Ajtai’s completeness theorem roughly states that a countable structure A coded in a model of arithmetic can be end-extended and expanded to a model of a given theory G if and only if a contradiction cannot be derived by a proof from G plus the diagram of A, provided that the proof is definable in A and contains only formulas of a standard length. The existence of such model extensions is closely related to questions in complexity theory. In this paper (...) we give a new proof of Ajtai’s theorem using basic techniques of model theory. (shrink)

In a recent series of papers, Jane Friedman argues that suspended judgment is a sui generis first-order attitude, with a question as its content. In this paper, I offer a critique of Friedman’s project. I begin by responding to her arguments against reductive higher-order propositional accounts of suspended judgment, and thus undercut the negative case for her own view. Further, I raise worries about the details of her positive account, and in particular about her claim that one suspends judgment about (...) some matter if and only if one inquires into this matter. Subsequently, I use conclusions drawn from the preceding discussion to offer a tentative account: S suspends judgment about p iff S believes that she neither believes nor disbelieves that p, S neither believes nor disbelieves that p, and S intends to judge that p or not-p. (shrink)

According to the orthodox view, the goodness of a life depends exclusively on the things that actually happened within it, such as its pleasures and pains, the satisfaction of its subject’s preferences, or the presence of various objective goods and bads. In this paper, I argue that the goodness of a life also depends on what could have happened, but didn’t. I then propose that this view helps us resolve ethical puzzles concerning the standards for a life worth living for (...) animals and the significance of a life’s shape. (shrink)

Replicability is widely regarded as one of the defining features of science and its pursuit is one of the main postulates of meta-research, a discipline emerging in response to the replicability crisis. At the same time, replicability is typically treated with caution by philosophers of science. In this paper, we reassess the value of replicability from an epistemic perspective. We defend the orthodox view, according to which replications are always epistemically useful, against the more prudent view that claims that it (...) is useful in very limited circumstances. Additionally, we argue that we can learn more about the original experiment and the limits of the discovered effect from replications at different levels. We hold that replicability is a crucial feature of experimental results and scientists should continue to strive to secure it. (shrink)

Advocates of moral enhancement through pharmacological, genetic, or other direct interventions sometimes explicitly argue, or assume without argument, that traditional moral education and development is insufficient to bring about moral enhancement. Traditional moral education grounded in a Kohlbergian theory of moral development is indeed unsuitable for that task; however, the psychology of moral development and education has come a long way since then. Recent studies support the view that moral cognition is a higher-order process, unified at a functional level, and (...) that a specific moral faculty does not exist. It is more likely that moral cognition involves a number of different mechanisms, each connected to other cognitive and affective processes. Taking this evidence into account, we propose a novel, empirically informed approach to moral development and education, in children and adults, which is based on a cognitive-affective approach to moral dispositions. This is an interpretative approach that derives from the cognitive-affective personality system (Mischel and Shoda, 1995). This conception individuates moral dispositions by reference to the cognitive and affective processes that realise them. Conceived of in this way, moral dispositions influence an agent's behaviour when they interact with situational factors, such as mood or social context. Understanding moral dispositions in this way lays the groundwork for proposing a range of indirect methods of moral enhancement, techniques that promise similar results as direct interventions whilst posing fewer risks. (shrink)

In recent decades, societal perceptions about sexuality have undergone immense changes, which in turn led to substantial reform of states’ criminal regulation of sexual misconduct. Traditional Angl...

Recent progress in geroscience holds the promise of significantly slowing down or even reversing ageing and age-related diseases, and thus increasing our healthspans. In this paper, I offer a novel argument in favour of developing such technology and making it unconditionally available to everyone. In particular, I argue that justice requires that each person be provided with sufficient opportunities to have a ‘complete life’, that many people currently lack such opportunities, and that we would substantially improve the status quo by (...) giving them access to anti-ageing technology. (shrink)

Unlike human soldiers, autonomous weapons systems are unaffected by psychological factors that would cause them to act outside the chain of command. This is a compelling moral justification for their development and eventual deployment in war. To achieve this level of sophistication, the software that runs AWS will have to first solve two problems: the frame problem and the representation problem. Solutions to these problems will inevitably involve complex software. Complex software will create security risks and will make AWS critically (...) vulnerable to hacking. I claim that the political and tactical consequences of hacked AWS far outweigh the purported advantages of AWS not being affected by psychological factors and always following orders. Therefore, one of the moral justifications for the deployment of AWS is undermined. (shrink)

