At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from (...) social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

In contemporary debates about the nature of bioethics there is a widespread view that bioethical decision making should involve certain knowledge of and respect for cultural diversity of persons to be affected. The aim of this article is to show that this view is untenable and misleading. It is argued that introducing the idea of respect for cultural diversity into bioethics encounters a series of conceptual and empirical constraints. While acknowledging that cultural diversity is something that decision makers in bioethical (...) contexts should try to understand and, when possible, respect, it is argued that this cultural turn ignores the typically normative role of bioethics and thus threatens to undermine its very foundations. (shrink)

Sex reassignment surgery is a therapy for gender dysphoria standardly provided only upon a psychiatric authorization. Transgender scholars criticize this practice as unjustified medicalization and stigmatization of transsexual people. By demanding that sex reassignment surgery is not classified as therapy, they imply it should be classified as some kind of a biomedical enhancement. It is argued in this article that this reclassification is empirically and morally implausible because sex reassignment surgery is incompatible with two major views of enhancement. It is (...) incompatible with the nontherapeutic view because it does not improve or augment, above average, any physical or mental trait or function. It is incompatible with the welfarist view because this view, contrary to the transgender scholars’s demands, is compelled to retain the standard practice of providing sex reassignment surgery in order to ensure the optimal balance between its availability, beneficence, and possible harmfulness. (shrink)

This article discusses the view that bioethics should become ‘‘culturally sensitive’’ and give more weight to various cultural traditions and their respective moral beliefs. It is argued that this view is implausible for the following three reasons: it renders the disciplinary boundaries of bioethics too flexible and inconsistent with metaphysical commitments of Western biomedical sciences, it is normatively useless because it approaches cultural phenomena in a predominantly descriptive and selective way, and it tends to justify certain types of discrimination.

The analysis of cognitive-ontological and especially ethical concepts in Nietzscheʼs philosophy shows deprivation as an important component that compromises their status. The emptiness, in the form of purity, inevitably appears during the decomposition of Nietzsche’s thought. Under the influence of perspectivism, epistemology, along with the question of truth, have undergone radical deconstruction. The results significantly affect the existence of morality, values and the notion of good in general. Deprivation appears in values, which leads to pessimism. Pessimistic values move away from (...) the intensity of life instinct. As a reflection of life, man strives and destroys the aspirations for life. The whole reality, on the other hand, is in opposition and thus, necessarily, in dialectic and conflict. Nietzsche, however, does not strive for reconciliation opposites, but requires their enduring, which is, at the same time, overcoming. Conflict between pessimistic and life valuesinevitably arises. Pessimism precedes nihilism, which alternates the notion of truth, meaning, and foundation. In the concluding analysis, it becomes clear how the value creator is placed in relation to the concept of eternal return and overcoming nihilism. Emptiness and lack of sense are replaced by a dynamic and conflicting conception of life, i.e. existence, where the dynamics of life must not be understood in an organic or other bio-morphological sense, but in relation to the individual and his creative potential only in the form of change and reestablishment of reality. This, in turn, means that, ultimately, the focus is on the subject, man as will and his existential acts. (shrink)

In the world of rapid general-social development, due to the emergence of questions about new holders of legal rights and the emergence of new forms of legal rights in general, the discussion about moral and legal rights has always been, is and will be an increasingly topical issue. It is not, however, disputed that law per se, in enabling a wide range of legal rights, has always been centred around the issue of human life and health in the first place. (...) The achievement of human welfare is undoubtedly predicated upon good health, and fostered by a unique “mechanism” – the right to health. Although we live in an era of great glorification of the cult and value of health (healthism), the current epoch raises a series of human-health-focused questions and controversies. However, the primary and very crucial question we can ask ourselves is – what would health even be? Precisely because of the great questionability of the above question, the protection of human health and the exercise of the right to health may represent one of the most challenging matters of law itself. The right to health, as a legal and inclusive right, epitomizes not only the rights asserted by human beings as such, but also environmental and nature protection as an inseparable denominator of the status of human health. Although prominent legal/political philosophers and theorists were pessimist about the realisation and enforcement of the right to (the highest attainable standard of) health, this paper elaborates on the possibility of its realisation, which largely depends on the way in which the concept of health is understood. Health should be understood exclusively as an idea-value category to be aspired to, as a should (sollen), by no means as a pure and categorical reflection of reality (sein). Given the inclusiveness specific to the legal right to health, which undoubtedly contains certain problematic elements, this paper aims to grasp and consider the right to health in its conceptual and normative entirety premised upon the following question: how does law protect human health and its constitutive elements? The same question invokes interesting interdisciplinary (legal and philosophical) points of view. (shrink)

