In the concluding section of the Minos (318c ff), Socrates praises the oldest law, that given to Crete by Minos, who in Socrates's characterization obtained this law as a result of his status as confidant of Zeus, Minos's father (319d-e). The law that is unchanging, permanent, is therefore the best law, and arguably the only law that truly reflects the “lawness” of law, other possible senses of law being incomplete, as the dialogue shows. There is, moreover, something divine about the (...) character of the best law—though this divinity would seem to have little to do with its tenuous relationship to…. (shrink)

I. L'absence du monde humain -- II. Techno-nature élémentaire -- III. Résider dans la techno-imagination.

Michael T. Stuart (2021 and 2022) has proposed imagination as an intellectual dual‐process virtue, consisting of imagination1 (underwritten by cognitive Type 1 processing) and imagination2 (supported by Type 2 processing). This paper investigates the consequences of taking such an account seriously. It proposes that the dual‐process view of imagination allows us to incorporate recent insights from virtue epistemology, providing a fresh perspective on how imagination can be epistemically reliable. The argument centers on the distinction between General Reliability (GR) and Functional (...) System Reliability (FSR), for example in relation to Kengo Miyazono and Uko Tooming's (2023) argument for epistemic generativity. Furthermore, the paper claims that the dual‐process virtue account enables us to integrate a wide range of findings from the literature on epistemology and imagination. Moreover, it suggests a novel way to distinguish the virtues of creativity and imagination and presents a case for viewing imagination as a virtue rather than a skill. (shrink)

Gene editing techniques, such as CRISPR, are being heralded as powerful new tools for delivering agricultural products and foods with a variety of beneficial traits quickly, easily, and cheaply. Proponents are concerned, however, about whether the public will accept the new technology and that excessive regulatory oversight could limit the technology’s potential. In this paper, we draw on the sociotechnical imaginaries literature to examine how proponents are imagining the potential benefits and risks of gene editing technologies within agriculture. We derive (...) our data from a content analysis of public comments submitted to the Food and Drug Administration’s 2017 docket titled “Genome Editing in New Plant Varieties Used for Food.” Our sample frame consists of 26 comments representing 30 agriculture and biotech companies, organizations, and trade associations. Our findings reveal three key sociotechnical imaginaries, including that gene editing technologies in agriculture: are not GMO but instead equivalent to traditional plant breeding; have the potential to usher in a new Green Revolution; and could facilitate the democratization of agricultural biotechnologies. We argue that forming and projecting these collective interpretations of the potential of gene editing technologies for crops and foods plays an important role in efforts by proponents to influence regulatory oversight, modes of governance, and build public acceptance. This research contributes to calls by science and technology studies scholars to investigate emergent concerns and imaginaries for novel technoscientific advances to help inform upstream models of public engagement and governance decisions. (shrink)

Explores the relationship between technics and humanity, tracing the emergence of a bio-technical conception of existence in contemporary continental philosophy.

Hur verkar glömskan i samhällets och människors minne? Vilka kunskaper och erfarenheter glöms bort och försvinner, medvetet eller omedvetet, också inom forskarsamhället? Varför, hur, med vilka medel och med vilka konsekvenser? Hos den enskilda individen kan glömskan bero på olika sjukdomstillstånd. I vissa politiska sammanhang kan glömska vara ett försåtligt maktmedel. I dagens forskarsamhälle har publiceringsaktiviteten accelererat genom datoriseringen. Inom många kunskapsområden kan forskningen därför te sig som ett isberg, där endast ett fåtal arbeten sticker upp över ytan, refereras och (...) kommuniceras. Vad finns av viktigt vetande under ytan och hur förhåller vi oss till det övergripande - eller underliggande - behovet av "knowing-what-is-known"? (shrink)

L’enjeu de ce recueil est de contribuer à repenser la notion de limite, en l’envisageant sous les différentes figures, philosophiques, écologiques, politiques, que lui confère notre présent. Comme le montrent, sous des modalités diverses, les contributions de ce collectif, la limite peut et doit être conçue en dehors des valeurs négatives – borne, restriction ou frontière –, qui en affaiblissent la portée. Elle peut alors être pensée sur le fond de cet illimité où s’ouvre la question même du dehors. Si (...) la finitude demeure la condition de l’existence, de l’art et de la pensée, assumer notre condition finie ne consiste donc pas à se murer dans le connu, mais bien à en transgresser les bornes, et ce faisant, à s’illimiter. Au plus loin de la fermeture des frontières que prônent certaines politiques, ou de la certitude dogmatique dans laquelle certains cherchent à réassurer leur pensée, la limite ne vit que de son rapport fécond à l’illimité. Interrogeant l’existence, la politique, l’art – autant dire, la pensée même –, les textes de ce recueil mettent au jour un certain don de l’illimité. (shrink)

Tod Chambers suggests that literary theory is a crucial component in the complete understanding of bioethics. _The Fiction of Bioethics_ explores the medical case study and distills the idea that bioethicists study real-life cases, while philosophers contemplate fictional accounts.

