El guión de Bin Laden. Análisis semiótico de un dibujo en la prensa.NicoleEveraert-Desmedt -2003 -Utopía y Praxis Latinoamericana 8 (21):87-100.detailsWithin the framework of the Parisian school of semiotics, a humoristic caricature by Plantu, published in the French Newspaper Le Monde in reference to the September 11th attack in New York, is analyzed. It is observed that by means of rhetorical procedures and the construction of the caricatu..
¿Qué hace una obra de arte? Un modelo peirceano de la creatividad artística.NicoleEveraert-Desmedt -2008 -Utopía y Praxis Latinoamericana 13 (40):83-97.detailsThe purpose of this article is to present a model of creativity in the light of the thought of C. S. Peirce. Artistic communication is an event (as such, of the order of Secondness) by which the possible (Firstness) in filtrates itself into symbolism (Thirdness). Moreover, we des cri be more e..
On the role of Susanna in Susanna: A Greimassian contribution.Dichk M. Kanonge &Pierre J. Jordaan -2014 -HTS Theological Studies 70 (3):01-07.detailsThis article addresses the highly disputed distribution of roles in the story of Susanna. Susanna consists of a number of actors of whom only a few such as Susanna, the two elders, the Jewish people and Daniel are directly related to the central action of the story. With regard to the roles of these actors in the story however, a question arises: Who is the subject of the story of Susanna? Most scholars question the attribution of the role of subject (...) to Susanna. Their contention however, has not yet been sustained by convincing evidence stemming from the use of a suitable method. This study attempts to fill this gap by using the Greimassian approach to narratives, as refined byEveraert-Desmedt. The approach comprises three levels of analysis: the figurative, the narrative and the thematic. The contribution focuses only on the narrative level of analysis, particularly on the actantial model because the main role of this structure is to reveal different functions of actors called here actants. It is the contention here that following the actantial model of the Greimassian approach of analysis, Susanna emerges as the subject of the main concern of the story. (shrink)
Question Design Affects Students' Sense‐Making on Mathematics Word Problems.Patrick K. Kirkland &Nicole M. McNeil -2021 -Cognitive Science 45 (4):e12960.detailsMathematics word problems provide students with an opportunity to apply what they are learning in their mathematics classes to the world around them. However, students often neglect their knowledge of the world and provide nonsensical responses (e.g., they may answer that a school needs 12.5 buses for a field trip). This study examined if the question design of word problems affects students' mindset in ways that affect subsequent sense‐making. The hypothesis was that rewriting standard word problems to introduce inherent uncertainty (...) about the result would be beneficial to student performance and sense‐making because it requires students to reason explicitly about the context described in the problem. Middle school students (N = 229) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the standard textbook condition, students solved a set of six word problems taken from current textbooks. In the modified yes/no condition, students solved the same six problems rewritten so the solution helped answer a “yes” or “no” question. In the disfluency control condition, students solved the standard problems each rewritten in a variety of fonts to make them look unusual. After solving the six problems in their assigned condition, all students solved the same three “problematic” problems designed to assess sense‐making. Contrary to predictions, results showed that students in the modified yes/no condition solved the fewest problems correctly in their assigned condition problem set. However, consistent with predictions, they subsequently demonstrated more sense‐making on the three problematic problems. Results suggest that standard textbook word problems may be able to be rewritten in ways that mitigate a “senseless” mindset. (shrink)
Rioting as Flourishing? Reconsidering Virtue Ethics in Times of Civil Unrest.Sarah MacDonald &Nicole Symmonds -2018 -Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 38 (1):25-42.detailsFrom Black Power to Black Lives Matter, political resisters protesting systemic racism have used riots and other manifestations of outrage as a way to grasp at flourishing. Yet such a tactic seems antithetical to the core concept of flourishing as recognized within virtue ethics. Building on the work of womanist and feminist ethicists and moral philosophers who have defended anger as a morally apt, even virtuous response to injustice, we reconsider the relationship between a community’s flourishing and public manifestations of (...) anger and rage. We argue for expanding the moral response to rioting as a tactic of political resistance, and we suggest that more culturally particular understandings of both virtue and flourishing can open space to better see the role anger may play in a community’s flourishing. (shrink)
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Avoiding bias in medical ethical decision-making. Lessons to be learnt from psychology research.Heidi Albisser Schleger,Nicole R. Oehninger &Stella Reiter-Theil -2011 -Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 14 (2):155-162.detailsWhen ethical decisions have to be taken in critical, complex medical situations, they often involve decisions that set the course for or against life-sustaining treatments. Therefore the decisions have far-reaching consequences for the patients, their relatives, and often for the clinical staff. Although the rich psychology literature provides evidence that reasoning may be affected by undesired influences that may undermine the quality of the decision outcome, not much attention has been given to this phenomenon in health care or ethics consultation. (...) In this paper, we aim to contribute to the sensitization of the problem of systematic reasoning biases by showing how exemplary individual and group biases can affect the quality of decision-making on an individual and group level. We are addressing clinical ethicists as well as clinicians who guide complex decision-making processes of ethical significance. Knowledge regarding exemplary group psychological biases (e.g. conformity bias), and individual biases (e.g. stereotypes), will be taken from the disciplines of social psychology and cognitive decision science and considered in the field of ethical decision-making. Finally we discuss the influence of intuitive versus analytical (systematical) reasoning on the validity of ethical decision-making. (shrink)
Culture is an optometrist: Cultural contexts adjust the prescription of social learning bifocals.Jennifer M. Clegg,Nicole J. Wen &Bruce Rawlings -2022 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 45:e255.detailsThe “prescription” of humans' social learning bifocals is fine-tuned by cultural norms and, as a result, the readiness with which the instrumental or conventional lenses are used to view behavior differs across cultures. We present evidence for this possibility from cross-cultural work examining children's imitation and innovation.
