frequent in social sciences compared to health sciences. Improved adherence seems needed particularly in observational studies, in articles with few authors and in social science research. (shrink)

The type of mood or tense marking that causes counterfactuality inferences—as figuring prominently, but far from exclusively, in counterfactual conditionals—has not yet received a comprehensive and compositional analysis. Focusing on four languages, the paper presents under-appreciated facts and a novel theory where the mood serves to activate alternatives to modal operators, particularly one: the identity operator, often giving rise to counterfactual implicatures.

This study explores the perceptions of Norwegian nurses who have received assisted dying requests from terminally ill patients. Assisted dying is illegal in Norway, while in some countries, it is an option. Nurses caring for terminally ill patients may experience ethical challenges by receiving requests for euthanasia and assisted suicide. We applied a qualitative research design with a phenomenological hermeneutic approach using open individual interviews. A total of 15 registered nurses employed in pulmonary and oncology wards of three university hospitals (...) and home care in one municipality were recruited. Four themes emerged from the analysis: (1) unprepared for the request; (2) meeting direct, indirect, and nonverbal requests; (3) working in a gray zone, and (4) feeling alone and powerless. The study found that nurses were unsure how to handle such requests due to professional uncertainty about assisted dying. Working in an environment where the topic is taboo made nurses morally uncertain, and some perceived this as moral distress. The hospital chaplain played a significant role in providing support to these nurses. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of time when living with severe incurable disease. A phenomenological and philosophical approach of description and deciphering were used. In our modern health care system there is an on-going focus on utilizing and recording the use of time, but less focus on the patient’s experience of time, which highlights the need to explore the patients’ experiences, particularly when life is vulnerable and time is limited. The empirical (...) data consisted of 26 open-ended interviews with 23 participants receiving palliative care at home, in hospital or in a nursing home in Norway. The theoretical frameworks used are mainly based upon K. Martinsens philosophy of care, K. E. Løgstrup phenomenological philosophy, in addition to C. Saunders’ hospice philosophy, L. Feigenberg’s thanatology and U. Qvarnström’s research exploring patient’s reactions to impending death. Experience of time is described as being a movement that moves the individual towards death in the field of opposites, and deciphered to be a universal, but a typical and unique experience emerging through three integrated levels: Sense of time; where time is described as a movement that is proceeding at varying speeds. Relate totime; where the awareness of limited life changes the understanding of time to be more existential. Being in time; where limited time seems to clarify the basic living conditions and phenomena of life. The existence of life when the prospect of death is present is characterized by emotional swings that move within polarizing dimensions which is reflected in the experience of time illustrated as the moves of the pendulum in a grandfather clock. The diversity of the experience of time is oscillating between going fast or slow, being busy or calm, being unpredictable but predictable, safe or unsafe and between being good or bad, depending on the embodied situation of the individual. (shrink)

Indefinites face competition at two levels: Presupposition and content. The antipresupposition hypothesis predicts that they signal the opposite of familiarity, or uniqueness, namely, novelty, or non-uniqueness. At the level of descriptive content, they are pressured from two sides: definites expressing identity and another phrases expressing difference, and Gricean reasoning predicts that indefinites signal both difference and identity and are infelicitous when definites and another phrases are felicitous. However, occasionally a space opens between the and another, for a to fill. This (...) is in part due to conditions handicapping the or another semantically, in part to another’s phonological handicap. The division of labor between determiners in the field of difference and sameness is thus the result of an intricate competition. We model this competition in a version of game-theoretic pragmatics. (shrink)

Fairness preferences fundamentally affect individual behavior and play an important role in shaping social and political institutions. However, people differ both with respect to what they view as fair and with respect to how much weight they attach to fairness considerations. In this article, we study the role of family background in explaining these heterogeneities in fairness preferences. In particular, we examine how socioeconomic background relates to fairness views and to how people make trade-offs between fairness and self-interest. To study (...) this, we conducted an economic experiment with a representative sample of 14- to 15-year-old and matched the experimental data to administrative data on parental income and education. The participants made two distributive choices in the experiment. The first choice was to distribute money between themselves and another participant in a situation where there was no difference in merit. The second choice was to distribute money between two other participants with unequal merits. Our main finding is that there is a systematic difference in fairness view between children from low-socioceconomic status families and the rest of the participants; more than 50 percent of the participants from low-SES families are egalitarians, whereas only about 20 percent in the rest of the sample hold this fairness view. In contrast, we find no significant difference in the weight attached to fairness between children from different socioeconomic groups. (shrink)