Martha Milagros Acosta Valle, Mounia Ait Kaboura et Rachel de Villeneuve.

Population health has recently grown from a series of loosely connected critiques of twentieth-century public health and medicine into a theoretical framework with a corresponding field of research—population health science. Its approach is to promote the public’s health through improving everyday human life: affordable nutritious food, clean air, safe places where children can play, living wages, etc. It recognizes that addressing contemporary health challenges such as the prevalence of type 2 diabetes will take much more than good hospitals and public (...) health departments. -/- Blending philosophy of science/medicine, public health ethics and history, this book offers a framework that explains, analyses and largely endorses the features that define this relatively new field. Presenting a philosophical perspective, Valles helps to clarify what these features are and why they matter, including: searching for health’s “upstream” causes in social life, embracing a professional commitment to studying and ameliorating the staggering health inequities in and between populations; and reforming scientific practices to foster humility and respect among the many scientists and non- scientists who must work collaboratively to promote health. -/- Featuring illustrative case studies from around the globe at the end of all main chapters, this radical monograph is written to be accessible to all scholars and advanced students who have an interest in health—from public health students to professional philosophers. (shrink)

Based on a framework that integrates job demands-resources theory, social cognitive theory Handbook of personality, Guilford Press, New York, pp 154–196, 1999) and regulatory focus theory, the purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and subsequent moral disengagement and unethical behavior. We conducted a laboratory study and also collected data in two separate surveys 6 weeks apart from 206 individuals working full time to investigate the relationships presented in our model. In both studies, (...) we examined the direct relationship of politics perceptions on unethical behavior in organizations as well as the indirect relationship through the influence of moral disengagement. We investigated the moderating effect of regulatory focus on the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical behavior using the survey data. Results indicated that perceptions of politics were significantly related to our mediator, moral disengagement, which was significantly related to our dependent variable, unethical behavior. However, only prevention-focus moderated the relationships examined. Implications for future research and managerial practice are discussed. (shrink)

Recommender Systems (RecSys) have been around since the early days of the Internet, helping users navigate the vast ocean of information and the increasingly available options that have been available for us ever since. The range of tasks for which one could use a RecSys is expanding as the technical capabilities grow, with the disruption of Machine Learning representing a tipping point in this domain, as in many others. However, the increase of the technical capabilities of AI-powered RecSys did not (...) come with a thorough consideration of their ethical implications and, despite being a well-established technical domain, the potential impacts of RecSys on their users are still under-assessed. This paper aims at filling this gap in regards to one of the main impacts of RecSys: personal autonomy. We first describe how technology can affect human values and a suitable methodology to identify these effects and mitigate potential harms: Value Sensitive Design (VSD). We use VSD to carry out a conceptual investigation of personal autonomy in the context of a generic RecSys and draw on a nuanced account of procedural autonomy to focus on two components: competence and authenticity. We provide the results of our inquiry as a value hierarchy and apply it to the design of a speculative RecSys as an example. (shrink)

Informed consent forms have been useful in clinical practice and they constitute a part of the shared decision making in the informed consent process. They provide information to patients about clinical procedures and techniques. They also act as a remainder of the information discussed after the medical interview. Sometimes these documents are not readable to everybody. Belgian law specifies that all information that patients receive has to be proportionate verbally, but written information is also handled. The present research analyzes the (...) readability of the Flemish informed consent forms located in the webs of all General Hospitals using a simple random sample of 75 informed consent forms. By using the Douma tool, which bases its analysis in the length of words and sentences, the readability mean of the sample was 46, level “Difficult”. The 59% of them had a difficult level. The 11% were normal. It is a fact, then, that the 59% of the informed consent forms evaluated in this study are not suitable for everybody in Flanders, especially those people with low literacy. There were some researches made in other countries that agreed with these results. Written clinical information was poorly written so the informed consent forms were not working helping patients to recall information nor helping patients to become a part in the shared decision making about their health. The use of readability formulas represented a simple way to discriminate those informed consent forms that had normal readability scores from those that should be adapted. (shrink)

La obra de Harari es una proyección hacia el futuro de la situación actual de la humanidad. Está fundada en tres supuestos básicos: materialismo, cientificismo y ateísmo. Debido al fuerte reduccionismo de sus supuestos, su explicación de lo humano y del futuro de lo humano queda en una especulación interesante de conocer pero que carece de objetividad.

