Philosophers who have written about implicit bias have claimed or implied that individuals are not responsible, and therefore not blameworthy, for their implicit biases, and that this is a function of the nature of implicit bias as implicit: below the radar of conscious reflection, out of the control of the deliberating agent, and not rationally revisable in the way many of our reflective beliefs are. I argue that close attention to the findings of empirical psychology, and to the conditions for (...) blameworthiness, does not support these claims. I suggest that the arguments for the claim that individuals are not liable for blame are invalid, and that there is some reason to suppose that individuals are, at least sometimes, liable to blame for the extent to which they are influenced in behaviour and judgment by implicit biases. I also argue against the claim that it is counter-productive to see bias as something for which individuals are blameworthy; rather, understanding implicit bias as something for which we are liable to blame could be constructive. (shrink)

Do participants in shared activity have mutual obligations to do their bit? This article shows this question has no one-size-fits-all answer and offers a pluralist account of the normativity of shared agency. The first part argues obligations to do one's bit have three degrees of involvement in shared activity. Such obligations might, obviously, bolster co-participants’ resolve to act as planned (degree 1). Less obviously, there also are higher and lower degrees of involvement. Obligations to do one's bit might provide our (...) agency-pooling mechanism. When they do, we act together by virtue of satisfying them (degree 2). Conversely, some shared activities involve no obligation (degree 0). In the second part, I argue shared agency theory is best served by a non-moralistic conception of obligation, one on which co-participants’ obligations need be neither strict-performance obligations, nor directed ones. Overall, my arguments suggest that we can choose how to coordinate normatively our shared activities. (shrink)

Recent empirical research has substantiated the finding that very many of us harbour implicit biases: fast, automatic, and difficult to control processes that encode stereotypes and evaluative content, and influence how we think and behave. Since it is difficult to be aware of these processes - they have sometimes been referred to as operating 'unconsciously' - we may not know that we harbour them, nor be alert to their influence on our cognition and action. And since they are difficult to (...) control, considerable work is required to prevent their influence. We here focus on the implications of these findings for epistemology. We first look at ways in which implicit biases thwart our knowledge seeking practices (sections 1 & 2). Then we set out putative epistemic benefits of implicit bias, before considering ways in which epistemic practices might be improved (section 3). Finally, we consider the distinctive challenges that the findings about implicit bias pose to us as philosophers, in the context of feminist philosophy in particular (section 4). (shrink)

Should the state punish its disadvantaged citizens who have committed crimes? Duff has recently argued that where disadvantage persists the state loses its authority to hold individuals to account and to punish for criminal wrongdoings. I here scrutinize Duff’s argument for the claim that social justice is a precondition for the legitimacy of state punishment. I sharpen an objection to Duff’s argument: with his framework, we seem unable to block the implausible conclusion that where disadvantage persists the state lacks the (...) authority to punish any citizen for any crime. I then set out an alternative line of argument in support of the claim that social deprivation can threaten the states legitimate punitive authority. I argue that a penal system must incorporate certain proportionality principles, and that these principles cannot both be met where citizens suffer from deprivation. (shrink)

How, if at all, do the findings of social psychology impact upon philosophical analyses of discrimination? In this chapter, I outline key findings from three research programs from psychology – concerning in-group/out-group favoritism; implicit bias; and stereotype threat. I argue that each set of findings presents challenges to how philosophical analyses of group discrimination are formulated, and propose possible revisions to be explored in future work.

Philosophers have had a lot to say about blame, much less about praise. In this paper, I follow some recent authors in arguing that this is a mistake. However, unlike these recent authors, the reasons I identify for scrutinising praise are to do with the ways in which praise is, systematically, unjustly apportioned. Specifically, drawing on testimony and findings from social psychology, I argue that praise is often apportioned in ways that reflect and entrench existing structures of oppression. Articulating what (...) is going wrong here helps us to see what to do about it. (shrink)

We explore the relationship between jurisprudential theories pertaining to the nature of law and semantic and metasemantic theories pertaining to the meaning of ‘law’ in the wake of Dworkin’s notorious Semantic Sting argument in Law’s Empire (HUP 1986). Along the way we delineate various aspects of the semantic and metasemantic underpinnings of ‘law’ as an artifact term and advance the general methodological point that jurisprudential inquiry is only negligibly constrained by the findings of semantic and metasemantic inquiry.

