During the past few years,organic dairy farming has grown dramatically inDenmark. Consequently, an increasing number ofpeople are encountering this method ofproduction for the first time. Amongst these,many veterinarians have suddenly had to dealwith organic herds in their home district, and,meeting examples of poor animal welfare, theyhave recently started to express some concerns.

The wilderness is one of the most widely recognized sources of transcendent emotion. Various recent studies have demonstrated nature’s power to induce intense emotions. The study at hand will generate conceptual and operational definitions of sublime emotion toward nature. Taking into consideration the recent research on feelings of awe, an instrument is devised to measure sublime emotion toward nature. The proposed scale’s reliability and validity is tested in a sample of 280 participants from the general population of Madrid. Results show (...) that sublime emotion was defined by two conceptual components: awe, and inspiring energy, both obtained using the computer program FACTOR. After reliability and validity analysis, the Sublime Emotion toward Nature (SEN) scale included 18 items, distributed into awe (6 items, α =.881) and inspiring energy (12 items, α=.933). Awe was defined by feelings of fear, threat, vulnerability, fragility, and respect for nature, which is perceived as vast, powerful, and mysterious. Inspiring energy was defined by feelings of vitality, joy, energy, oneness, freedom, eternity, and harmony with the universe. The SEN is an adequate instrument to measure transcendent emotions provoked by direct wilderness exposure or memory thereof. (shrink)

Modern medical ethics in the English-speaking world is commonly thought to derive from the medical philosophy of the Scotsman John Gregory (1725-1773) and his younger associates, the English Dissenter Thomas Percival (1740-1804) and the American Benjamin Rush (1745-1813). This book is the first extensive study of this suggestion. Dr Haakonssen shows how the three thinkers combined Francis Bacon's and the Scottish Enlightenment's ideas of the science of morals and the morals of science. She demonstrates how their medical ethics was a (...) successful adaptation of traditional moral ideas to the dramatically changing medical world especially the voluntary hospital. In accounting for the dynamics of this process, she rejects the anachronism that modern medical ethics was a new paradigm. (shrink)

This chapter outlines how biotechnology can be seen as a challenge to our notion of nature, and how the complexity of the concept of nature in itself is a challenge in the debate on enhancement of capacities in humans, animals and plants by means of biotechnology. It then explores how the same concept contributes to the ethical arguments both for and against enhancement of human capacities, focusing on two central aspects of the enhancement debate namely: (i) the debate that focuses (...) on enhancement as an overreaching form of therapy; and (ii) the debate that focus on enhancement as the goal in itself. Finally, the chapter summarizes the contribution of the concept of nature in terms of the challenges that its inherent complexity poses to the ethical and philosophical debate on enhancement technologies, also briefly discussing how “nature” and “naturalness” can be said to have moral relevance in the enhancement debate. (shrink)

This article examines clinical wisdom, which has emerged from a broader study about nurse managers' influence on proficient registered nurse turnover and retention. The purpose of the study was to increase understanding of proficient nurses' experience and clinical practice by giving voice to the nurses themselves, and to look for differences in their practice. This was a qualitative study based on semistructured interviews followed by analysis founded on Gadamerian hermeneutics. The article describes how proficient nurses experience their practice. Proficient practice (...) constitutes clinical wisdom based on responsibility, thinking and ethical discernment, and a drive for action. The study showed that poor working conditions cause proficient nurses to regress to non-proficient performance. Further studies are recommended to allow deeper searching into the area of working conditions and their relationship to lack of nurse proficiency. (shrink)

It does not seem terribly unfair to say that studies of both rhetoric and dialogue have tended, by and large, to pass over listening in favor of speaking. In scholarly as well as quotidian parlance, it would appear that both rhetoric and dialogue are principally concerned with speech, banishing listening to the silent subservience of rhetoric's other. Whichever way it is glossed—as rhetoric, dialogue, language, or argumentation—the Western conception of logos emphasizes speaking at the expense of listening. And the problem (...) with conceiving of logos in terms of speech and speaking is not only that it ignores the importance of listening but also that it obscures how listening makes the ethical response possible. Drawing on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, this article examines the ethical exigency of the face and its relation to primordial discourse in order to disclose the otherwise hidden ethical significance of listening and its vocation as a form of co-constitutive communicative action that can “listen persons to speech.”. (shrink)

