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There is a growing body of scholarship on the ethics of autonomous vehicles. Yet the ethical discourse has mostly been focusing on the behavior of the vehicle in accident scenarios. This paper offers a different ethical prism: the implications of the autonomous vehicle for human well-being. As such, it contributes to the growing discourse on the wider societal and moral implications of the autonomous vehicle. The paper is premised on the neo-Aristotelian approach which holds that as human beings, our well-being depends on developing and exercising our innate human capacities: to know, understand, love, be sociable, imagine, create and use our bodies and use our willpower. To develop and exercise these capacities, our environments need to provide a range of opportunities which will trigger the development and exercise of the capacities. The main argument advanced in the paper is that one plausible future of the autonomous vehicle—a future of single-rider autonomous vehicles—may effectively reduce the opportunities to develop and exercise our capacities to know, be sociable and use our willpower. It will therefore be bad for human well-being, and this provides us with a moral reason to resist this plausible future and search for alternative ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditions and Communities The I JRE i has been one of the foremost intellectual sites for scholars' representation of how religious communities have reasoned, do reason, and ought to reason, through various moral issues. The editors of the I JRE i and the members of the fiftieth-anniversary subcommittee will solicit articles from abstracts received. Editors Aline Kalbian, I Florida State University i Martin Kavka, I Florida State University i 50 SP th sp -Anniversary Subcommittee Elizabeth M. Bucar, I Northeastern University i David Clairmont, I University of Notre Dame i Eric Gregory, I Princeton University i Richard B. Miller, I University of Chicago i Darlene Weaver, I Duquesne University i. [Extracted from the article]

Some claim that moral factors affect the epistemic status of our beliefs. Call this the moral encroachment thesis. It's been argued that the moral encroachment thesis can explain at least part of the wrongness of racial profiling. The thesis predicts that the high moral stakes in cases of racial profiling make it more difficult for these racist beliefs to be justified or to constitute knowledge. This paper considers a class of racial generalizations that seem to do just the opposite of this. The high moral stakes of the beliefs we infer from these generalizations make it easier rather than harder for these beliefs to be justified or to constitute knowledge. I argue that the existence of this class of cases—cases of "positive profiling"—give us reason to expand our account of moral encroachment in a way that brings it closer to the ideal of pragmatic encroachment that motivates it in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the problem of coherence, i.e., whether the internal and external dimensions of li (礼 rituals, rites, and the observance of them) are compatible. This problem stems mainly from Mencius' seemingly conflicting statements. On the one hand, he emphasized the goodness of xing (性 human nature) in terms of the goodness of the heart-mind. On the other hand, he defended the act of following li regardless of one's heart-mind. This paper argues that Mencius held coherent moral reasons internalism, asserting that moral reasons are embedded in people's universal and potential instinct to do morally good things. Consequently, he distinguished morality from non-moral normativity and claimed that the former takes precedence over the latter. The concept of li is thus divided into moral li and non-moral li, with moral li taking precedence over non-moral li. Therefore, the act of "following li regardless of one's heart-mind" refers to following non-moral li, as long as it does not conflict with moral li. Based on the fact that Mencius' concept of li is a kind of coherent moral reasons internalism, this paper further responds to some challenges from moral reasons externalism. It does so by clarifying the meaning of "seeking the cause within oneself" (反求诸己 fan qiu zhu ji), showing that Mencius believed every individual could establish rational inner guidance and be motivated to lead a reflective and autonomous moral life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sport doping is not a recent phenomenon. Athletes have used many forms of performance enhancements going back to antiquity. Within the sport philosophy literature, sport doping is entangled in a multitude of ethical discourses, some denouncing, and some supporting, doping in sport. Our aim is to use a systematic approach to classify ethical discourses put forward by scholars focused on doping. To take stock of these ethical discourses, and to advance the sport philosophy literature on doping, this paper provides an empirical account of the types of arguments used in the peer-reviewed sport philosophy literature. This empirical account is intended to provide a map of the ethical discourses in circulation, to highlight the most common arguments, and to show where other types of arguments are absent or less well developed. To map the ethical discourses, the authors use an ethical discourse typology from a university-based ethical reasoning program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the calls for the submission of the paper for the periodicals. Topics discussed include submission of the paper need to be any philosophical treatment of environmental aesthetics and ethics; special papers of interest for the submission such as articles dealing with identifying aesthetic reasons, moral reason for protecting the natural environment; and articles dealing with aesthetic value structure our reasons for acting. It also invite papers related to aesthetic values conflict with moral values, and philosophers perception of the relation between environmental aesthetics and ethics.