Our focus here is on whether, when influenced by implicit biases, those behavioural dispositions should be understood as being a part of that person’s character: whether they are part of the agent that can be morally evaluated.[4] We frame this issue in terms of control. If a state, process, or behaviour is not something that the agent can, in the relevant sense, control, then it is not something that counts as part of her character. A number of theorists have argued (...) that individuals do not have control, in the relevant sense, over the operation of implicit bias. We will argue that this claim is mistaken. We articulate and develop a notion of control that individuals have with respect to implicit bias, and argue that this kind of control can ground character-based evaluation of such behavioural dispositions. (shrink)

It is not usually morally permissible to desire the suffering of another person, or to act so as to satisfy this desire; that is, to act with the aim of bringing about suffering. If the retributive emotions, and the retributive responses of which they are a part, are morally permitted or even required, we will need to see what is distinctive about them. One line of argument in this paper is for the conclusion that a retributive desire for the suffering (...) of the wrong-doer, and the aim to bring this about, can (contra recent arguments from Hanna 2008) be morally justified. -/- It has been suggested that by reflecting on the role of the retributive emotions in interpersonal relationships, and the alleged legitimacy of the aim for the suffering of the wrong-doer within them, support can be garnered for retributive practices of punishment by the state (Duff 1986 and 2001, Bennett 2002 and 2003). The conclusion of the second line of argument in the paper is that whilst the retributive responses can permissibly aim at suffering, the way in which this is so in interpersonal relationships cannot provide support for retributive state punishment. (shrink)

The reasonable person standard is used in adjudicating claims of self-defence. In US law, an individual may use defensive force if her beliefs that a threat is imminent and that force is required are beliefs that a reasonable person would have. In English law, it is sufficient that beliefs in imminence and necessity are genuinely held; but the reasonableness of so believing is given an evidential role in establishing the genuineness of the beliefs. There is, of course, much contention over (...) how to spell out when, and in virtue of what, such beliefs are reasonable. In this chapter, we identify some distinctive issues that arise when we consider that implicit racial bias might be implicated in the beliefs in imminence and necessity. Considering two prominent interpretations of the reasonable person standard, we argue that neither is acceptable. On one interpretation, we risk unfairness to the defendant-who may non-culpably harbour bias. On another, the standard embeds racist stereotypes. Whilst there are formulations of the defence that may serve to mitigate these problems, we argue that they cannot be avoided in the presence of racist social structures. (shrink)

In recent years, the concept of “integrity” has been frequently discussed by scholars, and deployed by courts, in the domain of criminal procedure. In this paper, we are particularly concerned with how the concept has been employed in relation to the problem of the admissibility of evidence obtained improperly. In conceptualising and addressing this problem, the advocates of integrity rely on it as a standard of conduct for the criminal justice authorities and as a necessary condition for the state authority (...) to condemn and punish. We raise a series of challenges that need answering before integrity can perform these roles. Our aim is not to show that integrity is useless in normative theorising about the admissibility of evidence, and about the criminal process in general. Rather, it is to give guidance for the elaboration of a theory of integrity that is cogent, coherent, and has useful implications for the process of proof. (shrink)

The need for gender recognition is widespread, even when hypervisibility and other effects of trans antagonism make that need dangerous for trans people. This reason partially accounts for why, in trans critique, recognition is a dirty word. As a political aim, and to some extent as a moral norm, trans critiques encourage dropping recognition. On the other hand, social philosophers often view recognition as a solution to misrecognition and take recognition to be a remedy for injustice. In my view, recognition (...) should neither be dropped nor held as a foundational norm for trans emancipation. First, I present three ways trans recognition is ambivalent. Second, evaluating Axel Honneth’s observations about the entwinement of recognition and domination, I argue that recognition is an ambivalent norm for trans critique and struggle. Third, I propose studying trans recognitive practices (rather than recognition in abstract) and I illuminate what might set trans/t4t recognition acts apart from their cis-grounded analogues, centering the roles of the body and space/place as resources of trans/t4t recognitive practices, and how such practices focus on the subject’s change and becoming over their identification. (shrink)

This chapter evaluates two competing views of morally responsible agency. The first view at issue is Vargas’s circumstantialism—on which responsible agency is a function of the agent and her circumstances, and so is highly context sensitive. The second view is McGeer’s scaffolded-responsiveness view, on which responsible agency is constituted by the capacity for responsiveness to reasons directly, and indirectly via sensitivity to the expectations of one’s audience (whose sensitivity may be more developed than one’s own). This chapter defends a version (...) of the scaffolded-responsiveness view, and develops two further claims. Firstly, moral responsibility should not be tied too closely to liability to praise or blame. Secondly, rather than revising our existing concept of responsibility, we would do better to ask what we want the concept of responsibility for. (shrink)

It is usually appropriate for adults to make significant decisions, such as about what kinds of medical treatment to undergo, for themselves. But sometimes impairments are suffered - either temporary or permanent - which render an individual unable to make such decisions. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 sets out the conditions under which it is appropriate to regard an individual as lacking the capacity to make a particular decision (and when provisions should be made for a decision on their behalf). (...) -/- To what extent does having capacity require the endorsement of certain values? Drawing on Owens et al (2009), I assess the extent to which understanding relevant information and weighing it in coming to a decision requires certain evaluative commitments. With reference to literature on anorexia nervosa and decisions informed by religious beliefs, I argue that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the conditions for capacity are value-laden, and that if this is so it is important to open discussion about which patterns of distorted valuing undermine capacity, and why. (shrink)

