In their paper, “Closed-Loop Neuromodulation and Self-Perception in Clinical Treatment of Refractory Epilepsy,” Haeusermann et al. (2023) note that although responsive neurostimulation (RNS) data v...

Given the need for enforceable guardrails for artificial intelligence (AI) that protect the public and allow for innovation, the U.S. Government recently issued a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights which outlines five principles of safe AI design, use, and implementation. One in particular, the right to notice and explanation, requires accurately informing the public about the use of AI that impacts them in ways that are easy to understand. Yet, in the healthcare setting, it is unclear what goal (...) the right to notice and explanation serves, and the moral importance of patient-level disclosure. We propose three normative functions of this right: (1) to notify patients about their care, (2) to educate patients and promote trust, and (3) to meet standards for informed consent. Additional clarity is needed to guide practices that respect the right to notice and explanation of AI in healthcare while providing meaningful benefits to patients. (shrink)

In their paper, “Conversational Artificial Intelligence in Psychotherapy: A New Therapeutic Tool or Agent?” Sedlakova and Trachsel (2023) claim that therapeutic insights and therapeutic changes are...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:META-ONTOLOGY AND META-FICTION by Denis E. B. Pollard Peter van inwagen's attempt to explain the nature of fiction makes use of Quine's program in meta-ontology.1 This program comprises four basic theses: (i) that being is the same as existence, (ii) that being is univocal, (iii) that this univocal sense is best captured, for the purposes of formalization, by die existential quantifier, and (iv) that deciding what to believe (...) about what there is comes to a decision about what theories we should accept. As the aim of formalization is explicitness, then theories should be rendered into canonicalese and their commitments identified through those sentences which are prefaced with the existential quantifier. For Inwagen, as for his mentor Quine, acceptance of theory expressed in this canonical form entails acceptance of the ontology expressed in those quantified sentences. Bringing these considerations to bear on fiction, Inwagen asks, "What are theories about fiction?" and replies that they are "theories that treat stories as having an internal structure" (p. 72). The upshot of this is that such theories contain sentences which, when formally rendered, revead commitments to fictional objects. It is further claimed that such sentences can be vehicles of objective truth. Thus Inwagen finds he cannot wholeheartedly dismiss Sarah Gamp as a nonentity. In this respect, his view contrasts with two contemporary accounts, the "reductivist" one which denies Sarah Gamp's existence and her possession of any properties whatever, and the more recent "Meinongian" view which would agree that Sarah Gamp does not exist, but would nonetheless strenuously maintain that she is a nurse, fat, old, and decidedly the worse for drink. Inwagen's Sarah is neither ofthese: pace both these positions, she exists all right, but with properties such as being a theoretical entity of criticism, being a satiric villainess, not being a woman, and not being fond of gin. Inwagen's attempt to steer what seems to be a middle course has yielded, if anything, a more counterintuitive result than either ofthe other views. What is die explanation for this? 244 Denis E. B. Pollard245 To begin with, it is important to note a distinction, which Inwagen himself accepts, between two kinds of sentences. Let us take the following elementary examples: (1) "Sarah Gamp is a nurse," and (2) "Sarah Gamp is a character in a nineteenth-century novel." With specimens like (1), Inwagen sides with the reductivist: such sentences asefalse, and are not about anything. But it is with examples like (2) that ontology becomes a real issue, since sentences of this kind belong to literary theory. Neither authors nor critics who make use of sentences of the first kind are committed to the existence of fictional entities. So far, so good. But what is it that compels such commitment in the second case? Inwagen is sceptical about reductivist analyses which seek to paraphrase such sentences in order to remove any "misleading" implications. Such paraphrases he would regard as at best "messy," and more seriously, unlikely to preserve intuitive meaning without appearing to say that there are fictional characters. Unfortunately, he brushes this aside as a "narrow technical issue" at the very point where rather more argument is needed. However, on the issue of preservation of intuitive meaning, it might well be argued that his contention is somewhat question-begging, suggesting a rather literal reading of (2) above as a straightforward predication superficially akin to (3) "McEnroe is a seeded player in this year's Wimbledon tournament." So by a strange alchemy, the expression "Sarah Gamp" in (2) is accorded a referential status denied to it in (1). It is at this point that the notion of"theoretical entity" is introduced to supply the need for a referent dictated by the Quinean program. Inwagen's Sarah Gamp, in this theoretical disguise, can now literally satisfy predicates like "... is a character in a nineteenth-century novel," but not predicates like "... is a nurse." The parallel being exploited here is that with scientific theory. An ideal gas can satisfy Boyle's Law, but cannot literally be ignited, put into containers, or have an offensive smell. But there is more than a suspicion of equivocation over the term... (shrink)

