In recent years, some ethicists have defended that we should genetically engineer farmed animals to diminish or eliminate their capacity to experience negative affective states, a process known as disenhancement that would, according to these authors, result in a situation that is better than the status quo. While we agree with this overall assessment, we believe that it is a mistake to defend disenhancement as a good solution to farmed animals’ plight. This is because disenhancement entails some generally unseen harms (...) that arise from the fact that negative affective states, despite feeling bad, support the access to a number of intrinsic goods, such as individuality, social relationships, meaning, and political participation. Though farmed animals currently have few opportunities to enjoy these goods, we argue that this is a reason to change the environment in which they are kept, not the animals. If we truly care about improving farmed animals’ lives, we should aim to enrich their environment, rather than impoverish their mental lives. (shrink)

The increasing application of network models to interpret biological systems raises a number of important methodological and epistemological questions. What novel insights can network analysis provide in biology? Are network approaches an extension of or in conflict with mechanistic research strategies? When and how can network and mechanistic approaches interact in productive ways? In this paper we address these questions by focusing on how biological networks are represented and analyzed in a diverse class of case studies. Our examples span from (...) the investigation of organizational properties of biological networks using tools from graph theory to the application of dynamical systems theory to understand the behavior of complex biological systems. We show how network approaches support and extend traditional mechanistic strategies but also offer novel strategies for dealing with biological complexity. (shrink)

Due to the variation, contingency and complexity of living systems, biology is often taken to be a science without fundamental theories, laws or general principles. I revisit this question in light of the quest for design principles in systems biology and show that different views can be reconciled if we distinguish between different types of generality. The philosophical literature has primarily focused on generality of specific models or explanations, or on the heuristic role of abstraction. This paper takes a different (...) approach in emphasizing a theory-constituting role of general principles. Design principles signify general dependency-relations between structures and functions, given a set of formally defined constraints. I contend that design principles increase our understanding of living systems by relating specific models to general types. The categorization of types is based on a delineation of the scope of biological possibilities, which serves to identify and define the generic features of classes of systems. To characterize the basis for general principles through generic abstraction and reasoning about possibility spaces, I coin the term constraint-based generality. I show that constraint-based generality is distinct from other types of generality in biology, and argue that general principles play a unifying role that does not entail theory reduction. (shrink)

Evolutionary systems biology (ESB) aims to integrate methods from systems biology and evolutionary biology to go beyond the current limitations in both fields. This article clarifies some conceptual difficulties of this integration project, and shows how they can be overcome. The main challenge we consider involves the integration of evolutionary biology with developmental dynamics, illustrated with two examples. First, we examine historical tensions between efforts to define general evolutionary principles and articulation of detailed mechanistic explanations of specific traits. Next, these (...) tensions are further clarified by considering a recent case from another field focused on developmental dynamics: stem cell biology. In the stem cell case, incompatible explanatory aims block integration. Experimental approaches aim at mechanistic explanation while dynamical system models offer explanation in terms of general principles. We then discuss an ESB case in which integration succeeds: search for general attractors using a dynamical systems framework synergizes with the experimental search for detailed mechanisms. Contrasts between the positive and negative cases suggest general lessons for achieving an integrated understanding of developmental and evolutionary dynamics. The key integrative move is to acknowledge two complementary aims, both relevant to explanation: identifying the space of possible dynamic states and trajectories, and mechanistic understanding of causal interactions underlying a specific phenomenon of interest. These two aims can support one another in a joint project characterizing dynamic aspects of evolving lineages. This more inclusive project can lead to insights that cannot be reached by either approach in isolation. (shrink)

A way is found to add axioms to sequent calculi that maintains the eliminability of cut, through the representation of axioms as rules of inference of a suitable form. By this method, the structural analysis of proofs is extended from pure logic to free-variable theories, covering all classical theories, and a wide class of constructive theories. All results are proved for systems in which also the rules of weakening and contraction can be eliminated. Applications include a system of predicate logic (...) with equality in which also cuts on the equality axioms are eliminated. (shrink)

Life scientists increasingly rely upon abstraction-based modeling and reasoning strategies for understanding biological phenomena. We introduce the notion of constraint-based reasoning as a fruitful tool for conceptualizing some of these developments. One important role of mathematical abstractions is to impose formal constraints on a search space for possible hypotheses and thereby guide the search for plausible causal models. Formal constraints are, however, not only tools for biological explanations but can be explanatory by virtue of clarifying general dependency-relations and patterning between (...) functions and structures. We describe such situations as constraint-based explanations and argue that these differ from mechanistic strategies in important respects. While mechanistic explanations emphasize change-relating causal features, constraint-based explanations emphasize formal dependencies and generic organizational features that are relatively independent of lower-level changes in causal details. Our distinction between mechanistic and constraint-based explanations is pragmatically motivated by the wish to understand scientific practice. We contend that delineating the affordances and assumptions of different explanatory questions and strategies helps to clarify tensions between diverging scientific practices and the innovative potentials in their combination. Moreover, we show how constraint-based explanation integrates several features shared by otherwise different philosophical accounts of abstract explanatory strategies in biology. (shrink)

