Ontology development methodologies emphasise knowledge gathering from domain experts and documentary resources, and knowledge representation using an ontology language such as OWL or FOL. However, working ontologists are often surprised by how challenging and slow it can be to develop ontologies. Here, with a particular emphasis on the sorts of ontologies that are content-heavy and intended to be shared across a community of users (reference ontologies), we propose that a significant and heretofore under-emphasised contributor of challenges during ontology (...) class='Hi'>development is the need to create, or bring about, consensus in the face of disagreement. For this reason reference ontology development cannot be automated, at least within the limitations of existing AI approaches. Further, for the same reason ontologists are required to have specific social-negotiating skills which are currently lacking in most technical curricula. (shrink)

The active debate about the return of incidental or secondary findings in research has primarily focused on return to research participants, or in some cases, family members. Particular attention has been paid to return of genomic findings. Yet, research may generate other types of findings that warrant consideration for return, including findings related to the pathology of donated biospecimens. In the case of deceased biospecimen donors who are also organ and/or tissue transplant donors, pathology incidental findings may be relevant not (...) to family members, but to potential organ or tissue transplant recipients. This paper will describe the ethical implications of pathology incidental findings in the Genotype-Tissue Expression project, the process for developing a consensus approach as to if/when such findings should be returned, possible implications for other research projects collecting postmortem tissues and how the scenario encountered in GTEx fits into the larger return of results/incidental findings debate. (shrink)

There is currently no consensus from the relevant stakeholders regarding the operational and construct definitions of child assent for research. As such, the requirements for assent are often construed in different ways, institutionally disparate, and often conflated with those of parental consent. Development of a standardized operational definition of assent would thus be important to ensure that investigators, institutional review boards, and policy makers consider the assent process in the same way. To this end, we describe a Delphi (...) study that provided consensus from a panel of expert stakeholders regarding the definitions of child assent for research. Based on current guidelines, a preliminary definition of assent was generated and sent out for review to a Delphi panel including pediatric bioethicists and researchers, Institutional Review Board members, parents, and individuals with regulatory/legal expertise. For each subsequent review, the process of summarizing and revising responses was repeated until consensus was achieved. Panelists were also required to rank order elements of assent that they believed were most important in defining the underlying constructs of the assent process. In providing these rankings, panelists were asked to frame their responses in the contexts of younger and adolescents/older children in non-therapeutic and therapeutic trials. Summary rankings of the most important identified elements were then used to generate written construct definitions which were sent out for iterative reviews by the expert panel. Consensus regarding the operational definition was reached by 14/18 of the panel members. Seventeen panelists agreed with the definitions of capacity for assent, elements of disclosure for younger children, and the requirements for meaningful assent, respectively. Fifteen members agreed with the elements of disclosure for adolescents/older children. It is hoped that this study will positively inform and effect change in the way investigators, regulators, and IRBs operationalize the assent process, respect children’s developing autonomy, and in concert with parental permission, ensure the protection of children who participate in research. (shrink)

The consensus recommendations by Salter and colleagues (2023) regarding pediatric decision-making intentionally omitted adolescents due to the additional complexity their evolving autonomy presented. Using two case studies, one focused on truth-telling and disclosure and one focused on treatment refusal, this article examines medical decision-making with and for adolescents in the context of the six consensus recommendations. It concludes that the consensus recommendations could reasonably apply to older children.

Background 300 million operations and procedures are performed annually across the world, all of which require a patient’s informed consent. No standardised measure of the consent process exists in current clinical practice. We aimed to define a core outcome set for informed consent for therapy. Methods The core outcome set was developed in accordance with a predefined research protocol and the Core OutcoMes in Effectiveness Trials methodology comprising systematic review, qualitative semi structured interviews, a modified Delphi process and consensus (...) webinars to ratify outcomes for inclusion in the final core outcome set.. Participants from all key stakeholder groups took part in the process, including patients and the public, healthcare practitioners and consent researchers. Results 36 outcome domains were synthesised through systematic review and organised into a consent taxonomy. 41 semi-structured interviews were performed with all consent stakeholders groups. 164 participants from all stakeholder groups across 8 countries completed Delphi Round 1 and 125 completed Round 2. 11 outcomes met the ‘consensus in’ criteria. 6 met ‘consensus in’ all stakeholder groups and were included directly in the final core outcome set. 5 remaining outcomes meeting ‘consensus in’ were ratified over two consensus webinars. 9 core outcomes were included in the final core outcome set: Satisfaction with the quality and amount of information, Patient feeling that there was a choice, Patient feeling that the decision to consent was their own, Confidence in the decision made, Satisfaction with communication, Trust in the clinician, Patient satisfaction with the consent process, Patient rated adequacy of time and opportunity to ask questions. Conclusion This international mixed-methods qualitative study is the first of its kind to define a core outcome set for informed consent for intervention. It defines what outcomes are of importance to key stakeholders in the consent process and is a forward step towards standardising future consent research. (shrink)