Cultural dynamics add multiple layers of complexity to behavioural genetics.Laurel Fogarty &Nicole Creanza -2022 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 45:e161.detailsAs emphasized in early cultural evolutionary theory, understanding heritability of human traits – especially, behavioural traits – is difficult. The target article describes important ways that culture can enhance, or obscure, signatures of heritability in genetic studies. Here, we discuss the utility of calculating heritability for behavioural traits influenced by cultural evolution and point to conceptual and technical complications to consider in future models.
On the Very Idea of Sex with Robots.Mark Migotti &Nicole Wyatt -2017 - In John Danaher & Neil McArthur,Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications. MIT Press. pp. 15-27.detailsIn this chapter, we focus on the simple sounding question: What is it to have sex? On the assumption that having sex is what you do with all and only your sexual part-ners, this offers a way of focusing the question: What would it take for a sex robot to be a sex partner? In order to understand the significance of the development of robots with whom (or which) we can have sex, we need to know what it is to (...) have sex with a robot. And in order to know this, we have to know what it is to have sex, period. In the bulk of the chapter, we develop an account of shared sexual agency we think is a plausible precondition of genuinely having sex. In the final section, we remark briefly on the issue of what it would take to form a sexual we (as we call it) with a robot. For if we can do this, we can probably have sex with robots; but if we can’t, we can’t. (shrink)
Research ethics courses as a vaccination against a toxic research environment or culture.Nicole Shu Ling Yeo-Teh &Bor Luen Tang -2021 -Research Ethics 17 (1):55-65.detailsHofmann and Holm’s (2019) recent survey on issues of research misconduct with PhD graduates culminated with a notable conclusion by the authors: ‘ Scientific misconduct seems to be an environmental issue as much as a matter of personal integrity’. Here, we re-emphasise the usefulness of an education-based countermeasure against toxic research environments or cultures that promote unethical practices amongst the younger researchers. We posit that an adequately conducted course in research ethics and integrity, with a good dose of case studies (...) and analyses, can function in a manner that is metaphorically akin to vaccination. The training would cultivate the ability to analyse and build confidence in young researchers in making decisions with sound moral reasoning as well as in speaking up or arguing against pressure and coercions into unacceptable behaviour. A sufficiently large number of young researchers exposed to research ethics trainings would essentially provide a research community some degree of lasting herd immunity at its broadest base. Beyond passive immunity, a crop of research ethics-savvy young researchers could also play active and influential roles as role models for others at their level and perhaps even help correct the wayward attitudes of some senior researchers and initiate prompt action from institutional policy makers in a bottom-up manner. (shrink)
Princeton Readings in Political Thought: Essential Texts Since Plato.Mitchell Cohen &Nicole Fermon (eds.) -1996 - Princeton University Press.detailsPrinceton Readings in Political Thought is one of the most engaging and up-to-date samplers of the standard works of Western political thinking from antiquity through modern times. Organized chronologically, from Thucydides to Foucault, the book brings together forty-four selections of enduring intellectual value--key articles, book excerpts, essays, and speeches--that have shaped our understanding of Western society and politics. Readers will find this work to be an invaluable reference, and they will enjoy not only the varied selections but also the lucid (...) introductions to each historical era and the brief sketches of each thinker. The book includes the writings of many of the most distinguished observers of the Western experience from classical times, the Middle Ages, modern times, or the ideas of twentieth-century political philosophers and ideologists. (shrink)
A Qualitative Study on Emotions Experienced at the Coast and Their Influence on Well-Being.Marine I. Severin,Filip Raes,Evie Notebaert,Luka Lambrecht,GertEveraert &Ann Buysse -2022 -Frontiers in Psychology 13.detailsCoastal environments are increasingly shown to have a positive effect on our health and well-being. Various mechanisms have been suggested to explain this effect. However, so far little focus has been devoted to emotions that might be relevant in this context, especially for people who are directly or indirectly exposed to the coast on a daily basis. Our preregistered qualitative study explored how coastal residents experience the emotions they feel at the coast and how they interpret the effect these emotions (...) have on them. We conducted semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of eight Belgian coastal residents aged 21–25 years old. The interviews were analyzed with the approach of interpretative phenomenological analysis. Five superordinate themes were identified and indicate that, for our participants, the coast represents a safe haven in which they can experience emotional restoration, awe, and nostalgia. These emotional states are accompanied with adaptive emotion regulating strategies, such as reflection and positive reappraisal, that may facilitate coping with difficult thoughts and feelings. Our study demonstrates the importance of investigating specific emotions and related processes triggered at the coast and how these could contribute to the therapeutic value of the coast. (shrink)
