Background Informed consent is a universally accepted precondition for scientific researches involving human participants. However, various factors influence the process of obtaining authentic informed consent, and researchers particularly working in resource-poor countries often face considerable difficulties in implementing the universally recommended procedures for obtaining informed consent. We have conducted this Rapid Ethical Assessment to accommodate the local cultural norms and to understand the relevant ethical issues in the Silti community before the conduct of a cluster-randomized controlled trial. Methods This REA (...) was conducted in two purposively selected Woredas/Districts and Worabe Town administration of Silti Zone. Data were collected using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Purposive and convenient sampling techniques were used to select respondents. Five in-depth interviews and 15 Focus Group Discussions were conducted in the Amharic language. The collected data was transcribed, translated, and analyzed using a thematic approach. Result Most of the community members never heard about research and therapeutic misconception was common. In the area, the permission of people working in the formal and informal community administration is essential before approaching individuals. The male head of the household should also be involved in the decision before individual household members participate in research. Furthermore, sensitizing the community using public and religious gatherings was suggested before individual recruitment. In the consent process, delivering selected information particularly the purpose and benefits of the research was emphasized and the tendency of preferring verbal consent was documented despite the willingness of the individuals to sign on the consent form. Local health workers were identified as appropriate personnel to communicate information and the procedures of the research were found to be acceptable. However, the value of small incentives was suggested to motivate potential participants. Finally, involving all concerned stakeholders and respecting the cultural norm of the community was emphasized. Conclusion Through REA, we understand the research awareness of the community, their expectation, and the cultural norms relevant to the ethical conduct of research. It enabled us to devise culturally sensitive and scientifically sound strategies to secure authentic informed consent. The process of conducting REA was found to be feasible, quick, and efficient. (shrink)

_Winner of the Fabian Dorsch ESA Essay Prize._ Julian Dodd defends the view that, in musical work-performance practice, interpretive authenticity is a more fundamental value than score compliance authenticity. According to him, compliance with a work’s score can be sacrificed in cases where it conflicts with interpretative authenticity. Stephen Davies and Andrew Kania reject this view, arguing that, if a performer intentionally departs from a work’s score, she is not properly instantiating that work and hence not producing an authentic performance (...) of it. I argue that this objection fails. A detailed analysis of work-performance practice reveals, first, that the normative scope of interpretive authenticity encompasses the practice of composing musical versions and that, second, when performers sacrifice score compliance to maximize interpretive authenticity, they are performing the target work by means of performing a version of it. By means of the nested types theory, I then show how performances produced in this way can be properly formed instances, and hence authentic performances, of their target work. (shrink)

In Religious Experience and the Knowledge of God, Harold Netland advances a critical-trust approach to religious experience. This approach raises important questions about what Michael Martin has called “negative religious experiences.” Netland responds by attacking Martin’s “negative principle of credulity,” but I argue that Netland’s response can be undermined if we take negative religious experiences not as experiences of God as absent, but as experiences of the world as godless. On this understanding, there is no need for a negative principle (...) of credulity; the ordinary principle still applies and puts pressure on Netland’s response. I then raise concerns with Netland’s “argument from fulfilled expectations,” even as part of a cumulative case argument. Ultimately, I propose that careful attention to the impact of Christ on our Western moral framework might help to resolve both concerns. (shrink)

As a candidate Donald Trump Sovereigntystyled himself uniquely equipped to enact the will of a thickly racialized national community. His campaign may thus be read alongside Carl Schmitt’s key concepts: the friend/enemy distinction fundamental to politics, a popular sovereignty founded in an organically united Volk. But what of Trump’s presidency? Here, too, Schmitt’s thought is helpful, particularly his work on commissarial dictatorship as a response to a state of emergency—we will read in this light the “Muslim Ban” and the pardon (...) of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Rather than creating new executive powers, this chapter argues that Trump is exploiting existing ones. This is inevitable: Presidents will seek to exercise the powers available to them, and the US Constitutional tradition fails to provide effective tools for distinguishing between the executive’s legitimate and baseless emergency actions. Schmitt’s thought and career are marred by precisely the same failure. (shrink)