This article articulates our everyday notion of cooperation. First, I topple an orthodoxy of shared agency theory by arguing that shared intentions to J are neither necessary nor sufficient for J to be cooperative. I refute the necessity claim by providing examples of shared intention-free cooperation (in institutional contexts and beyond). I refute the sufficiency claim by observing that coercion and exploitation need not preclude shared intentions but do preclude cooperation. These arguments, in turn, lead to my positive proposal. People (...) cooperate, I argue, just in case their activities are coordinated in ways that do not undermine any participant’s agency. (shrink)

US Senate is considering legislation designed to immunize small businesses from lawsuits brought by customers alleging to have been infected with COVID-19 while on the premises. The legislation seeks to subsidize reopening small businesses by reducing their vulnerability to liability. I argue that the legislation produces worse public health outcomes than existing liability regimes, obliterates claims to redress supported by corrective justice, and unfairly burdens victims by forcing them to become de facto insurers of their injurers. In the US, where (...) health insurance is inextricably linked with employment, and during the pandemic with the consequent loss of employment, the legislation is cruel in addition to being ineffective, unjust, unfair and inappropriate. Since I first uploaded this manuscript to Philpapers, Senate Republicans have in fact introduced specific legislation that is marginally different than the one I discuss in the manuscript. Instead of offering blanket immunity, the current Republican proposal offers a series of substantial barriers both to filing lawsuits and to securing a successful verdict at trial. I discuss these as an addendum to the main paper. In short, though the changes impact some features of my argument, they do not alter any of the conclusions. The current proposal produces worse public health outcomes than would existing tort regime; it leaves the vast majority of those with legitimate claims to repair in corrective justice without a remedy, when providing the opportunity to secure a remedy for wrongs is in large measure, the essential nature of tort liability. Worse still, it continues to render victims the de facto insurers of those who have wronged them; it imposes the burden of spreading risks on victims who are considerably less efficient risk spreaders than are businesses and hospitals; it constitutes an inappropriate response to the challenge it seeks to address, i.e. subsidizing various sectors of the economy by reducing their overall costs; and given the fact that in the US health insurance is too closely linked to employment, it shifts the costs of the pandemic to those who are most at risk of losing their health insurance, rendering the proposal cruel in addition to inefficient, unjust, unfair and inappropriate. For those interested, I am considering a short op-ed piece assessing the particular legislative proposal. If I follow through I will let the readership know where that can be found. (shrink)

What is involved in acting together with others? Most shared agency theorists endorse the Shared Intention Thesis, i.e., the claim that shared agency necessarily involves shared intentions. This article dissents from this orthodoxy and offers a minimalist account of shared agency—one where parties to shared activities need not form rich webs of interrelated psychological states. My account has two main components: a conceptual analysis of shared agency in terms of the notion of plan, and an explanation of undertheorized agency‐sharing mechanisms. (...) My analysis states that we act together just in case our activities conform to a plan and that plan figures in an explanation of our activities’ joint conformity to it. To sloganize: shared activity is plan‐coordinated activity. Sometimes, plan‐coordination goes by way of shared intentions. However, besides shared intentions, there are at least two additional families of agency‐sharing mechanisms. The first features a central planner who determines the content of a plan and attributes the different parts of that plan to a collection of agents. The second does away with the planner and involves a roughly Darwinian selection of patterns of activity. Both families of mechanisms enable us to act together even in the absence of shared intentions. (shrink)

Dembroff and Wodak (2018, 2021) argue that we have a duty to use gender-neutral pronouns, but do not extend this argument to all other aspects of our language. We evaluate the extent to which gender neutral language is desirable in the context of parental leave schemes, taking as a case study the parental leave schemes found at a Higher Education Institution in the UK. We argue that the considerations Dembroff and Wodak (2018, 2021) take to speak against gender specific pronouns (...) and some other gender specific aspects of language also strongly speak against gender specific language in the context of parental leave policies. As a project in non-ideal theory, we argue against the framing of existing policies which refer to ‘maternity’ and ‘paternity’ leave, and for moving to the language of ‘parental’ or ‘family’ leave. The fact that the majority of those giving birth are women does not provide decisive reasons for framing policies in gender-specific terms. Moreover, we argue that given the welcome move to facilitate shared parental leave, any concerns for gender equity, and equity for carers, are better served by requesting demographic information for monitoring purposes, rather than by policies that refer to gender specific parenting roles. -/- . (shrink)

