Epithelial hair follicle stem cells (eHFSCs) are required to generate, maintain and renew the continuously cycling hair follicle (HF), supply cells that produce the keratinized hair shaft and aid in the reepithelialization of injured skin. Therefore, their study is biologically and clinically important, from alopecia to carcinogenesis and regenerative medicine. However, human eHFSCs remain ill defined compared to their murine counterparts, and it is unclear which murine eHFSC markers really apply to the human HF. We address this by reviewing current (...) concepts on human eHFSC biology, their immediate progeny and their molecular markers, focusing on Keratin 15 and 19, CD200, CD34, PHLDA1, and EpCAM/Ber‐EP4. After delineating how human eHFSCs may be selectively targeted experimentally, we close by defining as yet unmet key challenges in human eHFSC research. The ultimate goal is to transfer emerging concepts from murine epithelial stem cell biology to human HF physiology and pathology. (shrink)

miembro del Future of Humanity Institute de la Universidad de Oxford y experto en mejoramiento humano y transhumanismo, sobre cuestiones centrales de su labor investigadora.PALABRAS CLAVETRANSHUMANISMO, MEJORAMIENTO HUMANO, ANDERS SANDBERG, BIOTECNOLOGÍAABSTRACTInterview with Anders Sandberg, member of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University and expert in human enhancement and transhumanism, about central topics in his works.KEYWORDSTRANSHUMANISM, HUMAN ENHANCEMENT, ANDERS SANDBERG,BIOTECHNOLOGY.

Berg, J. Buñuels dagdröm.--Bergström, L. Pessimismens konsekvenser.--Furberg, M. Möjliga teser hos Johannes Climacus.--Halldén, S. Teckenrelationen och språkreglernas juridik.--Hedenius, I. Ett argument mot den rättsfilosofiska domstolsrealismen.--Mates, B. Om Platons argument "den tredje människan."--Marc-Wogau, K. Kant om lögnen.--Næss, A. Om filosofiske projekter som forener empirisk semantikk og metafysisk spekulasjon.--Ofstad, H. Får nazister lettere magesår enn humanister?--Prawitz, D. Om moraliska och logiska satsers sanning.--Stenius, E. Om Descartes' psykofysiska modell.--Tranøy, K. E. Filosofenes etiske ansvar.--Wright, G. H. von. En filosof ser på filosofien.

‘Language and End Time’ is a translation of Sections I, IV and V of ‘Sprache und Endzeit’, a substantial essay by Günther Anders that was published in eight instalments in the Austrian journal FORVM from 1989 to 1991 (the full essay consists of 38 sections). The original essay was planned for inclusion in the third (unrealised) volume of The Obsolescence of Human Beings. ‘Language and End Time’ builds on the diagnosis of ‘our blindness toward the apocalypse’ that was advanced in (...) the first volume of The Obsolescence in 1956. The essay asks if there is a language that is capable of making us fully comprehend the looming ‘man-made apocalypse’. In response to this, it offers a critique of philosophical jargon and of the putatively ‘objective’ language of (nuclear) science, which are both dismissed as unsuitable. Sections I, IV and V introduce this core problematic. The selection of this text for inclusion in this special journal issue responds to present-day realities that inscribe Anders’s reflections on nuclear science and the nuclear situation into new contexts. The critique that ‘Language and End Time’ advances resonates with the way in which the (undemocratic) decisions of a few companies and individuals are shaping the future of life on earth. At the same time, the wider stakes of Anders’s turn against the language employed by (weapons) scientists are newly laid bare by the realities and politics of climate change and fake news. In this new context, the language of science is all too readily dismissed as if it were a mere idiom that can be ignored without consequence. It is against the backdrop of a future that is, if anything, more uncertain than at the time of Anders’s writing, that the essay’s reflections on popularisation, the limits of language and the nature of truth gain added significance. (shrink)

The principle of need—the idea that resources should be allocated according to need—is often invoked in priority setting in the health care sector. In this article, I argue that a reasonable principle of need must be indeterminate, and examine three different ways that this can be dealt with: appendicizing the principle with further principles, imposing determinacy, or empowering decision makers. I argue that need must be conceptualized as a composite property composed of at least two factors: health shortfall and capacity (...) to benefit. When one examines how the different factors relate to each other, one discovers that this is sometimes indeterminate. I illustrate this indeterminacy in this article by applying the small improvement argument. If the relation between the factors are always determinate, the comparative relation changes by a small adjustment. Yet, if two needs are dissimilar but of seemingly equal magnitude, the comparative relation does not change by a small adjustment of one of the factors. I then outline arguments in favor of each of the three strategies for dealing with indeterminacy, but also point out that all strategies have significant shortcomings. More research is needed concerning how to deal with this indeterminacy, and the most promising path seems to be to scrutinize the position of the principle of need among a plurality of relevant principles for priority setting in the health care sector. (shrink)

