Objectives: To analyse legislation and medical professional positions concerning the doctor’s role in assisted dying in western Europe, and to discuss their implications for doctors.Method: This paper is based on country-specific reports by experts from European countries where assisted dying is legalised , or openly practiced , or where it is illegal .Results: Laws on assisted dying in The Netherlands and Belgium are restricted to doctors. In principle, assisted suicide is not illegal in either Germany or Switzerland, but a doctor’s (...) participation in Germany would violate the code of professional medical conduct and might contravene of a doctor’s legal duty to save life. The Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill proposed in the UK in 2005 focused on doctors, whereas the Proposal on Assisted Dying of the Norwegian Penal Code Commission minority in 2002 did not.Professional medical organisations in all these countries except The Netherlands maintain the position that medical assistance in dying conflicts with the basic role of doctors. However, in Belgium and Switzerland, and for a time in the UK, these organisations dropped their opposition to new legislation. Today, they regard the issue as primarily a matter for society and politics. This “neutral” stance differs from the official position of the Royal Dutch Medical Association which has played a key role in developing the Dutch practice of euthanasia as a “medical end-of-life decision” since the 1970s.Conclusion: A society moving towards an open approach to assisted dying should carefully identify tasks to assign exclusively to medical doctors, and distinguish those possibly better performed by other professions. (shrink)

PurposeAlthough an increasing body of literature suggests a relationship between brain irradiation and deterioration of neurocognitive function, it remains as the standard therapeutic and prophylactic modality in patients with brain tumors. This review was aimed to abstract and evaluate the prediction models for radiation-induced neurocognitive decline in patients with primary or secondary brain tumors.MethodsMEDLINE was searched on October 31, 2021 for publications containing relevant truncation and MeSH terms related to “radiotherapy,” “brain,” “prediction model,” and “neurocognitive impairments.” Risk of bias was (...) assessed using the Prediction model Risk Of Bias ASsessment Tool.ResultsOf 3,580 studies reviewed, 23 prediction models were identified. Age, tumor location, education level, baseline neurocognitive score, and radiation dose to the hippocampus were the most common predictors in the models. The Hopkins verbal learning and the trail making tests were the most frequent outcome assessment tools. All studies used regression as machine learning method. All models were judged to have a high risk of bias mainly due to issues in the analysis.ConclusionExisting models have limited quality and are at high risk of bias. Following recommendations are outlined in this review to improve future models: developing cognitive assessment instruments taking into account the peculiar traits of the different brain tumors and radiation modalities; adherence to model development and validation guidelines; careful choice of candidate predictors according to the literature and domain expert consensus; and considering radiation dose to brain substructures as they can provide important information on specific neurocognitive impairments. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the causation of diseases, particularly on the idea of a “genetic cause” taking Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) as an example. We (1) provide some historical information and a synopsis of the current knowledge on the etiology and pathogenesis of AD, (2) analyse some conceptual problems related to the notion of “genetic disease” (3) elaborate on the alleged (genetic) cause of AD, and (4) place the discussion on the cause of AD in a broader philosophical context, paying attention (...) to a constructivist perspective, the notions of causal connection and causal selection, and to some practical and normative consequences of our analysis. We conclude (a) that AD is not a specific disease entity with one specific cause, (b) that the idea of a single (sufficient) cause can still function as a heuristic tool in AD research and practice, and (c) that a “belief” in causation can go together with the notions of multicausality and probability. (shrink)

