Nanotechnology, which involves manipulation of matter on a ‘nano’ scale, is considered to be a key enabling technology. Medical applications of nanotechnology are expected to significantly improve disease diagnostic and therapeutic modalities and subsequently reduce health care costs. However, there is no consensus on the definition of nanotechnology or nanomedicine, and this stems from the underlying debate on defining ‘nano’. This paper aims to present the diversity in the definition of nanomedicine and its impact on the translation of basic science (...) research in nanotechnology into clinical applications. We present the insights obtained from exploratory qualitative interviews with 46 stakeholders involved in translational nanomedicine from Europe and North America. The definition of nanomedicine has implications for many aspects of translational research including: fund allocation, patents, drug regulatory review processes and approvals, ethical review processes, clinical trials and public acceptance. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the field and common interest in developing effective clinical applications, it is important to have honest and transparent communication about nanomedicine, its benefits and potential harm. A clear and consistent definition of nanomedicine would significantly facilitate trust among various stakeholders including the general public while minimizing the risk of miscommunication and undue fear of nanotechnology and nanomedicine. (shrink)

The Ebola epidemic in Western Africa has highlighted issues related to weak health systems, the politics of drug and vaccine development and the need for transparent and ethical criteria for use of scarce local and global resources during public health emergency. In this paper we explore two key themes. First, we argue that independent of any use of experimental drugs or vaccine interventions, simultaneous implementation of proven public health principles, community engagement and culturally sensitive communication are critical as these measures (...) represent the most cost-effective and fair utilization of available resources. Second, we attempt to clarify the ethical issues related to use of scarce experimental drugs or vaccines and explore in detail the most critical ethical question related to Ebola drug or vaccine distribution in the current outbreak: who among those infected or at risk should be prioritized to receive any new experimental drugs or vaccines? We conclude that healthcare workers should be prioritised for these experimental interventions, for a variety of reasons. (shrink)

The problem of finite-time stability of switched genetic regulatory networks with time-varying delays via Wirtinger’s integral inequality is addressed in this study. A novel Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional is proposed to capture the dynamical characteristic of GRNs. Using Wirtinger’s integral inequality, reciprocally convex combination technique and the average dwell time method conditions in the form of linear matrix inequalities are established for finite-time stability of switched GRNs. The applicability of the developed finite-time stability conditions is validated by numerical results.

The need to nurture dynamic leadership in all possible ways is felt all the more today in the world. Leadership must be aligned with the world where it can be stated that the world is too complex and is rapidly changing and hence, one person alone cannot provide all the answers. Dynamism in thought, word and action can certainly benefit the leader, the organization as well as the country in diverse ways. Leader can no longer be a person - a (...) person who is in charge of a group and instead, the thought is that leadership can come from anyone. This means we need many leaders who are able to offer dynamic leadership that is needed in the modern age. Fallacious thinking most often leads to rigidity, self-centeredness, vindictiveness, biases, indifference in context to leadership are explicit today. For example, corruption, lack of commitment, opportunistic leadership etc. The possibility of nurturing dynamic leadership thought is an important proposition that this paper raises. This implies orienting leaders to eliminate fallacies and sharpen logical thinking in a gradual way. A good leader should exude integrity, self-awareness, courage, respect, empathy, and gratitude besides being an agile, effective delegator, and show the direction of growth. It is a belief that these key leadership qualities can be learned and improved through professional coaching, mentoring and counselling. Research indicates that value-based leadership generally leads to better decision-making, increased support for decisions and leader transparency, better follower morale, and opportunities to build trustworthy relationships. There is also a discussion that the leaders who appreciate the influence of servant leadership and emotional intelligence in their relationships have the potential to develop high-quality interpersonal relationships with all stakeholders. Hence, in view of leadership styles this paper is also an exploration of leadership styles that can be mentored through philosophical counselling. (shrink)

Priyanshu Prabal Upadhyaya, b. 1919, Sanskrit scholar; contributed articles on various aspects of Indic philosophy, Vedic and Sanskrit literature.

Este trabajo tiene por objeto el estudio de la agravante de discriminación por razón de género recogida en el art. 22.4ª del C.P, por la Ley Orgánica 1/2015, de 30 de marzo. Nos vamos a centrar en el estudio del fundamento y elementos de la circunstancia agravante. Se prosigue, con el análisis de su compatibilidad con otras agravantes genéricas y su régimen de comunicabilidad a los partícipes del delito. Sin olvidar, el examen de las sentencias dictadas por el Tribunal Supremo.

