Surveillance programs supporting the management of One Health issues such as antibiotic resistance are complex systems in themselves. Designing ethical surveillance systems is thus a complex task (retroactive and iterative), yet one that is also complicated to implement and evaluate (e.g., sharing, collaboration, and governance). The governance of health surveillance requires attention to ethical concerns about data and knowledge (e.g., performance, trust, accountability, and transparency) and empowerment ethics, also referred to as a form of responsible self-governance. Ethics in (...) reflexive governance operates as a systematic critical-thinking procedure that aims to define its value: What are the “right” criteria to justify how to govern “good” actions for a “better” future? The objective is to lay the foundations for a methodological framework in empirical bioethics, the rudiments of which have been applied to a case study to building reflexive governance in One Health. This ongoing critical thinking process involves “mapping, framing, and shaping” the dynamics of interests and perspectives that could jeopardize a “better” future. This paper proposes to hybridize methods to combine insights from collective deliberation and expert evaluation through a reflexive governance functioning as a community-based action-ethics methodology. The intention is to empower individuals and associations in a dialogue with society, which operation is carried out using a case study approach on data sharing systems. We based our reasoning on a feasibility study conducted in Québec, Canada (2018–2021), envisioning an antibiotic use surveillance program in animal health for 2023. Using the adaptive cycle and governance techniques and perspectives, we synthesize an alternative governance model rooted in the value of empowerment. The framework, depicted as a new “research and design (R&D)” practice, is linking operation and innovation by bridging the gap between Reflexive, Evaluative, and Deliberative reasonings and by intellectualizing the management of democratizing critical thinking locally (collective ethics) by recognizing its context (social ethics). Drawing on the literature in One Health and sustainable development studies, this article describes how a communitarian and pragmatic approach can broaden the vision of feasibility studies to ease collaboration through public-private-academic partnerships. The result is a process that “reassembles” the One Health paradigm under the perspective of global bioethics to create bridges between the person and the ecosystem through pragmatic ethics. (shrink)

The objectives and operational norms of public health are explicitly and strongly based on bio-ethical principles, involving many dilemmas. To a great extent, these principles remain the same when dealing with public health in humanitarian action (PHHA), but their application may involve even more excruciatingly difficult decisions and dilemmas. This chapter reflects on what those principles and dilemmas are, and how they have changed over time. It describes how the global health situation has changed dramatically over the last decades, and (...) what implications that has for health in emergency situations. It also addresses the changing nature of disasters, including more protracted emergencies involving long term displacement, fragile contexts as well as the effect on the capacity of health systems as they are under increasing pressure and attack. Finally, it notes some of the major improvements in humanitarian response, including development of widely accepted guidelines and coordination mechanisms, and how this has contributed to improvements in saving lives and preventing morbidity. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This article presents a case for transforming traditional bioethics into "Bios-ethics." This exposition relies on three propositions: (1) the climate emergency is the "Bios emergency"; (2) in the Bios emergency, bioethics must be replaced by Bios-ethics; and (3) the top and overwhelming priority of Bios-ethics is to address the Bios emergency. Biocentrism, habitat, and environmental ethics are discussed in light of their contribution to the development of Bios-ethics, and potential lines of research in Bios-ethics (...) are outlined. The urgency of undertaking substantive conceptual and practical innovations in response to our current danger is emphasized throughout. (shrink)

This paper examines bioethical considerations of research conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where a notable scarcity persists in literature addressing region-specific bioethical issues. Although bioethics-related activities have encountered challenges surpassing existing protocol safeguards, emerging evidence demonstrates growing recognition of integrated scientific and ethical principles within African medical research. Maintaining research continuity in resource-limited settings necessitates bridging critical gaps between informed consent procedures and participants’ actual understanding. This narrative review assesses progress, identifies persistent challenges, and outlines future directions for clinical trials (...) and medical research in SSA, with particular focus on adherence to established bioethical standards and integration of local normative frameworks. Our analysis reveals a significant increase in publications featuring rigorous ethical discourse about bioethical research in Africa, with particular emphasis on SSA, in recent years. The review underscores substantial deficits in ethical conduct, including frequent non-compliance with fundamental principles: informed consent, autonomy, beneficence, and non-maleficence. Furthermore, we identify a paucity of evidence concerning methodologies to improve the efficacy and quality of ethical review mechanisms. (shrink)

