The traditional definition of permission as the dual of obligation oversimplifies its many applications, often yielding undesirable consequences. Recent literature recognizes the need to distinguish various types of permissions but often overlooks potential preferences associated with them. In contrast, the Sanskrit philosophical school of Mīmāṃsā refutes the interdefinability of deontic concepts, and asserts that permissions always refer to less desirable actions (‘better-not’ permissions), and are exceptions to prohibitions or negative obligations. This article analyzes the concept of Mīmāṃsā permission, compares it (...) with contemporary theories and formalizes it while carefully preserving its essential characteristics. We transform Mīmāṃsā’s reasoning principles for permission into Hilbert axioms and introduce neighbourhood semantics, incorporating ceteris-paribus preferences. The resulting logic is evaluated against various paradoxes from contemporary deontic logic and applied to a scenario from Sanskrit jurisprudence. (shrink)

The medical concept of prognosis is analysed into its basic constituents: patient data, medical intervention, outcome, utilities and probabilities; and sources of utility and probability values are discussed. Prognosis cannot be divorced from contemplated medical action, nor from action to be taken by the patient in response to prognostication. Regrettably, the usual decision-theoretic approach ignores this latter aspect. Elicitation of utilities, decision contemplation and prognostic counselling interweave, diagnostics playing a subsidiary role in decision-oriented clinical practice. At times the doctor has (...) grounds for withholding information. As this is known to the patient, prognostic counselling becomes a conflict-prone and rationality-thwarting activity. The meaning of standard phrases such as prognosis of a disease, the prognosis of this patient, the prognosis is unknown, is examined. (shrink)

In _Beyond Animal Rights_, Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams introduced feminist "ethic of care" theory into philosophical discussions of the treatment of animals. In this new volume, seven essays from _Beyond Animal Rights_ are joined by nine new articles-most of which were written in response to that book-and a new introduction that situates feminist animal care theory within feminist theory and the larger debate over animal rights. Contributors critique theorists' reliance on natural rights doctrine and utilitarianism, which, they (...) suggest, have a masculine bias. They argue for ethical attentiveness and sympathy in our relationships with animals and propose a link between the continuing subjugation of women and the human domination of nature. Beginning with the earliest articulation of the idea in the mid-1980s and continuing to the theory's most recent revisions, this volume presents the most complete portrait of the evolution of the feminist-care tradition. (shrink)

Over the years, companies have adopted hiring algorithms because they promise wider job candidate pools, lower recruitment costs and less human bias. Despite these promises, they also bring perils. Using them can inflict unintentional harms on individual human rights. These include the five human rights to work, equality and nondiscrimination, privacy, free expression and free association. Despite the human rights harms of hiring algorithms, the AI ethics literature has predominantly focused on abstract ethical principles. This is problematic for two reasons. (...) First, AI principles have been criticized for being vague and not actionable. Second, the use of vague ethical principles to discuss algorithmic risks does not provide any accountability. This lack of accountability creates an algorithmic accountability gap. Closing this gap is crucial because, without accountability, the use of hiring algorithms can lead to discrimination and unequal access to employment opportunities. This paper makes two contributions to the AI ethics literature. First, it frames the ethical risks of hiring algorithms using international human rights law as a universal standard for determining algorithmic accountability. Second, it evaluates four types of algorithmic impact assessments in terms of how effectively they address the five human rights of job applicants implicated in hiring algorithms. It determines which of the assessments can help companies audit their hiring algorithms and close the algorithmic accountability gap. (shrink)

In this chapter we summarise the ongoing risks to human life and risks to life on Earth in general that we have discussed throughout this book and introduce, for context, the formal Global Risks assessments made by the World Economic Forum. Rapid changes in the human way of life are needed to reduce the risks of catastrophic climate change or possible nuclear war.

Contains eight contributions which extend feminist ethic-of-care theory to the issue of animal well-being. As a group, the essays aim to suggest ways that theorists can move beyond the notion of animal rights to establish care as a basis for the ethical treatment of animals. Annotation c. by Book.

