The world is experiencing a cataclysmically increasing burden from chronic illnesses. Chronic diseases are on the advance worldwide and treatment strategies to counter this development are dominated by symptom control and polypharmacy. Thus, chronic conditions are often considered irreversible, implying a slow progression of disease that can only be hampered but not stopped. The current plant-based movement is attempting to alter this way of thinking. Applying a nutrition-first approach, the ultimate goal is either disease remission or reversal. Hereby, ethical questions (...) arise as to whether physicians’ current understanding of chronic illness is outdated and morally reprehensible. In this case, physicians may need to recommend plant-based diets to every patient suffering from chronic conditions, while determining what other socioecological factors and environmental aspects play a role in the chronic disease process. This article provides insights to aspects of diet and chronic illness and discusses how the plant-based movement could redefine current understanding of chronic disease. The ethical justifications for recommending of a plant-based diet are analyzed. The article concludes that not advocating for plant-based nutrition is unethical and harms the planet and patients alike. (shrink)

The generality problem is commonly considered to be a critical difficulty for reliabilism. In this paper, we present a dynamical perspective on the problem in the spirit of naturalized epistemology. According to this outlook, it is worth investigating how token belief-forming processes instantiate specific types in the biological agent’s cognitive architecture and background experience, consisting in the process of attractor-guided neural activation. While our discussion of the generality problem assigns “scientific types” to token processes, it represents a unified account in (...) the sense that it incorporates contextual and common sense features emphasized by other authors. (shrink)

Es geht in dem vorliegenden Band um die Rehabilitierung der theoretischen Neugierde für jenes Millennium, das wir Mittelalter nennen. Was heißt es, eine theoretische Einstellung einzunehmen? Gibt es kulturelle Unterschiede oder einen Bedeutungswandel hinsichtlich der curiositas? Was sind die bevorzugten Gegenstandsbereiche der theoretischen Neugier? Hierbei prallen zwei Einstellungen aufeinander: die curiositas als fehlgeleitete und im Grunde eitle und schädliche Neugier oder als ein Naturverlangen, das ein anthropologisches Existential darstellt. Ausgehend vom Wortfeld der theoretischen Neugierde wird die Dialektik und longue durée (...) der curiositas in ihren historischen und systematischen Zusammenhängen thematisiert. An die Stelle von normativen Wertungen treten zeitlich und räumlich weitgespannte Untersuchungen, die dazu beitragen, die begriffliche, motivische und konzeptionelle Entfaltung der theoretischen Neugier im Spannungsfeld theoretischer, kultureller, institutioneller und religiöser Determinanten zu verfolgen und damit zugleich aus der epochenfixierten Engführung zu befreien. Der historische Blick zeigt uns wie in einem Laboratorium die zentrale Idee wie auch die Perspektivenvielfalt der theoretischen Neugierde. (shrink)

The call for evidence-based practice in education emphasizes the need for research to provide evidence for particular fields of educational practice. With this systematic literature review we summarize and analyze aggregated effectiveness information from 41 meta-analyses published between 2004 and 2019 to inform evidence-based practice in a particular field. In line with target specifications in education that are provided for a certain school subject and educational level, we developed and adopted a selection heuristic for filtering aggregated effect sizes specific to (...) both science and mathematics education and the secondary student population. The results include 78 context-specific aggregated effect sizes based on data from over one million students. The findings encompass a multitude of different teaching strategies, most of which offer a measurable advantage to alternatives. Findings demonstrate that context-specific effect size information may often differ from more general effect size information on teaching effectiveness and adherence to quality standards varies in sampled meta-analyses. Thus, although meta-analytic research has strongly developed over the last few years, providing context-specific and high-quality evidence still needs to be a focus in the field of secondary mathematics and science teaching and beyond. (shrink)

Can the evidence provided by software systems meet the standard of proof for civil or criminal cases, and is it individualized evidence? Or, to the contrary, do software systems exclusively provide bare statistical evidence? In this paper, we argue that there are cases in which evidence in the form of probabilities computed by software systems is not bare statistical evidence, and is thus able to meet the standard of proof. First, based on the case of State v. Loomis, we investigate (...) recidivism predictions provided by software systems used in the courtroom. Here, we raise problems for software systems that provide predictions that are based on bare statistical evidence. Second, by examining the case of People v. Chubbs, we argue that the statistical evidence provided by software systems in cold hit DNA cases may in some cases suffice for individualized evidence, on a view on which individualized evidence is evidence that normically supports the relevant proposition (Smith, in Mind 127:1193–1218, 2018). (shrink)

