Eyal et al have recently argued that researchers should consider conducting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) human challenge studies to hasten vaccine development. We have conducted (J. L.) and overseen (L. D.) human challenge studies and agree that they can be useful in developing anti-infective agents. We also agree that adults can autonomously choose to undergo risks with no prospect of direct benefit to themselves. However, we disagree that SARS-CoV-2 challenge studies are ethically appropriate at this time, for (...) 3 reasons: (1) current scientific knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 infection is insufficient to manage risks; (2) autonomous decision making, while necessary, does not override concerns about risk; and (3) undertaking challenge studies now would imperil confidence in the research enterprise, potentially undermining the global response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. (shrink)

We like to rate each other. We rate restaurants on Yelp, drivers on Lyft, and movies on Rotten Tomatoes. And these ratings can help us make decisions. With all of this rating going on, wouldn’t it be helpful if we rated how ethical other people are? Knowing the moral scruples of others could help us make friends, choose who to date, and avoid getting ripped off. But even though lots of ratings are useful, I don’t think that giving each other (...) a moral score is a good idea. In fact, I think it might make us even more unethical. (shrink)

Public and academic medical ethics debates surrounding justice and age discrimination often proceed from a problematic understanding of old age that ignores the diversity of older people. This article introduces the feminist perspective of intersectionality to medical ethical debates on aging and old age in order to analyze the structural discrimination of older people in medicine and health care. While current intersectional approaches in this field focus on race, gender, and sexuality, we thus set out to introduce aging and old (...) age as an additional category that is becoming more relevant in the context of longer life expectancies and increasing population aging. We analyze three exemplary cases on the individual, institutional, and public health level, and argue that considering the intersections of old age with other social categories helps to accommodate the diverse identities of older people and detect inequality and structural discrimination. (shrink)

Social categorizations regarding gender or age have proven to be relevant in human-robot interaction. Their stereotypical application in the development and implementation of robotics in eldercare is even discussed as a strategy to enhance the acceptance, well-being, and quality of life of older people. This raises serious ethical concerns, e.g., regarding autonomy of and discrimination against users. In this paper, we examine how relevant professional stakeholders perceive and evaluate the use of social categorizations and stereotypes regarding gender and age in (...) robotics for eldercare. Based on 16 semi-structured interviews with representatives from technology development, industry, and nursing science as well as practice, we explore the subjects’ awareness, evaluations, and lines of argument regarding the corresponding moral challenges. Six different approaches of dealing with categorizations and stereotypes regarding gender and age in care robotics for older people are identified: negation, functionalistic relativization, explanation, neutralization, stereotyping, and queering. We discuss the ethical implications of these approaches with regard to professional responsibility and draw conclusions for responsible age tech in pluralistic societies. (shrink)

A one-credit seminar devoted to theological issues. Can be taken three times for credit. This semester, we'll be discussing Thomas Morris's highly readable book on Pascal and the meaning of life. To give you a quick sense of what this book is about, here are the chapter titles, followed by a few paragraphs from the first chapter.

According to Alvin Plantinga and his followers, there is a complete set of truths about what any possible person would freely do in anypossible situation. Richard Gale offers two arguments for saying that this doctrine entails that God exercises “freedom-canceling” control over his creatures. Gale’s first argument claims that Plantinga’s God controls our behavior by determining our psychological makeup. The second claims that God causes (in the “forensic” sense) all of our behavior. The present paper critically examines and rejects both (...) of these arguments. The second of Gale’s arguments blurs the distinction between causal laws and the conditionals of freedom, whereas the first fails to appreciate the force of the libertarian claim that our psychological makeup may “incline” us in a certain direction without determining our behavior. It also fails to acknowledge the way in which a libertarian like Plantinga might think we contribute to shaping our own characters. (shrink)

Is goodness without god good enough? A debate on faith, secularism, and ethics Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11153-010-9243-8 Authors Wes Morriston, University of Colorado, Boulder Department of Philosophy Boulder CO 80309-0232 USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047.

This comment provides an overview of the four articles by Lindwall, Lymer and Ivarsson; Lynch and Wong; Macbeth, Wong and Lynch; and Macbeth and Wong, which make up the kernel of this Special Issue of Discourse Studies on Epistemics; and it also examines the reasons for the assorted difficulties the authors of those articles have with the Epistemic Programme being proposed for conversation analysis. The legitimacy of their concerns is underscored by showing that the charge the EP makes, which is (...) that the CA developed by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson gives an incomplete account of linguistic interaction, is founded on a number of mistakes. The first mistake is the idea that CA cannot effectively address so-called action formation. The second is a misunderstanding of the idea of ‘proof procedure’ in CA. The third mistake is that conversation can better be understood through an abstract analytic construction, rather than an emphasis on participants’ analysis. And the fourth is that it is necessary to rely upon an imputed cognitive machinery that is asserted to underlie conversation. The systematicity and generative power of Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson’s radical work on turn-taking in conversation is emphasised and a question that begs to be answered arises, which is how well the EP compares to that earlier and still-radical work, something that the kernel articles address in their return to key transcripts used in the EP. (shrink)

Plantinga claims to give a person who is agnostic about the ultimate source of his cognitive faculties an undefeatable defeater for all his beliefs. This argument of Plantinga’s bears a family resemblance to his much better known argument for saying that naturalism is self-defeating, but it has a much more ambitious conclusion. In the present paper, I try to show both that Plantinga’s argument for this conclusion fails, and that even if an “origins agnostic” were to succumb to it, a (...) cure for his skepticism is ready at hand—one that does not involve believing in anything like God. (shrink)

It is widely thought that moral education is not compatible with the mission of higher education. In this article, I point out that the issue is a bit more complicated. There are some virtues, like honesty, that play a key role in university life, making it possible that other moral virtues like justice and compassion might also be important for helping students succeed at their colleges and universities.

