Background A majority of AI ethics frameworks focus on high-level principles but lack actionable guidance. Effectively implementing AI in projects requires the operationalization of AI ethics, translating principles into requirements. This paper proposes a novel method for operationalizing AI ethics through co-creation workshops. Methods The study adopted a qualitative, participatory research approach. Stakeholders from the VALIDATE project, a Horizon Europe action developing an AI-based clinical decision support system for stroke patient stratification, were divided into five diverse teams. The workshops aimed (...) to: (i) determine the low-level ethical requirements stakeholders considered essential for the project, and (ii) identify requirements not included in the EU Trustworthy AI Guidelines. The methodology included storytelling, content analysis to identify ethical issues and dilemmas, eliciting quantifiable requirements using a standardized planning language (Planguage), and a procedural feedback process. Results The workshops identified explainability, privacy, model robustness, model validity, epistemic authority, fairness, and transparency as key ethical issues. Participants drafted low-level requirements related to privacy, explainability, transparency, and validity. Six issues (time sensitivity, validity, prevention of harm to patients, patient-inclusive care, quality of life, and lawsuit prevention) could not be mapped to the EU Guidelines. Participants did not draft requirements in relation to the latter issues. Challenges included the diverse interpretations of concepts, such as validity. Participants generally had favorable impressions of the workshops, although they found formulating requirements in Planguage format more challenging than storytelling and topic prioritization. Conclusions The workshops elicited concrete, quantifiable, and actionable requirements, which were useful in developing a project-specific ethical framework. The proposed methodology is resource-efficient and requires fewer AI ethics experts than existing methods while remaining compatible with established guidelines. Procedural feedback results suggest that participants and facilitators would benefit from additional training in the use of Planguage. Potential challenges included the impact of power dynamics among participants on discussions, blind spots due to overlooked issues, and the absence of stroke patients among the participants. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

O foco do texto é indicar que a “fase heideggeriana” de Binswanger insere elementos da antropologia scheleriana, de modo que a gênese da daseinsanálise contém elementos centrais do pensamento de Scheler – em específico a importância da tonalidade do amor e da transcendência humana. A proposta do texto é apontar que a “fase heideggeriana” de Binswanger seria uma “fase heideggeriano-scheleriana”, de acordo com o que será exposto ao longo do trabalho. Isto posto, o presente texto também busca fornecer uma reinterpretação (...) do momento de gênese da daseinsanálise e do seu vínculo com a tonalidade do amor e com o eterno transcender humano. O final do presente texto indica o rico leque de possibilidades que uma tematização da tonalidade do amor abre: longe das recaídas em posicionamentos sentimentalistas e estéreis, a meditação acerca de tal tonalidade tem vínculo com a urgência fática do real, bem como com o lugar da daseinsanálise nela. (shrink)

Background Voluntary post-mortem donation to science (PDS) is the most appropriate source for body dissection in medical education and training, and highly useful for biomedical research. In Mexico, unclaimed bodies are no longer a legal source, but PDS is legally possible, although scarcely facilitated, and mostly ignored by the general population. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the attitude and willingness for PDS and to identify a sociodemographic profile of people with willingness toward PDS. Methods A validated on-line survey was distributed (...) by the convenience method via the social networks of a Catholicism-inspired, private university in northern Mexico. Frequency analyses of all variables and coded free comments were complemented with association studies. Results Although the responder cohort (n = 143) was too small and biased to be representative of the university community (n = 13,500), willingness to post-mortem organ donation was 90.7% and to PDS 70.7%. In this cohort, PDS willingness had the strongest association with mature age (> 40 years old; P, 0.0008). Among young adults, willingness to PDS was the lowest among volunteers from technical and business schools and the highest among those from the social sciences (P, 0.009). Respondents from the social sciences were also the most consistent between attitude and behavior with respect to organ donation. A free comment option revealed respondents were interested in the unusual taboo topic. Conclusions A small, but sufficiently large proportion expressed willingness toward PDS. In our university cohort, which was biased in higher education and altruism, mature age and social interest were associated with PDS willingness. (shrink)

An additional compartment of vaccinated individuals is considered in a SIS stochastic epidemic model with infection reintroduction. The quantification of the spread of the disease is modeled by a continuous time Markov chain. A well-known measure of the initial transmission potential is the basic reproduction number $$R_0$$, which determines the herd immunity threshold or the critical proportion of immune individuals required to stop the spread of a disease when a vaccine offers a complete protection. Due to repeated contacts between the (...) typical infective and previously infected individuals, $$R_0$$ overestimates the average number of secondary infections and leads to, perhaps unnecessary, high immunization coverage. Assuming that the vaccine is imperfect, alternative measures to $$R_0$$ are defined in order to study the influence of the initial coverage and vaccine efficacy on the transmission of the epidemic. (shrink)