Not the least noticeable is the fact that the ancient Greek compound euthanasia, formed by Francis Bacon, has retained its original terminological form since it was first used in the 17th century. Among all other controversial ethical issues, however, the conceptual notion of euthanasia categorically evokes rather important controversies. The questions that arise in this context are whether there is a definition, or at least a determination, of the term euthanasia and whether we are aware of its use in scientific (...) discourse, what exactly is euthanasia. The paper offers a terminological elaboration of the term euthanasia in a linguistic, but mainly legal and medical-procedural context, in order to examine the coherence in defining the term between these categories and, consequently, to determine the key determinants of euthanasia according to categorical sections. The key facts stated are the primary determination or the possible definition of the term for any further scientific study of euthanasia as one of the most controversial issues within bioethical doctrine. (shrink)

The objective of this article was to review existing research to assess the evidence for predictive processing in sign language, the conditions under which it occurs, and the effects of language mastery on the neural bases of PP. This review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses framework. We searched peer-reviewed electronic databases and gray literature. We also searched the reference lists of records selected for the review and forward citations to identify all relevant publications. We searched (...) for records based on five criteria. To reduce the risk of bias, the remaining two authors with expertise in sign language processing and a variety of research methods reviewed the results. Disagreements were resolved through extensive discussion. In the final review, 7 records were included, of which 5 were published articles and 2 were dissertations. The reviewed records provide evidence for PP in signing populations, although the underlying mechanism in the visual modality is not clear. The reviewed studies addressed the motor simulation proposals, neural basis of PP, as well as the development of PP. All studies used dynamic sign stimuli. Most of the studies focused on semantic prediction. The question of the mechanism for the interaction between one’s sign language competence and PP in the manual-visual modality remains unclear, primarily due to the scarcity of participants with varying degrees of language dominance. There is a paucity of evidence for PP in sign languages, especially for frequency-based, phonetic, and syntactic prediction. However, studies published to date indicate that Deaf native/native-like L1 signers predict linguistic information during sign language processing, suggesting that PP is an amodal property of language processing.Systematic Review Registration[https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42021238911], identifier [CRD42021238911]. (shrink)

Many experimental brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are currently being medically tested in paralyzed patients. While the new generations of implantable BCIs move rapidly ahead at trying to increase the patients’ well-being, ethical concerns about their potential effects on patients’ psychological dimensions (e.g. sense of agency and control) are growing. An important ethical concern to explore is how BCIs may introduce unprecedented vulnerabilities to implanted individuals.Our chapter shows that, on the one hand, BCIs can empower the sense of self and control, which (...) contribute to well-being. On the other hand, they can introduce unprecedented vulnerabilities, for example, by inducing radical distress, feelings of loss of control, and a rupture of patient identity, which decrease one’s well-being. To investigate a possible solution to this problem we propose to understand the implementation of a BCI system in one’s body through the capability approach. This calls for a careful ethical examination of new morally salient issues prior to seeing an increase in BCI-related psychological effects in an open market. (shrink)

Integrative bioethics is a brand of bioethics conceived and propagated by a group of Croatian philosophers and other scholars. This article discusses and shows that the approach encounters several serious difficulties. In criticizing certain standard views on bioethics and in presenting their own, the advocates of integrative bioethics fall into various conceptual confusions and inconsistencies. Although presented as a project that promises to deal with moral dilemmas created by modern science and technology, integrative bioethics does not contain the slightest normativity (...) or action-guiding capacity. Portrayed as a scientific and interdisciplinary enterprise, integrative bioethics displays a large number of pseudoscientific features that throw into doubt its overall credibility. (shrink)