The value problem for knowledge is the problem of explaining why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. The problem arises for reliabilism in particular, i.e., the externalist view that knowledge amounts to reliably acquired true belief. Goldman and Olsson argue that knowledge, in this sense, is more valuable than mere true belief due to the higher likelihood of future true beliefs (produced by the same reliable process) in the case of knowledge. They maintain that their solution works given (...) four empirical assumptions, which they claim hold “normally.” However, they do not show that their assumptions are externalistically acceptable; nor do they provide detailed evidence for their normality claim. We address these remaining gaps in Goldman and Olsson’s solution in a constructive spirit. In particular, we suggest an externalist interpretation of the assumptions such that they essentially spell out what it means for a broad range of organisms capable of belief-like representations to be epistemically adapted to their environment. Our investigation also sheds light on the circumstances in which the assumptions fail to hold and knowledge therefore fails to have extra value in Goldman and Olsson’s sense. The upshot is a deeper understanding of their solution as a contribution to naturalized epistemology and a strengthened case for its empirical validity. (shrink)

Whether meaning is compositional has been a major issue in linguistics and formal philosophy of language for the last 2 decades. Semantic holism is widely and plausibly considered as an objection to the principle of semantic compositionality therein. It comes as a surprise that the holistic peculiarities of scientific language have been rarely addressed in formal accounts so far, given that semantic holism has its roots in the philosophy of science. For this reason, a model-theoretic approach to semantic holism in (...) the language of science is presented here. This approach preserves compositionality to a large extent. *Received September 2009; revised February 2010. †To contact the author, please write to: Seminar for Philosophy, Logic, and Theory of Science, Hauspostfach 49, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich 80539, Germany; e-mail: holger.andreas@lrz.uni-muenchen.de. (shrink)

Maximilian Storz argues that physicians have an ethical obligation to recommend a plant-based diet to patients because such a diet: relieves certain chronic conditions, outperforms the Western diet (e.g. a diet containing animal products, among other things), and is ecologically sustainable. Contrary to these claims, I argue that a plant-based diet alone may not relieve chronic conditions, but potentially does so in combination with other lifestyle factors. With respect to the environment, I illuminate the landscape by discussing agricultural (...) factors consistent across animal and plant farming such as energy and water. I conclude that physicians ought to recommend a diet that follows the science; such a diet as I have claimed is exclusionary: it excludes processed foods, especially added sugars. Lifestylfe factors also deserve to be discussed in the medical encounter as their incorporation may lead to even better health outcomes. (shrink)

Even if we know all relevant descriptive facts about an act, we can still be uncertain about its moral acceptability. Most literature on how to act under such normative uncertainty operates on moral realism, the metaethical view that there are objective moral facts. Lay people largely report anti-realist intuitions, which poses the question of how these intuitions affect their interpretation and handling of normative uncertainty. Results from two quasi-experimental studies (total N = 365) revealed that most people did not interpret (...) normative uncertainty as referring to objective moral facts but rather as uncertainty regarding one’s own view, uncertainty regarding the culturally accepted view or as the result of ambivalence. Especially the anti-realist majority of participants interpreted normative uncertainty different to how it is described in the literature on choice under normative uncertainty. Metaethical views were also associated with lay peoples’ choice of uncertainty reduction strategies and with assumptions about the intended aim of such strategies. The current findings suggest that empirical investigations of normative uncertainty might benefit from considering folk metaethical pluralism, as the lay public largely disagrees with the metaethical assumptions underlying the current discourse on choice under normative uncertainty. (shrink)

Discussions on the Anthropocene as the geology of mankind imply the question whether globalized technology such as energy technologies or A.I. ought to be first and foremost conceptualized as a strategy of the human in relation to nature or as a strategy of some humans over others. I argue that both positions are mirrored in the philosophy and sociology of technology through the concepts of technology as an extension and as a fetish. The extension concept understands technology as an extension (...) of the human body and its capabilities, resulting in a local ‘inward’ perspective. The fetish concept offers a contrary ‘outward’ perspective by drawing attention to the global socio-material context of modern technology. Despite their differences, I argue that both concepts share an underlying operation principle of technology as functional simplification. Technology always involves a functional simplification of physical as well as social causality. Sociologists and philosophers of technology would do well not to give primacy to the former as it leads to the belief in technology as a universal tool that neglects how technology is not embedded in but consists of (unequal) social arrangements. (shrink)

