The ethics review of qualitative health research poses various challenges that are due to a mismatch between the current practice of ethics review and the nature of qualitative methodology. The process of obtaining ethics approval for a study by a research ethics committee before the start of a research study has been described as “procedural ethics” and the identification and handling of ethical issues by researchers during the research process as “ethics in practice.” While some authors dispute and other authors (...) defend the use of procedural ethics in relation to qualitative health research, there is general agreement that it needs to be supplemented with ethics in practice. This article aims to provide an illustration of research ethics in practice by reflecting on the ways in which we identified and addressed ethical and methodological issues that arose in the context of an interview study with mental health service users and relatives. We describe the challenges we faced and the solutions we found in relation to the potential vulnerability of research participants, the voluntariness of consent, the increase of participant access and the heterogeneity of the sample, the protection of privacy and internal confidentiality, and the consideration of personal and contextual factors. (shrink)

This paper examines an argument by Schaffer (2017) that aims to prove how, contrary to what many philosophers hold, there is no special explanatory gap occurring in the connection between the physical and the phenomenal. This is because a gap of the same kind can be found in every connection between a more fundamental and a less fundamental level of reality. These gaps lurk everywhere in nature. For Schaffer, they can be bridged by means of substantive metaphysical principles such as (...) grounding principles. He thus puts forward a version of grounding-based physicalism, which is supposed to provide this kind of substantive bridge principle. My main contention is as follows: even if Schaffer’s argument indeed proves the existence of a gap in every connection between fundamental and derivative entities, and such gaps can be bridged by means of grounding principles, a different gap remains open in the psycho-physical connection. (shrink)

We maintain that no extant argument in favor of phenomenal external- ism is really convincing. PE is the thesis that the phenomenal properties of our experiences must be individuated widely insofar as they are constituted by worldly properties. We consider what we take to be the five best arguments for PE. We try to show that none of them really proves what it aims at proving. Unless better arguments in favor of phenomenal externalism show up in the debate, we see (...) no reason to relinquish an idea that seems intuitive and appeals to many cognitive sci- entists: that phenomenology is narrow, i.e., that phenomenal properties are intrinsic properties of our experiences. This idea grounds the opposite philosophical position, phenomenal internalism. (shrink)

Taking a detour to reach a goal is intelligent behavior based on making inferences. The main purpose of the present research is to show how such apparently complex behavior can emerge from basic mechanisms such as contextual categorisation and goal attribution when perceiving people. We presentacacia (Action by Contextually Automated Categorising Interactive Agents), a computer model implemented using StarLogo software, grounded in the principles of Artificial Life (Al), capable of simulating the behavior of a group of agents with a goal (...) (for instance, to find a treasure in a treasure hunt ) in an environment where obstacles mask the goal site. The results of the simulations show that agents reach the goal the fastest when they follow each other and take detours. We argue that these results indicate that intelligent adaptive behavior is based on the contextual categorisation of environmental constrainst (that is, obstacles and other agents). (shrink)

Nel nostro mondo occidentale e urbanizzato i bambini subiscono forme di segregazione e controllo, al pari di altre categorie sociali altrettanto ‘scomode', perché ostacolano il cosiddetto ‘ordine morale del profitto e del consumo'. La casa, la scuola, i luoghi strutturati e sorvegliati delle attivitÀ del tempo libero, vengono presentati come il rifugio contro i pericoli della strada che č perciň interdetta ai bambini con ogni mezzo, compreso il coprifuoco. Ma la libera fruizione di uno spazio pubblico fatto di strade, piazze, (...) slarghi, aree vuote e marginali, č invece fondamentale per lo sviluppo delle capacitÀ sociali dei bambini. Uno dei tre principi della Carta ONU dei Diritti dell'infanzia, quello alla partecipazione e all'autonomia, č violato. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 45, Issue 3, Page 452-461, September 2022.