In “What are Humans Doing in the Loop?” Salloch and Eriksen (2024) argue for a collaborative decision-making approach to using machine learning-based AI decisional support systems in medicine, rece...

The article presents an overview of the most interesting ideas, topics, and discussions among those constituting the problem field of social and political philosophy in post-Soviet Russia.

A team of philosophers and scientists at Dartmouth College worked for three years to create, train faculty and pilot test an adequate and exportable class in research methods for graduate students of science and engineering. Developing and testing methods for evaluating students’ progress in learning research ethics were part of the project goals. Failure of methods tried in the first year led to the refinement of methods for the second year. These were used successfully in the pilot course and in (...) one university setting external to Dartmouth. The process of development and justification for the final methods are discussed here. (shrink)

This article applies the Kantian doctrine of respect for persons to the problem of sweatshops. We argue that multinational enterprises are properly regarded as responsible for the practices of their subcontractors and suppliers. We then argue that multinationalenterprises have the following duties in their off-shore manufacturing facilities: to ensure that local labor laws are followed; to refrain from coercion; to meet minimum safety standards; and to provide a living wage for employees. Finally, we consider and reply to the objection that (...) improving health and safety conditions and providing a living wage will cause greater harm than good. (shrink)

“The National Question” relates to that sphere of social life in which the October Revolution has demonstrated the most radical rupture in “l’ancien régime.” From the very beginning, Soviet power used anti-colonial and anti-imperial language in reference to itself. However, over the last years, the prevailing academic view has regarded the Soviet Union as imperial. The author aims to problematize this view and show that in many cases the use of the concept of empire to describe Soviet reality rather prevents (...) its adequate understanding, because within the imperial paradigm it is impossible to completely reduce the practice of dominance and control; linguistic, cultural, and economic politics; people’s identity; and their everyday experience. (shrink)

