PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the UK National DNA Database and some of the controversies surrounding it with reference to legal and ethical issues, focusing particularly on privacy and human rights. Governance of this database involves specific exemptions from the Data Protection Act, and this gives a rise to concerns regarding both the extent of surveillance on the UK population and the possibility for harm to all citizens. This is of wider importance since every current citizen, and (...) everybody who visits the UK, could become a record in the DNA database. Principally, the paper seeks to explore whether these exemptions would also imply exemptions for software developers from codes of practice and ethics of their professional societies as relate to constructing or maintaining such data and the database.Design/methodology/approachThe paper makes a comparison between the principles of the DPA, as would need to be followed by all other organizations handling personal data, professional responsibilities‐based codes of ethics of professional societies, and the current reality as reported in relation to the NDNAD and the exemptions offered through the DPA.FindingsPrimarily, if NDNAD was not exempted from certain provisions in the DPA, the potential for the kinds of data leakages and other mishandlings could largely be avoided without the need for further considerations over so‐called “data minimization”. It can be seen how the lack of afforded protection allows for a wide range of issues as relate at least to privacy.Originality/valueThe paper provides the first evaluation of the combination of law, codes of ethics, and activities in the real world as related to NDNAD, with concomitant considerations for privacy, liberty, and human rights. Originality is demonstrated through consideration of the implications of certain exemptions in the DPA in relation to crime and taxation and national security and in relating the expected protections for personal data to widely reported evidence that such protections may be variously lacking. In addition, the paper provides a broad overview of controversies over certain newer kinds of DNA analysis, and other relatively recent findings, that seem generally absent from the vast majority of debates over this kind of analysis. (shrink)

Deception is a reasonably common part of daily life that society sometimes demonstrates a degree of acceptance of, and occasionally people are very willing to be deceived. But can a computer identify deception and distinguish it from that which is not deceptive? We explore deception in various guises, differentiating it from lies, and highlighting the influence of medium and message in both deception and its detection. Our investigations to date have uncovered disagreements relating to the measurements of such cues, and (...) variations in interpretations, as could be problematic in building a deception detection system. (shrink)

What is "race"? What role, if any, should race play in our moral obligations to others and to ourselves? Ethics along the Color Line addresses the question of whether black Americans should think of each other as members of an extended racial family and base their treatment of each other on this consideration, or eschew racial identity and envision the day when people do not think in terms of race. Anna Stubblefield suggests furthermore that white Americans should consider the (...) same issues. She argues, finally, that for both black and white Americans, thinking of races as families is crucial in helping to combat anti-black oppression. Stubblefield is concerned that the philosophical debate—argued notably between Kwame Anthony Appiah and Lucius Outlaw—over whether or not we should strongly identify in terms of race, and whether or not we should take race into account when we decide how to treat each other, has stalled. Drawing on black feminist scholarship about the moral importance of thinking and acting in terms of community and extended family, the author finds that strong racial identification, if based on appropriate ideals, is morally sound and even necessary to end white supremacy. (shrink)

The ability to be creative is often considered a unique characteristic of conscious beings and many efforts have been directed at demonstrating a relationship between creativity and the personality construct of psychoticism. The present study sought to investigate this link explicitly by focusing on discrete facets of creative cognition, namely the originality/novelty dimension and the practicality/usefulness dimension. Based on Eysenck’s conceptualisation of psychoticism as being characterised by an overinclusive cognitive style, it was expected that higher levels of psychoticism would accompany (...) a greater degree of conceptual expansion and elevated levels of originality in creative imagery, but would be unrelated to the practicality/usefulness of an idea. These hypotheses were confirmed in 80 healthy participants who were contrasted based on their EPQ psychoticism scale scores. Our findings suggest that the link between psychoticism and creativity is based on associative thinking and broader but weak top-down activation patterns rather than on goal-related thinking. (shrink)