Treatment pressures are communicative strategies that mental health professionals use to influence the decision-making of mental health service users and improve their adherence to recommended treatment. Szmukler and Appelbaum describe a spectrum of treatment pressures, which encompasses persuasion, interpersonal leverage, offers and threats, arguing that only a particular type of threat amounts to informal coercion. We contend that this account of informal coercion is insufficiently sensitive to context and fails to recognize the fundamental power imbalance in mental healthcare. Based on (...) a set of counterexamples, we argue that what makes a proposal coercive is not whether service users will actually be made worse off if they reject the proposal, but rather whether they have the justified belief that this is the case. Whether this belief is justified depends on the presence of certain contextual factors, such as strong dependency on professionals and the salient possibility of formal coercion. (shrink)

In this 2002 book, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti examines the most intractable problems which toleration encounters and argues that what is really at stake is not religious or moral disagreement but the unequal status of different social groups. Liberal theories of toleration fail to grasp this and consequently come up with normative solutions that are inadequate when confronted with controversial cases. Galeotti proposes, as an alternative, toleration as recognition, which addresses the problem of according equal respect to groups as well (...) as equal liberty to individuals. She offers an interpretation that is both a revision and an expansion of liberal theory, in which toleration constitutes an important component not only of a theory of justice, but also of the politics of identity. Her study will appeal to a wide range of readers in political philosophy, political theory, and law. (shrink)

I argue that a concept is applied correctly when it is applied to the kind of things it is the concept of. Correctness as successful kind-tracking is fulfilling an externally and naturalistically individuated standard. And the normative aspect of concept-application so characterized depends on the relational (non-individualistic) feature of conceptual content. I defend this view against two objections. The first is that norms should provide justifications for action, and the second involves a version of the thesis of indeterminacy of reference.

Baccarini and Malatesti (2017) defend the idea that we must use coercively biomedical means to enhance the morality of a specific group of individuals: psychopaths, diagnosed through the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) standards (Hare, 2003). Their argument is theoretical, thus it goes independently from the actual effectiveness of existent treatments, and it is based on a logical reasoning. Moral bioenhancement (MB) means include psychotropic drugs, brain stimulations, neurosurgeries, genetic editing, etc. -/- In short, the authors apply Gerald Gaus' account of open (...) justification (Gaus, 1996, 2011), according to which “a prescription addressed to an agent is a reasoning that includes premises that consider the system of reasons (such as beliefs, preferences, etc.) of that agent” (Baccarini and Malatesti, 2017, p. 1). In their view, coercive MB of psychopaths is morally sound and deducible by reasons within the psychopath's cognitive-affective system—even if the psychopath needs not to be able to consciously or sincerely endorse them. We believe that this argument is flawed. In sum, we argue that the psychopath's cognitive-affective system would consistently justify reasons against mandatory MB to herself, even if she wishes differently for others, and that the prescription cannot be extended. (shrink)

Advanced medical imaging, such as CT, fMRI and PET, has undergone enormous progress in recent years, both in accuracy and utilization. Such techniques often bring with them an illusion of immediacy, the idea that the body and its diseases can be directly inspected. In this paper we target this illusion and address the issue of the reliability of advanced imaging tests as knowledge procedures, taking positron emission tomography in oncology as paradigmatic case study. After individuating a suitable notion of reliability, (...) we argue that PET is a highly theory-laden and non-immediate knowledge procedure, in spite of the photographic-like quality of the images it delivers; the diagnostic conclusions based on the interpretation of PET images are population-dependent; PET images require interpretation, which is inherently observer-dependent and therefore variable. We conclude with a three-step methodological proposal for enhancing the reliability of advanced medical imaging. (shrink)