Eighteenth century river hydraulics used both theory and measurement to address problems of flood safety, navigation and defense related to the rivers. In the late eighteenth century the Dutch overseer of the rivers, Christiaan Brunings, integrated hydraulic theory and meteorological practices, which enabled him to design a unique instrument for measuring river flow. The question is whether the unprecedented detail of measurements fits the putative empirical stance in the eighteenth century. The interactions between theory, instrument, measurement, and other knowledge practices (...) are here assessed using experiences in similar measurement practices. I argue that Brunings had theoretical and embodied understanding of hydrodynamics, as he knew how to design an instrument for flow measurement of sufficient accuracy for his purpose in the sociopolitical context of river management. (shrink)

This article is written by a descendant of enslaved Africans and explores the theological significance of Black bodies. Black bodies have been commodified, controlled and coerced by White hegemony, often lacking agency and self-determination. Using personal experience and contextual analysis, this article, drawing on Black theology inspired reflections, argues that we need to rethink how we conceive of Black bodies ethically, if Black lives are to really matter. The rehabilitation of Black bodies is achieved through a theological reappraisal of holiness (...) and sacraments, underpinned by an embodied pneumatology, in which Black bodies are shown to be sacramental and worthy of mattering in a world underpinned by White supremacy. (shrink)

Ruth Macklin argued that dignity is nothing more than respect for persons or their autonomy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, difficult decisions are being made about the allocation of scarce resources. Respect for autonomy cannot justify rationing decisions. Justice can be invoked to justify rationing. However, this leaves an uncomfortable tension between the principles. Dignity is not a useless concept because it is able to account for why we respect autonomy and for why it can be legitimate to override autonomy in (...) times of critical care resource shortages. Dignity affirms the worth of the human individual as a meaning-making embodied subject, who is always in relationship to others, the world, time, and transcendence, and who realizes their dignity through their moral behaviour. Such an understanding means people should be helped to make morally right decisions about their own treatment, which may include forgoing potentially beneficial treatment for the good of others. Respect for dignity does not require fulfilling the morally wrong choices of one who insists on treatment at the expense of others. Dignity also protects the discretion of clinicians to make decisions appropriate to their competence by prohibiting the application of broad-based criteria such as age. (shrink)

In this installment of the Faculty Authors Series, Vance Morgan (Philosophy, Providence College) discusses his newest book, "Freelance Christianity: Philosophy, Faith, and the Real World.".

Austin takes on the problem of other minds, of how to respond to the question ‘how do you know?’, if this question is raised with regard to the thoughts, feelings, sensations, minds of other creatures. This problem has traditionally been understood as the problem of justifying our belief in the existence of other minds. Austin argues that believing in other persons, in authority and testimony, is an essential part of the act of communicating, and as such is an irreducible part (...) of our experience. While we can state certain advantages of communicative performances, there is no justification for our doing them as such. (shrink)

The crisis of replication has led many to blame statistical significance tests for making it too easy to find impressive looking effects that do not replicate. However, the very fact it becomes difficult to replicate effects when features of the tests are tied down actually serves to vindicate statistical significance tests. While statistical significance tests, used correctly, serve to bound the probabilities of erroneous interpretations of data, this error control is nullified by data-dredging, multiple testing, and other biasing selection effects. (...) Arguments claiming to vitiate statistical significance tests attack straw person variants of tests that commit well-known fallacies and misinterpretations. There is a tension between popular calls for preregistration – arguably, one of the most promising ways to boost replication – and accounts that downplay error probabilities: Bayes Factors, Bayesian posteriors, likelihood ratios. By underscoring the importance of error control for well testedness, the replication crisis points to reformulating tests so as to avoid fallacies and report the extent of discrepancies that are and are not indicated with severity. (shrink)

In this essay I offer practical guidance aimed at promoting competence and success in the activity of bioethics scholarship. I present a set of maxims or rules of thumb, which I exemplify and explicate by drawing on my own work, encompassing 30 years of practicing bioethics scholarship, formal and informal mentoring, extensive peer reviewing for bioethics, biomedical, and philosophy journals, and several years as Deputy Editor of Perspectives in Biology and Medicine—an interdisciplinary journal that frequently publishes bioethics articles. The title (...) of the essay is adapted from Max Weber’s famous lecture, “Science as a Vocation”.Bioethics scholarship generally takes two forms:... (shrink)

This volume provides the first complete edition of the third and final surviving draft of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, dating from 1685, four years before the publication of the Essay itself (December 1689). There is a General Introduction that gives a detailed account of the content and circumstances of composition of this draft, and a Textual Introduction that provides a full description of the manuscript and its0history.

