This article examines the use of cinematic microanalysis to capture, decompose, and interpret mother–infant interaction in the decades following the Second World War. Focusing on the films and writings of Margaret Mead, Ray Birdwhistell, René Spitz, and Sylvia Brody, it examines the intellectual culture, and visual methodologies, that transformed ‘pathogenic’ mothering into an observable process. In turn, it argues that the significance assigned to the ‘small behaviours’ of mothers provided an epistemological foundation for the nascent discipline of infant psychiatry. This (...) research draws attention to two new areas of enquiry within the history of emotions and the history of psychiatry in the post-war period: preoccupation with emotional absence and affectlessness, and their personal and cultural meanings; and the empirical search for the origin point, and early chronology, of mental illness. (shrink)

Em setembro de 2023, ocorreu o “I Encontro Nacional de Produção, Análise e Disseminação de Informações sobre as Favelas e Comunidades Urbanas do Brasil”, promovido pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). O objetivo central do evento foi discutir a nomenclatura “aglomerados subnormais”, utilizada para designar territórios periféricos como favelas, grotas, alagados etc. nas pesquisas e publicações oficiais do órgão. Neste texto, busquei relatar minha experiência no evento, a partir da descrição de alguns aspectos considerados centrais por mim, além (...) de explicitar o quanto esse encontro me impactou pessoalmente como mulher, negra e periférica que sou. Ao final de minha exposição, concluo que nomear é exercer poder. Ao abrir as portas para a sociedade, o IBGE se aproxima da construção de uma sociedade mais democrática e plural, afastando-se de discursos estigmatizantes e pejorativos sobre esses territórios e suas populações. (shrink)

O presente estudo investigou as manifestações verbais dos sentimentos de mães em relação à maternidade adotiva. Participaram da pesquisa nove mães, cujos filhos haviam sido adotados ainda bebês e tinham em torno de dois anos no período da coleta de dados. Foi realizada uma entrevista semiestruturada..

El artículo propone un diálogo Sur-Sur acerca de los desafíos que plantea el campo político en la actualidad. Además de las coordinadoras Joice Barbosa y Moira Pérez, participan Silvina Tapia Tapia de Ecuador, Abdourahmane Seck de Senegal y Verónica Figueroa Huencho de Wellmapu, quienes se desempeñan tanto en el ámbito académico como en el campo social mediante el activismo político y/o comunitario, desde el cual producen conocimientos colectivos de carácter situado. A lo largo de la conversación se analizan temas (...) tales como la expresión de formas contemporáneas de neoconservadurismo y autoritarismo, las disputas de los movimientos sociales con la institucionalidad, sus tensiones con un Estado que tiende a la cooptación pero también mantiene profundas lealtades capitalistas y coloniales, y las posibilidades y experiencias de formas alternativas de organización colectiva y comunitaria. Además, se explora cuál es y cuál puede ser en este escenario el rol de la academia y de quienes trabajan en ella, en la tensión entre los compromisos institucionales y la política radical. (shrink)

This study evaluates the relationship between mental health and academic motivation among third-year college TES grantees. Thus, correlational design was employed to determine if there is a significant relationship between mental health and academic motivation among 150 third-year TES grantees. Statistical findings reveal that the r coefficient of 0.52 indicates a moderate positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to rejecting the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between mental health and (...) academic motivation of third-year college TES grantees. Implications were discussed in the study. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 5, Page 486-493, June 2022.