We suggest that the emerging field of the conservation humanities can play a valuable role in biodiversity protection in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where most land remains under collective customary clan ownership. As a first step to mobilising this scholarly field in PNG and to support capacity development for PNG humanities academics, we conducted a landscape review of PNG humanities teaching and research relating to biodiversity conservation and customary land rights. We conducted a systematic literature review, a PNG teaching programme (...) review, and a series of online workshops between the authors (10 PNG-based, 7 UK-based). We found a small but notable amount of PNG research and teaching focused on biodiversity conservation or customary land rights. This included explicit discussion of these topics in 8 of 156 PNG-authored humanities texts published 2010-2020 and related teaching content in the curricula of several different humanities-based programmes. We discuss current barriers to PNG academic development. The growth of fully fledged in-country conservation humanities will require a joint collaborative effort by PNG researchers, who are best placed to carry out such work, and researchers from abroad who can access resources to support the process. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO) provides a formal, logically-based classification of specific protein classes including structured representations of protein isoforms, variants and modified forms. Initially focused on proteins found in human, mouse and Escherichia coli, PRO now includes representations of protein complexes. The PRO Consortium works in concert with the developers of other biomedical ontologies and protein knowledge bases to provide the ability to formally organize and integrate representations of precise protein forms so as to enhance accessibility to results of protein (...) research. PRO (http://pir.georgetown.edu/pro) is part of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry. (shrink)

Research integrating cognitive abilities and personality has focused on the role of personality traits. We propose a theory on the role of intraindividual variability of personality states (hereafter state variability) on perspective taking, in particular, the ability to infer other peoples’ mental states. First, we review the relevant research on personality psychology and social cognition. Second, we propose two complementary routes by which state variability relates to anchoring and adjustment in perspective taking. The first route, termed ego-dispersion, suggests that an (...) increased state variability decreases egocentric bias, which reduces anchoring. The second route, termed perspective-pooling, suggests that an increased state variability facilitates efficient adjustment. We also discuss how our theory can be investigated empirically. The theory is rooted in an ecological interpretation of personality and social cognition, and flags new ways for integrating these fields of research. (shrink)

Comparing the degree of openness of the economy of Poland and the Netherlands, we can say the following. The Netherlands is more dependent on foreign trade than Poland. The Netherlands export quota reaches almost 50%, unlike 41,37% in Poland in 2016. However, Poland has become more import-dependent. Poland, in contrast to the Netherlands, is continuing to increase the indicators of "economic globalization". To date, the Netherlands has been pursuing more moderate foreign trade policy and trying to protect itself from external (...) risks by focusing on an internal market with high purchasing power. On the contrary, Polish politics tries to focus on the new markets for its products in order to increase the prosperity and well-being of its citizens. Poland as a country and an economic entity has made a qualitative leap in its development. The economy of this country has become more open and integrated into the world economy. (shrink)

Some form of assisted dying (voluntary euthanasia and/or assisted suicide) is lawful in the Netherlands, Belgium, Oregon, and Switzerland. In order to be lawful in these jurisdictions, a valid request must precede the provision of assistance to die. Non-adherence to the criteria for valid requests for assisted dying may be a trigger for civil and/or criminal liability, as well as disciplinary sanctions where the assistor is a medical professional. In this article, we review the criteria and evidence in respect of (...) requests for assisted dying in the Netherlands, Belgium, Oregon, and Switzerland, with the aim of establishing whether individuals who receive assisted dying do so on the basis of valid requests. We conclude that the evidence suggests that individuals who receive assisted dying in the four jurisdictions examined do so on the basis of valid requests and third parties who assist death do not act unlawfully. However, further research on the elements that may undermine the validity of requests for assisted dying is warranted. More research on the reasons why requests for assisted dying are refused is also desirable. (shrink)

In the discussion on rationing health care in The Netherlands, a fundamental tension emerges between two ethical perspectives: liberalism and communitarianism. A Dutch government committee recently issued a report opting for a community-oriented approach. This approach proves less communitarian as compared to the views on rationing elaborated by Callahan. Moreover, the community-oriented approach is conceptualised in such a way that it seems compatible with some basic aspects of the liberal account of a just society.

This article examines the reporting requirements in four jurisdictions in which assisted dying (euthanasia and/or assisted suicide) is legally regulated: the Netherlands, Belgium, Oregon and Switzerland. These jurisdictions were chosen because each had a substantial amount of empirical evidence available. We assess the available empirical evidence on reporting and what it tells us about the effectiveness of such requirements in encouraging reporting. We also look at the nature of requirements on regulatory bodies to refer cases not meeting the legal criteria (...) to either prosecutorial or disciplinary authorities. We assess the evidence available on the outcomes of reported cases, including the rate of referral and the ultimate disposition of referred cases. (shrink)

The history of the relationship between science and metaphysics is riddled with controversy. Aristotle and his followers see metaphysics as providing the foundations on which science and other human intellectual endeavors build. In opposition to the thoughts of Aristotle, Plato and his followers separate metaphysics from science as independent and unrelated sciences. With the Logical positivists, the debate is a reject of metaphysics in favour of science. Metaphysics then is seen as a pseudo-science. Rudolf Carnap's the "Elimination of Metaphysics through (...) the Logical Analysis of Language" and Alfred Jules Ayer's elimination of metaphysics from the domain of knowledge are examined, while Heidegger is brought in to salvage the situation given that he holds on to the superiority of metaphysics over science. (shrink)