Transmodern ethics establishes moral norms on liberal, pluralist and pragmatic principles. We see a comeback of the negation morals, however not of ontology-anchored morals, as is the case of the God who picks favourites or of the jealous God paradigm, and not even of morals anchored in a contractualist perspective, as is the case in the modern period. The preferred focus is on the value of positivism, of cooperation as a source of efficiency, of personal enrichment, be it cultural, (...) spiritual, or moral, derived from the access to alterity. Tolerance as an ethical value is legitimised by a new, utilitarian humanism. The ethical construction of identity revolves around the value of loyalty to a tradition, a dogma, a mentality, and by extension to any coherent system liable to generate a sense of belonging. Postindustrial ethics uses for instance the value of loyalty as a strategy in marketing, organisational development, political propaganda etc. The policies used in order to increase the loyalty of a shop's customers, the employee's loyalty for the company she works for, the supporter's loyalty to his team, are the translation in layman terms of the loyalty ethics that in spiritual terms was one of the foundations of orthodoxy as loyalty to the tradition of the holy fathers. The values of equality, liberty and fraternity have been more than that, as they have laid the foundations of the modern society. (shrink)

Although we consider ethical commissions in today’s healthcare institutions to be an indispensable part of practice, their appearance only occurred in the second half of the 20th century in the United States of America. This paper provides an overview of the events that preceded the establishment of the Committee for Admissions and Criteria of the Center for Artificial Kidney in Seattle at the Swedish Hospital, so-called. “God’s Committee”, as well as an overview of reactions and comments after the public learned (...) about its activities through the article “They decide who lives, who dies” by Shane Alexander. In the final part of the paper, the historical and legal issues of the first ethical interdisciplinary commissions are placed in the context of the Republic of Croatia, and the current turmoil in biomedicine and healthcare, as well as society in general. (shrink)

Organoids, in general, have become an established theme in bioethics. However, brain organoids are almost unique due to the vital and symbolic nature of the organ they reproduce, albeit partially,...

Lectures from experts in scientific research, law, insurance, philosophy, ethics, theology and public policy.

John McCumber; The Threshold of Bio-Ethics: Philosophical Warrant in the Thought of Stephen Erickson, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Mor.

The paper provides a qualified defence of Bruce Waller’s deductivist schema for a priori analogical arguments in ethics and law. One crucial qualification is that the schema represents analogical arguments as complexes composed of one deductive inference but also of one non-deductive subargument. Another important qualification is that the schema is informed by normative assumptions regarding the conditions that an analogical argument must satisfy in order for it to count as an optimal instance of its kind. Waller’s schema is (...) defended from criticisms formulated by Trudy Govier, Marcello Guarini and Lilian Bermejo-Luque. (shrink)

La presente reflexión analiza los aspectos bioéticos inherentes a las tecnologías de mejoramiento humano (TMH), esto es, las implicaciones éticas que conlleva la intervención genética, la transformación bioquímica y el modelamiento del cuerpo y del cerebro por medios tecnológicos. Para llevar a buen puerto este objetivo, primero se plantea el problema del “analfabetismo emocional”, expresión acuñada por Günter Anders y que que tomamos de este autor con el fin de presentar la dificultad con la que tropezamos al reflexionar sobre la (...) tecnología en general, y las tecnologías de mejoramiento humano en particular. En segundo lugar, en relación con las TMH, se identifican los tópicos clave en disputa, y se reconstruyen los principales argumentos esgrimidos tanto por los abanderados (transhumanistas) como por sus críticos (conservacionistas). En tercer lugar, se plantea la pregunta por los límites éticos del uso de las TMh para, finalmente, analizar hasta qué punto y en qué medida existe o no un deber moral de intervenir tecnológicamente (TMH) en casos como el de la era de las crisis socioambientales. (shrink)

