Many families of patients hold the view that it is their right to be present during a loved one's resuscitation, while the majority of patients also express the comfort and support they would feel by having them there. Currently, family presence is more commonly accepted in paediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation than adult CPR. Even though many guidelines are in favour of this practice and recognise potential benefits, healthcare professionals are hesitant to support adult family presence to the extent that paediatric family (...) presence is supported. However, in this paper, we suggest that the ethical case to justify family presence during paediatric resuscitation is weaker than the justification of family presence during adult resuscitation. We go on to support this claim using three main arguments that people use in clinical ethics to justify FPDR. These include scarcity of evidence documenting disruption, psychological benefits to family members following the incident and respect for patient autonomy. We demonstrate that these arguments actually apply more strongly to A-FPDR compared with P-FPDR, thereby questioning the common attitude of healthcare professionals of allowing the latter while mostly opposing A-FPDR. Importantly, we do not wish to suggest that P-FPDR should not be allowed. Rather, we suggest that since P-FPDR is commonly allowed, so should A-FPDR. This is because the aforementioned arguments that are used to justify FPDR in general actually make a stronger case for A-FPDR. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDeliberative and decisional groups play crucial roles in most aspects of social life. But it is not obvious how to organize these groups and various socio-cognitive mechanisms can spoil debates and decisions. In this paper we focus on one such important mechanism: the misrepresentation of views, i.e. when agents express views that are aligned with those already expressed, and which differ from their private opinions. We introduce a model to analyze the extent to which this behavioral pattern can warp deliberations (...) and distort the decisions that are finally taken. We identify types of situations in which misrepresentation can have major effects and investigate how to reduce these effects by adopting appropriate deliberative procedures. We discuss the beneficial effects of holding a sufficient number of rounds of expression of views; choosing an appropriate order of speech, typically a random one; rendering the deliberation dissenter-friendly; having agents express fined-grained views. These applicable procedures help improve deliberations because they dampen conformist behavior, give epistemic minorities more opportunities to be heard, and reduce the number of cases in which an inadequate consensus or majority develops. (shrink)

Although complex hallucinations are extremely vivid, painful symptoms in schizophrenia, little is known about the underlying mechanisms of multisensory integration in such a phenomenon. We investigated the neural basis of these altered states of consciousness in a patient with schizophrenia, by combining state of the art neuroscientific exploratory methods like functional MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, cortical thickness analysis, electrical source reconstruction and trans-cranial magnetic stimulation. The results shed light on the functional architecture of the hallucinatory processes, in which unimodal information (...) from different modalities is strongly functionally connected to higher-order integrative areas. (shrink)

Ethical issues related to comparative effectiveness research, or research that compares existing standards of care, have recently received considerable attention. In this paper we focus on how Ethics Review Committees should evaluate the risks of comparative effectiveness research. We discuss what has been a prominent focus in the debate about comparative effectiveness research, namely that it is justified when “nothing is known” about the comparative effectiveness of the available alternatives. We argue that this focus may be misleading. Rather, we should (...) focus on the fact that some experts believe that the evidence points in favor of one intervention, whereas other experts believe that the evidence favors the alternative. We will then introduce a case that illustrates this point, and based on that, discuss how ERCs should deal with such cases of expert disagreement. We argue that ERCs have a duty to assess the range of expert opinions and based on that assessment arrive at a risk judgment about the study under consideration. We also argue that assessment of expert disagreement is important for the assignment of risk level to a clinical trial: what is the basis for expert opinions, how strong is the evidence appealed to by various experts, and how can clinical trial monitoring affect the possible increased risk of clinical trial participation. (shrink)

It has become a truism that the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) is necessary and must help guide technological developments. Numerous ethical guidelines have emerged from academia, industry, government and civil society in recent years. While they provide a basis for discussion on appropriate regulation of AI, it is not always clear how these ethical guidelines were developed, and by whom. Using content analysis, we surveyed a sample of the major documents (_n_ = 47) and analyzed the accessible information regarding (...) their methodology and stakeholder engagement. Surprisingly, only 38% report some form of stakeholder engagement (with 9% involving citizens) and most do not report their methodology for developing normative insights (15%). Our results show that documents with stakeholder engagement develop more comprehensive ethical guidance with greater applicability, and that the private sector is least likely to engage stakeholders. We argue that the current trend for enunciating AI ethical guidance not only poses widely discussed challenges of applicability in practice, but also of transparent development (as it rather behaves as a black box) and of active engagement of diversified, independent and trustworthy stakeholders. While most of these documents consider people and the common good as central to their telos, engagement with the general public is significantly lacking. As AI ethics moves from the initial race for enunciating general principles to more sustainable, inclusive and practical guidance, stakeholder engagement and citizen involvement will need to be embedded into the framing of ethical and societal expectations towards this technology. (shrink)