Can we ever justly critique the norms and practices of another culture? When activists or policy-makers decide that one culture’s traditional practice is harmful and needs to be eradicated, does it matter whether they are members of that culture? Given the history of imperialism, many argue that any critique of another culture’s practices must be internal. Others argue that we can appeal to a universal standard of human well-being to determine whether or not a particular practice is legitimate or whether (...) it should be eradicated. In this paper, I use the FGC eradication campaigns of the 1980s to show that the internal/external divide is complicated by the inter-connectedness of these debates on the international level. As the line blurs between internal and external criticism and interventions, new questions emerge about the representativeness of global institutions. (shrink)

Focusing on the work of one bioethics commission, the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, this article explores the role played by moral consensus in public ethics. Task Force members, who were appointed to represent diverse interests in New York State, identified a culturally strong value of individual autonomy as the ethical basis for their work on life-sustaining treatment. This moral consensus permitted the members to unite across their differences and develop public policy recommendations (...) that substantially reformed a highly troubling New York law. However, the principle of autonomy insufficiently guides decisions by caring family members for incompetent adults in cases where little is known of patient preference. A different, more innovative moral vision is required – one that grants a more robust moral authority to the family. While government efforts that rely on moral consensus developed in a broadbased and well-reasoned manner can serve us well, in some cases the consensus will provide inadequate moral guidance. Government bioethical efforts must guard against the limits of moral vision in light of their disproportionate societal power. Keywords: autonomy, consensus, family decisionmaking, government bioethics, incompetent patients, life-sustaining treatment, surrogate decisionmaking CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This paper is a rejoinder to Alan Irwin's constructive response "Agreeing to Differ?" to our (2017) paper. We zoom in on the three main issues Irwin raises, namely (a) How to understand consensus? (b) Why are so many public participation activities consensus-driven? (c) Should we not value the art of closure, of finding ways to make agreements, particularly in view of the dire state of world politics today? We use this opportunity to highlight and further develop some of (...) our ideas. (shrink)

Can we ever justly critique the norms and practices of another culture? When activists or policy-makers decide that one culture’s traditional practice is harmful and needs to be eradicated, does it matter whether they are members of that culture? Given the history of imperialism, many argue that any critique of another culture’s practices must be internal. Others argue that we can appeal to a universal standard of human wellbeing to determine whether or not a particular practice is legitimate or whether (...) it should be eradicated. In this paper, I use the FGC eradication campaigns of the 1980s to show that the internal/external divide is complicated by the interconnectedness of these debates on the international level. As the line blurs between internal and external criticism and interventions, new questions emerge about the representativeness of global institutions. (shrink)

A consensus in a scientific community is often used as a resource for making informed public-policy decisions and deciding between rival expert testimonies in legal trials. This paper contains a social-epistemic analysis of the high-profile Bendectin drug controversy, which was decided in the courtroom inter alia by deference to a scientific consensus about the safety of Bendectin. Drawing on my previously developed account of knowledge-based consensus, I argue that the consensus in this case was not knowledge (...) based, hence courts’ deference to it was not epistemically justified. I draw sceptical lessons from this analysis regarding the value of scientific consensus as a desirable and reliable means of resolving scientific controversies in public life. (shrink)

Laurie Zoloth; Limiting Access to Medical Treatment in an Age of Medical Progress: Developing a Catholic Consensus: A Response from Jewish Tradition, Christian.

