Earthly civilization has now entered a phase of development which requires urgent need of imagination to discern its eventual evolution.Demographic problems occupy a considerable place in global development. Numerous authors interested in the future of the planet have referred to the important factor of population increase. Nevertheless their attitudes toward demographic problems, the manner in which they conceive their own roles, their forecasts are all diverse and reflect a wide range of ideas from serene optimism to nihilistic (...) pessimism. (shrink)

Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons is a long, difficult and fascinating book, inside which three shorter, clearer and better books are struggling to get out. The third of these shorter but better books deals with the problem of Future Generations, and that is the book I want to discuss. In it Parfit tries, but fails, to find a theory—Theory X, he calls it—which will deal with various problems and issues which he develops, and in particular the issue which I (...) will call the Parfit Population Problem, the problem of how many people there ought to be. In this paper I offer not so much a theory as a suggestion as to what the solution might be. (shrink)

Biological studies have demonstrated that it is possible to slow the ageing process and extend lifespan in a wide variety of organisms, perhaps including humans. Making use of the findings of these studies, this article examines two problems concerning the effect of life extension on population size and welfare. The first—the problem of overpopulation—is that as a result of life extension too many people will co-exist at the same time, resulting in decreases in average welfare. The second—the problem (...) of underpopulation—is that life extension will result in too few people existing across time, resulting in decreases in total welfare. I argue that overpopulation is highly unlikely to result from technologies that slow ageing. Moreover, I claim that the problem of underpopulation relies on claims about life extension that are false in the case of life extension by slowed ageing. The upshot of these arguments is that the population problems discussed provide scant reason to oppose life extension by slowed ageing. (shrink)

According to the person-affecting restriction, one distribution of welfare can be better than another only if there is someone for whom it is better. Extant problems for the person-affecting restriction involve variable-population cases, such as the nonidentity problem, which are notoriously controversial and difficult to resolve. This paper develops a fixed-population problem for the person-affecting restriction. The problem reveals that, in the presence of incommensurable welfare levels, the person-affecting restriction is incompatible with minimal requirements of impartial beneficence (...) even in fixed-population contexts. (shrink)

How do we characterize theoretical disagreement and how does this translate into strategies for practicing scientists? I integrate Kuhn’s (1962) notions of paradigms and problem-fields with Hull’s (1982,1988) concept of populational variation and Shapere’s (1974) characterization of domains in interpreting the Ox-Phos Controversy in bioenergetics (1961-1977). The analysis highlights the differences between intraparadigm disagreement (based on proposed solutions to shared problems) and interparadigm disagreement (based on the problems themselves and views of relevant domain).Kuhn (1959,1962) introduced the notion that (...) a single, uniform paradigm guides ‘normal science’. He further suggested that scientific communities undergo gestalt-like changes in research focus, implying that all disagreement is based on ‘incommensurable’ paradigms. Philosophers and historians of science concerned largely with how consensus is established (see Laudan 1984; Laudan and Laudan 1989) have found this problematic as a universal model (e.g., Lakatos and Musgrave 1970; Laudan 1977). (shrink)

The articles by Brooks-Gum, Fisher, Hoagwood, Liss, and Scott-Jones (all this issue) present a panoply of real-world ethical issues in conducting scientific research on risky behaviors of children, adolescents, and their parents, particularly those from vulnerable populations. The universal, ethical principles of beneficence, justice, and respect for others are always applicable, but they do not resolve issues of child assent, parental consent, legal reporting requirements for illegal behaviors, and the special problems of studying risky behaviors in risky populations. Taken (...) as a group, the articles raise some of the most interesting ethical problems that arise in developmental research. My discussion elaborates some issues and fails to resolve others. I hold the view that both science and ethics can be served by thoughtfully designed and implemented research on important social issues, but that the studies themselves cannot simultaneously solve the many societal problems of participants and be scientifically credible. (shrink)

In his speech Academician Fedorov expressed the opinion that the political and ideological meaning of the problem of interaction between man and nature is fundamental for our conference.

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.

There is no way literally to measure health, because health is multi-dimensional, and there is no metric whereby one person who is healthier than a second with respect to one dimension but less healthy with respect to another counts as healthier, less healthy or equally healthy overall. Health analysts instead measure how good or bad health states are in some regard. If these values are measures of health states, then identical health states must have identical values. But in different circumstances, (...) the same health state may have different values. It may be better or worse. Uniform values can nevertheless be assigned to kinds of health states, either as a weighted average of the values of their tokens or as the value of the performance in a standard environment of the capacity the health state constitutes. These uniform values are not well suited for some of the purposes for which summary measures of population health have been intended, and a set of non-evaluative indicators may be an attractive alternative. (shrink)

A growing number of nurse researchers travel globally to conduct research in poor and underserved populations in developing nations. These researchers, while well versed in research ethics, often find it difficult to apply traditional ethical standards to populations in developing countries. The problem of applying ethical standards across cultures is explained by a long-standing debate about the nature of ethical principles. Fundamentalism is the philosophical stance that ethical principles are universal, while the anthropologically-based ‘multicultural’ model claims the philosophical position that (...) principles are culturally bound. The authors explicate the two philosophical stances and advocate a morally sensitive but moderate position of ‘ethical multiculturalism’ rather than favouring either of the above philosophical positions. The final section suggests ways to promote ethical multiculturalism while planning and conducting nursing research. (shrink)