How should scarce health-related resources be allocated? This paper argues that values that apply to these decisions fail to always fully determine what we should do. Health maximization and allocation-according-to-need are suggested as two values that should be part of a general theory of how to allocate health-related resources. The “small improvement argument” is used to argue that it is implausible that one alternative is always better, worse, or equal to another alternative with respect to these values. Approaches that rely (...) on these values are thus incomplete. To deal with this, it is suggested that we ought to use incomplete theories in a two-step process. Such a process first discards ineligible alternatives, and, second, uses reasons grounded in collective commitments to identify a unique, best alternative in the remaining set. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that sufficientarian principles are indispensable in the set of principles that have bearing on issues in distributive ethics. I provide two arguments in favor of this claim. First, I argue that sufficientarianism is the only framework that allows us to appropriately analyze what sort of obligations we have toward individuals who are badly off due to their own faults and choices. Second, I argue that sufficientarianism is the only theory that provides an adequate framework for (...) thinking about the desperately badly off. (shrink)

Inference has long been a concern in epistemology, as an essential means by which we extend our knowledge and test our beliefs. Inference is also a key notion in influential psychological or philosophical accounts of mental capacities, from perception via utterance comprehension to problem-solving. Consciousness, on the other hand, has arguably been the defining interest of philosophy of mind over recent decades. Comparatively little attention, however, has been devoted to the significance of consciousness for the proper understanding of the nature (...) and role of inference. It is commonly suggested that inference may be either conscious or unconscious. Yet how unified are these various supposed instances of inference? Does either enjoy explanatory priority in relation to the other? In what ways or senses, can an inference be conscious, or fail to be conscious, and how does this matter? This book brings together original essays from established scholars and emerging theorists that illustrate how several current debates in epistemology, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of mind can benefit from reflections on these and related questions about the significance of consciousness for inference. Contributors include: Kirk Ludwig and Wade Munroe; Michael Rescorla; Federico Bongiorno and Lisa Bortolotti; Berit Brogaard; Nicholas Allott; Jake Quilty-Dunn and Eric Mandelbaum; Corine Besson; Anders Nes; David Henderson, Terry Horgan, and Matjaž Potrč; Elijah Chudnoff; and Ram Neta. (shrink)

Following decades of neglect, the work of the German Jewish philosopher, literary author, cultural critic, and poet Günther Anders (1902–1992) is gaining increasing recognition in the English-speaking world. This translation of “Résistance heute” (Resistance Today) makes one of Anders’s most programmatic and polemical short texts available. Published at the height of his anti-nuclear activism, “Resistance Today” is the written version of a speech Anders delivered in November 1962 upon acceptance of the northwest Italian city of Omegna’s Resistance Prize (other notable (...) recipients included Jean-Paul Sartre and Frantz Fanon). It first appeared in print in the West German left-wing journal Das Argument in November 1963. Clearly written for the occasion, the text condenses (and often further radicalizes) key premises about the end of history, the amoral character of work, and the continuity between Nazi totalitarianism, the nuclear age and the world of consumerism that are developed in great nuance across a range of books that Anders had recently published. Key co-ordinates include: Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen 1 (The Obsolescence of Human Beings 1, 1956), his groundbreaking critique of technology; Der Mann auf der Brücke (The Man on the Bridge, 1959), a philosophical travel diary occasioned by Anders’s 1958 visit to Japan and his participation at the World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs in Tokyo; Burning Conscience (1961), a correspondence with the American reconnaissance pilot Claude Eatherly, who scouted the target area before the Enola Gay went on to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima. It seems likely that Burning Conscience, which turned into an international bestseller, occasioned the award of the prize. (shrink)