RESUMO Em “A escritura e diferença”, Derrida apresenta uma crítica à interpretação de Blanchot sobre Artaud, sob o título “A palavra soprada”, na qual ressalta que a leitura blanchotiana foi tendenciosa. Seu incômodo se dá primeiramente pela comparação que Blanchot faz de Hölderlin e Artaud, por serem poetas que experimentaram a exigência poética e, por isso, tiveram suas obras interpretadas por um reducionismo da Psiquiatria. Para Derrida, esse duplo interpretativo, clínico e crítico, é decorrente de uma separação dualista há muito (...) presente, uma diferença constitutiva da metafísica que gera todas as separações, inclusive a condição de comentário da clínica e da crítica. Assim, o que é exposto por Derrida é a deflagração de uma estrutura metafísica que suporta esses dualismos. O modo como Artaud percebeu esse limite de realização na escrita é o que Derrida tenta reconhecer como uma efração estrutural da diferença que há no nosso modo de se relacionar com a obra. Derrida refaz o caminho da obra de Artaud para mostrar como poderíamos superar essa ausência que acontece na relação do artista com a obra, do corpo e do espírito. E, por fim, demonstra a partir do próprio Artaud o reducionismo feito também por Blanchot. ABSTRACT In his book “Writing and difference”, Derrida presents a critique of Blanchot’s interpretation of Artaud, under the title “La parole soufflé [The whispered word], in which he implies Blanchot's reading was biased. First, his discomfort occurs because of the comparison Blanchot makes of Hölderlin and Artaud, for both being poets that experimented the poetic demand and, because of that, had their works interpreted through a psychiatric reductionism. For Derrida, this clinical and critical double interpretive stems from a dualistic separation that has long been present, a constitutive difference of the metaphysics what creates all division, including the condition of commentary on clinic and critic. Hence, what is exposed by Derrida is the deflagration of a metaphysical structure that supports these dualisms. The way Artaud realized this limit of achievement in writing is what Derrida tries to recognize as a structural effraction of the difference that exists in our way of relating with the work. Derrida remakes the path of Artaud's work to show how we could overcome this absence that occurs in the relation between the artist and the work, the body and spirit. Finally, it shows - from Artaud himself - the reductionism made also by Blanchot. (shrink)

In Rita Charon's account of narrative medicine, empathy seems to be an essential element of the clinical relationship. However, empathy has not received much attention, which I believe is problematic. First, I show that not only is there no clear definition of what empathy is, but that this conceptual gap creates ambiguity about its role in the practice of narrative medicine. Second, I argue that certain passages in Charon's work seem to implicitly characterize empathy as a combination of cognitive empathy, (...) affective empathy, and sympathy, and that its inclusion in the practice of narrative medicine can be problematic. Third, following Dan Zahavi, I argue that a phenomenological account of empathy not only seems most compatible with the practices, values, and theoretical framework of narrative medicine, but is also capable of resolving the problems posed by alternative definitions of empathy and the ambiguity about the role of empathy in narrative medicine. (shrink)

Empathizing with others is thought to be a useful, if not necessary, skill for a wise person to possess. Beyond this general conceptual assonance, however, there have been few systematic attempts to conceptualize this relationship. This paper aims to address this issue by investigating what role empathy is said to play inphronesisand whether there is a legitimate place for it in Aristotelian (or neo-Aristotelian) accounts of practical wisdom. First, after a brief overview of Aristotle’s account ofphronesis, I will try to (...) define three different ways in which empathy is thought to contribute to it according to the existing literature, based on a conceptual distinction between affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and sympathy. Second, I will ask whether empathy is the best conceptual candidate for Aristotle’s account ofphronesisand, more generally, whether the wise person should always rely on empathy in order to deliberate and act well. My tentative answer will be that empathy does not seem to be perfectly compatible with the concept ofphronesis, nor is it its best ally. (shrink)