For years analysts have recognized the error of assuming that experts in medical science are also experts in deciding the clinically correct course for patients. This paper extends the analysis of the use of the consensus of experts to their use in public policy groups such as NIH Consensus Development panels. After arguing that technical experts cannot be expected to be expert on public policy decisions, the author extends the criticism to the use of the consensus (...) of experts in estimating facts to provide a basis for policy decisions. It is argued that to the extent that (a) experts' views regarding a body of facts can be expected to correlate with their values relevant to those facts; and (b) the values of experts differ from the values of lay people, even the estimates of the facts given by the consensus of expert panels can be expected to differ from the estimates lay people would have given had they had the relevant scientific expertise. Keywords: consensus, expertise, fact/value distinction, NIH Consensus Development Panels CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Background Intensivists must provide enough analgesia and sedation to ensure dying patients receive good palliative care. However, if it is perceived that too much is given, they risk prosecution for committing euthanasia. The goal of this study is to develop consensus guidelines on analgesia and sedation in dying intensive care unit patients that help distinguish palliative care from euthanasia. Methods Using the Delphi technique, panelists rated levels of agreement with statements describing how analgesics and sedatives should be given to (...) dying ICU patients and how palliative care should be distinguished from euthanasia. Participants were drawn from 3 panels: 1) Canadian Academic Adult Intensive Care Fellowship program directors and Intensive Care division chiefs (N = 9); 2) Deputy chief provincial coroners (N = 5); 3) Validation panel of Intensivists attending the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group meeting (N = 12). Results After three Delphi rounds, consensus was achieved on 16 statements encompassing the role of palliative care in the intensive care unit, the management of pain and suffering, current areas of controversy, and ways of improving palliative care in the ICU. Conclusion Consensus guidelines were developed to guide the administration of analgesics and sedatives to dying ICU patients and to help distinguish palliative care from euthanasia. (shrink)

Because the idea of consensus in contemporary philosophy of science is typically seen as the locus of progress, rationality, and, often, truth, Mill’s views on the undesirability of consensus have been largely dismissed. The historical data, however, shows that there are many examples of scientific progress without consensus, thus refuting the notion that consensus in science has any special epistemic status for rationality, scientific progress (success), or truth. What needs to be developed instead is an epistemology (...) of dissent. I suggest that normative accounts of dissent be used as prototypes for theories of scientific rationality that can also be applied to episodes of consensus. Consensus in this case is to be treated as a special case of dissent, when the amount of dissent approaches zero. My main goal in this paper is to sketch how a normative account of dissent that aims to capture the idea of epistemic fairness can apply to situations of consensus. (shrink)

As we read his work, John Rawls was developing an innovative approach to political philosophy, and Political Liberalism struggles with different ways to model these new insights. This article presents four models of political liberalism, particularly focusing on understanding the nature of overlapping consensus and its relation to public reason. Beyond clarifying Rawls’s insights, we aim to spur readers to reassemble the rich elements of Political Liberalism to produce tractable and enlightening models of political life among free and equal (...) citizens under conditions of deep diversity to advance the public reason project. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

This paper offers some ideas and methods of consensus building towards integration of values in flood control, environment, and landscape. These three factors sometimes oppose to each other in the process of construction of public infrastructure such as roadbuilding and river improvement. It is crucial to avoid or resolute conflicts between the government and the local people through project management with the consensus building process. In public works in Japan, flood control has been given priority over the environmental (...) preservation and the landscape conservation due to the perception that it is through flood control that the life and property of individuals are adequately protected. As a consequence, the landscape and the environment have been paid only lip‐service. In the case of the Ohashi River Project in Izumo region presented in this paper, however, the river repair process might entail a severe blow to the tourism industry and have a dramatic impact on the fishery resources of the region, which would be considered a major loss in terms of the urban development of the city. One of our concerns is thus to avoid any losses, through proper consideration of the relationship between the three crucial factors. In this paper, the author reports some ideas and methods that appear in “Basic Policy for the Development of the Area around Ohashi River” composed by the Matsue Review Committee on the Development of the Area around the Ohashi River, in which the author is involved as a committee member. The most important task of the Committee wasto search for the ideas and methods to harmonize the values of flood control, environment, and landscape. (shrink)

The now retired NIH Consensus Development Program has been used as a model for similar programs in other countries. However, the epistemic value of this kind of program has been disputed. This article provides an overview of the arguments levelled at Miriam Solomon by Laszlo Kosolosky and Jeroen Van Bouwel, who provide an opposing philosophical position on this issue. Here, I argue for a middle ground position that highlights the methodological interest of a retrospective analysis of the NIH (...) consensus conferences as a way to assess the impact of a public forum on guidelines ultimately relayed to healthcare professionals and citizens. (shrink)