Much research aimed at developing measures for normative criteria to guide the assessment of healthcare resource allocation decisions has focused on health maximization, equity concerns and more recently approaches based on health capabilities. However, a widely embraced idea is that health resources should be allocated to meet health needs. Little attention has been given to the principle of need which is often mentioned as an alternative independent criteria that could be used to guide healthcare evaluations. This paper develops a model (...) and indicator of need satisfaction that aggregates the health needs of a population in a particular time period into a single measure that weights individual health needs by the severity of their ill health. The paper provides a first step towards formalizing the principle of need as a measurable objective for healthcare policy and we discuss some challenges for future research, including incorporating the duration of time into need-based health evaluations. (shrink)

In recent years, a new argument in favor of Donnellan’s (Philos Rev 77: 281–304, 1966) semantic distinction between attributive and referential descriptions has been proposed by Michael Devitt and Marga Reimer. This argument is based on two empirical premises concerning regularity of use and processing ease. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate (a) that these empirical observations are dubious and fail to license the conclusion of the argument and (b) that if the argument were sound, it would severely overgenerate. (...) The general lesson of the paper is that empirical observations about (a) how frequent an expression E is used to mean M and (b) how easy and fast M is processed cannot be taken to provide reliable evidence about the lexically encoded semantic properties of E. (shrink)

This paper argues that cost-effectiveness analysis in the healthcare sector introduces a discrimination risk that has thus far been underappreciated and outlines some approaches one can take toward this. It is argued that appropriate standards used in cost-effectiveness analysis in the healthcare sector fail to always fully determine an optimal option, which entails that cost-effectiveness analysis often leaves decision makers with large sets of permissible options. Larger sets of permissible options increase the role of decision makers’ biases, whims, and prejudices, (...) which means that the discrimination risk increases. Two ways of mitigating this are identified: tinkering with standards used in the cost-effectiveness analysis and outlining anti-discrimination guidelines for decision makers. (shrink)

A notorious problem that has recently received increased attention in axiology, normative theory and population ethics is the apparent ubiquity of what can be generally called nondeterminacy. This paper illustrates how nondeterminacy can spawn cyclical rankings. So, accepting that practical reasons can admit of nondeterminacy challenges the widely held idea that ‘better than’ is transitive. As a result, standard approaches to rational choice under nondeterminacy fail to be action-guiding, since in some situations all options are dominated, that is, impermissible according (...) to standard rational choice criteria. (shrink)

Understanding how individual agency and group agency relate is of great importance for a range of philosophical and practical concerns, including responsibility ascription and institutional design. This article discusses the relation between corporate and individual responsibility in agency—in particular, the relation between corporate and individual control of actions. First, I criticize Christian List and Philip Pettit’s causal account of combined corporate and individual control. Second, I develop an alternative account in terms of structural control, and I show how this gives (...) a better grasp of the issue. Third, I argue for an act-dualism that complements my account of control and sheds further light on the relation between corporate and individual agency and responsibility. (shrink)

Anders, Rudi To solve a problem such as wars between nations and civil wars it is necessary to discover what causes the problem.

Human cognitive performance has crucial significance for legal process, often creating the difference between fair and unfair imprisonment. Lawyers, judges, and jurors need to follow long and complex arguments. They need to understand technical language. Jurors need to remember what happens during a long trial. The demands imposed on jurors in particular are sizeable and the cognitive challenges are discussed in this chapter. Jurors are often subjected to both tremendous decision complexity and tremendous evidence complexity. Some of these problems could (...) be ameliorated if we can somehow enhance the cognitive capacities, including attention and memory, of various players in trials. There are multiple ways in which cognition can be improved either by external tools or by an increasing number of biomedical interventions that act directly on the brain. The article surveys a range of beneficial and detrimental effects that substances can have on cognition. (shrink)

How should one understand comparisons in which neither of two alternatives is at least as good as the other? Much recent literature on comparability problems focuses on what the appropriate explanation of the phenomenon is. Is it due to vagueness or the possibility of non-conventional comparative relations such as parity? This paper argues that the discussions on how to best explain comparability problems has reached an impasse at which it is hard to make any progress. To advance the discussion we (...) suggest a new classification of comparability problems that focuses on the problems they cause for practical reasoning. (shrink)

