The 1948 constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’. It was a bold and revolutionary health idea to gain international consensus in a period characterized by fervent anti-communism. This article explores the genealogy of the health definition and demonstrates how it was possible to expand the scope of health, redefine it as ‘well-being’, and overcome ideological resistance to progressive and (...) international health approaches. The first part of the article demonstrates how the health definition was composed through a trajectory of draft ideas from scholars in the history of medicine, as well as political actors working to promote national health insurance. The definition was authored by League of Nations veteran Raymond Gautier, but secretly drew heavily on medical historian Henry E. Sigerist’s controversial book Socialized Medicine in the Soviet Union (1937). The second part analyses how it was possible to resist the ideological pushback against the WHO and secure US ratification. The WHO’s progressive constitution was not simply a deviation from dominant health ideas, but a direct outcome of the entrenched health conflict. The genealogy is based on original archival material from international organizations and US government archives. The article contributes to understandings of the political controversies surrounding the WHO and to scholarship on understandings of health. It also illustrates how influential health ideas cross the boundaries between politics and health sciences, as well as the boundaries between domestic health policy and global health. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 39, Issue 2, pp 139 - 164 The aim of the present study is to explore the significance of religiousness for patients suffering from first-episode psychosis. Our study is a thematic analysis. The study illustrates how the patients understood their hallucinations as mystical experiences. Even so, many of the patients describe their religiousness to be helpful in coping with their disorder, giving meaning to life as well as a relationship to a sacred figure. However, their religiousness often (...) contained religious omnipotent delusions, and built on hallucinations, displayed an unsecure relationship to the sacred figure. From a psychiatric point of view, the misinterpretation of hallucinations as mystical experiences may reinforce their delusional system and cause an obstacle to recovery. This misinterpretation may also cause problems for patients’ religious coping. Our findings underline the importance of taking patients’ religiousness into account in psychotherapy. (shrink)

BackgroundDecision-making in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest should ideally include clinical and ethical factors. Little is known about the extent of ethical considerations and their influence on prehospital resuscitation. We aimed to determine the transparency in medical records regarding decision-making in prehospital resuscitation with a specific focus on ethically relevant information and consideration in resuscitation providers’ documentation.MethodsThis was a Danish nationwide retrospective observational study of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests from 2016 through 2018. After an initial screening using broadly defined inclusion criteria, two experienced (...) philosophers performed a qualitative content analysis of the included medical records according to a preliminary codebook. We identified ethically relevant content in free-text fields and categorised the information according to Beauchamp and Childress’ four basic bioethical principles: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. ResultsOf 16,495 medical records, we identified 759 (4.6%) with potentially relevant information; 710 records (4.3%) contained ethically relevant information, whereas 49 did not. In general, the documentation was vague and unclear. We identified four kinds of ethically relevant information: patients’ wishes and perspectives on life; relatives’ wishes and perspectives on patients’ life; healthcare professionals’ opinions and perspectives on resuscitation; and do-not-resuscitate orders. We identified some “best practice” examples that included all perspectives of decision-making. ConclusionsThere is sparse and unclear evidence on ethically relevant information in the medical records documenting resuscitation after out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. However, the “best practice” examples show that providing sufficient documentation of decision-making is, in fact, feasible. To ensure transparency surrounding prehospital decisions in cardiac arrests, we believe that it is necessary to ensure more systematic documentation of decision-making in prehospital resuscitation. (shrink)

Advances in neonatology have led to improved survival for periviable infants. Immaturity still carries a high risk of short- and long-term harms, and uncertainty turns provision of life support int...

Guided by the concept of bullshit, broadly defined as a deceptive form of rhetoric intended to distract and/or persuade, we examine how fabrications and false statements— when crafted and distributed by the president of the United States—impact not only foreign policy making and implementation but also erode democratic norms. Unconstrained by reality, and seemingly driven more by celebrity and showmanship than a genuine desire to govern, we argue that President Trump’s penchant for bullshit is part of a concerted strategy to (...) sideline critics while simultaneously undermining the ongoing investigations into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with the Russian government. (shrink)

We study first-order concatenation theory with bounded quantifiers. We give axiomatizations with interesting properties, and we prove some normal-form results. Finally, we prove a number of decidability and undecidability results.

