The article deals with the 17th century autobiographic nun's characteristic vision of man as a being the relations between man and God. The 17th century was a time of rapid change all over Europe. In the 17th century arrived in Poland from Netherlands the first caramel’s nuns. There were: Anna оf the Jesus (Jadwiga Stobieńska) - the first Polish caramel’s nun, then Teresa of the Jesus (Marianna Marchocka) etc. The autobiography of Jadwiga Stobieńska’s expresses the relations between man and (...) God, and mystical inspirations (particularly St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross). The article presents the religious direct experiences of Jadwiga Stobieńska. There are many images, motifs taken from the great tradition of religious literature. The article shows influence mysticism of St. Teresa of Avila for the Jadwiga Stobieńska’s spiritual life. This article the particularly presents the personal experiences of Polish nun (dialogue with God, the love to Him and mystical unity with God). Jadwiga Stobieńska gave original the reason of relations a man with Absolute, and shoed metaphysical and mystical the way of soul to God. (shrink)

Appealing to reason rather than religious belief, this book is the most comprehensive case against the choice of abortion yet published. _The Ethics of Abortion_ critically evaluates all the major grounds for denying fetal personhood, including the views of those who defend not only abortion but also infanticide. It also provides several justifications for the conclusion that all human beings, including those in utero, should be respected as persons. This book also critiques the view that abortion is not wrong even (...) if the human fetus is a person. _The Ethics of Abortion_ examines hard cases for those who are prolife, such as abortion in cases of rape or in order to save the mother’s life, as well as hard cases for defenders of abortion, such as sex selection abortion and the rationale for being “personally opposed” but publically supportive of abortion. It concludes with a discussion of whether artificial wombs might end the abortion debate. Answering the arguments of defenders of abortion, this book provides reasoned justification for the view that all intentional abortions are morally wrong and that doctors and nurses who object to abortion should not be forced to act against their consciences. (shrink)

Both many critics of abortion and many defenders of abortion have suggested that artificial wombs could end the abortion debate. If the fetus is removed from the uterus, women have an end to an unwanted pregnancy. If the living fetus is then put in an artificial uterus for ectogenesis, there is no termination of the life of the fetus. Joona Räsänen challenges this view in his article, Ectogenesis, abortion and a right to the death of the fetus. Räsänen provides three (...) arguments for a right to secure the death of the human being in utero, namely the ‘right not to become a biological parent argument’, the ‘right to genetic privacy argument’, and the ‘right to property argument’. This article critiques these three arguments for a right to the death of the fetus. (shrink)

Enjoying great popularity in decision theory, epistemology, and philosophy of science, Bayesianism as understood here is fundamentally concerned with epistemically ideal rationality. It assumes a tight connection between evidential probability and ideally rational credence, and usually interprets evidential probability in terms of such credence. Timothy Williamson challenges Bayesianism by arguing that evidential probabilities cannot be adequately interpreted as the credences of an ideal agent. From this and his assumption that evidential probabilities cannot be interpreted as the actual credences of human (...) agents either, he concludes that no interpretation of evidential probabilities in terms of credence is adequate. I argue to the contrary. My overarching aim is to show on behalf of Bayesians how one can still interpret evidential probabilities in terms of ideally rational credence and how one can maintain a tight connection between evidential probabilities and ideally rational credence even if the former cannot be interpreted in terms of the latter. By achieving this aim I illuminate the limits and prospects of Bayesianism. (shrink)

This important new book by one of the world's leading political theorists boldly questions the moral justification for organizing our world as a territorial states-system and proposes major changes to states' sovereign powers.

In this paper, we identify some key features of what makes something a disease, and consider whether these apply to pregnancy. We argue that there are some compelling grounds for regarding pregnancy as a disease. Like a disease, pregnancy affects the health of the pregnant person, causing a range of symptoms from discomfort to death. Like a disease, pregnancy can be treated medically. Like a disease, pregnancy is caused by a pathogen, an external organism invading the host’s body. Like a (...) disease, the risk of getting pregnant can be reduced by using prophylactic measures. We address the question of whether the ‘normality’ of pregnancy, its current necessity for human survival, or the value often attached to it are reasons to reject the view that pregnancy is a disease. We point out that applying theories of disease to the case of pregnancy, can in many cases illuminate inconsistencies and problems within these theories. Finally, we show that it is difficult to find one theory of disease that captures all paradigm cases of diseases, while convincingly excluding pregnancy. We conclude that there are both normative and pragmatic reasons to consider pregnancy a disease. (shrink)

How can we explain the structure of perceptual experience? What is it that we perceive? How is it that we perceive objects and not disjoint arrays of properties? By which sense or senses do we perceive objects? This book investigates Aristotle's views on these and related questions.