The emergence of new technologies such as the Internet of things and the Cloud transforms the way we interact. Whether it be human to human interaction or human to machine interaction, the size of the networks keeps growing. As the networks get more complex nowadays with many interconnected components, it is necessary to develop distributed scalable algorithms so as to minimize the computation required in decision making in such large-scale systems. In this paper, we consider a setup where each agent (...) in the network updates its opinion by relying on its neighbors’ opinions. The information exchange between the agents is assumed to be mutual. The cluster consensus problem is investigated for networks represented by static or time-varying graphs. Joint and integral connectivity conditions are utilized to determine the number of clusters that are formed, as the interactions among the agents evolve over time. Finally, some numerical examples are given to illustrate the theoretical results. (shrink)

Many have argued that allowing and encouraging public avenues for dissent and critical evaluation of scientific research is a necessary condition for promoting the objectivity of scientific communities and advancing scientific knowledge . The history of science reveals many cases where an existing scientific consensus was later shown to be wrong . Dissent plays a crucial role in uncovering potential problems and limitations of consensus views. Thus, many have argued that scientific communities ought to increase opportunities for dissenting (...) views to be heard and taken seriously. Such opportunities are necessary for both limiting the influence .. (shrink)

Objectives: To examine the perspectives of journal editors and authors on overlapping and redundant publications in clinical research.Design: Pretested cross-sectional survey, containing both forced choice and open ended questions, administered by mail to the senior editors and one randomly selected author from all journals in the Abridged Index Medicus that published clinical research.Main measurements: The views of editors and authors about the extent of redundant publications, why they occur, how to prevent and respond to cases, and when the publication of (...) overlapping manuscripts is justified.Results: Seventy two per cent of editors and 65% of authors completed the survey. There was consensus between both groups that redundant publications occur because authors feel the pressure to publish and journals do not do enough to publicise, criticise, and punish cases, and that the publication of most types of overlapping articles is unacceptable. Sixty seven per cent of authors but only 31% of editors felt, however, that it was justified to publish an overlapping article in a non-peer reviewed symposium supplement, and 68% of editors but 39% of authors supported imposing restrictions on guilty authors’ future submissions. In written comments, 15% to 30% of both groups emphasised that it was justified to publish overlapping articles when there were different or non-English-speaking audiences, new data, strengthened methods, or disputed findings.Conclusions: Editors, authors, and other academic leaders should together develop explicit guidelines that clarify points of contention and ambiguity regarding overlapping manuscripts. (shrink)

This paper develops a model of political consensus in order to explain the missing link between inequality and political redistribution. Political consensus is an implicit agreement not to vote for extreme policy proposals. We show that such an agreement may play an efficiency-enhancing role. Voters anticipate that voting for extremist parties increases policy uncertainty in the future. A political consensus among voters reduces policy uncertainty because self-interested politicians propose non-discriminatory policies. We study how much inequality can be (...) sustained in a democracy and how the limits to redistribution vary with initial inequality. The bounds of the set of political equilibria may react in a fundamentally different manner to changes in exogenous variables than do the policy variables in the one-dimensional, one-shot game. More initial inequality need not lead to more redistribution from the rich to the poor. The maximum amount of redistribution decreases with inequality if (and only if) agents are sufficiently patient. In this case inequality is politically self-sustaining. (shrink)

Consensus and disagreement play important roles in the practice, development, and dissemination of science. This raises a host of important philosophical questions. Some of these issues are conceptual: When, exactly, does a scientific agreement count as a consensus? And in what sense, if any, is disagreement the opposite of consensus? Other questions concern the role of consensus and disagreement in the development of science: For example, is consensus on central methodological issues and assumptions (...) necessary for scientific work to proceed normally? Yet other questions are epistemological: From a layperson’s perspective, does the presence of a scientific consensus ever indicate that the relevant theory is probably correct? If so, what are the conditions under which it does so? Relatedly, should scientists themselves also defer to the consensus position among their peers whenever such a consensus exists? Or should they instead evaluate consensus theories for themselves, or even actively aim to dissent against such theories? (shrink)