This chapter aims to shed light on the normative questions raised by medical imaging (MI), paving the way for interdisciplinary dialogue and further philosophical exploration. MI comprises noninvasive techniques aimed at visualizing internal human body structures to aid in explanation, diagnosis, and monitoring of health conditions. MI requires interpretation by specialized professionals, and is routinely employed across medical disciplines. It is entrenched in clinical guidelines and therapeutic interventions. Moreover, it is a dynamic research field, witnessing ongoing technological advancements. After surveying (...) philosophical issues arising from MI, which are relatively unexplored, the chapter focuses on the epistemology of diagnostic imaging. Specifically, it delves into what constitutes an image as evidence and how radiological procedures generate knowledge. The discussion dissects three facets of the radiological process: image interpretation, radiological reporting, and semantic analysis. Each facet carries distinct epistemic implications, as errors can manifest in various ways, affecting the acquisition of patient-relevant knowledge. (shrink)

This paper stresses the circumstance that Ferraris’ Documentalità shows that what is often improperly called “communication society” actually consists in a “recording society”. Recording is either a condition of the persistence of thought, and of the existence and the recognition of the social world, which expresses and settles itself in a configuration of documents. This perspective gets the notion of “spirit” out from its abstraction: without a letter, the spirit wouldn’t have any ontological consistence. What we call “spiritual” is the (...) result of registrations: as such, it has a foundational value and implies the responsibility for the acts that result from it. (shrink)

Les pratiques du commerce équitable, décrites dans cet article, montrent comment a pu se développer, tout au long de ses quarante années d'existence, un mouvement capable de relier autour des mêmes préoccupations, des citoyens du nord et du sud du monde. De ce fait, on peut affirmer que, en dépit des clivages et des divergences, le commerce équitable participe à la définition d'un espace public d'envergure internationale autour des questions de la consommation et des modes d'organisation du commerce international. La (...) première partie a pour but de clarifier la démarche technique et les valeurs qui animent le mouvement. La deuxième partie pose la question de savoir dans quelle mesure les impacts générés à la fois sur le marché conventionnel et sur le développement du sud du monde ont du sens pour l'avenir.The practices of fair trade described in this article show how this movement has been able to create links between citizens with shared concerns in the southern and northern hemispheres in the 40 years it has existed. In this way, we are able to affirm that despite certain differences and divisions, fair trade has contributed towards the definition of international public discussion on question such as consumption and the organization of international trade. The first part of this article aims to clarify the technical process and the values underpinning this civic movement through a description of its practices. The second part aims to assess the extent to which the impact fair trade has had on conventional trade and on local development in the southern hemisphere indicates a direction for the future. (shrink)

There is a substantial difference between our way of "philosophizing", born out of Descartes' clear and well-defined thinking and bent on building alternative (aut-aut) models, and the classical (especially Platonic-Aristotelian) way where a constant use of technical and methodical pluralism serves to juxtapose different (et-et) schemes necessary to grasp an intrinsically one-manifold reality. The ancient Philosophers bring a great wealth of schemes into play, albeit in different forms. This is to say that one could also come across statements that are (...) clearly mismatched and sometimes even at odds with one another, without either giving rise to a real contradiction or (even less so) a quasi relativistic viewpoint. Quite the contrary, an approach of this kind focuses on the necessary knowledge of a reality which, however, is multiform. By assuming this interpretative paradigm and applying it to some of the most pivotal reflections of the Sophists, Plato and Aristotle, the Authors of the contributions herein provide a number of particularly eloquent examples of that typically "Greek" movement, which is to proceed steadily by association of possibilities, rejecting the either/or solicitations and hinging their reflections upon the more open and dynamic "and-and" combination. The authors believe that many of the puzzles of Ancient philosophy that have involved and divided scholars can acquire a new and convincing explanation with this paradigm. (shrink)

In this work we will show the role of lexical resources in machine translation processes, giving several examples after a brief overview of Machine Translation studies. Then we will advocate the need for a richer lexicon in MT processes and sketch a methodology to obtain it through a mix of corpus-based and machine learning approaches.

