The focal point of my article is the work of biohackers: mainly Josiah Zayner, whose activism as a biohacker, as an artist and a public figure offers an interesting lens through which one can explore the contemporary genetic imaginary and our changing and varied approach to genetic engineering. The framework for this description is set by an analysis of cultural representations of contemporary science and technology, both in documentaries and in works of fiction. In the article, I trace and analyse (...) the ways in which biohackers’ activity is involved with the earlier ideas of cyberculture, most notably with the notion of biological life as information (possible to edit or ‘hack’) and to the image of a ‘hacker’. I recall the popular phrase of ‘playing god’, often quoted in relation to genetic imaginary, mainly as a warning against excessive interventions within nature. The phrase and the warning itself seem to have become insofar more important, as the scale of possible interventions had been raised by the advancement of genetic engineering. Finally, I discuss the relation of art and science in Zayner’s activity, within a broader context of relevant images of artists and scientists and their role within the changing realities of contemporary life. The article does not pretend to fully analyse or even describe the modalities and implication of biohackers’ activity. Its main goal is to shed more light on the current changes in collective imagination related to the rapid development of biotechnology and its cultural understanding. The public presence of biohackers, and especially Zayner’s activity, provides new visions of human agency in nature and of relation between art, science and social practice. (shrink)

In the article I discuss three types of non-formal curriculum: the hidden, informal and null curriculum. Their negative impact on the moral education of medical students and physicians is documented through the choice of examples from Polish medical schools and the statements of Polish physicians. I also justify the thesis that the teaching of medical ethics as ethics-as-tools is deeply rooted within the Polish moral cultural tradition. The polemic with Władysław Biegański serves as a means of showing the relation between (...) the medical moral tradition and the belief that medical ethic is of little importance in the moral education of medical students and doctors. I also indicate that the lack of references to medical schools as moral entities within moral education condemns physicians to the solitude of their personal conscience when confronted with moral decisions. This, in turn, promotes the idea of defining this conscience in opposition to the law. (shrink)

Thinking in Āsana is an exploration of three popular lineages of modern postural yoga - Viniyoga, Iyengar Yoga, and Ashtanga Yoga.

W pierwszej części artykułu charakteryzuję trzy rodzaje profesjonalizmu lekarskiego: profesjonalizm tradycyjny, odnowiony i kompleksowy. Omawiam także czynniki kulturowe, ekonomiczne i aksjologiczne wpływające na ich kształtowanie się. Stawiam tezę, że profesjonalizm kompleksowy ze względu na jego skomplikowanie i arbitralne wyodrębnianie elementów składowych jest nieprzydatny w edukacji moralnej studentów i lekarzy. W części drugiej rekonstruuję wady i zalety profesjonalizmu tradycyjnego i odnowionego. Uzasadniam pogląd, że najważniejsza zaleta profesjonalizmu wynika z jego ambiwalencji moralnej. Nie traktuję więc tej dwuznaczności jako wyłącznie wady. Lekarz profesjonalista (...) powinien mieć świadomość jasnych i ciemnych stron profesjonalizmu oraz umiejętność właściwego ich ważenia w danych okolicznościach – poszukiwania Arystotelesowskiego złotego środka. W ostatniej części argumentuję za umiarkowanie optymistycznym przekonaniem o przydatności profesjonalizmu tradycyjnego i odnowionego w moralnym formowaniu studentów medycyny i młodych lekarzy. (shrink)

W artykule szkicuję czynniki sprzyjające przemianie kompleksowego ujęcia relacji kobieta ciężarna – płód, w dualny model tego odniesienia. W pierwszym modelu kobieta i płód są traktowani przez lekarzy jak jeden pacjent, natomiast w drugim także fazom prenatalnym ludzkiego życia przyznaje się moralny status samodzielnego pacjenta. Dualne podejście ma negatywne następstwa dla kobiet brzemiennych, sygnalizowane w tekście w polemice z Susan Mattingly. W drugiej części pracy analizuję podjętą przez Franka Chervenaka i Laurence McCullougha, teoretyczną próbę uzasadnienia statusu płodu jako pacjenta, przy (...) jednoczesnym zachowaniu elementów kompleksowego modelu relacji kobieta ciężarna – płód. Analizy ukazują jej fiasko. (shrink)

In the first part of my paper, drawing on the works by David Heyd, I argue that, in the choices related to procreation, an autonomous decision of the woman involved should play the key role. In the relation between a healthcare professional, on the one hand, and a pregnant patient, or a patient who intends to become pregnant, on the other – the former is ethically obliged to provide proper help in the decision-making process that should nevertheless be founded on (...) the ethical ideal of a morally good person. The decision should also be informed by the conception of a morally good person endorsed by the woman . In the second part of my paper, I refer to the conception of the sanctity of human life, developed by Ronald Dworkin, to claim that, in a complex medical model, the tendency to equate the fetus with bodily organs should be curtailed as far as the relation between the pregnant woman and the fetus is concerned. The idea of the sanctity of life also serves as the ground on which what I call a ‘procreation epic’ is based. The suggested epic, viewed as a general philosophical framework for the healthcare and reproductive medicine policy, is considered relevant to democratic societies. (shrink)