The western consensus is that obese women are considered attractive by Afro-Americans and by many societies from nonwestern developing countries. This belief rests mainly on results of nonstandardized surveys dealing only with body weight and size, ignoring body fat distribution. The anatomical distribution of female body fat as measured by the ratio of waist to hip circumference (WHR) is related to reproductive age, fertility, and risk for various major diseases and thus might play a role in judgment of attractiveness. (...) Previous research (Singh 1993a, 1993b) has shown that in the United States Caucasian men and women judge female figures with feminine WHRs as attractive and healthy. To investigate whether young Indonesian and Afro-American men and women rate such figures similarly, female figures representing three body sizes (underweight, normal weight, and overweight) and four WHRs (two feminine and two masculine) were used. Results show that neither Indonesian nor Afro-American subjects judge overweight figures as attractive and healthy regardless of the size of WHR. They judged normal weight figures with feminine WHRs as most attractive, healthy, and youthful. The consensus on women’s attractiveness among Indonesian, Afro-American, and U.S. Caucasian male and female subjects suggests that various cultural groups have similar criteria for judging the ideal woman’s shape. (shrink)

In this thought-provoking book, David Hart challenges the creation myth of post--World War II federal science and technology policy. According to this myth, the postwar policy sprang full-blown from the mind of Vannevar Bush in the form of Science, the Endless Frontier. Hart puts Bush's efforts in a larger historical and political context, demonstrating in the process that Bush was but one of many contributors to this complex policy and not necessarily the most successful one. Herbert Hoover, Karl Compton, Thurman (...) Arnold, Henry Wallace, Robert Taft, and Curtis LeMay--along with more familiar figures like Bush--are among those whose endeavors he traces.Hart places these policy entrepreneurs in the broad scheme of American political development, connecting each one's vision of the state in this apparently esoteric policy area to the central issues, events, and figures of mid-century America and to key theoretical debates. Hart's work reveals the wide range of ideas, often in conflict with one another, that underlay what later observers interpreted as a "postwar consensus." In Hart's view, these visions--and the interests and institutions that shape their translation into public policy--form the enduring basis of American politics in this important area. Policymakers today are still grappling with the legacies of the forged consensus. (shrink)

Decision-making is an integral part of business meetings in an organization. Research has suggested that a participant’s engagement in the decision-making process has direct relevance to his or her role in the team or organization. This study extends the investigation of communicative behavior in decision-making to a special meeting setting where all participants assume similar organizational roles and where there is no designated chair. In particular, it draws on conversation analytic methods and a recently developed framework of participant roles to (...) examine discursive strategies and discourse roles on a moment-by-moment basis in the process of consensus negotiation. Findings show that participants’ choices of discursive strategies and the display of discourse roles vary as the discussion proceeds. A limited range of discursive strategies and discourse roles are identified when the discussion fails to lead to consensus. Our analysis also suggests that certain discourse roles appear to have a greater impact on reaching consensus decisions. (shrink)

This paper focuses on experiences from a case study dealing with the Swiss type of a consensus conference called “PubliForum” concerning “Genetic Technology and Nutrition” (1999). Societal and ethical aspects of genetically modified food meanwhile can be seen as prototypes of topics depending on the involvement of the public through a participatory process. The important role of the lay perspective in this field seems to be accepted in practice. Nevertheless, there is still some theoretical controversy about the necessity and (...) democratic legitimacy of participatory processes in general, and especially about those dealing with technological or environmental problems (sustainable development) concerning society. From an ethical point of view, a lot of heterogeneous problems concerning contents and procedures of public participation can be pointed out, not only on the theoretical level but also in practice, e.g., concerning the communication process between laypersons and experts. The intention of our paper is to give hints and to clarify criteria that support the communication process leading to a dialog of autonomous citizens and which especially consider ethical aspects in the field. One important result is that there must be an orientation for all members of a consensus conference having clear rules and knowing their different roles that support transparency, credibility, and fairness of the whole procedure and a “good product”: a substantial final document or citizens’ report. (shrink)

Evidence shows that knowledge concerning medicinal plants is heterogeneous, as the majority of people in a medical system know only a few plants. This heterogeneity may make sense from an adaptive viewpoint, as human beings tend to keep a small set of information that offers adaptive advantages because our brains can store limited amounts of data. From this scenario, we developed the structural core concept for medical systems: a group of medicinal plants with adaptive characteristics that affect the structure and (...) function of medical systems. We created a set of hypotheses based on the structural core concept to guide future studies investigating the structure and dynamics of local medical systems. Concerning the dynamics of medical systems, we suggest that the structural core is the part of the system that changes least over time, i.e., it is the most conservative. Thus, we can expect that species substitution events mainly occur outside of the structural core. From the medical system structure, we indicate that core plants tend to be favored in the transmission of knowledge. These plants also serve as a model for the selection of novel medicinal plants and are therefore an important factor for the medical system structure. Analysis of the structural core can help the understanding of the structure and dynamics of medical systems and can aid future bioprospecting studies, which can search for plants with pharmacological potential using the structural core. (shrink)