Proofs and countermodels are the two sides of completeness proofs, but, in general, failure to find one does not automatically give the other. The limitation is encountered also for decidable non-classical logics in traditional completeness proofs based on Henkin’s method of maximal consistent sets of formulas. A method is presented that makes it possible to establish completeness in a direct way: For any given sequent either a proof in the given logical system or a countermodel in the corresponding frame class (...) is found. The method is a synthesis of a generation of calculi with internalized relational semantics, a Tait–Schütte–Takeuti style completeness proof, and procedures to finitize the countermodel construction. Finitizations for intuitionistic propositional logic are obtained through the search for a minimal derivation, through pruning of infinite branches in search trees by means of a suitable syntactic counterpart of semantic filtration, or through a proof-theoretic embedding into an appropriate provability logic. A number of examples illustrates the method, its subtleties, challenges, and present scope. (shrink)

Obstetric violence has been analyzed from various perspectives. Its psychological effects have been evaluated, and there have been several recent sociological and anthropological studies on the subject. But what I offer in this paper is a philosophical analysis of obstetric violence, particularly focused on how this violence is lived and experienced by women and why it is frequently described not only in terms of violence in general but specifically in terms of gender violence: as violence directed at women because they (...) are women. For this purpose, I find feminist phenomenology most useful as a way to explain and account for the feelings that many victims of this violence experience and report, including feelings of embodied oppression, of the diminishment of self, of physical and emotional infantilization. I believe that the insights to be found in feminist phenomenology are crucial for explaining how and why this phenomenon is different in kind from other types of medical violence, objectification, and reification. Iris Marion Young’s description of feminine existence under patriarchy, as conformed by a perpetual oppressive “I cannot,” is at the center of my analysis. I argue that laboring bodies are at least potentially perceived as antithetical to the myth of femininity, undermining the feminine mode of bodily comportment under patriarchy and thereby seriously threatening the hegemonic powers. Violence, then, appears to be necessary in order to domesticate these bodies, to make them “feminine” again. (shrink)

Large portions of mathematics such as algebra and geometry can be formalized using first-order axiomatizations. In many cases it is even possible to use a very well-behaved class of first-order axioms, namely, what are called coherent or geometric implications. Such class of axioms can be translated to inference rules that can be added to a sequent calculus while preserving its structural properties. In this work, this fundamental result is extended to their infinitary generalizations as extensions of sequent calculi for both (...) classical and intuitionistic infinitary logic. As an application, a simple proof of the infinitary Barr’s theorem without the axioms of choice is shown. (shrink)

A way is found to add axioms to sequent calculi that maintains the eliminability of cut, through the representation of axioms as rules of inference of a suitable form. By this method, the structural analysis of proofs is extended from pure logic to free-variable theories, covering all classical theories, and a wide class of constructive theories. All results are proved for systems in which also the rules of weakening and contraction can be eliminated. Applications include a system of predicate logic (...) with equality in which also cuts on the equality axioms are eliminated. (shrink)

The timing of this special issue of AJOB probing whether public engagement (PE)1 might help achieve equity in genomics is no coincidence. While many issues discussed by the authors are not entirely...

This collection represents the first historical survey focusing on the notion of consciousness. It approaches consciousness through its constitutive aspects, such as subjectivity, reflexivity, intentionality and selfhood. Covering discussions from ancient philosophy all the way to contemporary debates, the book enriches current systematic debates by uncovering historical roots of the notion of consciousness.

Concerns with the use of engineering approaches in biology have recently been raised. I examine two related challenges to biological research that I call the synchronic and diachronic underdetermination problem. The former refers to challenges associated with the inference of design principles underlying system capacities when the synchronic relations between lower-level processes and higher-level systems capacities are degenerate. The diachronic underdetermination problem regards the problem of reverse engineering a system where the non-linear relations between system capacities and lower-level mechanisms are (...) changing over time. Braun and Marom argue that recent insights to biological complexity leave the aim of reverse engineering hopeless - in principle as well as in practice. While I support their call for systemic approaches to capture the dynamic nature of living systems, I take issue with the conflation of reverse engineering with naïve reductionism. I clarify how the notion of design principles can be more broadly conceived and argue that reverse engineering is compatible with a dynamic view of organisms. It may even help to facilitate an integrated account that bridges the gap between mechanistic and systems approaches. (shrink)