Aims and hypothesesIn an environment of absolute silence, researchers have found many of their participants to perceive phantom sounds. With this between-subject experiment, we aimed to elaborate on these research findings, and specifically investigated whether–in line with the fear-avoidance model of tinnitus perception and reactivity–fear or level of perceived threat influences the incidence and perceptual qualities of phantom sound percepts in an anechoic room. We investigated the potential role of individual differences in anxiety, negative affect, noise sensitivity and subclinical hearing (...) loss. We hypothesized that participants who experience a higher level of threat would direct their attention more to the auditory system, leading to the perception of tinnitus-like sounds, which would otherwise be subaudible, and that under conditions of increased threat, narrowing of attention would lead to perceptual distortions.MethodsIn total, N = 78 normal-hearing volunteers participated in this study. In general, the study sample consisted of young, mostly female, university students. Their hearing was evaluated using gold-standard pure tone audiometry and a speech-in-noise self-test, which is a sensitive screening test to identify subclinical hearing loss. Prior to a four-minute stay in an anechoic room, we randomized participants block design-wise in a threat and no-threat condition. Participants in the threat condition were deceived about their hearing and were led to believe that staying in the room would potentially harm their hearing temporarily. Participants were asked whether they perceived sounds during their stay in the room and rated the perceptual qualities of sound percepts. They were also asked to fill-out standardized questionnaires measuring anxiety, affect and noise sensitivity. The internal consistency of the questionnaires used was verified in our study sample and ranged between α = 0.61 and α = 0.90.ResultsIn line with incidence rates reported in the literature, 74% of our participants reported having heard tinnitus-like sounds in the anechoic room. Speech-in-noise identification ability was comparable for both groups of participants. The experimental manipulation of threat was proven to be effective, as indicated by significantly higher scores on a Threat Manipulation Checklist among participants in the threat condition as compared to those in the no-threat condition. Nevertheless, participants in the threat condition were as likely to report tinnitus percepts as participants in the no-threat condition, and tinnitus percepts were not rated as being louder or more unpleasant as a function of level of threat. For participants who did experience tinnitus percepts, a higher level of threat was associated with a higher degree of experienced unpleasantness. These associations were absent in those who did not experience tinnitus. Higher negative affect was only slightly associated with higher ratings of tinnitus unpleasantness.ConclusionWhereas our threat manipulation was successful in elevating the level of fear, it did not contribute to a higher percentage of participants perceiving tinnitus-like sounds in the threat condition. However, higher levels of perceived threat were related to a higher degree of perceived tinnitus unpleasantness. The findings of our study are drawn from a rather homogenous participant pool in terms of age, gender, and educational background, challenging conclusions that are applicable for the general population. Participants generally obtained normophoric scores on independent variables of interest: they were low anxious, low noise-sensitive, and there was little evidence for the presence of subclinical hearing loss. Possibly, there was insufficient variation in scores to find effects. (shrink)

Psychiatry is rapidly adopting digital phenotyping and artificial intelligence/machine learning tools to study mental illness based on tracking participants’ locations, online activity, phone and text message usage, heart rate, sleep, physical activity, and more. Existing ethical frameworks for return of individual research results (IRRs) are inadequate to guide researchers for when, if, and how to return this unprecedented number of potentially sensitive results about each participant’s real-world behavior. To address this gap, we convened an interdisciplinary expert working group, supported by (...) a National Institute of Mental Health grant. Building on established guidelines and the emerging norm of returning results in participant-centered research, we present a novel framework specific to the ethical, legal, and social implications of returning IRRs in digital phenotyping research. Our framework offers researchers, clinicians, and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) urgently needed guidance, and the principles developed here in the context of psychiatry will be readily adaptable to other therapeutic areas. (shrink)

Human adults appear different from other animals in their ability to form abstract mental representations that go beyond perceptual similarity. In short, they can conceptualize the world. This book brings together leading psychologists and neuroscientists to tackle the age-old puzzle of what might be unique about human concepts.

The primary purpose of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) is to protect the rights and welfare of human research participants. Evaluation and measurement of how IRBs satisfy this purpose and other important goals are open questions that demand empirical research. Research on IRBs, and the Human Research Protection Programs (HRPPs) of which they are often a part, is necessary to inform evidence-based practices, policies, and approaches to quality improvement in human research protections. However, to date, HRPP and IRB engagement in empirical (...) research about their own activities and performance has been limited. To promote engagement of HRPPs and IRBs in self-reflective research on HRPP and IRB quality and effectiveness, barriers to their participation need to be addressed. These include: extensive workloads, limited information technology systems, and few universally accepted or consistently measured metrics for HRPP/irb quality and effectiveness. Additionally, institutional leaders may have concerns about confidentiality. Professional norms around the value of participating in this type of research are lacking. Lastly, obtaining external funding for research on IRBs and HRPPs is challenging. As a group of HRPP professionals and researchers actively involved in a research consortium focused on IRB quality and effectiveness, we identify potential levers for supporting and encouraging HRPP and IRB engagement in research on quality and effectiveness. We maintain that this research should be informed by the core principles of patient- and community-engaged research, in which members and key stakeholders of the community to be studied are included as key informants and members of the research team. This ensures that relevant questions are asked and that data are interpreted to produce meaningful recommendations. As such, we offer several ways to increase the participation of HRPP professionals in research as participants, as data sharers, and as investigators. (shrink)

