While some seventeenth-century scholars promoted natural history as the basis of natural philosophy, they continued to debate how it should be written, about what and by whom. This look into the studios of two Amsterdam physicians, Jan Swammerdam (1637–80) and Steven Blankaart (1650–1705), explores natural history as a project in the making during the second half of the seventeenth century. Swammerdam and Blankaart approached natural history very differently, with different objectives, and relying on different traditions of handling specimens and organizing (...) knowledge on paper, especially with regard to the way that individual observations might be generalized. These traditions varied from collating individual dissections into histories, writing both general and particular histories of plants and animals, collecting medical observations and applying inductive reasoning. Swammerdam identified the essential changes that insects underwent during their life cycle, described four orders based on these ‘general characteristics’ and presented his findings in specific histories that exemplified the ‘general rule’ of each order. Blankaart looked to the collective observations of amateurs to support his reputation as a man of medicine, but this was not supposed to lead to any kind of generalization. Their work alerts us to the variety of observational practices that were available to them, and with what purposes they made these their own. (shrink)

Providing healthcare services frequently involves cognitively demanding tasks, including diagnoses and analyses as well as complex decisions about treatments and therapy. From a global perspective, ethically significant inequalities exist between regions where the expert knowledge required for these tasks is scarce or abundant. One possible strategy to diminish such inequalities and increase healthcare opportunities in expert-scarce settings is to provide healthcare solutions involving digital technologies that do not necessarily require the presence of a human expert, e.g., in the form of (...) artificial intelligent decision-support systems (AI-DSS). Such algorithmic decision-making, however, is mostly developed in resource- and expert-abundant settings to support healthcare experts in their work. As a practical consequence, the normative standards and requirements for such algorithmic decision-making in healthcare require the technology to be at least as explainable as the decisions made by the experts themselves. The goal of providing healthcare in settings where resources and expertise are scarce might come with a normative pull to lower the normative standards of using digital technologies in order to provide at least some healthcare in the first place. We scrutinize this tendency to lower standards in particular settings from a normative perspective, distinguish between different types of absolute and relative, local and global standards of explainability, and conclude by defending an ambitious and practicable standard of local relative explainability. (shrink)

Decision making in health care contexts is often deeply challenging for the patients, their close ones, and those who care for them. All of them have and perceive different forms of responsibilitie...

The increased presence of medical AI in clinical use raises the ethical question which standard of explainability is required for an acceptable and responsible implementation of AI-based applications in medical contexts. In this paper, we elaborate on the emerging debate surrounding the standards of explainability for medical AI. For this, we first distinguish several goods explainability is usually considered to contribute to the use of AI in general, and medical AI in specific. Second, we propose to understand the value of (...) explainability relative to other available norms of explainable decision-making. Third, in pointing out that we usually accept heuristics and uses of bounded rationality for medical decision-making by physicians, we argue that the explainability of medical decisions should not be measured against an idealized diagnostic process, but according to practical considerations. We conclude, fourth, to resolve the issue of explainability-standards by relocating the issue to the AI’s certifiability and interpretability. (shrink)

There is a remedy available for many of our ailments: Psychopharmacology promises to alleviate unsatisfying memory, bad moods, and low self-esteem. Bioethicists have long discussed the ethical implications of enhancement interventions. However, they have not considered relevant evidence from psychology and economics. The growth in autonomy in many areas of life is publicized as progress for the individual. However, the broadening of areas at one’s disposal together with the increasing individualization of value systems leads to situations in which the range (...) of options asks too much of the individual. I scrutinize whether increased self-determination and unbound possibilities are really in a person’s best interests. Evidence from psychology and economics challenges the assumption that unlimited autonomy is best in all cases. The responsibility for autonomous self-formation that comes with possibilities provided by neuro-enhancement developments can be a burden. To guarantee quality of life I suggest a balance of beneficence, support, and respect for autonomy. (shrink)

Although apparently irrational, people with seemingly high moral standards routinely make immoral decisions or engage in morally questionable behavior. It appears as if under certain circumstances, people become in some enigmatic way blind to the immoral aspects of what they are doing or consequences of their immoral actions. This article focuses and reports on a psychoanalytic inquiry into the role of emotions and the unconscious management of unwanted emotions in promoting moral blindness. Emotions are essential to the conscience, self-sanctioning, and (...) advancement of moral behavior. Notwithstanding moral ideations, a sufficiently strong counterwill may create incongruence between moral intentions and actual desires or behavior. The unwelcome experience of acute moral emotions such as guilt and anxiety is likely to activate a range of psychological defense mechanisms and unconscious processes to manage these emotions. It is argued that the management of these emotions through undue avoidance, inappropriate regulation, or lack of regulation, can bypass self-sanctioning. As result, the condition of moral blindness can develop or be sustained. The psychoanalytic explanations offered contribute to the understanding as to how emotions in combination with the unconscious mind can cause moral blindness in any person, notwithstanding high moral standards and good intentions. Improved understanding of moral blindness represents an important scientific step in improved understanding of our moral and immoral selves, with all its complexities, conflicts, and contradictions. (shrink)

