Psychiatry is rapidly adopting digital phenotyping and artificial intelligence/machine learning tools to study mental illness based on tracking participants’ locations, online activity, phone and text message usage, heart rate, sleep, physical activity, and more. Existing ethical frameworks for return of individual research results (IRRs) are inadequate to guide researchers for when, if, and how to return this unprecedented number of potentially sensitive results about each participant’s real-world behavior. To address this gap, we convened an interdisciplinary expert working group, supported by (...) a National Institute of Mental Health grant. Building on established guidelines and the emerging norm of returning results in participant-centered research, we present a novel framework specific to the ethical, legal, and social implications of returning IRRs in digital phenotyping research. Our framework offers researchers, clinicians, and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) urgently needed guidance, and the principles developed here in the context of psychiatry will be readily adaptable to other therapeutic areas. (shrink)

In response to growing concerns of bias, discrimination, and unfairness perpetuated by algorithmic systems, the datasets used to train and evaluate machine learning models have come under increased scrutiny. Many of these examinations have focused on the contents of machine learning datasets, finding glaring underrepresentation of minoritized groups. In contrast, relatively little work has been done to examine the norms, values, and assumptions embedded in these datasets. In this work, we conceptualize machine learning datasets as a type of informational infrastructure, (...) and motivate a genealogy as method in examining the histories and modes of constitution at play in their creation. We present a critical history of ImageNet as an exemplar, utilizing critical discourse analysis of major texts around ImageNet’s creation and impact. We find that assumptions around ImageNet and other large computer vision datasets more generally rely on three themes: the aggregation and accumulation of more data, the computational construction of meaning, and making certain types of data labor invisible. By tracing the discourses that surround this influential benchmark, we contribute to the ongoing development of the standards and norms around data development in machine learning and artificial intelligence research. (shrink)

Hermeneutical injustice, as a species of epistemic injustice, is when members of marginalized groups are unable to make their experiences communicatively intelligible due to a deficiency in collective hermeneutical resources, where this deficiency is traditionally interpreted as a lack of concepts. Against this understanding, this paper argues that even if adequate concepts that describe marginalized groups’ experiences are available within the collective hermeneutical resources, hermeneutical injustice can persist. This paper offers an analysis of how this can happen by introducing the (...) notion of hermeneutical excess: the introduction of additional concepts into collective hermeneutical resources that function to obscure agents’ understanding of the lived experiences of marginalized groups. The injustice of hermeneutical excesses happens not due to hermeneutical marginalization (the exclusion of members of marginalized groups from the construction of hermeneutical resources), but rather hermeneutical domination: when members of dominant groups have been inappropriately included in the construction of hermeneutical resources. By taking as exemplary cases the concepts of “reverse racism” and “non-consensual sex” this paper shows how such excesses are introduced as a kind of defensive strategy used by dominant ideologies precisely when progress with social justice is made. (shrink)

All people have human rights and, intuitively, there is a close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy. The two main theories about the natureand value of human rights often fail to account for this connection. Interest theories, on which rights protect individuals’ important interests, usually fail to capturethe close relationship between human rights and autonomy; autonomy is not constitutive of the interests human rights protect. Will theories, on which human rights protect individuals’ autonomy, cannot explain why the nonautonomous have (...) a human right to meet their needs. This paper argues that it is possible to account for the close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy if human rights at least protect individuals’ ability to live minimally good lives. It argues that people need whatever will enable them to live such lives and autonomy is partly constitutive of such a life. This argument also has importantimplications for some other key debates in the human rights literature. (shrink)

While prior ecolabel research suggests that consumers’ trust of ecolabel sponsors is associated with their purchase of ecolabeled products, we know little about how third-party certification might relate to consumer purchases when trust varies. Drawing on cognitive theory and a stratified random sample of more than 1200 consumers, we assess how third-party certification relates to consumers’ use of ecolabels across different program sponsors. We find that consumers’ trust of government and environmental NGOs to provide credible environmental information encourages consumers’ use (...) of ecolabels sponsored by these entities, and consumers do not differentiate between certified versus uncertified ecolabels in the presence of trust. By contrast, consumers’ distrust of private business to provide credible environmental information discourages their use of business association-sponsored ecolabels. However, these ecolabels may be able to overcome consumer distrust if their sponsors certify the ecolabels using third-party auditors. These findings are important to sponsors who wish develop ecolabels that are more credible to consumers, and thus encourage more widespread ecolabel use. (shrink)

The 'ethics of deconstruction'? -- Ethical (im)possibilities -- Ethics under erasure -- Ethical experience : a cinematic example.

