Lantiana, Boudesseulab, and Covac conducted two investigations to examine the moral acceptability of love drugs (Lantiana, Boudesseulab, and Covac 2024). In particular, their studies were designed...

In this short commentary on Fronda et al. (2024), we discuss technical and philosophical concerns. Our primary concern lies in analyses at frontal electrode sites to support its main conclusion, ye...

Neuroscientific claims have a significant impact on traditional philosophy. This essay, focusing on the field of moral neuroscience, discusses how and why philosophy can contribute to neuroscientific progress. First, viewing the interactions between moral neuroscience and moral philosophy, it becomes clear that moral philosophy can and does contribute to moral neuroscience in two ways: as explanandum and as explanans. Next, it is shown that moral philosophy is well suited to contribute to moral neuroscience in both of these two ways in (...) the context of the problem of ecological validity. Philosophy can play the role of an agent for ecological validity, since traditional philosophy shapes and reflects part of our social reality. Finally, based on these arguments, I tentatively sketch how a Kantian account of moral incentive can play this role. (shrink)

Scientific progress in recent neurofeedback research may bring about a new type of moral neuroenhancement, namely, neurofeedback-based moral enhancement; however, this has yet to be examined thoroughly. This paper presents an ethical analysis of the possibility of neurofeedback-based moral enhancement and demonstrates that this type of moral enhancement sheds new light on the moral enhancement debate. First, I survey this debate and extract the typical structural flow of its arguments. Second, by applying structure to the case of neurofeedback-based moral enhancement, (...) I examine the ethical, legal, and social issues to show that this technique is unique and traditionalist, which makes it compatible with almost all our conservative notions, so that it, accordingly, can be seen as an ethically acceptable option. Third, by rejecting the premise in the moral enhancement debate that bio/neuro-enhancement has its unique ELSI that traditional methods would never create, I demonstrate that, by virtue of its traditional or conservative features, neurofeedback-based moral enhancement can be incorporated into the traditional moral education network. Finally, I conclude that, being a part of the traditional moral education network, neurofeedback-based moral enhancement can be a unique and ethically acceptable option of moral neuroenhancement. (shrink)

Some skeptics question the very possibility of moral bioenhancement by arguing that if we lack a widely acceptable notion of morality, we will not be able to accept the use of a biotechnological technique as a tool for moral bioenhancement. I will examine this skepticism and argue that the assessment of moral bioenhancement does not require such a notion of morality. In particular, I will demonstrate that this skepticism can be neutralized in the case of recent neurofeedback techniques. This goal (...) will be accomplished in four steps. First, I will draw an outline of the skepticism against the possibility of moral bioenhancement and point out that a long-lasting dispute among moral philosophers nourishes this skepticism. Second, I will survey recent neurofeedback techniques and outline their three features: the variety of the target human faculties, such as emotion, cognition, and behavior; the flexibility or personalizability of the target brain state; and the nonclinical application of neurofeedback techniques. Third, I will argue that, by virtue of these three unique features, neurofeedback techniques can be a tool for moral bioenhancement without adopting any specific notion of morality. Fourth, I will examine the advantages and threats that neurofeedback-based moral enhancement may have. Finally, I will conclude that neurofeedback-based moral enhancement can become a new and promising tool for moral bioenhancement and requires further ethical investigations on its unique features. (shrink)

This short article is based on my special lecture entitled "Aristotle and the Philosophy of Education" at Tamagawa University Research Institute in Tokyo on September 19, 2015, through a recording of the spoken language transcribed in written form with some corrections. The lecture delivered on that day consists of two parts: referring to historical research and a statistical survey, the first half focuses on uncovering the fact that the philosophy of education has been slighted both in Japanese and Western academia (...) and that this fact is valid for both Aristotle's and contemporary studies on the philosophy of education; the second half endeavors to describe two possible research projects - namely, a classical-philosophical and interpretative study of Aristotle's philosophy of education and a contemporary-philosophical and Aristotelian study of the philosophy education. Some of these topics have been published but others have not. This short article concerns the first half of the lecture and measures the gap between philosophy and the philosophy of education in Japan through a statistical survey of the largest competitive research funding database in Japan: KAKEN. (shrink)