This collection of articles from both distinguished and emerging authors working at the intersections of philosophy, literary theory, media, and technology does not intend to fix new moral rules. Instead, the volume explores the ethos of digital environments, asking how we can orient ourselves in them and inviting us to renewed moral reflection in the face of dilemmas they entail.

Several studies have shown that preference is not necessarily synonymous with choice. In particular, the most preferred object from a set of objects presented in a non—choice context is not necessarily chosen when the same objects are options in a choice situation (Lichtenstein & Slovic, 1971, 1973; Tversky, Sattah, & Slovic, 1988) . Our research on the choice—preference discrepancy replicates these findings and thus bears some resemblance to the study by Tversky, Sattah, and Slovic (1988). Two competing explanations are tested.

Counterfactual thinking—the capacity to reflect on what would, could, or should have been if events had transpired differently—is a pervasive, yet seemingly paradoxical human tendency. On the one hand, counterfactual thoughts can be comforting and inspiring (Carroll & Shepperd, Chapter 28), but on the other they can be anxiety provoking and depressing (Zeelenberg & Pieters, Chapter 27). Likewise, such thoughts can illuminate pathways toward better future outcomes (Wong, Galinsky, & Kray, Chapter 11), yet they can also promote confusion and lead (...) us astray (Sanna, Schwarz, & Kennedy, Chapter 13). The first part of this chapter focuses on work that supports the prevailing Zeitgeist in the counterfactual thinking literature: Counterfactual thinking is beneficial. The second part of the chapter, however, strikes a more cautionary tone by reviewing work that describes some deleterious consequences of counterfactual thinking. We conclude by offering a tentative reconciliation of these conflicting perspectives and suggesting directions for future research. (shrink)

Recently, bioethics has become interested in engaging with narrative, but in this engagement, narrative is usually viewed as a mere helpmate to philosophy. In this precis to his book The Fiction of Bioethics, Tod Chambers argues that narrative theory should not be simply a helpful addition to medical ethics but instead should be thought of as being as vital and important to the discipline as moral theory itself. The reason we need to rethink the relationship of medical ethics to narrative (...) is that ethicists test their ideas by applying them to cases, and cases are a narrative genre. Recognizing the importance that cases have for the way medical ethicists do ethics is essential in order to appreciate the field as a form of applied philosophy. Like other forms of representation, narrative has distinct and defining features, which ethicists, in order to understand the data of their field, must learn to recognize and differentiate. Ethicists need to attend to the way decisions about the discourse of a narrative influences the kind of moral theories judged relevant to it. The author briefly examines six features of narrative discourse that rhetorically condition the way we understand medical ethics cases: filter, reportability, closure, characters, chronotope, and gender. (shrink)

Conflicts between labor unions and nongovernmental organizations often impede private labor regulatory attempts to protect worker rights at supplier factories. Based on a study of a failed private regulatory attempt for Swedish garment retailers, we contribute to existing research into union–NGO relations by demonstrating how conflict arises because unions and NGOs act upon different institutional logics. We also contribute to the institutional logics perspective by challenging the current emphasis on either coexistence or conflict among multiple logics, and showing the heterogeneity (...) in how multiple logics manifest on a local level, how this could shift over time, and suggesting an empirically derived typology of manifestations of multiple logics. (shrink)

In the present research, the authors hypothesized that additive counterfactual thinking mind-sets, activated by adding new antecedent elements to reconstruct reality, promote an expansive processing style that broadens conceptual attention and facilitates performance on creative generation tasks, whereas subtractive counterfactual thinking mind-sets, activated by removing antecedent elements to reconstruct reality, promote a relational processing style that enhances tendencies to consider relationships and associations and facilitates performance on analytical problem-solving tasks. A reanalysis of a published data set suggested that the counterfactual (...) mind-set primes previously used in the literature tend to evoke subtractive counterfactuals. Studies 1 and 2 then demonstrated that subtractive counterfactual mind-sets enhanced performance on analytical problem-solving tasks relative to additive counterfactual mind-sets, whereas Studies 3 and 4 found that additive counterfactual mind-sets enhanced performance on creative generation tasks relative to subtractive counterfactual mind-sets. (shrink)

On reading “Algorithms for Ethical Decision-Making in the Clinical: A Proof of Concept,” I imagined that for some the fundamental problem with the authors' approach is the very...

Omnipresent in popular culture, especially in film and literature, the theme of the 'end of the world' is often rejected from contemporary philosophy as hysterical apocalyptism. This volume attempts to show that it is vital that we address the motif of the 'end' in contemporary world – but that this cannot be done without thinking it anew.