A comunidade dos amantes: anacronismo e aforismo em questão em Blanchot e Derrida Resumo: A reflexão sobre o pensamento da “comunidade”, especificamente no séc. XX e, em especial, por pensadores franceses, é tema de diversas obras. Em torno dessa temática, pensadores como Bataille, Deleuze, Foucault, Blanchot, Jean-Luc Nancy e Derrida deram importantes contribuições. Apesar de Derrida recusar a noção de comunidade colocando em seu lugar a noção de coletividade, as concepções que fundamentam uma experiência de comunidade/coletividade são próximas: alteridade; différance; (...) escritura; acontecimento e presença de uma ausência. Nesse contexto, a possibilidade de uma interseção entre esses conceitos, a partir da obras de Blanchot e Derrida, permite pensar a experiência da comunidade em sua relação com a escritura. Palavras-chave: Comunidade; Coletividade; Escritura; Alteridade; Acontecimento. The lovers community: anachronism and aphorism in question in Blanchot and Derrida Abstract: The reflection about the thought of “community”, specifically in the XX century and, specially, by French thinkers, is the theme of many works. Around this theme, thinkers/intellectuals like Bataille, Deleuze, Foucault, Blanchot, Jean-Luc Nancy and Derrida gave important contributions. Despite Derrida's refusal of the notion of community putting in its place the notion of collectivity, the conceptions that ground an experience of community/collectivity are close: otherness; differance; writing; event and absent presence. In this context, the possibility of an intersection between these concepts, starting from the works of Blanchot and Derrida, allows to think the experience of community in its relation to the writing. Keywords: Community; Collectivity; Writing; Otherness; Event. La communauté des amoureux : anacronisme et aphorisme en question chez Blanchot et Derrida Résumé: La réflexion sur la pensée de la “communauté”, spécifiquement au XXe siècle, et particulièrement par les penseurs français, fait l’objet de plusieurs travaux. Autour de ce thème, des penseurs tels que Bataille, Deleuze, Foucault, Blanchot, Jean-Luc Nancy et Derrida ont apporté d'importantes contributions. Bien que Derrida rejette la notion de communauté, en la remplaçant par la notion de collectivité, les conceptions qui fondent une expérience communauté/collectivité sont proches : altérité ; la différance ; écriture ; événement et présence d'une absence. Dans ce contexte, la possibilité d'une intersection de ces concepts, basée sur les travaux de Blanchot et de Derrida, permet de réfléchir à l'expérience de la communauté dans sa relation avec l'écriture. Mots-clés: Communauté ; Collectivité ; Écriture ; Altérité ; Événement. Data de registro: 21/11/2019 Data de aceite: 08/12/2020. (shrink)

Pergunta-se se Deus poderia ter feito o mundo existir desde a aternidade.

IntroductionRegular exercise has long been shown to positively impact the immune system responsiveness and improve mental well-being. However, the putative links between biomarkers of mental health and immune efficiency in exercising subjects have been scarcely investigated. The aim of this study was to verify the effect of a 14-week combined chair-based exercise program on salivary steroid hormones and anti-microbial proteins, functional fitness, and MWB indexes in pre-frail older women.MethodsThe participant women were randomly divided into the exercising group and the non-exercising (...) control group. The pre/post assessment included: salivary anti-microbial proteins lysozyme; and immunoglobulin-A ; salivary steroid hormones of testosterone and cortisol ; functional fitness ; MWB questionnaires.ResultsSignificant differences with large Cohen’s effect sizes were found on increased salivary TT after exercise intervention. The results revealed a decrease in IgA levels after CEP. The increase in subjective happiness levels and decrease of stress perception and depressive state were found after intervention in the CEP group. Robust statistical differences in gait speed and balance tests were also found in the CEP group. In control, COR increased moderately while no changes were found for the other indicators. Correlation analyses showed inter-dependence between pre–post variations of MWB, biochemical indexes, and fitness function.ConclusionThe CEP program was able to improve functional-fitness performance, decrease feelings of stress, and increase happiness. The CEP also induced clinically relevant hormonal and immune responses, which suggests that chair exercises that combine muscular strength, balance, and gait speed training are promising interventions to improve physical and mental health of older pre-frail adults. (shrink)

Este texto é um relato das publicações em filosofia medieval promovidas no Brasil pela Comissão Brasileira de Filosofia Medieval. O relato engloba as publicações de 1983 até 2000. Nestas publicações são encontrados estudos gerais e traduções, sobre temas tais como política, ontologia, lógica, antropologia, teologia filosófica e filosofia da linguagem. A maioria dos estudos se encontra em língua portuguesa. Além disso, o texto contém índices bastante úteis de nomes e de temas/autores.