Research Ethics, Volume 18, Issue 2, Page 126-131, April 2022. Engaging citizens and patients in research has become a truism in many fields of health research. It is now seen as a laudable—if not compulsory—activity in research for yielding more impactful and meaningful citizen/patient outcomes and steering research in the right direction. Although this research approach is increasingly common and commendable, we recently encountered a major obstacle in obtaining an ethics certificate from an institutional review board to conduct a study (...) that places citizen/patient perspectives on equal footing with those of academic/policy experts. The obstacle was the interpretation of fairness in terms of compensation for research participation. In terms of research ethics, this raised an important question: Should all types of participants be compensated equally, or should exceptions be made for citizen/patient participants? We argue that there are good reasons for exceptionalism and that clearer guidance on citizen/patient engagement in research should be embedded into research ethics doctrine. (shrink)

The author of this paper explores a central strand in the complex relationship between Peirce and Kant. He argues, against Kant (especially as reconstructed by Christine Korsgaard), that the practical identity of the self-critical agent who undertakes a Critic of reason (as Peirce insisted upon translating this expression) needs to be conceived in substantive, not purely formal, terms. Thus, insofar as there is a reflexive turn in Peirce, it is quite far from the transcendental turn taken by Immanuel Kant. (...) The identity of the being devoted to redefining the bounds of reason (for the drawing of such bounds is always a historically situated and motivated undertaking) is not that of a disembodied, rational will giving laws to itself. Nor is it that of a being whose passions and especially sentiments are heteronomous determinations of the deliberative agency in question. Rather the identity of this being is that of a somatic, social, and historical agent whose very autonomy not only traces its origin to heteronomy but also ineluctably involves an identification with what, time and again, emerges as other than this agent. A strong claim is made regarding human identity being practical identity (practical identity being understood here as the singular shape acquired by a human being in the complex course of its practical involvements, its participation in the array of practices in and through which such a being carries out its life). An equally strong claim is made regarding the upshot of Peirce's decisive movement beyond Kant's transcendental project: this movement unquestionably drives toward a compelling account of human agency. (shrink)

Meu propósito abrangente é oferecer um esboço pragmatista da racionalidade deliberativa derivada dos textos coligidos no volumoso conjunto de C. S. Peirce. Embora em alguns casos, as formulações sejam minhas, e não de Peirce. Porém, isso não torna meu esforço um caso de ventriloquismo : a posição em relação à racionalidade é dele, e não minha. Minha tese é que, para Peirce, a razão é no fundo, um conjunto mais ou menos integrado de hábitos, possibilitando aos agentes serem deliberativos. Ou (...) seja, para ele, a deliberação é o cerne da racionalidade. Esta é, fundamentalmente, uma capacidade agencial: aplica-se primordialmente a agentes, sendo conhecedores teóricos um papel importante desempenhado por agentes deliberativos. O que espero demonstrar neste trabalho é a razão pela qual este retrato da razão é distintamente pragmático e verdadeiramente peirciano. O que também espero demonstrar é como a posição de Peirce implica o que, na filosofia contemporânea, é identificado por Christine Korsgaard como autoconstituição, por Sabrina Lovibond como autoformação e por outros teóricos com designações outras. Agentes deliberativos são, segundo Peirce, agentes radicalmente responsáveis. São responsáveis pelos verdadeiros critérios nos quais razoabilidade e responsabilidade são definidas e desenvolvidas. A questão de maturidade e a relação entre ser moral e ser maduro são essenciais à explicação de Peirce de racionalidade. Seu retrato pragmatista da racionalidade deliberativa é, a meu ver, não só sustentável quanto convincente. Acima de tudo, isto é o que espero demonstrar neste ensaio. (shrink)