BackgroundEthical problems in everyday healthcare work emerge for many reasons and constitute threats to ethical values. If these threats are not managed appropriately, there is a risk that the patient may be inflicted with moral harm or injury, while healthcare professionals are at risk of feeling moral distress. Therefore, it is essential to support the learning and development of ethical competencies among healthcare professionals and students. The aim of this study was to explore the available literature regarding ethics education that (...) promotes ethical competence learning for healthcare professionals and students undergoing training in healthcare professions.MethodsIn this integrative systematic review, literature was searched within the PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycInfo databases using the search terms ‘health personnel’, ‘students’, ‘ethics’, ‘moral’, ‘simulation’, and ‘teaching’. In total, 40 articles were selected for review. These articles included professionals from various healthcare professions and students who trained in these professions as subjects. The articles described participation in various forms of ethics education. Data were extracted and synthesised using thematic analysis.ResultsThe review identified the need for support to make ethical competence learning possible, which in the long run was considered to promote the ability to manage ethical problems. Ethical competence learning was found to be helpful to healthcare professionals and students in drawing attention to ethical problems that they were not previously aware of. Dealing with ethical problems is primarily about reasoning about what is right and in the patient’s best interests, along with making decisions about what needs to be done in a specific situation.ConclusionsThe review identified different designs and course content for ethics education to support ethical competence learning. The findings could be used to develop healthcare professionals’ and students’ readiness and capabilities to recognise as well as to respond appropriately to ethically problematic work situations. (shrink)

This article shows that introducing the positive comparative relation parity only helps one block so‐called “Spectrum Arguments” in order to avoid their unsavoury implications if one specifies parity in a specific way with respect to its persistence. The article illustrates how parity must both admit of persistency and be weakly non‐persistent for parity to block Spectrum Arguments, and identifies some consequences of that discovery for the general debate on Spectrum Arguments, value theory and comparability problems.

Anders, Rudi When I see a colourful sunset, my mind goes to a spectacular purple sunset I saw near the Mexican border many years ago. That memory stops me from being fully aware of the scene in front of me. No two sunsets are the same and my memory is stopping me from fully appreciating the spectacle before my eyes. Famous and spectacular places don't work for me because expectations and memories get in the way, but when I walk alone (...) in nature I find my mind stops chattering and I begin to effortlessly notice the shades of green in the foliage, the patterns in the bark on the trees and the sounds and fragrances. It sometimes feels as if am absorbed by the surroundings. When this happens I don't bother with the names of birds or flowers because even that distracts from direct experience. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that the phenomenology of thinking (also known as cognitive phenomenology) reduces to the phenomenology of the speech, sensory imagery, emotions or feelings associated with it. But even if this reductionist claim is correct, there is still a properly cognitive dimension to the phenomenology of at least some thinking. Specifically, conceptual content makes a constitutive contribution to the phenomenology of at least some thought episodes, in that it constitutes what I call their thematic unity. Often, when a thought (...) episode has a phenomenal character, the various associated speech, sensory imagery, emotions or feelings are often organized around a common theme, constituted by the conceptual content of one's thinking. (shrink)

This article addresses the prioritization questions that arise when people attempt to institutionalize reasonable ethical principles and create guidelines for microlevel decisions. I propose that this instantiates an incommensurability problem, and suggest two different kinds of practical solutions for dealing with this issue.

In many biological experiments, due to gene-redundancy or distributed backup mechanisms, there are no visible effects on the functionality of the organism when a gene is knocked out or down. In such cases there is apparently no counterfactual dependence between the gene and the phenotype in question, although intuitively the gene is causally relevant. Due to relativity of causal relations to causal models, we suggest that such cases can be handled by changing the resolution of the causal model that represents (...) the system. By decreasing the resolution of our causal model, counterfactual dependencies can be established at a higher level of abstraction. By increasing the resolution, stepwise causal dependencies of the right kind can serve as a sufficient condition for causal relevance. Finally, we discuss how introducing a temporal dimension in causal models can account for causation in cases of non-modular systems dynamics. (shrink)

Abstract Normative criteria for evaluations of economic and social outcomes are often formulated in terms of social welfare functions which are essentially and importantly non-satiable. However, there are good reasons to consider certain normative criteria and many policy objectives to be capped, i.e. bounded, and thus satiable provided sufficient resources are made available for their satisfaction. Inspired by the Foster–Greer–Thorbecke class of indicators, this paper uses an interdisciplinary approach to develop a model for assessing outcomes in terms of capped objectives (...) based on an understanding of individual shortfalls from the objective, denoted needs. We present an indicator to measure need satisfaction in a population of individuals with heterogeneous needs and highlight an aggregation problem under scarcity. For such situations, we develop three ways in which the indicator can be weighted that reflect respectively concerns over the frequency, depth and severity of the need shortfalls and show that normative evaluations based on these weighting schemes can conflict, yielding mutually inconsistent outcome rankings. The indicator can be adapted to measure a wide variety of phenomena, e.g. health needs, education shortfalls, deprivation, etc., and it is suited for targeting exercises and other policy implementations. In particular, it allows for exogenous weighting schemes, i.e. weights that can incorporate non-shortfall characteristics relevant for the evaluation, e.g. age, gender, ethnicity, etc. The indicator thus enables new ways for researchers to promote and study satiable objectives in a wide variety of contexts relevant to economic and social policy, e.g. human development programs, poverty reduction, healthcare policies, etc. (shrink)