This paper deals primarily with countable, simple, connected graphs and the following two conditions which are trivially satisfied if the graphs are finite: (a) there is an edge-recognition algorithm, i.e., an effective procedure which enables us, given two distinct vertices, to decide whether they are adjacent, (b) there is a shortest path algorithm, i.e., an effective procedure which enables us, given two distinct vertices, to find a minimal path joining them. A graph $G = \langle\eta, \eta\rangle$ with η as set (...) of vertices and η as set of edges is an α-graph if it satisfies (a); it is an ω-graph if it satisfies (b). G is called r.e. (isolic) if the sets ν and η are r.e. (isolated). While every ω-graph is an α-graph, the converse is false, even if G is r.e. or isolic. Several basic properties of finite graphs do not generalize to ω-graphs. For example, an ω-tree with more than one vertex need not have two pendant vertices, but may have only one or none, since it may be a 1-way or 2-way infinite path. Nevertheless, some elementary propositions for finite graphs $G = \langle\nu, \eta\rangle$ with $n = \operatorname{card}(\nu), e = \operatorname{card}(\eta)$ , do generalize to isolic ω-graphs, e.g., n - 1 ≤ e ≤ n(n - 1)/2. Let N and E be the recursive equivalence types of ν and η respectively. Then we have for an isolic α-tree $G = \langle\nu, \eta\rangle: N = E + 1$ iff G is an ω-tree. The theorem that every finite graph has a spanning tree has a natural, effective analogue for ω-graphs. The structural difference between isolic α-graphs and isolic ω-graphs will be illustrated by: (i) every infinite graph is isomorphic to some isolic α-graph; (ii) there is an infinite graph which is not isomorphic to any isolic ω-graph. An isolic α-graph is also called a twilight graph. There are c such graphs, c denoting the cardinality of the continuum. (shrink)

A nonnegative interger is called a number, a collection of numbers a set and a collection of sets a class. We write ε for the set of all numbers, o for the empty set, N(α) for the cardinality of $\alpha, \subset$ for inclusion and $\subset_+$ for proper inclusion. Let α, β 1 ,...,β k be subsets of some set ρ. Then α' stands for ρ-α and β 1 ⋯ β k for β 1 ∩ ⋯ ∩ β k . For (...) subsets α 1 ,..., α r of ρ we write: $\alpha_\sigma - \{x \in v \ (\nabla i) \lbrack i \in \sigma \Rightarrow x \in \alpha_i\rbrack\} \text{for} \sigma \subset (1, \ldots, r),\\ s_i = \sum \{N(\alpha_\sigma) \mid \sigma \subset (1,\ldots, r) \& N(\sigma) = i\}, \text{for} 0 \leqq i \leqq r$ . Note that α 0 = v, hence s 0 = N(v). If the set v is finite, the classical inclusion-exclusion principle (abbreviated IEP) states $(a) N(\alpha_1 \cup \cdots \cup \alpha_r) = \sum^r_{t=1} (-1)^{t-1} s_t = \sum_{o \subset_+\sigma \subset (1,\ldots,r)}$ (b) N(α' 1 ⋯ α' r ) = ∑ r t=0 (-1) t s t = ∑ (-1) N(σ) N (α σ ). In this paper we generalize (a) and (b) to the case where α 1 ,⋯, α r are subsets of some countable but isolated set v. Then the role of the cardinality N(α) of the set α is played by the RET (recursive equivalence type) Req α of α. These generalization of (a) and (b) are proved in § 3. Since they involve recursive distinctness, this notion is discussed in § 2. In § 4l we consider a natural extension of "the sum of the elements of a finite set σ" to the case where σ is countable. § 5 deals with valuations, i.e., certain mappings μ from classes of isolated sets into the collection λ of all isols which permit us to further generalize IEP by substituting μ(α) for $\operatorname{Req} \alpha$. (shrink)

The commentary brings up two topics. The first concerns whether and how a patient’s socioeconomic status should count in clinical care. We provide a brief summary of Puschel and colleagues’ view and discuss it in relation to other accounts. We share their conclusion; considering SES in clinical care can be justified from a fairness perspective. Yet, we question the claim that this is a new perspective, and argue that the reason for the claim of novelty is an insufficient use of (...) references. This leads to the second topic, which is a discussion of citation practices in philosophical/ethics papers. We describe common deviations from academic standards, and suggest how unfortunate practices can be reduced. (shrink)