We begin this article by delineating the explanatory gaps left by prevailing gene‐focused approaches in our understanding of phenotype determination, inheritance, and the origin of novel traits. We aim not to diminish the value of these approaches but to highlight where their implementation, despite best efforts, has encountered persistent limitations. We then discuss how each of these explanatory gaps can be addressed by expanding research foci to take into accountbiological agency—the capacity of living systems at various levels to participate in (...) their own development, maintenance, and function by regulating their structures and activities in response to conditions they encounter. Here we aim to define formally what agency and agents are and—just as importantly—what they are not, emphasizing that agency is an empirical property connoting neither intention nor consciousness. Lastly, we discuss how incorporating agency helps to bridge explanatory gaps left by conventional approaches, highlight scientific fields in which implicit agency approaches are already proving valuable, and assess the opportunities and challenges of more systematically incorporating biological agency into research programs. (shrink)

For [Formula: see text], the coarse similarity class of A, denoted by [Formula: see text], is the set of all [Formula: see text] such that the symmetric difference of A and B has asymptotic density 0. There is a natural metric [Formula: see text] on the space [Formula: see text] of coarse similarity classes defined by letting [Formula: see text] be the upper density of the symmetric difference of A and B. We study the metric space of coarse similarity classes (...) under this metric, and show in particular that between any two distinct points in this space there are continuum many geodesic paths. We also study subspaces of the form [Formula: see text] where [Formula: see text] is closed under Turing equivalence, and show that there is a tight connection between topological properties of such a space and computability-theoretic properties of [Formula: see text]. We then define a distance between Turing degrees based on Hausdorff distance in the metric space [Formula: see text]. We adapt a proof of Monin to show that the Hausdorff distances between Turing degrees that occur are exactly 0, [Formula: see text], and 1, and study which of these values occur most frequently in the senses of Lebesgue measure and Baire category. We define a degree a to be attractive if the class of all degrees at distance [Formula: see text] from a has measure 1, and dispersive otherwise. In particular, we study the distribution of attractive and dispersive degrees. We also study some properties of the metric space of Turing degrees under this Hausdorff distance, in particular the question of which countable metric spaces are isometrically embeddable in it, giving a graph-theoretic sufficient condition for embeddability. Motivated by a couple of issues arising in the above work, we also study the computability-theoretic and reverse-mathematical aspects of a Ramsey-theoretic theorem due to Mycielski, which in particular implies that there is a perfect set whose elements are mutually 1-random, as well as a perfect set whose elements are mutually 1-generic. Finally, we study the completeness of [Formula: see text] from the perspectives of computability theory and reverse mathematics. (shrink)

Reading speed matters in most real-world contexts, and it is a robust and easy aspect of reading to measure. Theories of reading should account for speed.

Late in 1990, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology (lIT) received a grant of more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum.! Enough has now been accomplished to draw some tentative conclusions. I am the grant's principal investigator. In this paper, I shall describe what we at lIT did, what we learned, and what others, especially philosophers, can learn (...) from us. We set out to develop an approach that others could profitably adopt. I believe that we succeeded. (shrink)

