This experimental writing piece by the Earth Unbound Collective explores the ethical, political and pedagogical challenges in addressing climate change, activism and justice. The provocation Earth Unbound: the struggle to breathe and the creative thoughts that follow are inspired by the contagious energy of what Donna Haraway calls response-ability or the ability to respond. This energy ripples through monthly reading groups and workshops organised by this interdisciplinary collective that emerged organically in January 2020.

Data documenting poor understanding among research participants and real-time efforts to assess comprehension in large-scale studies are focusing new attention on informed consent comprehension. Within the context of biobanking consent, we previously convened a multidisciplinary panel to reach consensus about what information must be understood for a prospective participant’s consent to be considered valid. Subsequently, we presented them with data from another study showing that many U.S. adults would fail to comprehend the information the panel had deemed essential. When asked (...) to evaluate the importance of the information again, panelists’ opinions shifted dramatically in the direction of requiring that less information be understood. Follow-up interviews indicated significant uncertainty about defining a threshold of understanding and what should happen when prospective participants are unable to grasp key information. These findings have important implications for urgently needed discussion of whether... (shrink)

Recent work at the junction of epistemology and political theory focuses on the notion of epistemic injustice, the injustice of being wronged as a knower. Miranda Fricker (2007) identifies two kinds of epistemic injustice. I focus here on hermeneutical injustice in an attempt to identify a difficulty for Fricker's account. In particular, I consider the significance of background social conditions and suggest that an epistemic injustice should not rely on other forms of disadvantage to achieve its status as an injustice. (...) Thus reformulated, the notion of epistemic injustice can help us to achieve an even deeper understanding of the relationship between knowledge and privilege. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Sexual self-determination is considered a fundamental human right by most of us living in Western societies. While we must abide by laws regarding consent and coercion, in general we expect to be able to engage in sexual behaviour whenever, and with whomever, we choose. For older people with dementia living in residential aged care facilities (RACFs), however, the issue becomes more complex. Staff often struggle to balance residents' rights with their duty of care, and negative attitudes towards older people's sexuality (...) can lead to residents' sexual expression being overlooked, ignored, or even discouraged. In particular, questions as to whether residents with dementia are able to consent to sexual activity or physically intimate relationships pose a challenge to RACF staff, and current legislation does little to assist them. This paper will address these issues, and will argue that, while every effort should be made to ensure that no resident comes to harm, RACFs must respect the rights of residents with dementia to make decisions about their sexuality, intimacy and physical relationships. (shrink)

This paper examines faculty perceptions regarding ethical behavior among colleagues and students, and faculty practices with regard to teaching ethics in three institutions over a 4-year period. Faculty reported an uneven pattern of unethical behavior among colleagues over the period. A majority of business courses included ethics, however as both a specific topic on the syllabus and within course discussions. The percentage of courses with ethics discussions increased in 2006, however, the time allocated to these discussions decreased. These results suggest (...) that faculty are approaching ethics instruction less formally, raising concerns over the success of curriculum integration. (shrink)

Brain–Computer Interface research is an interdisciplinary area of study within Neural Engineering. Recent interest in end-user perspectives has led to an intersection with user-centered design. The goal of user-centered design is to reduce the translational gap between researchers and potential end users. However, while qualitative studies have been conducted with end users of BCI technology, little is known about individual BCI researchers’ experience with and attitudes towards UCD. Given the scientific, financial, and ethical imperatives of UCD, we sought to gain (...) a better understanding of practical and principled considerations for researchers who engage with end users. We conducted a qualitative interview case study with neural engineering researchers at a center dedicated to the creation of BCIs. Our analysis generated five themes common across interviews. The thematic analysis shows that participants identify multiple beneficiaries of their work, including other researchers, clinicians working with devices, device end users, and families and caregivers of device users. Participants value experience with device end users, and personal experience is the most meaningful type of interaction. They welcome end-user input, but are skeptical of limited focus groups and case studies. They also recognize a tension between creating sophisticated devices and developing technology that will meet user needs. Finally, interviewees espouse functional, assistive goals for their technology, but describe uncertainty in what degree of function is “good enough” for individual end users. Based on these results, we offer preliminary recommendations for conducting future UCD studies in BCI and neural engineering. (shrink)