Increasingly, functional and evolutionary research has highlighted the important contribution emotion processing makes to complex human social cognition. As such, it may be asked whether neural structures involved in emotion processing, commonly referred to as limbic structures, have been impacted in human brain evolution. To address this question, we performed an extensive evolutionary analysis of multiple limbic structures using modern phylogenetic tools. For this analysis, we combined new volumetric data for the hominoid (human and ape) amygdala and 4 amygdaloid nuclei, (...) hippocampus, and striatum, collected using stereological methods in complete histological series, with previously published datasets on the amygdala, orbital and medial frontal cortex, and insula, as well as a non-limbic structure, the dorsal frontal cortex, for contrast. We performed a parallel analysis using large published datasets including many anthropoid species (human, ape, and monkey), but fewer hominoids, for the amygdala and 2 amygdaloid subdivisions, hippocampus, schizocortex, striatum, and septal nuclei. To address evolutionary change, we compared observed human values to values predicted from regressions run through a) nonhuman hominoids and b) nonhuman anthropoids, assessing phylogenetic influence using phylogenetic generalized least squares regression.Compared with other hominoids, the volumes of the hippocampus, the lateral nucleus of the amygdala, and the orbital frontal cortex were, respectively, 50%, 37%, and 11% greater in humans than predicted for an ape of human hemisphere volume, while the medial and dorsal frontal cortex were, respectively, 26% and 29% significantly smaller. Compared with other anthropoids, only human values for the striatum fell significantly below predicted values. Overall, the data present support for the idea that regions involved in emotion processing are not necessarily conserved or regressive, but may even be enhanced in recent human evolution. (shrink)

In this paper, we locate a general rhetorical strategy employed in theoretical discourse wherein philosophers argue from the mere existence of internalized oppression to some kind of epistemic, moral, political, or cognitive deficiency of oppressed people. We argue that this strategy has harmful consequences for oppressed people, breaking down our analysis in terms of individual and structural harms within both epistemic and moral domains. These harms include attempting to undermine the self-trust of oppressed people, reinforcing unjust epistemic power hierarchies, undermining (...) the moral agency of oppressed people, and obscuring real issues of oppression. In light of these many harms, we conclude that there are pro tanto reasons not to employ this strategy, and instead offer a series of suggestions for those considering adopting such a rhetorical move. (shrink)

Researchers seeking to engage in projects related to Tribal communities and their citizens, lands, and non-human relatives are responsible for understanding and abiding by each Tribal nation’s research laws and review processes. Few studies, however, have described the many diverse forms of Tribal research review systems across the United States (US). This study provides one of the most comprehensive examinations of research review processes administered by Tribal Research Review Boards (TRRBs) in the US. Through a systematic analysis, we consider TRRBs’ (...) online presence, online documentation, and themes across documents, for five entity types: Tribal nations and Tribal consortiums, Tribal colleges and universities, Tribal health organizations, Indian Health Services, and other Tribal organizations. Results include an assessment of online presence for 98 potential TRRBs, identification of 118 publicly available online documents, and analysis of 41 themes across four document types: Tribal research codes and TRRBs’ guidelines, applications, and post-approval documents. Altogether, this research provides a macro-level analysis of the most common types of TRRBs in the US in an effort to increase researchers’ understanding of these important processes as they prepare to ethically engage Tribal communities in research. These results aim to empower Tribal decision makers as they align their TRRBs’ online visibility and documentation with community priorities and strengthen their protections for the rights and wellbeing of their citizens and community. Ultimately, by expanding our knowledge of TRRBs across the US, this contribution seeks to uphold Tribal sovereignty in research and promote ethical approaches to research with Indigenous communities. (shrink)

Adopting a broadly compatibilist approach, this volume's authors argue that the behavioral and mind sciences do not threaten the moral foundations of legal responsibility. Rather, these sciences provide fresh insight into human agency and updated criteria as well as powerful diagnostic and intervention tools for assessing and altering minds.