The treatise attempts to approach and deal with some of the most fundamental problems facing anyone who wishes to uphold some version of the so-called theory of tropes. Three assumptions serve as a basis for the investigation: tropes exist, only tropes exist, and a one-category trope-theory along these lines should be developed so that the tropes it postulates are able to serve as truth-makers for all kinds of atomic propositions. Provided that these assumptions are accepted, it is found that the (...) trope-theorist will have to deal with two important problems. First, some atomic propositions seem to require universal truth-makers. Second, some atomic propositions seem to require concrete truth-makers. As tropes are abstract particulars, it follows that the trope-theorist, in order to fulfil assumption, must provide an account of exactly how he or she could construct universality and concreteness from his or her basic stock of tropes. In the treatise such constructions are attempted and some basic problems with such constructions are revealed. Although these problems are serious enough it is argued that it is nevertheless possible to deal with these basic issues while staying squarely within the boundaries of a one-category trope-ontology. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel account of the contents of memory. By drawing on insights from the philosophy of perception, I propose a hybrid account of the contents of memory designed to preserve important aspects of representationalist and relationalist views. The hybrid view I propose also contributes to two ongoing debates in philosophy of memory. First, I argue that, in opposition to eternalist views, the hybrid view offers a less metaphysically-charged solution to the co-temporality problem. Second, I show how the (...) hybrid view conceives of the relationship between episodic memory and other forms of episodic thinking. I conclude by considering some disanalogies between perception and memory and by replying to objections. I argue that, despite there being important differences between memory and perception, those differences do not harm my project. (shrink)

This review provides an overview of the ethics of extinctions with a focus on the Western analytical environmental ethics literature. It thereby gives special attention to the possible philosophical grounds for Michael Soulé’s assertion that the untimely ‘extinction of populations and species is bad’. Illustrating such debates in environmental ethics, the guiding question for this review concerns why – or when – anthropogenic extinctions are bad or wrong, which also includes the question of when that might not be the case (...) (i.e. which extinctions are even desirable). After providing an explanation of the disciplinary perspective taken (section “Introduction”), the concept of extinction and its history within that literature are introduced (section “Understanding extinction”). Then, in section “Why (or when) might anthropogenic extinctions be morally problematic?”, different reasons for why anthropogenic extinctions might be morally problematic are presented based on the loss of species’ value, harm to nonhuman individuals, the loss of valuable biological variety and duties to future generations. This section concludes by also considering cases where anthropogenic extinctions might be justified. Section “How to respond to extinctions?” then addresses a selection of topics concerning risks and de-extinction technologies. Finally, the section on “Extinction studies” introduces other viewpoints on the ethics of extinction from the extinction studies literature, followed by the “Conclusion”. (shrink)

There has recently been a resurgence of philosophical and scientific interest in the foundations of self-consciousness, with particular focus on its altered, anomalous forms. This paper looks at the altered forms of self-awareness in Depersonalization Disorder (DPD), a condition in which people feel detached from their self, their body and the world (Derealisation). Building upon the phenomenological distinction between reflective and pre-reflective self-consciousness, we argue that DPD may alter thetransparencyof basic embodied forms of pre-reflective self-consciousness, as well as the capacity (...) to flexibly modulate and switch between the reflective and pre-reflective facets of self-awareness. Empirical evidence will be invoked in support of the idea that impaired processing of bodily signals is characteristic of the condition. We provide first-hand subjective reports describing the experience of self-detachment or fracture between an observing and an observed self. This split is compared with similar self-detachment phenomena reported in certain Buddhist-derived meditative practices. We suggest that these alterations and changes may reveal the underlying and tacit transparency that characterises the embodied and basic pre-reflective forms of self-consciousness, in the same way that a crack in a transparent glass may indicate the presence of an unnoticed window. (shrink)

