scholarly journals Relationship between moral responsibility for zoonotic pandemics outbreaks and industrial animal farms

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 695-713
Author(s):  
Josip Guc
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Weakest Link ◽  
Animal Farms ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Livestock Health ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Moral Blame ◽  
Do So

The responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic was first ascribed to persons associated with the Huanan Seafood Market. However, many scientists suggest that this pandemic is actually a consequence of human intrusion into nature. This opens up a whole new perspective for an examination of direct and indirect, individual and collective responsibility concerning this particular pandemic, but also zoonotic pandemics as such. In this context, one of the key issues are the consequences of factory-farming of animals, which contributes to circumstances in which zoonotic pandemics emerge. Moreover, it is part of a larger economic system, global capitalism, whose logic implies certain coercion toward its participants to keep it essentially unchanged and therefore to make sure that livestock health remains ?the weakest link in our global health chain? (FAO). However, even though the precise answer to the issue of moral responsibility for zoonotic pandemics outbreaks in general and the COVID-19 pandemic in particular cannot be given, it is possible to list certain indicators and make a framework helpful in ascribing moral responsibility to certain persons. The paper intends to do so by examining the notion of responsibility and by applying it to the issues mentioned. The results of this analysis show that it is misleading to place moral blame on people involved in actions that directly caused the animal-to-human transmission of a certain virus or on humanity as a whole.

scholarly journals Debunking (the) Retribution (Gap)

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 1315-1328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven R. Kraaijeveld
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Complex Systems ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Moral Question ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
Retributive Punishment ◽  
Human Desire ◽  
Moral Blame ◽  
Do So

Abstract Robotization is an increasingly pervasive feature of our lives. Robots with high degrees of autonomy may cause harm, yet in sufficiently complex systems neither the robots nor the human developers may be candidates for moral blame. John Danaher has recently argued that this may lead to a retribution gap, where the human desire for retribution faces a lack of appropriate subjects for retributive blame. The potential social and moral implications of a retribution gap are considerable. I argue that the retributive intuitions that feed into retribution gaps are best understood as deontological intuitions. I apply a debunking argument for deontological intuitions in order to show that retributive intuitions cannot be used to justify retributive punishment in cases of robot harm without clear candidates for blame. The fundamental moral question thus becomes what we ought to do with these retributive intuitions, given that they do not justify retribution. I draw a parallel from recent work on implicit biases to make a case for taking moral responsibility for retributive intuitions. In the same way that we can exert some form of control over our unwanted implicit biases, we can and should do so for unjustified retributive intuitions in cases of robot harm.

On the Relation Between Collective Responsibility and Collective Duties

Philosophy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-131
Author(s):  
Niels de Haan
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
The Other ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Type Symmetry ◽  
Moral Demands

AbstractThere is good reason to think that moral responsibility as accountability is tied to the violation of moral demands. This lends intuitive support to Type-Symmetry in the collective realm: A type of responsibility entails the violation or unfulfillment of the same type of all-things-considered duty. For example, collective responsibility necessarily entails the violation of a collective duty. But Type-Symmetry is false. In this paper I argue that a non-agential group can be collectively responsible without thereby violating a collective duty. To show this I distinguish between four types of responsibility and duty in collective contexts: corporate, distributed, collective, shared. I set out two cases: one involves a non-reductive collective action that constitutes irreducible wrongdoing, the other involves a non-divisible consequence. I show that the violation of individual or shared duties both can lead to irreducible wrongdoing for which only the group is responsible. Finally, I explain why this conclusion does not upset any work on individual responsibility.

scholarly journals Locked Out

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 555-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
VERONICA JOHANSSON ◽  
SURJO R. SOEKADAR ◽  
JENS CLAUSEN
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Medical Condition ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Social Barriers ◽  
Computer Interfaces ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Viable Solution ◽  
Key Issues