:How should consumers exercise their basic economic powers? Recently, several authors have argued that consumption to bring about social change must be democratic. Others maintain that we may consume in ways that we believe promote positive change. This paper rejects both accounts and provides a new alternative. It argues that, under just institutions, people may consume as they like as long as they respect the institutions’ rules. Absent just institutions, significant moral constraints on consumption exist. Still, it is permissible, if (...) not obligatory, for people to pursue non-democratic, genuinely positive, change within whatever moral constraints exist. (shrink)

The prospect of European elections has begun to alter the conditions under which national poli tical parties exercise their functions. It has brought parties to negociate common platforms and to strengthen transnational organizations. How these organizations wilt be structured, what functions they wilt assume, will be determined largely by the issue of a conflict-solving process between existing national structures, by the ability of national parties to accomplish new functions in a European system, and by the demands of that system.This study (...) presents a tentative framework of analysis for the examination of European groupings of political parties. It may help to interpret current negotiations and future actions of these organizations with reference to the criteria, structures and functions that are classically those of political parties. It suggests how new situations in the European field may be met by existing organizations or give rise to original political answers. (shrink)

Previous research has demonstrated that reversing the contrast of the eye region, which includes the eyebrows, affects the N170 ERP. To selectively assess the impact of just the eyes, the present study evaluated the N170 in response to reversing contrast polarity of just the iris and sclera in upright and inverted face stimuli. Contrast reversal of the eyes increased the amplitude of the N170 for upright faces, but not for inverted faces, suggesting that the contrast of eyes is an important (...) contributor to the N170 ERP. (shrink)

mHealth refers to the rapidly evolving use of mobile devices for health care treatment purposes, particularly the use of apps and texting as adjuncts to psychotherapy. Although there is currently an extensive literature on issues related to telehealth, to date little guidance has been developed to help professionals function ethically in the rapidly emerging area of mHealth. This article identifies the major ethical considerations that need attention and proposes several recommendations to address mHealth use as an adjunct to psychotherapy, including (...) the pressing need for relevant American Psychological Association practice guidelines to assist mental health providers in the ethical implementation of mHealth. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe analogy between gift‐giving and organ donation was first suggested at the beginning of the transplantation era, when policy makers and legislators were promoting voluntary organ donation as the preferred procurement procedure. It was believed that the practice of gift‐giving had some features which were also thought to be necessary to ensure that an organ procurement procedure would be morally acceptable, namely voluntarism and altruism. Twenty‐five years later, the analogy between gift‐giving and organ donation is still being made in the (...) literature and used in organ donation awareness campaigns. In this paper I want to challenge this analogy. By examining a range of circumstances in which gift‐giving occurs, I argue that the significant differences between the various types of gift‐giving and organ donation makes any analogy between the two very general and superficial, and I suggest that a more appropriate analogy can be found elsewhere. (shrink)

One way in which information about the unknown is socialized to children is through adult testimony. Sharing false testimony about others with children may foster inaccurate perceptions and may result in prejudicially based divisions amongst children. As part of a larger study, mothers were instructed to read and discuss an illustrated story about Arab-Muslim refugees from Syria with their 6- to 8-year-olds. Parent-child discourse during two pages of this book was examined for how mothers used Islam as a talking point. (...) Results indicated that only 50% of mothers and 13% of children shared accurate testimony about Islam. However, while 35% of children admitted uncertainty in their knowledge, only 3% of mothers admitted uncertainty. These results highlight the importance of parents sharing the confidence in their knowledge. If parents teach inaccurate information about other religions, it may create a greater divide between children of different religious backgrounds. (shrink)

Attention is necessary for the conscious perception of any object. Objects not attended to are not seen. What is it that captures attention when we are engaged in some attention-absorbing task? Earlier research has shown that there are only a very few stimuli which have this power and therefore are reliably detected under these conditions . The two most reliable are the observer’s own name and a happy face icon which seem to capture attention by virtue of their meaning. Three (...) experiments are described which explore whether these stimuli are detected under conditions, heretofore unexamined, which either cause inattentional blindness or are associated with a perceptual failure associated with the limits of attention. The evidence obtained indicates that these stimuli have a unique capacity to capture and extend the limits of attention under conditions in which this has been deemed highly unlikely. (shrink)