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

Leveraging a principles-based paradigm, clinical and organizational psychologist Laura Basha gives readers the tools to unlock a new level of decision-making and peace of mind-making it possible for them to enter a more accomplished and confident phase of their lives. Every day, we take in data from the world around us and store that data in our intellect. Then, without conscious awareness, we listen to that data-a process we call "thinking"-and use what it tells us to inform our decisions. (...) But living our lives this way means always living in the past, and it limits us more than we think.In The Inward Outlook, psychologist Laura Basha shares how to discern this habitual way of thinking from the innate wisdom and common sense that we all have available to us at all times. Once we can see this distinction between personal thinking from the past and in-the-moment, impersonal, diffuse thinking, we are awakened to the conscious choice point, which allows us to make choices with awareness and to release judgment of ourselves and of others. We then consciously create ourselves to be the best version of ourselves we can be: our authentic, powerfully creative, compassionate selves. A powerful guide to accessing one's own innate health, well-being, and wisdom, The Inward Outlook is an accessible exploration of a principle-based paradigm that educates people in the role thought plays in creating their experience of reality-and a road map to cultivating inspired focus, accomplishment, and peace of mind in one's life. (shrink)

Working in the weakening of constructive Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory in which the subset collection scheme is omitted, we show that the binary refinement principle implies all the instances of the exponentiation axiom in which the basis is a discrete set. In particular binary refinement implies that the class of detachable subsets of a set form a set. Binary refinement was originally extracted from the fullness axiom, an equivalent of subset collection, as a principle that was sufficient to prove that the (...) Dedekind reals form a set. Here we show that the Cauchy reals also form a set. More generally, binary refinement ensures that one remains in the realm of sets when one starts from discrete sets and one applies the operations of exponentiation and binary product a finite number of times. (shrink)

Background The use of tissue collected at a forensic post-mortem for forensic genetics research purposes remains of ethical concern as the process involves obtaining informed consent from grieving family members. Two forensic genetics research studies using tissue collected from a forensic post-mortem were recently initiated at our institution and were the first of their kind to be conducted in Cape Town, South Africa. Main body This article discusses some of the ethical challenges that were encountered in these research projects. Among (...) these challenges was the adaptation of research workflows to fit in with an exceptionally busy service delivery that is operating with limited resources. Whilst seeking guidance from the literature regarding research on deceased populations, it was noted that next of kin of decedents are not formally recognised as a vulnerable group in the existing ethical and legal frameworks in South Africa. The authors recommend that research in the forensic mortuary setting is approached using guidance for vulnerable groups, and the benefit to risk standard needs to be strongly justified. Lastly, when planning forensic genetics research, consideration must be given to the potential of uncovering incidental findings, funding to validate these findings and the feedback of results to family members; the latter of which is recommended to occur through a genetic counsellor. Conclusion It is hoped that these experiences will contribute towards a formal framework for conducting forensic genetic research in medico-legal mortuaries in South Africa. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe investigated whether moral violations involving harm selectively elicit anger, whereas purity violations selectively elicit disgust, as predicted by the Moral Foundations Theory. We analysed participants’ spontaneous facial expressions as they listened to scenarios depicting moral violations of harm and purity. As predicted by MFT, anger reactions were elicited more frequently by harmful than by impure actions. However, violations of purity elicited more smiling reactions and expressions of anger than of disgust. This effect was found both in a classic set (...) of scenarios and in a new set in which the different kinds of violations were matched on weirdness. Overall, these findings are at odds with predictions derived from MFT and provide support for “monist” accounts that posit harm at the basis of all moral violations. However, we found that smiles were differentially linked to purity violations, which leaves open the possibility of distinct moral modules. (shrink)

Feminist therapy is more than a prescription of technique; it is a unique philosophy of psychotherapy. While much has been written on feminism and therapy, this bold book breaks new ground by making explicit and coherent the theoretical underpinnings of feminist therapy.Building on the revolutionary work of feminist scholars who have described how women employ strategies of knowing the world in a manner distinct from men, Laura S. Brown, noted for her pioneering work in the field of ethics and (...) boundaries, shows how these insights should reshape the very nature of the therapeutic encounter. With meticulous care, the author examines key features of the therapeutic encounter with a feminist lens: the power of the therapist; assessment and diagnosis; the nature of change; the ethics of practice; and differences in race, class, and sexual identity. She constructs a vision of therapy that helps the client develop a sense of entitlement to satisfying and equal relationships outside the therapist's office. This powerful vision of feminist therapy is grounded throughout with case examples that illustrate how a dialogue between therapist and client can be healing, subversive, and transformative all at once. (shrink)

We surveyed IRB chairs' perspectives on offering individual genetic research results to participants and families, including family members of deceased participants, and the IRB's role in addressing these issues. Given a particular hypothetical scenario, respondents favored offering results to participants but not family members, giving choices at the time of initial consent, and honoring elicited choices. They felt IRBs should have authority regarding the process issues, but a more limited role in medical and scientific issues.