La Règle d'or Tout ce que vous voulez que les hommes fassent pour vous, faites-le vous-mêmes pour eux : voilà la Loi et les Prophètes. Jésus. " La vie éthique ou morale est une exigence d'humanité. Elle naît du désir des personnes de donner sens à leurs actes et d'agir en vue du bien. Composée de règles d'action, de normes, de valeurs, de vertus, de représentations du bien ou de ce qui est sensé, elle vise à rendre la vie plus (...) humaine, et met en oeuvre la liberté des personnes dans leur relation avec les autres, avec elles-mêmes, avec la nature et avec Dieu. On appelle généralement "éthique" la science des comportements moraux humains ". Avec quelque 200 articles rédigés par plus de 100 spécialistes venus de divers horizons, ce Dictionnaire encyclopédique d'éthique chrétienne embrasse l'ensemble des différentes notions liées à l'éthique et à la réflexion morale chrétienne. Par son approche historique, interdisciplinaire et oecuménique, il offre une meilleure compréhension des débats sociétaux actuels. Sont aussi traitées des notions fondamentales du christianisme comme la grâce, la joie, l'amour, l'espérance, la foi... Tout lecteur, initié ou non, tirera profit de la consultation de cet ouvrage d'une ampleur sans précédent. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉL'interprétation de la philosophie pratique de Donald Davidson proposée par Robert Myers représente correctement maints aspects fondamentaux de sa pensée. Myers soutient à juste titre que Davidson évite les incohérences entre la position internaliste, l'objectivité éthique et le modèle croyance-désir en modifiant des éléments centraux de ce modèle, et que l'alternative proposée par Davidson rend légitime l'extension des arguments de l'interprétation et de la triangulation dans la sphère pratique. Cependant, Myers s’égare à une bifurcation cruciale de la route interprétative. Davidson (...) suit G.E.M. Anscombe sur une voie différente, une voie qui considère les désirs individuels comme constitués en partie par des jugements évaluatifs. (shrink)

We show that for every c.e. degree a > 0 there exists an intrinsically c.e. relation on the domain of a computable structure whose degree spectrum is {0, a}. This result can be extended in two directions. First we show that for every uniformly c.e. collection of sets S there exists an intrinsically c.e. relation on the domain of a computable structure whose degree spectrum is the set of degrees of elements of S. Then we show that if α ∈ (...) ω∪{ω } then for any α-c.e. degree a > 0 there exists an intrinsically α-c.e. relation on the domain of a computable structure whose degree spectrum is {0, a}. All of these results also hold for m-degree spectra of relations. (shrink)

For more than a century, the relationship between cinema and the city has constituted an aspect of profound fascination for film and visual studies. Constantly renewing itself, this connection represents the interaction of a complex network of technological forms, ergonomic configurations, evolutionary perspectives, human and material aggregations, all redefined within the canons of filmic language. The cities of the future, before moving from the design phase to the productive phase, have often been modulated and experienced within filmic spaces, sometimes glimpsing (...) subsequent mutations. Through the study of video installations such as Prisma (2022) by Vhils and Hypnosis Display (2014) by Clipson and Harris, films such as Code inconnu (2000) by Haneke, Code 46 (2003) by Winterbottom, Anon (2018) by Niccol, and recent works by Refik Anadol, I will try to outline a possible visual interpretation regarding the present and future urban image. (shrink)

Resumo: O objetivo central deste artigo é procurar compreender a concepção normativa híbrida usada por John Rawls para justificar moralmente a punição legal, fazendo uso de um recurso consequencialista, a fim de justificar a instituição da punição, isto é, a eficácia social e um recurso retributivista para justificar os atos punitivos particulares, ou seja, a culpa do agente. Analisaremos, especialmente, o artigo "Two Concepts of Rules" e o livro A Theory of Justice. Defenderemos que Rawls faz uso de uma visão (...) liberal de punição, bem como utiliza o método de equilíbrio reflexivo, estipulando uma regra para aprovação da punição legal, a partir da coerência com nossos juízos morais ponderados, o que parece reconciliar a justiça retributiva com a justiça distributiva.2: The principal aim of this paper is to understand the hybrid normative concept used by John Rawls to morally justify legal punishment. Rawls uses a consequentialist argument - that is, social efficacy - to justify the institution of punishment, and a retributivist argument - that is, the guilt of the agent - to justify particular acts of punishment. The article "Two Concepts of Rules" and the book A Theory of Justice are analyzed. We argue that Rawls uses a liberal view of punishment, as well as the method of reflective equilibrium, stipulating a rule for approval of legal punishment based on its coherence with our considered moral judgments; this seems to reconcile retributive justice with distributive justice. (shrink)