This paper presents an approach of unsupervised learning of clusters from a citation database, and applies it to a large corpus of articles in philosophy to give an account of the structure of the discipline. Following a list of journals from the PhilPapers-archive, 68,152 records were downloaded from the Reuters Web of Science-Database. Their citation data was processed using dimensionality reduction and clustering. The resulting clusters were identified, and the results are graphically represented. They suggest that the division of analytic (...) and Continental philosophy in the considered timespan is overstated; that analytical, in contrast to Continental philosophy does not form a coherent group in recent philosophy; and that metaphors about the disciplinary structure should focus on the coherence and interconnectedness of a multitude of smaller and larger subfields. (shrink)

The study aimed to explore the subjective need of healthcare professionals for ethics consultation, their experience with ethical conflicts, and expectations and objections toward a Clinical Ethics Committee. Staff at a university hospital took part in a survey (January to June 2010) using a questionnaire with open and closed questions. Descriptive data for physicians and nurses (response rate = 13.5%, n = 101) are presented. Physicians and nurses reported similar high frequencies of ethical conflicts but rated the relevance of ethical (...) issues differently. Nurses stated ethical issues as less important to physicians than to themselves. Ethical conflicts were mostly discussed with staff from one’s own profession. Respondents predominantly expected the Clinical Ethics Committee to provide competent support. Mostly, nurses feared it might have no influence on clinical practice. Findings suggest that experiences of ethical conflicts might reflect interprofessional communication patterns. Expectations and objections against Clinical Ethics Committees were multifaceted, and should be overcome by providing sufficient information. The Clinical Ethics Committee needs to take different perspectives of professions into account. (shrink)

Many interpretations of Kant’s first Critique fail to appreciate the revolutionary nature of his account of knowledge and its implications for skepticism, givenness and mind-independence, because they read Kant as holding a compositional account of knowledge. I contend that the reason for this is that this account is both naturally appealing in its own right, and fits an influential reading of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction. On this reading, the Deduction aims to respond to a skeptical worry which issues from the empiricist (...) version of epistemic compositionalism and which questions the intelligibility of the claim to knowledge of our judgements. Against this, I argue that what Kant’s Deduction actually aims to address is a radicalization of this epistemic worry, which instead questions the intelligibility of the objective purport of our judgements. I contend that the compositional account is unable to respond to this more radical worry, thereby putting it into question both as a reading of Kant, and as an account of knowledge generally. To corroborate this, I provide a reading of the Deduction that overcomes epistemic compositionalism by thinking through its shortcomings in order to arrive at a more adequate successor account: the hylomorphic account of knowledge, which, I contend, is able to dissolve both the more radical and the epistemic worry. I suggest that this implies generally that the epistemic worry issuing from the compositional account is not self-contained, but must give way to Kant’s more radical worry, which I argue can only be addressed within the underappreciated framework of epistemic hylomorphism. (shrink)

According to the traditional view in the philosophy of logic facts of logic bear normative authority regarding how one ought to reason. Usually this is to mean that the relation of logical consequence between statements has some special relevance for how one’s beliefs should cohere. However, as I will argue in this article, this is just one way in which logic is normative for reasoning. For one thing, belief is not the only kind of mental state involved in reasoning. Besides (...) adopting and revising beliefs, rational agents pose and resolve questions. For another thing, the consequence relation of classical logic can be conservatively extended such that it includes logical relations between questions as well. Therefore, there is an argument to be made that not only the inference of new beliefs from extant beliefs but also the process of raising additional questions falls under the normative authority of logic. Accordingly, a nuanced account of the normativity of logic presents itself, which convincingly deals with problems such as clutter-avoidance and the paradox of the preface. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence increasingly executes tasks that previously only humans could do, such as drive a car, fight in war, or perform a medical operation. However, as the very best AI systems tend to be the least controllable and the least transparent, some scholars argued that humans can no longer be morally responsible for some of the AI-caused outcomes, which would then result in a responsibility gap. In this paper, I assume, for the sake of argument, that at least some of (...) the most sophisticated AI systems do indeed create responsibility gaps, and I ask whether we can bridge these gaps at will, viz. whether certain people could take responsibility for AI-caused harm simply by performing a certain speech act, just as people can give permission for something simply by performing the act of consent. So understood, taking responsibility would be a genuine normative power. I first discuss and reject the view of Champagne and Tonkens, who advocate a view of taking liability. According to this view, a military commander can and must, ahead of time, accept liability to blame and punishment for any harm caused by autonomous weapon systems under her command. I then defend my own proposal of taking answerability, viz. the view that people can makes themselves morally answerable for the harm caused by AI systems, not only ahead of time but also when harm has already been caused. (shrink)