Holocaust education is important for learning how healthcare has been leveraged to influence social change in the past and how it can be used to advocate for ethical social change in the future. By understanding how medical professionals became the social and political leaders of Nazi Germany, today’s health professionals can learn how to avoid unethical politicization. By understanding how early twentieth century discourse on medico-social issues used terms and language that are similar, if not the same, as today’s debates, (...) proponents of different sides of these debates can understand the troubling subtexts and potential consequences of their – and the opposing side’s – positions. (shrink)

Drawing on postmodernist analyses, Leaky Bodies and Boundaries presents a feminist investigation into the marginalization of women within western discourse that denies both female moral agency and bodylines. With reference to contemporary and historical issues in biomedicine, the book argues that the boundaries of both the subject and the body are no longer secure. The aim is both to valorize women and to suggest that "leakiness" may be the very ground for a postmodern feminist ethic. The contribution made by Margrit (...) Shildrick is to go beyond modernist feminisms to radically displace the mechanisms by which women are devalued. The anxiety that postmodernism cannot yield an ethics, nor advance feminist concerns is addressed. (shrink)

The use of qualitative research in empirical bioethics is becoming increasingly popular, but its implementation comes with several challenges, such as difficulties in aligning moral epistemology and methods. In this paper, we describe some problems that empirical bioethics researchers may face; these problems are related to a tension between the different poles on the spectrum of scientific paradigms, namely a positivist and interpretive stance. We explore the ideas of narrative construction, ‘genres’ in medicine and dominant discourses in relation to empirical (...) research. We also reflect on the loss of depth and context that may occur with thematic or content analyses of interviews, and discuss the need for transparency about methodologies in empirical bioethics. Drawing on insights from narrative approaches in the social sciences and the clinical-educational discipline of Narrative Medicine, we further clarify these problems and suggest a narrative approach to qualitative interviewing in empirical bioethics that enables researchers to ‘listen (and read) in new ways’. We then show how this approach was applied in the first author’s research project about euthanasia decision-making. In addition, we stress the important ethical task of scrutinizing methodologies and meta-ethical standpoints, as they inevitably impact empirical outcomes and corresponding ethical judgments. Finally, we raise the question whether a ‘diagnostic’, rather than a ‘problem-solving’, mindset could and should be foregrounded in empirical ethics, albeit without losing a commitment to ethics’ normative task, and suggest further avenues for theorizing about listening and epistemic (in)justice in relation to empirical (bio)ethics. (shrink)

Review of Margit Shildrick, Leaky Bodies and Boundaries: Feminism, Postmodernism and (Bio)Ethics.

Amid the controversies surrounding physician-assisted suicides, euthanasia, and long-term care for the elderly, a major component in the ethics of medicine is notably absent: the rights and welfare of the survivor's family, for whom serious illness and death can be emotionally and financially devastating. In this collection of eight provocative and timely essays, John Hardwig sets forth his views on the need to replace patient-centered bioethics with family-centered bioethics. Starting with a critique of the awkward language with which philosphers (...) argue the ethics of personal relationships, Hardwig goes on to present a general statement on the necessity of family-centered bioethics. He reflects on proxy decisions, the effects of elder care on the family, the financial and lifestyle consequences of long-term care, and physician-assisted suicide from the perspective of the family. His penultimate essay, "Is There a Duty to Die?" carries the idea of family-centered ethics to its logical, controversial, conclusion; comments upon this essay from Daniel Callahan, Larry Churchill, Joanne Lynn, and journalist Nat Hentoff offer differing views on this highly charged subject. As advances in medicine prolong patient's lives, the welfare of those ultimately responsible for medical care-the family-must be addressed. Hardwig's courageous and illuminating essays set forth a new direction in bioethics: one that considers the welfare of everyone concerned. (shrink)

