Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 104-106.

Neuroscience and psychology have recently turned their attention to the study of the subpersonal underpinnings of moral judgment. In this article we critically examine an influential strand of research originating in Greene's neuroimaging studies of ‘utilitarian’ and ‘non-utilitarian’ moral judgement. We argue that given that the explananda of this research are specific personal-level states—moral judgments with certain propositional contents—its methodology has to be sensitive to criteria for ascribing states with such contents to subjects. We argue that current research has often (...) failed to meet this constraint by failing to correctly ‘fix’ key aspects of moral judgment, criticism we support by detailed examples from the scientific literature. (shrink)

Ethical theory often starts with our intuitions about particular cases and tries to uncover the principles that are implicit in them; work on the ‘trolley problem’ is a paradigmatic example of this approach. But ethicists are no longer the only ones chasing trolleys. In recent years, psychologists and neuroscientists have also turned to study our moral intuitions and what underlies them. The relation between these two inquiries, which investigate similar examples and intuitions, and sometimes produce parallel results, is puzzling. Does (...) it matter to ethics whether its armchair conclusions match the psychologists’ findings? I argue that reflection on this question exposes psychological presuppositions implicit in armchair ethical theorising. When these presuppositions are made explicit, it becomes clear that empirical evidence can (and should) play a positive role in ethical theorising. Unlike recent assaults on the armchair, the argument I develop is not driven by a naturalist agenda, or meant to cast doubt on the reliability of our moral intuitions; on the contrary, it is even compatible with non-naturalism, and takes the reliability of intuition as its premise. The argument is rather that if our moral intuitions are reliable, then psychological evidence should play a surprisingly significant role in the justification of moral principles. (shrink)

BackgroundExisting clinical ethics support (CES) instruments are considered useful. However, users report obstacles in using them in daily practice. Including end users and other stakeholders in developing CES instruments might help to overcome these limitations. This study describes the development process of a new ethics support instrument called CURA, a low-threshold four-step instrument focused on nurses and nurse assistants working in palliative care. MethodWe used a participatory development design. We worked together with stakeholders in a Community of Practice throughout the (...) study. Potential end users (nurses and nurse assistants in palliative care) used CURA in several pilots and provided us with feedback which we used to improve CURA.ResultsWe distinguished three phases in the development process. Phase one, Identifying Needs, focused on identifying stakeholder and end user needs and preferences, learning from existing CES instruments, their development and evaluation, and identify gaps. Phase two, Development, focused on designing, developing, refining and tailoring the instrument on the basis of iterative co-creation. Phase three, Dissemination, focused on implementation and dissemination. The instrument, CURA, is a four-step low-threshold instrument that fosters ethical reflection.ConclusionsParticipatory development is a valuable approach for developing clinical ethics support instruments. Collaborating with end users and other stakeholders in our development study has helped to meet the needs and preferences of end users, to come up with strategies to refine the instrument in order to enhance its feasibility, and to overcome reported limitations of existing clinical ethics instruments. (shrink)

In recent times, there has been a surge of interest in, and enthusiasm for, contextualist views about prudential discourse — thought and talk about what has prudential value or contributes to someone’s well-being. In this paper I examine and reject two cases for radical forms of prudential contextualism, proposed by Anna Alexandrova and Steve Campbell. Alexandrova holds that the semantic content of terms like ‘well-being’ and ‘doing well’ varies across contexts. Campbell proposes that there are plural prudential concepts at play (...) in prudential discourse (and in philosophical reflection upon such discourse) and that we find evidence of this in the conflicting commitments of prudential discourse. ​The negative aim of the paper is to show that Alexandrova and Campbell have not given us a good case for ambitious forms of contextualism about prudential discourse. The positive aim of the paper is to provide alternative, aspectualist, explanations of the features of prudential discourse that their discussions highlight. (shrink)

This paper examines implicaturist hybrid theories by examining how closely attitude expression by moral utterances fits with the varieties of implicature (conventional, particular conversational, generalized conversational) using five standard criteria for implicature: indeterminacy (§3), reinforceability (§4), non-detachability (§5), cancellability (§6), and calculability (§7). I argue (1) that conventional implicature is a clear non-starter as a model of attitude expression by moral utterances (2) that generalised conversational implicature yields the most plausible implicaturist hybrid but (3) that a non-implicaturist, and non-hybrid, alternative (...) might in fact be superior. (shrink)