In mid-1996, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments and rule on two lower court cases that would, if upheld, legalize physician-assisted suicide in twelve states, including California. At about the same time, at a national meeting dealing with this controversial topic, several participants from the San Francisco Bay Area got together to ask, Based on the old principle of the suggestion was made that the local ethics committee network might be interested in developing guidelines for the care (...) of patients at the end of life in the unlikely event that laws would change by Supreme Court action. Thus the coordinator of the Bay Area Network of Ethics Committees (BANEC) and several BANEC members began to discuss this question. (shrink)

This project is based on the unique ‘Shared ethical debate’ between NHS RECs in the UK in which one research application is reviewed by several research ethics committees. This programme is now in its 6th cycle. In the fifth cycle a prison- based research project was reviewed by each of three NHS RECs that are ‘ flagged’ for such research and their debate and discussions were observed directly by one researcher who recorded the committee processes and the issues raised in (...) committee. Subsequently a focus group of REC members from all three committees was constituted to consider the ethical importance of these issues. The three RECs were consistent in both process and identifying ethical issues. The focus group formulated a basic framework that will further contribute to ensuring a consistent and balanced approach to ethical review within this area of research. (shrink)

Resolutions in the United Nations Human Rights Council and General Assembly provide clarification of economic, social, and cultural (ESC) rights, and most of these resolutions pass by consensus. Yet these resolutions are more contentious than they appear. This article analyzes a case study of contestation over resolutions on two ESC rights: water and sanitation. Drawing from theories of norms contestation, this article analyzes how the USA, UK, and Canada challenged the creation of the rights to water and sanitation as (...) rights and as norms. An analysis of all resolutions, archival research, and interview data reveals that while challengers failed to stop water and sanitation from becoming legal human rights, they successfully delayed the process and weakened the normative aspect of the rights. The findings show that while powerful actors may not be opposed to ESC rights in theory, they worked to keep these rights weak and aspirational. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the epistemology and ethics of consensus, focusing on the ways in which decision makers use/misuse ethical expertise. The major questions I raise and tentative answers I give are the following: First, are the ‘experts’ really experts? My tentative answer is that they are bona fide experts who often represent specific interest groups. Second, is the experts' authority merely epistemological or is it also ethical? My tentative answer is that the experts' authority consists not only (...) in their command over specific matters of fact and/or value, but also in their ability to achieve ‘consensus’ about what is ‘true’/‘false’, or ‘right’/‘wrong’. Third, should the authority of expertise be limited? My tentative answer is that it should be limited in the area of facts but especially in the area of values. Persons who are ethics ‘experts’ must be particularly careful to practice an ethics of persuasion rather than an ethics of compulsion . Their role is not to force their group consensus upon decision makers' individual moral perceptions and deliberations; rather it is to help decision makers come to their own conclusions about what they ought to do. Keywords: authority of expertise, consensus, ethics committees, ethics of persuasion, NIH consensus development conferences CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Development ethicists see reducing intrahousehold gender inequality as an important policy aim. However, it is unclear that a minimalist cross-cultural consensus can be formed around this goal. Inequality on its own may not bring women beneath a minimal welfare threshold. Further, adherents of complementarian metaphysical doctrines may view attempts to reduce intrahousehold inequality as attacks on their worldviews. Complicating the justificatory task is the fact that familiar arguments against intrahousehold inequality, including those from agency and self-esteem, depart from (...) premises that complementarians reject—premises about the value of independence or the moral irrelevance of gender. I propose that development ethicists should offer complementarianism-compatible arguments against the norms and practices constitutive of intrahousehold inequality. I develop arguments against two intrahousehold inequality-supportive practices that depart from complementarian premises. Specifically, I argue that patriarchal risk and gender schemas that devalue women's labor prevent men from discharging complementarian duties to promote women's welfare. (shrink)