W artykule w trojaki sposób dowodzę odrębności profesjonalnej etyki lekarskiej, mianowicie: 1. ukazując różnice pozycji normatywnej obowiązków w etyce profesjonalnej i ogólnej, 2. uzasadniając przynależność lekarskiej etyki profesjonalnej do modelu zapożyczenia jako typu etyki aplikacyjnej, 3. podając racje za profesjonalizmem historycznym jako etyką właściwą dla stanu lekarskiego. Odrębność profesjonalnej etyki lekarskiej stanowi ważny argument za jej umieszczeniem w planie edukacji etycznej studentów medycyny i lekarzy. W końcowej części pracy rekonstruuję rzeczywiste i postulowane relacje między etyką profesjonalną a profesjonalizmem, bioetyką akademicką (...) i bioetyką publiczną. Celem rekonstrukcji jest wskazanie optymalnego dla edukacji etycznej miejsca etyki profesjonalnej w systemie kształcenia etycznego profesjonalistów. (shrink)

The article analyzes the Swedish writer Pär Lagerkvist’s last volume of poems, Aftonland, and the metaphor of the “book of nature”, which the poet uses extensively and which forms the volume’s compositional axis. The starting point is to present the theological concepts of liber naturae and to indicate the functions of this metaphor in old literature. Lagerkvist’s take on this metaphor points to the fundamental change that occurred in the religious situation of man between the time of the metaphor’s peak (...) popularity and the middle of the twentieth century in a completely altered historical context. Lagerkvist’s return to this metaphor involves its radical transformation in the spirit of a modern transformation of spirituality. Rather than revealing theological truths, the “book of nature” in Lagerkvist’s poetry is akin to the “codes of transcendence” by Jaspers, which bring man, living in a disenchanted modern world, closer to a transcendental dimension of existence. The transformations of the “book of nature” theme in Lagerkvist’s poetic volume are also analyzed against the background of the transformations of modern and contemporary astronomy, as well as in the perspective of the theory of the “logic of writing’ and, also, the relationship between writing and religion. The use of the old metaphor allows Lagerkvist to express the affirmation of spiritual longings and the search for meaning in the world as unfulfilled but inalienable human qualities. The conclusion also points to the presence of the “book of nature” motif in other works of the Swedish writer, which is a manifestation of his metaphysical interests. (shrink)

In the article I prove the separateness of professional medical ethics in three ways: 1. By showing differences between the normative rank of responsibilities within general and professional ethics. 2. By justifying affiliation of professional medical ethics within the appropriation model which is a type of applied ethics characterized by its unique properties. 3. By justifying historical professionalism as the ethics that is proper for the medical profession; for this kind of ethical internalism the content of professional ethics is the (...) sole work of medical professional organizations as well as individual doctors. In the final part of the article I reconstruct the actual and postulated relations between professional ethics and professionalism as well as between academic bioethics and public bioethics. The aim of this reconstruction is to indicate the optimal from the perspective of ethical education place of professional ethics within the ethics education system for professionalists. (shrink)

Working memory training has recently become one of the most debated issues in the field of cognitive psychology. Since working memory is considered a strong correlate of IQ, numerous researchers have been trying to increase the latter by training the former. Proven effectiveness of working memory training could lead to its application in the therapy of many cognitive impairments. WMT could be also used as a tool of improving cognitive functioning of healthy subjects. However, almost every publication claiming to provide (...) evidence for achieving one of above mentioned objectives has been criticised, mostly because of methodological shortcomings. The aim of my presentation is to extract potential sources of inconsistencies existing between the authors of meta-analysis and reviews of WMT research. For this reason I take a closer look at results and conclusions of several meta-analysis and reviews. As a result I point few indications that should be taken into consideration in future studies on WMT effectiveness. (shrink)

We study the question of $\mathcal {L}_{\mathrm {ring}}$ -definability of non-trivial henselian valuation rings. Building on previous work of Jahnke and Koenigsmann, we provide a characterization of henselian fields that admit a non-trivial definable henselian valuation. In particular, we treat the cases where the canonical henselian valuation has positive residue characteristic, using techniques from the model theory and algebra of tame fields.

Mounting ambitions and capabilities for public and private, non-government sector crewed space exploration bring with them an increasingly diverse set of space travelers, raising new and nontrivial ethical, legal, and medical policy and practice concerns which are still relatively underexplored. In this piece, we lay out several pressing issues related to ethical considerations for selecting space travelers and conducting human subject research on them, especially in the context of non-governmental and commercial/private space operations.