In healthcare practice, care providers are confronted with decisions they have to make, directly affecting patients and inevitably harmful. These decisions are tragic by nature. This study investigates the role of Moral Case Deliberation in dealing with tragic situations. In MCD, caregivers reflect on real-life dilemmas, involving a choice between two ethical claims, both resulting in moral damage and harm. One element of the reflection process is making explicit the harm involved in the choice. How harmful are our decisions? We (...) investigated how facilitators of MCD experience the importance of addressing harm in MCD and what participants learn from reflecting on harm. The study was qualitative, focusing on the views and experiences of the facilitators of MCD. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with facilitators of MCD. The research focuses on the subjective experiences of facilitators. Grounded Theory was used for analysis. The results show two main categories. The first concerns the awareness of tragedy. Within this category, five themes were discerned: making explicit that there is no solution, visualizing consequences, uncovering pain, focusing on emotion, and exploring perspectives on harm. The second category concerns the support for healthcare professionals in dealing with the tragedy of the choices they face. In this category, five themes came forward: acknowledging, offering comfort, managing harm, consideration through dialogue and repairing harm. Our study shows that addressing harm in MCD in tragic situations provides an important moral learning opportunity for participants. By formulating and becoming aware of harm, MCD aids healthcare professionals in the task they are faced with, namely making difficult and painful choices. MCD helps healthcare professionals to repair moral damage, making clear at the same time that harm cannot be undone. (shrink)

Judgments concerning animals have arisen across a variety of established practice areas. There is, however, no publicly available repository of judgments concerning the emerging practice area of animal protection law. This has hindered the identification of individual animal protection law judgments and comprehension of the scale of animal protection law made by courts. Thus, we detail the creation of an initial animal protection law repository using natural language processing and machine learning techniques. This involved domain expert classification of 500 judgments (...) according to whether or not they were concerned with animal protection law. 400 of these judgments were used to train various models, each of which was used to predict the classification of the remaining 100 judgments. The predictions of each model were superior to a baseline measure intended to mimic current searching practice, with the best performing model being a support vector machine (SVM) approach that classified judgments according to term frequency—inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) values. Investigation of this model consisted of considering its most influential features and conducting an error analysis of all incorrectly predicted judgments. This showed the features indicative of animal protection law judgments to include terms such as ‘welfare’, ‘hunt’ and ‘cull’, and that incorrectly predicted judgments were often deemed marginal decisions by the domain expert. The TF-IDF SVM was then used to classify non-labelled judgments, resulting in an initial animal protection law repository. Inspection of this repository suggested that there were 175 animal protection judgments between January 2000 and December 2020 from the Privy Council, House of Lords, Supreme Court and upper England and Wales courts. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine how philosophers before and after G. E. Moore understood intrinsic value. The main idea I wish to bring out and defend is that Moore was insufficiently attentive to how distinctive his conception of intrinsic value was, as compared with those of the writers he discussed, and that such inattentiveness skewed his understanding of the positions of others that he discussed and dismissed. My way into this issue is by examining the charge of inconsistency that Moore (...) levels at the qualitative hedonism outlined by J. S. Mill in Utilitarianism. Along the way I suggest that there are a number of ways in which Moore was unfair in rejecting qualitative hedonism as inconsistent. I close by relating the issues that arise in discussion of Moore to contemporary debates on value and reasons. (shrink)

Although most people believe that it is morally wrong to intentionally create children who have an impairment, it is widely held that we cannot criticize such procreative choices unless we find a solution to Parfit’s non-identity problem. I argue that we can. Jonathan Glover has recently argued that, in certain circumstances, such choices would be self-defeating even if morally permissible. I argue that although the scope of Glover’s argument is too limited, it nevertheless directs attention to a moral defect in (...) the attitudes that could motivate such procreative choices, attitudes that, properly characterized, turn out to be person-affecting in character. I conclude by arguing that prospective parents who want to create a child with an impairment face a dilemma. If they want to avoid the charge that their aim is morally defective, they must deny that the desired impairment is harmful. But this would commit them to endorsing the controversial claim that it is morally permissible or even required to turn normal children into impaired ones. (shrink)