We summarize some of the classic theoretical underpinnings of the emerging psychology of meaning, with special emphasis on the existentialist perspective that understood meaning in a way that converges with our present understanding and provides a blueprint for subsequent efforts. As we go on to describe, all of these perspectives intersect at a central understanding of meaning making: the ways that we make sense of ourselves and our environment, the feelings that are aroused when these understandings are constructed or violated, (...) and the common ways in which we respond to these violations. In particular, we focus on a general distinction within the notion of meaning that can often obscure what meaning always is—a sense of what is, and a sense of why this should be so. To a remarkable extent, the chapters that constitute this volume on meaning mirror this distinction, focusing on both the what and the why of sense making. In particular, these chapters also describe a strikingly analogous account of the feelings and behaviors that follow from violations of either the whats or the whys of sense making. (shrink)

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interventions for clinically referred adolescents, as well as to examine whether sociodemographic, clinical, or treatment-related variables and patients’ role expectations predict treatment outcome or are possible predictors of treatment dropout.MethodThe study comprised 58 adolescents suffering from diverse psychiatric disorders referred to psychotherapeutic interventions conducted in outpatient care. The outcome measures, The Beck Depression Inventory, and the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation – Outcome Measure were filled in at baseline (...) and at 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups. Possible predictors were assessed at baseline.ResultsThe results indicate that the mean level of symptoms and psychological distress decreased during the treatment, most reduction occurring in the first 6 months. The frequency of treatment sessions was the strongest predictor of good outcome. Adolescents with a higher level of externalizing problems or lower level of expectations for their own active role in treatment seem to have a higher risk of dropping out.ConclusionOffering intensive treatment for a shorter period might be the most efficient way to gain symptom reduction and decrease psychological distress in psychotherapeutic interventions with adolescents. Being aware of externalizing behavior and increasing the adolescents’ own agency during the assessment could strengthen commitment and result in the adolescent benefiting more from treatment. (shrink)

Contra those bioethicists who think that their cases are based on “real” events and thus not motivated by any particular ethical theory, Chambers explores how case narratives are constructed and thus the extent to which they are driven by particular theories.

A commentary on a special report, titled Narrative Ethics: The Role of Stories in Bioethics, that appeared with the January‐February 2014 issue.

The goal of the current chapter is to discuss how counterfactual thinking serves a more general sense-making function and to delineate the mechanisms by which this may occur. To demonstrate the meaning as sense-making function of counterfactual thinking, we (Lindberg & Markman, 2012) selected a historical event that was likely to be compelling to most student participants, yet not one with which most students would be familiar. This allowed for the manipulation of event details for the purpose of examining (...) underlying cognitive mechanisms believed to influence the sense-making process. Two sets of studies were conducted. The current work lends further support for the sense-making function of counterfactual thinking. (shrink)

Although the Book of Ruth is in many respects a classic example of biblical Hebrew narrative, with its stripped-down style and the opaqueness of its character's inner lives and motivations, there are two examples of formal poetry in the book (1:16–17 and 1:20–21). Biblical poetry works with a very different set of literary conventions than narrative, and by taking note of those conventions, we can see the distinctive contributions made by these poems to the book as a whole.

Love, according to the poets, is something like a math problem. Whether it is two striving to become one or the triangulating effect of three, we find a venerable history of number-crunching in the literature of love, not least in ancient Israel's great poetic presentation of desire, the Song of Songs.

This article addresses resilience in relation to climate change. Currently, our communities are not resilient to climate changes due to a strikingly limited political and scientific framing of climate change as solely a problem of emissions and individual behaviour. Owing to vulgarized interpretations of individual incentives for climate action, contextual barriers to action and the efficiency of individual climate action, this causes an action deficit on both collective and individual levels. We argue that a paradigm shift is needed in order (...) to engage with more adequate academic analysis and efficient policies. This new paradigm should focus on the capacities of societal institutions, which reflect precisely the level of climate resilience in a society. Resilience is not about societal and political immovability when faced with crisis of the dimensions of the climate crisis. It is about changing our society and politics and building institutions that enable us to properly respond to crisis. (shrink)

Gene editing in agriculture and food (GEAF) is a nascent development with few products and is unfamiliar among the wider US public. GEAF has garnered significant praise for its potential to solve for a variety of agronomic problems but has also evoked controversy regarding safety and ethical standards of development and application. Given the wake of other agribiotechnology debates including GMOs (genetically modified organisms), this study made use of 36 in-depth key interviews to build the first U.S. based typology of (...) proponent and critic priorities for shaping public trust in GEAF actors and objects. Key organizational actors provide early and foundational messaging, which is likely to contribute heavily to public salience, comprehension, and decision-making as potential consumers reflect upon their experiences, envision future outcomes, and consider the reputation of those trying to influence them. As is documented in our results, the trust-building priorities of these groups often stand in opposition to one another and are influenced by distinct motivations for how the public will come to trust or distrust GEAF actors and objects as more products are developed and enter the market. (shrink)

When I heard that a laboratory in China had cloned two long‐tailed macaques, I thought of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. When academics write about the novel, many point out that the reason the creature becomes a “monster” is not that he has any inherently evil qualities but that Victor Frankenstein, the creature's “mother,” immediately rejects him. All later problems can be traced to the fact that Frankenstein does not take responsibility for his creation. While I do not disagree with this, (...) we need to think beyond (or before) Frankenstein's rejection to the reason he rejects it. I would like to suggest that this reason reveals something about how bioethics judges new biological technologies. I suggest that what causes Frankenstein to feel revulsion toward his creation is its unsettling mix of the beautiful and the ugly. (shrink)