Biological modalities (e.g., biological possibility, necessity and counterfactuality) play an important explanatory role in biological practice. However, biological modalities lack truth conditions and the inferential relationship between biological and other modalities is unclear. This thesis addresses these problems, first, by improving upon Daniel Dennett's Library of Mendel. Second, a family of modal logics is introduced. In the simplest model, states are interpreted as codons, the binary relation is interpreted as single substitution mutation and the valuation induces a partition of blocks (...) of codons that code for some amino acid. In addition, the proposed framework allows for a grading of biological possibility and captures various competing notions of biological possibility. Applications include a model checker and a lawless Lewis-style semantics for biological counterfactuals. In short, this thesis lays the groundwork for a theory of biological modalities. (shrink)

We expect that consensus meetings, where researchers come together to discuss their theoretical viewpoints, prioritize the factors they agree are important to study, standardize their measures, and determine a smallest effect size of interest, will prove to be a more efficient solution to the lack of coordination and integration of claims in science than integrative experiments.

This paper focuses on the use of ‘black box’ AI in medicine and asks whether the physician needs to disclose to patients that even the best AI comes with the risks of cyberattacks, systematic bias, and a particular type of mismatch between AI’s implicit assumptions and an individual patient’s background situation.Pacecurrent clinical practice, I argue that, under certain circumstances, these risks do need to be disclosed. Otherwise, the physician either vitiates a patient’s informed consent or violates a more general obligation (...) to warn him about potentially harmful consequences. To support this view, I argue, first, that the already widely accepted conditions in the evaluation of risks, i.e. the ‘nature’ and ‘likelihood’ of risks, speak in favour of disclosure and, second, that principled objections against the disclosure of these risks do not withstand scrutiny. Moreover, I also explain that these risks are exacerbated by pandemics like the COVID-19 crisis, which further emphasises their significance. (shrink)

In 2017, the German ethics commission for automated and connected driving released 20 ethical guidelines for autonomous vehicles. It is now up to the research and industrial sectors to enhance the development of autonomous vehicles based on such guidelines. In the current state of the art, we find studies on how ethical theories can be integrated. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no framework for motion planning has yet been published which allows for the true implementation of any practical (...) ethical policies. This paper makes four contributions: Firstly, we briefly present the state of the art based on recent works concerning unavoidable accidents of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and identify further need for research. While most of the research focuses on decision strategies in moral dilemmas or crash optimization, we aim to develop an ethical trajectory planning for all situations on public roads. Secondly, we discuss several ethical theories and argue for the adoption of the theory “ethics of risk.” Thirdly, we propose a new framework for trajectory planning, with uncertainties and an assessment of risks. In this framework, we transform ethical specifications into mathematical equations and thus create the basis for the programming of an ethical trajectory. We present a risk cost function for trajectory planning that considers minimization of the overall risk, priority for the worst-off and equal treatment of people. Finally, we build a connection between the widely discussed trolley problem and our proposed framework. (shrink)

Understanding people’s attitudes toward conciliatory policies in territorial interethnic conflicts is important for a peaceful conflict resolution. We argue that ingroup identification in combination with the largely understudied territorial ownership perceptions can help us explain attitudes toward conciliatory policies. We consider two different aspects of ingroup identification—attachment to one’s ethnic ingroup as well as ingroup superiority. Furthermore, we suggest that perceptions of ingroup and outgroup ownership of the territory can serve as important mechanisms that link the different forms of ingroup (...) identification with conciliatory policies. In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among Israeli Jews, we found that ingroup superiority, but not attachment, was negatively related to conciliatory policies. This relationship was explained by lower outgroup ownership perceptions of the territory. Our findings highlight the relevance of studying ingroup superiority as a particularly relevant dimension of identification that represents a barrier to acknowledging outgroup’s territorial ownership, and is thus indirectly related to less support for conciliatory policies in intergroup conflict settings. (shrink)