In a project The Hastings Center is now running on the future of prenatal testing, we are encountering clear examples, both in established law and in the practices of individual providers, of failures to respect women's reproductive autonomy: when testing is not offered to certain demographics of women, for instance, or when the choices of women to terminate or continue pregnancies are prohibited or otherwise not supported. But this project also raises puzzles for reproductive autonomy. We have learned that some (...) clinicians and patients do not discuss the fact that prenatal testing can lead to a decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy—they just don't talk about it. And while the decision whether to agree to prenatal screening and diagnostic testing is to be made with women's free and informed consent, many screening tests have been routinized in such a way that some women do not even recall agreeing to testing, while others feel that agreeing to testing is what their clinicians expect of them or that the testing is necessary to protect themselves and their families from the significant financial hardship of raising a child with a disability. In the face of these pressures, can one really say that women are freely choosing to undergo testing or are freely choosing to continue or terminate a pregnancy following receipt of test results? The reality of these pressures is requiring us to consider expanding the scope of our investigation beyond the clinical encounter to the broader context—to think harder about what reproductive autonomy means and how best to enhance it. (shrink)

Until recently, medicine has had little to offer most of the millions of patients suffering from rare and ultrarare genetic conditions. But the development in 2019 of Milasen, the first genetic intervention developed for and administered to a single patient suffering from an ultrarare genetic disorder, has offered hope to patients and families. In addition, Milasen raised a series of conceptual and ethical questions about how individualised genetic interventions should be developed, assessed for safety and efficacy and financially supported. The (...) answers to these questions depend in large part on whether individualised therapies are understood as human subjects research or clinical innovation, different domains of biomedicine that are regulated by different modes of oversight, funding and professional norms. In this article, with development and administration of the drug Milasen as our case study, we argue that at least some individualised genetic therapies are not, as some have argued, either research or treatment. Instead, they are research-treatment hybrids, a category that has both epistemological and pragmatic repercussions for funding, ethics oversight and regulation. (shrink)

Maiese and Hanna (2019) argue that social institutions shape and transform our embodied minds, and that detrimental and harmful institutions can be reverted in order to promote mentally healthy, authentic, and fulfilling lives. This commentary aims to complement this proposal by understanding the role that narratives and narrative practices play in shaping our embodied minds, by highlighting narrativity’s (1) active, deliberative, and productive functions, and (2) its strong entanglement with embodiment. We will argue that this addition to Maiese and Hanna’s (...) account allows agents to assume a more active role within social institutions by engaging in conscious and deliberative self-narration. This is because, we contend, not only do we understand ourselves and others according to cultural narrative archetypes; we also, crucially, bring about concrete changes in our embodiment and behavior by narrative deliberation and intention formation. As such, self-narration is not only an intellectual endeavor, but can also have profound consequences for how we experience the world; in other words, narrative practices can purposefully alter our affective framing which, in Maiese and Hanna’s account, is fundamental in the process of changing detrimental institutions into constructive, enabling institutions. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the development of computers capable of machine-learning and artificial intelligence. We discuss examples of beneficial applications in bioscience research and potential utility in clinical diagnosis along with the huge potential for great risks. We introduce the idea of trans-humanism, that aims to generate partially inorganic beings that could transcend ageing and mortality and facilitate long-distance space travel. We discuss the major legal issues raised by the development of intelligent machines.

This article is the lead piece in a special report that presents the results of a bioethical investigation into chimeric research, which involves the insertion of human cells into nonhuman animals and nonhuman animal embryos, including into their brains. Rapid scientific developments in this field may advance knowledge and could lead to new therapies for humans. They also reveal the conceptual, ethical, and procedural limitations of existing ethics guidance for human‐nonhuman chimeric research. Led by bioethics researchers working closely with an (...) interdisciplinary work group, the investigation focused on generating conceptual clarity and identifying improvements to governance approaches, with the goal of helping scholars, funders, scientists, institutional leaders, and oversight bodies (embryonic stem cell research oversight [ESCRO] committees and institutional animal care and use committees [IACUCs]) deliver principled and trustworthy oversight of this area of science. The article, which focuses on human‐nonhuman animal chimeric research that is stem cell based, identifies key ethical issues in and offers ten recommendations regarding the ethics and oversight of this research. Turning from bioethics’ previous focus on human‐centered questions about the ethics of “humanization” and this research's potential impact on concepts like human dignity, this article emphasizes the importance of nonhuman animal welfare concerns in chimeric research and argues for less‐siloed governance and oversight and more‐comprehensive public communication. (shrink)

Over more than 4 billion years, many millions of species have developed on Earth by biological evolution under natural selection. We summarise the theory of the mechanism of evolution as developed by Charles Darwin. We survey later research that led to the identification of DNA as the molecule of inheritance, its structure and the molecular basis of genetic inheritance. We discuss the use of phylogenetic plots, based on DNA, RNA or protein sequences, to infer pathways of evolution. The sequencing of (...) the human genome and comparisons between modern day humans and palaeontological remains have enabled new models of human evolution and an appreciation that there is no biological basis for the concept of race. (shrink)