O texto trata de episódios do poema grego Odisséia, de Homero, e do poema sumério Gilgamesh. Ulisses, na volta de Tróia para Ítaca, encontra-se com Polifemo; Gilgamesh e Enkidu vão ao encontro de Humbaba, monstro da floresta de Cedros. Uma visão dos monstros no imaginário grego e mesopotâmico, concepções de deuses, do homem, da morte, nos dois mundos, como indagações e considerações sobre natureza, cultura e linguagem perpassam o texto crítico.

At the outset of The Possibility of Altruism Thomas Nagel charts two paths out of the fundamental dilemma confronting metaethics. The first path rejects the claim that a persuasive account of the motivational backing of ethical judgments must involve an agent’s desires. But it is the second path, a path that Nagel charts but does not himself take, that is the focus of this essay. This path retains the standard account, upon which all motivation involves desire, but denies that desires (...) are given prior to reason. Instead, these attitudes that motivate are themselves open to rational assessment. One reason for this focus is that many philosophers, including Quinn, Raz, and Scanlon, have come to reject the claim Nagel takes to block this path – that desires are somehow given prior to reason, hence are not in the relevant way proper objects of rational assessment. A second reason is that unlike the first path, this second does not require the rejection of the belief-desire theory, only the rejection of one assumption about the nature of conative attitudes. Unlike Nagel’s chosen path, then, the second holds out the prospect of reconciling ethical objectivity, internalism, and the belief-desire theory within a unified account. I argue that the account of desire found in Quinn, Raz, and Scanlon, augmented by aspects of Davidson’s account of propositional attitudes, yields a coherent account of the involvement of reason even in basic desires, an account that is well suited to Nagel’s intriguing path not taken. (shrink)

O objetivo central desse artigo é defender uma interpretação cognitivista do desacordo moral, de forma a não compreendê-lo como uma evidência da inexistência de verdades morais objetivas. Iniciamos com a interpretação não-cognitivista desse desacordo, apresentando o argumento da relatividade de Mackie e uma objeção já usual que se faz a ele. Posteriormente, apresentamos nossa interpretação cognitivista que fará uso de quatro argumentos centrais, de forma a considerar o desacordo valorativo: (i) mais sobre crenças não-morais do que sobre valores éticos, (ii) (...) como não coerente com a ideia de progresso moral, (iii) melhor compreendido como uma prova da falsidade do não-cognitivismo e, por fim, (iv) como uma expressão do processo de amadurecimento de nosso pensamento normativo-moral, com destaque para o método do equilíbrio reflexivo. (shrink)

De son expédition autour du monde de 1831 à 1836, Charles Darwin, né en 1809, rapporte d'importantes collections de plantes et d'animaux. Retiré à la campagne pour raisons de santé, il publie en 1859 son grand oeuvre, De l'origine des espèces au moyen de la sélection naturelle. Dès lors, il s'impose comme le fondateur de la théorie de l'évolution biologique, dans laquelle la notion de sélection naturelle des espèces sous l'influence du milieu occupe une place centrale. Décrivant d'une plume alerte (...) et rigoureuse le rayonnement posthume d'une doctrine qui finit par être reconnue non sans mal, l'auteur montre notamment en quoi les idées de Lyssenko - le biologiste préféré de Staline - étaient antidarwiniennes et représentaient une insulte à la science. De même, il s'attaque au créationnisme d'aujourd'hui. Enfin, il expose les éléments importants de la théorie synergique qui renouvelle le darwinisme, englobant ainsi les plus récentes découvertes de la connaissance contemporaine. (shrink)