It is well known that the structure of honest elementary degrees is a lattice with rather strong density properties. Let $\mbox{\bf a} \cup \mbox{\bf b}$ and $\mbox{\bf a} \cap \mbox{\bf b}$ denote respectively the join and the meet of the degrees $\mbox{\bf a}$ and $\mbox{\bf b}$ . This paper introduces a jump operator ( $\cdot'$ ) on the honest elementary degrees and defines canonical degrees $\mbox{\bf 0},\mbox{\bf 0}', \mbox{\bf 0}^{\prime \prime },\ldots$ and low and high degrees analogous to the corresponding (...) concepts for the Turing degrees. Among others, the following results about the structure of the honest elementary degrees are shown: There exist low degrees, and there exist degrees which are neither low nor high. Every degree above $\mbox{\bf 0}'$ is the jump of some degree, moreover, for every degree $\mbox{\bf c}$ above $\mbox{\bf 0}'$ there exist degrees $\mbox{\bf a},\mbox{\bf b}$ such that $\mbox{\bf c}=\mbox{\bf a} \cup \mbox{\bf b} = \mbox{{\bf a}}'=\mbox{\bf b}'$ . We have $\mbox{\bf a}'\cup \mbox{\bf b}' \leq (\mbox{\bf a}\cup\mbox{\bf b})'$ and $\mbox{\bf a}'\cap \mbox{\bf b}' \geq (\mbox{\bf a}\cap \mbox{\bf b})'$ . The jump operator is of course monotonic, i.e. $\mbox{\bf a}\leq\mbox{{\bf b}}\Rightarrow \mbox{\bf a}'\leq \mbox{\bf b}'$ . We prove that every situation compatible with $\mbox{\bf a}\leq\mbox{\bf b}\Rightarrow \mbox{\bf a}'\leq \mbox{\bf b}'$ is realized in the structure, e.g. we have incomparable degrees $\mbox{\bf a},\mbox{\bf b}$ such that $\mbox{\bf a}'<\mbox{\bf b}'$ and incomparable degrees $\mbox{\bf a},\mbox{\bf b}$ such that $\mbox{\bf a}' = \mbox{\bf b}'$ etcetera. We are able to prove all these results without the traditional recursion theoretic constructions. Our proof method relies on the fact that the growth of the functions in a degree is bounded. This technique also yields a very simple proof of an old result, namely that the structure is a lattice. (shrink)

Theories of the structure of affect make competing predictions about whether people can feel happy and sad at the same time. Considerable evidence that happiness and sadness can co-occur has accumulated in the past 15 years, but holes in the case remain. I describe those holes and suggest strategies for testing them in future research. I also explore the possibility that the case may never be closed, in part because the competing hypotheses may not be entirely falsifiable. Fortunately, hypotheses need (...) not be falsifiable to be useful. Research on mixed emotions has been generative and the body of research will continue to shed light on the structure of affect. (shrink)

By comparing alternative evolutionary models, the International Sexuality Description Project marks the transition of evolutionary psychology to the next level of scientific maturation. The lack of final conclusions might partly be a result of the composition of the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory and the sampled populations. Our own data suggest that correcting for both gives further support to the strategic pluralism model.

Cognitive models propose that both, negative interpretations of ambiguous social situations and ruminative thoughts about social events contribute to the maintenance of social anxiety disorder. It has further been postulated that ruminative thoughts fuel biased negative interpretations, however, evidence is rare. The present study used a multi-method approach to assess ruminative processing following a social interaction and negative interpretation bias in a student sample screened for high and low social anxiety. Results support the hypothesis that group differences in negative interpretations (...) of ambiguous social situations in HSAs vs. LSAs are mediated by higher levels of post-event processing assessed in the questionnaire. Exploratory analyses highlight the potential role of comorbid depressive symptoms. The current findings help to advance the understanding of the association between two cognitive processes involved in social anxiety and stress the importance of ruminative post-event processing. (shrink)

Wenn es um „den Kapitalismus“ geht, regieren schnell die Gefühle. Die Philosophen Sabine Döring und Lars Neth appellieren an die Vernunft. -/- Interview: Wolf Lotter.

Standard tools used in societal risk management such as probabilistic risk analysis or cost–benefit analysis typically define risks in terms of only probabilities and consequences and assume a utilitarian approach to ethics that aims to maximize expected utility. The philosopher Carl F. Cranor has argued against this view by devising a list of plausible aspects of the acceptability of risks that points towards a non-consequentialist ethical theory of societal risk management. This paper revisits Cranor’s list to argue that the alternative (...) ethical theory responsibility-catering prioritarianism can accommodate the aspects identified by Cranor and that the elements in the list can be used to inform the details of how to view risks within this theory. An approach towards operationalizing the theory is proposed based on a prioritarian social welfare function that operates on responsibility-adjusted utilities. A responsibility-catering prioritarian ethical approach towards managing risks is a promising alternative to standard tools such as cost–benefit analysis. (shrink)