Recent neuroscience studies have reported that neurofeedback training with the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging enables the regulation of an individual’s cognitive, emotion-related, and behavioral states through a real-time representation of her brain activities. Since this technique has been applied not only to clinical research to, for example, mitigate mental or psychiatric symptoms but also to non-clinical research to, for example, change the cognition or preferences of a so-called healthy participant, neurofeedback-based cognitive and/or moral enhancements may be realized in (...) the future. However, neurofeedback-based human enhancement is not the only issue that requires neuroethical consideration. I examine why and to what extent the dual application of neurofeedback technique will blur the lines between the mental, the social, and the moral, threatening some social norms, such as individual freedom and diversity. First, I consider the link between the mental and the social in psychiatry. Examining the definition of “mental disorder” provided by the American Psychiatric Association, I show that the mental is partly defined through social performance. Second, I make explicit the link between the social and the moral and argue that moral evaluation of an activity is gently but positively correlated with its social evaluation. Third, I demonstrate the links between the mental, the social, and the moral. In spite of a great deal of effort to distinguish these notions, the possibility of the dual application of this technique blurs the lines between them. Fourth, I examine whether such blurred lines signal sociocultural evolution or dystopia and argue that it can be understood as a beginning of the second advent of ethical virtue. I conclude that further cautious consideration of neuroethics is required because the establishment of this technique may have unique influences on our society. (shrink)

Human space exploration requires massive budgets every fiscal year. Especially under severe financial constraint conditions, governments are forced to justify to society why spending so much tax revenue for human space exploration is worth the cost. The value of human space exploration might be estimated in many ways, but its social significance and cost-effectiveness are two key ways to gauge that worth. Since these measures should be applied country by country because sociopolitical conditions differ in each country and must be (...) taken into consideration, the study on the social significance of human space exploration must take the coloration of a case-study. This paper, focusing on the case of Japan with surveying Japanese literary and national documents as well as taking its sociopolitical conditions into account, examines the social significance of human space exploration. -/- First, we give an overview of the circumstances surrounding Japan's human space exploration program. Derived from the statements of such relevant parties as scholars, journalists, policy makers, and astronauts, this overview indicates that the main concerns about human space exploration in Japan are its social significance and cost-effectiveness (Section 1). Next, an overview of behavioral science—an essential field for human space exploration (referred to in this paper as space behavioral science) that provides support for astronauts—is presented from the perspective of stress research in isolated and confined environments (Section 2). We then give two examples of where such knowledge from space behavioral science research has been applied to terrestrial isolated and confined environments. One is JAXA’s support in 2009 for people who were vulnerable to infection by a new strain of flu and accordingly placed in an isolated and confined facility under the Infectious Disease Law and the Quarantine Law. The other is NASA's support in 2010 for Chilean mine workers who were trapped 700 m underground after a mining accident (Section 3). Based on these case studies, we illustrate the further social utility of such knowledge through a discussion of potential applications in other situations in Japan. Focusing on Japan for its geographical and social features in being an earthquake-prone archipelago and having the world's preeminent aging society, we show that refugees living in evacuation centers and people in an elderly-elderly homecare situation pose socially problematic situations specific to Japan. We then argue that space behavioral scientific knowledge can be applied to support people under these and other isolated and confined environments in various ways (Section 4). Finally, we demonstrate that such an application can be understood as an ethical contribution to Japanese society and that this contribution can be embedded in Japan's space policy (Section 5). We conclude that human space exploration can be a socially significant and cost-effective endeavor that is worthy of tax revenue expenditures because space behavioral science is highly likely to provide unique and useful knowledge to help address various social problems concerning terrestrial isolated and confined environments and support people in sufferings there. (shrink)