David Papineau develops a new argument against representationalism, centering on the idea that sensory experiences are essentially representational on this view. He defends his own “qualitative view” according to which sensory experiences are only contingently representational. I discuss his main argument against essentialist representationalism and then provide two challenges for his positive account. First, Papineau's theory faces a dilemma when it comes to explaining the contents of our perceptual beliefs in situations where the conscious character of sensory experience comes apart (...) from what it represents. Second, we may need to abandon the idea that sensory experiences are assessable for veridicality. (shrink)

In his Letter on the Blind, Denis Diderot describes, based on mathematical physics, a method for evaluating hypotheses in situations where certainty cannot be reached. This article's thesis is that the author of the Letter extends this method to metaphysical questions of finalism and idealism. Diderot presents each pair of antagonistic positions (finalism-antifinalism and idealism-realism) in such a way that readers are invited to carefully weigh the arguments and to choose the one that appears to be the best, or most (...) probable, position. (shrink)

Externalist representationalists claim that the phenomenal character of a visual perceptual experience is determined by the representational content of that experience. Their deployment of the idea that perceptual experience is transparent shows that they account for representational content with reference to the properties which are represented – the properties out there in the world. I explain why this commits the externalist representationalist to objectivism and realism about colour properties. Colour physicalism has proved to be the position of choice for externalist (...) representationalists. However, my aim in this paper is to demonstrate that the proponent of the view which combines externalist representationalism with colour physicalism is unable to account for the phenomenal character of colour hallucination. (shrink)

Maya Sabatello and coauthors, in “Structural Racism in the COVID-19 Pandemic,” have called our attention to how preexisting systemic racism in the United States has produced exactly the racial disp...

This chapter contains sections titled: Lafayette's American Plants English Agrarian Influences Transforming La Grange Planting Politics at La Grange Notes.

Comparative philosophy is gaining traction in professional academic philosophy, with specialist journals, organizations, books, and public campaigns. These inroads have been made in canonical areas of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, logic, and value theory. Yet comparative philosophy still plays little role in practical applied ethics, an interdisciplinary research area in which work with practice and policy implications are dominated by the anglophone world. In this article, I explain why comparative work might be especially difficult in this type of applied ethics, (...) and I suggest how comparative philosophers might overcome these challenges to connect their theoretical work with contemporary practical issues. (shrink)

Apoptotic pathways have always been regarded as a key‐player in preserving tissue and organ homeostasis. Excessive activation or resistance to activation of cell death signaling may indeed be responsible for several mechanisms of disease, including malignancy and chronic degenerative diseases. Therefore, targeting apoptotic factors gained more and more attention in the scientific community and novel strategies emerged aimed at selectively blocking or stimulating cell death signaling. This is also the case for the TMEM219 death receptor, which is activated by a (...) circulating ligand, the Insulin‐like growth factor binding protein 3 (IGFBP3) and induces a caspase‐8‐dependent apoptosis of the target cells. Interestingly, stimulation of the IGFBP3/TMEM219 axis exerts an anti‐proliferative effect, while blockade of the TMEM219 deleterious signal protects TMEM219‐expressing cells of the endocrine pancreas, lung, and intestine from damage and death. Here, we summarize the most updated reports on the role of the IGFBP3/TMEM219 apoptotic axis in disease conditions, including intestinal disorders and diabetes, and we describe the advancements in designing and testing novel TMEM219‐based targeting approaches in emerging potential clinical applications. (shrink)

The Author presents the theoretical framework of this «Governare lapaura»’ issue on the Fear of Secession. Starting from the recent cases of the Brexit and the Catalonian referendum, the main goal of this issue is reflecting on the relationship between the political crisis of unitary State and the revival of secession.