Kant, I. Hvad er oplysning?--Hartnack, J. Oplysning og fornuft.--Løgstrup, K.E. Videnskab og oplysning.--Favrholdt, D. Frihed og indotrinering.--Sløk, J. Fordummelsens tid.--Palle Hansen, F. Uvidenskabeligt efterskrift.

Healthcare apps er blevet en omfattende industri. Vi kan ganske gratis downloade tusindvis af apps, som sætter os i stand til at monitorere alt fra vores fysiske form til vores mentale velbefindende, og vi kan gennem denne monitorering, producere endeløse datamængder og viden om os selv og vores liv – altså skabe et «monitoreret mig». Men hvordan forholder vi os til denne mulighed? I nærværende artikel tages udgangspunkt i foreløbige resultater fra et igangværende ph.d. projekt, hvor brugen af apps og (...) biofeedback anvendes i praksis, til at belyse en stigende stressproblematik blandt lærere i den danske folkeskole. Artiklens ærinde er, at tematisere de normer og fortolkningsrammer, som kommer til syne, når aktørerne selv italesætter sit «monitorerede mig» og hernæst diskutere, i hvilken position, disse normer og tolkninger af teknologien i anvendelse, bringer aktøren. Er «det monitorerede mig» en mulighed for frisættende autonomi – en empowerment? Eller bidrager monitoreringen i stedet til individualisering eller patologisering, hvor vi gennem ejerskabet af vores egen fortælling, producerer et overansvar for eksempelvis hvilken behandling vi skal modtage, eller hvordan vores arbejdsmiljø bør være?Nøgleord: Etik, humanistisk sundhedsforskning, selvmonitorering, Ecological Momentary StorytellingEnglish summary: The Monitored Me - empowerment or pathologization?Healthcare apps have become a major industry. We can freely download thousands of apps, that enable us to monitor everything, from our physical condition to our mental well-being, and we can through the monitoring produce endless amounts of data and knowledge about our inner selves and our lives - creating a “monitored me”. But how is this technological possibility dealt with, in practice? The present article presents and discusses results from a case study in which apps and biofeedback were used to illuminate an increasing stress problem among teachers in the Danish preliminary school system. The focus of the article is to analyze the self-interpretation framework that appears when the users of the technology articulate the "monitored me” and hereafter discuss how these self-interpretations position the user. Is “the monitored me” an opportunity for liberating autonomy – for empowerment? Or does it contribute to individualization or pathologization? (shrink)

The aim of this hermeneutic study was to gain a broader understanding of nurses’ workload and what characterizes a nurse’s experience in terms of the various levels of intensity of nursing care. Twenty-nine nurses participated in seven focus groups. The interpretation process took place in six different phases and the three laws of dialectics were used as interpretation rules. An optimal nursing care intensity level can be understood as a situation characterized by the balance between the intensity of care needed (...) by patients and the external and internal factors of the current nursing care situation. The nurses’ work situation can be understood as a dialectic struggle between ‘being’ and ‘not being’ a good nurse; this can be said to be the underlying root metaphor. Nursing care can be understood as consisting of ‘complex and meaningful caring situations’. Dialectics can be used as a fruitful method of revealing the complexity of clinical reality. (shrink)