In 1977 John Money published the first modern case histories of what he called ‘apotemnophilia’, literally meaning ‘amputation love’ [Money et al., The Journal of Sex Research, 13(2):115–12523, 1977], thus from its inception as a clinically authorized phenomenon, the desire for the amputation of a healthy limb or limbs was constituted as a sexual perversion conceptually related to other so-called paraphilias. This paper engages with sex-based accounts of amputation-related desires and practices, not in order to substantiate the paraphilic model, but (...) rather, because the conception of these (no doubt) heterogeneous desires and practices as symptoms of a paraphilic condition (or conditions) highlights some interesting cultural assumptions about ‘disability’ and ‘normalcy’, their seemingly inherent (un)desirability, and their relation to sexuality. In critically interrogating the socio-political conditions that structure particular desires and practices such that they are lived as improper, distressing and/or disabling, the paper constitutes an exercise in what Margrit Shildrick [Beyond the body of bioethics: Challenging the conventions. In M. Shildrick and R. Mykitiuk (Eds.), Ethics of the body: Postconventional challenges (pp. 1–26). New York: MIT Press, 2005] refers to as “postconventional ethics”. (shrink)

Drawing on case studies from the modern era of pharmaceutical regulation in the UK, US and Europe, I examine how the extent and distribution of trust between regulators, the pharmaceutical industry, and the medical profession about drug testing and monitoring influences knowledge and regulatory judgements about the efficacy and safety of prescription drugs. Introducing the concepts of ‘acquiescent’ and ‘investigative’ norms of regulatory trust, I demonstrate how investigative norms of regulatory trust—which deter pharmaceutical companies from assuming that their data analyses (...) will be accepted without independent de-construction—drive up bioethical and regulatory standards of drug assessment in the interests of health. By contrast, acquiescent norms of regulatory trust, which are associated with industrial capture and professional closure of interests, promote permissive standards allowing patients to take pharmaceuticals with greater risks to health and less evidence of therapeutic efficacy. (shrink)

We tend to think that the difficulties in bioethics spring from the novel and alarming issues that arise due to discoveries in the new biosciences and biotechnologies. But many of the crucial difficulties in bioethics arise from the assumptions we make about ethics. This paper offers a brief overview of bioethics, and relates ethical ‘principlism’ to ‘ethical fundamentalism’. It then reviews some alternative approaches that have emerged during the second phase of bioethics, and argues for a neo-Aristotelian approach. Misconceptions (...) about ethical principles and ethical reasoning not only distort our views of the business of bioethics, but they also prevent us from facing up to the formidable problems posed by ethical pluralism in so-called liberal societies. (shrink)

본 논문의 목적은 21세기 생명윤리, 환경윤리, 생태윤리 문제 해결 가능한 이론적 대안으로 에코페미니즘을 소개하고 2007 개정 도덕 교과서의 내용요소에 구체적으로 적용하여 실천하려는 것이다. 생태학과 페미니즘이 결합된 에코페미니즘은 기존 전통윤리학이 지닌 인식론·방법론의 한계를 극복하기 위해 떠오른 급진적 대안으로 생태주의 ― 심층생태주의, 사회생태주의 ― 와 함께 오늘날 인류가 직면한 인구문제, 자원고갈, 환경오염 문제를 해결하는데 적합한 이론 및 실천운동으로 평가된다. 본문에서는 에코페미니즘의 이론적 배경을 중심으로 2007 개정 도덕 교과서에서 다루는 낙태와 재생산보조기술을 중심으로 한 생명공학 등의 생명윤리 문제, 그리고 자연자원에 대한 고갈 및 환경위기를 (...) 다루는 환경·생태윤리 문제, 부족한 식량문제를 해결하기 위한 에코페미니즘의 유효성과 필요성 및 한계에 대하여 논하고 있다. (shrink)

창의성과 협력, 소통, 존중, 배려, 공감이 근간이 되는 정보사회와 다문화사회에서의 교육은 교사가 주도하는 교과서 중심의 이론 수업과 주입식 방법만으로 그효과를 기대할 수 없다. 「2012 도덕과 교육과정」은 학생 스스로 주제를 선택하고 교육과정을 설계하며 소집단 활동을 통해 토의, 현장 활동, 표현, 조사, 전시를통해 체험ㆍ탐구하는 프로젝트 접근을 인성교육의 학습방법으로 추가하여 자기주도적 학습을 강조하고 있다. 프로젝트 접근은 도덕과 선택과목 『생활과 윤리』가 제시하고 있는 교육목표, 즉 학생들이 현대생활의 제 영역에서 발생하는 다양한 윤리 문제들을 주도적으로탐구하고 성찰함으로써 인간과 세계를 윤리적인 관점에 비추어 올바르게 이해하고, 도덕적 판단력 및 (...) 의사결정 능력을 함양하며 공동체 안에서 도덕적 삶을 실천할 수 있는 인성을 성취하는데 적합한 교육방법이다. 본 논문에서는 프로젝트 학습을 생명윤리 수업에 적용하여 교사의 안내와 학생의 주도적 실천으로 교육효과를 극대화시키는 ‘교육과정의 재구성’을 시도하고 있다. (shrink)