‘Authority’ is a term widely used in scholarly debate, including the history of philosophy. However, what is meant by this term is not always clear and the concept is not very well defined. One reason for this is certainly that the phenomenon itself is complex and the corresponding terms are used with a degree of latitude. This makes it difficult to adequately compare and connect the insights that various case studies have to offer. For historians of philosophy, it is thus (...) important to get a sufficient grasp of the concept of authority. This is even more urgent when one studies commentary traditions, in which secondary texts are written in virtue of the existence of texts clad with high authority. Our article combines historical textual research with insights from epistemology, thus providing a discussion of the concept of authority and its importance in textual traditions. We propose a descriptive model that can be used for examining epistemic authority in historical texts. An example from ancient Platonism serves to show both the complexity of the phenomenon and the clarifications that our approach may offer. (shrink)

As individuals enter their 80s, they are inevitably confronted with the problem of neuronal loss in the brain. The incidence of the common movement disorder ‘mild parkinsonian signs’ (MPS) is approximately 50% over the age of 85 years. It has long been known that the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta is a neuropathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD). Recently, two papers1,2 present clear evidence for a high burden of mitochondrial DNA deletions within substantia nigra neurons (...) in aged individuals and individuals with PD, pointing towards a common pathway inevitably leading to neuronal dysfunction and death. BioEssays 28: 963–967, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

It is suggested that a clear prophetic voice of the congregational gathering could change the society to which the congregants belong. The problem is that this prophetic voice seems to have disappeared in many cases. A solution might be found if the point of view is taken that the prophetic voice in the congregational gathering is heard in the liturgical acts or rites. In the science of Liturgy attention must be given to the revitalisation of the gift of prophesy. In (...) this article the prophetic testimony of the Old Testament prophets and of the Prophet, Jesus Christ, were used as sources. Following in the footsteps of Brueggemann, an effort will be made to establish in relevant scripture passages what the attitude and practise of prophetic testimony should be. The possibility of rendering service through prophetic testimony as a liturgical act in the South African society is wide open. Prophetic testimony serves to criticise the dominant perception in order to dismantle it, but is also serves to energise persons and communities by its promise of another time and situation towards which the community of faith could move. (shrink)

This is an attempt to interpret the history of mechanism vs. vitalism in relation to the changing framework of culture and to show the interrelation between both these views and experimental science. After the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, causal mechanism of classical physics provided the framework for the study of nature. The teleological and holistic properties of life, however, which are incompatible with this theory yielded — as a result both of internal developments within biology and of a (...) general reaction against dogmatic rationalism — to a vitalistic interpretation of life which ascribed a mysterious force to living organisms. It will be shown that both mechanism and vitalism are related to the experimental climate of the time in which they were popular. The controversy has now lost its raison d'être as a result of the development of the theory of systems and of a better understanding of the chemistry and evolution of life. (shrink)

Als Bereichsethik beschäftigt sich die Bioethik mit Problemen und Fragestellungen, die den Umgang des Menschen mit lebenden Wesen und mit seiner Umwelt betreffen.

Theologie und Metaphysik stehen in einem Spannungsverhältnis. Versuchen der Rehabilitierung eines starken metaphysischen Systemsdenkens steht das 'nachmetaphysische Denken' entgegen, welches das Projekt einer rationalen Metaphysik verabschiedet. Wendel und Breul unternehmen einen Vermittlungsversuch: Sie formulieren eine 'Metaphysik nach Kant' als Leitparadigma der Theologie, die ernst nimmt, dass Metaphysik für eine rationale Begründung des Glaubens unverzichtbar ist, sie zugleich jedoch methodisch nur in der Verwurzelung in einer Praxis personaler Lebensformen haltbar ist. So gelingt es diesem Neuansatz, eine an die Moderne anschlussfähige praktische (...) Begründung religiöser Hoffnung zu entwickeln."-- Back cover. (shrink)

Notwithstanding empirical evidence that combining ethics and compliance into one function or programme is likely to erode an ethical culture in organisations, the praxis to coalesce ethics and compliance conceptually and structurally remains attractive and continues in many organisations. Drawing on systems psychodynamic theory, this study enquires into unconscious complexities and drivers that may contribute to adverse consequences when combining ethics and compliance. Whereas previous research demonstrates that compliance dominates ethics because of self‐regulation issues, this research provides deeper insight into (...) why this happens. On explicating the unconscious dynamics that underlie the apparent lure of combination, it becomes clear that this praxis remains attractive because of its function to repress anxieties, maintain phantasies, and provide psychological comfort. In recognising the role of unconscious dynamics in the decision to combine ethics and compliance and the consequences thereof, cognition of this combination and its outcomes is moved beyond a conscious rational process. This elucidates the commanding opposing unconscious forces potentially at play in this decision. Insights could lessen adverse outcomes by prompting organisations to think of the combination of ethics and compliance as unconsciously motivated systemic processes that require sincere consideration before pursuing them. (shrink)

