Lack of vaccine confidence can contribute to drops in vaccination coverage and subsequent outbreaks of diseases like measles and polio. Low trust in vaccines is attributed to a combination of factors, including lack of understanding, vaccine scares, flawed policies, social media and mistrust of vaccine manufacturers, scientists and decision-makers. The COVID-19 crisis has laid bare societies’ vulnerability to new pathogens and the critical role of vaccines in containing this and future pandemics. It has also put science at the forefront of (...) the response, with several governments relying on academics to help shape policy and communicate with the public. Against this backdrop, protecting public trust in scientists and scientific output is arguably more important than ever. Yet, conflicts of interest in biomedical research remain ubiquitous and harmful, and measures to curb them have had limited success. There is also evidence of bias in industry-sponsored vaccine studies and academics are voicing concerns about the risks of working in a CoI prevalent research area. Here, we set out to challenge established thinking with regard to vaccine confidence, by shifting the gaze from a deficit in public understanding towards probity in research relationships and suggesting an alternative and perhaps complementary strategy for addressing vaccine mistrust. We argue that a concerted effort needs to be made to revisit the norms that undergird contemporary vaccine research, coupled with a willingness of all stakeholders to reimagine those relationships with an emphasis on demonstrating trustworthiness and probity. (shrink)

How do we acquire a mental representation of our own face? Recently, synchronous, but not asynchronous, interpersonal multisensory stimulation between one’s own and another person’s face has been used to evoke changes in self-identification . We investigated the conscious experience of these changes with principal component analyses that revealed that while the conscious experience during synchronous IMS focused on resemblance and similarity with the other’s face, during asynchronous IMS it focused on multisensory stimulation. Analyses of the identified common factor structure (...) revealed significant quantitative differences between synchronous and asynchronous IMS on self-identification and perceived similarity with the other’s face. Experiment 2 revealed that participants with lower interoceptive sensitivity experienced stronger enfacement illusion. Overall, self-identification and body-ownership rely on similar basic mechanisms of multisensory integration, but the effects of multisensory input on their experience are qualitatively different, possibly underlying the face’s unique role as a marker of selfhood. (shrink)

This paper discusses an algorithmic tool introduced in the Basque Country (Spain) to assess the risk of intimate partner violence. The algorithm was introduced to address the lack of human experts by automatically calculating the level of violence based on psychometric features such as controlling or violent behaviour. Given that critical literature on risk assessment tools for domestic violence mainly focuses on English-speaking countries, this paper offers an algorithmic accountability analysis in a non-English speaking region. It investigates the algorithmic risks, (...) harms, and limitations associated with the Basque tool. We propose a transdisciplinary approach from a critical statistical and legal perspective. This approach unveils issues and limitations that could lead to unexpected consequences for individuals suffering from partner violence. Moreover, our analysis suggests that the algorithmic tool has a high error rate on severe cases, i.e., cases where the aggressor could murder his partner—5 out of 10 high-risk cases are misclassified as low risk—and that there is a lack of appropriate legal guidelines for judges, the end users of this tool. The paper concludes that this risk assessment tool needs to be urgently evaluated by independent and transdisciplinary experts to better mitigate algorithmic harms in the context of intimate partner violence. (shrink)

Body ecology by cosmosis refers to the experience of immersion, or the incorporation of the elements of nature through a body practice, leisure or sport. In this article, we propose comprehensive u...

Bioethical decision-making depends on presuppositions about the function and goal of bioethics. The authors in this issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy share the assumption that bioethics is about resolving cases, not about moral theory, and that the best method of bioethical decision-making is that which produces useful answers. Because we have no universally agreed upon background moral theory which can serve as the basis for bioethical decision-making, they try to move bioethics away from theory. For them, a (...) good method of bioethical decision-making is one which resolves cases in ways that are justifiable to the parties involved, not necessarily in ways that bring us ‘close’ to the right and the true. The authors consider how the move away from theory and toward actual cases is best accomplished. In particular, the debate in this issue is about specification, specified principlism, and casuistry. (shrink)