Disputes in Bioethics tackles some of the most debated questions in contemporary scholarship about the beginning and end of life. This collection of essays takes up questions about the dawn of human life, including: Should we make children with three (or more) parents? Is it better never to have been born? and Is the so called 'after-birth' abortion wrong? This volume also asks about the dusk of human life: Is 'death with dignity' a dangerous euphemism? Should euthanasia be permitted for (...) children? and Does assisted suicide harm those who do not choose to die? Still other questions are asked concerning recent views that health care professionals should not have a right to conscientiously object to legal and accepted medical practices. Finally, the book addresses questions about separating conjoined twins as well as the issue of whether the species of an individual makes a difference for the individual's moral status. Christopher Kaczor critiques some of the most recent and influential positions in bioethics, while eschewing both consequentialism and principalism. Rooted in the Catholic principle that faith and reason are harmonious, this book shows how Catholic bioethical teaching is rationally defensible in terms that people of good will, secular or religious, can accept. Proceeding from a natural law perspective, Kaczor defends the inherent dignity of all human beings and argues that they merit the protection of their basic human goods because of that inherent dignity. Philosophers interested in applied ethics, as well as students and professors of law, will profit from reading Disputes in Bioethics. The book aims to be both philosophically sophisticated and accessible for students and experienced researchers alike. (shrink)

Trope theory is the view that the world is a world of abstract particular qualities. But if all there is are tropes, how do we account for the truth of propositions ostensibly made true by some concrete particular? A common answer is that concrete particulars are nothing but tropes in compresence. This answer seems vulnerable to an argument (first presented by F. H. Bradley) according to which any attempt to account for the nature of relations will end up either in (...) contradiction, nonsense, or will lead to a vicious infinite regress. I investigate Bradley’s argument and claim that it fails to prove what it sets out to. It fails, I argue, because it does not take all the different ways in which relation and relata may depend on one another into account. If relations are entities that are distinct from yet essentially dependent upon their relata, the Bradleyan problem is solved. We are then free to say that tropes in compresence are what make true propositions ostensibly made true by concrete particulars. (shrink)

One of David Rosenthal’s many important contributions to the philosophy of mind was his clear and unshirking account of introspection. Here we argue that while there is a kind of introspection (we call it “reflective introspection”) that Rosenthal’s account may be structurally fit to accommodate, there is also a second kind (“primitive introspection”) that his account cannot recover. We introduce Rosenthal’s account of introspection in §1, present the case for the psychological reality of primitive introspection in §2, and argue that (...) Rosenthal’s account lacks the resources to accommodate it in §3. (shrink)

Richard Bradley and others endorse Reverse Bayesianism as the way to model awareness growth. I raise a problem for Reverse Bayesianism—at least for the general version that Bradley endorses—and argue that there is no plausible way to restrict the principle that will give us the right results. To get the right results, we need to pay attention to the attitudes that agents have towards propositions of which they are unaware. This raises more general questions about how awareness growth should be (...) modelled. (shrink)

This book defends an account of justice to nonhuman beings – i.e., to animals, plants etc. – also known as ecological or interspecies justice, and which lies in the intersection of environmental political theory and environmental ethics. More specifically, against the background of the current extinction crisis this book defends a global non-ranking biocentric theory of distributive ecological/interspecies justice to wild nonhuman beings, because the extinction crisis does not only need practical solutions, but also an account of how it is (...) the outcome of large-scale injustice. This book not only provides a novel theoretical framework that supports such a claim, but it also develops the theoretical tools to find just compromises between the entitlements of intraspecies and intra-human global distributive justice to ecological space for the purpose of working towards a vision of just conservation. -/- Content: 1. Introducing Ecological Justice 2. Political Non-Ranking Biocentrism 3. The Community of Justice 4. The Currency of Distributive Justice 5. The Principles of Distributive Justice 6. Ecological Justice and the Capabilities Approach 7. Biodiversity Loss: An Injustice? 8. Who Owns the Earth? 9. Visions of Just Conservation 10. Outlook for Implementation . (shrink)

Scholars have offered various critiques of Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva's controversial article, ‘After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?’ My book The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice presents four such critiques. First, Giubilini and Minerva argue from the deeply controversial to the even more controversial. Second, they presuppose a false view of personal identity called body-self dualism. Third, their view cannot secure human equality. And fourth, their account of harm cannot account for (...) harm found in some cases of murder. In the article, ‘Pro-life arguments against infanticide and why they are not convincing’, J. Räsänen examines and finds wanting these four critiques. This essay responds to Räsänen's defense of infanticide and argues that his responses to the four objections fail. (shrink)