Abstract:Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) can enable communication for persons in severe paralysis including locked-in syndrome (LIS); that is, being unable to move or speak while aware. In cases of complete loss of muscle control, termed “complete locked-in syndrome,” a BCI may be the only viable solution to restore communication. However, a widespread ignorance regarding quality of life in LIS, current BCIs, and their potential as an assistive technology for persons in LIS, needlessly causes a harmful situation for this cohort. In addition to their medical condition, these persons also face social barriers often perceived as more impairing than their physical condition. Through social exclusion, stigmatization, and frequently being underestimated in their abilities, these persons are being locked out in addition to being locked-in. In this article, we (1) show how persons in LIS are being locked out, including how key issues addressed in the existing literature on ethics, LIS, and BCIs for communication, such as autonomy, quality of life, and advance directives, may reinforce these confinements; (2) show how these practices violate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and suggest that we have a moral responsibility to prevent and stop this exclusion; and (3) discuss the role of BCIs for communication as one means to this end and suggest that a novel approach to BCI research is necessary to acknowledge the moral responsibility toward the end users and avoid violating the human rights of persons in LIS.

Socio-Semantic Processes in Social Actors Representation: A Case Study of “Ya-Sin”

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-169
Author(s):  
Roghayeh Farsi
Keyword(s):  
Case Study Approach ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Linear Nature ◽  
Do So ◽  
Semantic Processes

AbstractThe academic field of Qurʾānic Studies employs a wide range of approaches, each one of which helps to open up a new perspective on the Qurʾānic text. The Holy Book was revealed to guide people; it is thus of relevance to all aspects of people’s lives. This article focuses on the way social actors are represented in one Meccansūra, entitled “Ya-Sin”, and employs a case-study approach to do so. The analysis carried out includes the socio-semantic processes that thesūrauses in order to represent social actors either by behavior (action) or meaning (reflection), and it also analyzes the actors as they are represented in processes such as activation and passivation. The methodology adopted is eclectic and analytic. It is a hybrid of Swales’ move analysis, El-Awa’s identification of shift-markers, and Halliday’s and Van Leeuwen’s theories of social actor representation. This study shows how such an analysis can contribute to understanding the apparently fragmented and non-linear nature of “Ya-Sin”.

Dealing with the communist past: Its role in the disintegration of the Czech Civic Forum and in the emergence of the Civic Democratic Party

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lubomír Kopeček
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Communist Past ◽  
Civic Forum ◽  
Do So

The end of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989 has opened the thorny question of how to deal with the communist legacy. This paper focuses on important aspects of decommunization at the beginning of the 1990s and analyzes the role they played in the disintegration of the Civic Forum and in the emergence of the Civic Democratic Party. The paper shows that the decommunization agenda gradually became a significant divisive factor within the Civic Forum and served as one of the key issues through which the Civic Democratic Party defined itself. It also provided an opportunity for politicians skilled enough to grasp this issue to do so and to incorporate it into their wider political agendas.

The Handbook of Language Assessment Across Modalities

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Assessment Literacy ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Relevant Field ◽  
The Common ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
First Time

In Language Assessment Across Modalities: Paired-Papers on Signed and Spoken Language Assessment, volume editors Tobias Haug, Wolfgang Mann, and Ute Knoch bring together—for the first time—researchers, clinicians, and practitioners from two different fields: signed language and spoken language. The volume examines theoretical and practical issues related to 12 topics ranging from test development and language assessment of bi-/multilingual learners to construct issues of second-language assessment (including the Common European Framework of Reference [CEFR]) and language assessment literacy in second-language assessment contexts. Each topic is addressed separately for spoken and signed language by experts from the relevant field. This is followed by a joint discussion in which the chapter authors highlight key issues in each field and their possible implications for the other field. What makes this volume unique is that it is the first of its kind to bring experts from signed and spoken language assessment to the same table. The dialogues that result from this collaboration not only help to establish a shared appreciation and understanding of challenges experienced in the new field of signed language assessment but also breathes new life into and provides a new perspective on some of the issues that have occupied the field of spoken language assessment for decades. It is hoped that this will open the door to new and exciting cross-disciplinary collaborations.