Indirect observation is a recent concept in systematic observation. It largely involves analyzing textual material generated either indirectly from transcriptions of audio recordings of verbal behavior in natural settings (e.g., conversation, group discussions) or directly from narratives (e.g., letters of complaint, tweets, forum posts). It may also feature seemingly unobtrusive objects that can provide relevant insights into daily routines. All these materials constitute an extremely rich source of information for studying everyday life, and they are continuously growing with the burgeoning (...) of new technologies for data recording, dissemination, and storage. Narratives are an excellent vehicle for studying everyday life, and quantitization is proposed as a means of integrating qualitative and quantitative elements. However, this analysis requires a structured system that enables researchers to analyze varying forms and sources of information objectively. In this paper, we present a methodological framework detailing the steps and decisions required to quantitatively analyze a set of data that was originally qualitative. We provide guidelines on study dimensions, text segmentation criteria, ad hoc observation instruments, data quality controls, and coding and preparation of text for quantitative analysis. The quality control stage is essential to ensure that the code matrices generated from the qualitative data are reliable. We provide examples of how an indirect observation study can produce data for quantitative analysis and also describe the different software tools available for the various stages of the process. The proposed method is framed within a specific mixed methods approach that involves collecting qualitative data and subsequently transforming these into matrices of codes (not frequencies) for quantitative analysis to detect underlying structures and behavioral patterns. The data collection and quality control procedures fully meet the requirement of flexibility and provide new perspectives on data integration in the study of biopsychosocial aspects in everyday contexts. (shrink)

The idea of a role in nursing that includes expertise in ethics has been around for more than 30 years. Whether or not one subscribes to the idea that nursing ethics is separate and distinct from bioethics, nursing practice has much to contribute to the ethical practice of healthcare, and with the strong grounding in ethics and aspiration for social justice considerations in nursing, there is no wonder that the specific role of the nurse ethicist has emerged. Nurse ethicists, expert (...) in nursing practice and the application of ethical theories and concepts, are well positioned to guide nurses through complex ethical challenges. However, there is limited discussion within the field regarding the specific job responsibilities that the nurse ethicist ought to have. The recent appearance of job postings with the title “nurse ethicist” suggest that some healthcare institutions have identified the value of a nurse in the practice of ethics and are actively recruiting. Discomfort about the possibility of others defining the role of the nurse ethicist inspired this paper (and special issue). If the nurse ethicist is to be seen as an integral part of addressing ethical dilemmas and ethical conflicts that arise in healthcare, then nurse ethicists ought to be at the forefront of defining this role. In this paper, we draw upon our own experiences as nurse ethicists in large academic healthcare systems to describe the essential elements that ought to be addressed in a job description for a nurse ethicist practicing in a clinical setting linked to academic programs. Drawing upon our experience and the literature, we describe how we perceive the nurse ethicist adds value to healthcare organizations and teams of professional ethicists. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion tends to converge on the view that narratives are at the center of the emotion of grief. In this article, I expand on this kind of view. On the one hand, I argue that key strands of phenomenological and neuroscientific studies suggest that grief consists in a complex emotional process of disconfirmation-and-updating of the narrative self-model. By heuristically drawing on an analogy between binocular rivalry and grief, I show that certain salient aspects of the phenomenology of grief, such (...) as self-alienation and ambiguity, are straightforwardly reflected by this account. On the other hand, I argue that this hierarchical approach has the resources to: (i) show that both narratable and unnarratable experiences of personal loss are both instances of grief; and (ii) differentiate between narratable and unnarratable experiences of grief, without compromising the view that self-constituting narratives are at the center of the phenomenon. (shrink)