BackgroundVascular surgery offers a range of treatments to relieve pain and ulcerations, and to prevent sudden death by rupture of blood vessels. The surgical procedures involve risk of injury and harm, which increases with age and frailty leading to complex decision-making processes that raise ethical questions. However, how vascular surgeons negotiate these questions is scarcely studied. The aim was therefore to explore vascular surgeons’ moral reasoning of what ought to be done for the patient.MethodsQualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 (...) vascular surgeons working at three Swedish university hospitals. Data were analysed according to systematic text condensation.ResultsThe surgeons’ moral reasoning about what ought to be done comprised a quest to relieve suffering and avoid harm by exploring what is reasonable to do for the patient. Exploring reasonableness included to shift one´s perspective from the vessels to the whole person, to balance patient’s conflicting needs and to place responsibility for right decision on one´s shoulders. The shift from blood vessels to the whole person implied gaining holistic knowledge in pondering of what is best, struggling with one´s authority for surgery through dialogue, and building relationship for mutual security. To balance patient’s conflicting needs implied weighing the patient’s independence and a sense of being whole against ease of suffering, respecting the patient’s will against protecting life and well-being, and weighing longer life against protecting the present well-being. Finally, to place responsibility on one´s shoulders was conveyed as an urge to remind oneself of the risk of complications, withholding one’s power of proficiency, and managing time during the illness course.ConclusionsThis study contributes to uncovering how moral reasoning is embodied in the vascular surgeons’ everyday clinical discourse as a tangible part of their patient care. The results underpin the significance of moral considerations in the assemblage of medical knowledge and technical skills to further understand vascular surgeons’ clinical practice. The clinical application of these results is the need of forums with sufficient possibilities for articulating these important moral considerations in everyday care. (shrink)

The paper addresses the phenomenology of inference. It proposes that the conscious character of conscious inferences is partly constituted by a sense of meaning; specifically, a sense of what Grice called ‘natural meaning’. In consciously drawing the (outright, categorical) conclusion that Q from a presumed fact that P, one senses the presumed fact that P as meaning that Q, where ‘meaning that’ expresses natural meaning. This sense of natural meaning is phenomenologically analogous, I suggest, to our sense of what is (...) said in fluently comprehending everyday utterances in our first language. The proposal that conscious inference involves a sense of natural meaning is compared with views according to which conscious inference involves taking the premises (i) to be good reasons for the conclusion (as defended by Thomson and Grice), (ii) to support it (as argued by Audi and, recently, Boghossian), or (iii) to imply it (as lately contended by Broome). I argue our proposal can explain certain phenomena handled by alternatives (i) and (ii), but that some further phenomena is handled by our account but not these alternatives. In relation to alternative (iii), I argue that, in so far as implicational and natural-meaning relations come apart, the latter are a better fit for what we sense or take to be so in conscious inference. (shrink)

It is a common view that benefits to the worse off should be given priority when health benefits are distributed. This paper addresses how to understand who is worse off in this context when individuals are differently well off at different times. The paper argues that the view that this judgment about who is worse off should be based solely on how well off individuals are when their complete lives are considered (i.e. 'the complete lives view') is implausible in this (...) context. Instead, it is argued that a pluralistic stance toward this issue should be accepted. This pluralistic stance recognizes that also the view that only focuses on how well off individuals are now and in the future (i.e. 'the forward-looking view') is relevant. The argument is based on appeals to intuitive judgments concerning who is worse off in different cases and reference to various underlying reasons why priority to benefits to the worse off is justified. (shrink)