We present here excerpts from seminars, interviews, and conversations with Stanley Cavell during the time of his visit to Caracas in 1998, collectively known as the ‘Caracas Seminar’. This material comprises Cavell’s responses to questions raised at the seminar, extracts from an interview with Maria Elena Ramos and Victor Krebs, and a subsequent letter they received from Cavell in response to further questions. Krebs’ introduction to the collection sets the scene for Cavell’s visit and sketches some reasons for the (...) relevance of Cavell’s philosophy to Latin America and the nature of its reception there. (shrink)

Suppose you utter the sentence “I am a professional philosopher”. Can I –or anybody else – literally express the same thought you thereby expressed? An affirmative answer implies a potential split between the referent of the thought you expressed and its thinker, as well as the possibility of expressing that thought without using the first person pronoun. Here I attempt to clarify the basic features of a reference rule individuating such an intersubjectively shareable type of thought, i.e. the self type. (...) Doing so requires meeting Bermúdez’s (2019) challenge, namely, the challenge of determining (a) in virtue of what is an individual the referent but not necessarily the thinker of the thought in such cases, and (b) what makes it the case that a sentence is used to express a self type of thought, as opposed to a thought of another type. I advance an elucidation that is entirely congenial to Bermúdez’s own account in terms of location abilities. Contrary to what he suggests, however, the analysis plausibly remains one at the level of the contextually constrained type (or instantiable type), and leads to a revision – if not a straightforward rejection – of Frege’s Criterion for the individuation of thought. (shrink)

Many scholars are ready to accept that first person thought involves a special way w such that, for any thinker x, only x can access the first person way w of thinking about x. Standard articulations of this Frege-inspired view involve a rejection of the strict shareability of first person thought. I argue that this rejection eventually forces us to renounce an intuitively plausible characterisation of communication, and specifically, disagreement. This result invites us to explore alternative articulations which, still within (...) an overall Fregean framework, may better explain how first person thoughts reach out into a public, shareable dimension. Here I shape this possibility in terms of perspectives, i.e. ways of thinking that do not individuate concepts or thoughts. Perspectives, I submit, can serve to unproblematically accommodate basic disagreement in indexical cases and to outline the dynamic character of first person thought. (shrink)

This book examines the thought of scholasticism’s Doctor eximius in its entirety: both philosophically and theologically. Many of the most distinctive features of Suárez’s thought are identified and evaluated in light of his immediate historical context. What emerges from the studies contained in this volume is the picture of a thinker who is profoundly steeped in the riches of divergent schools of thought and yet who manages to find his own unique voice to add to the chorus of scholasticism.

There is an unresolved conflict concerning the normative nature of desire. Some authors take rational desire to differ from rational belief in being a normatively unconstrained attitude. Others insist that rational desire seems plausibly subject to several consistency norms. This article argues that the correct analysis of this conflict of conative normativity leads us to acknowledge intrinsic and extrinsic reasons to desire. If sound, this point helps us to unveil a fundamental aspect of desire, namely, that we cannot desire at (...) will. Unlike belief, however, desire can unproblematically accommodate a notion of instrumental attitude. (shrink)

The present essay considers a controversy that erupted over Christopher West’s claim that anal copulation is a morally permissible form of foreplay between spouses so long as the marital act culminates within the wife’s vagina. His thinking is that, so long as the possibility of begetting new life is not impeded, any act of sexual stimulation between spouses is morally licit. West was both criticized and defended by a number of prominent Catholic thinkers for his claim. What few appreciate, however, (...) is that this matter was already thoroughly examined by many scholastic moral theologians and even by St. Alphonsus Liguori. In this essay, I consider some important scholastic authors’ thinking on this topic in order to shed more light on the contemporary debate. (shrink)

The present essay considers the metaphysical thought of the late scholastic Jesuit Antonio Pérez (1599–1649). In particular, attention is given to his argument for God’s existence which is presented along the lines of an ontological argument broadly construed. Pérez’s formulation of the argument is unique in that it is framed in such a way that it denies that God is a chimera. If God is not a chimera, then God is not nothing, which is to say God is something. To (...) speak of chimeras and impossible objects is to move beyond the realm of real being. In fact, Pérez thinks that real being itself can be defined by a larger genus of being, namely, intentional being. Indeed, as he says, intentional being is communior than even real being itself. I suggest, then, that what functions as the backdrop of Pérez’s argument is the notion of supertranscendentality. Though he does not use the term as such, the notion of supertranscendentality is now developed in such a way that it yields a proof for God’s existence. (shrink)

