Un ouvrage sur le temps et un ouvrage collectif, deux raisons qui dissuaderaient peut-être de se plonger dans la lecture de Temps de travail, travail du temps qu’éditent Sylvie Monchatre et Bernard Woehl aux Éditions de la Sorbonne. On aurait tort, car on se priverait alors d’une réflexion lentement mûrie au fil d’un séminaire de deux ans qui a réuni des spécialistes confirmés des difficiles questions que posent les rapports du travail aux temps. Spécialistes rarement réunis et qu’une journée..

Five years ago, an article co-written by some of us presented an emerging trend to disclose some individual genetic results to research participants within the international research community. At the time, ethical norms and scholarly publications on the return of results often did not distinguish between the return of research results in general and the return of unexpected results. Both technologies and research practices have evolved significantly. Today whole genome and exome sequencing are increasingly affordable and frequently used in genetic (...) research. Because these techniques produce a vast amount of interpretable and non-interpretable data about an individual, the issue of how to manage information generated by such technologies needs to be considered. However, the development of international ethical guidelines has not kept up with the rapid pace of technological progress. Indeed developments in genomic biobanking also challenge the duty to disclose research results. (shrink)

This paper concentrates on the way Kant's distinction between duties of right and duties of virtue operates at the interstate level. I argue that his Right of Nations (V ölkerrecht) can be interpreted as a duty to establish a kind of interstate distributive justice (that is, as a duty to secure states in their independence and territorial possessions), which is called for to secure domestic distributive justice and to protect individuals' freedom and private property. Or at least this is 'ideal (...) theory' for, as I specify, this cosmopolitan linkage is compromised by Kant's endeavour to accomodate the existence of non-republican states. (shrink)

This paper adopts a comparative approach in order to appreciate the distinct contributions of Arne Nass and Felix Guattari to ecosophy and their respective connections to semiotics. The foundational holistic worldview and dynamics ecosophy propounds show numerous connections with semiotics. The primary objective of this paper is to question the nature and value of these connections. Historically, the development of ecosophy was always faced with modelling and communication issues, which constitute an obvious common ground shared with semiotics. As a means (...) to an end, ecosophy settled to develop a thoughtful axiology based on ecological wisdom and promote it bottom-up. Political activism notwithstanding, semiotics also deals with value: sign value and meaning. In this respect, semiotics is inherently axiological, but most often this dimension is effaced or muted. Emphasizing the axiological dimension of semiotics helps understand how dominant significations, habits, and values are established, and enlighten the crucial part it could play in the humanities and beyond by partly coalescing with ecosophy. As the complementarity of both traditions is appreciated, the plausibility of a merger is assessed. Arguably, ecosophy is axiomatized semiotics. From this novel perspective, one can see human communities as dynamically partaking in signifying processes, in a space that is at once an ecosphere, a semiosphere, and a vast political territory. As there is growing evidence that environmental degradation lessens our quality of life and the sustainability of our communities, ecosophy might help reform values and practices. (shrink)

The field of environmental ethics has been built as a response to environmental blindness [...].

This paper addresses the issue of the dynamic enforcement of a constraint in an argumentation system. The system consists in (1) an argumentation framework, made up, notably, of a set of arguments...

This book describes in detail the relationship between symbolic representations of knowledge and abstract states of knowledge, exploring along the way the foundations of knowledge, knowledge bases, knowledge-based systems, and knowledge representation and reasoning. The idea of knowledge bases lies at the heart of symbolic, or "traditional," artificial intelligence. A knowledge-based system decides how to act by running formal reasoning procedures over a body of explicitly represented knowledge—a knowledge base. The system is not programmed for specific tasks; rather, it is (...) told what it needs to know and expected to infer the rest. This book is about the logic of such knowledge bases. It describes in detail the relationship between symbolic representations of knowledge and abstract states of knowledge, exploring along the way the foundations of knowledge, knowledge bases, knowledge-based systems, and knowledge representation and reasoning. Assuming some familiarity with first-order predicate logic, the book offers a new mathematical model of knowledge that is general and expressive yet more workable in practice than previous models. The book presents a style of semantic argument and formal analysis that would be cumbersome or completely impractical with other approaches. It also shows how to treat a knowledge base as an abstract data type, completely specified in an abstract way by the knowledge-level operations defined over it. (shrink)