This paper throws some light on the nature of argumentation, its use and advantages, within the setting of doctor–patient interaction. It claims that argumentation can be used by doctors to offer patients reasons that work as ontological conditions for enhancing the decision making process, as well as to preserve the institutional nature of their relationship with patients. In support of these claims, selected arguments from real-life interactions are presented in the second part of the paper, and analysed by means of (...) a model of argumentation borrowed from classical rhetoric, and refined according to the modern orientation of the pragma-dialectic approach. (shrink)

The importance of the hidden curriculum is recognised as a practical training ground for the absorption of medical ethics by healthcare professionals. Pakistan’s healthcare sector is hampered by the exclusion of ethics from medical and nursing education curricula and the absence of monitoring of ethical violations in the clinical setting. Nurses have significant knowledge of the hidden curriculum taught during clinical practice, due to long working hours in the clinic and front-line interaction with patients and other practitioners.

This chapter develops an alternative to the dominant articulation of human existence on the basis of classical phenomenology, arguing that Edmund Husserl's phenomenological inquiries into the structures of embodiment provide a very different and more fruitful starting point for the investigation of sexual difference than the ideas of social gender and biological sex. The ways of classifying sex and gender characteristics mark them out on several different conceptual bases, and thus their categories may not correspond or coincide. Moreover historical and (...) biological inquiries indicate that the dimorphic notion of sex is prescriptive and constructive. Finally the sex/gender paradigm is dominated by the explanatory framework of causes and effects. The phenomenological analysis shows that the causal-functional framework is inadequate for the investigation of the plurality of the bodily existence and sexual difference as a dimension of this existence. In the light of the explication of the concepts of sex and gender, and the phenomenological analysis of embodiment, the sex/gender paradigm cannot offer a basis for a comprehensive philosophy of sexual existence. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper begins with the assumption that it is morally problematic when people in need are offered money in exchange for research participation if the amount offered is unfair. Such offers are called ‘coercive’, and the degree of coerciveness is determined by the offer's potential to cause exploitation and its irresistibility. Depending on what view we take on the possibility to compensate for the sacrifices made by research participants, a wish to avoid ‘coercive offers’ leads to policy recommendations concerning payment (...) for participation. For sacrifices considered compensable, we ought to offer either no payment or payment at a level deemed fair, while for sacrifices deemed incompensable, we always ought to offer no payment because as compensation appears and increases, so too does coercion. This article provides a model for thinking of the way in which degrees of exploitativeness, irresistibility, and coerciveness interact with the size of the reward for compensable and incompensable cases. T... (shrink)

: Genetics researchers often work with distinct communities. To take moral account of how their research affects these communities, they need a richer conception of justice and they need to make those communities equal participants in decision-making about how the research is conducted and what is produced and published out of it.

A case study in the kinds of problems to expect from this increasingly popular marketing tactic.

As a philosopher interested in biomedical ethics, I find recent advances in genetic technologies both fascinating and frightening. Future technologies for genetic therapies and elimination of clearly deleterious genes offer us the ability to get rid of the cause of much human suffering, seemingly at its physiological root. But memories of past eugenics programs gone horribly awry must make cautious our initial optimism for these generally well-intentioned programs. Most often the scientist proceeds in research with the best of intentions, but (...) that does not make all scientific investigation worth pursuing. (shrink)

The question of Judith Butler's ‘politics’ and their normative justification has been raised by critics and supporters alike for some time. The number of recent texts dedicated to this topic suggests that it remains an unresolved and still pressing question. I argue that in order to identify and evaluate the political implications of Butler's work, we must first recognize the relationship and distinction between four vectors of her thinking: her diagnosis of the human condition, her expression of specific normative aspirations, (...) her defense of a distinct ethical comportment and finally her theory of political engagement. I conclude that Butler implicitly counsels the cultivation of certain ethical dispositions, including generosity, humility, patience and restraint, as part of a practice of preparing to engage in a kind of politics that breaks radically with the mastery- and sovereignty-seeking variety all too familiar to us in contemporary times. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between scientific knowledge and common sense intuitions as a complement to Hoyningen-Huene’s account of systematicity. On one hand, Hoyningen-Huene embraces continuity between these in his characterization of scientific knowledge as an extension of everyday knowledge, distinguished by an increase in systematicity. On the other, he argues that scientific knowledge often comes to deviate from common sense as science develops. Specifically, he argues that a departure from common sense is a price we may have to pay (...) for increased systematicity. I argue that to clarify the relation between common sense and scientific reasoning, more attention to the cognitive aspects of learning and doing science is needed. As a step in this direction, I explore the potential for cross-fertilization between the discussions about conceptual change in science education and philosophy of science. Particularly, I examine debates on whether common sense intuitions facilitate or impede scientific reasoning. While contending that these debates can balance some of the assumptions made by Hoyningen-Huene, I suggest that a more contextualized version of systematicity theory could supplement cognitive analysis by clarifying important organizational aspects of science. (shrink)

The paper argues that the philosophical starting point of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex is the phenomenological understanding of the living body, developed by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It shows that Beauvoir's notion of philosophy stems from the phenomenological interpretation of Cartesianism which emphasizes the role of evidence, self-criticism, and dialogue.