Despite the fact that Husserl did not write a book on aesthetics, it is widely accepted that a Husserlian aesthetics can be developed from his writings. In this article, I describe and analyze a feature of Husserlian aesthetics which I call the “radical individuality of the aesthetic object.” This radical individuality stems from Husserl’s interpretation of aesthetic consciousness in terms of the neutrality modification. I make the case for a radical reading of the neutrality modification by contrasting it with the (...) inactuality modification and the notion of foundation and I argue that the neutrality modification must be kept distinct from these concepts. I further describe the concept of the radical individuality of the aesthetic object by reference to Ingarden’s notion of the aesthetic object as monosubjective. The thesis of the radical individuality of the aesthetic object prima facie leads Husserlian aesthetics close to axiological relativism expressed in the adage that de gustibus non est disputandum. I explain that despite such proximity, Husserlian aesthetics does not entail an axiological relativism and does not preclude discussions concerning aesthetic values. On the contrary, Husserlian aesthetics ultimately shows that such discussions are necessary for keeping the possibility of aesthetic perception itself alive, and thereby encourages such discussions. I conclude with a practical demonstration of the results of my Husserlian analyses by critically engaging some aspects of Proust’s theory of art in À la recherche du temps perdu. (shrink)

Epistemic consequentialism has been challenged on the grounds that it is overly demanding. According to the Epistemic Junk Problem, this view implies that we are often required to believe junk propositions such as ‘the Great Bear Lake is the largest lake entirely in Canada’ and long disjunctions of things we already believe. According to the Numerosity Problem, this view implies that we are frequently required to have an enormous number of beliefs. This paper puts forward a novel version of epistemic (...) consequentialism which avoids these twin demandingness problems. The key is to recognise, first, that the final epistemic value of a true belief depends at least in part on the duration for which it is retained by the agent and, second, that our cognitive makeup places important constraints on which beliefs are retained and for how long. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists refer to the special character of phenomenal consciousness, something supposedly obvious to all conscious persons. However, we had no empirical evidence about the folk view of consciousness until the first studies were carried out in the experimental philosophy of consciousness. According to the leading interpretation of these results, laypersons—people without academic knowledge about consciousness—do not notice the phenomenal aspect of consciousness. The aim of the article is to answer the question of whether we can trust these results. (...) I show that there are serious doubts about the validity of the experimental philosophy of consciousness research. As a result, the leading interpretation should be rejected, and the question about the folk nature of the concept of consciousness must be regarded as open. (shrink)

This book stands at the intersection of two topics: the decidability and computational complexity of hybrid logics, and the deductive systems designed for them. Hybrid logics are here divided into two groups: standard hybrid logics involving nominals as expressions of a separate sort, and non-standard hybrid logics, which do not involve nominals but whose expressive power matches the expressive power of binder-free standard hybrid logics.The original results of this book are split into two parts. This division reflects the division of (...) the book itself. The first type of results concern model-theoretic and complexity properties of hybrid logics. Since hybrid logics which we call standard are quite well investigated, the efforts focused on hybrid logics referred to as non-standard in this book. Non-standard hybrid logics are understood as modal logics with global counting operators ) whose expressive power matches the expressive power of binder-free standard hybrid logics. The relevant results comprise: 1. Establishing a sound and complete axiomatization for the modal logic K with global counting operators ), which can be easily extended onto other frame classes, 2. Establishing tight complexity bounds, namely NExpTime-completeness for the modal logic with global counting operators defined over the classes of arbitrary, reflexive, symmetric, serial and transitive frames ), MT), MD), MB), MK4) with numerical subscripts coded in binary. Establishing the exponential-size model property for this logic defined over the classes of Euclidean and equivalential frames ), MS5).Results of the second type consist of designing concrete deductive systems for standard and non-standard hybrid logics. More precisely, they include: 1. Devising a prefixed and an internalized tableau calculi which are sound, complete and terminating for a rich class of binder-free standard hybrid logics. An interesting feature of indicated calculi is the nonbranching character of the rule, 2. Devising a prefixed and an internalized tableau calculi which are sound, complete and terminating for non-standard hybrid logics. The internalization technique applied to a tableau calculus for the modal logic with global counting operators is novel in the literature, 3. Devising the first hybrid algorithm involving an inequality solver for modal logics with global counting operators. Transferring the arithmetical part of reasoning to an inequality solver turned out to be sufficient in ensuring termination.The book is directed to philosophers and logicians working with modal and hybrid logics, as well as to computer scientists interested in deductive systems and decision procedures for logics. Extensive fragments of the first part of the book can also serve as an introduction to hybrid logics for wider audience interested in logic.The content of the book is situated in the areas of formal logic and theoretical computer science with some elements of the theory of computational complexity. (shrink)