Abstract: In this article, the logic and functions of character-trait ascriptions in ethics and epistemology is compared, and two major problems, the "generality problem" for virtue epistemologies and the "global trait problem" for virtue ethics, are shown to be far more similar in structure than is commonly acknowledged. I suggest a way to put the generality problem to work by making full and explicit use of a sliding scale--a "narrow-broad spectrum of trait ascription"-- and by accounting for the various uses (...) of it in an inquiry-pragmatist account. In virtue theories informed by inquiry pragmatism, the agential habits and abilities deemed salient in explanations/evaluations of agents in particular cases, and the determination of what relevant domains and conditions an agent's habit or ability is reliably efficacious in, is determined by pragmatic concerns related to our evaluative epistemic practices. (shrink)

The target article focuses on the predictive coding of and something happened and the and response to make. We extend that scope by addressing the aspect of perception and action. Successful interaction with the environment requires predictions of everything from millisecond-accurate motor timing to far future events. The hierarchical framework seems appropriate for timing.

Background: There is a lack of empirical data on lay attitudes toward different sorts of deception in medicine. However, lay attitudes toward deception should be taken into account when we consider whether deception is ever permissible in a medical context. The objective of this study was to examine lay attitudes of U.S. citizens toward different sorts of deception across different medical contexts. Methods: A one-time online survey was administered to U.S. users of the Amazon “Mechanical Turk” website. Participants were asked (...) to answer questions regarding a series of vignettes depicting different sorts of deception in medical care, as well as a question regarding their general attitudes toward truth-telling. Results: Of the 200 respondents, the majority found the use of placebos in different contexts to be acceptable following partial disclosure but found it to be unacceptable if it involved outright lying. Also, 55.5% of respondents supported the use of sham surgery in clinical research, although 55% claimed that it would be unacceptable to deceive patients in this research, even if this would improve the quality of the data from the study. Respondents supported fully informing patients about distressing medical information in different contexts, especially when the patient is suffering from a chronic condition. In addition, 42.5% of respondents believed that it is worse to deceive someone by providing the person with false information than it is to do so by giving the person true information that is likely to lead them to form a false belief, without telling them other important information that shows it to be false. However, 41.5% believed that the two methods of deception were morally equivalent. Conclusions: Respondents believed that some forms of deception were acceptable in some circumstances. While the majority of our respondents opposed outright lying in medical contexts, they were prepared to support partial disclosure and the use of placebos when it is in the patient's interests or when it is what the person would want. These results support the position that physicians should be allowed a greater degree of authority to make a professional judgment about whether deception might be morally warranted by the circumstances, provided that it doesn't involve outright lying. (shrink)

The collapse of the communist regimes in the years 1989–1991 triggered an increased interest in the space—alternately called Central Europe, East Central Europe, or Eastern Europe (there is a vast...

Nous proposons de penser ensemble les concepts d’espace et de temps : ils concernent les mêmes degrés de liberté des éléments du monde et fonctionnent toujours en tandem. Leurs fondements doivent être discutés, non dans une pensée de la substance (chacun est défini par une série de caractères qui lui sont propres), mais dans une pensée de la relation (chacun se définit en opposition à l’autre). Nous opposons des relations spatiales à des relations temporelles, ou encore des relations d’immobilité à (...) des relations de mobilité relative. La décision de la frontière entre ces deux ensembles de relations est sujette à arbitraire : nous avons une grande flexibilité dans les définitions asso­ciées des paramètres d’espace et de temps ; elle ne fait pas non plus l’économie de difficultés conceptuelles ou logiques semblables à celles rencontrées dans la mécanique quantique. Il faut revoir dans cette perspective autant le concept de temps que celui d’espace : le temps ne coule pas, il est changement de relation, il est mouvement ; l’espace est abstrait à partir de relations constantes ou morceaux constants de mouvement. Les mouvements relatifs qui expriment ces relations, changeantes ou non, contiennent toujours un aspect spatial et un aspect temporel, comme pile et face de la même réalité. Nous proposons de voir plus généralement dans toute relation un aspect spatial (l’écart qui sépare les deux termes de la relation) et un aspect temporel (le parcours du chemin qui les relie). Sur cette base, nous proposons un programme de re­cherche pour reprendre un certain nombre de problèmes fondamentaux de la physique contemporaine, ainsi que des pistes pour reprendre ce que nous di­sons du temps et de l’espace dans les sciences humaines et sociales, la culture, et jusque dans la vie quotidienne. (shrink)

