Intentional Ecology: Integrating environmental expertise through a focus on values, care and advocacy

As the significance of environmental degradation for humanity becomes apparent, the challenge of developing expertise in integrating science, advocacy and implementation has been acknowledged. Addressing recent and ongoing global challenges including mass extinction, climate change, disease and threats to food, water and power security requires employment of evidence-based science in multi-faceted approaches. Ensuring the mobilisation of new knowledge in practice, both in policy and on-ground actions, takes many researchers into the realm of advocacy, where facts and values become equally important. In the nexus between research and practice, guidance in integrating approaches is required. Drawing on the fields of conservation biology, systems theory and feminist science, this paper offers a new conceptual framework to guide researchers and professionals; one that supports practice by encouraging action and advocacy. The framework, intentional ecology, requires examination of ethics and acknowledgement of the human endeavour that supports curiosity and care in research. Intention is the key concept here as it incorporates beliefs, choice and actions. A case study of the application of intentional ecology to research into, and conservation of, a small, threatened amphibian, Sloane’s Froglet, in South Eastern Australia is provided. Many environmental issues are complex and it is difficult to find a single point to address. While acknowledging that complexity, intentional ecology provides an ethical basis and imperative to act. In so doing intentional ecology enables early, applied and relevant integrated action and reflexive and dynamic approaches to implementation.

Does Zero-COVID neglect health disparities?

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) first declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic, diverse strategies have emerged to address it. This paper focuses on two leading strategies, elimination and mitigation, and examines their ethical basis. Elimination or ‘Zero-COVID’ dominates policies in Pacific Rim societies. It sets as a goal zero deaths and seeks to contain transmission using stringent short-term lockdowns, followed by strict find, test, trace and isolate methods. Mitigation, which dominates in the US and most European nations, sets targets for community transmission and lifts restrictions once targets are met. This approach takes calculated risks and regards a certain amount of disease and death as ethically justified. Section I examines different societal responses to risk that underlie these different policy approaches. Section II focuses on ethical arguments favouring Zero-COVID and raises health equity objections. Section III proposes a long-term strategy that balances the twin goals of promoting population health and health equity.

RUSSIAN ANIMAL ART OF THE XIX-XX CENTURIES IN THE VIEWS ON THE WORLD OF FLORA AND FAUNA

The article dwells on views of artists-animalists of the XIX-XX centuries on the wildlife world. The worldview questions are considered as a factor of the value of the interconnection of human and wildlife world which is predetermined by the historical situation. The author underlines the indispensable role of the animal in the development of human civilization. So, this implies an ethical attitude towards nature as a unique value. It was also noted that the moral and ethical basis of this relationship, that became actual in the era of global change and the crisis of the ecological situation, was contributing to the formation of ecological way of thinking as the reality of the New time. According to the artist-animalist’s worldview, an animal looks beautiful, its behavior is expedient, that has a beneficial impact on human. The interconnection of artists’ points of view and the way how they see the animalistic image from the position of humans of the New time are also considered in this article.

Resource allocation

This chapter explores the issues around the rationing of medical resources. It considers the different ways in which restrictions are imposed on what treatments are available and the ethical basis on which these assessments are based. This includes the controversial 'quality adjusted life years' method which is used to determine a cost/benefit analysis of different treatments. The chapter also examines how rationing is consistent with broader themes of justice.

Candour and confidentiality

This chapter sets out the legal duty to preserve confidentiality and to promote candour. It explores the ethical basis for these obligations and the circumstances in which they can be breached. The recent emphasis on candour is designed to protect the position of whistle blowers. The chapter also outlines the law on data protection.

Abay's teaching "Tolyk adam" and modern tendencies in solving the problem of the whole man

The relevance of this study lies in the fact that under the conditions of the need for accelerated modernization of almost all spheres of activity for countries in transition, which includes the Republic of Kazakhstan, the factor of consolidation of the people of Kazakhstan is of great importance. An important factor of consolidation in the countries of the catch-up type, in which all types of initiatives come mainly from the power elites, is the factor of spiritual leaders, national samples-ideals uniting the citizens of Kazakhstan. The great Kazakh poet, thinker, philosopher Abay Kunanbayev can be such a spiritual leader, a national example-ideal, uniting the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional people of Kazakhstan. The purpose and novelty of this study is to identify the relevance, modernity and relevance of the philosophical content of Abay's teaching "tolyk adam" (whole man) to modern trends in addressing the fundamental philosophical problem of wholeness, the wholeness principle and based on these trends the new understanding of the phenomenon of spirituality, which is the essence of the modern understanding of the whole man. The author, based on the thesis that the basis of the Kazakh type of philosophizing are ethical approaches to solving the problems of the essence of man, the essence of being, defines the ethical basis of Abay's teachings "tolyk adam" on the example of his poems and prose ("Words of Edification"). The author shows that, according to Abay, the whole man is a man realized in intersubjective being, the object of which is intersubjective being, it is a man aspiring to knowledge, moral and purposeful in his cognitive and spiritual intensions. Strong intensions to the problems of spirituality, according to Abai, constitute in his ideas the core of the whole man. And this approach is very modern and relevant in the context of the problems of globalization and modernization in the spiritual sphere. Abay's teaching "tolyk adam" is not only the quintessence of Abay's grasp of the thought of his modern era, but also a philosophical teaching that is relevant to modern new approaches to the fundamental problems of modernity.

Phenomena of freedom and justice in the interpretations of T. Hobbes and J. Locke

This study gives a possible representation of T. Hobbes and J. Locke's visions of the essence of 'freedom' and 'justice' phenomena. The philosophic-historical analysis performed in the article made it possible to reveal the fundamental ideological conflict between statism and liberalism, between the utilitarian, entirely pragmatic understanding the nature of the social contract (in Hobbes's political philosophy), and moral-ethical accents on the essential foundations of a state-organized society (in Locke's political thoughts). Hobbes generally ignores the moral and ethical preconditions inherent to human nature, reducing the social contract ontology to purely utilitarian aspects. The freedom of the individual loses its absolute character, as each member of this socio-political community gives up a part of his freedom in favor of 'Leviathan' (i.e. the sovereign, the state). Beginning from this moment it is fair for each individual to comply with the terms of that universally binding social contract, and its violation by someone within the community deemed to be unjust. On the contrary, Locke forms an idea of the ethical basis of the human community. Locke's political anthropology is based on the close relationship between the principle of justice and the imperatives of reason. The latter ones approach the universal ethical and legal requirements to ensure equal opportunities in the implementation and protection of freedoms and interests of the individual living in society. Under such conditions, justice means that a person acquires the maximum opportunities to fulfill his own freedoms (in all its diversity), without violating the freedoms of others.