Interpretation of first four sutras of Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa on the basis of Śaṅkarācārya's commentary on Vedanta.

In contemporary Western culture, death has been widely censured because of its conceptual implications; it lies at the boundaries between reductionism and metaphysics. There is not yet an efficacious epistemology able to solve this contraposition and its consequent collision with science and tradition. This article analyzes Near Death Experiences as a prototypical argument in which the two perspectives conflict. Specifically, it analyzes the epistemological antinomies of the ontological representations of death, inhering in passage versus absolute annihilation. Indeed, the NDEs theme (...) permits the examination of the logical contradiction between monistic reductionism and its ontological counterpart to improve the discovery of a new paradigm that integrates the ecological with eternalist views. (shrink)

"Science is rooted in conversations," wrote Werner Heisenberg, one of the twentieth century's great physicists. In Quantum Dialogue, Mara Beller shows that science is rooted not just in conversation but in disagreement, doubt, and uncertainty. She argues that it is precisely this culture of dialogue and controversy within the scientific community that fuels creativity. Beller draws her argument from her radical new reading of the history of the quantum revolution, especially the development of the Copenhagen interpretation. One of several (...) competing approaches, this version succeeded largely due to the rhetorical skills of Niels Bohr and his colleagues. Using extensive archival research, Beller shows how Bohr and others marketed their views, misrepresenting and dismissing their opponents as "unreasonable" and championing their own not always coherent or well-supported position as "inevitable." Quantum Dialogue, winner of the 1999 Morris D. Forkosch Prize of the Journal of the History of Ideas, will fascinate everyone interested in how stories of "scientific revolutions" are constructed and "scientific consensus" achieved. "[A]n intellectually stimulating piece of work, energised by a distinct point of view."—Dipankar Home, Times Higher Education Supplement "[R]emarkable and original. . . . [Beller's] arguments are thoroughly supported and her conclusions are meticulously argued. . . . This is an important book that all who are interested in the emergence of quantum mechanics will want to read."—William Evenson, History of Physics Newsletter. (shrink)

Stresses on healthcare systems and moral distress among clinicians are urgent, intertwined bioethical problems in contemporary healthcare. Yet conceptualizations of moral distress in bioethical inquiry often overlook a range of routine threats to professional integrity in healthcare work. Using examples from our research on frontline physicians working during the COVID-19 pandemic, this article clarifies conceptual distinctions between moral distress, moral injury, and moral stress and illustrates how these concepts operate together in healthcare work. Drawing from the philosophy of healthcare, we (...) explain how moral stress results from the normal operations of overstressed systems; unlike moral distress and moral injury, it may not involve a sense of powerlessness concerning patient care. The analysis of moral stress directs attention beyond the individual, to stress-generating systemic factors. We conclude by reflecting on how and why this conceptual clarity matters for improving clinicians’ professional wellbeing, and offer preliminary pathways for intervention. (shrink)

This essay looks closely at metaphors and other figures of speech that often feature in how Americans talk about dementia, becoming part of cultural narratives: shared stories that convey ideas and values, and also worries and fears. It uses approaches from literary studies to analyze how cultural narratives about dementia may surface in conversations with family members or health care professionals. This essay also draws on research on a notable social effect of legalizing medical aid in dying: patients may find (...) it easier to bring up a range of concerns, regardless of whether they have any interest in hastening their own death. The essay proposes that health care professionals rethink an idea prominent within their own culture: that conversations about the end of a person's life are inherently difficult. This framing may make it hard for people facing dementia to bring up their concerns about what lies ahead. We suggest a different way to think about these conversations, using the metaphor of “opening the door” to represent inviting a patient to bring up issues of deepest concern. (shrink)

Bioethical concerns about the potential for abuse in medical aid in dying (MAID) have focused primarily on the risk of coercion (Battin et al. 2007; Foley and Hendin 2002). Accordingly, the require...