In this philosophical exploration, we investigate the concept of robotic moral environment interaction. The common view understands moral interaction to occur between agents endowed with ethical and interactive capacities. However, recent developments in moral philosophy argue that moral interaction also occurs in relation to the environment. Here conditions and situations of the environment contribute to human moral cognition and the formation of our moral experiences. Based on this philosophical position, we imagine robots interacting as moral environments—a novel conceptualization of human–robot (...) moral interaction with an inherent capacity for moral augmentation. To explicate this idea, we first define moral environments as moral systems providing moral affordances. We then intuit and explicate two constitutive conditions of moral environments: the environment’s moral ambiance and its moral atmosphere and compare them with real-life cases of moral environments—the moral landmarks. Based on these explications, we construct several explanatory cases to illustrate robots interacting as moral environments. Lastly, we set to evaluate the ethical challenges and wider social ramifications of using moral environment robots in the public space. (shrink)

In his most significant work in the field of philosophy of education, Personhood and Education (1932), Vuk-Pavlović criticizes Schelerʼs claim that love cannot be an educational principle. According to Vuk-Pavlović, this claim is based on Schelerʼs two misconceptions: the first is related to Schelerʼs misunderstanding of education, and the second to his misunderstanding of love. In this text, we examine aspects of Vuk-Pavlovićʼs criticism and ask a broader question about the potentials and limits of love in education. When defining the (...) concept of love, Scheler indeed opposes it to education, which for him implies changing the object of education. In this sense, education is an attempt to change the person being raised. On the other hand, according to Scheler, love means accepting the loved one without trying to change him. Therefore, the purpose of love is not to transform the loved object. However, through a genuine act of love, Scheler claims, change can occur as the appearance of higher values. Schelerʼs criticism of education is based on the understanding of education in the negative sense of imposing external values, where the individuality and value potential of the one being educated is not recognized. With regard to the aforementioned conception of love, one could theorize about a different type of education, which implies love in the sense of the development of one’s self. (shrink)

What does it take to be subjectively free in an objectively rational social order? In this book Andreja Novakovic offers a fresh interpretation of Hegel's account of ethical life by focusing on his concept of habit or 'second nature'. Novakovic addresses two central and difficult issues facing any interpretation of his Philosophy of Right: why Hegel thinks that it is is better to relate unreflectively to the laws of ethical life, and which forms of reflection, especially critical reflection, remain available (...) within ethical life. Her interpretation draws on numerous parts of Hegel's system, particularly on his 'Anthropology' and his Phenomenology of Spirit, and also explores connections between his account and those of other philosophers. Her aim is to argue that Hegel has a compelling conception of the ordinary ethical standpoint which takes seriously both the virtues and the perils of reflection. (shrink)

In this paper it is exactly proved that the standard transformations of the three-dimensional (3D) vectors of the electric and magnetic fields E and B are not relativistically correct transformations. Thence the 3D vectors E and B are not well-defined quantities in the 4D space-time and, contrary to the general belief, the usual Maxwell equations with the 3D E and B are not in agreement with the special relativity. The 4-vectors E a and B a , as well-defined 4D quantities, (...) are introduced instead of ill-defined 3D E and B. The proof is given in the tensor and the Clifford algebra formalisms. (shrink)

A genesis of media didactics was deconstructed through a theoretical-comparative and historical methodological approach, with the aim of gaining insight into its history and characteristics, defining the discipline, and recent development trends. The study elaborates the role of media in education, schooling, teaching, and learning. The anatomy of the social circumstances of the emergence of certain curriculum innovations and their consequences for global education as well as the development of media didactics is systematically explained. A synthesis of the facts obtained (...) from the analysed concept makes it evident that the development of media didactics was influenced by the concept of instructional technology transferred from the USA, as well as several social and technological factors. Theoretical and practical essence of media didactics is established in the application of various media with the purpose of arranging individualized, i.e., student-centred teaching. Over time, the characteristics and role of media in teaching have changed in accordance with the dominant didactic theories. A crucial challenge for media didactics is foreseen in the form of the application of artificial intelligence in education and schooling. (shrink)

Hegel frequently identifies ethical life with a “second nature.” This strategy has puzzled those who assume that second nature represents a deficient appearance of ethical life, one that needs to be overcome, supplemented, or constantly challenged. I argue that Hegel identifies ethical life with a second nature because he thinks that a social order only becomes a candidate for ethical life, if it provides a context conducive to the development of what I call “real habits.” First, I show that a (...) criterion for a real habit can be found in Hegel's Anthropology, namely, that of liberation. Next, I explain how the state, as Hegel analyzes it in the Philosophy of Right, provides such an environment by enabling trust toward and within it. I then consider two literary examples of contexts that fail to be similarly supportive—Coates' Between the World and Me and Atwood's Handmaid's Tale—concluding with reasons for thinking that real habits are an integral part of ethical life. (shrink)