The article is an attempt at explaining the category of logical form used by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus logico-philosophicus by using concepts from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s The Monadology. There are many similarities and analogies between those works, and the key concept for them is the category of the inner and acknowledged importance of consideration based on basic categories of thinking about the world. The Leibnizian prospect allows for a broader look at Wittgenstein’s analysis of the relation between propositions and (...) facts, between language and the world. Using the Hanoverian philosopher’s terminology allows for the demonstration of the ambivalence of the concept of logical form in the philosophy of Wittgenstein and also the metaphysical nature of his first book. (shrink)

Connections between partially ordered connectives and Henkin quantifiers are considered. It is proved that the logic with all partially ordered connectives and the logic with all Henkin quantifiers coincide. This implies that the hierarchy of partially ordered connectives is strongly hierarchical and gives several nondefinability results between some of them. It is also deduced that each Henkin quantifier can be defined by a quantifier of the form equation imagewhat is a strengthening of the Walkoe result. MSC: 03C80.

Quality Space Theory is a holistic model of qualitative states. On this view, individual mental qualities are defined by their locations in a space of relations, which reflects a similar space of relations among perceptible properties. This paper offers an extension of Quality Space Theory to temporal perception. Unconscious segmentation of events, the involvement of early sensory areas, and asymmetries of dominance in multi-modal perception of time are presented as evidence for the view.

Spearman’s Law of Diminishing Returns holds that correlation between general /fluid intelligence factor and other cognitive abilities weakens with increasing ability level. Thus, cognitive processing in low ability people is most strongly saturated by g/gf, whereas processing in high ability people depends less on g/gf. Numerous studies demonstrated that low g is more strongly correlated with crystallized intelligence/creativity/processing speed than is high g, however no study tested an analogous effect in the case of working memory. Our aim was to investigate (...) SLODR for the relationship between Gf and WM capacity, using a large data set from our own previous studies. We tested alternative regression models separately for three types of WM tasks that tapped short-term memory storage, attention control, and relational integration, respectively. No significant SLODR effect was found for any of these tasks. Each task shared with Gf virtually the same amount of variance in the case of low- and high-ability people. This result suggests that Gf and WM rely on one and the same cognitive mechanism. (shrink)

Vision is inseparably connected to perceptual awareness which can be seen as the culmination of sensory processing. Studies on conscious vision reveal that object recognition is just one of the means through which our representation of the world is built. We propose an operationalization of subjective experience in the context of deep neural networks (DNNs) that could encourage a more thorough comparison of human and artificial vision.

Engineering an artificial intelligence to play an advisory role in morally charged decision making will inevitably introduce meta-ethical positions into the design. Some of these positions, by informing the design and operation of the AI, will introduce risks. This paper offers an analysis of these potential risks along the realism/anti-realism dimension in metaethics and reveals that realism poses greater risks, but, on the other hand, anti-realism undermines the motivation for engineering a moral AI in the first place.