Given the recent developments in biotechnology and genetic engineering, the ability to eliminate genetic diseases from the human genome seems more and more possible each day. Being able to do so would mean a better quality of life for those who would otherwise suffer from incurable genetic diseases. However, even though the success of such a procedure would bring benefits that cannot be obtained by other means, the consequences for humans are still unknown. As such, the people involved should be (...) held responsible. The responsibility needs to be collective, not individual, because the decisions leading to the edition of a human genome and someone being born as a result of it are not made by a single individual, but several people, from the prospective parents interested in the intervention for their future child to the ones in charge of performing said intervention. The addition of the human genome can bring significant benefits, and it seems to be the only way to avoid certain genetic diseases; however, collective responsibility should be taken by those involved in the decisions that lead to a person being born with a modified genome. (shrink)

Resumo: Por intermédio da análise dos gêneros carta e conto escritos por Machado de Assis, procuramos oferecer uma resposta à questão do horizonte ético e moral que opera nos textos do autor. Trabalhamos numa perspectiva interdisciplinar, pois dialogamos com filósofos, historiadores e críticos literários procurando, num primeiro momento, demonstrar que a noção de cuidado de si se mostra na correspondência machadiana a partir da perspectiva de cura de si, isto é, um tipo de sabedoria dos antigos gregos e romanos que (...) o autor lança mão para realizar e organizar o pensamento literário, seu e de seus pares, na direção das publicações e conquistas no âmbito da literatura. Num segundo momento, demonstramos que o cuidado de si terá outro sentido nos textos de ficção, pois se volta para um cuidado da alma no sentido do desenvolvimento do pensamento crítico do sujeito em relação ao eu e ao outro, ao indivíduo e ao mundo social. Palavras-chave: Machado de Assis; Cuidado de Si; Cartas; Literatura. The care of the self as an ethical perspective in Machado de Assis Abstract : Through the analysis of the genres letter and short story written by Machado de Assis, we try to offer an answer to the question of the ethical and moral horizon that operates in the author's texts. We work in an interdisciplinary perspective, as we dialogue with philosophers, historians and literary critics, trying, in a first moment, to demonstrate that the notion of self-care is shown in Machado's correspondence from the perspective of self-cure, that is, a kind of wisdom from the ancient Greeks and Romans that the author uses to accomplish and organize the literary thought, his own and his peers', in the direction of publications and achievements in the field of literature. In a second moment, we demonstrate that the care of the self will have another meaning in fiction texts, since it turns to a care of the soul in the sense of the development of the subject's critical thought in relation to the self and to the other, to the individual and to the social world. Keywords: Machado De Assis; Self-Care; Letters; Literature. Le souci de soi comme perspective éthique chez Machado de Assis Résumé : A travers l'analyse des genres lettre et nouvelle écrits par Machado de Assis, nous essayons d'offrir une réponse à la question de l'horizon éthique et moral qui opère dans les textes de l'auteur. Nous travaillons dans une perspective interdisciplinaire, car nous dialoguons avec des philosophes, des historiens et des critiques littéraires en essayant, dans un premier temps, de démontrer que la notion d'auto-soin apparaît dans la correspondance de Machado dans la perspective de l'auto-cure, c'est-à-dire une sorte de sagesse des anciens Grecs et Romains que l'auteur utilise pour accomplir et organiser la pensée littéraire, la sienne et celle de ses pairs, vers des publications et des conquêtes dans le domaine de la littérature. Dans un deuxième temps, nous démontrons que le souci de soi aura un autre sens dans les textes de fiction, car il se transforme en soin de l'âme au sens du développement de la pensée critique du sujet par rapport au moi et à l'autre, à l'individu et au monde social. Mots-Clés: Machado De Assis; Soins Personnels; Letres; Littérature. Data de registro: 22/11/2022 Data de aceite: 24/04/2023. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to reinforce the alert that the German philosopher Hans Jonas makes in his work Principle responsibility for the imminent possibility of a tragic end of history for humanity if the unpredictable effects arising from the form of action of the liberal political-economic system and the inconsequential advance of the technology that follows are considered. In this intention, we chose as a strategy, to weaken and oppose the Hegelian idea, opposed to Jonah's view, that there (...) would be no cause for alarm because history, in its development, is guided by an immanent and well-intentioned reason that inevitably leads humanity towards the realm of freedom and the absolute spirit. More recently, the American philosopher, economist and political scientist Francis Fukuyama, seeking support in Hegelian thought decreed that history had come to an end with the culmination of the sociocultural evolution of humanity. In this context, we initially seek to present an interpretative analysis of the ideas of Hegel and Fukuyama, and then to make a critique a of this way of thinking, in the light of Hans Jonas' arguments. Finally, it is concluded, through the Jonasian lens, that the story, in addition to not having reached its end, as Fukuyama stated, may also have a quite different ending from that imagined by Hegel. Therefore, one should not disregard the occurrence of the hypothesis of an essential death followed by a physical death of the human race, well before the Hegelian project of freedom has a chance to take place. In doubt, it is better for man to be wary of the existence and of the intention and of the capacity of an imminent reason and to retake in time the reins of his own destiny, through the adoption of a new ethical principle: that of responsibility. (shrink)