Traditional statistical model evaluation typically relies on goodness-of-fit testing and quantifying model complexity by counting parameters. Both of these practices may result in overfitting and have thereby contributed to the generalizability crisis. The information-theoretic principle of minimum description length addresses both of these concerns by filtering noise from the observed data and consequently increasing generalizability to unseen data.

Despite being a collection of holistic assessment tools, the comprehensive geriatric assessment primarily focuses on the social category of age during the assessment and disregards for example gender. This article critically reviews the standardized testing process of the comprehensive geriatric assessment in regard to diversity-sensitivity. I show that the focus on age as social category during the assessment process might potentially hinder positive outcomes for people with diverse backgrounds of older patients in relation to other social categories, such as race, (...) gender or socio-economic background and their influence on the health of the patient as well as the assessment and its outcomes. I suggest that the feminist perspective of intersectionality with its multicategorical approach can enhance the diversity-sensitivity of the comprehensive geriatric assessment, and thus improve the treatment of older patients and their quality of life. By suggesting an intersectional-based approach, this article contributes to debates about justice and diversity in medical philosophy and advocates for the normative value of diversity in geriatric medicine. (shrink)

BackgroundThe concept of ‘successful ageing’ has been a prominent focus within the field of gerontology for several decades. However, despite the widespread attention paid to this concept, its intersectional implications have not been fully explored yet. This paper aims to address this gap by analyzing the potential ageist and ableist biases in the discourse of successful ageing through an intersectional lens.MethodA critical feminist perspective is taken to examine the sensitivity of the discourse of successful ageing to diversity in societies. The (...) paper analyzes how ageist and ableist biases can manifest in the ways we conceptualize ageing, drawing on examples in the context of mental health.ResultsWe argue that the conventional approach to successful ageing is limited in its ability to account for the experiences of people who have faced intersectional discrimination throughout their lives. Drawing on examples in the context of mental health, we explore among others the link between depression and disabilities. Furthermore, we shed light on the negative impact of ageist and ableist attitudes concerning the diagnosis and treatment of dementia.DiscussionWe demonstrate how diversity is often overlooked in discussions of ageing well, and how ageist and ableist biases can manifest in the ways we conceptualize ageing. We argue that focusing solely on the health status as a means of achieving success fails to adequately counter ageism for all people. We further emphasize the role of structural factors, such as ageist attitudes, in shaping the experience of ageing and exacerbating health inequalities.ConclusionOverall, our findings emphasize the need for a more nuanced and inclusive understanding of ageing and therefore an intersectional approach to conceptions of ageing well that recognizes and addresses the biases and limitations of current discourses. Thereby, this paper offers valuable insights into the complex intersections between age and disabilities from a bioethical perspective, highlighting the need for a more inclusive and intersectional approach to ageing. (shrink)

Rule following is often made an unnecessary mystery in the philosophy of social science. One form of mystification is the issue of 'rule finitism', which raises the puzzle as to how a learner can possibly extend the rule to applications beyond those examples which have been given as instruction in the rule. Despite the claim that this problem originated in the work of Wittgenstein, it is clear that his philosophical method is designed to evaporate, not perpetuate, such problems. The supposed (...) problem of rule finitism is malformed, deriving from misconceptions about the relation between understanding a rule and making an application of it. (shrink)

A person has the first-order volition she has because of the second-order volition she has. A deeply divided person lacks a single, integrated second-order..

This book examines the complexities of the hipster through the lens of art history and cultural theory, from Charles Baudelaire's flan̂eur to the contemporary 'creative' borne from creative industries policies. It claims that the recent ubiquity of hipster culture has led many artists to confront their own significance, responding to the mass artification of contemporary life by de-emphasising the formal and textual deconstructions so central to the legacies of modern and postmodern art. In the era of creative digital technologies, long (...) held characteristics of art such as individual expression, innovation, and alternative lifestyle are now features of a flooded and fast-paced global marketplace. Against the idea that artists, like hipsters, are the 'foot soldiers of capitalism', the institutionalized networks that make up the contemporary art world are working to portray a view of art that is less a discerning exercise in innovative form-making than a social platform--a forum for populist aesthetic pleasures or socio-political causes. It is in this sense that the concept of the hipster is caught up in age-old debates about the relation between ethics and aesthetics, examined here in terms of the dynamics of global contemporary art."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Dishonest research violates one of the cardinal virtues of the academic vocation. Some readers might already be familiar with the traditional list of the cardinal virtues: Justice, Courage, Prudence, and Temperance. Honesty, of course, is nowhere on this list. So what does it mean to say that honesty is a cardinal virtue of the academic life? Professors typically have two primary tasks: the generation and transmission of knowledge. For both of these tasks, an emphasis on truth takes center stage. And (...) this focus on truth means that honesty is of particular importance for the academic vocation. (shrink)