It would be ahistorical to ridicule vitalists. When one reads the writings of one of the leading vitalists like Driesch one is forced to agree with him that many of the basic problems of biology simply cannot be solved by a philosophy as that of Descartes, in which the organism is simply considered a machine…. The logic of the critique of the vitalists was impeccable.At the turn of the new millennium, concomitant with the development of the evo-devo and eco-devo disciplines (...) within developmental biology, critical appraisals of the reductionist stance of the molecular biology revolution became more numerous and noticeable. Several books and papers address the problems posed by this reductionist agenda and suggest... (shrink)

Questions concerning the role (or lack thereof) of God in morality are implicitly or explicitly important in Western philosophical ethics. I describe some of the different ways philosophers treat (or ignore) God and the foundations of morality more generally, and I highlight some of the implications of these approaches for bioethics. I demonstrate that the starting points we choose for morality set the course for fundamentally different accounts of what is permissible and impermissible, good and bad, and right and wrong.

Prominent tuberculosis (TB) actors are invoking solidarity to motivate and justify collective action to address TB, including through intensified development and implementation (D&I) of technologies such as drugs and diagnostics. We characterize the ethical challenges associated with D&I of new TB technologies by drawing on stakeholder perspectives from 23 key informant interviews and we articulate the ethical implications of solidarity for TB technology D&I. The fundamental ethical issue facing TB technological D&I is a failure within and beyond the TB community (...) to stand in solidarity with persons with TB in addressing the complex sociopolitical contexts of technological D&I. The failure in solidarity relates to two further ethical challenges raised by respondents: skewed power dynamics that hinder D&I and uncertainties around weighing risks and benefits associated with new technologies. Respondents identified advocacy and participatory research practices as necessary to address such challenges and to motivate sustained collective action to accelerate toward TB elimination. We present the first empirical examination of bioethical accounts of solidarity in public and global health. Our study suggests that solidarity allows us better to understand and address the ethical challenges that arrest the D&I of new TB technologies. Solidarity lends credence to policies and practices that address the relational nature of illness and health through collective action. (shrink)

In this study, we aim to disentangle pantomime from early signs in a newly-born sign language: Sao Tome and Principe Sign Language. Our results show that within 2 years of their first contact with one another, a community of 100 participants interacting everyday was able to build a shared language. The growth of linguistic systematicity, which included a decrease in use of pantomime, reduction of the amplitude of signs and an increase in articulation economy, showcases a learning, and social interaction (...) process that constitutes a continuum and not a cut-off system. The human cognitive system is endowed with mechanisms for symbolization that allow the process of arbitrariness to unfold and the expansion of linguistic complexity. Our study helps to clarify the role of pantomime in a new sign language and how this role might be linked with language itself, showing implications for language evolution research. (shrink)

We investigated the feasibility of a short intervention using the Method of Loci, a well-known visuospatial mnemonic, to improve episodic memory recall performance in schizophrenia. The MoL training protocol comprised encoding and recall of two lists of items, a training session and practice with MoL. Then, participants had the opportunity to put into practice the newly learned MoL and were instructed to encode and recall two new lists of items using. This approach was first validated with healthy individuals. Subsequently, five (...) individuals with schizophrenia completed the protocol. Improvement in healthy individuals was observed for the word list. No significant memory improvement was denoted in the schizophrenia group, possibly due to participants' difficulties using the method efficiently and due to fatigue. The MoL seems to require episodic memory, working memory monitoring and executive functions, making it suboptimal for a population with impairments in all those domains. Future research should examine the use of other strategies, better suited for individuals with cognitive impairments like those found in schizophrenia. (shrink)

Online education has become an essential component of education. Thus, several factors, such as the student’s learning strategy and motivation, generally contribute to their academic success. This study investigates the relationship between learning strategies, motivation, and online learning environment among 150 first-year college students. Employing correlational design, the statistical findings of the study reveal that the r coefficient of 0.59 indicates a moderate positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision (...) to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between learning strategies, motivation, and the online learning environment. (shrink)