L’intérêt et l’originalité de l’humanisme merleau-pontien consiste à mes yeux dans sa mise en lumière du dévoilement de l’origine refoulée de l’homme dans le registre de l’art et de l’expression du corps en général. Merleau-Ponty a su percevoir exemplairement ce mouvement de récursion vers l’inhumain dans l’oeuvre de Cézanne. « Je vous dois la vérité en peinture disait Cézanne ». Cézanne nous donne en effet la vérité de l’hominisation en peinture. Nul mieux que Merleau-Ponty nous permet d’entendre encore aujourd’hui la (...) voix de Cézanne. Il nous permet de fonder sur l’écho de cette voix un nouvel humanisme, un humanisme qui garde en mémoire l’inhumain, qui lève le refoulement mais sans le supprimer, tout comme l’artiste présente l’invisible du visible et tout comme le philosophe décrit la profondeur de l’être. Cet humanisme de la surrection est celui de l’apparition de l’homme à lui-même dans la constellation hasardeuse des signes et dans l’adversité du non-sens, à égale distance de l’humanisme sans vergogne des aînés de Merleau-Ponty et de l’antihumanisme postmoderne de ses cadets.The interest and originality of Merleau-Ponty’s humanism lie, in my view, in the unveiling of the repressed origin of humanity in the domain of art and the expression of the body more generally. Merleau-Ponty was able to perceive an example of this recursive movement toward the inhuman in Cézanne’s works. “I owe you the truth in painting,” said Cézanne. In effect, Cézanne gives us the truth of humanization in painting. None better than Merleau-Ponty allows us to hear Cézanne’s voice today. Through the echo of this voice, he allows us to found a new humanism, a humanism that bears the memory of the inhuman, that lifts up the repressed but without effacing it, all while presenting us with the invisible in the visible and exposing the profundity of the human being. This humanism of upheaval is that of the appearance of humanity to itself in a hazardous constellation of signs and in the adversity of non-sense set in equal distance from the shameless humanism of Merleau-Ponty’s predecessors and the postmodern antihumanism of those who came after him.L’interesse e l’originalità dell’umanismo merleau-pontyano consiste ai nostri occhi nella sua capacità di disvelare l’origine rimossa dell’uomo nella dimensione dell’arte e dell’espressione corporea in generale. Merleau-Ponty ha saputo percepire esemplarmente questo movimento di ritorno e di ricorso all’inumano nell’opera di Cézanne. “Je vous dois la vérité en peinture”, affermava Cézanne. Egli ci restituisce, in pittura, la verità dell’ominazione. Ancor oggi nessuno meglio di Merleau-Ponty ci consente di intendere la voce di Cézanne. Merleau-Ponty ci consente di fondare sull’eco di quella voce un nuovo umanismo, un umanismo che conserva memoria dell’inumano, che innalza il rimosso senza sopprimerlo, proprio come l’artista presenta l’invisibile del visibile, e il filosofo descrive la profondità dell’essere. Quest’umanismo della “surrezione” è l’umanismo dell’apparizione dell’uomo a se stesso nella costellazione aleatoria dei segni e nell’avversità del non-senso come rimosso, un umanismo che si pone a uguale distanza dall’umanismo senza vergogna dei predecessori di Merleau-Ponty e dell’anti-umanismo postmoderno dei suoi successori. (shrink)

Many who write about the playwright Maria Irene Fornes’s work comment with reverence about the experience of watching those productions she herself directed.1 Managing somehow to combine frank depictions of cruelty and violence with an odd, otherworldly charm, Fornes’s direction conveyed a distinct sui generis quality that has deflected analytic scrutiny—the exterior operates in such an exquisite fashion one hesitates to lift the hood and look beneath. The set is a wooden room which sits on an earth promontory. The promontory (...) is five feet high and covers the same periphery as the room. The wood has the color and texture of bone that has dried in the sun. It is ashen and cold. In Mud’s opening notes.. (shrink)

This book collects some 75 texts from the history of American thought, starting with the colonial religious background, and arranged into 6 historically oriented chapers. Each chapter has a general introduction and ends with suggestions for further readings; and each of the texts is prefaced by a short explanatory paragraph. Overall, the book provides an historical introduction to central ethical themes of American thought.