This seventh volume of Collected Papers includes 70 papers comprising 974 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2013-2021 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 122 co-authors from 22 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abdel-Nasser Hussian, C. Alexander, Mumtaz Ali, Yaman Akbulut, Amir Abdullah, Amira S. Ashour, Assia Bakali, Kousik Bhattacharya, Kainat Bibi, R. N. Boyd, Ümit Budak, Lulu Cai, Cenap Özel, Chang Su Kim, Victor Christianto, Chunlai Du, Chunxin Bo, Rituparna Chutia, Cu Nguyen Giap, Dao The (...) Son, Vinayak Devvrat, Arindam Dey, Partha Pratim Dey, Fahad Alsharari, Feng Yongfei, S. Ganesan, Shivam Ghildiyal, Bibhas C. Giri, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Ahmed Refaat Hawas, Hoang Viet Long, Le Hoang Son, Hongbo Wang, Hongnian Yu, Mihaiela Iliescu, Saeid Jafari, Temitope Gbolahan Jaiyeola, Naeem Jan, R. Jeevitha, Jun Ye, Anup Khan, Madad Khan, Salma Khan, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Kifayat Ullah, Kishore Kumar P.K., Sujit Kumar De, Prasun Kumar Nayak, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, Luong Thi Hong Lan, Anam Luqman, Luu Quoc Dat, Tahir Mahmood, Hafsa M. Malik, Nivetha Martin, Mai Mohamed, Parimala Mani, Mingcong Deng, Mohammed A. Al Shumrani, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohamed Talea, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Gulistan, Farshid Mofidnakhaei, Muhammad Shoaib, Muhammad Riaz, Karthika Muthusamy, Nabeela Ishfaq, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Sumera Naz, Nguyen Dinh Hoa, Nguyen Tho Thong, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Noor ul Amin, Dragan Pamučar, Gabrijela Popović, S. Krishna Prabha, Surapati Pramanik, Priya R, Qiaoyan Li, Yaser Saber, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, Saleem Abdullah, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Abdulkadir Sengür, Seyed Ahmad Edalatpanah, Shahbaz Ali, Shahzaib Ashraf, Shouzhen Zeng, Shio Gai Quek, Shuangwu Zhu, Shumaiza, Sidra Sayed, Sohail Iqbal, Songtao Shao, Sundas Shahzadi, Dragiša Stanujkić, Željko Stević, Udhayakumar Ramalingam, Zunaira Rashid, Hossein Rashmanlou, Rajkumar Verma, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Desmond Jun Yi Tey, Selçuk Topal, Naveed Yaqoob, Yanhui Guo, Yee Fei Gan, Yingcang Ma, Young Bae Jun, Yuping Lai, Hafiz Abdul Wahab, Wei Yang, Xiaohong Zhang, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Lemnaouar Zedam. (shrink)

This tenth volume of Collected Papers includes 86 papers in English and Spanish languages comprising 972 pages, written between 2014-2022 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 105 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 26 countries: Abu Sufian, Ali Hassan, Ali Safaa Sadiq, Anirudha Ghosh, Assia Bakali, Atiqe Ur Rahman, Laura Bogdan, Willem K.M. Brauers, Erick González Caballero, Fausto Cavallaro, Gavrilă Calefariu, T. Chalapathi, Victor Christianto, Mihaela Colhon, Sergiu Boris Cononovici, Mamoni Dhar, Irfan Deli, Rebeca Escobar-Jara, Alexandru Gal, N. (...) Gandotra, Sudipta Gayen, Vassilis C. Gerogiannis, Noel Batista Hernández, Hongnian Yu, Hongbo Wang, Mihaiela Iliescu, F. Nirmala Irudayam, Sripati Jha, Darjan Karabašević, T. Katican, Bakhtawar Ali Khan, Hina Khan, Volodymyr Krasnoholovets, R. Kiran Kumar, Manoranjan Kumar Singh, Ranjan Kumar, M. Lathamaheswari, Yasar Mahmood, Nivetha Martin, Adrian Mărgean, Octavian Melinte, Mingcong Deng, Marcel Migdalovici, Monika Moga, Sana Moin, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Elhoseny, Rehab Mohamed, Mohamed Talea, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Aslam, Muhammad Aslam Malik, Muhammad Ihsan, Muhammad Naveed Jafar, Muhammad Rayees Ahmad, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Saqlain, Muhammad Shabir, Mujahid Abbas, Mumtaz Ali, Radu I. Munteanu, Ghulam Murtaza, Munazza Naz, Tahsin Oner, ‪Gabrijela Popović‬‬‬‬‬, Surapati Pramanik, R. Priya, S.P. Priyadharshini, Midha Qayyum, Quang-Thinh Bui, Shazia Rana, Akbara Rezaei, Jesús Estupiñán Ricardo, Rıdvan Sahin, Saeeda Mirvakili, Said Broumi, A. A. Salama, Flavius Aurelian Sârbu, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Javid Shabbir, Shio Gai Quek, Son Hoang Le, Florentin Smarandache, Dragiša Stanujkić, S. Sudha, Taha Yasin Ozturk, Zaigham Tahir, The Houw Iong, Ayse Topal, Alptekin Ulutaș, Maikel Yelandi Leyva Vázquez, Rizha Vitania, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Ștefan Vlăduțescu, J. Vimala, Dan Valeriu Voinea, Adem Yolcu, Yongfei Feng, Abd El-Nasser H. Zaied, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas.‬‬. (shrink)