Fazekas and Overgaard () present a novel, multidimensional model that explains different ways in which conscious representations can be degraded. Moreover, the authors discuss possible mechanisms that underlie different kinds of degradation, primarily those related to attentional processing. In this letter, we argue that the proposed mechanisms are not sufficient. We propose that attentional mechanisms work differently at various processing stages; and factors that are independent of attentional ones, such as expectation, previous experience, and context, should be accounted for if (...) we are aiming to construct a comprehensive model of conscious visual perception. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an account of the dependence relation between perception of change and the subjective flow of time that is consistent with some extant empirical evidence from priming by unconscious change. This view is inspired by the one offered by William James, but it is articulated in the framework of contemporary functionalist accounts of mental qualities and higher-order theories of consciousness. An additional advantage of this account of the relationship between perception of change and subjective time is (...) that is makes sense of instances where we are not consciously aware of changes but still experience the flow of time. (shrink)

My preoccupation with witnessing mutated through several phases before it turned into the book you are holding. It germinated while I was writing my PhD dissertation at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University, when the gulf between the theory of testimony that so enchanted contemporary thinking around the ethics of memory on the one hand, and the humanitarian practice of witnessing I was studying on the other, first struck me as (...) philosophically awkward and politically suspect. (shrink)

Definite descriptions are widely discussed in linguistics and formal semantics, but their formal treatment in logic is surprisingly modest. In this article we present a sound, complete, and cut-free tableau calculus TCRλ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\textbf{TC}}_{R_{\lambda }}$$\end{document} for the logic LRλ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\textbf{L}}_{R_{\lambda }}$$\end{document} being a formalisation of a Russell-style theory of definite descriptions with the iota-operator used to construct definite descriptions, the lambda-operator forming predicate-abstracts, and definite descriptions (...) as genuine terms with a restricted right of residence. We show that in this setting we are able to overcome problems typical of Russell’s original theory, such as scoping difficulties or undesired inconsistencies. We prove the Craig interpolation property for the proposed theory, which, through the Beth definability property, allows us to check whether an individual constant from a signature has a definite description-counterpart under a given theory. (shrink)

In my dissertation I critically survey existing theories of time consciousness, and draw on recent work in neuroscience and philosophy to develop an original theory. My view depends on a novel account of temporal perception based on the notion of temporal qualities, which are mental properties that are instantiated whenever we detect change in the environment. When we become aware of these temporal qualities in an appropriate way, our conscious experience will feature the distinct temporal phenomenology that is associated with (...) the passing of time. The temporal qualities model of perception makes two predictions about the mechanisms of time perception; one that time perception is modality specific and the other that it can occur without awareness. My argument for this view partially depends on a number of psychophysical experiments that I designed and implemented myself and which investigate subjective time distortions caused by looming visual stimuli. These results show that the mechanisms of conscious experience of time are distinct from the mechanisms of time perception, as my theory of temporal qualities predicts. (shrink)

This study examined individual differences in spatial abilities of architecture students. Students at different educational levels were assessed on spatial ability tests that varied in their domain-specificity to architecture, with the hypothesis that larger differences between beginner and advanced students will emerge on more domain-specific tests. We also investigated gender differences in test performance and controlled for general reasoning ability across analyses. In a cross sectional study, master students (N= 91) outperformed beginners (N= 502) on two novel tests involving perspective (...) taking and object composition, as well as on a standardized visualization of cross-sections test, but not on a standardized mental rotations test. Longitudinally (N= 117), spatial performance improved after the first bachelor year on visualization of cross-sections, object composition and mental rotation. Although both genders showed higher spatial test performance with increased experience, male students outperformed females across tests and levels of education. The results overall confirmed improvements in spatial performance during architecture studies, with partial support for the domain-specificity hypothesis. A gender gap among advanced students calls for further examining architecture-specific spatial thinking. (shrink)

Esej jest próbą rozważenia problemu zła w polityce. Punktem wyjścia są refleksje polityczne B. Pascala i M. Montaigne. Historia filozofii służy tutaj do konceptualizacji problemów aktualnych i w gruncie rzeczy nieprzemijających. Namysł nad źródłami władzy i legitymizacją państwa okazuje się uniwersalną medytacją dotyczącą ludzkiego losu i wolności w obliczu egzystencjalnych zagrożeń. Raison d’État and Rationale of Appearances. An Essay on the Roots of Evil in Politics This essay attempts to weigh in on the problem of evil in politics. The starting (...) point follows the political reflections of B. Pascal and M. Montaigne. Here, the history of philosophy is used to conceptualize the problems of the present and, in fact, those that are enduring. Thinking about the sources of power and a state’s legitimacy proves to be a universal meditation on human destiny and freedom when challenged by existential threats. (shrink)