Background There is now rising consensus that community engagement is ethically and scientifically essential for all types of health research. Yet debate continues about the moral aims, methods and appropriate timing in the research cycle for community engagement to occur, and whether the answer should vary between different types of health research. Co-design and collaborative partnership approaches that involve engagement during priority-setting, for example, are common in many forms of applied health research but are not regular practice in biomedical research. (...) In this study, we empirically examine the normative question: should communities be engaged when setting priorities for biomedical research projects, and, if so, how and for what purpose? Methods We conducted in-depth interviews with 31 members of the biomedical research community from the UK, Australia, and African countries who had engaged communities in their work. Interview data were thematically analysed. Results Our study shows that biomedical researchers and community engagement experts strongly support engagement in biomedical research priority-setting, except under certain circumstances where it may be harmful to communities. However, they gave two distinct responses on what ethical purpose it should serve—either empowerment or instrumental goals—and their perspectives on how it should achieve those goals also varied. Three engagement approaches were suggested: community-initiated, synergistic, and consultative. Pre-engagement essentials and barriers to meaningful engagement in biomedical research priority-setting are also reported. Conclusions This study offers initial evidence that meaningful engagement in priority-setting should potentially be defined slightly differently for biomedical research relative to certain types of applied health research and that engagement practice in biomedical research should not be dominated by instrumental goals and approaches, as is presently the case. (shrink)

Animals, Mind, and Matter challenges the current ascription of object status to animals in the law, commerce, and science, where they are conceived as property and commodities. Instead, Donovan establishes that animals are living subjects, have minds and opinions, and care about what happens to them.

Résumé Dans les situations sociomotrices, l’engagement des participants n’est pas seulement réductible aux communications directes (impliquant un rapport à l’objet ou un corps-à-corps). Il est surtout lié à l’émergence de systèmes de signes assurant la dynamique globale du jeu. Nous proposons d’appréhender la communication comme un système d’interaction global constitué de plusieurs canaux. On y retrouve les communications directes mais aussi quatre systèmes de signes : celui des praxèmes, des gestèmes, des gestes et des communications verbales. Ce travail interroge la (...) place de chaque canal communicationnel dans deux sports (football, handball) et deux jeux traditionnels (Balle assise et Trois camps). Nous recrutons trois groupes de 20 étudiants pour participer aux jeux mentionnés. Les communications sont filmées, décryptées, triées et catégorisées. On constate une forte prévalence des praxèmes dans les sports collectifs, tandis que la répartition des communications est plus équilibrée dans les jeux traditionnels (p < 0.01). La quantité, la variabilité et l’organisation des signes sont sensibles à la logique interne. Globalement, cette recherche tend à montrer que les jeux sont un formidable laboratoire in vivo pour comprendre l’organisation des systèmes de signes. Spécifiquement, elle apporte des informations sur le pouvoir socialisant de la sémiotricité de chaque jeu et sur le renouvellement des pédagogies qu’elle peut engendrer. (shrink)

Laffin, Josephine The archbishop of Adelaide, it must be acknowledged, did not play a prominent role at Vatican II. Matthew Beovich never gave a speech in the aula, the Council 'hall' inside St Peter's Basilica, nor did he prepare a written submission. At first glance, his seemingly minimal participation reinforces the damning judgment of Patrick O'Farrell that members of the Australian hierarchy were 'frequently uncomprehending and even resistant to the spirit of change'. With this from the doyen of Catholic (...) historians in Australia in the late twentieth century, it is not surprising that Ian Breward concluded in his survey of Australian religious history: 'Most Australian bishops were bemused observers of a process which shattered their convictions about the uniformity of the Roman Catholic Church. Australian contributions to Council debates were few. The pragmatism and traditionalism of the Australian Church stood nakedly exposed'. (shrink)

Laffin, Josephine Review(s) of: Blessed and beautiful: Picturing the saints, by Robert Kiely, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), pp.344, $49.95.

Laffin, Josephine On 31 October 2017 it will be five hundred years since Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, the date traditionally hailed as the start of the Lutheran Reformation. Another anniversary is a personal one: it is twenty-five years since I began teaching Reformation history. It seems an appropriate time, therefore, to pause and reflect on the significance of this task.