Cet article s’intéresse aux ateliers régionaux de production céramique de Chypre à l’époque géométrique. À partir de l’analyse détaillée de la céramique, qui constitue la documentation primaire pour cette époque, et suivant une méthode rigoureuse, on tentera d’identifier et de définir le caractère régional de la production céramique. Cela nous permettra de cerner des modes de développement spécifiques et différenciés selon les régions de l’île. En l’absence de sources écrites pour l’époque chypro-géométrique, cette démarche est susceptible d’éclairer les processus de (...) constitution des royaumes chypriotes du Ier millénaire av. J.-C. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to describe specialist ambulance nurse students’ experiences of ethical conflicts and dilemmas in prehospital emergency care. In the autumn of 2015, after participating in a mandatory lecture on ethics, 24 specialist ambulance nurse students reported experiences and interpretations concerning conflicts and ethical dilemmas from prehospital emergency care. The text consisted of 24 written critical incidents which were interpreted using hermeneutic text interpretation. The text revealed three themes: Not safeguarding a patient’s body and identity; Not (...) agreeing on the care actions; and Not treating the patient with dignity. The SANs experiences ethical dilemmas and conflict of values when they witness how others violate a patient’s dignity. Discussion and reflection is based on ethical conflicts and dilemmas experienced when students see how caregivers do not safeguard the patient’s body or identity. When caregivers have a conflicting will, it results in patients not being treated in an ethical manner. Also, seeing how caregivers put themselves in a power position over patients is described as an ethical dilemma that students experience when they choose not to intervene. (shrink)

Both scientists and representatives of industry claim that important advantages can be secured through advances in biotechnology. However, the European public views new developments with caution, in particular when the applications concern animals and food. These differences in attitude cannot be explained merely in terms of differences in knowledge but also seem to be the upshot of contrasting values. One way to understand moral opinions and values is to view them against the background of so-called ethical theories. In this paper (...) we seek to describe the theoretical foundations of different public concerns over animal biotechnology. We also discuss the extent to which the values adhered to by the public are compatible with the visions of scientists regarding applications of biotechnology and other practices involving animals. We conclude that, in general, public worries about animal biotechnology can be located in the different ethical theories with bearings on animals. However, in most cases where biotechnology is found problematic, corresponding problems can be found in other widespread uses of animals that do not involve modem biotechnology. In recognition of this, we argue that the critical analysis not only of new biotechnology but also of existing technologies, gives rise to a-serious discussion of the limits to what it is ethically acceptable to do to animals. (shrink)

All migration politics are reproductive politics. The nation-state project of controlling migration secures the racialised demographics of the nation, understood as a reproducible fact of the social and human body, determining who is differentially included, who is excluded, and who is exalted. In this commentary, we put forward a provocation about methodological heteronormativity and its omnipresence in the discourse surrounding the so-called “refugee crisis.” By methodological heteronormativity, we refer to the ways states, supranational organisations, hegemonic ideologies, but also solidarity movements (...) and critical scholars construct the figure of the (un)deserving “refugee.”. (shrink)

Public health raises critical ethics issues and concerns, making public heath ethics an essential topic for students and public health professionals. The 73 chapters in this volume examine public health ethics across a broad range of public health topics both in the U.S. and globally. It is the first ever comprehensive collection devoted to public health ethics.

In ‘The autonomy of the affect’ Brian Massumi wrote of the gap between affective and cognitive registering of the traumatic experience. Affect theorists and neuroscientists have long shared the notion of a gap between the somatic response to a traumatic event and the appraisal of the affective situation. This article develops theories on dissociation or nothingness, where nothingness is a measurement of the space between the affective and the cognitive registering of a traumatic event. It explores the concept of two (...) different systems, one a ‘conscious automatic’ system and the other an ‘intensity system’ that exists outside of normal physiological sequencing, beyond narration, and therefore incapable of integrating into memory systems. (shrink)