This paper is a personal dialogue of maneuvering the landscape of scholarship in the United States as a nurse faculty. The principal thesis of this paper is that a discursive shift from margins to mainstream literature has occurred within nursing discourse during the past 20 years as the result of a growing body of work by nurse philosophers. I utilize my own work in nursing philosophy as an exemplar and provide a narrative situated in a feminist‐critical paradigm. This paper: (1) (...) presents a historical background through a critical‐feminist lens of the discursive shift using my own work and lived experiences as exemplars; (2) examines a contemporary mainstream ‘authoritative’ text as an exemplar of this discursive shift and (3) proposes both potential positive intersections and threats in the future development of nursing philosophy resulting from this discursive shift. (shrink)

In clinical ethics, there remains a great deal of uncertainty regarding the appropriateness of attempting cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for certain patients. Although the issue continues to receive ample attention and various frameworks have been proposed for navigating such cases, most discussions draw heavily on the notion of harm as a central consideration. In the following, I use emerging philosophical literature on the notion of harm to argue that the ambiguities and disagreement about harm create important and oft-overlooked challenges for the (...) ethics of CPR. I begin by elucidating the standard account of harm, called the Counterfactual Comparative Account (CCA). I then show that three challenges to the CCA—preemptive harms, the harm of death, and non-experiential harms—are particularly salient when assessing potential harms for candidates of CPR and likely impact-related decision-making and communication. I extend this argument to explore how the ambiguities of harm might extend to other realms of clinical decision-making, such as the use and limitations of life-sustaining treatments. To address these challenges, I propose two strategies for identifying and minimizing the impact of such uncertainty: first, clinicians and ethicists ought to promote pluralistic conversations that account for different understandings of harm; second, they ought to invoke harm-independent considerations when discussing the ethics of CPR in order to reflect the nuances of such conversations. These strategies, coupled with a richer philosophical understanding of harm, promise to help clinicians and ethicists navigate the prevalent and difficult cases involving patient resuscitation and many other harm-based decisions in the clinical setting. (shrink)

From pre-Christian times until the present day, philosophers have discussed whether, given evil, belief in God can logically be maintained. Theists and non-theists remain unconvinced by one another's arguments. This study re-examines the question of God and evil from a neutral standpoint and claims that neither side has come to adequate grips either with the question itself or with the other side's case, chiefly because of failure to distinguish the kinds of problem raised by evil.

The Birkhoff-Maltsev problem asks for a characterization of those lattices each of which is isomorphic to the lattice L(K) of all subquasivarieties for some quasivariety K of algebraic systems. The current status of this problem, which is still open, is discussed. Various unsolved questions that are related to the Birkhoff-Maltsev problem are also considered, including ones that stem from the theory of propositional logics.

This article looks at some of the salient analyses of moderation in the ancient Greek and the Islamic traditions and uses them to develop a contemporary view of the matter. Greek ethics played a huge role in shaping the ethical views of the Muslim philosophers and theologians, and thus the article starts with an overview of the revival of contemporary western virtue ethics--in many ways an extension of Platonic-Aristotelian ethics--and then looks at the place of moderation or temperance in Platonic-Aristotelian (...) ethics. This sets the stage for an exposition of the position taken by Ibn Miskawayh and al-Ghazali, which is then used as a backdrop for suggesting a revival of the Quran's virtue ethics. After outlining a basis for its virtue ethics, the Quranic view of wasatiyya or moderation is discussed briefly. (shrink)