Much biomedical research cannot be performed without recruiting human subjects. Increasingly, volunteer registries are being developed to assist researchers with this challenging task. Yet, volunteer registries raise confidentiality issues. Having recently developed a registry of volunteers, the authors searched for normative guidance on how to implement the principle of confidentiality. The authors found that the protection of confidentiality in registries are based on the 10 key elements which are elaborated in detail in the Canadian Standards Association Model Code. This paper (...) describes how these 10 detailed key principles can be used during the developmental stages of volunteer registries. (shrink)

More than entertainment and beyond salutary reading to take a step back from the COVID-19 crisis, this novel by Martin Winckler is meant to be a source of inspiration and even a self-fulfilling prophecy of which it is up to us to become a part.

This paper explores principles governing the rational balance among an agent's beliefs, goals, actions, and intentions. Such principles provide specifications for artificial agents, and approximate a theory of human action (as philosophers use the term). By making explicit the conditions under which an agent can drop his goals, i.e., by specifying how the agent is committed to his goals, the formalism captures a number of important properties of intention. Specifically, the formalism provides analyses for Bratman's three characteristic functional roles played (...) by intentions [7, 9], and shows how agents can avoid intending all the foreseen side-effects of what they actually intend. Finally, the analysis shows how intentions can be adopted relative to a background of relevant beliefs and other intentions or goals. By relativizing one agent's intentions in terms of beliefs about another agent's intentions (or beliefs'), we derive a preliminary account of interpersonal commitments. (shrink)

Lady Lovelace’s notes on Babbage’s Analytical Engine never refer to the concept of surprise. Having some pretension to ‘originate’ something—unlike the Analytical Engine—is neither necessary nor sufficient to being able to surprise someone. Turing nevertheless translates Lovelace’s ‘this machine is incapable of originating something’ in terms of a hypothetical ‘computers cannot take us by surprise’ objection to the idea that machines may be deemed capable of thinking. To understand the contemporary significance of what is missed in Turing’s ‘surprise’ translation of (...) Lovelace’s insight, one needs to distinguish between trivial surprises and those events, propositions or encounters that lead us to question our understanding of ourselves or what surrounds us. Only some of these non-trivial surprises are the product of originality endeavours. Not only is it uncommon for surprises to track such endeavours, the type of autonomy that would be required on the part of ‘digital computers’ for originality and surprise to intersect in that way goes far beyond the operational autonomy that can be achieved by ‘learning machines’. This paper argues that a salient translation of Lovelace’s originality insight—for contemporary and future ‘learning machines’—is an upside-down version of Turing’s surprise question: can computers be surprised by us in a non-trivial, ‘co-produced’ way? (shrink)

Autant que la position de la femme dans la société, le principe de la matrilinéarité juive est révélateur des normes qui régissent le lien social. Le système de filiation matrilinéaire s’est installé dans le judaïsme sur la base de l’interprétation du dit talmudique affirmant Ton fils né d’une idolâtre n’est pas ton fils mais le sien (Qid. 68b). Il entérinait un processus enclenché quelques siècles plus tôt, à l’époque de la Mishna, autour du premier siècle de l’ère, mettant un terme (...) à la longue tradition biblique qui ne percevait de filiation que patrilinéaire, et instaurait, ce faisant, un modèle de transmission de la judéité qui perdure jusqu’à nos jours. Cette transformation majeure était-elle due à une évolution interne de la pensée rabbinique rationalisant la judéité au regard des affiliations? Ou à des contraintes extérieures liées à l’imposition de nouvelles réglementations du statut de la personne? Les deux hypothèses d’interprétations sont débattues – et parfois se rejoignent – dans les recherches menées sur la filiation ou l’identité juive. Cet article examine les conditions de la transmission de l’identité de la personne, telles qu’elles ont été traitées et définies au long des siècles par l’institution de normes juridiques et sociales régulant la filiation, la conversion et l’héritage, toutes normes qui éclairent les évolutions du statut de la femme dans l’histoire du judaïsme entre l’Antiquité tardive et le Moyen Âge. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is to bring into relief the difficulties faced by generous interpretations of the Kantian problem of poverty and to propose an alternative interpretation which (a) agrees with some generous interpretations that Kant's juridical treatment of poverty is to be understood by analogy with his juridical treatment of slavery, but which (b) departs from generous interpretations in general by arguing that this analogy is not to be understood in terms of “dependence” as such, but in (...) terms of “depersonification.” More specifically, it argues that what makes slavery and poverty unjust for Kant is not that they entail a human being finding herself (completely) dependent on the choice of another human being, but that they entail a human being being deprived of her juridical personality. The Kantian problem of poverty is ultimately a problem of juridical depersonification, and this problem of juridical depersonification does not arise in all (complete) dependence relations. (shrink)