The question of the principle of individuation in current analytical philosophy was the subject of medieval discussions, too, in which not only similar proposals of solutions emerged, but also dilemmas invoked by the set of then-discussed proposals appeared. Duns Scotus criticizes the previous theories of individuation and suggests that the difficulties could be avoided by changing the viewpoint from the categorical-quiditative to the transcendental-modal understanding of the principle of individuation. Scotus’ solution is close to the theory of naked substrates, because (...) the substrate and “thisness” act as individuators with modal character. From the relecture of Scotus’ modal understanding of the principle of individuation may arise inspirations that need to be considered in comparison with modern analytical theories of individuation and thus they can be enriched. (shrink)

This text presents relations between Horacy’s Carmina III 16 and two short parts The important Mission of His Grace Duke Krzysztof Zbaraski Samuel from Skrzypna Twardowski. Author tries to present the role of the lyric text in the long epic story. Very important is a role of Jan Kochanowski’s Song II 4. He unites mythological and Horatian themes Danae and gold. In the Iwardowski’s text exists myth in the Kochanowski’s version. Twardowski alludes to situation at the Turkey’s court and emperors (...) love of gold, because he describes duke’s visit, presents dangerous situation of legate and behaviour of Turkey ruler. In The important Mission author carries on an intertekstual game with the reader, he directs him to mythological, Horatian and Kochanowski’s texts. He is going to presents behaviour type of ruler. (shrink)

Artykuł przedstawia problemy, jakie wywołało zniszczenie w 1944 roku manuskryptu zawierającego sporządzoną pod kontrolą autora kopię dzieła Wojna domowa z Kozaki i Tatary Samuela Twardowskiego. Dla części pierwszej dzieła podstawą edycji musi być wydana pod kontrolą autora edycja części pierwszej z roku 1660. Dla części II–IV edycja kaliska skorygowana notatkami Alojzego Kowalkowskiego. Edycja kaliska, jako że została przez kaliskich jezuitów ocenzurowana dla potrzeb edukacji prowadzonej w kolegiach zakonu, nie może stanowić samodzielnie podstawy nowego wydania. Dysponujemy jedynie notatkami Alojzego Kowalkowskiego, który (...) przed II wojną światową zestawił manuskrypt z edycją kaliską. Ponieważ poszczególne egzemplarze edycji kaliskiej różnią się, należy ustalić relacje między nimi. Nie wiemy ponadto czy spalony manuskrypt był podstawą edycji kaliskiej, czy też istnieje odpis dzieła, z którego wprost korzystali drukarze jezuiccy. W archiwum diecezjalnym w Pelplinie zachowały się notatki Kowalkowskiego, które mogą być odręcznym odpisem albo zaginionego manuskryptu, albo edycji kaliskiej. Czy gdyby były odpisem manuskryptu, mogą stać się podstawą nowego wydania części II–IV utworu? (shrink)

Rzeczywistość przyrodnicza poznawana jest dzięki metodom empirycznym. Jej tajemnice odkrywane są w dużym zakresie dzięki rozwojowi ich metodologii. Formułowane są hipotezy i tworzone teorie wyjaśniające odkrywane zjawiska. Jednakże w tym uporządkowanym świecie pojawiają się i takie zdarzenia, których wystąpienie ma charakter przypadkowy. Z tej racji zostanie zastosowana filozoficzna koncepcja przypadku wypracowana przez Grzegorza Bugajaka i przewidziana przez niego do analizy treści teorii naukowych oraz klasyfikacji zdarzeń przypadkowych. Zostanie ukazana użyteczność tej koncepcji w obszarze ochrony środowiska. W tym celu na początku (...) zaprezentowana zostanie treść propozycji Bugajaka, a następnie omówione będą okoliczności pojawiania się w przyrodzie zjawisk przypadkowych, rodzących dylematy poznawcze u przyrodników. Podjęte analizy zostaną zilustrowane konkretnymi przykładami. W rezultacie wskazane zostaną te sposoby interpretacji przypadku z koncepcji Bugajaka, które mogą okazać się przydatne w pracach ekologów. -------------- Zgłoszono: 05/08/2020. Zrecenzowano: 16/10/2020. Zaakceptowano do publikacji: 24/11/2020. (shrink)