The authors aim in this article to show why it is extremely difficult to expect representatives of missionary religions to engage in productive interreligious dialogue. The article demonstrates how the imperative to convert, which is rooted in a sense of epistemic authority that one holds the best version of truth, precludes interreligious dialogue among religionists. The authors note, on the one hand, that the primary condition for any dialogue is that each of those involved come to the dialogue intellectually humble. (...) On the other hand, the authors note that for missionary religionists to embrace intellectual humility requires a fundamental rethink of their claims of epistemological certainty and final epistemic authority. This implies abandoning the missionary mandate and witnessing built on a sense of intellectual certainty and pride. The authors therefore argue that intellectual humility is a necessary condition for productive interreligious dialogue. Because representatives of missionary religions claim certainty about the knowledge they espouse, what is paraded as interreligious dialogue is largely a myth. It will remain a mere concept that yields little to no tangible result unless these representatives embrace intellectual humility, which is more achievable within a secularist framework.Contribution: This research contributes to the seemingly easy but difficult discourse and practice about interreligious dialogue. It brings to the limelight a more appropriate conception of dialogue in the context of interreligious dialogue, and explains how side-lining that conception empties the predominant practice of interreligous dialogue. This contribution is useful to HTS, which focuses on theological and religious studies, as well as critical study of religions. (shrink)

One argument Robert and Baylis do not raise in their article on the creation of interspecies chimeras using human cellular material is that the creation of these chimeras would, or could, offend human dignity. Yet, human dignity is one of the most common concerns raised in public debates, academic arguments, and policy documents regarding biotechnology in general, and the creation animal-human chimeras in particular. … The concept is ill-defined within bioethics and … risks being dismissed as meaningless or uselessly vague. (...) However, this lack of definition should not yet cause us to abandon or ignore human dignity. At least in arguments about creating chimeras, an examination of what may be meant by appeals to human dignity can uncover important concerns or arguments that are not captured by other formulations of the debate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Two Poems JOSEPHINE BALMER The House Opposite (Walbrook, London, 78 CE) Give this note to the cooper Junius, just opposite the house of Catullus... —Bloomberg Writing Tablets, 14 I unpack my treasures of Syrian glass, plates sourced from the slopes of Vesuvius. The walls I paint with frail shoots of grass and a poppy—my own hidden message for those who know the poet, my namesake: a flower fallen (...) at the meadow’s edge... I had pictured myself as a pioneer composing stark, startling, northern poems as fêted (one day) as my famed forebear. Besides, I’d been priced out of Rome. Yet each word I write I later delete. I watch the starlings rising up at dusk above the teeming, cloud-fogged streets like a simile slipping out of grasp. I hear the drunken Rhenish equites chant their taproom verse, swilled in vomit our bleak reward for six months’ back pay. My voice still clogs with Londinium clay. All I am here is the house opposite the cooper, two doors from the brewer. The only lines that come, come in error and for them: barrels, bills, more calls for beer. arion 27.2 fall 2019 Catullus the Slave (Walbrook, London, 79 CE) To Catullus the slave of Romanius Faustinus: 2000 units, 65 denarii [lines struck through] —Bloomberg Writing Tablets, 70 Six months on, the ice kicked in. My page was frost-white, its lines still frozen. By the following year I had given up, sold everything— volcanic crockery to the cooper, ink-smudged glass to the brewer who was branching out to wine. When even that was not enough I sold myself to Romanius Faustinus, a scrawny Gallic works contractor (a literary man, he said, was worth more than most). I did his books. I counted bricks, tessera for mosaics shifting back into the face of Orpheus, accounts closed, nothing outstanding. I learnt silence where once I spoke— he owned the air, he owned my breath— so I mouthed the verse I used to quote, the finest Catullus (snr) had written: you pea-brain, hairy-legged hick whose farts are your best feature... And concurred re bastard Caesar: why did he ever eye up Britain, that cursed place, ugly and remote? two poems 136... (shrink)

In July 2000, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma passed a resolution that would effectively expel a significant portion of its tribal members. The resolution amended the Nation's constitution by changing its membership criteria. Previously, potential members needed to show descent from an enrollee of the 1906 Dawes Rolls, the official American Indian tribal rolls established by the Dawes Commission to facilitate the allotment of reservation land. The amended constitution requires possession of one-eighth Seminole Indian blood, a requirement that a significant (...) portion of the tribe's membership cannot fulfill. The members of the Nation who fail to meet this new membership criterion all have one thing in common: they are black.Descendents of former slaves who came to live among the Seminole Indians of Florida in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the black Seminoles have been officially recognized by the U.S. government as members of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma since 1866. (shrink)