The gods of monotheistic religions, which began amongst pastoralists and defeated exiles, are closer to Big Gods than those associated with ancient city-based polities. The development of Big Gods is contingent upon a need to reduce uncertainty and negative feelings in combination with a relatively high level of prosociality, rather than a need to induce or assess prosociality.

Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are controversial issues in medical ethics and medical law. In the debate, several arguments against the moral acceptability and legal feasibility of active involvement of physicians in bringing about a patient’s death can be found.One argument refers back to the Ten Commandments: “Thou shall not kill”. Killing another human being is morally abject. According to the argument, this is certainly so for medical doctors, as can be seen in the Hippocratic Oath, which explicitly forbids abortion and (...) euthanasia. A less apodictic argument refers to the slippery slope: if euthanasia would be permitted, a downhill movement is set in motion. The end of this movement would be, on the one hand, that physicians will feel forced to assist people who ask for termination of life on whatever grounds. On the other hand, it might lead to a situation in which it becomes normal to kill people who are no longer useful for society.In the literature and in the public debate, there are also arguments in favour of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. One such argument invokes the right to die. According to this argument, decisions concerning life and death should be up to the individual who is concerned. In many countries, suicide is morally and legally accepted. If people are allowed to kill themselves, why should they be without rights when they are no longer able to perform the act themselves?In medical ethics and medical law, patient autonomy is a central pivot. Patients have the right to refuse treatment even if this leads to their death. Shouldn’t people also have the right to determine the moment of dying, if they are in a situation which is unbearable, and without prospect of improvement? Another argument focuses on the duty of the physician to alleviate pain and suffering. If there is no other option, the doctor, in fulfilling this duty, should be allowed to actively end the patient’s life. This argument is not based on autonomy, but on beneficence.The debate concerning euthanasia involves fundamentally different moral principles. This makes the debate interesting, if not central to medical ethics and medical law. Yet, the principles are normally presented in an abstract way. Discussants stick to very general ideas, which lack reference to specific social and historical conditions, and are not related to concrete experiences. To invoke the Ten Commandments, or plea for a right to die, implies the use of universal standards, which tend to be general and empty.From a philosophical perspective, this type of argumentation can be criticized. Following Aristotle, ethics should be based upon experience. Ethical knowledge requires participation in concrete practices. Central to ethics is a feeling for the concrete situation, which is always contingent and historical. From this perspective, it makes sense to consider how practitioners in specific situations deal with moral issues, for instance concerning euthanasia. What role do they give to notions such as autonomy and beneficence, how do they interpret them and apply them to the concrete situation?In this paper I will present the Dutch experience with euthanasia. I will focus upon the way in which during the past thirty years the arguments in favour of euthanasia have been developed, in interaction with euthanasia practice. I will show that patient autonomy has been a crucial pivot. Yet, the Dutch interpretation of autonomy is not purely liberal. It does not only involve rights, but also obligations. Next, I will make clear that the physician plays a central role, in that the moral and legal basis of euthanasia is a conflict of duties on the side of the physician.This brings in the issue of beneficence. Yet the Dutch interpretation of the duty to help is not simply paternalistic. In Dutch health care, the physician-patient relationship is based upon deliberation and mutual agreement. Therefore, my conclusion will be that the Dutch practice of euthanasia has a moral ground, which goes beyond the traditional opposition between autonomy and beneficence. (shrink)

Although Themistius does not develop a theodicy, his observations on evil are fairly consistent. Both in his paraphrases of Aristotle and in his speeches, he argues that since God is the intelligent and powerful cause of all good things in the universe, evil is due to the στέρησις in matter and to the ἄνοιι of human beings. Despite some (Neo-)Platonic and Stoic influences, Themistius defends a basically Peripatetic world-view, in which evil is minimized.

