scholarly journals Wild Animals and Duties of Assistance

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beka Jalagania
Keyword(s):  
Wild Animals ◽  
Moral Requirement ◽  
Special Circumstance ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Positive Duties ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
Special Circumstances

AbstractIs there a moral requirement to assist wild animals suffering due to natural causes? According to the laissez-faire intuition, although we may have special duties to assist wild animals, there are no general requirements to care for them. If this view is right, then our positive duties toward wild animals can be only special, grounded in special circumstances. In this article I present the contribution argument which employs the thought that the receipt of benefits from wild animals is one such kind of special circumstance. If this argument is correct, then the circle of moral agents required to assist some wild animals is significantly widened.

Ethics and action

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt King
Keyword(s):  
Joint Ventures ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Moral Requirement ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Right Action ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Difficult Cases ◽  
Moral Requirements

Moral theories are theories of right action. Moral principles are meant to guide action. And, if moral rules exist, they apply to all agents. Theories of action and agency seek to determine what counts as an action, what distinguishes agents from nonagents and the principles that govern what happens when agents act. These joint ventures both depend on and inform one another. When we deliberate about what to do, we often consider what moral requirements we might be under. We think about what we morally ought to do. It often seems like the answer to that question can depend on what sorts of abilities we have, what options are available. If I cannot do something, either because I lack the ability to do it or because I do not have the opportunity to act in that way, then plausibly it is not the case that I should do that thing. More importantly, perhaps, it is not the case that I failed a moral requirement. So what sorts of abilities do we have and how do they constrain what we ought to do? Moral principles tell us what we should do. But action theory tells us that what people do is a complicated affair. Typically, agents want and believe things, form intentions to act, then act on those intentions, while producing various results or outcomes. So an important question for ethics and action theory is: What parts of my action determine whether I act wrongly? Am I morally evaluable only for those parts I intend explicitly? Or must I answer for unintended consequences? In difficult cases, which take priority? Only moral agents need concern themselves with right action. However, we also think that morality is not optional. If some action is wrong, then no one should do it. No matter how much you want to, you still should not. And this seems like an important and necessary feature of morality. Ethicists have struggled, however, to justify why moral requirements should be universally binding. Some think that if we pay close attention to what it is to be an agent, one who performs actions for reasons, then we will find such a justification. Thus, a major foundational question of morality depends on a deeply foundational question from action theory: What does agency consist in?

scholarly journals Demands of Dignity in Robotic Care

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arto Laitinen ◽  
Marketta Niemelä ◽  
Jari Pirhonen ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
Robot Assisted ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
The Core ◽  
Positive Duties ◽  
Experience Emotion ◽  
Care Support

Having a sense of dignity is one of the core emotions in human life. Is our dignity, and accordingly also our sense of dignity under threat in elderly care, especially in robotic care? How can robotic care support or challenge human dignity in elderly care? The answer will depend on whether it is robot-based, robot-assisted, or teleoperated care that is at stake. Further, the demands and realizations of human dignity have to be distinguished. The demands to respect humans are based on human dignity and the inalienable high and equal moral standing that everyone has. For human moral agents, these demands take the form of negative and positive duties. For robots, they arguably take the form of corresponding ought-to-be norms. The realizations of dignity consist in variable responses to these demands, by oneself by others, and by society at large. This article examines how robot-based, robot-assisted, and teleoperated care can amount to realizations of dignity. The varieties of robotic care can, in different ways, be responsive to the demands of dignity and recognize humans as vulnerable beings with needs, as autonomous agents, and as rational subjects of experience, emotion, and thought.

scholarly journals To Assist or Not to Assist? Assessing the Potential Moral Costs of Humanitarian Intervention in Nature

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Johannsen
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Wild Animal ◽  
Habitat Destruction ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Animal Suffering ◽  
Ecological Damage ◽  
Positive Duties ◽  
Negative Duties

In light of the extent of wild animal suffering, some philosophers have adopted the view that we should cautiously assist wild animals on a large scale. Recently, their view has come under criticism. According to one objection, even cautious intervention is unjustified because fallibility is allegedly intractable. By contrast, a second objection states that we should abandon caution and intentionally destroy habitat in order to prevent wild animals from reproducing. In my paper, I argue that intentional habitat destruction is wrong because negative duties are more stringent than positive duties. However, I also argue that the possible benefits of ecological damage, combined with the excusability of unintended, unforeseeable harm, suggest that fallibility should not paralyse us.

scholarly journals Beneficence, Non-Identity, and Responsibility: How Identity-Affecting Interventions in Nature can Generate Secondary Moral Duties

Philosophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary David O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Wild Animal ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Identity Problem ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Moral Duties