Most of the epistemological debate on disagreement tries to develop standards that describe which actions or beliefs would be rational under specific circumstances in a controversy. To build things on a firm foundation, much work starts from certain idealizations—for example the assumption that parties in a disagreement share all the evidence that is relevant and are equal with regard to their abilities and dispositions. This contribution, by contrast, focuses on a different question and takes a different route. The question is: (...) What should people actually do who find themselves in deep disagreement with others? And instead of building theory on some “firm foundation,” the paper starts from a specific goal—building consensus by creating new proposals—and asks, first, which actions are suitable to achieve this goal and, second, what are the epistemic conditions of these actions. With regard to the latter, the paper focuses on what has been called framing and reframing in conflict research, and argues that both metaphors need and deserve a suitable epistemological conceptualization. (shrink)

The fact of reasonable pluralism in liberal democracies threatens the stability of such societies. John Rawls proposed a solution to this problem: The different comprehensive moral doctrines endorsed by the citizens overlap on a shared political conception of justice, e.g. his justice as fairness. Optimally, accepting the political conception is for each citizen individually justified by the method of wide reflective equilibrium. If this holds, society is in full reflective equilibrium. Rawls does not in detail investigate the conditions under which (...) a full reflective equilibrium is possible or likely. This paper outlines a new strategy for addressing this open question by using the formal model of reflective equilibrium recently developed by Beisbart et al. First, it is argued that a bounded rationality perspective is appropriate which requires certain changes in the model. Second, the paper rephrases the open question about Rawlsian full reflective equilibrium in terms of the model. The question is narrowed down by focusing on the inferential connections between comprehensive doctrines and political conception. Rawls himself makes a demanding assumption about which connections are necessary for a full reflective equilibrium. Third, the paper presents a simulation study design that is focused on simplicity. The results are discussed, they fit with Rawls’s assumption. However, because of the strong idealisations, they provide a useful benchmark rather than a final answer. The paper presents suggestions for more elaborate study designs. (shrink)

The event-triggered consensus control for leader-following multiagent systems subjected to external disturbances is investigated, by using the output feedback. In particular, a novel distributed event-triggered protocol is proposed by adopting dynamic observers to estimate the internal state information based on the measurable output signal. It is shown that under the developed observer-based event-triggered protocol, multiple agents will reach consensus with the desired disturbance attenuation ability and meanwhile exhibit no Zeno behaviors. Finally, a simulation is presented to verify the (...) obtained results. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that traditional African communitarian values such as togetherness, mutual cooperation and solidarity are more consistent with the social structure and the political organization of many traditional societies in Africa and could be a veritable framework for implementing a program of inclusive development. I establish that African communitarian values take into consideration the contributions of all stakeholders, including the poor, vulnerable, and the marginalized in a bid to address development issues. I also provide strong (...) reasons for implementing communitarian strategies of togetherness, solidarity and mutual cooperation which support mutual interdependence and could promote inclusive development in Africa. I draw examples from traditional African ethic with communitarian values salient among small self-governing communities, and reflect on the ethic / politics of consensus in light of important developmental challenges facing the world today. I draw the conclusion that a critical and creative reevaluation of the communitarian values may help Africans and the rest of humanity in meeting the challenges of inclusive development. Keywords : Inequality, Inclusive Development, Liberalism, African Communitarianism, Ontology, Wellbeing, African Socialism. (shrink)

Voluntary Consensus Standards are commerce-related documents developed by interested volunteers under due-process procedures which ensure that the concerns of all parties are fairly taken into account. Standards are beneficial to society because they promote commerce and lower the costs of and barriers to doing business. Because of this, conformance to a standard can confer significant competitive advantage.Vigorous, democratic competition between ideas leads to a high- quality standard. Some participants in the standards-development process will, against the general interest, attempt (...) to skew a standard to favor a specific product, service, or practice. In order prevent this sort of abuse, rules are written to prevent any common-interest block from overwhelming the general interest. Unfettered debate is fostered by having no rules defining volunteer-member misconduct, eliminating any possibility that a majority will improperly use such rules to silence a minority. This unfortunately permits the rare but not-hypothetical situation where those unscrupulous and determined, or those out of control, are able to engage in obstructionism and misconduct without any possibility of penalty. (shrink)