Relational approaches are gaining more and more importance in philosophy of tech-nology. This brings up the critical question of how they can be implemented in applied ethics, law, and practice. In “Extremely Relational Robots: Implications for Law and Ethics”, Nancy S. Jecker (2024) comments on my article “Not Relational Enough? Towards an Eco-Relational Approach in Robot Ethics” (Puzio, 2024), in which I present a deep relational, “eco-relational approach”. In this reply, I address two of Jecker’s criticisms: in section. 3, I (...) deal with the connection of personhood and human identity with relationality, and in section. 4, I discuss the consequences of relational approaches for practical ethics and law. Unlike Jecker, I am strongly convinced that relational approaches can and should be implemented in applied ethics and law. (shrink)

The debate over the objects of episodic memory has for some time been stalled, with few alternatives to familiar forms of direct and indirect realism being advanced. This paper moves the debate forward by building on insights from the recent psychological literature on memory as a form of episodic hypothetical thought (or mental time travel) and the recent philosophical literature on relationalist and representationalist approaches to perception. The former suggests that an adequate account of the objects of episodic memory will (...) have to be a special case of an account of the objects of episodic hypothetical thought more generally. The latter suggests that an adequate account of the objects of episodic hypothetical thought will have to combine features of direct realism and representationalism. We develop a novel pragmatist-inspired account of the objects of episodic hypothetical thought that has the requisite features. (shrink)

Despite much philosophical attention on forgiveness itself, the phenomenon of un-forgiving is relatively neglected. Some views of forgiveness commit us to denying that we can ever permissibly un-forgive. Some go so far as to say the concept of un-forgiving is incomprehensible—it is the nature of forgiveness to be permanent. Yet many apparent cases of un-forgiving strike us as both real and justified. In what follows, I will address the latter view, that genuine un-forgiving is impossible or incomprehensible as a phenomenon, (...) advanced by a character I will call the “Un-Forgiving Denier.” I address two views which purport to describe candidate un-forgiving cases in alternative ways and deny that any candidate un-forgiving cases are truly cases of un-forgiving: the “epistemic invalidation” and “new forgiveness opportunity” views. In creating problems for those views, I hope to defend the possibility of genuine un-forgiving. Even if it’s possible to respond to the “Un-Forgiving Denier,” a defender of genuine un-forgiving still faces the “Un-Forgiving Critic,” who insists that un-forgiving, while possible, is morally indefensible. Against this view, I argue that un-forgiving enables an ideal of forgiveness wherein victims hold wrongdoers accountable for their moral development and allows certain opportunities for relational repair. I conclude that there is good reason to think un-forgiving is both possible and permissible. Embracing genuine un-forgiving puts constraints on how we should theorize about forgiveness itself and gives us an additional tool for understanding and navigating our relationships. (shrink)

With robots increasingly integrated into various areas of life, the question of relationships with them is gaining prominence. Are friendship and partnership with robots possible? While there is already extensive research on relationships with robots, this article critically examines whether the relationship with non-human entities is sufficiently explored on a deeper level, especially in terms of ethical concepts such as autonomy, agency, and responsibility. In robot ethics, ethical concepts and considerations often presuppose properties such as consciousness, sentience, and intelligence, which (...) are exclusively aligned with humans. I will challenge the understanding of these properties by anchoring them in contexts, bodies, and actions. This approach allows to consider the specific ways of being of various human and non-human entities and to identify these properties in non-human entities as well. My “eco-relational” approach posits that it is crucial to consider the relationality with non-human entities such as animals and technology in central ethical concepts from the beginning. This approach reflects the “eco”, the entire house in which we live including animals and robots. To support this, I examine two dominant approaches in robot ethics within the contemporary Western tradition: the “properties approach” and modestly relational approaches. I will develop an eco-relational approach as an alternative. Employing a phenomenological method, I will demonstrate through various examples that our properties and actions are inherently connected with non-human entities. I will show that robots play a central role in our properties and actions, leading to concepts such as hybrid actions and non-human agency. It becomes clear that technology and our relationships with it disrupt traditional ethical concepts. (shrink)