Notwithstanding empirical evidence that combining ethics and compliance into one function or programme is likely to erode an ethical culture in organisations, the praxis to coalesce ethics and compliance conceptually and structurally remains attractive and continues in many organisations. Drawing on systems psychodynamic theory, this study enquires into unconscious complexities and drivers that may contribute to adverse consequences when combining ethics and compliance. Whereas previous research demonstrates that compliance dominates ethics because of self‐regulation issues, this research provides deeper insight into (...) why this happens. On explicating the unconscious dynamics that underlie the apparent lure of combination, it becomes clear that this praxis remains attractive because of its function to repress anxieties, maintain phantasies, and provide psychological comfort. In recognising the role of unconscious dynamics in the decision to combine ethics and compliance and the consequences thereof, cognition of this combination and its outcomes is moved beyond a conscious rational process. This elucidates the commanding opposing unconscious forces potentially at play in this decision. Insights could lessen adverse outcomes by prompting organisations to think of the combination of ethics and compliance as unconsciously motivated systemic processes that require sincere consideration before pursuing them. (shrink)

The response aims at detecting additional angles in Benhabib's problematic and adding some variables to its potential resolution. I examine two such variables. One concerns the rights-bearing subject. Benhabib addresses the tension between individual universal rights and sovereign self-determination by positing a modified Kantian `cosmopolitan federalism'. While I can support this thesis, I see a whole other reality in the making that offers additional kinds of resolutions as well as a repositioning of cosmopolitan federalism in a different field of forces. (...) Critical here is the incipient denationalizing of citizenship which is taking place inside the nation state, and hence is not predicated on post-national and transnational conditions for citizenship. Such resolutions are precluded in Benhabib's text because of the closure she projects onto the nation state. The second variable I discuss addresses precisely this question of the state today — that is to say, in a context of the ascendance of an international human rights regime and of globalization. Benhabib sees the national and the global as mutually exclusive. In my own research I see a process whereby global logics get partly constituted inside the nation state and the state apparatus itself, producing, again, an incipient denationalizing of what historically was constructed as national. This opens up possibilities for cosmopolitan federalism that Benhabib overlooks given her national—global binary. (shrink)

The biggest contemporary challenge to democratic legitimacy gravitates around the crisis of democratic representation.

This paper discusses different ways of formulating regulation that takes into account a responsibility towards future generations in environmental issues. A rights-based or human-rights based approach, based on notions of intergenerational equity, can be problematic on a conceptual level, and implementation of rights for future generations is challenging. An alternative approach is based on the assignment of duties to present generations rather than rights of future generations. This approach, which is often used in regulation concerning sustainability, uses goal regulation to (...) avoid conceptual problems with rights of future generations while it still provides the opportunity to safeguard their interests and needs. (shrink)

Progress in Neuroscience advances rapidly and promises to change some of the basic concepts we have about ourselves. The field of Neuroethics is concerned with the resulting ethical implications. In this paper, we propose a framework to systematize the questions and positions in this context. We start with the discussion of three concrete cases around the topics of treatment/enhancement, personhood and privacy. For each case, we get a set of axes along which standpoints may vary. Finally, we generalize the particular (...) axes of each case and arrive at a three-dimensional coordinate system spanned by the axes of “Liberty of Denial”, “Liberty of Use” and “Scepticism”. With this, we hope to provide a common language simplifying interdisciplinary dialogue and communication with the public. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 96 Heft: 1 Seiten: 183-217.

Moving on after September 11 will require more than just eliminating organized terrorist networks and providing humanitarian aid, crucial as these two interventions are. There is a much larger landscape of multiple devastations in the global south that the global north cannot escape. While socio-economic devastation may not cause terrorism directly, it does promote extreme responses, such as trafficking in people, and can facilitate recruitment of young people for terrorist activity, both random and organized. These multiple devastations need to be (...) addressed - by world and country leaders, by the supra-national system, by NGOs, by global civil society, by corporate economic actors. The article confines itself to the need for governments' action through new specialized multilateralisms and internationalisms. It argues that we can even make a narrow utilitarian case that it is in the global north's interest to address these issues. The particular cases through which the argument is developed are the growing hyper-indebtedness in the global south and the accumulation of contradictions in the immigration regime prevalent in the global north. Examining these is a way of dissecting the nature of the challenge and identifying specific governance deficits. (shrink)