A basic principle in sentencing offenders is proportionality. However, proportionality judgments are often left to the discretion of the judge, raising familiar concerns of arbitrariness and bias. This paper considers the case for systematizing judgments of proportionality in sentencing by means of an algorithm. The aim of such an algorithm would be to predict what a judge in that jurisdiction would regard as a proportionate sentence in a particular case. A predictive algorithm of this kind would not necessarily undermine justice (...) in individual cases, is consistent with a particularistic account of moral judgment, and is attractive even in the face of uncertainty as to the legitimate purposes of punishment. (shrink)

Recent studies have shown that self‐explanation is an effective metacognitive strategy, but how can it be leveraged to improve students' learning in actual classrooms? How do instructional treatments that emphasizes self‐explanation affect students' learning, as compared to other instructional treatments? We investigated whether self‐explanation can be scaffolded effectively in a classroom environment using a Cognitive Tutor, which is intelligent instructional software that supports guided learning by doing. In two classroom experiments, we found that students who explained their steps during problem‐solving (...) practice with a Cognitive Tutor learned with greater understanding compared to students who did not explain steps. The explainers better explained their solutions steps and were more successful on transfer problems. We interpret these results as follows: By engaging in explanation, students acquired better‐integrated visual and verbal declarative knowledge and acquired less shallow procedural knowledge. The research demonstrates that the benefits of self‐explanation can be achieved in a relatively simple computer‐based approach that scales well for classroom use. (shrink)

Cancer viewed as a programmed, evolutionarily conserved life‐form, rather than just a random series of disease‐causing mutations, answers the rarely asked question of what the cancer cell is for, provides meaning for its otherwise mysterious suite of attributes, and encourages a different type of thinking about treatment. The broad but consistent spectrum of traits, well‐recognized in all aggressive cancers, group naturally into three categories: taxonomy (“phylogenation”), atavism (“re‐primitivization”) and robustness (“adaptive resilience”). The parsimonious explanation is not convergent evolution, but the (...) release of an highly conserved survival program, honed by the exigencies of the Pre‐Cambrian, to which the cancer cell seems better adapted; and which is recreated within, and at great cost to, its host. Central to this program is the Warburg Effect, whose malign influence permeates well beyond aerobic glycolysis to include biomass interconversion and genomic heuristics. Warburg‐type metabolism and genomic instability are targets whose therapeutic disablement is a major priority. (shrink)

The interdisciplinary field of neurorobotics looks to neuroscience to overcome the limitations of modern robotics technology, to robotics to advance our understanding of the neural system’s inner workings, and to information technology to develop tools that support those complementary endeavours. The development of these technologies is still at an early stage, which makes them an ideal candidate for proactive and anticipatory ethical reflection. This article explains the current state of neurorobotics development within the Human Brain Project, originating from a close (...) collaboration between the scientific and technical experts who drive neurorobotics innovation, and the humanities and social sciences scholars who provide contextualising and reflective capabilities. This article discusses some of the ethical issues which can reasonably be expected. On this basis, the article explores possible gaps identified within this collaborative, ethical reflection that calls for attention to ensure that the development of neurorobotics is ethically sound and socially acceptable and desirable. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a discrete solution for the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. I argue that Achilles overtakes the tortoise after a finite number of steps of Zeno’s argument if time is represented as discrete. I then answer two objections that could be made against this solution. First, I argue that the discrete solution is not an ad hoc solution. It is embedded in a discrete formulation of classical mechanics. Second, I show that the discrete solution cannot (...) be falsified experimentally. (shrink)

This study develops a genetic phenomenological sociology of space from the phenomenology and phenomenological sociology of space. Based on relational ontology, it argues that social space is a social relationship in genesis. An Apple walk-in store and an Apple online store are examples to illustrate the essence of social space. Any Apple store as a social space represents a set of social relations. The genetic phenomenological sociology of space in both store types includes two parts: first, the social ontology of (...) space, that is, ‘being-in-the-Apple-store’ or ‘being-in-the-Apple-online-store’; and second, the social epistemology of space, that is, the act of ‘encountering’ in either store. Examining the existence of space ontologically and the mode of existence epistemologically clarifies that the actual ‘meaning’ of social space, an Apple store or an Apple online store in this study, emerges through the act of encountering. Three characteristics of encountering are placelessness, ‘de-distancing,’ and mediation. (shrink)