The Netherlands has been known as one of the pioneers in the sharing economy. At the beginning of the 2010s, many local initiatives such as Peerby, SnappCar, and Thuisafgehaald launched that enabled consumers to share underused resources or provide services to each other. This was accompanied by a wide interest from the Dutch media, zooming in on the perceived social and environmental benefits of these platforms. Commercial platforms such as Uber, UberPop and Airbnb followed soon after. After their entrance to (...) the market, the societal debate about the impact of these platforms also started to include the negative consequences. Early on, universities and national research and policy institutes took part in these discussions by providing definitions, frameworks, and analyses. In the last few years, the attention has shifted from the sharing economy to the much broader defined platform economy. (shrink)

The aim of this research was to find out what the most popular films among the Akan in southeast Amsterdam (The Netherlands) are and how these films are used by this West African diaspora in the formation of a new religious identity after their migration to Europe. The outcome of this research is that the most popular films among the Akan are those with Pentecostal-Charismatic proselytizing messages. The Akan use these films to create an ‘imagined diasporic community’ to remain culturally (...) connected to West Africa. The second most popular films are those of an Akan indigenous religious nature. However, because the name of these films does not fit with the newly acquired European Christian identity of the Akan people in the diaspora, they have slightly changed the name of these movies to ‘cultural films’ in order to overcome the contradiction between over three centuries of ‘Akan spirits of migration’ to Europe with the recent ‘migration of spirits’ via Ghanaian films. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes, His View of Man: Proceedings of the Hobbes Symposium at the International School of Philosophy in the Netherlands (Leusden, September 1979).

Responsible innovation (RI), also termed Responsible Research and Innovation, has emerged due to increasing concern over how to integrate ethical and societal values into research and innovation policy and governance (Von Schomberg 2013), in response to questioning of the societal role of science as well as populist resurgence in some countries (Long and Blok 2017a). Within a RI approach, innovators must consider three dimensions of responsibility, including the dimensions of (1) ‘avoiding harm’ to people and the planet, (2) ‘doing good’ (...) through the offering of innovations that foster sustainable development, and (3) the development of facilitative global governance schemes (Voegtlin and Scherer 2017). (shrink)

Responsible innovation (RI), also termed Responsible Research and Innovation, has emerged due to increasing concern over how to integrate ethical and societal values into research and innovation policy and governance (Von Schomberg 2013), in response to questioning of the societal role of science as well as populist resurgence in some countries (Long and Blok 2017a). Within a RI approach, innovators must consider three dimensions of responsibility, including the dimensions of (1) ‘avoiding harm’ to people and the planet, (2) ‘doing good’ (...) through the offering of innovations that foster sustainable development, and (3) the development of facilitative global governance schemes (Voegtlin and Scherer 2017). (shrink)

It is amazing that a person who has worked in Pharmacy his career (Meijer) founded (almost at the end of his career) the solution to the mind-brain problem!!! He has published papers related to the domain of Pharmacy, but INCREDIBLE just now he furnished us the solution to the mind-brain problem!

The article concerns the topic of religion in Thomas Hobbes' view of man.

Strategies for tackling educational inequality take many forms, though perhaps the argument most often invoked is school integration. Yet whatever the promise of integration may be, its realization continues to be hobbled by numerous difficulties. In this paper we examine what many of these difficulties are. Yet in contrast to how many empirical researchers frame these issues, we argue that while educational success in majority-minority schools will depend on a variety of material and non-material resources, the presence of these resources (...) does not require school integration; indeed sometimes the most crucial resources are easier to foster in its absence. To that end, we briefly canvass the evidence from the United States on high performing majority-minority schools serving poor and minority students. Yet because these debates are so contentious in the American context, we pivot away from the U.S. to consider a different country, the Netherlands. We invite the reader to consider an analogous case where racial injustice and educational inequality are just as serious, yet where differences in the state school system might prove instructive concerning how some majority-minority schools choose to respond to existing segregation, but more importantly how educational success can occur in the absence of integration. (shrink)

Increasing parts of the world population have rudimentary reading and writing skills but limited command of grammar, syntax and spelling. This functional illiteracy has detrimental effects on labor market participation, population health and political stability. Geographies of illiteracy also include affluent societies like the Netherlands, a country that is not only illustrative of a widespread phenomenon, but arguably also a bellwether of things to come elsewhere in the world if these developments are not reversed. This exploratory paper focuses on two (...) institutional spaces where the literacy crisis is conventionally addressed: schools and public libraries. We argue that while each has a contribution to make, neither institution is currently able to curtail the trend, partially because preferred literacy promotion methods are incongruent with rapidly evolving changes in the literacy landscape, especially regarding youth communication. We consider three possible responses to our current literacy crisis and conclude that efforts to curb functional illiteracy require a pragmatic and multi-pronged approach, and perhaps even some counterintuitive strategies. (shrink)