A Multifocal and Integrative View of the Influencers of Ethical Attitudes Using Qualitative Configurational Analysis.Nicole A. Celestine,Catherine Leighton &Chris Perryer -2020 -Journal of Business Ethics 162 (1):103-122.detailsEthical attitudes and behaviour are complex. This complexity extends to the influencers operating at different levels both outside and within the organisation, and in different combinations for different individuals. There is hence a growing need to understand the proximal and distal influencers of ethical attitudes, and how these operate in concert at the individual, organisational, and societal levels. Few studies have attempted to combine these main research streams and systematically examine their combined impact. The minority of studies that have taken (...) a combined approach have often done so using conventional statistical and analytical techniques which imply linearity between variables—a situation that rarely exists in business settings and is likely to lead to simplistic or even erroneous conclusions. Applying a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis approach, this paper reports on the mutual and simultaneous influence of individual demographic factors, as well as proximal and distal factors stemming from within and outside the work environment to understand individuals’ ethical views within the workplace. The multiple configurations that emerged reveal the complex nature of influencers of ethical attitudes, and reinforce the view that “one size does not fit all”. We discuss these implications together with managerial recommendations and future research directions. (shrink)
Community Engagement in Precision Medicine Research: Organizational Practices and Their Impacts for Equity.Janet K. Shim,Nicole Foti,Emily Vasquez,Stephanie M. Fullerton,Michael Bentz,Melanie Jeske &Sandra Soo-Jin Lee -2023 -AJOB Empirical Bioethics 14 (4):185-196.detailsBackground In the wake of mandates for biomedical research to increase participation by members of historically underrepresented populations, community engagement (CE) has emerged as a key intervention to help achieve this goal.Methods Using interviews, observations, and document analysis, we examine how stakeholders in precision medicine research understand and seek to put into practice ideas about who to engage, how engagement should be conducted, and what engagement is for.Results We find that ad hoc, opportunistic, and instrumental approaches to CE exacted significant (...) consequences for the time and resources devoted to engagement and the ultimate impacts it has on research. Critical differences emerged when engagement and research decisionmaking were integrated with each other versus occurring in parallel, separate parts of the study organization, and whether community members had the ability to determine which issues would be brought to them for consideration or to revise or even veto proposals made upstream based on criteria that mattered to them. CE was understood to have a range of purposes, from instrumentally facilitating recruitment and data collection, to advancing community priorities and concerns, to furthering long-term investments in relationships with and changes in communities. These choices about who to engage, what engagement activities to support, how to solicit and integrate community input into the workflow of the study, and what CE was for were often conditioned upon preexisting perceptions and upstream decisions about study goals, competing priorities, and resource availability.Conclusions Upstream choices about CE and constraints of time and resources cascade into tradeoffs that often culminated in “pantomime community engagement.” This approach can create downstream costs when engagement is experienced as improvised and sporadic. Transformations are needed for CE to be seen as a necessary scientific investment and part of the scientific process. (shrink)
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New Malaise: Bioethics and Human Rights in the Global Era.Paul Farmer &Nicole Gastineau Campos -2004 -Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 32 (2):243-251.detailsFirst, to what level of quality can medical ethics a spire, if it ignores callous discrimination in medrcal practice against large populations of the innocent poor? Second, how effective can such theories be in addressing the critical issues of medical and clinical ethics if they are unable to contribute to the closing of the gap of sociomedical disparity?Marcio Fabri dos Anjos, Medical Ethics in the Developing World: A Liberation Theology Perspective.
Bridging the AI Chasm: Can EBM Address Representation and Fairness in Clinical Machine Learning?Nicole Martinez-Martin &Mildred K. Cho -2022 -American Journal of Bioethics 22 (5):30-32.detailsMcCradden et al. propose to close the “AI chasm” between algorithms and clinically meaningful application using the norms of evidence-based medicine and clinical research, with the rat...