Two related aspects of the present ‘knowledge capitalism’ stage of globalisation are discussed in this article: the transformation of education to make it more directly supportive of educational growth and competition, and the growing demands on educational research to provide scientific evidence for education policy and practice, using narrowly defined methods and techniques. It is argued that both developments have profound consequences for the construction and use of educational theory, and the vital need for critical discussion and communication in this (...) respect is emphasised. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the concept conduct of everyday life, namely routines and real life, as they are confronted with empirical observations. The observations are from a study of changes in the conduct of everyday life for individuals who attended a patient education course. The course was a part of their treatment after a hospitalisation with depression in a psychiatric ward. I use analysis of the main individual, Steven’s, conduct of everyday life and illustrate my points with models of (...) conduct of everyday life made using beads. The conceptualisation of conduct of everyday life is expanded through three points. Firstly, cyclic routines can matter and fulfill life, which can support the ongoing discussion about the concept conduct of everyday life. Secondly, I show that, from a first person perspective, what matters in conduct of everyday life is more complex than what is possible to grasp analytically through a dualistic opposition between cyclic everyday conduct and the particular meaningful conduct of everyday life. Thirdly, I expand on the notion of timeouts/breaks as solely something that lifts us out of mundane everyday life. I conclude that it makes a more comprehensive analysis to perceive all conduct of everyday life as having profound personal meaning and to analyse the individuals' concerns in relation to their social self-understanding and localisation at a certain time. (shrink)

This article presents a discourse model of polling that investigates what poll discourse is, how it is structured and how it functions. In contrast to most polling research, which presupposes polling to be primarily a psychological measurement tool, this article explores how it is primarily a discursive form of social interaction. Using the tools of discourse analysis, the model reveals that far from reflecting the beliefs and preferences of citizens, poll questions can instead tacitly evoke and sustain conservative and status (...) quo ideologies. Hence polls can play a significant role in constructing what is admissible and legitimate in political discourse. (shrink)

Questions on what it means to live and die well are raised and discussed in the hospice movement. A phenomenological lifeworld perspective may help professionals to be aware of meaningful and important dimensions in the lives of persons close to death. Lifeworld is not an abstract philosophical term, but rather the opposite. Lifeworld is about everyday, common life in all its aspects. In the writings of Cicely Saunders, known as the founder of the modern hospice movement, facets of lifeworld are (...) presented as important elements in caring for dying patients. Palliative care and palliative medicine today are, in many ways, replacing hospices. This represents not only a change in name, but also in the main focus. Hospice care was originally very much about providing support and comfort for, and interactions with the patients. Improved medical knowledge today means improved symptomatic palliation, but also time and resources spent in other ways than before. Observations from a Nordic hospice ward indicate that seriously ill and dying persons spend much time on their own. Different aspects of lifeworld and intersubjectivity in the dying persons’ room is presented and discussed. (shrink)

Based on a historical and a contemporary fieldwork at a Danish hospital, this article offers a genealogical and philosophical exploration of the development of nurses’ doing and focus within a hospital setting from the 1800 s to the present day. This exploration finds that nurses’ doing has changed during history, which is reflected in their focus. Thus, nurses’ focus has developed from, what the Danish philosopher Uffe Juul Jensen refers to as a situation‐oriented, to a disease‐oriented practice, and while new (...) values are established, the conception of care as a core value in nursing seems to have receded. This article also argues that today's nurses are doing what doctors did in the 19th century. The French philosopher Michel Foucault discusses how things repeat themselves in new ways and new contexts. The nursing profession has become ‘a career open to the talents’ where nurses with the appropriate skills and talents are able to build a career, within which they provide status, position and legitimacy. The conclusion of the article discusses the significance of this development for patients and the nursing profession. (shrink)