Este trabajo expone un análisis de la noción de experiencia negativa (EN), tomada como una noción clave en la justificación de doctrinas pesimistas radicales. Se analizan tres elucidaciones posibles de la idea de EN: fundadas en expectativas fácticas, fundadas en expectativas evaluativas y fundadas en la percepción de ausencias reales; luego se examina la pertinencia de cada una de esas versiones para el proyecto pesimista radical, y se propone una visión restrictiva sobre el papel que las EN puedan tener en (...) dichas justificaciones, en cualquiera de las tres versiones, señalando que la versión que puede aportar a dicho rol justificador es la versión de las expectativas evaluativas, pero con limitaciones. (shrink)

The Jewish leftist lawyer Ernst Fraenkel was one of twentieth-century Germany's great intellectuals. During the Weimar Republic he was a shrewd constitutional theorist for the Social Democrats and in post-World War II Germany a respected political scientist who worked to secure West Germany's new democracy. This book homes in on the most dramatic years of Fraenkel's life, when he worked within Nazi Germany actively resisting the regime, both publicly and secretly. As a lawyer, he represented political defendants in court. As (...) a dissident, he worked in the underground. As an intellectual, he wrote his most famous work, The Dual State – a classic account of Nazi law and politics. This first detailed account of Fraenkel's career in Nazi Germany opens up a new view on anti-Nazi resistance – its nature, possibilities, and limits. With grit, daring and imagination, Fraenkel fought for freedom against an increasingly repressive regime. (shrink)

This paper aims to interpret the role of the soul as ontological, intellectual or cognitive and as the moral principle within the frame of the holistic conception of human psychosomatic health that emerges from the context of Zalmoxian medicine in the proemium of Plato’s Charmides. It examines what the ontological status of the soul is in relation to the body and the body–soul complex of man considered as a psychosomatic whole. By comparing the presentation of the soul as principle in (...) the Charmides and the Phaedrus, the paper defends the thesis that in the former dialogue, Plato develops his own anthropological ontology, which paves the way for the salvation of human existence and health. The soul is bestowed with an ontological primacy that determines the philosophical and medical presuppositions for treating human illness under a holistic view. The interpretation of the ontological relation of the soul to the body and the entire human being in the context of Zalmoxian holistic medicine is based on Hermias Alexandrinus’ exegesis of the conception of the soul as principle in the Phaedrus. This paper demonstrates that, from both the medical holistic viewpoint and the anthropological philosophical perspective, the soul is the principle and πρῶτον with regard to the body and the body–soul complex without being the whole that the corresponding medical epistemology must apprehend. (shrink)

On the meta-level, ‘A Plea for Excuses’, sometimes regarded as the manifesto of ordinary language philosophy, illustrates Austin’s method of approaching philosophical issues, by patiently analysing the subtleties of ordinary language, by example. On the object level, the key distinction with regard to human actions that appear to be worthy of blame, Austin holds to be between a justification, which denies that the performed action was wrong, and an excuse, which instead denies that the agent was responsible for performing it. (...) Austin gives careful attention to particular cases of exculpatory speech, including precise word order and varying emphasis, etymological studies, and the special function of adverbial qualifying phrases, and shows how legal precedents and abnormal psychology may also be helpful in understanding why some efforts to excuse fail. In the final analysis, excuses are properly seen as setting limits to the ascription of moral responsibility, by stating explicitly how they differ from the more usual cases. (shrink)

In their response to ‘Public interest in health data research: laying out the conceptual groundwork’, Grewal and Newson critique us for inattention to the law and putting forward an impracticably broad conceptual understanding of public interest. While we agree more work is needed to generate a workable framework for Institutional Review Boards/Research Ethics Committees, we would contend that this should be grounded on a broad conception of public interest. This broadness facilitates regulatory agility, and is already reflected by some current (...) frameworks such as that found in the guidelines approved under Australia’s Privacy Act. It remains unclear which elements of our broad account Grewal and Newson would reject, or indeed where the substantive disagreement with our position lies. (shrink)