Planetary Ambitions

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-84
Author(s):  
Joshua Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Mapping ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Hegemonic Discourse ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Fredric Jameson ◽  
Market Capitalism

This chapter reads Lydie Salvayre's Portrait de l’écrivain en animal domestique (2007). In this novel, Salvayre’s anxieties about allowing oneself—and even herself as author—to be domesticated by the logic of global capitalism are condensed into the pathological relationship between her narrator avatar (who incarnates politically-engaged literature) and the satirical Jim Tobold, the richest man on the planet and ‘uncontested champion of globalization’—a character who, incidentally, bears more than a passing resemblance to Donald Trump. Tobold sees the world at the level of the master, corporate map, from which he can make boardroom decisions in perfect disregard for their harmful, ground-level side effects. This chapter revisits and further explores Bruno Latour on cartographic megalomania, and draws on Fredric Jameson on cognitive mapping, and David Harvey on the self-defeating contradictions of the infinite expansion paradigm of capitalism in a world of increasingly finite resources. Moreover, it develops the Salvaryean notion of the paralipomenon, offering a new perspective on Salvayre’s underlying (engaged) literary strategy, one that, by focusing on the seemingly insignificant details of a hegemonic discourse—such as that of free-market capitalism—reveals its inherent contradictions and flaws.

The Roles of Peripheral Participants and Brokers

2011 ◽  
pp. 297-307
Author(s):  
François Grima ◽  
Emmanuel Josserand
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Direct Observation ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Boundary Spanning ◽  
Boundary Spanners ◽  
Learning Trajectories ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
External Community ◽  
Do So

The objective of our chapter is to gain a better understanding of learning trajectories connecting external and internal communities of practices. To do so we studied four internal communities of practice by actors belonging to a same external community. We realized semi-directive interviews in these communities supplemented by direct observation of meetings. Our results give a new perspective on participation to communities of practice. We describe how young members act as boundary spanners between the communities and the practice in their organization while more senior members act as unique facilitators with a balance between boundary spanning and buffering. We describe in detail the personal characteristics of these senior members.

A Positive View of Freedom?

2019 ◽  
pp. 147-161
Author(s):  
Brian Leiter
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Positive View ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
External Influences ◽  
Positive Valence ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Persuasive Definition ◽  
Do So

This chapter reviews the textual evidence that Nietzsche retains a positive conception of “freedom.” Interpretive proposals due to Gemes and Poellner are shown not to be borne out by the texts. The chapter concludes that Nietzsche offers a “persuasive definition” of freedom, attaching the term’s positive valence to a sense of freedom unfamiliar in the modern Humean or Kantian traditions, but having echoes in Spinoza: “freedom” as acting from one’s inner nature rather than from external influences, something one can only do if fated to do so. The Spinoza-type view is shown not to be a kind of Control view of free will, so not one that vindicates moral responsibility.

Artificial Intelligence and Human-Robot Teaming

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-122
Author(s):  
Xuefei (Nancy) Deng
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Value Sensitive Design ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
And Coping ◽  
Team Setting ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Team Trust

Artificial Intelligence or AI is the theory and development of computer systems that can think and act humanly and rationally. AI is gradually transforming our work and life. Along with the increasing presence of robots in our lives arises the fear that AI may take away human jobs. Debates or worries notwithstanding, AI and robots are increasingly brought into the teams of human workers, but our understanding of this emerging human-robot teaming phenomenon remains limited. This chapter presents a brief overview of AI and discusses the relationship between AI and knowledge management. Moreover, it focuses on understanding key issues arising in the collaboration between human and intelligent agents (i.e. robots) in the team setting, and coping strategies and design considerations. This chapter also discusses the value sensitive design framework as a useful tool for incorporating the values of agent transparency and team trust into the design of human-robotic systems. The chapter concludes with the new perspective of augmented intelligence and promising avenues for future research.

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