The notion of linguistic correction with which Augustine of Hippo introduced his Ars pro fratrum mediocritate breuiata seems central to the philosopher's grammatical discussion, not only because of the various examples that Augustine offers about the definitions of barbarism and soloecism at the end of this treatise, but also because the subject of correction and, consequently, of the deviations of language, are also presented in other non-grammatical works: The confessions, De ordine and De doctrina Christiana. In this article, we propose (...) to evaluate the conceptual outlines of the notions of barbarism and solecism in the work of Augustine, considering, on the one hand, the definitions present in the Ars breuiata, and, on the other, the way in which Augustine also presents them in his philosophical work. We propose that the normative orientation contained in the text of ars must be relativised by ethical questions that arise from the comments present in the Confessions, the De ordine and the De doctrina Christiana. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Psychedelics have again become a subject of widespread interest, owing to the reinvigoration of research into their traditional uses, possible medical applications, and social implications. As evidence for psychedelics' clinical potential mounts, the field has increasingly focused on searching for mechanisms to explain the effects of psychedelics and therapeutic efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT). This paper reviews three general frameworks that encompass several prominent models for understanding psychedelics' effects—specifically, neurobiological, psychological, and spiritual frameworks. Following our review, the implications of each (...) framework for ethics and professional competencies in the implementation of psychedelics as medicines are explored. We suggest that interdisciplinary education may be necessary to improve communication between researchers, develop models that effectively incorporate multiple levels of analysis, and facilitate collaboration between professionals with diverse backgrounds in the implementation of psychedelic medicines. We also address pitfalls associated with overemphasis on neuro-mechanisms, risks associated with instigating vulnerable states of consciousness, and hurdles associated with the integration of spiritual frameworks in medicine. Ultimately, as psychedelics push the boundaries of explanatory frameworks focused on one level of analysis, developing new and more useful models to reflect knowledge being produced in this field should be a central aim of psychedelic science going forward. (shrink)

In Brazil, the normative landscape around advertising is complex, not the least because of limitations inherent to dispute resolution mechanisms. Focusing on unhealthy food and beverages, this case study identifies some challenges and opportunities around advertising restrictions, including in relation to freedom of speech.