In this paper the Lorentz transformations (LT) and the standard transformations (ST) of the usual Maxwell equations (ME) with the three-dimensional (3D) vectors of the electric and magnetic fields, E and B, respectively, are examined using both the geometric algebra and tensor formalisms. Different 4D algebraic objects are used to represent the usual observer dependent and the new observer independent electric and magnetic fields. It is found that the ST of the ME differ from their LT and consequently that the (...) ME with the 3D E and B are not covariant upon the LT but upon the ST. The obtained results do not depend on the character of the 4D algebraic objects used to represent the electric and magnetic fields. The Lorentz invariant field equations are presented with 1-vectors E and B, bivectors EHv and BHv and the abstract tensors, the 4-vectors Ea and Ba. All these quantities are defined without reference frames, i.e., as absolute quantities. When some basis has been introduced, they are represented as coordinate-based geometric quantities comprising both components and a basis. It is explicitly shown that this geometric approach agrees with experiments, e.g., the Faraday disk, in all relatively moving inertial frames of reference, which is not the case with the usual approach with the 3D bf E and B and their ST. (shrink)

Different approaches to special relativity (SR) are discussed. The first approach is an invariant approach, which we call the “true transformations (TT) relativity.” In this approach a physical quantity in the four-dimensional spacetime is mathematically represented either by a true tensor (when no basis has been introduced) or equivalently by a coordinate-based geometric quantity comprising both components and a basis (when some basis has been introduced). This invariant approach is compared with the usual covariant approach, which mainly deals with the (...) basis components of tensors in a specific, i.e., Einstein's coordinatization of the chosen inertial frame of reference. The third approach is the usual noncovariant approach to SR in which some quantities are not tensor quantities, but rather quantities from “3+1” space and time, e.g., the synchronously determined spatial length. This formulation is called the “apparent transformations (AT) relativity.” It is shown that the principal difference between these approaches arises from the difference in the concept of sameness of a physical quantity for different observers. This difference is investigated considering the spacetime length in the “TT relativity” and spatial and temporal distances in the “AT relativity.” It is also found that the usual transformations of the three-vectors (3-vectors) of the electric and magnetic fields E and B are the AT. Furthermore it is proved that the Maxwell equations with the electromagnetic field tensor Fab and the usual Maxwell equations with E and B are not equivalent, and that the Maxwell equations with E and B do not remain unchanged in form when the Lorentz transformations of the ordinary derivative operators and the AT of E and B are used. The Maxwell equations with Fab are written in terms of the 4-vectors of the electric Ea and magnetic Ba fields. The covariant Majorana electromagnetic field 4-vector Ψa is constructed by means of 4-vectors Ea and Ba and the covariant Majorana formulation of electrodynamics is presented. A Dirac like relativistic wave equation for the free photon is obtained. (shrink)

An apparent paradox is obtained in all previous treatments of the Trouton–Noble experiment; there is a three-dimensional (3D) torque T in an inertial frame S in which a thin parallel-plate capacitor is moving, but there is no 3D torque T′ in S′, the rest frame of the capacitor. Different explanations are offered for the existence of another 3D torque, which is equal in magnitude but of opposite direction giving that the total 3D torque is zero. In this paper, it is (...) considered that 4D geometric quantities and not the usual 3D quantities are well-defined both theoretically and experimentally in the 4D spacetime. In analogy with the decomposition of the electromagnetic field F (bivector) into two 1-vectors E and B we introduce decomposition of the 4D torque N (bivector) into 1-vectors N s , N t . It is shown that in the frame of “fiducial” observers, in which the observers who measure N s and N t are at rest, and in the standard basis, only the spatial components $N_{s}^{i}$ and $N_{t}^{i}$ remain, which can be associated with components of two 3D torques T and T t . In such treatment with 4D geometric quantities the mentioned paradox does not appear. The presented explanation is in complete agreement with the principle of relativity and with the Trouton–Noble experiment without the introduction of any additional torque. (shrink)