In response to the discussion between William W. Morgan and Annette Kolodny in the Summer 1976 issue of Critical Inquiry I would like to address the issue of separating judgments based on feminism as an ideology from purely aesthetic judgments. Peripherally this included the issue of "prescriptive criticism," so labeled by Cheri Register in Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory.1 In the same book, as Kolodny points out,2 I called for criticism that exists in the "prophetic mode." Kolodny indicates reservations (...) about both concepts without fully exploring the issue. I would like to explain my statement here and to explore further the issue of feminism and aesthetics. When I called for criticism in the prophetic mode, I did not intend to promote an idea of the critic as ideological prophet. Rather, as I explain in the context from which the term is taken,3 I am speaking of the engaged scholar who is concerned to influence the future by her/his work today. S/he chooses her/his work with an eye to encourage political and social changes. Obviously, for a feminist this translates into a concern for a future in which women will be free from many of the restrictions that have held them down in the past. Much feminist criticism is thus corrective criticism designed to redress the imbalance in current literary curricula, and more generally to reintroduce "the feminine" into the public culture. · 1. Cheri Register, "American Feminist Literary Criticism: A Bibliographical Introduction," Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory, ed. Josephine Donovan pp. 11-24.· 2. Annette Kolodny, "The Feminist as Literary Critic," Critical Inquiry 2 : 828.· 3. Josephine Donovan, "Critical Re-Vision," Feminist Literary Criticism, p. 81, n. 2. Josephine Donovan, currently working on a literary biography of Sarah Orne Jewett, has written "Feminist Style Criticism," "Sexual Politics in the Short Stories of Sylvia Plath," and has edited Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory. Although the occasion for this response was the exchange between Annette Kolodny and William W. Morgan, the questions raised by Ms. Donovan have some bearing on other topics discussed in Critical Inquiry—e.g., the nature of accepted canons in the arts. In addition the question of how we may interpret literary works from the past that contain currently unacceptable representations of women has implications as well for how we respond to "objectionable" representations of ethnic and religious groups and even of social classes. The editors expect to see these issues explored further in the future. (shrink)

The informed consent process is a mandatory requirement for surgical procedures that enables patients to exercise autonomy and make informed decisions concerning their medical care, fully aware of the consequences. However, emerging evidence suggests inconsistent adherence to this requirement. This study investigated patients’ and next-of-kins perspectives and experiences of the informed consent process following the completion of a surgical procedure. Using a qualitative approach, patients and next-of-kins who had consented or offered proxy consent on behalf of a patient to undergo (...) surgical procedures at a teaching hospital’s surgical departments in Ghana were purposively recruited. We audio-recorded and transcribed 30 semi-structured interviews with 15 patients and 15 next-of-kins. Two members of the team conducted an independent thematic analysis of the data, guided by Braun and Clarke’s six-step approach. The data analysis generated four key themes related to the context, key elements, influencing factors, perceptions, and experiences of the informed consent process. The informed consent process took place in varied hospital settings, largely in the presence of next-of-kins and typically facilitated by a team of medical professionals, under private conditions where possible. Family opinion, doctors’ paternalism and trust in the doctor’s expertise seemed to be major factors that influenced the decision-making process. However, when conflicts emerged, the patient’s choice and best interest remained paramount in the final decision. The consent process often involved discussions regarding the medical condition, treatment options, and potential risks; participant experiences of these deliberations showed variability. Issues of time constraints, poor doctor-client communication, and language barriers often complicated the informed consent experience. Patient experiences of the informed consent process varied, which points to the importance of standardized guidelines and a more patient-centered approach. This approach should encourage continued collaboration and effective communication between medical professionals and patients/next-of-kins, while upholding the patient’s right to make an informed surgical decision. (shrink)

Was ist Musik? Diese musikphilosophische Fragestel-lung bildet den Ausgangspunkt von Josephine Geislers phänomenologischer Untersuchung, die einen wichtigen Beitrag zur anthropologischen Grundlagenforschung liefert. Geisler greift in diesem Zusammenhang nicht nur auf die Phänomenologie der Tonwahrnehmung Husserls zurück, sondern auch auf Helmuth Plessners ästhesiologische Schriften, die bisher kaum rezipiert wurden. Auch Günther Anders' musikphänomenologische Habilitationsschrift - noch nicht veröffentlicht und daher wenig bekannt - dient als theoretische Grundlage. Anhand dieser drei Autoren legt die Arbeit mit den Kategorien Zeitlichkeit, Leiblichkeit und Gestimmtheit (...) anthropologische Konstanten des Verhältnisses Mensch-Musik frei und verweist damit auf den normativen Eigensinn des besonderen Wahrnehmungsereignisses Musik. (shrink)