Expenditures on health in many developing countries are being disproportionately spent on health services that have a low overall health impact, and that disproportionately benefit the rich. Without explicit consideration of priority setting, this situation is likely to remain unchanged: resource allocation is too often dictated by historical patterns, and maintains vested interests. This paper explores how prioritization between different health interventions can be rationalised by the use of clearly defined criteria. A number of key efficiency and equity criteria are (...) examined, in particular analysing how potential tradeoffs could be incorporated into the decision making process. (shrink)

This study tested the hypothesis that overt rehearsal is sufficient to explain enhanced memory associated with emotion by experimentally manipulating rehearsal of emotional material. Participants viewed two sets of film clips, one set of emotional films and one set of relatively neutral films. One set of films was viewed in each of two sessions, with approximately 1 week between the sessions. Participants were given a free recall test of all of films viewed approximately 1 week after the second session. Rehearsal (...) was manipulated by instructing one group of participants not to discuss the films with anyone (no talkgroup) and instructing a second group to discuss both sets of films with at least three people (forced talkgroup). A third group consisted of participants instructed not to discuss the films with anyone, but who did not comply with these instructions (talkersgroup). All groups recalled significantly more of the emotional films than the neutral films. Furthermore, the relative number of emotional and neutral films recalled did not differ significantly among the three groups. The results indicate that overt rehearsal is insufficient to explain the enhancing effects of emotion on memory. (shrink)

Pedro Abelardo apresenta na sua obra uma teoria da virtude de natureza, à primeira vista, aristotélica. Ao que parece, essa concepção também contém diferentes elementos estoicos, que não se opõem necessariamente à visão do Estagirita. Todavia, o essencial da interpretação da Escola do Pórtico acerca da virtude difere da explicação dada por Aristóteles. No presente estudo, pretendemos examinar, primeiro, a índole da virtude como habitus na obra de lógica de Abelardo. Nesse caso, não há dúvida de que predomina a influência (...) aristotélica. Em seguida, indicamos outras particularidades da virtude encontradas, desta vez, em tratados éticos e teológicos do nosso protagonista, as quais se revelam antes de caráter estoico. Em suma, projetamos identificar as diferentes fontes antigas e os principais intermediários latinos usados por Abelardo para elaborar a sua própria teoria da virtude. Trata-se de deixar clara a influência filosófica dominante em Abelardo sobre essa questão da virtude, já que este lógico não pode harmonizar teses substancialmente inconciliáveis. Peter Abelard in his work presents a theory of virtue, which is, at first sight, of Aristotelian nature. It seems that this view also contains different Stoic elements, but they are not necessarily opposed to Stagirite's vision. However, the essentials of the Stoa School about virtue differ from the explanation given by Aristotle. In this paper, we intend to examine, first, the nature of virtue as habitus in Abelard's work on logic. In this case, there is no doubt that Aristotle's influence on this topic predominates. Next, we specify other features related to virtue found, this time, in ethical and theological treatises of our protagonist that appear to be basically Stoic. In short, we want to identify the different ancient sources and the main Latin mediators used by Abelard to elaborate his own theory of virtue. In other words, we would like to shed light on the predominant philosophical authority on Abelard's theory of virtue since this logician cannot harmonize theses that are fundamentally irreconcilable. (shrink)

Dans cet ouvrage collectif, l'article de Guy Bouchard intitulé "Comment émasculiniser l' écriture philosophique" met d'abord en lumière le sexisme qui a caractérisé tant la philosophie que le langage en général; il s'interroge ensuite sur les façons "d'émasculiniser" l' écriture philosophique et au niveau de la pensée, et à celui du langage.

Dans un article intitulé "Féminisme et théorie politique" inclus dans cet ouvrage collectif, Guy Bouchard présente la critique féministe de la théorie politique, tant dans son volet philosophique que dans sa dimension scientifique; il insiste sur l'actualité de cette critique, puisque l'image officielle d'elle-même que projette la discipline continue à ignorer les femmes; et il discute trois modèles de rapports entre féminisme et théorie politique: (1) le rejet féministe de cette théorie; (2) l'intégration à celle-ci des préoccupations féministes; (3) sa (...) reconstruction dans une perspective féministe, reconstruction pouvant emprunter trois voies: remplacer l'androcentrisme par le gynocentrisme; juxtaposer la théorie politique traditionnelle et une théorie politique féministe; élaborer une orientation qui ne soit ni androcentrique ni gynocentrique et qui transcende la simple juxtaposition. (shrink)