An overview of 20 years of environmental philosophy in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands was the first country to legalize euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. This paper offers a first legal perspective on the prospects of using AI in the Dutch practice of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. It responds to the Regional Euthanasia Review Committees’ interest in exploring technological solutions to improve current procedures. The specific characteristics of AI – the capability to process enormous amounts of data in a short amount of time and generate new insights in individual cases – may for (...) example alleviate the increased workload of review committees due to the continuous increase of euthanasia cases. The paper considers three broad categories for the use of AI in the Dutch euthanasia practice: (1) the physician’s assessment of euthanasia requests, (2) the actual execution of euthanasia, and (3) the retrospective reviews of cases by the Regional Euthanasia Review Committees. Exploring the legal considerations around each avenue, both in the EU AI Act and the Dutch legal framework, this paper aims to facilitate the societal discussion on the role of technology in such deeply human decisions. This debate is equally relevant to other countries that legalized euthanasia (e.g. Belgium and Canada) or physician-assisted suicide (e.g. Switzerland and numerous states in the US). (shrink)

In the Netherlands, the poet Herman Gorter is mostly known as the author of the neo-romantic poem May and the “sensitivistic” Poems, but internationally he became famous as a propagandist of radical Marxism: the author of influential brochures and of an “open letter” to comrade W.I. Lenin in 1920. During the 1890s, Gorter became increasingly dissatisfied with his poetry, considering it as ego-centric, disinterested and “bourgeois”, unconnected with what was happening in the real world. He wanted to put his poetry (...) on a scientific footing, notably by endorsing a dialectical materialist worldview. In the communist society he envisioned, science would become poetry and poetry would become science. In his opus magnum Pan, two terms are rather prominent, namely heelal and kristal. These signifiers not only reflect important themes, but also two friendships which began around 1900, namely with prominent astronomer and marxist Anton Pannekoek and with Ada Prins, the first woman in the Netherlands who acquired a PhD in chemistry, specialised in liquid crystal research. Whereas Ada Prins is mostly remembered as one of Gorter’s secret lovers, she was first and foremost his educated guide into the complex and enigmatic world of twentieth-century chemistry research. Liquid crystal chemistry became an important source of inspiration for Gorter’s work and the main objective of this paper is to demonstrate her influence on Gorter’s Pan as a scientific poem After presenting the two heroes of this paper, and their work in poetry and chemistry respectively, I will analyse the role of liquid crystals in Herman Gorter’s Pan, highlighting important connections with Ada Prins’ research into liquid crystal chemistry. (shrink)

In the Netherlands and Belgium, it is lawful for voluntary euthanasia to be offered on the grounds of psychiatric suffering. A recent case that has sparked much debate is that of Aurelia Brouwers, who was helped to die in the Netherlands on account of her suffering from borderline personality disorder. It is sometimes claimed that whether or not a mentally ill person’s wish to die is valid hinges on whether or not that wish is a symptom of the person’s mental (...) disorder. This article addresses the philosophical problems raised by this claim, with a specific focus on the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. After considering descriptivist and causal conceptualizations of mental disorder, I argue that the current approach to borderline personality disorder in psychiatry precludes the possibility of dissociating the wish to die from the disorder. I then examine the implications of this analysis for the question of whether or not the request for voluntary euthanasia in the case of borderline personality disorder can be considered valid. Ultimately, I conclude that the inability to dissociate the wish to die from the disorder does not invalidate the wish in the case of borderline personality disorder. (shrink)

Medical assistance in dying, which includes voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide, is legally permissible in a number of jurisdictions, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada. Although medical assistance in dying is most commonly provided for suffering associated with terminal somatic illness, some jurisdictions have also offered it for severe and irremediable psychiatric illness. Meanwhile, recent work in the philosophy of psychiatry has led to a renewed understanding of psychiatric illness that emphasises the role of the relation between the person (...) and the external environment in the constitution of mental disorder. In this paper, I argue that this externalist approach to mental disorder highlights an ethical challenge to the practice of medical assistance in dying for psychiatric illness. At the level of the clinical assessment, externalism draws attention to potential social and environmental interventions that might have otherwise been overlooked by the standard approach to mental disorder, which may confound the judgement that there is no further reasonable alternative that could alleviate the person’s suffering. At the level of the wider society, externalism underscores how social prejudices and structural barriers that contribute to psychiatric illness constrain the affordances available to people and result in them seeking medical assistance in dying when they otherwise might not have had under better social conditions. (shrink)