The Human Genome Project is nearing completion, and shortly we will have access to the complete genetic sequence of an average human being. Hopes are high that the sequence will contribute profoundly to medicine in particular, but also to our understanding of our evolutionary past. Of course, detractors have long insisted that because the HGP represents a victory for formalism in biology, determining the function of DNA sequences will remain an outstanding problem for at least the next several decades. Moreover, (...) it is not clear that having the complete sequence will be significantly useful to biologists seeking to understand gene function in the first place. What can we expect in the postgenomic era? ;I reject the very idea that a complete, encapsulated sequence of a human genome is foundational to biological understanding. I set my investigation within the framework of the ancient debate between preformationists and epigenecists. I survey and conceptually analyze arguments on both sides, especially as they relate to the separation of genetics and embryology in the early part of the twentieth century. I identify modern variants of both preformationism and epigenesis, and note their reconciliation in the form of a Modern Consensus on development established after the neo-Darwinian Synthesis in biology in the 1940s. ;Drawing on recent work in molecular and developmental biology, I challenge the seeming intuitiveness of the Modern Consensus and its subsumption of developmental concerns under the aegis of molecular genetics. I then propose and defend an alternative synthesis of preformationism and epigenesis, and of genetics and developmental biology, according to which development does not reduce to mere gene activation. I underscore the practical benefit of my perspective through a lengthy discussion of the psychiatric genetics approach to schizophrenia. (shrink)

The development and use of advanced and innovative neuroscience, neurotechnology and some forms of artificial intelligence have exposed potential threats to the human condition, including human rights. As a result, reconceptualizing or creating human rights (i.e. neurorights) has been proposed to address specific brain and mind issues like free will, personal identity and cognitive liberty. However, perceptions, interpretations and meanings of these issues—and of neurorights—may vary between countries, contexts and cultures, all relevant for an international-consensus definition and implementation (...) of neurorights. Thus, we encourage reflecting on the proactive inclusion of transnational, cross-cultural and contextual considerations and concerns to contribute to the global discourse. This inclusion does not mean endorsing ethical relativism but rather a call to foster a universal understanding of key concepts and concerns. Including contextual and cultural perspectives may truly anticipate global concerns which could be addressed while developing and implementing neurorights. Consequently, any ethical and/or legal regulatory framework(s) for the translational and transnational use of advanced neuroscience, neurotechnology and some forms of artificial intelligence intended to protect and safeguard human dignity should be contextually and culturally mindful, responsible, respectful and inclusive of not only human rights and fundamental freedoms but also of neurocognitive cultural diversity. (shrink)

In this article, we inquire into two contemporary participatory formats that seek to democratically intervene in scientific practice: the consensus conference and participatory technology assessment. We explain how these formats delegitimize conflict and disagreement by making a strong appeal to consensus. Based on our direct involvement in these formats and informed both by political philosophy and science and technology studies, we outline conceptions that contrast with the consensus ideal, including dissensus, disclosure, conflictual consensus and agonistic democracy. (...) Drawing on the notion of meta-consensus and a distinction between four models of democracy, we elaborate how a more positive valuation of conflict provides opportunities for mutual learning, the articulation of disagreement, and democratic modulation—three aspirations that are at the heart of most pTAs and consensus conferences. Disclosing the strengths and weaknesses of these different models is politically and epistemically useful, and should therefore be an integral part of the development of participation theory and process in science and technology. (shrink)

The lecture is an argument for a marriage of theory and experience. It contains something old, something new, something borrowed and something true. The argument is that the dichotomy between science and art, between theory and experience is resolved and the components unified when the role of consensus in the acceptance of theory and the conception of experience is made clear. Moreover, the unification achieved brings with it a method for unifying the empiricism of Moritz Schlick1 with the consensualism (...) of Otto Neurath.2 In earlier work, I developed a mathematical model of consensus with Carl Wagner. That work concerned the aggregation of probabilities by weights of respect assigned by members of a community to each other that converged toward a consensual probability. The convergence depended on connectedness among the members of the group in terms of positive weights. We thought of the probabilities as probabilities of scientific theories or hypotheses. The process converging toward consensus was mathematically equivalent to finding consensual weights to be assigned to members of the group that could be used as a measure of competence and expertise. The consensual weights can be applied to find consensus concerning factors other than probabilities. The use of probabilities was in fact an incidental, though formally well articulated, application of the underlying aggregation of weights to obtain convergence toward consensual weights. (shrink)