On an evidentialist position, it is epistemically rational for us to believe propositions that are (stably) supported by our total evidence. We are epistemically permitted to believe such propositions, and perhaps even ought to do so. Epistemic rationality is normative. One popular way to explain the normativity appeals to epistemic teleology. The primary aim of this paper is to argue that appeals to epistemic teleology do not support that we ought to believe what is rational to believe, only that we (...) are permitted to do so. In arguing for that, I defend an epistemic teleological position that is radical in nature. It involves no commitment to aiming at the truth. I conclude by dispelling some worries that have been raised about my position. (shrink)

The article deals with the influence of organizational ethics program components on managerial ethical behavior. The main aim was to establish which EP components are perceived as valuable and useful to foster the ethical behavior of managers. Moreover, we also aimed to investigate the role of ethics training in this context and to explore whether it can potentially increase managers’ trust in EP components as effective tools for the promotion of ethical behavior. The article advances the EP theory in several (...) ways. It offers novel insights into both business ethics and EP development in the specific cultural and social circumstances of a former socialist country in the Central and Eastern European region, Slovakia. It shows that codes of ethics and related reporting and control mechanisms are perceived as the most effective EP components to shape managerial ethical behavior. Furthermore, based on empirical evidence, and to some extent contrary to prior theory, the article unveils three EP functions, namely the ‘compliance with group norms,’ the ‘ethics education through collective discussion,’ and the ‘counselling and resolving of ethical issues’ at workplace. In addition, the article shows that ethics trainings can help to boost the trust of managers toward EP components and might be conceptualized as a precursor for an effectively functioning EP. (shrink)

18 November 2019CH: Thank you for agreeing to do this. The prompt for the interview was to talk about your recently published book, Territorial Sovereignty, but I thought before we got into that you could say something about your earlier work and how that led you to be interested in this particular project that you deal with in the book.

In his paper “Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science,” Andy Clark seminally proposed that the brain's job is to predict whatever information is coming “next” on the basis of prior inputs and experiences. Perception fundamentally subserves survival and self-preservation in biological agents, such as humans. Survival however crucially depends on rapid and accurate information processing of what is happening in the here and now. Hence, the term “next” in Clark's seminal formulation must include not (...) only the temporal dimension (i.e., what is perceivednow) but also the spatial dimension (i.e., what is perceivedhereor next-to-my-body). In this paper, we propose to focus on perceptual experiences that happen “next,” i.e., close-to-my-body. This is because perceptual processing of proximal sensory inputs has a key impact on the organism's survival. Specifically, we focus on tactile experiences mediated by the skin and what we will call the “extended skin” or “second skin,” that is, immediate objects/materials that envelop closely to our skin, namely, clothes. We propose that the skin and tactile experiences are not a mere border separating the self and world. Rather, they simultaneously and inherently distinguishandconnect the bodily self to its environment. Hence, these proximal and pervasive tactile experiences can be viewed as a “transparent bridge” intrinsically relating and facilitating exchanges between the self and the physical and social world. We conclude with potential implications of this observation for the case of Depersonalization Disorder, a condition that makes people feel estranged and detached from their self, body, and the world. (shrink)

In ‘Why Abortion is Immoral’, Don Marquis argues that abortion is wrong for the same reason that murder is wrong, namely, that it deprives a human being of an FLO, a ‘future like ours,’ which is a future full of value and the experience of life. Marquis’ argument rests on the assumption that the human being is somehow deprived by suffering an early death. I argue that Marquis’ argument faces the ‘Epicurean Challenge’. The concept of ‘deprivation’ requires that some discernible (...) individual exists who can be deprived. But if death involves total annihilation, then no discernible individual exists to be so deprived. I argue that the Epicurean Challenge must be addressed before it can be proven that Marquis is correct to claim that abortion and murder are wrong because they deprive someone of an FLO. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between a prominent version of the relational view of memory and recent work on forms of unsuccessful remembering or memory errors. I argue that unsuccessful remembering poses an important challenge for the relational view. Unsuccessful remembering can be divided into two kinds: misremembering and confabulating. I discuss each of these cases in light of a recent relational account, according to which remembering is characterized by an experiential relation to past events, and I argue that experiential (...) relations do not adequately distinguish between remembering and unsuccessful remembering. This is because there are, on the one hand, cases of remembering that do not instantiate the relevant experiential relations, and, on the other hand, cases of confabulation and misremembering that do instantiate the relevant experiential relations. I conclude by suggesting that any successful relationalist attempt to explain remembering needs to come to grips with unsuccessful remembering. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 54, Issue 1, pp 1 - 21 Thomas Aquinas sees a sharp metaphysical distinction between artifacts and substances, but does not offer any explicit account of it. We argue that for Aquinas the contribution that an artisan makes to the generation of an artifact compromises the causal responsibility of the form of that artifact for what the artifact is; hence it compromises the metaphysical unity of the artifact to that of an accidental unity. By contrast, the metaphysical (...) unity of a substance is achieved by a process of generation whereby the substantial form is solely responsible for what each part and the whole of a substance are. This, we submit, is where the metaphysical difference between artifacts and substances lies for Aquinas. Here we offer on behalf of Aquinas a novel account of the causal process of generation of substances, in terms of _descending forms_, and we bring out its explanatory merits by contrasting it to other existing accounts in the literature. (shrink)