In a recent paper del Valle-Inclan and Schlöder argue that bilateral calculi call for their own notion of proof-theoretic harmony, distinct from the usual (or ‘unilateral’) ones. They then put forward a specifically bilateral criterion of harmony, and present a harmonious bilateral calculus for classical logic. In this paper, I show how del Valle-Inclan and Schlöder’s criterion of harmony suggests a notion of normal form for bilateral systems, and prove normalisation for two (harmonious) bilateral calculi for classical logic, (...) HB1 and HB2. The resulting normal derivations have the usual desirable features, like the separation and subformula properties. HB1-normal form turns out to be strictly stronger that the notion of normal form proposed by Nils Kürbis, and HB2-normal form is neither stronger nor weaker than a similar proposal by Marcello D’Agostino, Dov Gabbay, and Sanjay Modgyl. (shrink)

From Locke' treatment of the issue of slavery and Descartes' silence on the issue to Hegel' philosophy of religion and Nietzsche' "racial profiling," this book ...

Tras Ser y Tiempo, el papel de los estados afectivos cobra una especiel relevancia en la obra heideggeriana: por un lado, y frente al método cosificador de las ciencias, Heidegger propone fundamentar la filosofía sobre un estado afectivo profundo; por otro, analiza su sociedad a partir de los estados afectivos imperantes. Ambas intenciones coinciden de forma paradigmática en Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Al hilo de esta obra expondremos la relevancia de un estado afectivo como el aburrimiento en las sociedades actuales, (...) y su relación con el tiempo contemporáneo caracterizado por su tecnificación. (shrink)

Ian Rumfitt (2000) developed a bilateralist account of logic in which the meaning of the connectives is given by conditions on asserted and rejected sentences. An additional set of inference rules, the coordination principles, determines the interaction of assertion and rejection. Fernando Ferreira (2008) found this account defective, as Rumfitt must state the coordination principles for arbitrary complex sentences. Rumfitt (2008) has a reply, but we argue that the problem runs deeper than he acknowledges and is in fact related to (...) the challenge of establishing proof-theoretic harmony. We motivate a distinctively bilateral criterion for harmony and show how the bilateralist can meet it. This also resolves Ferreira's complaint. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to compare Carlos Nino’s (1992) stance on the right to a healthy environment as a collective right to M. Florencia Saulino’s (2015) interpretation. Saulino considers that, in view of the current environmental situation, Nino’s opinion about this crucial issue disrupts a legal system conceived for the protection of private goods. Nino’s notion of the environment as a collective good was included two years later when the Argentine Constitution was reformed in 1994, in Article 41. (...) It binds State authorities to protect the environment, make a rational use of the natural environment and biological diversity, provide information and environmental education. After that date, several laws and projects aimed to favour care for the environment, environmental education, the protection of forests and the rights of indigenous peoples. Added to that, the Escazú Agreement (2018), endorsed by Argentina, establishes the right of participation and access to information. This paper upholds Nino’s stance, underscoring its persistence in the current legal system. It also highlights the substantial character of social license and the government’s duty to provide the citizenry with information about decisions that may compromise common goods, and heed questions and objections. (shrink)

Professionals in environmental fields engage with complex problems that involve stakeholders with different values, different forms of knowledge, and contentious decisions. There is increasing recognition of the need to train graduate students in interdisciplinary environmental science programs in these issues, which we refer to as “social ethics.” A literature review revealed topics and skills that should be included in such training, as well as potential challenges and barriers. From this review, we developed an online survey, which we administered to faculty (...) from 81 United States colleges and universities offering IESPs. Respondents overwhelmingly agreed that IESPs should address values in applying science to policy and management decisions. They also agreed that programs should engage students with issues related to norms of scientific practice. Agreement was slightly less strong that IESPs should train students in skills related to managing value conflicts among different stakeholders. The primary challenges to incorporating social ethics into the curriculum were related to the lack of materials and expertise for delivery, though challenges such as ethics being marginalized in relation to environmental science content were also prominent. Challenges related to students’ interest in ethics were considered less problematic. Respondents believed that social ethics are most effectively delivered when incorporated into existing courses, and they preferred case studies or problem-based learning for delivery. Student competence is generally not assessed, and respondents recognized a need for both curricular materials and assessment tools. (shrink)