This article argues that community-based research (CBR)—research that includes the participation of “lay” citizens in the research process—is changing the process of research and knowledge production. The article is an initial attempt to examine the outcomes of CBR and the impact such research is having on knowledge development and funding trends in North America. The article concludes with a set of policy recommendations and areas for further research.

Just like other experts, members of the professions develop their craft thanks to a deep internalisation of both complex cognitive structures and a mix of habits and intuitive understandings. These non-cognitive aspects of expertise can be what distinguishes the merely competent from the truly brilliant. Yet habits can also be what makes us blind to important features of the world we inhabit. In the life of a professional, these features include the vulnerability of those seeking her services, which in turn (...) grounds the professional's particular ethical responsibility. This book develops an in-depth account of habit to understand its impact upon the way moral decisions are made in a professional context. Its central thesis is the following: what most often stands in the way of a professional meeting her ethical responsibility is not so much stupidity (or character defects) but rather the deleterious aspects of habituation. This book calls for renewed attention to be paid to habits and their relationship to ethical agency. Mostly neglected in moral and legal theory, such an inquiry not only conditions an adequate understanding of the risks inherent in a legal system's institutional structure. It is also essential if we are to come to grips with the challenges raised by the professions' growing reliance upon automated systems."--Publisher description. (shrink)

1. Argumentation, by considering arguments and their interactions, is a way of reasoning that has proven successful in many contexts, for instance, in multi-agent applications (Carrera & Iglesias,...

The comprehension of abduction put forward in this essay is compatible with the contemporary biosemiotics consensus. Moreover, it coincides with the evolutionary framework Peirce has developed in its time.Biosemiotics is being developed since the 1980’s and is characterized by a growing interest for its body of works. It is now a major field in general semiotics throughout the world. We owe to Thomas A. Sebeok to have paved the way for this new science to emerge and develop from a synthesis (...) of pioneering works by Jakob von Uexküll and Charles S. Peirce. In 1981, in the introduction to The Play of Musement, Sebeok shared his “absolute conviction that semiotics begins and ends with biology and that the sign science... (shrink)

Huit mois après le dépôt du rapport de la Commission Charbonneau, nous avons souhaité explorer les défis liés à la mise en place des recommandations. Avec un regard constructif, nous nous questionnons sur le fait de savoir à qui incombe le suivi d’un rapport de cette envergure ainsi que les obligations légales liées à cette question et nous nous permettons d’émettre certaines idées liées à une vision globale en matière de reddition de comptes. Tout en partageant nos réflexions inspirées des (...) bonnes pratiques en matière de gestion du risque de fraude, nous présentons la complexité de la mise en place d’une recommandation tels le soutien et la protection des lanceurs d’alerte. (shrink)

Stem cells and their malignant counterparts require the support of a specific microenvironment or “niche”. While various anti‐cancer therapies have been broadly successful, there are growing opportunities to target the environment in which these cells reside to further improve therapeutic efficacy and outcome. This is particularly true when the aim is to target normal or malignant stem cells. The field aiming to target or use the niches that harbor, protect, and support stem cells could be designated as “nichotherapy”. In this (...) essay, we provide a few examples of nichotherapies. Some have been employed for decades, such as hematopoietic stem cell mobilization, whereas others are emerging, such as chemosensitization of leukemia stem cells by targeting their niche. (shrink)

God is speaking-clearer than ever before. But are we listening? Full of hope and insight, this book is a clarion call to believers to lean in and pursue hearing God again. Here is what you need to rediscover how to listen to him with accuracy-and help restore integrity and trust in the only Voice that speaks peace in these troubled, unprecedented times.