As you might guess, the words goodness, truth, and beauty are not of heavy poetic value today. Terms of concept may be stressed again someday, and maybe soon, but at the moment have gone out of poetry in favor of more concreteness, more imagery, more connotative suggestion, less effect of the naming and labeling virtues, which Ezra Pound and other twentieth-century leaders have told us not to use. But actually these terms of abstract concept were lessened in major usage in (...) poetry long before the twentieth century. They had flourished in a setting of kings and courts. The love poetry, the political poetry, the philosophic poetry not only dealt directly with truth and goodness but used them constantly for evaluative commentary of other subjects. People, as well as moral issues, were good; lovers, as well as propositions, were true . . . Love and honor, good and true, these were terms of value in which poetry worked so strongly that a large proportion of its reference was limited to these alone, and so thoroughly that there was not a poet in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who did not share in this emphasis. Josephine Miles is a poet, critic, and University Professor of English at Berkeley. Her works of criticism include The Vocabulary of Poetry, The Continuity of Poetic Language, Eras and Modes in English Poetry, Style and Proportion, and Poetry and Change. She is also the author of a number of books of poems, from Lines at Intersection to Poems 1930-60, Kinds of Affection , and To All Appearances. (shrink)

The world of experience, the Phenomenals, consists of elementless relations that defy definitions. Our phenomenal picture of the world thus emerges as a complex of 'relations as such'. In criticising the logicians' naive hope of building a purely logical representation of the world, Josephine Pasternak proposes a categorical approach to cognition that avoids the pitfalls of classical and modern logic. Like her brother Boris Pasternak, Josephine Pasternak draws up a philosophical and poetic vision of the world. "It is (...) a real philosophical thought" Dame Iris Murdoch writes in her preface, and continues "deep and stirring, and presented with authority and elegance. I am so glad that it will be published.". (shrink)

Since 1980, the number of twin births in the United States has increased 76 percent, and the number of triplets or higher‐order multiples has increased over 400 percent. These increases are due in part to increased maternal age, which is associated with spontaneous twinning. But the primary reason for these increases is that more and more people are undergoing fertility treatment. Despite an emerging (but not absolute) consensus in the medical literature that multiples, including twins, should be a far less (...) frequent outcome of fertility treatment, American clinicians currently practice fertility medicine in ways likely to result in twins and, occasionally, triplets—often, they tell us, at the request of their patients. At first blush, one might conclude that these practice patterns show that patients and their doctors have weighed the risks associated with twins against the benefits of swiftly completing their families and decided that the risks are worth taking. That is, their requests for twins must represent their free and informed choices. But there are reasons to be skeptical of this interpretation, including that the preferences of many patients seem to be very strongly shaped, if not sometimes completely constrained, by concerns about costs—costs that mainly result from the routine exclusion of in vitro fertilization from health insurance coverage. It is quite possible, we believe, that these cost concerns actually undermine the autonomy of fertility patients, pushing many of them to take risks with their health and the health of their hoped‐for future children. (shrink)

In recent years, we have been observing the phenomenon of an emerging scientific field: _digital transformation research_ (DTR). Due to the diversity and complexity of its object of research digital, transformation is not effectively researchable if confined to the boundaries of individual disciplines. In the light of Scientific/Intellectual Movement theory (Frickel and Gross 2005 ), we wonder how interdisciplinarity could and should be mobilized to further advance the development of the field of DTR. To answer this question, we (a) need (...) to understand how interdisciplinarity is conceived and (b) how it is considered in research practice by researchers in the emerging field. This is important, as scientists’ application of interdisciplinarity will highly influence an emerging field, shape its growth, consolidation as well as its academic establishment. We conducted six group discussions with 26 researchers from different disciplines and career levels (PhD students, postdocs, professors). The discussions were studied with a structuring qualitative content analysis. The results reflect the vagueness of the concept of interdisciplinarity. Interdisciplinarity is largely conceived as multidisciplinarity. Further, the interviewees mentioned more challenges than opportunities when it comes to interdisciplinary DTR. The present study widens the scientific understanding about how researchers of different career levels perceive, learn, and practice interdisciplinarity in DTR. It further provides valuable indications of how interdisciplinary research in an emerging field can be profitably shaped for practice. (shrink)