This research draws from three distinct lines of research on the link between emotions and intergroup bias as springboard to integrative, new hypotheses. Past research suggests that emotions extrinsic to the outgroup (or “incidental”), and intrinsic to the outgroup (or “integral”), produce valence-congruent effects on intergroup bias when relevant or “applicable” to the outgroup (e.g., incidental/integral anger and ethnic outgroups). These emotions produce valenceincongruent effects when irrelevant or “non-applicable” to the outgroup (e.g., incidental/integral sadness and happiness, and ethnic outgroups). Internally (...) valid and ecologically sound tests of these contrasting effects are missing; hence we examined them experimentally in meaningful settings of interethnic contact. To this end, we hybridized established research paradigms in mood and intergroup contact research; this approach enabled us to use same materials and induction methods to instigate incidental and integral emotions in a single research design. In Experiment 1, White Australian students (N= 93) inin vivoreal face-to-face contact with an ethnic tutor in their classroom displayed less interethnic bias when incidentally sad (vs. happy) or integrally happy (vs. sad). In Experiment 2, White American males' (N= 492) anti-Arab bias displayed divergent effects under incidental vs. integral (non-applicable) sadness/happiness and similar effects under incidental vs. integral (applicable) anger. The role of perceptions of agency in the emotion-inducing situation is also explored, tested, and explained drawing from mainstream emotion theory. As expected, integral and incidentalapplicableemotions caused valence congruent effects, at the opposite sides of the subjective agency spectrum, by encouraging the generalization of dislike from the outgroup contact partner to the outgroup as a whole. On the other hand, incidental-non-applicable emotions caused valence-incongruent effects on bias, under high agency conditions, by encouraging (non-partner-centered) heuristic processing. Because of the improved methodology, these effects can be regarded as genuine and not the byproduct of methodological artifacts. This theory-driven and empirically sound analysis of the interplay between emotion source, emotion applicability and subjective agency in intergroup contact can increase the precision of emotion-based bias reduction strategies by deepening understanding of the emotion conditions that lead to intergroup bias attenuation vs. exacerbation. (shrink)

Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children’s second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing and discourse. We first compared Polish language skills between bilinguals and their Polish non-migrant monolingual peers, and then investigated the influence of the cumulative exposure to L1 and L2 on bilinguals’ performance. We then examined whether high exposure to L1 could possibly minimize the gap between monolinguals and bilinguals. We (...) analyzed data from 233 typically developing children (88 bilingual, 145 monolingual) aged 4;0 to 7;5 (years; months) on six language measures in Polish: receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, receptive grammar, productive grammar (sentence repetition), phonological processing (non-word repetition) and discourse abilities (narration). Information about language exposure was obtained via parental questionnaires. For each language task, we analyzed the data from the subsample of bilinguals who had completed all the tasks in question and from monolinguals matched one-on-one to the bilingual group on age, SES (measured by years of mother’s education), gender, non-verbal IQ and short term memory. The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in all language domains, except discourse. The group differences were more pronounced on the productive tasks (vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing) and moderate on the receptive tasks (vocabulary and grammar). L1 exposure correlated positively with the vocabulary size and phonological processing. Grammar scores were not related to the levels of L1 exposure, but were predicted by general cognitive abilities. L2 exposure negatively influenced productive grammar in L1, suggesting possible L2 transfer effects on L1 grammatical performance. Children’s narrative skills benefitted from exposure to two languages: both L1 and L2 exposure influenced story structure scores in L1. Importantly, we did not find any evidence (in any of the tasks in which the gap was present) that the performance gap between monolinguals and bilinguals could be fully closed with high amounts of L1 input. (shrink)

According to the new Eurostat’s and Gus’s research, in Poland and in the other European countries the population’s aging process is proceeding. In the researchers’ opinion, the growth of the number of the old causes the constant rise in the demand of health services. Because of that, from among different goods, the health is the most precious to humans. As Kazimierz Szewczyk has correctly established, the health value is high, because it belongs to limited resources. Not all of the (...) medical services are guaranteed by healthcare system, therefore the need of implementing economical rules in the process of allocation of limited health values important. In the opinion of numerous doctors, psychologists and ethics, e.g. Jarosław Derejczyk, Barbara Bień, Janina Kokoszka-Paszkot and Joanna Szczygieł patients who are old belong to disadvantaged group. The patients are not given the priority in access to health benefits, and they are also discrimanated. In this article I am going to enumerate and describe the medical methods, that are used in economical distribution of health care benefits. Later I’ll explain, why during distribution of benefits, the quality of life of old people, and not only their register age, should be taken into consideration. (shrink)

The essential objective of the paper is to demonstrate the complexity of issues related to justice in the medical profession. The author claims that the virtue of justice as the foundation of a good doctor's moral attitude and the concept of justice in allocating medical goods are of primary importance. The most important thesis presented in the paper is that even if the so-called social justice needs to be complied with in the public healthcare system, it has nothing to do (...) with the virtue of justice applicable to the medical profession. The idea of social justice is the foundation of the public healthcare system. However, burdening doctors with the necessity to make decisions about rationing access to medical services increases neither their job satisfaction, nor the well-being of patients. Thus, joint efforts of doctors, economists, ethicists and politicians are required in this area. (shrink)