In order to build on the information that was obtained in the course of the first study, a follow-up survey was conducted first by phone and subsequently in a written form between August and October 2014. We contacted 1.858 hospitals in all of Germany for the follow-up survey by phone. In cases where a hospital had not participated in the first study, the willingness to participate in the follow-up survey was established in advance. The survey’s dispatch was ensured in the (...) case of acceptance. The same structured survey was used as a research tool. The data of the first study and the follow-up survey were merged and evaluated. 654 surveys could be evaluated altogether. Our survey by phone revealed that 912 hospitals in all of Germany have at least one form of clinical ethics consultation available. The health care ethics committee is the most frequently implemented structure of clinical ethics consultation. The implementation of clinical ethics consultation is dependent on sponsorship and hospital size. Recommendations to deliver structures of clinical ethics consultations have a smaller influence on the implementation compared to the certification by KTQ respectively proCum Cert. The rate of implementation in regard to the structures of clinical ethics consultation has steadily increased for years. The establishment of clinical ethics consultation in German hospitals should be further promoted. It would be desirable further to develop suitable juridical regulations in order to implement clinical ethics consultation as well as structural parameters. (shrink)

The proliferation of multistakeholder initiatives (MSIs) over the past years has sparked an intense debate on the political role of corporations in the governance of global business conduct. To gain a better understanding of corporate political behavior in multistakeholder governance, this article investigates how firms construct a political identity when participating in MSIs. Based on an in-depth case study of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh—an MSI established after the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory complex (...) in 2013 to improve working conditions in the Bangladeshi garment industry—we introduce the construct of a political CSR (corporate social responsibility) identity (PCSRI) and explore how firms construct their PCSRIs in MSIs. Employing a qualitative, inductive theory-building method, we analyze interviews and archival data to develop a framework that elucidates how companies construct their PCSRIs within a continuum ranging from conservative to progressive. We show that constructing a PCSRI involves enacting specific, yet interrelated, political strategies that are themselves shaped by several forces over time. This article contributes to the literature by providing a political perspective on organizational identity construction that extends the emerging integrative perspective in political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) research. We suggest that MSIs should be conceptualized as inherently political governance mechanisms that are driven by multidirectional and dynamic political processes of identity construction. Our study shows that corporate political engagement in MSIs is a more nuanced and complex phenomenon than presently theorized. (shrink)

Can sensibility, as our capacity to be sensibly presented with objects, be understood independently of the understanding, as the capacity to form judgments about those objects? It is a truism that for judgments to be empirical knowledge they must agree with what sensibility presents. Moreover, it is a familiar thought that objectivity involves absolute independence from intellectual acts. The author argues that together these thoughts motivate a common reading of Kant on which operations of sensibility are conceived as intelligible independently (...) of acts of the understanding, so that their supposed objectivity can validate judgments as empirical knowledge. He contends that there are two reasons why this epistemic compositionalism is implausible both as a reading of Kant and in itself. First, read compositionally, Kant’s Transcendental Deduction is unable to fulfill its stated aim of showing that the categories are objectively valid, that is, exemplified by the objects that sensibility presents. Second, Kant sees that sensibility by itself cannot be understood to even purport to present objects, thus undermining the very intelligibility of compositionalism. The author argues that, given these challenges, Kant’s Deduction develops an alternative account, on which operations of sensibility and acts of the understanding can be understood only together. He contends that this epistemic hylomorphism transforms the familiar thought underlying compositionalism: objectivity simultaneously involves formal agreement with intellectual acts in general and material independence from any specific such act. He thus shows how Kant reconceives our conception of objectivity by overcoming compositionalism in favor of hylomorphism. (shrink)

Foundational investigations in quantum mechanics, both experimental and theoretical, gave birth to the field of quantum information science. Nevertheless, the foundations of quantum mechanics themselves remain hotly debated in the scientific community, and no consensus on essential questions has been reached. Here, we present the results of a poll carried out among 33 participants of a conference on the foundations of quantum mechanics. The participants completed a questionnaire containing 16 multiple-choice questions probing opinions on quantum-foundational issues. Participants included physicists, philosophers, (...) and mathematicians. We describe our findings, identify commonly held views, and determine strong, medium, and weak correlations between the answers. Our study provides a unique snapshot of current views in the field of quantum foundations, as well as an analysis of the relationships between these views. (shrink)