La bioéthique est à la mode. Il faut " être pour "! La prochaine étude par le législateur français des lois " bioéthiques " en témoigne. Avortement, fabrication d'enfants " prêts-à-porter ", recherche biomédicale, clonage, génétique, rien n'échappe à la bioéthique. Et si, cheval de Troie pénétrant le droit, la morale, les déontologies, elle ne constituait qu'une habile machine de subversion des sciences médicales, d'appropriation globale de l'être humain. Des médecins, des philosophes, parlementaires, juristes engagés dans l'examen des doctrines et (...) mécanismes bioéthiques se sont posés la question. Leur réponse n'est vraiment pas celle du " consensus ". Elle impose au public savant et aux gens prétendus ordinaires et à leurs représentants dans la Cité, une réflexion, un retour vers une nouvelle liberté de penser. (shrink)

Je propose d’analyser une pratique de la recherche en mathématiques constructives, celle qui consiste à reformuler constructivement les théories physiques. Je discute plus précisément trois aspects de cette pratique. Je montre d’abord que celle-ci a la particularité d’être motivée par des considérations philosophiques et comment la physique est utilisée pour arbitrer un débat de philosophie des mathématiques entre constructivisme et classicisme. Ensuite, j’identifie la méthodologie de la recherche en mathématiques que cette pratique implique et montre qu’il s’agit, selon une terminologie (...) empruntée à Poincaré, d’une méthodologie de « logiciens ». Enfin, je montre que dans cette pratique, les théories physiques ont un rôle heuristique sur le développement des mathématiques constructives. Elles permettent avec succès de stimuler la recherche d’énoncés constructifs et d’orienter la recherche en mathématiques constructives vers de nouveaux domaines. (shrink)

A growing body of research reveals that abusive supervision may have negative impacts in organizations. The purpose of the present study is to expand the knowledge regarding the impacts of this dysfunctional leadership behavior by examining its relationship with innovation in work teams. Specifically, we investigate the process through which abusive supervision may undermine team innovation by taking into account the mediating role of team proactive behavior. Moreover, we propose a boundary condition of the negative effect of abusive supervision by (...) considering leader–members interdependence as a moderator. Using a multisource approach, data were gathered from 394 members and 82 immediate supervisors in a public safety organization. Results of path analyses reveal that the relationship between abusive supervision and team innovation is mediated by team proactive behavior. Furthermore, we found that the relationship between abusive supervision and team proactive behavior is moderated by leader–members interdependence, such that this relationship is stronger when the level of interdependence is high. Taken together, the findings of this study improve the understanding of why and under what circumstances abusive supervision may impair team innovation. (shrink)

This article concerns an action research with the technical, medical and social people of a medical equipment rental company (ADL) company. The study is about the knowledge involved in health and social collaboration. ADL’s mission implies for interprofessional cooperation beyond the medical and technical processing. The company has chosen to extend its field of action with a patient’s social treatment. To better understand the nature of the link between social and other areas of work, the subject of action research is (...) to know under what conditions the employees report of patients in social service. Beyond the challenge for the patient and for the company, the reflections on a non-compliance by the patient, causes shifts in the positions of professionals. (shrink)

Abstract.We use a model theoretic approach to investigate properties of local-global principles for positive primitive formulas in spaces of orderings, such as the existence of bounds and the axiomatizability of local-global principles. As a consequence we obtain various classes of special groups satisfying local-global principles for all positive primitive formulas, and we show that local-global principles are preserved by some natural constructions in special groups.