Recent studies reveal some of the neurophysiological mechanisms involved in drug addiction. This prompts some theorists to claim that drug addiction diminishes responsibility. Stephen Morse however rejects this claim. Morse argues that these studies show that drug addiction involves neither compulsion, coercion, nor irrationality. He also adds that addicted people are responsible for becoming addicted and for failing to take measures to manage their addiction. After summarizing relevant neuroscience of addiction literature, this chapter engages critically with Morse to argue that (...) a subgroup of addicted people does meet plausible criteria for compulsion, coercion, or irrationality; that few addicted people are fully responsible for becoming addicted; and that some addicted people can be at least partly excused for failing to manage their addiction. Pickard and Lacey’s “responsibility without blame” approach is also suggested as a fruitful basis for future work in this field. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Hannah Arendt’s well-known but controversial distinction between labour, work, and action provides, perhaps unexpectedly, a conceptual grounding for transforming politics and policy-making at the EU level. Beyond the analysis and critique of modernity, Arendt brings the conceptual resources needed for the EU to move beyond the modern trap it fell into thirty years ago. At that time, the European Commission shifted its purpose away from enhancing interdependence among Member States with a common market towards (...) achieving an internal market in the name of boosting growth and creating jobs. Arendt provides the conceptual tools to transform the conceptualisation of relations and of agents that fuels the growing dissatisfaction among many Europeans with EU policy-making. This argument is made through stretching and re-articulating Arendt’s labour-work-action distinction and taking seriously both the biological and plural dimensions of the human condition, besides its rational one. By applying this shift in an EU context, EU policies could change their priorities and better address the needs and expectations of plural political agents and of European citizens. (shrink)

Living things can be classified by taxonomic similarity (lions and lynx), or shared ecological habitat (ducks and turtles). The present studies used card-sorting and triad tasks to explore developmental and experiential changes in conceptual flexibility–the ability to switch between taxonomic and ecological construals of living things–as well as two processes underlying conceptual flexibility: salience (i.e., the ease with which relations come to mind outside of contextual influences) and availability (i.e., the presence of relations in one’s mental space) of taxonomic and (...) ecological relations. We were also interested in the extent to which salience and availability of taxonomic and ecological relations predicted inductive inferences. Participants were 452 six to ten-year-olds from urban, suburban, and rural communities in New England. Across two studies, taxonomic relations were overwhelmingly more salient than ecological relations, although salience of ecological relations was higher among children from rural environments (Study 1) and those who engaged in unstructured exploration of nature (Study 2). Availability of ecological relations, as well as conceptual flexibility, increased with age, and was higher among children living in more rural environments. Notably, salience, but not availability, of ecological relations predicted ecological inferences. These findings suggest that taxonomic relations are a default way to organize intuitive biological knowledge and that environmental richness and relevant experience contribute to the salience and availability of ecological knowledge, and thereby, conceptual flexibility in biological thinking. More generally, they highlight important linkages between domain-specific knowledge and domain-general cognitive abilities. (shrink)

With advances in assisted reproductive technologies, globalization, and the ease of contact via the internet, the use of gestational surrogates as a family building option has grown significantly over the past decade. In a gestational surrogacy arrangement, unlike a traditional surrogacy arrangement, the surrogate is not the genetic mother of the child she carries; the genetic mother is either an egg donor or the commissioning parent. There are only a handful of countries in which commercial surrogacy is permitted, with the (...) United States and India prominent among them. More surrogacy arrangements are carried out in the United States than in any other nation, and the number of gestational.. (shrink)

A message scribbled irreverently on the mediaeval walls of the Nonberg cloister says this: ‘Neither of us can go to heaven unless the other gets in.’ It suggests an argument against the view that those who love people who suffer in hell can be perfectly happy, or even free from all suffering, in heaven. This paper considers the challenge posed by this thought to the coherence of the traditional Christian doctrine on which there are some people in hell who are (...) suffering and others in heaven who are not suffering. More precisely, it defends the following argument:1. No one who loves another can be perfectly happy or free from suffering if they know that their beloved is suffering.2. Anyone in hell suffers.3. Anyone in heaven is perfectly happy or at least free from suffering.4. There can be no one in heaven who is aware of the fact that his or her beloved is in hell. The paper argues that the first premise is eminently plausible and that those who accept t.. (shrink)

Das Buch diskutiert den Gattungsunterschied und die Beruhrungspunkte zwischen Philosophie und Literatur. Der erste Teil enthalt analytische Lekturen Peter Handkes und beschaftigt sich mit dem Versuch Martha Nussbaums, Moralphilosophie im Rekurs auf die Dichtung zu konkretisieren. Im zweiten Teil werden - nach einem Beitrag von J. F. Lyotard - Einflusse des franzosischen Dekonstruktivismus auf die "Continental Philosophy" der USA und auf das europaische "postmoderne" Denken vorgestellt.