Abstrakt Analizy w zakresie starogreckich znaczeń słowa pathos skłaniają do postawienia tezy, że należy mówić o czterech głównych kontekstach, które ukształtowały rozumienie tej kategorii: o kontekście retorycznym, etycznym, tragicznym i emotywnym (passio). Chociaż wszystkie cztery wspomniane obszary pozostawały względem siebie stosunkowo niezależne, modyfikując sens pojęcia pathos w czasem bardzo odległych rejestrach czasowych, to można wskazać pewien wspólny rdzeń, determinujący charakter omawianej kategorii: mianowicie jej inherentną zakłóceniowość, kryzysogenność i afektywność. Pozostaje on w ścisłej relacji z odniesieniem patosu do doświadczeń bolesnych, nagłych, (...) zadziwiających, a także – tak, jak w ślad za Grekami czyni to Waldenfels – do stanów pasywnych, z których podmiot, pod wpływem patycznego ugodzenia, wybudza się jako żywo reagujący, cielesny „respondent”. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest prześledzenie owych starożytnych źródeł patosu i wskazanie ich współczesnych reminiscencji, rozbrzmiewających w Waldenfelsowskiej fenomenologii responsywnej. Struktura tekstu jest następująca: w pierwszej części przyglądamy się historycznym zastosowaniom pojęcia pathos (głównie w ramach tradycji greckiej); w części drugiej analizujemy patos pod kątem zdziwienia, uchodzącego według Platona i Arystotelesa za akt inicjujący myślenie filozoficzne; w części trzeciej, poświęconej fenomenologii Waldenfelsa, prezentujemy afektywny i cielesny wymiar doświadczenia patycznego, zradykalizowanego zarówno względem kartezjańskiego dualizmu, jak i Husserlowskiej teorii autoafekcji; w części czwartej powracamy do wyróżnionych wcześniej historycznych kontekstów patosu, aby pokazać, w jaki sposób Waldenfels na gruncie fenomenologii responsywnej aktualizuje je w ramach swojej polemiki z „klasycznymi” ujęciami doświadczenia i emocji. Słowa kluczowe: Patos, fenomenologia responsywna, Bernhard Waldenfels, retoryka, tragedia, etyka, afekt. (shrink)

The establishment of a Research Ethics Committee (REC) is a significant step to ensure the standard procedures in ethics review process that protect human participants. However, in instances when RECs are not yet established, surrogate activities are practiced by some institutions. The objective of this study was to identify prevailing research ethical practices of research directors and faculty researchers in the absence of a research ethics committee in their respective academic institutions. Specifically, it aimed to explore the participants’ 1) experiences (...) in research subject protection and 2) challenges when there is no existing REC in the institution. Participants were selected from universities in Manila City whose institutions did not have RECs at the time of the conduct of this study. Key informant interviews and focus group discussions were used as approaches for data collection. The authors used NVivo to organize data from the transcribed audio-recorded interviews and were analyzed utilizing a basic interpretive qualitative approach. Based on the results, surrogate practices of participants involved (1) providing “informed consent forms” to target participants and the (2) roles of different personalities in the evaluation/conduct of the research paper. Implications of this study and recommendations were likewise discussed in this paper. (shrink)

Las "Cuestiones Sicilianas" son el primer texto conservado del filósofo y sufí Ibn Sab'in de Murcia (c. 614/1217-668/1270). Aunque el prólogo del texto pretende que se trata de respuestas a preguntas mandadas por Federico II al mundo árabe, parece más probable que se trate de un manual introductorio para estudiantes árabes de filosofía, discutiendo cuatro problemas específicos y controvertidos como manera de presentar conceptos generales de la filosofía aristotélica. Este artículo analiza la estructura y la manera de argumentar en las (...) Cuestiones Sicilianas. Dedica su atención en particular a la relación entre el Sufismo y la filosofía y a las fuentes del texto, sobre todo los textos filosóficos de Ibn Rusd. Interpreta a Ibn Sab'in y sus Cuestiones Sicilianas como un reflejo del ambiente intelectual en el Oeste del Mediterráneo durante los últimos años de los Almohades. El texto fue posiblemente compuesto en un contexto que tenía que ver con los t.alaba, y refleja también unos aspectos claves de la ideología Almohade. (shrink)