U ovom članku raspravljamo o hipotezi proširenog jastva Andyja Clarka i Davida Chalmersa, a osobito o prigovoru prema kojemu proširenom jastvu nedostaje stabilnost i kontinuitet koji su potrebni da bismo ga smatrali identičnim kroz vrijeme. Pokušavamo pokazati da je taj prigovor neodrživ. Raspravljamo i o gledištu prema kojemu se drugi tip jastva, to jest narativno jastvo, također može shvatiti kao prošireno, i tvrdimo da stabilnost i kontinuitet toga tipa jastva također nisu ugroženi ako ga proširimo izvan granica čovjekova tijela. Stoga, (...) barem što se tiče tih tipova jastva, kada razmišljamo o problemima osobnog identiteta, nije potrebno ograničiti se na internalizirano jastvo. (shrink)

Public decisions concerning large projects with detrimental environmental or heritage impacts involve value conflicts which stem from the diverse interests and variety of ways of evaluating the costs and benefits of such projects. They are also framed by institutionalised procedures and practices which favour certain concerns to the detriment of others. This paper aims to contribute towards a better understanding of how these procedures and practices, namely decision support tools such as the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), tend to shape public (...) decision-making processes in particular ways. It draws on a study of the public controversy surrounding the Foz Tua dam in Portugal, with a focus on the values upheld by the different parties in the controversy and their interplay in the production of justifications, specifically the actors’ positions on values and value conflicts and the restrictions posed by institutionalised public decision-making procedures on the expression and consideration of certain values. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary volume brings together specialists from different backgrounds to deliver expert views on the relationship between morality and emotion, putting a special emphasis on issues related to emotional shocks. One of the distinctive aspects of social existence today is our subjection to traumatic events on a global scale, and our subsequent embodiment of the emotional responses these events provoke. Covering various methodological angles, the contributors ensure careful and heterogeneous reflection on this delicate topic. With eleven original essays, the collection (...) spans a wide variety of fields from philosophy and literary theory, to the visual arts, history, and psychology. The authors cover diverse themes, including philosophical approaches to political polarization; the impact of negative emotions such as anger on inter-relational balance; humour and politics; media and the idea of progress; photography and trauma discourse; democratic morality in modern Indian society; emotional olfactory experiences; phenomenological readings of spatial disorientation, and the significance of moral shocks. This timely volume offers crucial perspectives on contemporary questions relating to ethical behaviours, and the challenges of a globalized society on the verge of political, financial and emotional collapse. (shrink)

Issues of institutional identity and integrity in Roman Catholic health care institutions have been addressed at the level of individual institutions as well as by organizations of Catholic health care providers and at various levels in the Church hierarchy. The papers by Carol Taylor, C.S.F.N, Thomas Shannon, Kevin O’Rourke, O.P., Gerard Magill in this volume provide a significant contribution to concerns of Roman Catholic health care institutions as they face the challenges of providing health care in a secular, pluralistic, market-driven (...) economy. One way to understand institutional integrity is as a measure of the coherence between what an institution identifies as its commitments (its stated moral character), what an institution does (its manifest moral character) and an institution’s fundamental moral commitments (its deep moral character). The essays in this volume support this model of integrity. Although it is not their explicit focus, the four essays together provide a vision of institutional integrity for Catholic health care institutions. Each author focuses on one of the three central aspects of integrity: what one identifies as one’s commitments (Taylor), how one's actions reflect one’s values (Shannon and Magill), and what one is or what one values at a deep level (O’Rourke). I will offer a brief overview of the ways in which the integrity of Catholic health care institutions has been addressed. Then I will consider the four essays and show how each offers an analysis of one of the three critical elements of integrity. (shrink)

This book advances a 'naturalized' normative theory of deliberative democracy; one that is informed by an empirically-grounded analysis of public deliberation in naturalistic settings and in unadulterated form, and goes on to provide institutional design proposals for how to improve it.