Phytase is an enzyme that frees the phosphorus bound in feed grains and thus reduces the amount of dicalcium phosphate supplementation required for non-ruminants, reducing phosphorous excretion and thus reducing water pollution. This innovation has been widely adopted by feed companies in the US due to decreased phytase production costs and increased dicalcium phosphate costs. The roles played by phytase characteristics and choice architecture in the widespread use of this win–win technology are examined. A recent survey has also revealed that (...) Midwestern farmers are largely unaware of this technology even though they are using it. One implication is that further research on win–win technologies that will be adopted by industries, rather than being dependent on adoption by individuals, may be beneficial. (shrink)

Many families worldwide have at least one member with a behavioral or mental disorder, and yet the majority of the public fails to correctly recognize symptoms of mental illness. Previous research has found that Mental Health Literacy (MHL)—the knowledge and positive beliefs about mental disorders—tends to be higher in European and North American cultures, compared to Asian and African cultures. Nonetheless quantitative research examining the variables that explain this cultural difference remains limited. The purpose of our study was fourfold: (a) (...) to validate measures of MHL cross-culturally, (b) to examine the MHL model quantitatively, (c) to investigate cultural differences in the MHL model, and (d) to examine collectivism as a predictor of MHL. We validated measures of MHL in European American and Indian samples. The results lend strong quantitative support to the MHL model. Recognition of symptoms of mental illness was a central variable: greater recognition predicted greater endorsement of social causes of mental illness and endorsement of professional help-seeking as well as lesser endorsement of lay help-seeking. The MHL model also showed an overwhelming cultural difference; namely, lay help-seeking beliefs played a central role in the Indian sample, and a negligible role in the European American sample. Further, collectivism was positively associated with causal beliefs of mental illness in the European American sample, and with lay help-seeking beliefs in the Indian sample. These findings demonstrate the importance of understanding cultural differences in beliefs about mental illness, particularly in relation to help-seeking beliefs. (shrink)

We are all, it is said, looking for love. But what does love look like? Does it look the way it feels? The visual vocabulary of romance-its attendant comforts and vulnerabilities, ambivalences and unclarities-is the subject of Venus Inferred. This collection of 46 richly reproduced color photographs is Laura Letinsky's study of contemporary lovers as they are seen, as they show, and as they see themselves making love and inhabiting domestic space. Entering what might be called the intimate sphere, (...) Letinsky's camera explores a space too personal to be termed public and yet whose cultural and emotional shape is uncannily recognizable. Over a seven-year period, Letinsky visited lovers in their homes, hotel rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens and recorded in detail the promises, disharmonies, and disappointments that inhere in modern coupling. Accompanying the photographs is an essay by critic Lauren Berlant, which presents an aesthetic and cultural analysis of the contemporary images of romance and intimacy. Berlant contemplates the burden of clarity that sexuality bears, implicit both in conventional romantic ideals and in the "counterpolitics of the flesh" that desires to escape them. Thus arises the sublime ordinariness of Letinsky's couples, Berlant argues: "As 'normal' pleasures themselves become deemed modes of domination, the already destabilizing aspects of sexuality can feel even more unsettling." An interview between Letinsky and Berlant unfolds the artist's intellectual formation while exploring the unsettling and pleasurable power of her images as they circulate through the domains of romance, sexuality, and contemporary culture. (shrink)

La ciudad de Antigua, en Guatemala, ha sido y continúa siendo evocada a través de la palabra diluida en la historia y la memoria. Prueba de ello es el libro Poesía-documento, titulado Antigua Luna (2017), de la escritora costarricense Magda Zavala, publicado en 2017 por la editorial Letra Maya, dentro de la Colección Kayab, en Costa Rica. Este poemario, dividido en tres secciones; I. Capital de los Confines, II. Espacios y voces y III. La visitante, recoge entre sus versos los (...) resabios coloniales de un pasado épico, que convive con un presente transnacional y postmoderno. Ahí es donde los cimientos indígenas sostienen identidades en permanente reconstrucción, aprendida a través de cinco siglos de sobrevivencia en la desigualdad. (shrink)

Comments on Arendt's views on the link between politics and history, referring to her work on antisemitism and on the "Jewish question" (pp. 44-51). Defines Arendt's historiographical method as non-temporal - she focuses on individualized experiences which express a historical conflict; she prefers biographies, portraits, and chronicles. Arendt's non-temporal approach is expressed in the assertion that the tragedy of the Jews in Europe was rooted in the paradox that the political powers granted them rights and privileges, but excluded them, in (...) differing degrees, from political participation. This fact made the Jews a strange implant in European society. Pp. 84-92 present Arendt's definition of evil, based on her experience in the Eichmann trial. While the Christian philosophical tradition defines evil as a deficiency in character, Arendt considered it to be a banal component of the human personality. The deeds of the Nazis were, consequently, the result of Philistinism and lack of moral judgment. (shrink)