ABSTRACT‘Solidarity’ is a key concept in political movements and usually bears on matters of labour, health and social justice. As such, it is essential in the reproduction and transformation of communities that support their members and protect their interests. It is sometimes overlooked that interspecies solidarity already pertains with a number of domesticated animals, and that people are willing to carry substantial emotional, financial and social burdens to benefit them. There has been even more reluctance to acknowledge wild animals as (...) fellow members of our political communities with whom we might stand in solidarity. The purpose of this paper is to propose that solidaristic relations with certain wild animals are not only possible, but also already exist in some contexts. It explores three different understandings of solidarity, and in probing to what extent they can be applied to wild animals, it identifies some important different roles they can play in ‘animal politics’, and shows how they can help us reconceive our communities in less anthropocentric terms. (shrink)

“It's almost like putting salt in a wound, for this person who's already made a very difficult decision,” suggested Meghan Patterson, a licensed obstetrician-gynecologist whom we interviewed in our qualitative study of the experiences of North Carolina abortion providers practicing under the state's Woman's Right to Know Act. The act requires that women receive counseling with state-mandated information at least twenty-four hours prior to obtaining an abortion. After the law was passed, Patterson worked with clinic administrators, in consultation with a (...) lawyer, to write a script to be used in the state-mandated counseling procedure. She and her colleagues took particular steps to mitigate the effects of what she described as HB 854's “forced language”—such as referring to the “father of the child.” While HB 854 stipulated that patients must be informed of the medical risks associated with the particular abortion procedure as well as those of carrying the child to term, Patterson's script made explicit the magnitude of comparative risks, emphasizing that the risks of carrying a pregnancy to term are substantially greater than the risks of an early-term abortion. She felt that these contextualization strategies helped to facilitate trust and rapport in a clinical care situation that proved relationally and morally challenging. In this article, we take up and expand on this point by elucidating an empirically grounded approach to ethically justified care when health care providers face legal or institutional policy mandates that raise possible moral conflicts. Our approach builds on recent bioethics discourse addressing conscience in the practice of medicine. While the concept of conscience has broad philosophical underpinnings relating to moral judgment, agency, and discernments of right and wrong, debates in bioethics have tended to engage the concept primarily vis-à-vis rights of conscientious objection or refusal. Here, we suggest a broader frame for thinking about claims of conscience in health care. Our approach draws on the feminist bioethics and the ethics of care literatures to highlight how providers may be motivated by matters of conscience, including relational concerns, in the active provision of certain forms of care. What emerges are two possibilities: not only conscientious refusal to comply with a policy mandate but also conscientious compliance—working conscientiously within a mandate's confines. (shrink)

The global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic has considerably accelerated the adoption of teleconsultation—a form of consultation between patient and health care professional that occurs via videoconferencing platforms. For this reason, it is important to investigate the way in which this form of interaction modifies the nature of the clinical encounter and the extent to which this modification impacts the healing process. For this purpose, I will refer to insights into the clinical encounter as a face-to-face encounter drawn from the (...) phenomenology of medicine (R. Zaner, K. Toombs, E. Pellegrino). I will also take into account a criticism that has been expressed by various contemporary phenomenologists (H. Dreyfus, T. Fuchs, L. Dolezal, H. Carel), namely, that due to the lack of physical proximity to the other in all types of online encounters, such encounters lack significant features that are present in face-to-face encounters, with the most important of these being the possibility of attaining an empathetic perception of the other and a sense of embodied risk. As these elements are essential features of the clinical encounter, the aim of this paper is to determine whether teleconsultation exhibits these features. To do that, I will integrate phenomenological philosophy with qualitative research drawing materials from both the philosophical tradition, particularly with respect to the concepts of the face-to-face encounter and embodied risk (A. Schutz and H. Dreyfus), and qualitative research study regarding patient experiences of teleconsultation. I will argue that teleconsultation does involve both the possibility of perceiving the other empathetically and the possibility of experiencing a sense of embodied risk. (shrink)