BackgroundThe Supreme Court of Canada removed the prohibition on physicians assisting in patients dying on 6 February 2015. Bill C-14, legalising medical assistance in dying (MAID) in Canada, was subsequently passed by the House of Commons and the Senate on 17 June 2016. As this remains a divisive issue for physicians, the Canadian Neurosurgical Society (CNSS) has recently published a position statement on MAID.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional survey to understand the views and perceptions among CNSS members regarding MAID to inform (...) its position statement on the issue. Data was collected from May to June 2016.ResultsOf the 300 active membes of the CNSS who recevied the survey, 89 respondents completed the survey, 71% of whom were attending neurosurgeons and 29% were neurosurgery residents. Most respondents,74.2%, supported the right of physicians to participate in MAID with 7.8% opposing. 37% had current patients in their practice fitting the criteria for MAID. 23.6% had been asked by patients to assist with MAID, but only 11% would consider personally providing it. 84% of neurosurgeons surveyed supported the physicians’ right to conscientious objection to MAID while 21% thought attending surgeons should be removed from the inquiry and decision-making process. 43.8% agreed that the requirment to refer a patient to a MAID service should be mandatory. Glioblastoma multiforme (65%), quadriplegia/quadriparesis secondary to spinal tumour/trauma (54%) and Parkinson’s disease (24%) were the most common suggested potential indications for MAID among the neurosurgical population.ConclusionsOur results demonstrate that most neurosurgeons in Canada are generally supportive of MAID in select patients. However, they also strongly support the physicians’ right to conscientious objection. (shrink)

The growing advancement of Artificial Intelligence models based on deep learning and the consequent popularization of large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, place the academic community facing unprecedented dilemmas, in addition to corroborating questions involving research activities and human beings. In this work, Content Analysis was chosen as the object of study, an important technique for analyzing qualitative data and frequently used among Brazilian researchers. The objective of this work was to compare the process of categorization by themes carried (...) out by human researchers on material from the Educational area, at the end of 2022, with the help of the ATLAS.TI software and the same process of categorization by themes, now carried out by the version 2023 of the ATLAS.TI software, carried out in an automated way by Artificial Intelligence, for the same material. Through lexical and semantic analysis, the themes used in the two processes were compared, observing similarities and differences between the two proposals, and verifying the consistency between the two analyses. The main result of this study is the difficulty of Artificial Intelligence in carrying out a broader categorization, eliminating specificities that were considered irrelevant by the authors for understanding the material. It is concluded, therefore, that the automated categorization process proposed by ATLAS.TI through Natural Language Processing (NLP) is consistent from a lexical point of view but is still insufficient from a semantic aspect. (shrink)

Cet article est un premier essai d’étude historique sur les relations de genre dans les sociétés indigènes du Chaco, en Amérique du Sud. Le traitement de cette question nécessitant de travailler à partir de contextes sociaux, temporels et spatiaux concrets, nous avons situé l’analyse dans un secteur de la « frontière » chaquéenne placé sous la juridiction argentine, à des moments immédiatement antérieurs et postérieurs à la campagne militaire engagée pour soumettre les populations indigènes entre 1884 et 1911. Nous travaillons (...) ainsi depuis un front de colonisation interne pour repérer les changements que cette situation a provoqués sur les relations, les rôles sociaux et les identités des hommes et des femmes autochtones. L’analyse repose sur des sources issues de deux moments différents du processus de colonisation : le moment initial, à partir des missions franciscaines établies sur les bords du fleuve Bermejo pour évangéliser les Matacos ; puis l’apogée du processus, lorsque les Matacos furent incorporés comme brassiers salariés dans les raffineries sucrières. (shrink)

This research study aims to determine the ontological arguments related to the existance of God. Some recent studies also proposed the argument that God is not a person, and this argument in pantheism and Swinburnian is mismatched with the statement that God is a person. Some people believe in pantheism and think that God is a part of the world, but in Swinburnian, people think that God is not a part of the world as these two thoughts conclude that God (...) is not a person. Based on these two ideas, the religious philosophers have choices, and they do not evidence that pantheism and Swinburnian reject the argument that God is a person. This philosopher also thinks that they cannot believe anymore in God. Some philosophers also believed this idea was new and not accepted by most religions. Overall research concluded that the existence of God and ontological arguments related to it are complex research and have glinted debate for centuries. Earlier, Anselm's argument against current debates on God's existence faced abundant criticism. In philosophy, the existence of God remains a challenging question. These topics endure lies to discuss about God's existence, and this conversation continues for argument and criticism by different philosophers and religious leaders. (shrink)