This article focuses on three scenarios in which residual biological materials are turned into research collections during the procedure of procuring these materials for diagnostic, therapeutic or other non-research purposes. These three scenarios differ from each other primarily because they employ different models of consent: (a) precautionary consent, which may be secured during the collecting procedure; (b) the presumed consent model, which may be applied during the collection of materials; and (c) consent for research use of identifiable human biological materials, (...) which may be skipped entirely. These scenarios offer additional sources of biological samples for research purposes and at the same time seem to offer even more flexibility in terms of stringency of consent as compared with the more traditional models of broad consent in prospective research collections and the waiver of consent in retrospective research. Our discussion leads us to think that precautionary consent is preferable to presumed consent and no consent when handling issues of consent in the use of residual human biological materials for research. However, such precautionary consent should not be construed as blanket, unrestricted consent for any future use. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:506 BOOK REVIEWS Contingency and Freedom: Lectura I 39. By JOHN DUNS Scorus. Introduction, translation, and commentary by A. Vos, H. Veldhuis, A.H. Looman-Graaskamp, E. Dekker, and N. W. den Bok. Vol. 42 of The New Synthese Historical Library. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994. Pp. viii+ 205. $97.00 (cloth). In this volume, the John Duns Scotus Research Group under the direction of Professor Antonie Vos at Utrecht University has provided scholars (...) of medieval philosophy and theology with an accurate and readable English translation of John Duns Scotus's earliest treatment of divine foreknowledge and future contingents. Interweaving the Latin text of Scotus's Lectura with their translation, the translators provide a very useful commentary on Scotus's text on the facing pages. The Lectura, as the introduction to the volume rightly notes, is the written version of Scotus's first lectures at Oxford on Peter Lombard's Sentences and, despite its early date, it reveals the extent to which the central ideas of Scotus's thought were already in place. Furthermore, although many of the Subtle Doctor's characteristic doctrines are mentioned herein, pride of place is given, both in the introduction and in the commentary accompanying the text, to Scotus's outstanding contribution to the medieval discussion of divine foreknowledge: his substantial revision of the modal notions of necessity, possibility, and contingency. The text translated in this volume is the entirety of Scotus's commentary on distinction thirty-nine ofthe first book of the Lombard's Sentences, the customary place in medieval theological commentaries for raising questions about the reality of future contingents, their knowability, and the compatibility of future contingency with divine foreknowledge. In his commentary, Scotus raises five questions in connection with distinction thirty-nine: 1) whether God has determinate knowledge of things according to every aspect of their existence, including the future; 2) whether God has infallible knowledge of things according to every aspect of their existence; 3) whether God has immutable knowledge; 4) whether God necessarily knows every changeable aspect of things; and 5) whether the contingency of things is compatible with God's knowledge. Prompted by these questions, Scotus reviews traditional explanations of God's infallibility and immutability as well as contemporary accounts of how the future is knowable. Regarding the former, Scotus first introduces an explanation, similar in its outlines to that found in St. Bonaventure's Commentary on the Sentences and St. Thomas's Summa theologiae, of the infallibility of God's knowledge b,ased on the preeminence and lucidity of the Divine Ideas. According to this explanation, the Divine Ideas are so comprehensive and so distinctive that they allow any mind aware of them to perceive the most intimate and subtle connections between things as well as the things themselves; yet the things known through the Ideas need not be necessary since the mode of the cognition does not necessarily reflect the mode of the BOOK REVIEWS 507 things known through it. Scotus's main objection to this explanation is that it does not adequately account for how God could know contingent things since the truth of contingent things is not, by definition, contained in the notions of the simple terms, to which the Divine Ideas are often likened, composing a contingent proposition; indeed, if the truth of contingent things were contained in the notions of the simple terms composing the propositions that express them, the truth of contingent things would not be contingent but necessary. The failure of this explanation is traceable, in Scotus's view, to an insufficient appreciation for the role of the Divine Will in the production of created things. As to the matter of how the future is knowable, the Subtle Doctor reviews Aquinas's theory that God's eternity is present to all times. Scotus rejects this theory on the ground that, among other difficulties, God cannot cause something new in the future since the future, qua present, is already laid out before God as something that is caused. Hence, unless the theory can accommodate the possibility of God causing something twice, God's causal role in the future is nugatory. In other words, the notion of the past and the future being somehow... (shrink)