The global crisis of COVID-19 pandemic has considerably accelerated the use of teleconsultation (consultation between the patient and the doctor via video platforms). While it has some obvious benefits and drawbacks for both the patient and the doctor, it is important to consider—how teleconsultation impacts the quality of the patient-doctor relationship? I will approach this question through the lens of phenomenology of the body, focusing on the question—what happens to the patient objectification in teleconsultation? To answer this question I will (...) adopt a phenomenological approach combining both insights drawn from the phenomenological tradition, i.e., the concepts of the lived body and the object body, and the results from the phenomenologically informed qualitative research study on the patient experience of teleconsultation. The theoretical background against which I have developed this study comprises discussions within the field of phenomenology of medicine regarding the different sources of patient objectification within clinical encounter and the arguments concerning the negative impact that objectification has on the quality of care. I will argue that a factor that has frequently been identified within phenomenology of medicine as the main source of patient objectification in clinical encounters, namely, the internalized gaze of the clinician, is diminished during teleconsultation, increasing patient’s sense of agency, decreasing her sense of alienation and opening up the possibility for a closer relationship between the patient and the health care provider, all of which lead to the transformation of the hierarchical patient-health care professional relationship. (shrink)

Today, in both theory and practice, the concepts of corporate social responsibility and ethics are not necessarily related. Organizations can demonstrate high levels of social proactivity in their CSR policies with or without having laudable levels of ethical quality or virtuousness. This article introduces the concepts of organizational ethical quality to evaluate the moral excellence of CSR actions and policies, identifying and categorizing varying levels ranging from the absence of ethical virtuousness, termed immoral CSR, to high levels of moral CSR, (...) or ethical virtuousness. High MCSR is the product of both high levels of OEQ in conjunction with more proactive CSR policies based on social action. (shrink)

In this book Miller challenges contemporary aesthetic theory to include gardens in an expanded definition of art.

In recent years, philosophers have looked to empirical findings about psychopaths to help determine whether moral agency is underwritten by reason, or by some affective capacity, such as empathy. Since one of psychopaths’ most glaring deficits is a lack of empathy, and they are widely considered to be amoral, psychopaths are often taken as a test case for the hypothesis that empathy is necessary for moral agency. However, people with autism also lack empathy, so it is reasonable to think that (...) any empirically-informed attempt to answer the question of whether empathy is necessary for moral agency should give due attention to autism as well as psychopathy. Jeanette Kennett’s thought-provoking paper ‘Autism, Empathy and Moral Agency’ (2002) is an early and arguably the most notable example of such an attempt. Kennett argues that although autistic people and psychopaths both lack empathy, autistic people possess a ‘reverence for reason’ that enables them to become capable moral agents. By contrast, psychopaths lack this rational capacity, and it is this defect of reason rather than an empathic impairment that explains why they are amoral. Kennett thus concludes that empathy is not necessary for moral agency. In this chapter, I challenge Kennett’s argument. First, I review the empirical evidence in order to demonstrate that there is a component of empathy called affective empathy that is impaired in psychopaths but largely preserved in autistics. As such, the claim that psychopaths and autistics share a common lack of empathy is unjustified. Second, I challenge Kennett’s claim that empathy plays no role in explaining the moral difference between psychopaths and autistics. Instead, I contend that the intact affective empathy of autistic people is a crucial component of their capacity to act from reverence for reason. (shrink)