Bernard Dickens seeks to undermine the legal and ethical protections accorded to health care workers and hospitals conscientiously objecting to abortion. First, he appeals to the rationale of antidiscrimination laws as a basis for arguing against conscientious objection. Second, he argues that conscientious objection undermines the rights of patients and their autonomy. Third, he holds that conscientiously objecting doctors have a duty to refer patients for abortion. Fourth, he believes that Kant’s principle of respect for humanity as an end in (...) itself is violated by conscientious objection to abortion. Fifth, Dickens quotes remarks by Pope John Paul II as support for the idea that physicians should not conscientiously object to abortion. Finally, he posits that institutions, such as Catholic hospitals, have a responsibility to provide abortions. I argue that all of the arguments offered by Dickens against conscientious objection are unsound. (shrink)

In this article, I provide a phenomenological exploration of the role played by narrativity in shaping affective experience. I start by surveying and identifying different ways in which linguistic and narrative expression contribute to structure and regulate emotions, and I then expand on these insights by taking into consideration the phenomenology of borderline personality disorder. Disruptions of narrative abilities have been shown to be central to the illness, and I argue that these disruptions are at the origin of a number (...) of alterations of affective experience. In particular, I suggest that due to the narrative “fragmentation” characteristic of the disorder, the emotions experienced by borderline patients are less differentiated and have a predominantly bodily and unregulated character. (shrink)

Research integrity climate is an important factor that influences an individual’s behavior. A strong research integrity culture can lead to better research practices and responsible conduct of research. Therefore, investigations on organizational climate can be a valuable tool to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each group and develop targeted initiatives. This study aims to assess the perceptions on integrity climate in three universities in Hungary. A cross-sectional study was conducted with PhD students, postdocs, and professors from three Hungarian universities. (...) The survey included demographic questions, such as gender, age, scientific field, academic rank, and the Survey of Organizational Research Climate. A total of 432 participants completed the survey. Our results show that postdocs and assistant professors perceived integrity climate more negatively than PhD students and full professors in every survey scale. Contrarily, PhD students perceive more positively than the other groups. Disciplinary differences show that researchers in the Biomedical sciences perceive regulatory bodies to be fairer when evaluating their projects than those in the Natural sciences. Natural sciences also perceive more negatively how the department values integrity when compared to Humanities. Humanities perceive more positively Advisor/Advisee Relations than Biomedical Sciences. Our results suggest that institutions should pay more attention to early career researchers, especially insecure and temporary positions like postdocs and assistant professors. They should provide RCR resources, socialize them in RCR, and set more reasonable expectations. Moreover, department leaders should develop initiatives to foster better integrity climates. (shrink)

Mental-content verbs such as think, believe, imagine and hope seem to pose special problems for the young language learner. One possible explanation for these diYculties is that the concepts that these verbs express are hard to grasp and therefore their acquisition must await relevant conceptual development. According to a diVerent, perhaps complementary, proposal, a major contributor to the diYculty of these items lies with the informational requirements for identifying them from the contexts in which they appear. The experiments reported here (...) explore the implications of these proposals by investigating the contribution of observational and linguistic cues to the acquisition of mental predicate vocabulary. We Wrst demonstrate that particular observed situations can be helpful in prompting reference to mental contents, speciWcally, contexts that include a salient and/or unusual mental state such as a false belief. We then compare the potency of such observational support to the reliability of alternate or concomitant syntactic information (e.g., sentential complementation) in tasks where both children and adults are asked to hypothesize the meaning of novel verbs. The Wndings support the eYcacy of false belief situations for increasing the saliency of mental state descriptions, but also show that.. (shrink)