We motivate and introduce a new method of abduction, Matrix Abduction, and apply it to modelling the use of non-deductive inferences in the Talmud such as Analogy and the rule of Argumentum A Fortiori. Given a matrix $${\mathbb {A}}$$ with entries in {0, 1}, we allow for one or more blank squares in the matrix, say a i,j =?. The method allows us to decide whether to declare a i,j = 0 or a i,j = 1 or a i,j =? (...) undecided. This algorithmic method is then applied to modelling several legal and practical reasoning situations including the Talmudic rule of Kal-Vachomer. We add an Appendix showing that this new rule of Matrix Abduction, arising from the Talmud, can also be applied to the analysis of paradoxes in voting and judgement aggregation. In fact we have here a general method for executing non-deductive inferences. (shrink)

This article proposes an alternative approach to social epistemology – a comprehensive approach. It argues that the dominant approaches to social epistemology, which it identifies as communitarian and veritistic, are inadequate. It observes that the nature of the emphasis that the communitarian approach places on the epistemic community foster mindless tolerance in epistemology, which makes the pursuit of the cognitive goal of truth difficult to attain. It also observes that the veritistic approach that seeks to refocus social epistemology on the (...) pursuit of the cognitive goal of obtaining truth does this at the expense of the affective goals of social epistemology. To overcome the inadequacies of the communitarian and the veritistic approaches and to ensure that social epistemology effectively pursues its cognitive and affective goals, this article offers the comprehensive approach. This approach absorbs the virtues of the communitarian and the veritistic approaches while avoiding their errors. Hence, it thrives on a view of truth that posits an objective and a subjective dimension of truth. The objective dimension ensures that the community only fosters and never impedes social epistemological projects such that social epistemology continues to pursue the cognitive goal of truth. The subjective dimension guarantees that the concern for truth does not lead to the neglect or abandonment of the pursuit of the affective goals of social epistemology. The rationale behind this approach is that for social epistemological projects and practices to remain truly epistemological and social, they must always take into consideration the cognitive and affective features of knowledge and knowers. (shrink)

In this paper I describe a novel application of contemplative techniques to software engineering with the goal of augmenting the intellectual capabilities of knowledge workers within the field in four areas: flexibility, attention, creativity, and trust. The augmentation of software engineers’ intellectual capabilities is proposed as a third complement to the traditional focus of methodologies on the process and environmental factors of the software development endeavor. I argue that these capabilities have been shown to be open to improvement through the (...) practices traditionally used in spiritual traditions, but now used increasingly in other fields of knowledge work, such as in the medical profession and the education field. Historically, the intellectual capabilities of software engineers have been treated as a given within any particular software development effort. This is argued to be an aspect ripe for inclusion within software development methodologies. (shrink)

This chapter discusses central problems and prospects for ethical naturalism. Section 1 explains what is meant by “ethical naturalism” and surveys different versions of the view. Section 2 discusses the central philosophical challenge to ethical naturalism, viz., the “Normativity Objection.” Section 3 offers a battery of responses to it on behalf of the ethical naturalist. Section 4 explores a promising and novel approach to ethical naturalism, viz., a moral nativist theory that that combines a Chomskian approach to moral competence with (...) a structuralist metaphysics. (shrink)

Recent advancements in developmental biology enable the creation of embryo-like structures from human stem cells, which we refer to as human embryo-like structures (hELS). These structures provide promising tools to complement—and perhaps ultimately replace—the use of human embryos in clinical and fundamental research. But what if these hELS—when further improved—also have a claim to moral status? What would that imply for their research use? In this paper, we explore these questions in relation to the traditional answer as to why human (...) embryos should be given greater protection than other (non-)human cells: the so-called Argument from Potential (AfP). According to the AfP, human embryos deserve special moral status because they have the unique potential to develop into persons. While some take the development of hELS to challenge the very foundations of the AfP, the ongoing debate suggests that its dismissal would be premature. Since the AfP is a spectrum of views with different moral implications, it does not need to imply that research with human embryos or hELS that (may) have ‘active’ potential should be completely off-limits. However, the problem with determining active potential in hELS is that this depends on development passing through ‘potentiality switches’ about the precise coordinates of which we are still in the dark. As long as this epistemic uncertainty persists, extending embryo research regulations to research with specific types of hELS would amount to a form of regulative precaution that as such would require further justification. (shrink)

Falsafat wa-ḥayāt Abī Hāshim al-Jubbāʼī wa-madrasatuh -- al-Tawallud ʻinda al-Muʻtazilah.