Hva vil det si å ha kunnskap om noe? Hva slags ting finnes i verden, og hva går det an å vite noe om? Hvordan bør vi leve? Hva er verdifullt? I denne boka søkes svar på disse spørsmålene gjennom eksempler fra filosofi- og vitenskapshistorien og fra etikk. Boka har 20 kapitler fordelt på tre deler. Del 1 – vite – stiller spørsmål om kunnskap. Del 2 – være – tar utgangspunkt i hva som er virkelig. Del 3 – gjøre (...) – er viet etikk. Hvert kapittel har en introduksjon samt én til to originaltekster som er skrevet av tenkere fra vår samtid og fra filosofi- og vitenskapshistorien. Hvert kapittel har også studiespørsmål og en opplisting av det du bør ha lært, etter å ha lest kapittelet. -/- [Dette er den eneste godkjent boken som dekker pensum til examen philosophicum ved Universitetet i Oslo]. (shrink)

Drawing from the Boulding''s (1956) framework for general systems theory, the need to employ richer paradigm in the study of organizations (Pondy and Mitroff, 1979) is reiterated. It is argued that a better understanding of organizational ethical behavior is contingent upon viewing organizations as symbol processing systems of shared language and meanings. Further, it is proposed that organizations, like individuals, develop into collectivities of shared cognitions and rationale, over a period of time. The study adapts Kohlberg''s (1983) model of moral (...) development to examine if organizations can be viewed as passing through different stages of moral development depending on the type of moral reasoning employed to explain their behaviors in the face of ethical crises. Several cases raising questions about the ethics of corporate behavior were researched. An instrument entitled Organization Response Analysis was constructed using statements made by various spokespersons representing five of these organizations. The instrument was administered to 246 graduate and undergraduate students of business (N = 246). Results indicated a great degree of concurrence among respondents of differing genders, levels of education and work experience in determining the stages of moral development of organizations. Limitations of the current study and implications for future research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Let $V_\propto$ be a fixed, fully effective, infinite dimensional vector space. Let $\mathscr{L}(V_\propto)$ be the lattice consisting of the recursively enumerable (r.e.) subspaces of $V_\propto$ , under the operations of intersection and weak sum (see § 1 for precise definitions). In this article we examine the algebraic properties of $\mathscr{L}(V_\propto)$ . Early research on recursively enumerable algebraic structures was done by Rabin [14], Frolich and Shepherdson [5], Dekker [3], Hamilton [7], and Guhl [6]. Our results are based upon the more (...) recent work concerning vector spaces of Metakides and Nerode [12], Crossley and Nerode [2], Remmel [15], [16], and Kalantari [8]. In the main theorem below, we extend a result of Lachlan from the lattice E of r.e. sets to $\mathscr{L}(V_\propto)$ . We define hyperhypersimple vector spaces, discuss some of their properties and show if $A, B \in \mathscr{L}(V_\propto)$ , and A is a hyperhypersimple subspace of B then there is a recursive space C such that A + C = B. It will be proven that if $V \in \mathscr{L}(V_\propto)$ and the lattice of superspaces of V is a complemented modular lattice then V is hyperhypersimple. The final section contains a summary of related results concerning maximality and simplicity. (shrink)

This paper describes the perspectives of stakeholders within the North American dairy industry on key issues affecting the welfare of dairy cattle. Five heterogeneous focus groups were held during a dairy cattle welfare meeting in Guelph, Canada in October 2012. Each group contained between 7 and 10 participants and consisted of a mix of dairy producers, veterinarians, academics, students, and dairy industry specialists. The 1-h facilitated discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Content analysis of the resulting transcripts showed that participants (...) across all stakeholder categories identified lameness as the most important welfare issue facing dairy cattle. Other prominent issues of concern included cow comfort, disease, on-farm mortality, stockmanship, painful procedures, injuries, cull cow management, calf management, and restriction of behavioural freedoms. Participants typically gave several reasons for why they considered issues problematic. Underlying reasons were grouped according to animal-centered concerns [at both the individual and at the herd level ] and industry-centered concerns . This analysis identified areas of shared concern among diverse stakeholder groups, which should aid in the development of standards and policies that satisfy stakeholders within and external to the dairy industry. (shrink)