People can be uncertain in their moral judgments. Philosophers have argued that such uncertainty can either refer to the underlying empirical facts (empirical uncertainty) or to the normative evaluation of these facts itself (normative uncertainty). Psychological investigations of this distinction, however, are rare. In this paper, we combined factor-analytical and experimental approaches to show that empirical and normative uncertainty describe two related but different psychological states. In Study 1, we asked N = 265 participants to describe a case of moral (...) uncertainty and to rate different aspects of their uncertainty about this case. Across this wide range of moral scenarios, our items loaded onto three reliable factors: lack of information, unclear consequences, and normative uncertainty. In Study 2, we confirmed this factor structure using predefined stimulus material. N = 402 participants each rated eight scenarios that systematically varied in their degree of uncertainty regarding the consequences of the described actions and in the value conflict that was inherent to them. The empirical uncertainty factors were mainly affected by the introduction of uncertainty regarding consequences, and the normative uncertainty factor was mainly affected by the introduction of value conflict. Our studies provide evidence that the distinction between empirical and normative uncertainty accurately describes a psychological reality. We discuss the relevance of our findings for research on moral judgments and decision-making, and folk metaethics. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe question of how to engage with stakeholders in situations of value conflict to create value that includes a plurality of conflicting stakeholder value perspectives represents one of the crucial current challenges of stakeholder engagement as well as of value creation stakeholder theory. To address this challenge, we conceptualize a discursive sharing process between affected stakeholders that is oriented toward discursive justification involving multiple procedural steps. This sharing process provides procedural guidance for firms and stakeholders to create pluralistic stakeholder value (...) through the discursive accommodation of diverging stakeholder value perspectives. The outcomes of such a discursive value-sharing process range from stakeholder value dissensus to low and increasing levels of stakeholder value congruence to stakeholder value consensus. Hence, this article contributes to the emerging literature on integrative stakeholder engagement by conceptualizing a procedural framework that is neither overly oriented towards dissensus nor consensus. (shrink)

This article explores the moral complexities and inconsistencies in the perception of fish welfare; mainly, that fish lack the ability to suffer and, therefore, exist outside of humanity’s moral horizon. The science behind fish sentience has advanced to the point where a serious discussion on the human-fish relationship is warranted. It is argued that enough scientific evidence exists to provide evidence for fish sentience and suffering. However, for those unconvinced in light of the lack of both scientific and popular consensus, (...) the precautionary principle, where we treat fish as if they may suffer, will ultimately be advocated as an appropriate approach to fish welfare. (shrink)

Rare earth elements have become increasingly important because of their relative scarcity and worldwide increasing demand, as well as China’s quasi-monopoly of this market. REEs are virtually not substitutable, and they are essential for a variety of high-tech products and modern key technologies. This has raised serious concerns that China will misuse its dominant position to set export quotas in order to maximize its own profits at the expense of other rare earth user industries. In fact, export restrictions on REEs (...) were the catalyst for the U.S. to lodge a formal complaint against China in 2012 at the World Trade Organization. This paper analyzes possible wealth transfer effects by focusing on export quota announcements by China, and the share price reactions of Chinese REE suppliers, the U.S. REE users, and the rest of the world REE refiners. Overall, we find limited support for the view of a wealth transfer in connection with MOFCOM announcements only when disentangling events prior to and post the initiation of the WTO trial, consistent with the trial triggering changes to China’s REE policy and recent announcement to abolish quotas. We do find, however, that extreme REE price movements have a first-order effect on all companies in the REE industry consistent with recent market trends to enable hedging against REE price volatility. (shrink)

Definition of the problem Few concepts in recent ethical debates have enjoyed as much popularity as the concept of discrimination. However, a comparative discussion of the concept, including its conceptual nuances and its ethical significance for health care, has so far been lacking. The aim of this paper is to develop a nuanced understanding of discrimination based on the philosophical and sociological literature against the background of ethically relevant medical and nursing scenarios. Methods Using practical examples from health care, we (...) discuss direct, indirect, and statistical discrimination; we examine the importance of intentions and the role of collective actors. In addition, we analyze which social groups may experience discrimination and the respective importance of forms of epistemic injustice. Conclusions We argue that despite its complexity, the concept offers significant added value because it allows us to highlight forms of disadvantage that go beyond the violation of individual specific rights or interests. As a knowledge-based system of great societal influence, health care exhibits some characteristics that can foster discrimination. Acknowledging this fact is essential in order to effectively address discrimination. (shrink)