Social context shapes negotiators’ actions, including their willingness to act unethically. We use a simulated negotiation to test how three dimensions of social context—dyadic gender composition, negotiation strategy, and trust—interact to influence one micro-ethical decision, the use of deception. Deception in all-male dyads was relatively unaffected by trust or the other negotiator’s strategy. In mixed-sex dyads, negotiators consistently increased their use of deception when three forms of trust were low and opponents used an accommodating strategy. However, in all-female dyads, negotiators (...) appeared to use multiple and shifting reference points in deciding when to deceive the other party. In these dyads, the use of deception increased when a competitive strategy combined with low benevolence-based trust or an accommodating strategy combined with high identity-based trust. Deception in all-female dyads decreased when a competitive strategy was used in the context of low deterrence-based trust. (shrink)

Background Bioethical debates about privacy, big data, and public health surveillance have not sufficiently engaged the perspectives of those being surveilled. The data justice framework suggests that big data applications have the potential to create disproportionate harm for socially marginalized groups. Using examples from our research on HIV surveillance for individuals incarcerated in jails, we analyze ethical issues in deploying big data in public health surveillance. -/- Methods We conducted qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 24 people living with HIV who had (...) been previously incarcerated in county jails about their perspectives on and experiences with HIV surveillance, as part of a larger study to characterize ethical considerations in leveraging big data techniques to enhance continuity of care for incarcerated people living with HIV. -/- Results Most participants expressed support for the state health department tracking HIV testing results and viral load data. Several viewed HIV surveillance as a violation of privacy, and several had actively avoided contact from state public health outreach workers. Participants were most likely to express reservations about surveillance when they viewed the state’s motives as self-interested. Perspectives highlight the mistrust that structurally vulnerable people may have in the state’s capacity to act as an agent of welfare. Findings suggest that adopting a nuanced, context-sensitive view on surveillance is essential. -/- Conclusions Establishing trustworthiness through interpersonal interactions with public health personnel is important to reversing historical legacies of harm to racial minorities and structurally vulnerable groups. Empowering stakeholders to participate in the design and implementation of data infrastructure and governance is critical for advancing a data justice agenda, and can offset privacy concerns. The next steps in advancing the data justice framework in public health surveillance will be to innovate ways to represent the voices of structurally vulnerable groups in the design and governance of big data initiatives. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a novel skeptical view about moral disgust. I argue that much recent discussion of moral disgust neglects an important ontological question: is there a distinctive psychological state of moral disgust that is differentiable from generic disgust, and from other psychological states? I investigate the ontological question and propose two conditions that any aspiring account of moral disgust must satisfy: it must be a genuine form of disgust, and it must be genuinely moral. Next, I examine (...) two prominent accounts of moral disgust by John Kekes and Victor Kumar and argue that neither successfully establishes the existence of genuinely moral disgust: Kekes’ account does not satisfy the second condition, and Kumar’s view does not meet the first. I claim that an important general lesson can be drawn from my critiques of Kekes’ and Kumar’s accounts: to establish the existence of moral disgust, one must provide unequivocal evidence that genuinely moral disgust, not generic disgust or anger, is being elicited in response to relevant moral violations. I conclude by considering why we ought to be skeptical about the general prospect of giving a positive answer to the ontological question, given the available evidence. (shrink)

Using a simulated two-party negotiation, we examined how trustworthiness and power balance affected deception. In order to trigger deception, we used an issue that had no value for one of the two parties. We found that high cognitive trust increased deception whereas high affective trust decreased deception. Negotiators who expressed anxiety also used more deception whereas those who expressed optimism also used less deception. The nature of the negotiating relationship (mutuality and level of dependence) interacted with trust and negotiators’ affect (...) to influence levels of deception. Deception was most likely to occur when negotiators reported low trust or expressed negative emotions in the context of nonmutual or low dependence relationships. In these relationships, emotions that signaled certainty were associated with misrepresentation whereas emotions that signaled uncertainty were associated with concealment of information. Negotiators who expressed positive emotions in the context of a nonmutual or high dependence relationship also used less deception. Our results are consistent with a fair trade model in which negotiator increases deception when contextual and interpersonal cues heighten concerns about exploitation and decrease deception when these cues attenuate concerns about exploitation. (shrink)