In this article I explore partial ectogenesis through the lens of choice in childbirth, framing it as a mode of delivery. In doing so, I refocus discussion about partial ectogenesis, ensuring that this centers upon the autonomy and rights of the birthing person—as the procedure required to facilitate external gestation will be performed upon their body. By drawing a critical comparison between “delivery by partial ectogenesis” and request cesarean sections, I argue that delivery by partial ectogenesis ought to be available (...) on the basis of the pregnant person’s request alone. (shrink)

Background: In modern healthcare, the role of solidarity, altruism and the natural response to moral challenges in life-threatening situations is still rather unexplored. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to obtain a deeper understanding of nurses’ willingness to care for patients during crisis. Objective: To elucidate clinical expressions of ontological situational ethics through nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic. Research design, participants and context: A qualitative study with an interpretive design was applied. Twenty nurses who worked in intensive care (...) unit at two Swedish hospitals during the first, second, and third waves of the COVID-19 pandemic were interviewed. The analysis was interpretative and applied a theoretical ethics perspective. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority and informed consent was obtained from all participants. Findings: From a philosophical perspective, the nurses expressed sovereign life expressions of mercy and compassion, which arose spontaneously in response to seeing vulnerable fellow humans. They referenced ‘‘the nurse inside me’’ and their choice of profession as motives to provide care. Ontological situational ethics in culture and norms were noted in the constructs of competence, responsibility, solidarity with colleagues and organization; and interest and learning were driving forces. Ethical demand was evident when nurses expressed ideas of meaningfulness in helping their fellow humans; but themes of ambiguity, exhaustion and unwillingness were also present. Conclusions: The nurses showed a high willingness to care for patients during a crisis. Responding to the ethical demand and to care for vulnerable human beings while risking their own health and lives could be interpreted as an inter-human vocation. These spontaneous altruistic actions saved the lives of many patients during the pandemic and need to be understood and supported. (shrink)

The concept of natural otherness can be found throughout the environmental ethics literature. Drawing on this concept, this article pursues two aims. For one, it argues for an account of individual natural otherness as stable difference as opposed to accounts of natural otherness that put more emphasis on independence for the purpose of differentiating individual natural otherness from the concept of wildness. Secondly, this account of natural otherness is engaged to argue for a particular way of theorising the moral standing (...) of individual nonhuman entities. While individual natural otherness in itself does not provide an account of whether an entity matters morally in itself (that is, whether it is morally considerable); it points to an account of incommensurable moral significance for all entities which are attributed moral considerability. That is an often-overlooked alternative to egalitarian or hierarchical accounts or moral significance. Individual natural otherness understood in this way in turn provides another explanatory story for why relational accounts of environmental ethics that strongly emphasise the importance of concepts such as wildness are particularly salient. (shrink)