Although the use of new health technologies in healthcare and medicine is generally seen as beneficial, there has been little analysis of the impact of such technologies on people's lives and understandings of health and illness. This book explores how new technologies not only provide hope for cure and well-being, but also introduce new ethical dilemmas and raise questions about the "natural" body. Focusing on the ways new health technologies intervene into our lives and affect our ideas about normalcy, the (...) body and identity, New Health Technologies explores: how new health technologies are understood by lay people and patients how the outcomes of these technologies are communicated in various clinical settings how these technologies can alter our notions of health and illness and create "new illness." Written by authors with differing backgrounds in phenomenology, social psychology, social anthropology, communication studies and the nursing sciences, this book is essential reading for students andacademics of medical sociology, health and allied studies, and anyone with an interest in new health technologies. (shrink)

Two hundred years after its publication, The Phenomenology of Spirit (PhS) remains an enigmatic and challenging text, subject to a variety of interpretations. In this paper I seek to open up an additional interpretative space by emphasizing the influence of Hegel’s study of the Bible at the Tübingen Stift (1790–1793) on PhS. In a letter written to Schelling in 1795, Hegel had wondered what it might mean to »draw near to God.« It is the hypothesis of this paper that answering (...) that question was at least part of Hegel’s intent for PhS. (shrink)

Review of MARTTA HEIKKILÄ, DECONSTRUCTION AND THE WORK OF ART. VISUAL ARTS AND THEIR CRITIQUE IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH THOUGHT LONDON: LEXINGTON BOOKS 2021. 311 PAGES.ISBN: 1793619042.

The rural-migrant protagonist in Knut Hamsun’s Hunger fails to adapt to the urban environment because the moral algorithm that informs his collaborative choices is unfit for the city. He often responds poorly when overwhelmed by pride, shame, or other sensations that he struggles to make sense of. Such emotions are hypothesized to be neuro­computational adaptations crafted by natural selection to help us get ahead as collabora­tors. But with societal transformation, these feelings can become a poor match for a new reality. (...) Reprogramming oneself can be challenging; Hunger’s protagonist must suffer months of emotional and physical pain before he adapts. His journey, and Hamsun’s mod­ernist project, can be illuminated by recent research on status management and morality as cooperation. As literature, Hunger could fulfill several adaptive functions by mapping mor­als for urban pro-sociality at a time of great disruption. Similar moral adaptation could become necessary in our present era, too. (shrink)

Paradigm transitions come with tremendous risk, as societies can come undone when people stop believing in the imaginary constructs that unite us. The Black Plague’s devastation resulted not only f...

Positive psychology is a thriving field with increasing political influence, yet there are few evolutionary studies that have had a tangible impact on rethinking mechanisms of well-being. This Element reviews existing literature and proposes synthesizing insights into human flourishing under an umbrella of multilevel selection (MLS). Conceptualizing quality of life as 'Happiness + Meaning = Well-being' draws attention to how people navigate between individual and group needs, and how they reconcile selfish pursuits with altruism and cooperation. We define happiness as (...) the cluster of affects that reward individuals for solving adaptive challenges. We approach meaning as a reward that individuals experience when contributing to their community. By way of examples, we critically examine the Nordic well-being societies whose ethos and education advance prosocial values and practices and strike a balance between individualist and communitarian ideals. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Healthcare practitioners are often presented with vulnerable encounters where their professional experience is insufficient when dealing with patients who suffer from illnesses such as chronic pain. How can one otherwise understand chronic pain and develop practices whereby medical healthcare practitioners can experience alternative ways of doing their practice? This essay describes how a group of researchers have, over a number of years, developed improvised participatory theatre as a means of engaging healthcare practitioners, patients and other lay people in situations where (...) it is legitimate to reappraise their practice and reunderstand the nature of an illness such as chronic pain. One conclusion was to consider that it is a relational rather than an individual phenomenon that in turn demands alternative practice. Through iterative workshop processes of improvised theatre, participants are encouraged to experience the vulnerable, the unknown, and the need to be alternatively present when dealing with patients whose situation is imbued with suffering. (shrink)

International service learning programs are growing more popular with students looking to advance their skills and knowledge to become global citizens. While the benefits of these programs among students are well documented, little is known about the implications they have on host communities themselves. This volume explores the impact of ISL programs on members of host communities who are increasingly influenced by the presence of international students in their lives. Drawing upon post-colonial, feminist and other critical and decolonizing theories, it (...) examines the complicated power relations between North American ISL students and host communities in East and West Africa, the Caribbean and Central America. It stresses the importance of developing trusting relations between ISL students, faculty and individuals in the host communities to create mutually engaging learning experiences. (shrink)