Monstrosity has its recognized place in cultural narratives but in philosophical discourse it remains mostly untouched. In my paper I make an attempt at phenomenological inquiry into the experience of the Other’s monstrous body. I am beginning with some remarks concerning Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault, the philosophers who devoted some attention to the problem of monstrosity and the monstrous, but my analysis is mainly based on the works of Bernhard Waldenfels, Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Waldenfels emphasizes that the (...) corporeal self is somehow perceived as alien, always somewhat distanced and not totally graspable. He also argues that the closer the Other, the stronger activation of the boundary between the spheres of the ownness and the alienness is caused. A promising framework for the analysis of the ambivalent reaction brought about by the encounter with a monstrous human body can be provided by Husserl’s phenomenological inquiry into the process of pairing, developed in his Cartesian meditations. It seems that in this experience the pairing process is frustrating and deranged because the process of apperception is disturbed by a cluster of untypical or quite unique characteristics of the monstrous body. In result, its sense remains unclear, puzzling and challenging. Interesting light on the experience of the Other’s monstrous body could shed Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, especially the ideas of flesh and chiasm outlined in his last work. The radical character of the monster, while does not render it something totally different from the own, elucidates, however, the contingency of the order under which the human corporeality is subsumed. (shrink)

W pracy omówiono okoliczności wyludniania się wiejskich jednostek osadniczych z terenu dawnych Prus Wschodnich, zachodzącego przed 1939 rokiem. Szczegółowe zagadnienia przedstawiono na przykładzie obszaru obecnego powiatu piskiego, funkcjonującego do 1945 roku w niemal niezmienionych granicach jako niemiecki Kreis Johannisburg. Szczególną uwagę poświęcono krajobrazowym aspektom przyczyn oraz konsekwencji zachodzącej depopulacji, włączając analizę przestrzenną z wykorzystaniem metody kartograficznej. Materialne świadectwa przerwania ciągłości osadnictwa powodowanego czynnikami środowiskowymi przedstawiono na przykładzie translokowanej miejscowości Wielgilass, omawiając m.in. relikty zidentyfikowane za pośrednictwem pochodnych lotniczego skanowania laserowego.

The mind-body relation was at the forefront of philosophy and theology in late antiquity, a time of great intellectual innovation. This volume, the first integrated history of this important topic, explores ideas about mind and body during this period, considering both pagan and Christian thought about issues such as resurrection, incarnation and asceticism. A series of chapters presents cutting-edge research from multiple perspectives, including history, philosophy, classics and theology. Several chapters survey wider themes which provide context for detailed studies of (...) the work of individual philosophers including Numenius, Pseudo-Dionysius, Damascius and Augustine. Wide-ranging and accessible, with translations given for all texts in the original language, this book will be essential for students and scholars of late antique thought, the history of religion and theology, and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In this paper, a rights-based argument for the impermissibility of abortion, infanticide and neglect of some pre-natal organisms and infants/children is advanced. I argue, in opposition to most rights-ethicists, that the potentiality for autonomous agency gives individuals negative rights. I also examine the conjecture that potential autonomous agents have positive rights in virtue of their vulnerability. According to this suggestion, once an individual obtains actual autonomous agency, he or she has merely negative rights. Possible solutions to conflicts of rights between (...) parents and their offspring are investigated. Finally, I discuss a lexical order between positive and negative rights, which may solve conflicts between the rights of potential autonomous agents and actual autonomous agents. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEmpathy is commonly defined as the ability to feel another person’s emotion, and has previously received significant attention from various research communities. The third-person nature of...

This article is the first indepth ethical analysis of empirical studies that support the claim that children born without major parts of their cerebral cortex are capable of conscious experiences and have a rudimentary capacity for agency. Congenitally decorticate children have commonly been classified as persistently vegetative, with serious consequences for their well-being and opportunities to flourish. The paper begins with an explication of the rights-based normative framework of the argument, including conceptual analysis of the terms ‘agency’, ‘potentiality for agency’ (...) and ‘gradual approach of agency’. It critically examines Alan Gewirth’s account of the criteria for being a rights bearer and principles for settling rights conflicts between agents and potential agents. It then applies the rights-based normative framework to the ethical challenges associated with care for congenitally decorticate children. It argues that recent empirical studies support the claim that the concepts ‘potential for agency’ and ‘capacity for rudimentary agency’ apply to children who are born without major parts of their cerebral cortex. The article finally discusses important medical ethical implications of these results. It specifically focuses on congenitally decorticate children’s preparatory rights to a stimulating intellectual and social environment. (shrink)

Cet article commence par revenir sur certains thèmes et enjeux des contributions présentées dans le volume. Il évoque ensuite les problèmes liés aux paradigmes épistémologiques employés dans l’étude du rapport entre animaux et religions antiques, en proposant quelques pistes de réflexion pour la recherche sur ce thème.