The Greeks and Romans have been charged with destroying the ecosystems within which they lived. In this book, however, M. D. Usher argues rather that we can find in their lives and thought the origin of modern ideas about systems and sustainability, important topics for humans today and in the future. With chapters running the gamut of Greek and Roman experience – from the Presocratics and Plato to Roman agronomy and the Benedictine Rule – Plato's Pigs brings together unlikely bedfellows, (...) both ancient and modern, to reveal surprising connections. Lively prose and liberal use of anecdotal detail, including an afterword about the author's own experiments with sustainable living on his sheep farm in Vermont, add a strong authorial voice. In short, this is a unique, first-of-its-kind book that is sure to be of interest to anyone working in Classics, environmental studies, philosophy, ecology, or the history of ideas. (shrink)

Like the Copernican revolution which initiated the Modern project, there has been a thermodynamic revolution in the empirical sciences in the last two centuries. The aim of this paper is to show how we might draw from this revolution to make new and startling metaphysical and ethical claims concerning the nature and value of reality. To this end, this paper employs Aristotle’s account of the relation of the various philosophies and sciences to one another to show how we might assert (...) a new theory of being, moral value, and practical action from the primacy of entropic decay asserted in the contemporary mathematical sciences. This paper proceeds to show how, from what the contemporary sciences have concluded concerning the primacy of entropic decay within reality, unbecoming might be forwarded as a new account of the essence of existence: i.e., the first cause and motivating principle of reality’s formal, material, efficient, and final nature. The paper concludes by arguing that a new and surprising account of universal ethical value and normative duty can be deduced from such a metaphysics of decay. (shrink)

Plato's Timaeus contains a powerful and influential myth, of the construction of the universe by a divine craftsman. A god imposes reason on necessity, to bring order from a primeval 'receptacle' of disordered matter. There results the 'child' that is the cosmos - a copy of an eternally-existing perfect model. Here eight new essays from a distinguished international cast, explore aspects of this challenging work: the principles of the mythical narrative, how the world soul and human body are formed, implications (...) for illness - mental and physical, the importance of music and harmonious proportion. Later developments are also treated: Aristotle's theory of generation, the commentary of Proclus and elements of modern evolutionary theory. (shrink)

The paper investigates interpretations of propositional and firstorder logic in which validity is defined in terms of partial indices; sometimes called possibilities but here understood as non-empty subsets of a set W of possible worlds. Truth at a set of worlds is understood to be truth at every world in the set. If all subsets of W are permitted the logic so determined is classical first-order predicate logic. Restricting allowable subsets and then imposing certain closure conditions provides a modelling for (...) intuitionistic predicate logic. The same semantic interpretation rules are used in both logics for all the operators. (shrink)

Women who had had breast cancer and had been enrolled in a large genetic breast cancer epidemiological study were interviewed about their experience of participation in the study, their attitudes to the confidentiality of data, and the feedback of personal and general research results. Collection of family history information seemed more salient in indicating the genetic nature of the study than the enrolment information sheet. There were no concerns about confidentiality.While participants would have welcomed general feedback about the results of (...) the study and were critical that this had not been provided, the feedback of personal information proved complicated and, sometimes, difficult. It is suggested that individual feedback of genetic test information in epidemiological studies should be undertaken only when there are specific reasons. (shrink)

Wexler and Specker (2023) offer a review of criticisms directed against what they describe as the relatively new field of neuroethics and offer as solution the development of a more “integrated, in...

In this article, I will argue that ethical veganism can be understood as a form of quietism, as a quiet retreat from a world burdened by human moral failings and animal suffering. I will also show how this retreat, although quiet in nature, is both a legitimate and valuable form of genuine resistance to animal oppression. Positing ethical veganism as a form of sociopolitical resistance to animal exploitation is not new, but thinking of it as a quietist retreat and a (...) legitimate and valuable form of quiet resistance is a different matter. (shrink)