Celem niniejszych rozważań jest zarysowanie nowego podejścia w analizowaniu, czym jest normatywność. Po pierwsze wskazuję na miejsce problemu normatywności we współczesnej filozofii, koncentrując się sporze pomiędzy naturalizmem i antynaturalizmem. Następnie omawiam tzw. odgórną drogę w badaniu normatywności, którą przeciwstawiam inspirowanej przez współczesną filozofię nauki, drodze oddolnej. W integracji podejścia odgórnego i oddolnego upatruję możliwość takiego badania zjawisk normatywnych, które nie będzie ich redukowało do jednego z rodzajów normatywności.

After the US Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, a number of states have immediately banned abortion. Pro-choice activists are responding by promoting medication abortions – a do-it-yourself form of abortion. Women can take pills at home to induce an abortion in the first few weeks of pregnancy. -/- The Biden Administration [1] has backed the abortion pill, too. Attorney-General Merrick B. Garland and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra both issued statements endorsing it. -/- “We stand ready (...) to work with other arms of the federal government that seek to use their lawful authorities to protect and preserve access to reproductive care,” said the Attorney-General. “In particular, the F.D.A. has approved the use of the medication mifepristone. States may not ban mifepristone based on disagreement with the F.D.A.’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy.” -/- As the New York Times [1] has noted, this sets the scene for legal battles. The obvious one is: will anti-abortion states prosecute medication abortions? -/- But – based on experience in the United Kingdom - the use of the abortion pill could give pro-life doctors headaches as well. -/- In the past year, UK has witnessed the saga of two Catholic doctors who have been brought in front of the professional regulator, the General Medical Council, after accusations of professional misconduct. Their crime? They had supplied abortion pill reversal (APR) treatment to women. Accusations of this misconduct have been brought forward by pro-choice organisations [2]. -/- The problem is that some women might panic when they discover that they are pregnant or are pressured to make a rash decision. They obtain abortion pills, often without seeing a doctor faceto- face, and soon after taking the first pill, they regret their decision. -/- Is it too late for them to save their pregnancy? Not necessarily. -/- A treatment developed in the US works about half the time. It involves the woman taking progesterone after the first abortion pill to counteract the abortifacient action of the drug. -/- Seventy-three women in the UK are reported to have taken a full APR course, of whom, 38 – more than half — successfully remained pregnant. Admittedly, the procedure is controversial [3], with pro-choice writers denouncing it as unproven, unscientific, and unethical. This has triggered some healthcare practitioners and scholars to analyse the commitments of the pro-choice movement to APR. In a recently published paper in The New Bioethics [4], two colleagues, Dominic Whitehouse and Steven Bow, and I argue that those espousing a pro-choice worldview should actually support abortion pill reversal and that the current evidence indicates that they should actually be doing it. -/- While some pro-choice activists might be happy simply to expand women’s reproductive choices, some might also want to ensure that these choices are safe and effective at achieving the desired outcome, which in principle includes maintaining a pregnancy. -/- We then review the scientific evidence with respect to the ability of APR to halt an abortion, look at the potential impact of APR on mental health, as well as its procedural safety. While highlighting that gold-standard evidence is lacking, we note that APR is associated with about two times higher rate of embryo survival compared to not completing the full early medical abortion course, that there is large agreement in the literature that women who are ambiguous about abortion are at risk of poorer mental health outcomes after abortion (and argue that women who request APR fall into this category), and highlight that there is no evidence that APR is more dangerous than abandoning an initiated early medical abortion. -/- The latter fact is important, as the results of the only randomised-controlled trial of APR have been at times misrepresented in the media [5.6], creating the impression that APR is not safe while most of the adverse effects occurred in the study group that did not receive APR. As our paper argues, with respect to APR the two UK doctors were “champions of women’s choice and should be congratulated, not condemned, by pro-choice advocates”. -/- While the cases against the two doctors have now been dropped (and there have even been accusations against a member of one of these pro-choice organisations that they pressurised a patient into complaining about one of the doctors and twisted the patient’s experience of the treatment [7]), we argue that it is important to set-up systems to facilitate the future provision of APR to protect both patients and healthcare staff. -/- Our conclusion is that, while being open to any change in evidence, those espousing a pro-choice outlook should “support calls for an APR framework that will protect women and the healthcare professionals caring for them” “and certainly not oppose” APR. -/- The debate over abortion pill reversal will be heading to the United States soon. It is quite possible that it will be denounced as dangerous misinformation. It’s not. But pro-life defenders should be prepared to defend their ground. -/- This article was first published by Mercatornet. (shrink)