In the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden’s response stood out as an exception. For example, Sweden did not introduce any lockdowns, while many other countries did. In this paper I take the Swedish Corona Commission’s critique of the initial Swedish response as a point of departure for a general analysis of precaution in relation to pandemics. The Commission points out that in contrast to many other countries Sweden did not follow ‘the precautionary principle’. Based on this critique, the (...) Commission proposes that the precautionary principle should be included among Sweden’s guiding principles for crisis management. However, as the debate on this principle during the last 30 years indicates, the principle is loaded with problems. I discuss one of these problems, namely its lack of clarity. I argue, however, that this problem is not unsurmountable. A principle is lacking clarity precisely by being a principle and not a rule with a well-defined meaning. As a principle it indicates a direction but does not prescribe a specific action. However, to be action-guiding its content needs to be specified by rational deliberation. With this in mind, I propose a framework for specification of the precautionary principle as applied to pandemics. The framework focuses on the principle’s four key elements: threat, uncertainty, action and responsibility. I also suggest certain general ethical restrictions on specification. (shrink)

According to perceptualism, fluent comprehension of speech is a perceptual achievement, in as much as it is akin to such high-level perceptual states as the perception of objects as cups or trees, or of people as happy or sad. According to liberalism, grasp of meaning is partially constitutive of the phenomenology of fluent comprehension. I here defend an influential line of argument for liberal perceptualism, resting on phenomenal contrasts in our comprehension of speech, due to Susanna Siegel and Tim Bayne, (...) against objections from Casey O'Callaghan and Indrek Reiland. I concentrate on the contrast between the putative immediacy of meaning-assignment in fluent comprehension, as compared with other, less ordinary, perhaps translation-based ways of getting at the meaning of speech. I argue this putative immediacy is difficult to capture on a non-perceptual view (whether liberal or non-liberal), and that the immediacy in question has much in common with that which applies in other, less controversial cases of high-level perception. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the effect of unitarity bounds sb⩾s≡(E1+E2) cms 2 for the recently proposed types of nonderivative 4-fermion contact interactions. To this purpose we decompose the helicity amplitudes at c.m.s. into partial waves. The bounds are defined to hold for all reaction channels due to the same type of contact interaction. We find sb=τ4π/κ. Here κ is the coupling constant. The factor τ depends on the type of coupling and on the different cases to identify the fermions. (...) It ranges from 1/3 to 4. (shrink)

Energy production and consumption give rise to issues of justice for future humans. By analysing a specific case – Swedish energy politics – this article contributes to the discussion of how consideration for future humans should affect energy policy making. It outlines three different energy scenarios for the period 2035-2065 – the nuclear-renewables, the renewables-low and the renewables-high scenarios – and assesses them from the point of view of justice for future individuals by using the capabilities approach as a normative (...) framework. We cannot make a definitive assessment of the different scenarios due to the great uncertainties involved in determining the impacts on individuals living between 2035 and 2065 and individuals born thereafter, but we still conclude that we have certain reasons to prefer the renewables-low scenario since it avoids certain risks connected with the other scenarios. The economic growth in this scenario is lower than in the others, but we question whether this is a disadvantage from the point of view of the capabilities approach. _Keywords:_ energy scenarios, justice, future generations, capabilities approach. (shrink)

This article examines some of the difficulties of universalistic science in situations of deep conflict over global nature, using empirical material pertaining to ongoing controversies in the context of Japanese whaling practices. Within global-scale whaling assemblages since the 1970s, science has become a ‘‘post-sovereign’’ authority, unable to impose any stable definition of nature on all actors. Instead, across spaces of deep antagonistic differences, anti- and pro-whalers now ontologically enact a multiplicity of mutually irreconcilable versions of whales. Empirically, the article attempts (...) to map out a ‘‘cosmogram’’ of Japanese pro-whaling enactments of abundant and ‘‘killable’’ whales. Following the political ecology of Bruno Latour, the global-scale situation is conceptualized as one of cosmopolitics, the politics of forging a common world across divergences in nature-cultures. Pointing to tensions inherent in this concept, the article ends by suggesting a move toward ‘‘agonistic cosmopolitics,’’ in clarifying the constructive potentials of a Latourian anti-essentialist political ecology. (shrink)

This article provides a new argument and a new value-theoretical ground for person-centered care and shared decision making that ascribes to it the role of enabling rational choice in situations involving clinical choice. Rather than referring to good health outcomes and/or ethical grounds such as patient autonomy, it argues that a plausible justification and ground for person-centered care and shared decision making is preservation of rationality in the face of comparative non-determinacy in clinical settings. Often, no alternative treatment will be (...) better than or equal to every other alternative. In the face of such comparative non-determinacy, Ruth Chang has argued that we can make rational decisions by invoking reasons that are created through acts of willing. This article transfers this view to clinical decision making and argues that shared decision making provides a solution to non-determinacy problems in clinical settings. This view of the role of shared decision making provides a new understanding of its nature, and it also allows us to better understand when caregivers should engage in shared decision making and when they should not. (shrink)