AbstractIn chapter 3 of Wild Animal Ethics Johannsen argues for a collective obligation based on beneficence to intervene in nature in order to reduce the suffering of wild animals. In the same chapter he claims that the non-identity problem is merely a “theoretical puzzle” (p.32) which doesn’t affect our reasons for intervention. In this paper I argue that the non-identity problem affects both the strength and the nature of our reasons to intervene. By intervening in nature on a large scale we change which animals come into existence. In doing so, we enable harmful animals to inflict harms on other animals, and we put other animals in harm’s way. The harms that these animals will inflict and endure are foreseeable. Furthermore, since non-human animals aren’t moral agents, harmful animals cannot be morally responsible for their harmful actions. I argue therefore that by causing animals to exist, knowing that they will inflict and suffer harms, we become morally responsible for those harms. By engaging in identity-affecting actions then we take on secondary moral duties towards the animals we have thereby caused to exist, and these secondary moral duties may be extremely demanding, even more so than the initial costs of intervention. Finally, these duties are duties of justice rather than duties of beneficence, and as such are more stringent than purely beneficence-based moral reasons. Furthermore, this conclusion flows naturally from several plausible principles which Johannsen explicitly endorses.

Sovereignty for Animals?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alasdair Cochrane
Keyword(s):  
Potential Problem ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Basic Rights ◽  
Positive Duties ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Animal Communities

Chapter 5 considers whether, within the proposed sentientist global political order, some groups of wild animals ought to be granted their own political communities. Indeed, Donaldson and Kymlicka have claimed that wild animals ought to be recognized as having sovereignty over their territories. This chapter evaluates this claim and concludes that the best way of protecting the basic rights of wild animals is not through granting them sovereignty, but through recognizing them as equal members of mixed human–animal communities. It then addresses a potential problem with regarding wild animals as equal members of our political communities: that it leads to our having positive duties of assistance to wild animals, requiring us to ‘police nature’. The chapter argues that while we do in fact have positive duties of assistance to wild animals, these do not require or permit immediate massive interventions by humans into nature.

scholarly journals 102 - IPA Guidelines on Dementia and Agitation: From Provisional to Final

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (S1) ◽  
pp. 3-3
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Cummings ◽  
Mary Sano ◽  
Jacobo Mintzer ◽  
Paul Rosenberg ◽  
Michael Splaine
Keyword(s):  
Hospice Care ◽  
Cognitive Disorders ◽  
Hospital Emergency ◽  
Special Circumstance ◽  
Consensus Definition ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Special Circumstances ◽  
Hospital Emergency Departments

Agitation is common across neuropsychiatric disorders and contributes to disability, institutionalization, and diminished quality of life for patients and their caregivers. In 2015 IPA convened a transparent process to build a consensus definition of agitation and agreement on what elements should be included in the syndrome that resulted in publication of provisional guidelines. (Cummings et al, 2015) In the 2020-2021 year, the two co-chairs of this symposium have led a new workgroup to make the provisional consensus definition of agitation in patients with cognitive disorders that can be applied in epidemiologic, non-interventional clinical, pharmacologic, non-pharmacologic interventional, and neurobiological studies and guide treatment final.Co-Chairs will discuss methods used in updating and findings and compare changes made to the provisional guidelines. Dr. Sano will present new findings on the biological basis of agitation in dementia and Dr. Mintzer will present on application of guidelines in the special circumstances of persons in palliative and hospice care. Dr. Rosenberg will discuss the special circumstance of agitation care in hospital emergency departments. Mr. Splaine will present findings about the utilization of the 2015 guidelines in the peer reviewed literature, professional and government dementia care guidance, and clinical trials.Cummings, J., Mintzer, J., Brodaty, H., Sano, M., Banerjee, S., Devanand, D., … Zhong, K. (2015). Agitation in cognitive disorders: International Psychogeriatric Association provisional consensus clinical and research definition. International Psychogeriatrics, 27(1), 7-17. doi:10.1017/S1041610214001963

Imaging molecules adsorbed onto electrodes under potential control by scanning probe microscopy

1991 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 376-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.J. Tao ◽  
J.A. DeRose ◽  
P.I. Oden ◽  
S.M. Lindsay
Keyword(s):  
Surface Charge ◽  
Environmental Effects ◽  
Scanning Probe Microscopy ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Electrochemical Methods ◽  
Surface Structures ◽  
Scanning Probe ◽  
Potential Control ◽  
Afm Imaging ◽  
Special Circumstances

Clemmer and Beebe have pointed out that surface structures on graphite substrates can be misinterpreted as biopolymer images in STM experiments. We have been using electrochemical methods to react DNA fragments onto gold electrodes for STM and AFM imaging. The adsorbates produced in this way are only homogeneous in special circumstances. Searching an inhomogeneous substrate for ‘desired’ images limits the value of the data. Here, we report on a reversible method for imaging adsorbates. The molecules can be lifted onto and off the substrate during imaging. This leaves no doubt about the validity or statistical significance of the images. Furthermore, environmental effects (such as changes in electrolyte or surface charge) can be investigated easily.