Background: Patient participation in clinical ethics support services has been marked as an important issue. There seems to be a wide variety of practices globally, but extensive theoretical or empirical studies on the matter are missing. Scarce publications indicate that, in Europe, patient participation in CESS varies from region to region, and per type of support. Practices vary from being non-existent, to patients being a full conversation partner. This contrasts with North America, where PP seems more or less standard. While (...) PP seems to be on the rise in Europe, there is no data to confirm this. This study sought a deep understanding of both habits and the attitudes towards PP in the Netherlands, including respondents’ practical and normative perspectives on the matter. Methods and Results: We developed a national survey on PP for Dutch CESS staff. Our survey comprised a total of 25 open and close-ended questions, focused on four topics related to PP goals of CESS, status quo of PP, ideas and ideals concerning PP, and obstacles for PP. Discussion: The four most important findings were that: Patient participation in Dutch CESS is far from standard. Views on patient participation are very much intertwined with the goals of ethics support. Hesitations, fears and perceived obstacles for PP were not on principle and Most respondents see PP as a positive opportunity, yet requiring additional training, practical guidance and experience. Conclusions: Various normative reasons require PP. However, PP seems far from standard and somewhat rare in Dutch CESS settings. Our respondents did not raise many principled objections to PP. Instead, reasons for the lack of PP are intertwined with viewpoints on the goals of CESS, which seemingly focus on supporting health care professionals. Training and practical guidance was thought to be helpful for gaining experience for both CESS staff and HCPs. (shrink)

This volume aims to develop a philosophical diagnostic of the present, focussing on contemporary technoscience. psychoanalysis submits contemporary technoscientific discourse to a symptomatic reading, analysing it with evenly-poised attention and from an oblique perspective. Psychoanalysis is not primarily interested in protons, genes or galaxies, but rather in the ways in which they are disclosed and discussed, focussing on the symptomatic terms, the metaphors and paradoxes at work in technoscientific discourse. This monograph presents a psychoanalytical assessment of technoscience. The first four (...) chapters provide a short introduction into the psychoanalysis of technoscience, its basic concepts and methods, as developed Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Gaston Bachelard and Jacques Lacan. In subsequent chapters, this approach is fleshed out with the help of case histories (palaeoanthropology, classical conditioning and virology). Psychoanalysis reveals that, rather than by disinterested curiosity, technoscience is driven by desire, resistance and the will to control. Moreover, the focus is on primal scenes, such as Dubois’ quixotic quest for the missing link and Pavlov’s discovery of the conditioned reflex. In addition, psychoanalysis opts for triangulation: understanding technoscientific research by comparing it to “different scenes”: to genres of the imagination, notably novels, so that, in this volume, the discovery of a Homo erectus skull by Dubois is compared to missing link novels by Jules Verne and Jack London (dating from the same period), Pavlov’s discovery of the conditioned reflex is compared with B.F. Skinner’s novel Walden Two and virology as a research field is considered through the lens of viral fiction. (shrink)

The Covid-19 crisis raises questions of resilience, sustainable transitions and global trade in the wake of a pandemic. Port cities require new scenarios to deal with these questions, and over the past year several online initiatives were held to discuss this challenge. So does the European Urban Knowledge Network (EUKN) ‘Thinking Beyond the Crisis’ series, which explores the urban impacts of and responses to the coronavirus outbreak in EUKN member countries. The online webinar “Port cities and Mega-Trends: Glocal Approaches to (...) Sustainable Transitions,” - held on 26 January 2021 and organised with the French National Agency for Territorial Cohesion (ANCT) and the port city of Le Havre - offered a platform to reflect on the global impact and local effects of mega-trends on port cities, including the recent, far-reaching impacts of Covid-19. The event specifically explored the strategies and experiences of the ports of Le Havre (France), Incheon (South Korea), Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Hamburg (Germany). -/- . (shrink)

Abstract: In this article, we explore what are ethical forms of holding service users responsible in mental health care contexts. Hanna Pickard has provided an account of how service users should be held responsible for morally wrong or seriously harmful conduct within contexts of mental health care, called the clinical stance. From a clinical stance one holds a person responsible for harm, but refrains from emotionally blaming the person and only considers the person responsible for this conduct in a detached (...) sense. Her account is based on what are considered best practices in the treatment of people with borderline personality disorder and addiction. We ask if this account generalizes across different diagnostic criteria and different clinical contexts. To begin to answer this question, we compare the clinical stance to an account of what are considered best practices in the treatment of service users at a specialized clinic for people with autism spectrum disorder in the Netherlands. We refer to this alternative account as the nurturing stance and highlight relevant similarities and differences between the clinical stance and the nurturing stance. We conclude with suggestions for further research and theorizing. (shrink)

In the mid-seventeenth century a movement of self-styled experimental philosophers emerged in Britain. Originating in the discipline of natural philosophy amongst Fellows of the fledgling Royal Society of London, it soon spread to medicine and by the eighteenth century had impacted moral and political philosophy and even aesthetics. Early modern experimental philosophers gave epistemic priority to observation and experiment over theorising and speculation. They decried the use of hypotheses and system-building without recourse to experiment and, in some quarters, developed a (...) philosophy of experiment. The movement spread to the Netherlands and France in the early eighteenth century and later impacted Germany. Its important role in early modern philosophy was subsequently eclipsed by the widespread adoption of the Kantian historiography of modern philosophy, which emphasised the distinction between rationalism and empiricism and had no place for the historical phenomenon of early modern experimental philosophy. The re-emergence of interest in early modern experimental philosophy roughly coincided with the development of contemporary x-phi and there are some important similarities between the two. (shrink)