This paper will address the collaborative networks and the gendered organization of the scientific work at the first Unit on Human Genetics of the Mexican Institute for Social Security. There, women and men had different tasks, duties and authority according to their gender and individual and professional skills. I will focus on physician Susana Kofman, who specialized in cytogenetics with Jérôme Lejeune and Jean de Grouchy in France, and physician Leonor Buentello, who graduated in virus genetics in Germany. This narrative (...) intends to return them to the forefront of the history of cytogenetics and to illustrate the contribution of women to scientific developments when research on human genetics was becoming a medical domain for diagnosis at an international level. (shrink)

Since the cessation of Mapuche guerrilla warfare against Chileans in 1881, machis who are predominantly women, have progressively incorporated aspects of traditional warring into their shamanic healing and performance of collective nguiUatun rituals. Guns, knives, war cries, and male pre‐war bonding acts are used by machis to "kill" or "defeat" illness, evil, and the effects of acculturation on their patients and the community. Acculturation is often seen by the Chilean Mapuche as the root of illness, evil, and alienation. All three (...) are conceived as enemies that threaten the Mapuche self from the outside and are detrimental to the physical and spiritual well‐being of the individual or group. While ritual played an important role in gaining supernatural help to strengthen warriors in the past, the warring complex in ritual, and healing in particular, is crucial in reinforcing contemporary Mapuche identity, traditions, and wholeness. I analyze the performance of spiritual warfare in healing and collective ritual as the Mapuche way of aggressively advocating the opposition between self, tradition, and life on one hand, and otherness, acculturation, and death, on the other. (shrink)

Natural deduction systems for classical, intuitionistic and modal logics were deeply investigated by Prawitz [D. Prawitz, Natural Deduction: A Proof-theoretical Study, in: Stockholm Studies in Philosophy, vol. 3, Almqvist and Wiksell, Stockholm, 1965. Reprinted at: Dover Publications, Dover Books on Mathematics, 2006] from a proof-theoretical perspective. Prawitz proved weak normalization for classical logic only for a language without logical or, there exists and with a restricted application of reduction ad absurdum. Reduction steps related to logical or, there exists and classical (...) negation bring about many problems solved only rather recently. For classical S5 modal logic, Prawitz defined a normalizable system, but for a language without logical or, there exists, ◊ and, for a propositional language without ◊, Medeiros [M.da P.N. Medeiros, A new S4 classical modal logic in natural deduction, Journal of Symbolic Logic 71 799–809] presented a normalizable system for classical S4. We can mention many cut-free Gentzen systems for S4, S5 and K45/K45D, some normalizable natural deduction systems for intuitionistic modal logics and one more for full classical S4, but not for full classical S5. Here our focus is on the definition of a classical and normalizable natural deduction system for S5, taking not only □ and ◊ as primitive symbols, but also all connectives and quantifiers, including classical negation, disjunction and the existential quantifier. The normalization procedure is based on the strategy proposed by Massi [C.D.B. Massi, Provas de normalizaçaõ para a lógica clássica, Ph.D. Thesis, Departamento de Filosofia, UNICAMP, Campinas, 1990] and Pereira and Massi [L.C. Pereira, C.D.B. Massi, Normalização para a lógica clássica, in: O que nos faz pensar, Cadernos de Filosofia da PUC-RJ, vol. 2, 1990, pp. 49–53] for first-order classical logic to cope with the combined use of classical negation, disjunction and the existential quantifier. Here we extend such results to deal with □ and ◊ too. The elimination rule for ◊ uses the notions of connection and of essentially modal formulas already proposed by Prawitz for the introduction of □. Beyond weak normalization, we also prove the subformula property for full S5. (shrink)

Surrogacy is an increasingly frequent form of family building and allows individuals to become parents despite an infertility diagnosis or a biological impossibility. Positive outcomes for both the surrogacy child and the surrogate mother have been reported, including in cases of same-sex male couples and single persons. There is an on-going debate because remuneration does not necessarily involve undue inducement of the surrogate or transformation of the child into a commodity. The right to regret and the doctors’ autonomy are also (...) addressed in this paper. Nevertheless, literature on surrogacy is scarce, and most of the existing studies have important methodological limitations, so further investigation is much needed. We believe that counselling should be granted for both intended parents and surrogate, in order to prevent the majority of problems. We also agree that parental vetting should be possible, focusing the doctor’s responsibility also in the future child. (shrink)