This book makes an important contribution to ongoing efforts in the fields of medical law and bioethics to answer the challenges posed by the limitations of the principle of respect for autonomy, especially as these pertain to human research ethics. The principle of respect for autonomy seems to have become firmly embedded in human research ethics since its inclusion in the 1947 Nuremberg Code, which was a response to atrocities committed by Nazi doctors. Nonetheless, there is an increasing awareness of (...) the limitations of the principle of respect for autonomy and the underlying conceptualisations of human autonomy. (shrink)

This article is devoted to examining the ontological foundations of computer-generated music scores. Specifically, we focus on the categorial question, i.e., the inquiry that aims to determine the kind of ontological category that musical works belong to. This task involves considerations concerning the existence and persistence conditions for musical works, and it has consequences for the determination of what it is to compose a musical work. Our contention is that not all the possible answers to the categorial question in the (...) ontology of music are equally compatible with the hypothesis that creative music systems compose musical works. The thesis defended here is that musical Platonism is the proposal that best accommodates this hypothesis. We claim that musical Platonism is the answer to the categorial question that offers the most straightforward explanation for the possibility of considering creative music systems as genuinely composing musical works. Moreover, we uphold that the notion of creative-evaluative discovery as the characterization of what it is to compose a musical work entailed by Platonism is the simplest explanation of the process developed by a computer in producing musical works. For this purpose, we will take as empirical data the features of the Iamus computer, a system that produces musical works autonomously using evolutionary algorithms and following an evo-devo strategy. The works generated by this computer have been recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra and other renowned international soloists, and its impact has been notable in the literature (Ball, 2012; Coghlan, 2012; Berger, 2013). (shrink)

Sinopsis: El estoicismo es una escuela filosófica de la Antigua Grecia. Aunque han pasado más de dos mil años desde su nacimiento, su importancia y utilidad perduran hasta hoy. Vivimos en una sociedad compleja, llena de incertidumbre y acelerada. El estoicismo nos ayuda a aprender a guiarnos por la razón ante los contratiempos y las emociones que tendremos que enfrentar. Descubre cómo mejorar en tu vida personal y profesional de manera sencilla y demostrada.

Approaches to environmental verification, broadly defined, including varieties of certification and testing, is always intended to change production processes, and cause structural changes. However, sometimes these approaches can differ substantially—based on values and objectives—and thus structure farming processes in varied ways. They can also affect nature-society relations, by determining what differences matter, emphasizing ways of assessing standards that are deemed important, and deciding whether those standards have been met. Here, I compare two types of environmental verification systems for organic and (...) “safe” or “clean” rice, one in northeastern Thailand and the other in southern Laos. The approach used in northeastern Thailand is designed predominantly to gain access to Europe and the United States markets, and is dependent on regular and detailed farm documentation, inspections, and interviews. The other is more of a residue testing and marketing system, one that also has important environmental implications and is being applied for rice from southern Laos. I call the first process-based verification, and the second product-based verification. It is contended here that we need to consider how environmental verification in different forms variously structures production systems, although there are also other important factors, such as China-Laos relations. Crucially, these practices variously affect cultivation and production practices, and thus have important environmental implications, whether fully intended or not. (shrink)

Austin attacks the view that language is referential, based on the simplistic division of utterances into the ‘descriptive’ and ‘evaluative’, using his notion of performative utterances. Such utterances, in the appropriate circumstances, are neither descriptive nor evaluative, but count as actions, i.e., create the situation rather than describing or reporting on it. In saying ‘I promise to go’ one is making a promise, not stating that one is making it. A performative promise is not, and does not involve, the statement (...) that one is promising. It is an act of a distinctive sort, the very sort named by the performative verb. And, according to Austin, making explicit what one is doing is not describing what one is doing or stating that one is doing it. (shrink)

The concept of sustainability has become an important—and contested—term in politics prior to its being given a clear, academic meaning, resulting in disciplinary turf wars over defining the term. The conflict, with mainly economists on one side and ecologists and philosophers on the other, has centered on the difference between “strong” and “weak” sustainability. Weak sustainability requires only the protection of wealth across generations, while strong sustainability requires also the protection of ecophysical features of the environment. It is shown that (...) weak sustainability, and solutions meant to achieve it, when applied to the parable of the tragedy of the commons, cannot protect resources whether owned or held in common. A communitarian approach, joined with an idea of communities as multigenerational entities and a commitment to a deliberative process seeking sustainability, can track a path toward strong sustainability. (shrink)