This paper represents an attempt to understand how could boundaries of values be tentatively outlined, described and addressed. Universal natural categories are observed, experienced and interpreted in the second reality of human mediated understanding. These circumstances are introduced in the discussion about various boundaries delimiting real world domains imbued with values that have been influencing the behavior and giving meaning to human existence throughout our history. The author ranks some spatial and temporal boundaries to indicate examples of their correlation with (...) somatic and spiritual manifestations of what is understood as viable human values. (shrink)

This article examines Richard Lynch’s metaphysics and finds that he ultimately resolves his account of being in terms of essens—that which denotes the essential structure that a being (ens) has apart from existence. For Lynch, unlike many of his Jesuit contemporaries, existence is accidental to being. Yet, even if essens is distinct from existence, it is not altogether lacking being, but is accorded a certain kind of “essential being,” which is identified with the possible. Lynch thus seems to re-appropriate an (...) essentialist metaphysics that has antecedents in Avicenna and Henry of Ghent’s notion of esse essentiae. More proximate to Lynch is the Jesuit thinker Francesco Albertini, who takes Henry’s metaphysics and conveys it to Baroque Scholasticism. Lynch continues down that metaphysical path which, as we shall see, generated fierce controversy among late seventeenth-century Scholastics regarding the nature of creaturely possibility. (shrink)

The following essay considers Luis de Losada’s thinking with respect to the scholastic dispute between univocity and analogy. Noteworthy is the fact that the conclusions he reaches are at odds with those of Francisco Suarez, whom the younger Jesuit otherwise regards with unmitigated filial devotion. Though Losada differs from his master regarding analogy, the position he puts forth capitalizes upon a distinction between a logico-semantic perspective and a metaphysical perspective. The result is an irenic balance among all the schools (Thomistic, (...) Scotist, and Jesuit) regarding univocity and analogy. Nevertheless, Losada goes beyond the discussions dividing proponents of analogy and those of univocity when he inquires whether any kind of analogical community obtains between real being and beings of reason. Remarkably, he answers that there is a univocal community, thereby embracing the scholastic notion of supertranscendentality. (shrink)

In this article, we analyze the patterns of culture of honor within Spanish families. Each member of 271 Spanish four-member families completed a questionnaire containing scales for the culture of honor and for sociodemographic variables. The results show that intra-family similarities emerge. However, path analyses show that the gender and birth order of the child are relevant in predicting this similarity. In particular, the first-born child converges with their mother to a higher extent than the father regardless of their gender. (...) However, for the second-born child both parents instill their ideas about culture of honor in a gender congruent way. Furthermore, there are higher similarities within younger families, indicating a stronger influence from parents to children. Results are discussed in view of social role and gender social learning theories. (shrink)

Boston Against Drugs is an example of corporate involvement in a social issue wherein sixteen corporations each works with a neighborhood to prevent addiction in its citizens. Firms are motivated to participate mainly from corporate social responsiveness concerns - their need for a healthy environment in which to conduct business. The companies collaborate with each other and with government and many groups in their neighborhoods because the drug problem is complex and solutions require contributions from many sectors. Thus responsibility is (...) born by many actors, relating to each other and assuming roles congruent with their resources. (shrink)

This article explores Bonaventure’s metaphysical account of creation, which holds that at the heart of every creature is a sort of metaphysical vanity. That vanity stems from the exigencies of a creation metaphysics in which the creator-God draws every creature out of nothingness into being. But, while God’s creative act sustains the creature in being, the nothingness from which God preserves creation, on Bonaventure’s view, always remains a feature of creation’s metaphysical constitution. In short, for the Seraphic Doctor, because nothingness (...) always resides in creation, creation itself is fundamentally vain. Since vanity is a central theme in the book of Ecclesiastes, concerning which Bonaventure has left us a commentary, I argue that the metaphysical vision he employs to illuminate the nature of vanity as it pertains to creation—both within his biblical commentary and beyond—can be properly described as a “metaphysic of Ecclesiastes.”. (shrink)

Controlled human infection (CHI) trials deliberately expose healthy participants to a pathogen. Although they share design features with phase I clinical trials, CHI trials may differ in participant burden and administrative burden. Literature on CHI participant motivations and trial experience compared to phase I participants is limited. We conducted a survey comparing motivation, decision-making, and ethical views among CHI and phase I participants, using a previously validated questionnaire. Descriptive and comparative analyses assessed motivational drivers and ethical attitudes. In total, 70 (...) CHI and 98 phase I participants were included. Distribution of motivation was different for CHI compared to phase I participants, with reimbursement being a less prominent motivator, and more altruistic factors reported. CHI participants experienced more severe symptoms and reported symptoms as an important factor in the decision to participate. Views on key ethical principles such as reimbursement and burden of participation were similar between participant groups. Overall, findings suggest CHI participants experienced more symptoms than phase I participants, but that CHI participation was a well-informed decision, with symptom burden taken into account. This informs future CHI trial design and warrants further research on symptoms and participant experience in CHI trials. (shrink)

A basic introduction to the philosophies and practices of Buddhism as well as ways to incorporate them into daily life.