Ethische Führung – Gütekriterien einer deutschen Adaptation der Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS-D) von

2009 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Rowold ◽  
Lars Borgmann ◽  
Kathrin Heinitz
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Leadership ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
Ethical Leadership Scale

Ziel des vorliegenden Beitrages ist, die Gütekriterien eines Instruments zur Erfassung von ethischer Führung zu überprüfen. Ausgangspunkt war die Übersetzung der Ethical Leadership Scale von Brown, Trevino und Harrison (2005) ins Deutsche (ELS-D). Anschließend wurde anhand dreier Stichproben (N1 = 100, N2 = 119, N3 = 507) die faktorielle Binnenstruktur des Instrumentes überprüft. Es ergaben sich zwei Faktoren (ethische Mitarbeiterführung und ethisches Rollenmodell). Es zeigten sich konvergente Validitäten zwischen den Skalen ethischer Führung und transformationaler, transaktionaler, mitarbeiter- und aufgabenorientierter Führung (positive Korrelationen) sowie Laissez-faire (negative Korrelation). Demgegenüber waren die Skalen ethischer Führung erwartungskonform überwiegend unabhängig vom Alter der geführten Mitarbeiter und vom Geschlecht der Führungskraft. Hohe Zusammenhänge zwischen ethischer Führung und der Arbeitszufriedenheit sowie dem Commitment der Mitarbeiter werden als Belege für die Konstruktvalidität gewertet. Die interne Konsistenz der ELS-D-Skalen war in allen drei empirischen Studien gut. Insgesamt steht mit der hier vorgestellten deutschen Adaptation der ELS ein ökonomisches Instrument mit ansprechenden Gütekriterien für den Einsatz bereit.

The Education of Research Psychologists in Sweden

2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Larsson ◽  
Josef Frischer
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Doctoral Programs ◽  
Science Department ◽  
Research Education ◽  
The Core ◽  
Social Science Department ◽  
Learning Alliance ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
The Government

The education of researchers in Sweden is regulated by a nationwide reform implemented in 1969, which intended to limit doctoral programs to 4 years without diminishing quality. In an audit performed by the government in 1996, however, it was concluded that the reform had failed. Some 80% of the doctoral students admitted had dropped out, and only 1% finished their PhD degree within the stipulated 4 years. In an attempt to determine the causes of this situation, we singled out a social-science department at a major Swedish university and interviewed those doctoral students who had dropped out of the program. This department was found to be representative of the nationwide figures found in the audit. The students interviewed had all completed at least 50% of their PhD studies and had declared themselves as dropouts from this department. We conclude that the entire research education was characterized by a laissez-faire attitude where supervisors were nominated but abdicated. To correct this situation, we suggest that a learning alliance should be established between the supervisor and the student. At the core of the learning alliance is the notion of mutually forming a platform form which work can emerge in common collaboration. The learning alliance implies a contract for work, stating its goals, the tasks to reach these goals, and the interpersonal bonding needed to give force and endurance to the endeavor. Constant scrutiny of this contract and a mutual concern for the learning alliance alone can contribute to its strength.

Suicide-Related Crimes in Contemporary European Criminal Laws

Crisis ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilkka Henrik Mäkinen
Keyword(s):  
Suicide Prevention ◽  
Suicide Mortality ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Cultural Attitudes ◽  
Public Opinions ◽  
Suicide Rates ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
National Affair ◽  
Attitudes Towards Suicide ◽  
Special Circumstances

This article describes suicide-related penal legislation in contemporary Europe, and analyzes and relates the results to cultural attitudes towards suicide and to national suicide rates. Data were obtained from 42 legal entities. Of these, 34 have penal regulations which - according to definition - chiefly and directly deal with suicide. There are three main types of act: aiding suicide, abetting suicide, and driving to suicide. The laws vary considerably with regard to which acts are sanctioned, how severely they are punished, and whether any special circumstances such as the motive, the result, or the object can make the crime more serious. Various ideologies have inspired legislation: religions, the euthanasia movement, and suicide prevention have all left their mark. There are some cases in which neighboring legal systems have clearly influenced laws on the topic. However, the process seems mostly to have been a national affair, resulting in surprisingly large discrepancies between European legal systems. The laws seem to reflect public opinions: countries which punish the crimes harder have significantly less permissive cultural attitudes towards suicide. Likewise, suicide rates were significantly higher in countries with a narrow scope of criminalization and milder punishments for suicide-related crimes. The cultural and normative elements of society are connected with its suicide mortality.

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