As new parents quickly learn, parenting always involves choosing your battles. Ideally, parents have the freedom to make those moral choices without the prejudice of an unreasonable or premature inflicted ought. Resolving the predictive uncertainties of genomic information is the professional responsibility of the biomedical community, just as clarifying the impact of global warming or assessing the risks of rising multidrug resistance is the responsibility of similar specialists. Until sequencing can give parents clear and meaningful information that they can use (...) to protect their children without also burdening parents with uncertain findings about which little if anything can be done, it makes no sense to impute an obligation for them to seek it out. To do so not only increases the mental and emotional burden on parents but also distorts the scope of parental responsibility in ways that undermine parents’ capacity to play their immediate role as the nurturers of a new life. (shrink)

When the use of CRIsPR-Cas9 to edit DNA was first reported in 2012, it was quickly heralded by scientists, policymakers, and journalists as a transformative technology. CRISPR-Cas9 provides the means to change DNA in ways that either were not generally possible using previous genetic technologies or that were orders of magnitude more laborious or inefficient to undertake. CRISPR's possible applications were readily apparent and seemingly endless, from supercharging laboratory research to modifying insects that transmit disease to eliminating genetic conditions. By (...) 2015, Wired magazine was calling the discovery "The Genesis Engine."Against a backdrop of disappointing results from gene transfer... (shrink)

Research involving vulnerable populations of people living with HIV (PLWH), such as children, adolescents, older adults, pregnant and lactating women, hospitalized patients, and key populations, presents complex bioethical challenges. We assessed bioethics training needs for trainees engaged in HIV research from the School of Medicine (SoM) of Makerere University and the Infectious Disease Institute (IDI) to inform the development of a comprehensive bioethics training program for trainees. A cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted from March to May 2024 using an online (...) structured questionnaire distributed via Google Forms. Participants included former and current trainees who have conducted research with PLWH within the past five years. Data collected included self-rated bioethics knowledge, frequency of encountering bioethical challenges, confidence in addressing challenges across vulnerable populations, and preferred training topics and delivery formats. Descriptive data analysis was performed using STATA Version 17. We attained a response rate of 67.5% (108/160). While 75.9% reported formal bioethics training, 58.3% rated their knowledge moderate. Frequently encountered challenges included maintaining confidentiality and privacy (61.1%), conducting informed consent processes (56.1%), applying bioethical principles, engaging with communities (54.6%), and selecting appropriate research participants (51.4%). Confidence in addressing bioethical challenges was notably lower for vulnerable populations than for general HIV research. Confidence of the trainees was higher in research involving older PLWH and pregnant/lactating women, moderate with children/adolescents and hospitalized individuals, and very low with key populations. Trainees expressed limited confidence in addressing cultural sensitivity, stigma, coercion, community engagement, harm monitoring, and compensation for research-related harm across all the populations. Top training priorities included ethical issues with research involving vulnerable populations (97.2%), reporting ethical concerns (94.4%), community engagement (93.6%), research on stored samples/data (94.5%), and stigma/discrimination (92.6%). Preferred formats were in-person workshops, interactive case-based scenarios, and online courses. Trainees faced diverse bioethical challenges and exhibited varying confidence levels in addressing these issues across different vulnerable populations. These findings underscore the need for targeted, context-specific bioethics training tailored to conducting research with vulnerable PLWH. This study has informed the development of a comprehensive training program to improve the ethical conduct of HIV research in Uganda. Not applicable. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Marc Lange’s argument for the claim that inductive proofs can never be explanatory. I show that several of the assumptions on which Lange’s argument relies are problematic, and I argue that there are cases of explanatory inductive proof, providing a number of examples to back up my claim. I finish with a positive proposal on which the examples I put forward can be accounted for by Lange’s own account of mathematical explanation.

It has long been discussed if life exists outside the Earth. We discuss the environmental conditions thought to be necessary to support life; calculations of the number of possible habitable planets; ongoing research on the environment of Mars, and efforts to search for life outside the Solar system. The idea of sending humans to Mars poses enormous challenges but appears possible to be achieved during the twenty-first century.