Mentalization is a useful ability for social functioning and a crucial aspect of mentalizing is emotion regulation. Literature suggests programmes for children and adults to increase mentalizing abilities useful both for emotional and social competences. For this reason, the issue of how to prompt children’s mentalization has started to attract researchers’ attention, supporting the importance of the interpersonal dimension for the individual differences in the developmental of mentalization. The TiM (Thoughts in Mind) Project, a training programme based on the explanation (...) of mentalization mechanisms and designed for adults, deals with emotion regulation. Starting from the TiM Project, this study tests the effects of the TiM Child (TiM-C) training programme, over a control training programme, a conversational training designed for the school context, in children attending Year 2 of primary school. We designed a training based on narratives, followed by multiple-choice questions and conversations about mental states. Our results revealed significant improvements over the training period only in the TiM-C Project group for Metacognition, Emotion Regulation Strategies and a Theory of Mind task. As far as the educational implications, our findings suggest that it is possible to enhance mentalization through activities at school by promoting not only the understanding of the relations between mind and emotion, but also metacognitive skills. (shrink)

This essay sets out to investigate the Shelleys’ perception of Italy and the Italians, oscillating between heartfelt enthusiasm and disillusionment. As will be shown, P.B. Shelley adopted a more critical stance towards the population, while he unre-servedly appreciated both the natural landscape and the relics of a glorious past. Conversely, Mary Shelley was more sympathetic and convincingly embraced the Italian cause. The intertwined concepts of Italophilia and Italophobia will also be explored.

The ability to distinguish between subtle differences among emotions of similar valence is labelled emotion differentiation (ED). Previous research has demonstrated that people high in ED are less likely to use disengagement regulation strategies (i.e. avoidance/distraction) during negative affective states.The present eye-tracking study examined associations between ED and visual attention/avoidance of affective stimuli. A total of 160 participants viewed emotional video clips (positive/ negative), which were concurrently presented with a non-affective distractor image. After each video, participants verbally described their experienced (...) emotions with adjectives in an open-response format. Moreover, they completed an ED questionnaire.The computed ED specificity index for the negative videos (the number of specific adjectives divided by all adjectives used) was positively associated with the scores on the ED questionnaire and visual revisits for the negative videos (how many times the participants gazed back and forth between video and distractor). This viewing style might reflect more active exploratory behaviour directed toward acquiring information about the negative stimulus and its context. The ED measures were not associated with the gaze behaviour for positive videos. (shrink)

Based on the empirical findings correlating disgust with conservatism, most disgust scholars have fed arguments for its moral unreliability and concluded with moral condemnation of this emotion. In this paper, I will examine common arguments about whether relying on disgust in the moral domain is to be considered good or bad. I will problematize the suggestion that we are justified in firmly believing that disgust is an ethically «dumb» – or an ethically «smart» – emotion. It rather seems that moral (...) disgust can be rational or irrational, pro-social or anti-social, liberal or conservative depending on the eliciting contexts, and that such case-by-case conclusions rely on additional meta-ethical premises. (shrink)

Critics of clinical artificial intelligence (AI) suggest that the technology is ethically harmful because it may lead to the dehumanization of the doctor–patient relationship (DPR) by eliminating moral empathy, which is viewed as a distinctively human trait. The benefits of clinical empathy—that is, moral empathy applied in the clinical context—are widely praised, but this praise is often unquestioning and lacks context. In this article, I will argue that criticisms of clinical AI based on appeals to empathy are misplaced. As psychological (...) and philosophical research has shown, empathy leads to certain types of biased reasoning and choices. These biases of empathy consistently impact the DPR. Empathy may lead to partial judgments and asymmetric DPRs, as well as disparities in the treatment of patients, undermining respect for patient autonomy and equality. Engineers should consider the flaws of empathy when designing affective artificial systems in the future. The nature of sympathy and compassion (i.e., displaying emotional concern while maintaining some balanced distance) has been defended by some ethicists as more beneficial than perspective-taking in the clinical context. However, these claims do not seem to have impacted the AI debate. Thus, this article will also argue that if machines are programmed for affective behavior, they should also be given some ethical scaffolding. (shrink)