Kensinger (2009) and Mather (2007) both argue that intrinsic features of emotional items are remembered better than intrinsic features of non-emotional items. However, Kensinger attributes these effects to negative valence whereas Mather attributes them to arousal. In this paper, we note several reasons why arousal may be the driving factor even when a study reveals more detailed memory for negative items than for positive items. We also reanalyze previous data (Mather & Nesmith, 2008) to show that although both arousal and (...) negative valence were correlated with memory accuracy, enhanced memory accuracy was accounted for by arousal rather than valence. (shrink)

Providing information to consumers in the form of food labels about modern systems of animal farming is believed to be crucial for increasing their awareness of animal suffering and for promoting technological change towards more welfare-friendly forms of husbandry (CIWF, 2007). In this paper we want to explore whether and how food labels carrying information about the lives of animals are used by consumers while shopping for meat and other animal foods. In order to achieve this, we draw upon a (...) series of focus group discussions that were held in Italy as part of a large EU funded project (Welfare Quality®). In the focus group discussions we addressed how, when or if, claims made about the lives of animals on food labels intervened in what the participants bought and ate. We contend that such labels bring the lives of animals to the forefront and act as new ‘subjectifiers’ (Latour, Citation2005: 212) that offer a new tool for becoming an ‘ethically competent consumer’, who cares about the lives of animals while shopping for food. However, this offer is not always easily accommodated within existing competences and previous commitments, as it requires a reassessment of existing, and often intimate, practices of shopping, cooking and eating. We argue that new labels carrying welfare claims, with their intention of increasing market transparency, produce two contrasting outcomes: they open new spaces of action, which offer an opportunity for investing in new competences and for engaging with animal welfare issues, in short, they allow an ‘ethically competent consumer’ to emerge, but they also produce another outcome, or a collateral casualty (Bauman, Citation2007), namely the ethically non-competent consumer. ‘In daily matters, be competent’ (From How to live ethically, the Tao Te Ching). (shrink)

On 19 July 2016, three medical organisations filed a federal lawsuit against representatives from several Vermont agencies over the Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act. The law is similar to aid-in-dying laws in four other US states, but the lawsuit hinges on a distinctive aspect of Vermont's law pertaining to patients' rights to information. The lawsuit raises questions about whether, and under what circumstances, there is an ethical obligation to inform terminally ill patients about AID as an (...) end-of-life option. Much of the literature on clinical communication about AID addresses how physicians should respond to patient requests for assisted dying, but neglects the question of how physicians should approach patients who may not know enough about AID to request it. In this article, I examine the possibility of an affirmative duty to inform terminally ill patients about AID in light of ethical concerns about professional responsibilities to patients and the maintenance of the patient–provider relationship. I suggest that we should not take for granted that communication about AID ought to be patient-initiated, and that there may be circumstances in which physicians have good reasons to introduce the topic themselves. By identifying ethical considerations that ought to inform such discussions, I aim to set an agenda for future bioethical research that adopts a broader perspective on clinical communication about AID. (shrink)

This paper argues against the possibility of presenting a consistent version of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Physics, characterizing its founders' philosophical pronouncements including those on the realism-antirealism issue, as a contingent collection of local, often contradictory, moves in changing theoretical and sociopolitical circumstances. The paper analyzes the fundamental differences of opinion between Bohr and the mathematical physicists, Heisenberg and Born, concerning the foundational doctrine of the "indispensability of classical concepts", and their related disagreements on "quantum reality." The paper concludes (...) with an explanation of how the appearance of consensus was achieved despite fundamental disagreements among the proponents. The paper undermines the adequacy of the notion of a general conceptual framework to describe the philosophical endeavors of working scientists. (shrink)