Questions about the dignity of the human person give rise to many of the most central and hotly disputed topics in bioethics. In _A Defense of Dignity: Creating Life, Destroying Life, and Protecting the Rights of Conscience_, Christopher Kaczor investigates whether each human being has intrinsic dignity and whether the very concept of "dignity" has a useful place in contemporary ethical debates. Kaczor explores a broad range of issues addressed in contemporary bioethics, including whether there is a duty (...) of "procreative beneficence," the ethics of ectopic pregnancy, and the possibility of "rescuing" human embryos with human wombs or artificial wombs. _A Defense of Dignity_ also treats issues relevant to the end of life, including physician-assisted suicide, provision of food and water to patients in a persistent vegetative state, and how to proceed with organ donation following death. Finally, what are the duties and prerogatives of health care professionals who refuse in conscience to take part in activities that they regard as degrading to human dignity? Should they be forced to do what they consider to be violations of the patient's well being, or does patient autonomy always trump the conscience of a health care professional? Grounded in the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition, _A Defense of Dignity_ argues that all human beings from the beginning to the end of their lives should be treated with respect and considers how this belief should be applied in controversial cases. "_A Defense of Dignity_ provides a skillful, informed, and clear philosophical analysis, from a natural law perspective, of a range of controversial, and sometimes complex, bioethical questions concerning the beginning and end of life. Few authors approach bioethics from a natural law perspective, and few do it as well as Christopher Kaczor. The book should be of interest not only to natural law philosophers and their students, but also to anyone interested in bioethics." —_John Keown, Georgetown University__ "Moral questions at the beginning and ending of life and controversies over liberty of conscience are among the most vexing and important issues of our day. Christopher Kaczor brings his characteristic moral seriousness and philosophical good sense to his treatment of these issues, all of which implicate the key concept of human dignity. This eminently readable collection will provide an invaluable resource for educators and students alike." — Christopher Tollefsen, University of South Carolina_ “Indispensable. Kaczor untangles the various meanings of human dignity to undertake a reexamination of the most serious and difficult issues in medical ethics. The book combines clarity with philosophical precision, faithfulness to Catholic teaching with a thorough engagement with critics." —_J. Budziszewski, University of Texas at Austin_. (shrink)

This entry provides an opinionated overview of key epistemological debates regarding experts. To comprehend, justify, and enhance our practices of trusting, utilising, and depending on experts' judgments, it is crucial to clarify the characteristics of experts and the means of identifying those who exemplify them. Consequently, this entry examines and evaluates accounts of the main characteristics of experts. Furthermore, it discusses indicators of experts that help recognise experts and considers to what extent they are accessible to other experts and laypersons.

We agree with van der Pijl et al that the question of how to ensure consent is obtained for procedures which occur during labour and childbirth is vitally important, and worthy of greater attention.1 However, we argue that the modified opt-out approach to consent outlined in their paper may not do enough to protect the choice and agency of birthing people. Moreover, while their approach reflects a pragmatic attempt to facilitate legal clarity and certainty in this context, this is not (...) necessarily responsive to the messy realities of decision-making during labour (and beyond). We outline some of our concerns with their proposals and demonstrate how these illuminate some broader, longstanding tensions around consent and medical law. The authors place significant focus on the particularities of labour, outlining six ways in which maternity care is ‘unlike the usual healthcare setting’ (van der Pijl M et al,1p4). We support the need for attentiveness to these particularities and the problematic nature of consent in this context. Recent scholarly attention on the possible ‘political, ethical and theoretical implications and meanings of birthing embodiment’ (Chadwick R,2p2) has invited more nuanced conversation about consent, agency and decision-making during labour. However, while recognising the embodied particularities of labour, we must also avoid essentialising the differences of labouring bodies and thereby reinforcing exclusionary norms of consent. This points to a long-standing tension in feminist theory between the universal and the particular; between recognising and responding to the powerlessness of individuals without …. (shrink)

Appealing to reason rather than religious belief, this book is the most comprehensive case against the choice of abortion yet published. This updated edition of The Ethics of Abortion critically evaluates all the major grounds for denying fetal personhood, including the views of those who defend not only abortion but also post-birth abortion. It also provides several (non-theological) justifications for the conclusion that all human beings, including those in utero, should be respected as persons. This book also critiques the view (...) that abortion is not wrong even if the human fetus is a person. The Ethics of Abortion examines hard cases for those who are prolife, such as abortion in cases of rape or in order to save the mother's life, as well as hard cases for defenders of abortion, such as sex selection abortion and the rationale for being "personally opposed" but publically supportive of abortion. It concludes with a discussion of whether artificial wombs might end the abortion debate. Answering the arguments of defenders of abortion, this book provides reasoned justification for the view that all intentional abortions are ethically wrong and that doctors and nurses who object to abortion should not be forced to act against their consciences. Updates and Revisions to the Second Edition include: --A response to Alberto Giubilini's and Francesca Minerva's now famous 2012 article, "After-Birth Abortion" in the Journal of Medical Ethics--Responses to new defenses of Judith Jarvis Thomson's violinist argument--The addition of a new chapter on gradualist views of fetal moral worth, including Jeff McMahan's Time-Relative Interest Account--The addition of a new chapter on the conscience protection for health care workers who are opposed to abortion--Responses to many critiques of the first edition, including those made by Donald Marquis, David DeGrazia, and William E. May. (shrink)