This paper evaluates the current use of the Principal Agent Model (PAM) in accounting and finance, focusing on the agent'ss use of private information. The agent'ss behavioral norms in the the PAM deviate from commonly held ethical values in society, from models of man in conventional economic theory, and also from behavioral foundations of related business school fields like corporate strategy, business ethics, and human resource management. Still, it would be unwise to reject the PAM solely because of its distasteful (...) ethical assumptions. The model does appear to have predictive power, but its descriptive or normative qualities remain unexplored. The popularity of the PAM, with its extreme model of man, raises fundamental questions about the impact of this model on business school stakeholders and society at large. (shrink)

En el ámbito de la lógica matemática existe un problema sobre la relación lógica entre dos versiones débiles del Axioma de elección (AE) que no se ha podido resolver desde el año 2000 (aproximadamente). Tales versiones están relacionadas con ultrafiltros no principales y con Propiedades Ramsey (Bernstein, Polarizada, Subretículo, Ramsey, Ordinales flotantes, etc). La primera versión débil del AE es la siguiente (A): “Existen ultrafiltros no principales sobre el conjunto de los números naturales (ℕ)”. Y la segunda versión débil del (...) AE es la siguiente (B): “Existen ultraflitros sobre ℕ”. Se sabe que A implica B, pero se desconoce si B implica A. Di Prisco y Henle conjeturan en los artículos ([1], [2]) que esto no ocurre, es decir, conjeturan que B no implica A, en otras palabras, conjeturan que A es más fuerte estrictamente que B, que A es independiente de B, pero esto no se ha podido demostrar todavía aunque se ha intentado hacer desde hace aproximadamente 21 años. Una descripción detallada de este problema abierto puede encontrarse en esta ponencia (dictada en el marco del Día Mundial de la Lógica 14-01-2022) y en el artículo [3]. [1] C. Di Prisco y H. Henle. “Doughnuts, Floating Ordinals, Square Brackets, and Ultraflitters”. Journal of Symbolic Logic 65 (2000) 462-473. [2] C. Di Prisco y H. Henle. “Partitions of the reals and choice”. En “Models, algebras and proofs”. X. Caicedo y C.M. Montenegro. Eds. Lecture Notes in Pure and Appl. Math, 203, Marcel Dekker, 1999. [3] F. Galindo. “Tópicos de ultrafiltros”. Divulgaciones Matemáticas. Vol. 21, No 1-2, 2020. (shrink)

The use of placebos in therapy or research poses ethical questions. What are the benefits and the costs in ethical terms of condoning deception of the patient or subject? What does the deception mean for the patient's or subject's right to give informed consent to his treatment? Doctors are rightly expected to disclose to their patient facts which would in their judgement best enable him to give informed consent to treatment. On occasion, the degree of this disclosure may be limited (...) by the need to avoid hazarding the success of treatment of an unstable patient whose condition threatens his life, but doctors should have no right to withhold information just to prevent a patient refusing consent to therapy. No such limitation should apply in experiments where full disclosure must operate to enable the subject to give his informed consent. The potential medical benefits for the patient of placebo therapy have to be weighed against all the ethical costs of the deception and dishonesty involved, including the longer term repercussions on doctor/patient trust: similar ethical costs may arise in experiments involving the use of placebos without disclosure of this as a possibility to the subject. Deception is ethically degrading to both parties not only being a breach of trust, but denying the moral autonomy of the patient or subject to make his own choice. The writer concludes that placebos should be used only with full disclosure and consent whether in therapy or in research, and that this need not impede the success of either. (shrink)

This article presents a brief general view of the recent literature and the scholarly activity in the field of philosophy of medicine in Scandinavia. The focus of attention is not on medical ethics, but on studies on topics like decision theory, medical classification, causality, causal explanations, concept formation, and on analyses of different ideals of medical science and clinical practice. A few principal works on medical ethics are mentioned by way of introduction and a brief account of a highly topical (...) debate on the legislation on artificial insemination in Sweden is given at the end. (shrink)