Considerando que a mulher que se encontra numa relação amorosa violenta, muitas vezes, persiste na manutenção dessa conjugalidade, este estudo objetivou investigar a experiência emocional de mulheres que vivenciam ou já vivenciaram uma relação conjugal violenta. Foram realizadas entrevistas individuais com seis mulheres beneficiárias de uma ONG dedicada à violência intrafamiliar. Cada entrevista foi mediada pela apresentação de uma narrativa interativa, a partir da qual a participante era convidada a inventar o desfecho. Após cada entrevista, a entrevistadora redigiu uma narrativa (...) transferencial sobre o encontro. O conjunto das narrativas transferenciais foi analisado psicanaliticamente à luz da Teoria dos Campos. Foi identificado o campo “Infeliz(es) para sempre”, em que as participantes manifestaram sofrimento radical frente à possibilidade de ficarem sozinhas, “preferindo” compartilhar a infelicidade com o cônjuge agressor a lidarem com o desamparo. Considera-se que tais achados podem auxiliar na intervenção dos profissionais que atuam junto a esse grupo social específico. (shrink)

This is the first volume to explore the modern reception and contemporary relevance of Aristotle and his philosophy in Japan, making it a valuable contribution to both global Aristotelian studies and studies of Japanese philosophical traditions. The study of Aristotle's philosophy in Japan is already over a hundred years old, yet the fruits of these efforts have mostly been published in Japanese and thus circulated almost entirely within Japan. Japanese scholarship, however, has not been conducted in isolation, but rather has (...) developed by keeping up with crucial contemporary trends in international scholarship. Aristotelian studies in Japan have therefore been neither particularly Japanese nor Far East Asian at first glance, which is one reason why they have not received much attention in Japanese philosophical literature. This volume addresses this gap, exploring the long historical struggle of Japanese people to read, understand and adopt Aristotle's philosophy in a philosophical tradition different from the West. It also examines the applicability of Aristotle's philosophy to contemporary issues and demonstrates the extent to which his philosophy remains relevant today, whether in the East or West. Aristotle in Japan: Reception, Interpretation and Application is of interest to students and scholars of Aristotelian philosophy, as well as those working on Japanese philosophy and classical reception. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed an explosion of the single-cell biochemical toolbox including chromosome conformation capture -based methods that provide novel insights into chromatin spatial organization in individual cells. The observations made with these techniques revealed that topologically associating domains emerge from cell population averages and do not exist as static structures in individual cells. Stochastic nature of the genome folding is likely to be biologically relevant and may reflect the ability of chromatin fibers to adopt a number of alternative configurations, (...) some of which could be transiently stabilized and serve regulatory purposes. Single-cell Hi-C approaches provide an opportunity to analyze chromatin folding in rare cell types such as stem cells, tumor progenitors, oocytes, and totipotent cells, contributing to a deeper understanding of basic mechanisms in development and disease. Here, we review key findings of single-cell Hi-C and discuss possible biological reasons and consequences of the inferred dynamic chromatin spatial organization. Single-cell Hi-C expands the molecular biology toolbox for studies of chromatin structure in individual cells. This technique allows one to analyze cell-to-cell variability in TAD and loop structure, and to capture chromosome conformation in rare cell types such as oocytes, totipotent cells, and tumor progenitors. (shrink)

La figure du chat fait son apparition dans la littérature japonaise au ixe siècle, mais son image évoluera de manière inattendue à l’époque médiévale. Des témoignages littéraires du xie et du xiie siècle, tels que les Notes de chevet de Sei Shônagon et Le Dit du Genji de Murasaki Shikibu, montraient clairement l’intérêt porté aux chats par les dames de cour. Pourtant, à partir du xiiie siècle, le félidé fera au contraire l’objet d’une forme de « diabolisation », et c’est (...) cette dimension plus inquiétante du chat que nous aimerions évoquer ici, à travers trois exemples tirés du Kokon chomon-jû, vaste recueil de contes et légendes. Cette œuvre méconnue en Europe est attribuée à Tachibana no Narisue et achevée en 1254. The figure of the cat made its appearance in Japanese literature in the 9th century, but its image evolved unexpectedly in medieval times. Literary evidence from the 11th and 12th centuries, such as the Bedside Notes by Sei Shônagon and The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu clearly showed the interest of court women in cats. However, from the 13th century, the feline became the object of a form of “demonization”, and it is this more disturbing dimension of the cat that we would like to describe here, through three examples taken from Kokon chomon-Jû, a vast collection of tales and legends. This work, unknown in Europe, has been attributed to Tachibana no Narisue and was completed in 1254. (shrink)