Integrating the concept of place meanings into protected area management has been difficult. Across a diverse body of social science literature, challenges in the conceptualization and application of place meanings continue to exist. However, focusing on relationships in the context of participatory planning and management allows protected area managers to bring place meanings into professional judgment and practice. This paper builds on work that has outlined objectives and recommendations for bringing place meanings, relationships, and lived experiences to the forefront of (...) land-use planning and management. It proposes the next steps in accounting for people’s relationships with protected areas and their relationships with protected area managers. Our goals are to 1) conceptualize this relationship framework; 2) present a structure for application of the framework; and 3) demonstrate the application in a specific protected area context, using an example from Alaska. We identify three key target areas of information and knowledge that managers will need to sustain quality relationship outcomes at protected areas. These targets are recording stories or narratives, monitoring public trust in management, and identifying and prioritizing threats to relationships. The structure needed to apply this relationship-focused approach requires documenting and following individual relationships with protected areas in multiple ways. The goal of this application is not to predict relationships, but instead to gain a deeper understanding of how and why relationships develop and change over time. By documenting narratives of individuals, managers can understand how relationships evolve over time and the role they play in individual’s lives. By understanding public trust, the shared values and goals of individuals and managers can be observed. By identifying and prioritizing threats, managers can pursue efforts that steward relationships while allowing for the protection of experiences and meanings. The collection and interpretation of these three information targets can then be integrated and implemented within planning and management strategies to achieve outcomes that are beneficial for resource protection, visitor experiences, and stakeholder engagement. By investing in this approach, agencies will gain greater understanding and usable knowledge towards the achievement of quality relationships. It represents an investment in both place relationships and public relations. By integrating such an approach into planning and management, protected area managers can represent the greatest diversity of individual place meanings and connections. relationships, place meanings, trust, narratives, planning, protected areas. (shrink)

A publicação de 2007, Homo Sacer II, 2, Il Regno e la Gloria, constitui marco na obra agambenana. Por um lado, o projeto Homo Sacer, que tinha por objetivo a genealogia do poder político, ascende a nova e decisiva dimensão: desvela o paradigma da teologia econômica, que permite explicar com maior precisão a articulação entre o reino e o governo, e os alcances do diagnóstico biopolítico. Por outro, Agamben crê haver encontrado nesse livro o arcano do poder: a glória. A (...) concepção da política como administração, ὀιχονομία, governo no qual a onipresença da economia expande-se por todos os aspectos da vida social é índice do movimento que alcança na glória sua máxima expressão. (shrink)

Fire over Luoyang: A History of the Later Han Dynasty 23–220 AD. Rafe de Crespigny. Sinica Leidensia, vol. 134. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Pp. xii + 580. €167, $200.

The human genome project's lasting legacies are the emerging insights into human physiology and disease, and the ascendance of biology as the dominant science of the 21st century. Sequencing revealed that >90% of the human genome is not coding for proteins, as originally thought, but rather is overwhelmingly transcribed into non‐protein coding, or non‐coding, RNAs (ncRNAs). This discovery initially led to the hypothesis that most genomic DNA is “junk”, a term still championed by some geneticists and evolutionary biologists. In contrast, (...) molecular biologists and biochemists studying the vast number of transcripts produced from most of this genome “junk” often surmise that these ncRNAs have biological significance. What gives? This essay contrasts the two opposing, extant viewpoints, aiming to explain their bases, which arise from distinct reference frames of the underlying scientific disciplines. Finally, it aims to reconcile these divergent mindsets in hopes of stimulating synergy between scientific fields. (shrink)

Deals with the question of whether there is a use of ‘is true’ that is the primary or generic name for that which at bottom we are always saying ‘is true’. Austin discusses the views that truth is primarily a property of beliefs and of true statements. He goes on to argue that the word ‘true’ denotes the validity of an intended correspondence between a representation and what it represents, and dismantles confusions about the meaning of the words that underlie (...) such a view, such as ‘fact that’ and ‘corresponds’. (shrink)