Recent health legislation in Norway significantly increases access to specialist care within a legally binding time frame. The paper describes the contents of the new legislation and introduces some of the challenges with proliferations of rights to health care. The paper describes some of the challenges associated with the proliferation of legal rights to health care. It explains the benefits of assessing the new law in the light of a rights framework. It then analyses the problematic aspects of establishing additional (...) priority rules as solutions to rights conflicts. It then defends adequacy criteria for acceptable priority rules when such rules are unavoidable. It finally defends our proposed method and explores concrete applications. (shrink)

Introduction:Healthcare workers facing the threatening COVID-19 can experience severe difficulties. Despite the need to evaluate both the psychological distress and positive protective resources, brief and reliable assessment tools are lacking.Aim:Study 1 aimed at developing a new assessment tool to measure psychological distress and esteem in healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study 2 aimed to explore and compare the psychological reactions of healthcare workers of the COVID-19 and the non-COVID-19 wards.Methods:In Study 1, psychologists created 25 items based on their clinical (...) experience. A preliminary qualitative evaluation selected the best 15 items for the new tool assessing the COVID-19 psychological impact with 2 scales: psychological distress and esteem. The CPI-HP was administered to 110 healthcare professionals to study its psychometric properties and the internal structure with exploratory graph analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Study 2 compared two groups of healthcare professionals of the COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 departments.Results:In Study 1, the CPI-HP showed satisfying psychometric properties, and the two-factor structure was confirmed with good fit indices. In Study 2, the two groups of healthcare workers showed comparable levels of psychological distress and resilient coping, but the COVID-19 group displayed significantly higher esteem and appreciation of the experience.Discussion:All operators showed high psychological distress during the emergency, but the COVID-19 group reported higher resources, probably due to stronger group cohesion and greater esteem, perceived meaning, and own work value.Conclusion:Assessing the psychological distress and resources of healthcare professionals with specific tools is important. Psychological interventions should promote their psychological health. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to argue that some cases of autobiographical remembering can be, and sometimes are, experienced aesthetically. Building on a Deweyan approach to the nature of aesthetic experiences, I show how Dewey conceived of aesthetic experiences as having a cumulative and progressive structure—I call experiences with such structure Deweyan experiences—and how that structure is replicated in some cases of autobiographical remembering in virtue of their having narrative structure. I also discuss the relationship between remembering and other (...) forms of narrative thinking and argue that not only it is easier for remembering to be experienced aesthetically, but also that only remembering can have the cumulative and progressive structure that characterizes Deweyan experiences. I conclude by showing how the Deweyan approach allows us to conceive of the aesthetic value of remembering in terms of the pleasurable or hedonic character of Deweyan experiences. (shrink)

This paper traces the intellectual trajectories of the first stand-alone theories of action, understood as both axiologically neutral and quasi-scientific from a methodological point of view. I argue that the rise of action theory of this kind corresponds to a particular moment of dissatisfaction within Western thought, and as such, it tells us far more about the history of philosophy than the subject itself. I conclude by explaining why subsequent failures to provide an acceptable theory of action are not accidental. (...) On the contrary, such failures owe themselves probably to the fact that formulating a theory of action is neither propitious nor useful. Thus, the most valuable lesson we can learn from philosophical desires for a theory of action is that we should take co-action as the starting point in our normative investigations, rather than positing action simpliciter as a problem to solve. That is, we should move away from propounding a theory of action, and instead focus on a paradigm shift, whereby we move away from a representational, towards a co-actional, model of action. (shrink)

This article analyses teaching reflection skills as a means to inculcate students’ capacity to contribute to justice. Arising out of understandings of professionalism, the rule of law, as well as m...