Attachment -- Awake -- Awareness -- Actions -- Breath -- Buddha -- Chakras -- Change -- Compassion -- Control -- Conversion -- Criticism -- Divinity -- Emotions -- Empathy -- Forgiveness -- Gatha -- Generosity -- Generosity (part 2) -- Happiness -- Humility -- Identifying -- Illusions -- Judging -- Karma -- Karma (part 2) -- Kindness -- Lessons -- Loving-kindness -- Meditation -- Mind -- Namaste -- Nonattachment -- Nonharming -- Nonharming (part 2) -- Openness -- Possessions -- Practice (...) -- Quest -- Reincarnation -- Religion -- Requiring more -- Reverence -- Scripture -- Seeing -- Self -- Spirituality -- Suffering -- Teachers -- Thoughts -- Tonglen -- Transcending -- Treasure -- Tumo -- Understanding -- Virtues -- Worlds -- The mathematic symbol for the unknown -- Xenophilia -- Yoga -- Yoga (part 2) -- Yuga -- Zen. (shrink)

This essay explores Francisco Suárez’s account of the nature of human free will. To that end, Suárez’s engagement with John Calvin is considered so as to place the Jesuit’s account into greater relief. The conclusion of this study will reveal that, for Suárez, the human will’s freedom of self–determination is both caused by God and consists in its own indifference regarding the power to act and the power not to act.

A student of Étienne Gilson and Joseph Owens, John P. Doyle taught medieval and Scholastic philosophy at Saint Louis University for forty years. Of continuing interest to Doyle has been the thought of Francisco Suárez, S.J. On this topic Doyle has published over a dozen articles and four English translations of portions of Suárez's key works. This volume celebrates the life and career of one of those rare kinds of scholars who has mastered an entire field of inquiry and thought.

This paper explores the thinking of some Salamancan theologians regarding the notion of pure nature. In particular, I address Suárez’s thinking on this subject and locate it within the context of the debate over whether human beings have a desire for the beatific vision. Insofar as a number of Thomists and Suárez think that there is no natural desire for a supernatural end, human beings are, by nature, left only with a desire for natural beatitude. The theoretical possibility of a (...) human nature created without any order to a supernatural end and also falling outside the economy of grace becomes a subject of speculation that serves to illuminate something about created nature itself. (shrink)

as much new research has shown,1 the influence that Albert the Great had upon succeeding generations of Dominican thinkers cannot be overestimated, and is directly linked not only to the relatively better known synthesis of Neoplatonic and Aristotelian thought found in Thomas Aquinas,2 but also to the theological mysticism of the German Dominican tradition, which includes Ulrich of Strasburg, Dietrich of Freiberg, Meister Eckhart, and Berthold of Moosburg.3 Among these latter Dominicans, Ulrich of Strasburg is often regarded as Albert’s most (...) faithful disciple4—even more so than Aquinas, one could argue5—who helped initiate what Alain de Libera calls “Rhenish”... (shrink)

Alcohol use disorder is a burden to society creating social and health problems. Detection of AUD and its effects on the brain are difficult to assess. This problem is enhanced by the comorbid use of other substances such as nicotine that has been present in previous studies. Recent machine learning algorithms have raised the attention of researchers as a useful tool in studying and detecting AUD. This work uses AUD and controls samples free of any other substance use to assess (...) the performance of a set of commonly used machine learning classifiers detecting AUD from resting state functional network connectivity derived from independent component analysis. The cohort used included 51 alcohol dependent subjects and 51 control subjects. Despite alcohol, none of the 102 subjects reported use of nicotine, cannabis or any other dependence or habit formation substance. Classification features consisted of whole brain rsFNC estimates undergoing a feature selection process using a random forest approach. Features were then fed to 10 different machine learning classifiers to be evaluated based on their classification performance. A neural network classifier showed the highest performance with an area under the curve of 0.79. Other good performers with similar AUC scores were logistic regression, nearest neighbor, and support vector machine classifiers. The worst results were obtained with Gaussian process and quadratic discriminant analysis. The feature selection outcome pointed to functional connections between visual, sensorimotor, executive control, reward, and salience networks as the most relevant for classification. We conclude that AUD can be identified using machine learning classifiers in the absence of nicotine comorbidity. (shrink)