BackgroundAs part of the research project “End-of-life Communication in Nursing Homes. Patient Preferences and Participation”, we have studied how Advance Care Planning is carried out in eight Norwegian nursing homes. The concept of ACP is a process for improving patient autonomy and communication in the context of progressive illness, anticipated deterioration and end-of-life care. While an individualistic autonomy based attitude is at the fore in most studies on ACP, there is a lack of empirical studies on how family members’ participation (...) and involvement in ACP- conversations may promote nursing home patients’ participation in decisions on future treatment and end-of-life care. Based on empirical data and family ethics perspectives, the purpose of this study is to add insights to the complexity of ACP-conversations and illuminate how a family ethics perspective may improve the quality of the ACP and promote nursing home patients’ participation in advance care planning.MethodsParticipant observations of ACP-conversations in eight nursing homes. The observations were followed by interviews with patients and relatives together on how they experienced being part of the conversation, and expressing their views on future medical treatment, hospitalization and end-of-life issues.ResultsWe found that the way nursing home patients and relatives are connected and related to each other, constitutes an intertwined unit. Further, we found that relatives’ involvement and participation in ACP- conversations is significant to uncover, and give the nursing home staff insight into, what is important in the nursing home patient’s life at the time. The third analytical theme is patients’ and relatives’ shared experiences of the dying and death of others. Drawing on past experiences can be a way of introducing or talking about death.ConclusionsAn individual autonomy approach in advance care planning should be complemented with a family ethics approach. To be open to family ethics when planning for the patient’s future in the nursing home is to be open to diversity and nuances and to the significance of the patient’s former life and experiences. (shrink)

Explores listening as a fundamental human endowment connected with language and thought, and its potential for social, personal, and political action. Incorporates historical, literary, intercultural, scientific, musical, and philosophical perspectives"--Provided by publisher.

In mammals, a network of cellular circadian clocks organizes physiology and behavior along the 24‐h day cycle. The traditional hierarchical model of circadian clock organization with a central pacemaker and peripheral slave oscillators has recently been challenged by studies combining tissue‐specific mouse mutants with transcriptome analyses. First, a surprisingly small number of tissue rhythms are lost when only local clocks are ablated and, second, transcriptional circadian rhythms appear to be regulated by a complex mix of local and systemic factors. As (...) reviewed here, these findings suggest a more integrated model of clock network interaction with the central pacemaker as the main source of behavioral and systemic–physiological rhythms and peripheral clocks controlling some local rhythms while at the same time acting as gatekeepers that temporally adjust cellular responses to external stimuli. (shrink)

Looking at the ways in which anthropologists try to lead positive lives at work, this book investigates what kind of morality they perform in their occupations and what the impact of this morality is. The book includes ethnographic studies in four professional arenas: health care, business, management and interdisciplinary research. The discussion is positioned at the intersection of 'applied or public anthropology' and 'the anthropology of ethics' and analyses the ways in which anthropologists can carry out 'moral work' both inside (...) and outside of academia. (shrink)

True benevolence is, most fundamentally, a desire that the world be better. It is natural and common, however, to frame thinking about benevolence indirectly, in terms of a desire to make a difference to how good the world is. This would be an innocuous shift if desires to make a difference were extensionally equivalent to desires that the world be better. This paper shows that at least on some common ways of making a “desire to make a difference” precise, this (...) extensional equivalence fails. Where it fails, “difference-making preferences” run counter to the ideals of benevolence. In particular, in the context of decision making under uncertainty, coupling a “difference-making” framing in a natural way with risk aversion leads to preferences that violate stochastic dominance, and that lead to a strong form of collective defeat, from the point of view of betterness. Difference-making framings and true benevolence are not strictly mutually inconsistent, but agents seeking to implement true benevolence must take care to avoid the various pitfalls that we outline. GPI Working Paper No. 16-2022. (shrink)

In the present Western cultural and political context, the concept of nature plays a central role in the debate about new technologies. However, the concept of nature is complex and reflects more than one frame of reference stemming from a long historical tradition. ‘Nature’ is referred to: a) as the object (phenomenon) toward which the debate is directed, and b) as the normative frame of reference that either justifies or rejects the technological method in specific situations. This paper argues, that (...) this double character of ‘nature’ is not particular for the debate on ethical concern for the non-human nature, rather it constitutes the complexity of the concept itself. This, in turn, leads to a more fundamental question, namely: What is ‘nature’?—Or rather: Is ‘nature’ to be defined? (shrink)