The paper argues that the philosophical starting point of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex is the phenomenological understanding of the living body, developed by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It shows that Beauvoir's notion of philosophy stems from the phenomenological interpretation of Cartesianism which emphasizes the role of evidence, self-criticism, and dialogue.

The purpose of this article is to present a case for the value of argumentation as an instrument of rational persuasion in doctor-patient (and general health professional–patient) communication. By doing so, I also emphasize the value of argumentation theory—as a body of knowledge devoted to the study of argumentation—both to enrich the study of doctor-patient communication and to enhance its quality by contributing to dedicated training courses for health professionals and patient education interventions. Argumentation is used in health professional–patient interactions, (...) and its significance in this context has been acknowledged in recent literature (see the collection of articles in Rubinelli and .. (shrink)

El presente artículo analiza la relación entre el arte y lo sagrado desde una doble perspectiva: teórica y artística. Desde el plano teórico, basados en las teorías de Gadamer y Eliade, encontramos en el símbolo el nexo entre el arte y lo sagrado. Desarrollaremos la naturaleza del símbolo según la teoría de Ricoeur. Desde la obra artística analizaremos la expresión de lo sagrado propuesta por Rothko en la Capilla Rothko en Houston (Texas, U.S.A.). Terminamos considerando el concepto de verdad en (...) el símbolo artístico. (shrink)

The development of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice has transformed the European Union and placed fundamental rights at the core of EU integration and its principles of mutual recognition and trust. The impact of the AFSJ in the development of an EU standard of fundamental rights, which has come to the fore since the Treaty of Lisbon, is a topic of great theoretical and practical importance. This is the first systematic academic study of the AFSJ and its implications (...) from the point of view of fundamental rights. The contributions to this collection examine the normative and jurisprudential development of the AFSJ in order to assess its effects on the overall construction of the scope and standards of protection of EU fundamental rights in this particularly complex and sensitive field of integration. The expert contributors systematically map and critically assess this area of EU law, together with the relevant case-law. (shrink)

In a 1983 interview with Christine Weiland, Gloria Anzaldúa posited that human and nonhuman connectivity exists outside hierarchical arrangements. Some twenty years after Anzaldúa’s interview, the “Speculative Turn” emerged in continental philosophy which critiques anthropocentrism in modern philosophy and reconceptualizes nonhuman subjectivity. While Anzaldúa’s scholarship addresses core issues that are highlighted by the speculative turn, little scholarship exists that places her into conversation with these new trajectories in continental philosophy. In this essay, I aim to contribute to this nascent scholarship (...) and explore the question, How can Anzaldúa’s creative work contribute to and expand scholarship of the speculative turn? I investigate how Anzaldúa’s work can help bridge connections between differing veins of speculative turn thought, specifically Graham Harman’s object-oriented philosophy and Jane Bennett’s vital materialism. Conversations between Harman and Bennett demonstrate a split in understanding nonhuman autonomy and relationality and represent incompatibilities between OOP and VM. Interested in these departures, I posit that Anzaldúa’s creative works, such as poetry and drawing, offer ways to challenge problematic human/nonhuman relations and bridge philosophical divides within the speculative turn. (shrink)

The integrity of critical ethnography requires engagement in reflexive practice at all phases of the research process. In this discussion paper, I explore the insights and challenges of reflexive practice in an ethnographic study of the recovery experiences of black trauma patients in a Philadelphia hospital. Observation and interviews were conducted with twelve patients who were admitted to trauma‐designated units of the hospital over the course of a year. During fieldwork, I learned the ways that my background as a professional (...) nurse structured my way of being in clinical space and facilitated a particular interpretation of clinical culture. In analysis, reflection on subjectivities through which I designed this ethnographic research allowed me to see beyond my preconceived and theoretically informed perspective to permit unexpected features of the field to emerge. Reflexive practice also guided my reconciliation of key practical and epistemological differences between clinical ethnographic research and the anthropologic tradition in which it is rooted. I conclude that with careful reflection to the subjectivities that influence the research process, interdisciplinary clinically relevant applied interpretations of critical ethnographic work can be used to generate detailed knowledge across contexts in clinical care, nursing practice, and patient experiences. (shrink)