Background Medicine has long been understood as both a scientific discipline and a moral and relational practice. Yet within contemporary hospital environments shaped by efficiency demands, digital infrastructures, and performance metrics, the promotion of a patient’s personhood cannot be assumed to remain visible or structurally supported. Clinical supervision represents a central site in which professional values are embodied and transferred to the future generation of physicians, yet little is known about how supervisors themselves experience sustaining their own commitments to personhood (...) within this context. Methods This study explores how clinical supervisors experience fostering and sustaining the promotion of patient personhood while supervising medical students, interns, and residents in two Swedish university hospitals. Seventeen physicians participated in in-depth semi-structured interviews. Data analysis employed a critical phenomenological approach, enabling examination of both lived experiences and the institutional conditions shaping these. Findings Two interrelated dimensions were identified. First, supervisors described actively rendering patient personhood visible and legitimate within clinical reasoning, translating relational attentiveness into recognised forms of professional competence, modelling humility within hierarchical settings, and protecting core humanistic values within organisational cultures. Second, they described sustaining personhood in their own work as ongoing moral work requiring development over time, reminders in practice, inspiration through interaction, and deliberate inner resolve. Promoting personhood, thus, emerged as reciprocal and cumulative, where through teaching, supervisors simultaneously renewed and reshaped their own ethical commitments. Conclusions The findings suggest that patient personhood is not passively inherited within contemporary clinical environments but actively cultivated through supervisory and relational practice. By situating supervisors’ experiences within organisational and cultural structures, the study contributes a theoretically grounded account of how medicine’s dual character as both a technocratic and a humanistic practice is negotiated in everyday work. Ultimately, sustaining patient personhood, and promoting it in the future generation of physicians depends not only on supervisors’ individual commitment but also on institutional conditions that either enable or constrain its visibility. (shrink)

Volume 41, Issue 1, January-March 2026, Page 62-63.

Research about explanation processes is gaining relevance because of the increased popularity of artificial systems required to explain their function or outcome. Following an interactive approach, not only explainers, but also explainees contribute to successful interactions. However, little is known about how explainees actively guide explanation processes and how their involvement relates to learning. We explored the occurrence and type of explainees’ questions in 20 adult — adult explanation dialogues about unknown present and absent objects. Crucially, we related the question (...) types to the explainees’ subsequent recall of the unknown object labels. We found that explainees asked different types of questions, especially about the object’s label and facts. Questions about the object’s function were asked more when objects were present. In addition, requests for labelling were linked to better recall. The results contribute to designing explainable AI that aims to provide relevant and adaptive explanations and to further experimental approaches to study explanations. (shrink)

The study explores the influence of relative pronouns WHO or THAT on attributions of humanness across four categories of entities (unnamed nonhuman animals, named animals, machines, and people). Eighty-three university students performed an attribution task where they saw a priming phrase containing one category item with either WHO or THAT (e.g., deer who are …) and then two trait attribute items (Uniquely Human UH/human Nature HN word pairs; e.g., distant-nervous), from which they selected the trait attribute most meaningfully suited to (...) the phrase. Data were analyzed with a repeated measures 2 (humanness: HN traits, UH traits) × 2 (pronoun: WHO, THAT) × 4 (category: unnamed animals, named animals, machines, people) ANOVA. Participants responded relatively faster to HN trait attributes than to UH traits, and responded faster to named animals than to all other entities. Faster responses also ensued for people-WHO pairings than people-THAT pairings, and vice versa for named animals. (shrink)

The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) can, on the one hand, be considered vital for the global governance process—in the sense of urging international cooperation on the ethical, developmental, and standards aspects of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS). On the other hand, the CCW may also embody a global trend that does not augur well for international solidarity, namely the lack of credible and comprehensive collaboration to advance global objectives of peace and security. In 2022, a majority of (...) the 125 nations that belong to the CCW requested limits on a specific type of lethal autonomous weapons: “killer robots.” Yet, most of the major global powers—namely the United States, Russia, and China—opposed not only a ban on LAWS but also on any restrictions on the development of these weapons, not least because the United States, Russia, and China are actively developing this weapons technology. While there is currently much focus on the technological evolution of LAWS, less has been written about how ethical values can exert influence on a growing global consciousness around factors such as power, technology, human judgment, accountability, autonomy, dehumanization, and the use of force. This introduction lays the groundwork for dealing with these issues. It does so by showing that all these factors warrant a pluralist approach to the global governance of LAWS, based on multiple grounds, including the military, tech, law, and distinctive theoretical-ethical orientations; the rationale being to combine this expertise into a collection for publication. Reflecting the contributing authors’ firsthand experiences of the ethics surrounding the management of LAWS to address decisive and critical questions at an expert level, it provides a framing for the collection, showing that the use of international legal mechanisms like the CCW are crucial to considering both the potential and the limits of LAWS, as well as what it can contribute to areas such as international law, human rights, and national security. (shrink)