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

I argue that moral philosophers have either misunderstood the problem of moral demandingness or at least failed to recognize important dimensions of the problem that undermine many standard assumptions. It has been assumed that utilitarianism concretely directs us to maximize welfare within a generation by transferring resources to people currently living in extreme poverty. In fact, utilitarianism seems to imply that any obligation to help people who are currently badly off is trumped by obligations to undertake actions targeted at improving (...) the value of the long-term future. Reflecting on the demands of beneficence in respect of the value of the far future forces us to view key aspects of the problem of moral demandingness in a very different light. GPI Working Paper No. 1-2020. (shrink)

I argue that many of the priority rankings that have been proposed by effective altruists seem to be in tension with apparently reasonable assumptions about the rational pursuit of our aims in the face of uncertainty. The particular issue on which I focus arises from recognition of the overwhelming importance and inscrutability of the indirect effects of our actions, conjoined with the plausibility of a permissive decision principle governing cases of deep uncertainty, known as the maximality rule. I conclude that (...) we lack a compelling decision theory that is consistent with a long-termist perspective and does not downplay the depth of our uncertainty while supporting orthodox effective altruist conclusions about cause prioritization. GPI Working Paper No. 2-2019. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that there exist distinctive obstacles to relying on moral testimony. In this paper, I criticize previous attempts to identify these obstacles and offer a new theory. I argue that the problems associated with moral deference can't be explained in terms of the value of moral understanding, nor in terms of aretaic considerations related to subjective integration. Instead, our uneasiness with moral testimony is best explained by our attachment to an ideal of authenticity that places special demands on (...) our moral beliefs. (shrink)

This paper considers the argument according to which, because we should regard it as a priori very unlikely that we are among the most important people who will ever exist, we should increase our confidence that the human species will not persist beyond the current historical era, which seems to represent a crucial juncture in human history and perhaps even the history of life on earth. The argument is a descendant of the Carter-Leslie Doomsday Argument, but I show that it (...) does not inherit the crucial flaw in its immediate ancestor. Nonetheless, we are not forced to follow the argument where it leads if we instead significantly decrease our confidence that we can affect the long-run future of humanity. GPI Working Paper No. 1-2019. (shrink)

I consider the plausibility of discounting for kinship, the view that a positive rate of pure intergenerational time preference is justifiable in terms of agent-relative moral reasons relating to partiality between generations. I respond to Parfit's objections to discounting for kinship, but then highlight a number of apparent limitations of this approach. I show that these limitations largely fall away when we reflect on social discounting in the context of decisions that concern the global community as a whole, such as (...) those related to global climate change. (shrink)

Given plausible assumptions about the long-run impact of our everyday actions, we show that standard non-consequentialist constraints on doing harm entail that we should try to do as little as possible in our lives. We call this the Paralysis Argument. After laying out the argument, we consider and respond to a number of objections. We then suggest what we believe is the most promising response: to accept, in practice, a highly demanding morality of beneficence with a long-term focus. GPI Working (...) Paper No. 6-2019. (shrink)

The relation between first and higher order mental states is currently unknown. In particular, the relation between conscious experience and introspection is difficult as the same methods are used to investigate them. In order to make progress in the scientific understanding of consciousness, introspection or both, it is fundamental to understand whether their relation is serial or reciprocal. Although the amount of empirical evidence directly addressing this question is sparse, the little that exists suggests a more complex situation that must (...) be taken into account in order to characterise the relationship between first and higher order mental states. We propose a testable integrative model in an attempt to explain the existing data and to make new empirical predictions. (shrink)

Some believe that the current era is uniquely important with respect to how well the rest of human history goes. Following Parfit, call this the Hinge of History Hypothesis. Recently, MacAskill has argued that our era is actually very unlikely to be especially influential in the way asserted by the Hinge of History Hypothesis. I respond to MacAskill, pointing to important unresolved ambiguities in his proposed definition of what it means for a time to be influential and criticizing the two (...) arguments used to cast doubt on the claim that the current era is a uniquely important moment in human history. GPI Working Paper No. 9 - 2022. (shrink)