Resumo: O corpo está por toda parte: ele é aquele que «está irreparavelmente aqui» onde estou, eu que não «posso me deslocar sem ele», já disse o filósofo. Talvez por isso mesmo seja tão antigo e tão insistente o movimento que, multiplicando as metáforas para dizer sua presença, visa de fato a maior parte do tempo seu ocultamento. Assim, se é possível falar aqui de uma cartografia, ela sem dúvida designará o intenso movimento filosófico de ocultamento do corpo, que paradoxalmente (...) dá a ver o que tanto se buscou evitar: é que o corpo sempre resiste, insistindo em se fazer disponível aos «mundos múltiplos e divergentes» que a cada vez a arte aproxima. Palavras-chave: Corpo. Movimento. Formação humana. Cartography of the body and unmanageability: The body is everywhere: he is «is irreparably here» where I am, for «I cannot move without him», as the philosopher said. Perhaps it is why this ancient and persistent movement that multiplies the metaphors to tell its presence seeks in fact its concealment most of the time. Thus, if it is possible to speak about a cartography, it will undoubtedly designate the intense philosophical movement of body concealment, which paradoxically hints at what it has sought so much to avoid: is that the body always resists, insisting on making itself available to « multiple and divergent worlds» which art approaches each time. Keywords: Body. Mouvement. Human Formation. Cartographies du corps et de l’ingovernabilité Résumé: Le corps est partout: « il est ici irréparablement» où je suis, car «je ne peux pas me déplacer sans lui», comme le philosophe l’a dit. Et c’est peut-être là la raison par laquelle, à force de multiplier les métaphores pour signaler as présence, ce que lui vise, finalement, la plupart du temps est bien son effacement. Ainsi, s’il nous est permis de parler de cartographie, elle devra sans doute désigner cet intense mouvement philosophique d’oubli du corps, qui finalement révèle ce qui l’on a tellement voulu éviter : car le corps résiste, à chaque fois, et qu’il insiste de se faire disponible aux «mondes multiples et divergents» que, à chaque fois, l’art rend présent. Mots-clés: Corps. Mouvement. Formation humaine. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore how the definition of life takes on an essential character in the ethical debates around health technologies, with life thus being manufactured in the tensions and conflicts around the use of such artefacts and devices. We introduce concepts from science and technology studies (STS) to approach bioethics, overcoming the dualistic conception that separates the natural and the technological and questioning the dominant rationality that divides life into dualities. Drawing on two research projects in which we (...) have been involved in recent years, one regarding biobanks and the other regarding social care robots, we explore how the ethical discussions about biobanks and robots imply particular notions of life. We argue that the contemporary epistemic category of life is a manufactured life in which various rationalities coexist: one rationality based on a separation between the technological and the human, focused on pragmatism and functionalities that tend towards a dualized notion of life divided into qualified and non-qualified life, and another rationality based on a non-essentialist ontology, focused on the mediating role of health technologies, that entails a distributed life appearing as a precarious effect of a network. Each of these rationalities allows the emergence of different issues and ethical concerns, thus enriching the bioethical debate. (shrink)

This paper presents a new model for how to jointly analyze the ethical and evidentiary dimensions of environmental science cases, with an eye toward making science more participatory and publically...

Starting on Bourdieu’s approach to precariousness, this article analyzes this phenomenon as a new flexible norm that displaces the Fordist social norm. The authors argue, based on Gramsci’s study of Fordism, that precarization creates a mechanism of discipline for the legitimization of the loss of both labour and social rights, destroying the Keynesian social pact. Such disciplining happens coercively, both by the use of new technologies and by the generalization of the function of Marx’s industrial reserve army to all productive (...) strata; and also, by consensus, through a transformation in the work culture, leading to a “new flexible man” with a flagrant loss of its autonomy. (shrink)

Luc Faucher and Edouard Machery’s recent article in this journal uses evidence from psychological studies to criticize Jorge Garcia’s view of racism. This brief response argues that their critique fails because they misinterpret Garcia’s view and engage in some conceptual equivocation. It also argues that their focus on affect and human psychology is in fact compatible with Garcia’s view of racism as rooted in the human heart. Hence the evidence that they cite should be seen as empirical enrichment of Garcia’s (...) basic view, rather than as evidence against that view. (shrink)

According to public health data, the US Hispanic population is far healthier than would be expected for a population with low socioeconomic status. Ever since Kyriakos Markides and Jeannine Coreil highlighted this in a seminal 1986 article, public health researchers have sought to explain the so-called “Hispanic paradox.” Several candidate explanations have been offered over the years, but the debate goes on. This article offers a philosophical analysis that clarifies how two sets of obstacles make it particularly difficult to explain (...) the Hispanic paradox. First, different research projects define the Hispanic paradox phenomenon in substantially different ways. Moreover, using Bas van Fraassen’s pragmatic theory of explanation and Sean Valles’s extension of it with the concept of “phenomenon choice,” it also becomes clear that there are also multiple ways of explaining each individual definition of the phenomenon. A second set of philosophical and methodological challenges arises during any attempt to study “Hispanic” phenomena, with one key challenge being that the “Hispanic” panethnic concept was intentionally made vague as it was developed and popularized during the 1960s–1970s. After comparing this case with similar cases in the philosophical literature, the article concludes with observations on what makes this problem unique, particularly its ethical features. (shrink)

The papers in Richard Vallée's Words and Contents span twenty-one years. The author navigates the discovery and exploration of different expressions and perspectives on language in this volume. Beginning with referring expressions and later addressing context sensitivity, the book examines how specific words contribute to the contents of utterances and the philosophical issues that surround them.