Kaum ein Begriff der ethischen Debatten der letzten Jahre hat eine solche Konjunktur erlebt wie der Begriff der Diskriminierung. Eine vergleichende Erörterung des Konzepts einschließlich seiner begrifflichen Nuancen und seiner ethischen Bedeutung für das Gesundheitswesen fehlte jedoch bislang. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist die Entwicklung eines differenzierten Verständnisses von Diskriminierung auf der Basis der philosophischen und soziologischen Literatur vor dem Hintergrund ethisch relevanter medizinischer und pflegerischer Szenarios. Anhand von praktischen Beispielen aus dem Gesundheitswesen erörtern wir die Besonderheiten direkter, indirekter und statistischer (...) Diskriminierung, wir untersuchen die Bedeutung von Absichten und die Rolle von kollektiven Akteuren. Zudem diskutieren wir, welche sozialen Gruppen diskriminiert werden können und welche Rolle Formen epistemischer Ungerechtigkeit dabei spielen. Argumentiert wird, dass das Konzept trotz seiner Komplexität einen signifikanten Mehrwert bietet, weil es erlaubt, Formen der Benachteiligung aufzuzeigen, die über die Verletzung einzelner spezifischer Rechte oder Interessen hinausgehen. Als wissensbasiertes System von großem gesellschaftlichen Einfluss weist das Gesundheitswesen einige Eigenschaften auf, die Diskriminierung begünstigen können. Dies zu erkennen ist unerlässlich, um Diskriminierung wirksam entgegentreten zu können. (shrink)

Today's societies are confronted by a daily biodiversity loss, which will increase in the face of climate change and environmental pollution. Biodiversity loss is a particularly severe problem in so-called biodiversity hotspots. Ecuador is an example of a country that hosts two different biodiversity hotspots. Human behavior - in developing as well as in industrial countries such as Germany - must be considered as one of the most important direct and indirect drivers of this global trend and thus plays a (...) crucial role in environmentalism and biodiversity conservation. Nature relatedness and environmental concern have been identified as important environmental psychological factors related to people's pro-environmental behavior. However, the human-nature relationship depends on a variety of other factors, such as values, gender, nationality, qualities of environmental concern and time spent in nature. This study compared young people from Ecuador and Germany with regard to their nature relatedness and environmental concern. Furthermore, the role of the aforementioned factors was investigated. In total, we surveyed 2,173 high school students from Germany (Mage = 14.56 years, SD = 1.45; female: 55.1%) and 451 high school students from Ecuador (Mage = 14.63 years, SD = 1.77; female: 55.3%). We found that young Ecuadorians were more related to nature than young people from Germany. Additionally, we found country-specific differences in the structure of environmental concern and in the role of gender in the explanation of biospheric environmental concern and nature relatedness. In both samples, the self-transcendence value cluster was a significant positive predictor for biospheric environmental concern and nature relatedness. Time spent in nature was a significant positive predictor for nature relatedness in both samples. The results are an empirical basis for the assumption of culture-specific differences in human-nature relationships. (shrink)

Within Kant scholarship, there is an entrenched tendency to distinguish, on Kant’s behalf, between pure and ‘schematized’ categories. There is also a widespread tendency to view the schematized categories as conceptually richer than the pure categories. I argue that this reading of the distinction, which I call the standard view, should be rejected. In its place, I draw on a neglected part of Kant’s theory of marks – namely, his account of ‘synthetic attributes’ – to propose an account of the (...) distinction that preserves a strict identity between pure and schematized categories at the level of analysable content. (shrink)

The permissibility of nudging in public policy is often assessed in terms of the conditions of transparency, rationality, and easy resistibility. This debate has produced important resources for any ethical inquiry into nudging, but it has also failed to focus sufficiently on a different yet very important question, namely: when do nudges undermine a patient’s voluntary consent to a medical procedure? In this paper, I take on this further question and, more precisely, I ask to which extent the three conditions (...) of transparency, rationality, and easy resistibility can be applied to the assessment of voluntary consent too. After presenting two examples, designed to put pressure on these three conditions, I show that, suitably modified, the three conditions can remain significant in the assessment of voluntary consent as well. However, the needed modifications are very substantial and result in a rather complicated view. To propose a tidier solution, I argue that nudging undermines voluntary consent if and only if it cannot be ‘interpersonally justified’ to the patient. I use the three modified conditions to motivate the idea of interpersonal justification and also to further specify the principles it involves. My resulting view is especially attractive because it builds on already existing insights from the debate on nudging, updates those insights with an eye to medical consent, and finally unites them in an elegant and simple framework. (shrink)