Falun Gong and the Canada Media Fund.James R. Lewis &Nicole S. Ruskell -2017 -Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review 8 (2):263-272.detailsWhat do Shen Yun, New Tang Dynasty TV, Human Harvest, The Art of Courage, Avenues of Escape, In the Name of Confucius, and The Bleeding Edge have in common, beyond their anti-China focus?—All, it turns out, are bankrolled by the Canadian government’s Canada Media Fund. In the present paper, we will provide a preliminary outline of these activities, and, in the words of our subtitle, ask: Why is the Canadian Government bankrolling an anti-China propaganda campaign?
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Revisiting Human-Agent Communication: The Importance of Joint Co-construction and Understanding Mental States.Stefan Kopp &Nicole Krämer -2021 -Frontiers in Psychology 12:580955.detailsThe study of human-human communication and the development of computational models for human-agent communication have diverged significantly throughout the last decade. Yet, despite frequently made claims of “super-human performance” in, e.g., speech recognition or image processing, so far, no system is able to lead a half-decent coherent conversation with a human. In this paper, we argue that we must start to re-consider the hallmarks of cooperative communication and the core capabilities that we have developed for it, and which conversational agents (...) need to be equipped with: incremental joint co-construction and mentalizing. We base our argument on a vast body of work on human-human communication and its psychological processes that we reason to be relevant and necessary to take into account when modeling human-agent communication. We contrast those with current conceptualizations of human-agent interaction and formulate suggestions for the development of future systems. (shrink)
Opposition and dissidence: Two modes of resistance against international rule.Christopher Daase &Nicole Deitelhoff -2018 -Journal of International Political Theory 15 (1):11-30.detailsRule is commonly conceptualized with reference to the compliance it invokes. In this article, we propose a conception of rule via the practice of resistance instead. In contrast to liberal approaches, we stress the possibility of illegitimate rule, and, as opposed to critical approaches, the possibility of legitimate authority. In the international realm, forms of rule and the changes they undergo can thus be reconstructed in terms of the resistance they provoke. To this end, we distinguish between two types of (...) resistance—opposition and dissidence—in order to demonstrate how resistance and rule imply each other. We draw on two case studies of resistance in and to international institutions to illustrate the relationship between rule and resistance and close with a discussion of the normative implications of such a conceptualization. (shrink)
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Parametric induction of animacy experience.Natacha S. Santos,Nicole David,Gary Bente &Kai Vogeley -2008 -Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2):425-437.detailsGraphical displays of simple moving geometrical figures have been repeatedly used to study the attribution of animacy in human observers. Yet little is known about the relevant movement characteristics responsible for this experience. The present study introduces a novel parametric research paradigm, which allows for the experimental control of specific motion parameters and a predictable influence on the attribution of animacy. Two experiments were conducted using 3D computer animations of one or two objects systematically introducing variations in the following aspects (...) of motion: directionality, discontinuity and responsiveness. Both experiments further varied temporal kinematics. Results showed that animacy experience increased with the time a moving object paused in the vicinity of a second object and with increasing complexity of interaction between the objects . The experience of animacy could be successfully modulated in a parametric fashion by the systematic variation of comparably simple differential movement characteristics. (shrink)
Perceived publication pressure and research misconduct: should we be too bothered with a causal relationship?Nicole Shu Ling Yeo-Teh &Bor Luen Tang -2022 -Research Ethics 18 (4):329-338.detailsPublication pressure has been touted to promote questionable research practices (QRP) and scientific or research misconduct (RM). However, logically attractively as it is, there is no unequivocal evidence for this notion, and empirical studies have produced conflicting results. Other than difficulties in obtaining unbiased empirical data, a direct causal relationship between perceived publication pressure (PPP) and QRP/RM is inherently difficult to establish, because the former is a complex biopsychosocial construct that is variedly influenced by multiple personal and environmental factors. To (...) effectively address QRP/RM by tackling the sources of PPP would also be difficult because of the competitive nature of the reward and merit system of contemporary science. We might do better with efforts in enhancing knowledge in research ethics and integrity among the practitioners, as well as institutional infrastructures and mechanisms to fairly and efficiently adjudicate cases of QRP/RM. (shrink)
Digital Contact Tracing, Privacy, and Public Health.Nicole Martinez-Martin,Sarah Wieten,David Magnus &Mildred K. Cho -2020 -Hastings Center Report 50 (3):43-46.detailsDigital contact tracing, in combination with widespread testing, has been a focal point for many plans to “reopen” economies while containing the spread of Covid‐19. Most digital contact tracing projects in the United States and Europe have prioritized privacy protections in the form of local storage of data on smartphones and the deidentification of information. However, in the prioritization of privacy in this narrow form, there is not sufficient attention given to weighing ethical trade‐offs within the context of a public (...) health pandemic or to the need to evaluate safety and effectiveness of software‐based technology applied to public health. (shrink)