L’auteur analyse la réglementation économique à travers ses effets allocatifs et redistributifs. Il met en évidence l’apparition de rentes découlant de l’adoption de la réglementation. La destination finale de ces rentes caractérise l’essentiel des effets redistributifs envisagés. Selon l’auteur, l’évaluation éthique d’une réglementation doit reposer sur le bien-fondé des effets redistributifs qui en découlent. La question centrale consistant à voir si la réglementation a pour effet de détourner les rentes d’une large majorité au profit d’un nombre restreint d’individus. L’article met (...) en évidence la manière dont on peut envisager une éthique de la réglementation comme un problème d’appropriation de rentes économiques du grand nombre vers un nombre plus restreint d’individus. (shrink)

Un siècle d’historiennes, c’est sous ce titre qu’André Burguière et Bernard Vincent ont convié vingt auteurs à dresser le portrait de vingt historiennes, dix françaises et dix étrangères. À bien des égards, l’entreprise échappe à toute tentative de classification dans un genre historiographique précis. Il ne s’agit pas, dans l’esprit des maîtres d’œuvre, d’établir un palmarès des personnalités vivantes ou disparues ayant marqué le xxe siècle. L’ouvrage n’est pas non plus une socio-histoire qu...

This Element argues that although Kant's political thought does not tackle issues of global poverty and inequality head on, it nonetheless offers important conceptual and normative resources to think of our global socioeconomic duties. It delves into the Kantian duty to enter a rightful condition beyond the state and shows that a proper understanding of this duty not only leads us to acknowledge a duty of right to assist states that are unable to fulfil the core functions of a state, (...) but also provides valuable hints at what just transnational trade relations and a just regulation of immigration should look like. (shrink)

In three experiments, picture quality between test items was manipulated to examine whether subjects’ expectations about the fluency normally associated with these different stimuli might influence the effects of fluency on preference or familiarity-based recognition responses. The results showed that fluency due to pre-exposure influenced responses less when objects were presented with high picture quality, suggesting that attributions of fluency to preference and familiarity are adjusted according to expectations about the different test pictures. However, this expectations influence depended on subjects’ (...) awareness of these different quality levels. Indeed, imperceptible differences seemed not to induce expectations about the test item fluency. In this context, fluency due to both picture quality and pre-exposure influenced direct responses. Conversely, obvious, and noticed, differences in test picture quality did no affect responses, suggesting that expectations moderated attributions of fluency only when fluency normally associated with these different stimuli was perceptible but difficult to assess. (shrink)

De Lucien de Samosate à Liu Cixin en passant par H. G. Wells, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Sylvie Lainé et tant d’autres auteurs et autrices, la littérature, le cinéma et les séries de science-fiction ont inventé une myriade hallucinante d’extraterrestres, amis ou ennemis, humanoïdes ou non. Tous interrogent l’Humanité, son éthique et son devenir.

Depuis 1893 jusqu’à la fin de sa vie, la question de l’individualisme des sociétés modernes n’a cessé de hanter Durkheim. Dès De la division du travail social, il fait en effet le constat que la montée de l’individualisme, en faisant éclater les structures du monde traditionnel, a conduit à une profonde crise sociale qu’il interprète avant tout comme une crise morale. Dès lors, il s’agira pour lui de repenser les conditions d’un consensus renouvelé adapté à la dynamique de la modernité. (...) Dans cette étude, nous montrerons que la réponse apportée par Durkheim à cette crise des sociétés modernes n’a cependant pas été univoque. Si en 1893, il pensait pouvoir fonder la cohésion sociale sur la solidarité fonctionnelle liée à la division du travail, c’est un tout autre modèle qu’il mobilisera à partir de 1898 et de son célèbre texte sur L’individualisme et les intellectuels. Cet article veut mettre en évidence la logique de ces deux modèles en montrant que c’est seulement à partir d’une réflexion sur la double nature de l’individualisme moderne que Durkheim trouvera le fondement d’une nouvelle et authentique solidarité. (shrink)