Scientific activities strongly depend on concepts and classifications to represent the world in an orderly and workable manner. This creates a trade-off. On the one hand, it is important to leave space for conceptual and classificatory criticism. On the other hand, agreement on which concepts and classifications to use, is often crucial for communication and the integration of research and ideas. In this paper, we show that this trade-off can sometimes best be resolved through conceptual governance, in which scientific institutions (...) set a collective conceptual standard, and that voting can be a reasonable way to implement that governance. Voting is a means to aggregate among conflicting values, preferences and priorities that often underpin conceptual or classificatory debates, all while signaling ongoing disagreement. We also discuss how the legitimacy of the voting process and its outcome can be ensured. (shrink)

Epistemic logic begins with the recognition that our everyday talk about knowing and believing has some systematic features that we can track and re‡ect upon. Epistemic logicians have studied and extended these glints of systematic structure in fascinating and important ways since the early 1960s. However, for one reason or another, mainstream epistemologists have shown little interest. It is striking to contrast the marginal role of epistemic logic in contemporary epistemology with the centrality of modal logic for metaphysicians. This article (...) is intended to help in correcting this oversight by presenting some important developments in epistemic logic and suggesting ways to understand their applicability to traditional epistemological problems. Obviously, by itself, tweaking the formal apparatus of epistemic logic does not solve traditional epistemological problems. Epistemic logic can help us to navigate through problems in a systematic fashion by unpacking the logic of the problematic concepts, it can also lead us to recognize problems that we had not anticipated. This is basically analogous to the role that modal logic has played in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

The First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses were meant to guarantee freedom of religion for all persons living in the United States. This was to be done by ensuring that government could not establish a state religion nor interfere with individual practices and beliefs so long as they did not violate public morals. The idea was to have the two clauses operate together to ensure state separation in matters of religion. However, recent caselaw involving government accommodations to religious organizations (...) has emphasized the Free Exercise Clause with little or no attention afforded the Establishment Clause. As a result, intermediate factors like entanglement, endorsement, general applicability, and neutrality, that previously were used to assist the separation of church and state, are now called into question. This Article attempts to rekindle these factors by attaching a public/private distinction to the way the two clauses are understood, to ensure a more certain and clearer basis for the separation of church and state. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with events that were the subject of an inquest into the deaths of 12 children who died while undergoing or shortly after having undergone cardiac surgery at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre, Manitoba, Canada, during 1994. A notable finding of the Sinclair Inquest was that nurses involved with the pediatric cardiac surgery program were concerned about the competence of the surgeon and made sustained efforts throughout 1994 to have these concerns addressed. That the nurses’ concerns were (...) not taken seriously is the central problem of this paper. Essentially, the position articulated is that gendered and gendering discourses constituted a form of power that structured the field of nurses’ possible actions. These discourses constituted a resource to make nurses knowable, to produce them as certain forms of the person, and were therefore part of what governed nurses everyday conduct. Though neither simply good nor bad in themselves, in this case, these discourses had constraining effects on how nurses were able to conduct themselves. (shrink)

L'ouvrage revient sur l'idée fort ancienne selon laquelle la littérature serait par elle-même porteuse d'une interrogation philosophique, voire qu'elle serait une instance de vérité. Il propose ainsi une analyse des méthodes suivant lesquelles elle construit des modèles de pensée empruntés aux sciences, à la sociologie ou à l'histoire.

Making Your Mind Matter is a practical guide to effective thinking in college and in everyday life, following the WISE model.

In this article I want to consider whether the authority of the United States to enter into treaties in a global environment is limited by constitutional constraints. The issue arises because a reasonable interpretation of the language of Article VI would place the treaty power on the same status-footing as the Constitution of the United States. But if that is the case, then presumably a treaty might be designed that could delegate constitutional powers to bodies like the United Nations, the (...) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (“NATO”), the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization (“WTO”), or other international organizations. Or, a treaty might be designed to reserve particular constitutional rights – like the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury in criminal cases – from operating within certain contexts as might concern areas over which the United States exercises territorial jurisdiction, for example, Guam, Puerto Rico, and in other contexts where only international agreements apply. (shrink)

A satisfactory sociology of markets requires that both order and disorder in markets be addressed, yet sociologists have seemed more concerned with theorizing market stability and order. Change, however, is too fundamental a part of markets to receive so little sociological attention. One perspective that provides a fertile ground for moving ahead with developing an agenda for studying both stability and change in markets is American pragmatist social theory. This article therefore examines the influence of a pragmatist viewpoint on two (...) broad modern theoretical approaches that have implications for the sociology of markets, one focused on stabilization processes, the other on institutional designs for promoting change. Most particularly, it draws on work carried out from a pragmatist viewpoint and illustrates a pragmatic approach to change in markets using the case of the EU’s Forest, Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) action plan and initiative. (shrink)