This article is the first to bring into scientific discussion and to provide a historico-philosophical analysis of a manuscript “Neoplatonic Philosophy from the archive of Pamfil Danylovych Yurkevych. The reviewed manuscript belongs to P. D. Yurkevych’s handwritten nachlass stored in the funds of the Institute of Manuscript of V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine in the city of Kyiv. Additional archival materials are involved to answer several research questions. The author of this article provides arguments in favor of proving (...) that the manuscript is to be attributed to P. D. Yurkevych’s own handwriting, to be dated circa 1856, and that the purposing of its content is to be qualified as didactic. As it is established in the article, textual content of the manuscript in question is an original concise description and analysis of neoplatonic philosophy, which belongs to the set of materials created by P. D. Yurkevych in preparation for teaching the course on Ancient Philosophy in Kyiv Theological Academy during Kyivan period of his work. Turning to the inner critique of the manuscript, author of this article emphasizes an analysis that P. D. Yurkevych conducts concerning Plotinus’s ideas of the process of emanation of the world from the One and the role that philosophy has in true cognition. While comparing the manuscript “Neoplatonic Philosophy” with one of P. D. Yurkevych’s substantial philosophical works “Idea”, additional light is shed upon the prosess of genesis and development of Christian-Platonic worldview of the thinker. Furthermore, it is established that the manuscript in question played a major role in P. D. Yurkevych’s own schooling, particulary concerning his view on the philosophy of Plotinus, and his general reception of the Platonic tradition. (shrink)

Since 2015, the ‘refugee crisis’ is possibly the most photographed humanitarian crisis in history. Photographs taken, for instance, in Lesvos, Greece, and Bodrum, Turkey, were instrumental in generating waves of public support for, and populist opposition to “welcoming refugees” in Europe. But photographs do not circulate in a vacuum; this book explores the visual economy of the ‘refugee crisis,’ showing how the reproduction of images is structured by, and secures hierarchies of gender, sexuality, and ‘race,’ essential to the functioning of (...) bordered nation-states. Taking photography not only as the object of research, but innovating the method of photographìa— the material trace of writing/grafì with light/phos—this book urges us to view images and their reproduction critically. Part theoretical text, part visual essay, "Reproducing Refugees" vividly shows how institutional violence underpins both the spectacularity and the banality of ‘crisis.’ This book goes about synthesising visual studies with queer, feminist, postcolonial, post-structuralist, and post-Marxist theories. "Reproducing Refugees: Photographìa of a Crisis" offers theoretical frameworks and methodological tools to critically analyse representations, both those circulated through hegemonic institutions, and those generated from ‘below’. It carves a space between logos and praxis, ways of knowing and ways of doing, by offering a new visual language that problematises reified categories such as that of the ‘refugee’ and makes possible disruptive, alternative, resistant perceptions. The book contributes to the fields of migration and border studies, critically engaging visual narratives drawn from migration movements to question dominant categories and frameworks, from a decolonial, no-borders, queer feminist perspective. (shrink)

The article analyses Niels Lyhne, a novel written by the Danish writer Jens Peter Jacobsen. The authoress believes that the novel can be interpreted through the prism of Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy of despair and melancholy, as well as Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy of deicide. She investigates the issue of atheism and contradictions that result from it by, firstly, focusing on arguments proving the weakness of religion and then by discussing arguments supporting atheism that are advanced by the main protagonist in the (...) novel. What draws attention in Niels’s line of thought is, on the one hand, an unambiguous departure from religion and, on the other, adopting naturalism, which is difficult to reconcile with his idealism. Furthermore, the authoress concentrates on Niels’s worldview, pointing out that it is constituted by a metaphysical rebellion, i.e. refusing to accept an ontic status of man, which involves suffering and death. She claims that Niels has not mastered „the art of losing,” which is addressed by Elizabeth Bishop in her poem. In her conclusion, the authoress indicates contradictions in Niels’s line of thought, which undermine coherence and usefulness of his atheistic worldview. (shrink)