In the absence of effective judicial remediation mechanisms after business-related human rights violations, companies themselves are expected to establish remediation procedures for affected victims and communities. This is a challenge for both companies and victims since comprehensive company-based grievance mechanisms are currently missing. In this paper, we explore how companies can provide effective remediation after human rights violations. Accordingly, we critically assess two different approaches to conflict resolution, alternative dispute resolution and restorative justice, for their potential to provide dialogue-based, non-judicial (...) remediation. We argue that remedy through agreement-driven ADR mechanisms risks marginalizing the interests and concerns of victims and affected community members, particularly in weak institutional contexts. Hence, we develop a dialogue-driven framework for corporate remediation of human rights violations grounded on RJ principles. This restorative framework provides a comprehensive CGM that focuses on the harms and needs of victims and aims at restoring justice through restorative dialogue. Based on a prompt discovery and a thorough investigation of the grievance, companies should design and prepare the remediation process together with victims, offenders and affected community members. Through restorative dialogue with the affected parties about the circumstances and impacts of the wrongdoing, companies can repair the harm, regain legitimacy amongst stakeholders as well as transform their business practices to avoid future human rights violations. (shrink)

Taboos restrict what could but should not be done or said in relation to topics such as bodies and their effluvia, disease, death and killing, or food consumption (Allan & Burridge, 2006, p. 1). In...

It has become commonplace to consider start-ups originating from the science field usually referred to as academic spin-offs as drivers of innovation, productivity, and employment. However, only little is known about the process of spin-off creation (e.g., Goethner et al., 2009) and development (e.g., Mustar et al., 2006; Vohora et al., 2004). Specifically, there has not been sufficient empirical research directly comparing equivalently matched groups of academic spin-offs and non-academic start-ups in order to draw definitive conclusions on whether there are (...) specific growth paths of firms spun off from scientific research (Ensley & Hmieleski, 2005). We aim to fill this gap in the literature and provide unique empirical evidence on the economic and innovative performance of academic spin-offs within the first three business years. (shrink)

In theatre rehearsals, actors can occasionally be seen getting stuck in the play text, which is called blanking. To overcome such textual difficulties and continue with the given text, a prompter can verbalize the line in question, thus contributing to an actor’s word search by prompting. The paper focuses on interactional practices by which prompters and actors interactionally resolve blanking situations. This study’s data comprises a case collection of 67 prompting situations, which are taken from a 200-h video corpus of (...) a rehearsal process at a professional theatre. These cases demonstrate how theatre professionals organize prompting situations and how they negotiate/sanction prompting actions such as when there was no blanking but a dramatic pause or when the dramatic performance is interrupted due to a missing prompt. In addition to the audiovisual recordings, eye tracking data of the person prompting is also used to describe the coordination of the visual resources in the context of multimodal interaction analysis. The analysis suggests that prompting and blanking persons interactively resolve blankings with the help of verbal and visual markers. (shrink)

This essay sketches out the post-feminist narrative employed by the radical-right populist party Alternative für Deutschland in the German national parliament between October 2017 and July 2018. Striving to establish a hegemonic ontology, the Alternative für Deutschland conjures up a social imaginary of a German heartland, where equal rights between ‘naturally’ different women and men have long been achieved – a heartland that has to be protected from ‘Muslim culture’ as much as from the ‘leveling down’ imposed by a ‘radical (...) feminist elite’. Between these frames, the Alternative für Deutschland presents itself as the only true champion of women and, while never asserting to be feminist, implicitly lays claim to a particular and exclusivist post-feminist position. I argue that the Alternative für Deutschland’s capabilities to promote this populist narrative have become further enhanced by its election to the national parliament, presenting a serious challenge and also a chance for German feminism to self-critically engage with issues of intersectionality and representation in public discourse. (shrink)

There is a crisis of valuation practices in the current academic life sciences, triggered by unsustainable growth and “hyper-competition.” Quantitative metrics in evaluating researchers are seen as replacing deeper considerations of the quality and novelty of work, as well as substantive care for the societal implications of research. Junior researchers are frequently mentioned as those most strongly affected by these dynamics. However, their own perceptions of these issues are much less frequently considered. This paper aims at contributing to a better (...) understanding of the interplay between how research is valued and how young researchers learn to live, work and produce knowledge within academia. We thus analyze how PhD students and postdocs in the Austrian life sciences ascribe worth to people, objects and practices as they talk about their own present and future lives in research. We draw on literature from the field of valuation studies and its interest in how actors refer to different forms of valuation to account for their actions. We explore how young researchers are socialized into different valuation practices in different stages of their growing into science. Introducing the concept of “regimes of valuation” we show that PhD students relate to a wider evaluative repertoire while postdocs base their decisions on one dominant regime of valuing research. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of these findings for the epistemic and social development of the life sciences, and for other scientific fields. (shrink)