The ongoing controversy about sweatshop labor has mainly focused on economic, on the one, and ethical aspects, on the other side. While proponents of sweatshop labor have argued that low wages would attract foreign investments, would create new workplace opportunities and thus improve economic welfare in less-developed countries, opponents of sweatshop labor argue that such treatment of laborers would violate their dignity, and they prompt western buyers to stop this kind of exploitation. However, the arguments in this debate are not (...) new. As we will show, they can be traced back to the early “sweatshop” debate between social reformers and classical liberals in the 19th century. Interestingly, the 19th century debate identified sweatshop labor not as an industrial system but as a social phenomenon which becomes more likely when several social preconditions are fulfilled. It will be shown that the social preconditions identified in this debate determine working conditions till today and can be used to identify industries were sweatshop labor is more likely than in others—even in western countries. (shrink)

There are in iambic trimeters a number of examples of hiatus where is followed by forms of , mainly in Comedy but also in Tragedy. These are notable because they fall outside the usual range of hiatus in drama, which covers passages with interrogative and , invocatory exclamations such as , and interjections. The use seems to deserve closer attention.

Following a previous article published in Biological Theory, in this study we present a mathematical theory for a science of qualities as directly perceived by living organisms, and based on morphological patterns. We address a range of qualitative phenomena as observables of a psychological system seen as an impredicative system. The starting point of our study is the notion that perceptual phenomena are projections of underlying invariants, objects that remain unchanged when transformations of a certain class under consideration are applied. (...) The study develops with the observables, the entailed total order and metric, whence the algebra and the geometry of such a science, presenting a formal phenomenological model for phenomena that are not rigidly Euclidean. We show how non-Euclidean perception can have many useful Euclidean formalizations, as well as locally-homeomorphic-to-Euclidean-space models. The mathematical models we provide are tested on the basis of results from experimental psychology, in particular from the field of color, time, and space perception. (shrink)

Background: Only data of published study results are available to the scientific community for further use such as informing future research and synthesis of available evidence. If study results are reported selectively, reporting bias and distortion of summarised estimates of effect or harm of treatments can occur. The publication and citation of results of clinical research conducted in Germany was studied.Methods: The protocols of clinical research projects submitted to the research ethics committee of the University of Freiburg in 2000 were (...) analysed. Published full articles in several databases were searched and investigators contacted. Data on study and publication characteristics were extracted from protocols and corresponding publications.Results: 299 study protocols were included. The most frequent study design was randomised controlled trial , followed by uncontrolled studies , laboratory studies and non-randomised studies . 182 were multicentre studies including 97 international collaborations. 152 of 299 had commercial funding and 46 non-commercial funding. 109 of the 225 completed protocols corresponded to at least one full publication ; the publication rate was 48%. 168 of 210 identified publications were cited in articles indexed in the ISI Web of Science. The median was 11 citations per publication .Conclusions: Results of German clinical research projects conducted are largely underreported. Barriers to successful publication need to be identified and appropriate measures taken. Close monitoring of projects until publication and adequate support provided to investigators may help remedy the prevailing underreporting of research. (shrink)

On conduct of life and ethics of Islamic seminarians.

On the theory of Teilhard de Chardin, P.

The author has recently shown that a mathematical question regarding the fundamental constituents of hardrons cannot be resolved unless the classical axioms of nonfinite mathematics are revised in such a way as to produce a new theory of particle motion in continuous space-time. Under this new theory, the instantaneous position of a moving object has a magnitude that is increasing as the object's velocity. The purpose of this paper is to show that, quite apart from the question of Cantorian axiomatics, (...) the new theory of motion is more consistent with what physicists really believe than the traditional theory of motion. (shrink)