To address societal challenges, research and innovation approaches, involving a wide range of actors, are increasingly promoted by policy communities. This paper explores the practice of Quadruple Helix collaborations for responsible innovation and how these implement the theoretical ambition of including actors from different societal sectors in innovation, including actors from the fields of arts, media and civil society, which is conceptualized as the Fourth Helix in this concept. Referring to cross-sector collaboration literature and based on an empirical investigation, we (...) explore which actors, representing the Fourth Helix, actually engage in innovation collaborations, how this engagement plays out in practice, and the institutional and systemic dynamics involved in output and value creation. We rely on data from three Social Labs in Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands, which constitute qualitative, change-oriented research processes, where we researched and engaged with actors from cases constituting- or aiming for a Quadruple Helix collaboration. This was accompanied by a desktop study including qualitative interviews of 51 further cases. We find that the actual engagement of actors from civil society is fragile and that forces beyond Quadruple Helix cases impact these quite firmly in some cases. (shrink)

When information on a coma patient’s expected outcome is uncertain, a moral dilemma arises in clinical practice: if life-sustaining treatment is continued, the patient may survive with unacceptably poor neurological prospects, but if withdrawn a patient who could have recovered may die. Continuous electroencephalogram-monitoring is expected to substantially improve neuroprognostication for patients in coma after cardiac arrest. This raises expectations that decisions whether or not to withdraw will become easier. This paper investigates that expectation, exploring cEEG’s impacts when it becomes (...) part of a socio-technical network in an Intensive Care Unit. Based on observations in two ICUs in the Netherlands and one in the USA that had cEEG implemented for research, we interviewed 25 family members, healthcare professionals, and surviving patients. The analysis focuses on the way patient outcomes are constructed, the kind of decision support these outcomes provide, and how cEEG affects communication between professionals and relatives. We argue that cEEG can take away or decrease the intensity of the dilemma in some cases, while increasing uncertainty for others. It also raises new concerns. Since its actual impacts furthermore hinge on how cEEG is designed and implemented, we end with recommendations for ensuring responsible development and implementation. (shrink)

This report aims to offer insights into cutting-edge research on digital well-being. Many of these insights come from a 2-day academic-impact event, The Future of Digital Well-Being, hosted by a team of researchers working with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in February 2024. Today, achieving and maintaining well-being in the face of online technologies is a multifaceted challenge that we believe requires using theoretical resources of different research disciplines. This report explores diverse perspectives on how digital (...) well-being can be actively cultivated, while also emphasising the importance of considering individual differences, societal contexts, and nuanced cultural factors. We aim to offer a holistic view of the future of digital well-being, one that will inspire the next generation of designers of online tools, as well as policymakers who will regulate these tools. We start by asking what digital well-being is – how we can best define a concept that is used by diverse stakeholders and researchers from many disciplines in various ways. To do this, we explore the classic ethical theories of well-being, showing how they can give us insights into how the term digital well-being is currently deployed. We then move to look at the existing strategies that have been proposed to actively cultivate digital well-being, exploring the business models that threaten digital well-being and the relative advantages of the digital and non-digital solutions that are currently proposed. On the one hand, digital tools – such as Apple’s Screen Time and app blockers such as Opal and Forest – integrate seamlessly with the digital lifestyles of users. They also create precise metrics for digital well-being, which facilitates their solutions to reduce screen time. On the other hand, non-digital solutions, including mindfulness practices, digital detoxes, and digital well-being coaching, offer a new set of tools to reconnect individuals to their natural rhythms and help to actively promote offline activities. We then move to discuss diversity and how various groups of users have strikingly different digital well-being needs. Embracing neurodiversity in digital well-being is crucial as it strongly impacts the users’ experience of online technologies. When designing for diversity, organisations and designers alike need to prioritise customization for people with physical disabilities, mitigate harmful content for users with mental well-being conditions, address gender stereotypes and online harassment, and be designed in ways that recognize the very real risks of online technologies. This report closes by examining cultural differences. We believe that non-Western conceptions of well-being offer rich sources for enhancing digital well-being insofar as these traditions can inform and inspire the designers of future online technologies. We focus on East-Asian and South-Asian traditions, although in further work we recognise it would be useful to investigate conceptions of well-being that are influential in the Gulf region, Africa, and South America. Each of these areas have ethical frameworks that discuss well-being in depth as well as a rich cultural heritage. In conclusion, this report’s insights underscore the imperative of recognizing diversity in digital well-being, both in terms of cultural contexts and disciplinary perspectives. It emphasises the need for culturally responsive design methodologies and the integration of non-Western philosophical perspectives into current digital well-being research. Embracing this diversity, we believe, offers the best chance to create digital environments that prioritise well-being for users and the societies they live in across the world. Ultimately, we believe that it is not only about designing better online products; it’s about shaping a digital landscape that promotes well-being and flourishing for everyone. (shrink)