W państwach, które określają się demokratycznymi, są takie cykliczne momenty, które mobilizują sporą część społeczeństwa. Mobilizacja ta widoczna jest w różnych obszarach, które dotyczą przestrzeni publicznej: w jednostkach samorządu terytorialnego, w organach władzy samorządowej i centralnej, w środkach społecznego przekazu, we wspólnotach religijnych itd. Ta pewnego rodzaju „nadaktywność” wynika z tego, iż w porządku demokratycznym władze są wybierane przez lud poprzez akt wyborczy. Doświadczenie życiowe oraz przykład polskiej demokracji po 1989 r. pokazuje, iż powyższe założenia w przeważającej części nie zawsze (...) są realizowane. Można jednak mówić o przynajmniej dwóch niepożądanych działaniach kandydatów w ramach kampanii wyborczej: obietnicach wyborczych i korupcji wyborczej. Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie problematyki dotyczącej korupcji wyborczej w świetle etyki personalistycznej. Wybór, pomimo że subiektywny, wydaje się uzasadniony z tego powodu, iż personalizm dotyka kwestii problemów społeczno-politycznych z perspektywy koncepcji dobra wspólnego. (shrink)

V roce 2007 byla siru Terrymu Pratchettovi, proslulému autorovi fantastických románů, diagnostikovaná vzácná forma Alzheimerovy choroby. Terry Pratchett se rozhodl nečekat, až jej nemoc umoří se všemi neblahými průvodními jevy, a stal se jedním z nejvlivnějších proponentů eutanázie. V článku nabízím rekonstrukci Pratchettovy argumentace, kterou předložil roku 2010 v rámci přednáškového cyklu The Richard Dimbleby Lecture. Terry Pratchett se explicitně vyrovnává se třemi známými argumenty vůči asistované smrti – Care or Killing argumentem, argumentem z vynucené eutanázie a Božím argumentem. Po (...) odmítnutí každého z nich dospívá k závěru, že neexistuje rozumný důvod, proč by nemohl zemřít za okolností, které si zvolí, a přisvojuje si na asistovanou smrt právo. Toto chápání smrti jako něčeho, na co má člověk právo, mě inspiruje ke dvěma úvahám: Za prvé, pokud uznáme právo na asistovanou smrt, proč neexistuje stejně rozsáhlá diskuze hájit práva sebevrahů? Terry Pratchett důsledně odmítá mluvit o sebevraždě, ovšem jeho východiska pro přijetí asistované smrti jsou aplikovatelná i na případ vlastní terminace bez lékařské pomoci z jiných než zdravotních důvodů. Za druhé, jak by měla vypadat právní úprava praxe asistované smrti a z jakých odborníků by měl být složený orgán, posuzující jednotlivé případy? Závěry Terryho Pratchetta implikují, že v takovém orgánu by bylo místo pro uplatnění morálních filosofů. (shrink)

The author of article proves that in the era of the globalization the institutional order of national economy is influenced by the distorted competition which results in domination of the managers and technicians of great corporations. It is their businesses that define the economic policy. In the world of asymmetric information, oligopolistic competition, political market and progressive commercialization of the axiological sphere the rules of thinking and acting are merely reduced to the strategy of self-advantage. This situation results in ineffective (...) institutional protection at the global, regional and national levels. To remove social inequalities effectively it is necessary to have control over the dominating groups in society and to develop coherent norms of institutional protection. There is also a need for the development of human capital and its modernization as a common notion of moral values of society and the individual. (shrink)

Many people believe that it is better to extend the length of a happy life than to create a new happy life, even if the total welfare is the same in both cases. Despite the popularity of this view, one would be hard-pressed to find a fully compelling justification for it in the literature. This paper develops a novel account of why and when extension is better than replacement that applies not just to persons but also to non-human animals and (...) humanity as a whole. (shrink)