The Dobbs decision has precipitated renewed medical, political, and professional interest in the issue of abortion. Because this decision handed responsibility for regulation of abortion back to the states, and because the states are enacting or have enacted policies that tend to be very permissive or very restrictive, the result has been legal and professional confusion for physicians and their patients. Medical education cannot resolve either the legal or ethical issues regarding abortion. However, medical education must prepare future physicians for (...) caring for patients seeking abortion-related services. Physicians must be prepared to interact appropriately (sensitively and with integrity) with patients or colleagues whose views on abortion differ significantly from their own. This essay describes our educational effort to achieve that objective. The motto that governed this exercise was “No Easy Answers.”. (shrink)

O Prólogo da Fenomenologia do Espírito é um texto relevante e emblemático do sistema hegeliano. O Prólogo enquadra o pensamento filosófico de Hegel e constitui um trabalho propedêutico para a filosofia e para a ciência, pois enfatiza o início do saber. O enfoque da Fenomenologia do Espírito é “o saber em devir” ou “o espírito que aparece”. Como o título designa, é uma fenomenologia do espírito como experiência da consciência, uma preparação científica ou exercício propedêutico. O Prólogo é um texto (...) sistemático, porque concebe uma introdução e exposição do sistema da ciência de Hegel. Considerando estes aspectos e as repercussões sobre muitos outros pensadores, como Marx ou Schopenhauer, segue-se uma estratégia teórica e conceptual de interepretação e discussão do texto de Hegel tendo como objectivos i) demonstrar a relevância do Prólogo para a compreensão do sistema hegeliano e suas extensas influências, quer na filosofia alemã quer na filosofia moderna; ii) reconhecer a perenidade das teses apresentadas por Hegel no Prólogo, associando o seu carácter consistente e abrangente, próprio de um sistema filosófico relevante. (shrink)

The medieval Islamic philosophers held a certain conception of the divine unity that assumes the necessary existent to be both one and simple. The oneness of the necessary existent meant that it is the only necessary existent and its simplicity meant that it admits no composition whatsoever – it is pure essence and its essence is necessary existence. In The Incoherence of the Philosophers al-Ġazālī presents, with elaboration, an exposition of the philosophers' conception of the divine unity, several arguments for (...) its two components, and his critique of these arguments. In this paper I focus on six of the arguments attributed to the philosophers. Following the textual evidence, I reconstruct these arguments and offer two possible interpretations of them. The first interpretation, which I call the many-argument interpretation, sees one of the arguments as employing the simplicity of the necessary existent to establish its oneness and the other five arguments as invoking oneness to establish simplicity. The second interpretation, which I call the one-argument interpretation, doesn't offer a new reading for the first argument but sees the other five arguments as defending the simplicity of the necessary existent based on its basic concept. I argue for the superiority of the one-argument interpretation. Résumé Les philosophes de l'Islam classique ont une doctrine de l'unité divine selon laquelle l'existant nécessaire est à la fois unique et simple. Son unicité signifie qu'il est le seul existant nécessaire, sa simplicité qu'il n'admet aucune sorte de composition; il est pure essence et son essence est existence nécessaire. Dans la Destruction des Philosophes, al-Ġazālī présente avec force détails un exposé de la doctrine de l'unité divine des philosophes, plusieurs arguments en faveur de ses deux composantes, ainsi que sa critique de ces arguments. Je me concentre ici sur six des arguments qu'il attribue aux philosophes. En suivant les données textuelles, je reconstruis ces arguments et en propose deux interprétations possibles. La première, que j'appelle l'interprétation “à arguments multiples”, identifie l'un des arguments comme s'appuyant sur la simplicité de l'existant nécessaire pour établir son unicité, et les cinq autres comme s'appuyant sur son unicité pour établir sa simplicité. La seconde, que j'appelle l'interprétation “à argument unique”, conserve la première lecture du premier argument mais voit dans les cinq autres une défense de la simplicité de l'existant nécessaire fondée sur sa notion fondamentale. J'argumente en faveur de la supériorité de l'interprétation “à argument unique”. (shrink)

This commentary examines twelve stories in which parents recount how they (and often their co-parent) decided whether or not to circumcise their newborn sons. Several debated whether this should be their decision to make. The stories offer an intimate glimpse into people's efforts to do the best for children in a context of incomplete and changing information and intense public controversy. The commentary explores the diverse meanings and contradictory commonsense beliefs that surround foreskin removal in the United States today. Considering (...) these parents' reflections—and their silences—can help us appreciate the real-life consequences of debates about the ethics of male circumcision. (shrink)