The exercise I propose to do in this article is to comment and translate the outline of the book on Kantian politics sent by Andreas Richter to Kant. Richter’s proposal is to organize Kantian statements about politics dispersed in writings of the 90s and to systematize them according to the foundations of the Kantian critical project. To this end, it uses the qualification of moral policy, as well as the transcendental principles of public law and the concept of permissive law (...) present in the appendices of the written Perpetual peace. The presentation of the draft of Richter’s book will make it possible to identify what were, in the view of a fellow countryman and scholar of Kant, the structure and main themes of Kantian politics, as well as what were, at thetime, the points of gravitation of politics. (shrink)

This magisterial work is the first comprehensive study of the ethics of killing, where the moral status of the individual is uncertain or controversial. Drawing on philosophical notions of personal identity and the wrongness of killing, McMahan looks carefully at a host of practical issues including abortion, infanticide, the killing of animals, assisted suicide and euthanasia.

In this paper we investigate how the shift to a completely urban global world intertwined by ubiquitous and mobile ICTs changes the ontological meaning of space, and how the use of these technologies challenges the social and political construction of territories and the cultural appropriation of places. Our approach to this conceptual debate will focus on what we consider to be more direct and tangible implications of this augmen-tation of urban life. Three types of manifestations will represent the core of (...) the discussions presented here, both through theoretical approaches and analytical descriptions of some examples: surveillance artefacts which permeate our daily life and allow a hypothetical total control of space; locative media that gives us the freedom of spatial mobility and the possibility of creating and recreating places; and the global networks of signs, values and ideologies, which break down the social and political boundaries of territories. (shrink)

Im Rahmen der Theorie Kants über die Probleme der Vernunft und seine Hilfstheorie zielt der vorliegende Artikel darauf ab, die in der Rechtslehre dargestellte Theorie des rechtlichen Besitzes anhand des analytisch-logischen Lesens zu interpretieren, dessen Beweisprozedur die Methode der Analyse und Synthese ist. Die vorliegende Untersuchung weist in eine Richtung, die die kritische Angehörigkeit dieses späten rechtlichen Textes in dem Maβe verteidigt, wie die Theorie des intelligiblen Besitzes auf die kritische Ebene der Äußerung von der Möglichkeit synthetischer Sätze a priori (...) im Allgemeinen bezogen ist. (shrink)

Volume 2 spells out the implications of this ethical theory, and Cauthen takes forthright and controversial positions on a wide variety of contemporary topics.

As a scientific, materialist worldview becomes increasingly difficult to repudiate, and as philosophers increasingly uncover and articulate the conceptual nature of morality and distinctively moral normativity, the threat of moral anti-realism becomes more and more real. This perspective is argued in Chapter One. Chapter Two discusses how laws and bioethical trends that pertain to the clinical management of patients in a vegetative coma differ from country to country and continue to give rise to unresolved legal debates and scientific controversy. Chapter (...) Three covers how caregivers in palliative care must be supported to better understand patients hopes and needs, making them comfortable to decide when or how much they want to eat. Chapter Four synthesises findings from four empirical studies conducted in Western Africa (Togo) on topics related to the autonomy (end of life decision-making among terminally-ill patients), benevolence and non-malevolence (breaking bad news to elderly patients and their families), and justice (informal payments to physicians, criminal prosecution in cases of HIV transmission) principles of bioethics. Finally, Chapter Five argues that expert members in Ethics committees have an unfair upper-hand, with their decisions trumping other debates in committee deliberations. Qualitative research is brought to bear which illustrates this and which also notes how expertise dilutes the training given to newly appointed ethics committee members. (shrink)

The diagnosis of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders is embedded in a matrix of biological, social and ethical processes, making it an important topic for crossdisciplinary social and ethical research. This article reviews different branches of research relevant to understanding how FASD is identified and defined and outlines a framework for future social and ethical research in this area. We outline the character of scientific research into FASD, epidemiological discrepancies between reported patterns of maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy and the incidence (...) of FASD, and the social and ethical considerations that may impact on who is, and is not, diagnosed. We highlight what further research investigating FASD diagnostic processes, as well as the multi-generational impacts of FASD, is needed. Important research priorities are to: 1) enumerate the variety of stakeholders involved in seeking FASD diagnoses; 2) understand the experiences and perspectives of mothers from different backgrounds who have consumed alcohol during pregnancy and their affected children; and 3) collect health histories of maternal alcohol consumption in families to determine the effect of FASD at sub-cultural and cultural levels. (shrink)