In 2015, the filmmaker, artist, and writer Penny Woolcock created an imaginary city, Utopia, at the Roundhouse, London, in collaboration with Block9. It staged a blend of miscellaneous pop-up installations featuring Londoners who were each telling their individual stories about inequality, consumerism, gentrification, education, crime, and social media.1 The narrative soundscapes set within an extraordinary design brought to light the parallel lives yet opposite experiences of people in urban environments and, at the same time, revealed their hopes and dreams.Woolcock's current (...) exhibition at the Museum for Modern Art in Oxford, England, shows a part of this project. The video, Utopia, depicts eight people... (shrink)

This qualitative study examines the childhood experiences of adult animal rights activists regarding their feelings about, and interactions with, nonhuman animals. Central to children's experiences with animals is the act of eating them, a ritual both normalized and encouraged by the dominant culture and agents of socialization. Yet, despite the massive power of socialization, sometimes children resist the dominant norms of consumption regarding animals. In addition to engaging in acts of resistance, some children, as suggested in the biographical narratives of (...) adult vegan animal activists, also possess a predisposition to respond to the perceived suffering of animals. This predisposition is a variant of the trait empathy but is specifically animal-oriented. In open-ended interviews with 30 vegan animal activists about their paths into the movement, this study examined these childhood experiences and the predisposition that may help set the stage for later adoption of a vegan, animal-rights lifestyle. (shrink)

Exploring who, what and how we remember, this piece proposes that to remember requires, on the one hand, an auto-memoration, and at the same time, on the other hand, auto-memoration always detours through the world and through the other, which requires ‘con-memoration’. Referring to Derrida and Nancy, this piece argues that the memories of ourselves, and of others, is always already mediated because structured by differance and the other, and thus entails also a forgetting.

What constitutes illocutionary silencing? This is the key question underlying much recent work on Catherine MacKinnon's claim that pornography silences women. In what follows I argue that the focus of the literature on the notion of audience `uptake' serves to mischaracterize the phenomena. I defend a broader interpretation of what it means for an illocutionary act to succeed, and show how this broader interpretation provides a better characterization of the kinds of silencing experienced by women.

Interactions between state, international, transnational and intra-state law involve overlapping, and sometimes conflicting, claims to legitimate authority. These have led scholars to new theoretical explanations of sovereignty, constitutionalism, and legality, but there has been no close attention to authority itself. This book asks whether, and under what conditions, there can be multiple legitimate authorities with overlapping or conflicting domains. Can legitimate authority be shared between state, supra-state and non-state actors, and if so, how should they relate to one another? Roughan (...) argues that understanding authority in contemporary pluralist circumstances requires a new conception of relative authority, and a new theory of its legitimacy. The theory of relative authority treats the interdependence of authorities, and the relationships in which they are engaged, as critical to any assessment of their legitimacy. It offers a tool for evaluating inter-authority relationships prevalent in international, transnational, state and non-state constitutional practice, while suggesting significant revisions to the idea that law, in general or even by necessity, claims to have legitimate authority. (shrink)

In “World Poverty and Individual Freedom” , I argue that the global order—because it is coercive—is obligated to do what it can to ensure that its subjects are capable of autonomously agreeing to its rule. This requires helping them meet their basic needs. In “World Poverty and Not Respecting Individual Freedom Enough,” Jorn Sonderholm asserts that this argument is invalid and unsound, in part, because it is too demanding. This article explains why Sonderholm’s critique is mistaken and misses the main (...) point of WPIF’s argument. It also explains why WPIF is important—it can address some of those most resistant to significant obligations of global justice—libertarians, actual consent theorists, and statists. (shrink)

This note demonstrates that the property of Replication Invariance, generally considered to be an innocuous requirement for the extension of fixed-population poverty comparisons to variable- population contexts, is incompatible with other plausible variable-population axioms in the presence of specific canonical fixed-population axioms.

This final comment provides, a theoretical framework on how to conceive the self as presented in the key-note paper ‘Meaningfulness, volunteering and being moved. The event of witnessing’. This is deemed requisite to achieve a full understanding of how depth in meaningfulness comes about.