The structuralist reconstruction of the metabolic biochemistry here presented is a more complete and revised version than the one presented in Donolo, Federico & Lorenzano (2006). This version, as the previous one, continues with the reconstructive task initiated by César Lorenzano (2002), but advances further on those elements which remained pendent of reconstruction: applications subsequent to the paradigmatic one, for being these “too diversified and numerous” (p. 210).In line with which is said before, the objective of this new reconstruction is (...) to make the theoretical network of the biochemistry wider, in order to be able to capture the many successful applications (paradigmatic examples or exemplars) which appear in modern university textbooks. In order to accomplish this, major conceptual precisions are being introduced which will have repercussions in a modification and increased complexity of the fundamental law implicit in the text books, but still conserving the previous basic idea. Because of all this we can say that the present article goes further into the reconstruction task of the metabolic biochemistry theory. (shrink)

This article analyzes the evolution of aesthetic role of the nature in the Middle Ages from the point of view of the philosophical systems influence on the interpretation of the corporal as a legitim way to the knowledge of the truth. it studies the intimate approach of neo-platonism, the shaping of its premises in the rejection of physical beauty and the change that occured after the assimilation of Aristotelianism toward a naturalistic outsourcing of the intellectual and artistic interests.

This review essay explores recent historical and anthropological literature on the emergence and development of transcultural psychiatry in the second half of the twentieth century. It examines how postcolonial psychiatry attempted to remove itself from its erstwhile colonial frameworks and strove to introduce new concepts and paradigms to make itself relevant in the context of decolonization and postwar reconstruction. The essay looks at both continuities and discontinuities between colonial and post-colonial transcultural psychiatry, asking how the recent surge of scholarly literature (...) in this field engaged with these issues. It also aims to identify the most important avenues for future research. (shrink)

I analyze how machi discourse and practice of gender and identity contribute to feminist debates about gendered indigenous Others, and the effects that Western notions of Self and Other and feminist rhetoric have on Mapuche women and machi: people who heal with herbal remedies and the help of spirits. Machi juggling of different worlds offers a particular understanding of the way identity and gender are constituted and of the relationship between Self and Other, theory and practice, subject and object, feminism (...) and Womanism. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es contribuir a un conocimiento más exhaustivo de la historia socio-económica de al-Andalus en general y del tema de la pobreza involuntaria en particular. La literatura paremiológica andalusí proporciona un caudal de información nada desdeñable en relación con los diferentes aspectos relativos al tema en cuestión, tales como la concepción de la pobreza, sus causas y consecuencias, así como las distintas formas de contrarrestarla por parte de los afectados y del prójimo. El refranero andalusí pone (...) a nuestra disposición una serie de imágenes establecidas con respecto a los pobres y a su estado, permitiéndonos conocer los estímulos que esta realidad social provocaba entre la población. Desde este punto de vista, este tipo de documentación permite apreciar las prácticas sociales existentes en al-Andalus, las cuales dejan traslucir los valores morales y éticos de esta sociedad. (shrink)

Recently, approach-avoidance tendencies and visual perception biases have been increasingly studied using bistable point-light walkers (PLWs). Prior studies have found a facing-the-viewer bias when one is primed with general threat stimuli (e.g. angry faces), explained by the “error management theory”, as failing to detect a threat as approaching is riskier than the opposite. Importantly, no study has explored how disease threat – linked to the behavioural immune system – might affect this bias. This study aimed to explore whether disease-signalling cues (...) can alter how we perceive the motion direction of ambiguous PLWs. Throughout 3 experiments, participants indicated the motion direction of a bistable PLW previously primed with a control or disease-signalling stimuli – that is, face with a surgical mask (Experiment 1), sickness sound (Experiment 2), or face with a disease cue (Experiment 3). Results showed that sickness cues do not significantly modulate the perception of approach-avoidance behaviours. However, a pattern emerged in Experiments 2 and 3, suggesting that sickness stimuli led to more facing away percepts. Unlike other types of threat, this implies that disease-related threat stimuli might trigger a distinct perceptual bias, indicating a preference to avoid a possible infection source. Nonetheless, this finding warrants future investigations. (shrink)