Many everyday actions have major but unforeseeable long-term consequences. Some argue that this fact poses a serious problem for consequentialist moral theories. We argue that the problem for non-consequentialists is greater still. Standard non-consequentialist constraints on doing harm combined with the long-run impacts of everyday actions entail, absurdly, that we should try to do as little as possible. We call this the Paralysis Argument. After laying out the argument, we consider and respond to a number of objections. We then suggest (...) what we believe is the most promising response: to accept, in practice, a highly demanding morality of beneficence with a long-term focus. (shrink)

I argue that many of the priority rankings that have been proposed by effective altruists seem to be in tension with apparently reasonable assumptions about the rational pursuit of our aims in the face of uncertainty. The particular issue on which I focus arises from recognition of the overwhelming importance and inscrutability of the indirect effects of our actions, conjoined with the plausibility of a permissive decision principle governing cases of deep uncertainty, known as the maximality rule. I conclude that (...) we lack a compelling decision theory that is consistent with a longtermist perspective and does not downplay the depth of our uncertainty, while also supporting orthodox effective altruist conclusions about cause prioritization. (shrink)

Many moral philosophers accept the Debunking Thesis, according to which facts about natural selection provide debunking explanations for certain of our moral beliefs. I argue that philosophers who accept the Debunking Thesis beg important questions in the philosophy of biology. They assume that past selection can explain why you or I hold certain of the moral beliefs we do. A position advanced by many prominent philosophers of biology implies that this assumption is false. According to the Negative View, natural selection (...) cannot explain the traits of individuals. Hence, facts about past selection cannot provide debunking explanations for any of our moral beliefs. The aim of this paper is to explore the conflict between the Debunking Thesis and the Negative View. (shrink)

Upon discovering that certain beliefs we hold are contingent on arbitrary features of our background, we often feel uneasy. I defend the proposal that if such cases of contingency anxiety involve defeaters, this is because of the epistemic significance of disagreement. I note two hurdles to our accepting this Disagreement Hypothesis. Firstly, some cases of contingency anxiety apparently involve no disagreement. Secondly, the proposal may seem to make our awareness of the influence of arbitrary background factors irrelevant in determining whether (...) to revise our beliefs. I show that each of these problems can be successfully accommodated by the Disagreement Hypothesis. (shrink)

The increasing need for innovative research driven by rapid global changes gives doctoral supervisors of early-stage researchers a significant role in facilitating the ethical conduct of qualitative research. In the context of European Commission funding, the demands of research ethics and integrity place a tremendous responsibility on the supervisors of early-stage researchers involved in cross-national projects. This document study seeks to illuminate the role of the supervisors in facilitating research ethics in these projects. Specifically, we describe and discuss the supervisor (...) role associated with five approaches to doctoral supervision of qualitative research, namely those described as ‘Functional’, ‘Enculturation’, ‘Critical thinking’, ‘Emancipation’ and ‘Developing a quality relationship’. The main challenges for supervisors of cross-national research projects are the cultural and linguistic mobilisation of ethical principles in qualitative research processes and the management of the future use of open data. The results from this study have implications for planning and conducting cross-national studies within research involving human participants. These results can guide supervisors in the codification and mobilisation of ethical qualitative research in practice. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

This paper tries to explain why racial profiling involves a serious injustice and to do so in a way that avoids the problems of existing philosophical accounts. An initially plausible view maintains that racial profiling is pro tanto wrong in and of itself by violating a constraint on fair treatment that is generally violated by acts of statistical discrimination based on ascribed characteristics. However, consideration of other cases involving statistical discrimination suggests that violating a constraint of this kind may not (...) be an especially serious wrong in and of itself. To fully capture the significant wrong that occurs when racial profiling is targeted at black Americans or other similarly situated groups, it is argued that we should appeal to the idea that this basic injustice is exacerbated when it forms part of a larger pattern of similar actions that collectively realize a state of cumulative injustice. (shrink)