Lifetime quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) prioritarianism has recently been defended as a reasonable specification of the prioritarian view that benefits to the worse off should be given priority in health-related priority setting. This paper argues against this view with reference to how it relies on implausible assumptions. By referring to lifetime QALY as the basis for judgments about who is worse off lifetime QALY prioritarianism relies on assumptions of strict additivity, atomism and intertemporal separability of sublifetime attributes. These assumptions entail that (...) a health state at some period in time contributes with the same amount to how well off someone is regardless of intrapersonal and interpersonal distributions of health states. The paper argues that this is implausible and that prioritarians should take both intrapersonal and interpersonal distributions of goods into account when they establish who is worse off. They should therefore not accept that lifetime QALY is a reasonable ground for ascribing priority and reject lifetime QALY prioritarianism. (shrink)

This book discusses Gadamer's theory of context-dependence. Analytical and partly critical, the book also shows exegetical accuracy in the rendering of Gadamer's position. It explores the following questions that Gadamer's theory of context-dependence tries to answer: in what way is thought influenced by and thus dependent on its historical context? To what extent and in what way is the individual able to become reflectively aware of and emancipate himself from this dependence? The book takes Gadamer's wide interests into account, e.g. (...) issues relating to the history of historiography and the nature of art and aesthetic experience. The problem of the context-dependence of thought is prominent in contemporary philosophy, including the fields of structuralism, post structuralism, deconstruction, certain forms of feminist philosophy and the philosophy of science. In this sense, the book discusses an issue with wide repercussions. (shrink)

A wide range of gene knockout experiments shows that functional stability is an important feature of biological systems. On this backdrop, we present an argument for higher‐level causation based on counterfactual dependence. Furthermore, we sketch a metaphysical picture providing resources to explain the metaphysical nature of functional stability, higher‐level causation, and the relevant notion of levels. Our account aims to clarify the role empirical results and philosophical assumptions should play in debates about reductionism and higher‐level causation. It thereby contributes to (...) the development of a philosophical foundation for systems biology. †To contact the authors, please write to: CSMN/IFIKK, University of Oslo, Box 1020 Blindern, N‐0315, Oslo, Norway; e‐mail: [email protected] , [email protected]. (shrink)

Human germline gene editing is often debated in hypothetical terms: if it were safe and efficient, on what further conditions would it then be ethically acceptable? This paper takes another course. The key question is: how can scientists reduce uncertainty about safety and efficiency to a level that may justify initiation of first-time clinical trials? The only way to proceed is by well-designed preclinical studies. However, what kinds of investigation should preclinical studies include and what specific conditions should they satisfy (...) in order to be considered well-designed? It is argued that multispecies and multigenerational animal studies are needed as well as human embryo editing without implantation. In order to be possible to translate to first-time clinical trials, animal studies need to satisfy strict conditions of validity. Moreover, embryo studies intended for translation to first-time clinical trials need to correspond to the animal studies in experimental design. Only in this way can uncertainty about risk for harm and prospect of benefit in first-time clinical trials be reduced to a modest level. If uncertainty is not reduced to such a level, first-time clinical trials in germline gene editing should not be initiated. (shrink)

Anders Pettersson presents a comprehensive account of the foundations of literature, grounded in an original analysis of the interactions between author and reader. Drawing on post-Gricean pragmatics and Nicholas Wolterstorff's notion of presentationality, Pettersson develops the idea of the verbal text and conveys an integrated and nuanced understanding of literary experience, its conditions, and the values it affords. In the second part of Verbal Art he systematically examines the cognitive, affective, and formal aspects of the literary work and explores their (...) interrelations.Pettersson demonstrates the implications and applications of the theory through a series of detailed studies of literary works, taking care to show that his theory is compatible with a broad variety of perspectives. Combining an intimate knowledge of modern literary theory and the aesthetics of literature with innovative applications of linguistics and cognitive psychology to the literary work, he provides a thorough treatment of fundamental problems in the area, including the concept of a text or work, the concept of form, and the distinctiveness of the literary use of language. (shrink)