This paper investigates the ethics of regarding others as epistemically hopeless. To regard a person as epistemically hopeless with respect to p is, roughly, to regard her as unable to see the truth of p through rational means. Regarding a person as epistemically hopeless is a stance that has surprising and nuanced moral implications. It can be a sign of respect, and it can also be a way of giving up on someone. Whether it is morally problematic to take up this stance, I argue, depends on the choices that one faces (or is likely to face). I close the paper by arguing against the view that there are standing moral reasons against regarding others as epistemically hopeless. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, a growing discussion about how we should design our cities has emerged, particularly for the more controversial modes of design such as "defensive," "hostile," or "disciplinary" architecture (i.e., benches on which one cannot sleep, or metal studs on which one cannot skate). Although this debate is relatively mature, many studies have argued that these design notions are undertheorized and are, thus, challenging to study from an empirical and normative perspective. In this paper, I will define the most common terms used in the literature and show how they are interconnected by utilizing a set of "conditions of adequacy" from philosophy to facilitate a more transparent and well-grounded discussion of them. Terms such as "hostile" and "defensive" design are underlined by several different phenomena, not just one as is sometimes commonly assumed. I will also show that these phenomena and their conceptualizations require—and sometimes force us to use—different moral reasons when justifying the utilization of different designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the possibility of developing artificial intelligence (AI) systems capable of exhibiting limited cognitive processes analogous to aspects of human religious belief. The literature review pertains to the most essential cognitive mechanisms of belief and the most relevant models for AI with belief. Accordingly, and as a result of the theoretical review, drawing inspiration from belief cognition to endow AI with enhanced cognitive capacities, the core objective is to try to build a theoretical model that simulates cognitive processes of belief, equipping AI agents with abilities to recognize subtle divine synchronistic patterns and form provisional convictions computationally modeled on belief cognitive mechanisms. The hypothesis is that this could hopefully unlock a higher level of cognitive function and could enhance capacities for nuanced, context-sensitive reasoning and prediction for these AI models. The method is a novel "Trans-Belief" theoretical model that will be considered, integrating fuzzy and doxastic logic models to trace synchronistic divine patterns, in the results section. Finally, in the discussion, additional moral aspects and the nature of the data set of the model will be examined, and directions for future research will be proposed. While not implying AI can or should fully replicate complex human spirituality, tentative artificial belief could impart beneficial qualities like contextual awareness. However, developing belief-inspired algorithms requires grappling with profound philosophical questions regarding singularity and implementing strong ethical safeguards on any AI-granted agency over human affairs. This represents an early exploration of belief's implications for machine learning, necessitating future research and discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an editorial titled "Moral psychology of AI" published in Frontiers in Psychology. It discusses the ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in society. The editorial highlights the need for ethical guidelines and examines various topics related to AI, including autonomous vehicles, human-robot interaction, AI in education, and the impact of robot aesthetics on moral judgments. The research papers included in the editorial explore the complex relationship between AI and moral principles, aiming to develop AI systems that align with societal values and human morality. [Extracted from the article]

This paper is concerned with the gap between the ideology of 'autonomous individualism' deeply embedded in Western-centric engineering ethics education and the social and relational nature of engineering practice. The so-called 'individualistic approach' to engineering ethics often treats students as fully rational and autonomous individual decision-makers. Such an approach mainly emphasizes teaching students moral reasoning skills, including the skills of applying dominant Western ethical theories (mainly deontology and consequentialism) into hypothetical cases. What might be overlooked or could be further emphasized in dominant approaches to engineering ethics education is what philosophers call the 'role ethics' of engineers. The role ethics approach to engineering ethics focuses on the the moral obligations of engineers that are derived from the specific roles they assume and the relationships they have developed with others in communal contexts. This paper aims to construct a role-based approach to teaching professional ethics to engineering students. It mainly draws on role ethics theories from the Confucian philosophical tradition. It first provides a short introduction to the fundamentals of Confucian role ethics from a comparative perspective. It then discusses what a role-based approach to engineering ethics might entail. Finally, this paper briefly explores how the insights from Confucian role ethics can inform future engineering ethics education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Concepts typically used for human research ethics are beginning to be applied to animals in research. This paper focuses on the concept of participant dissent, and examines the options researchers can pursue and the consequences of these options, if researchers take the dissent of research animals seriously. Increasingly, ethical concepts ordinarily reserved for the human research setting have been applied to nonhuman animals in research. This comes at the same time as concerns mount over challenges in translating the results of biomedical research with animals to human clinical benefit. This paper argues that applying the concept of dissent derived from research with humans to the context of animals can help to address a number of these translational issues, thereby providing an epistemological reason to take animal dissent seriously. This epistemological rationale can be added to the practical and ethical reasons for attending to animal dissent. Having made a case for recognizing the dissent of animals in biomedical research, the consequences that follow from this for the conduct of research are discussed. If animal researchers attend to dissent, then it seems that there are three types of strategy available: to override dissent, to train animals in such a way as to circumvent potential dissent, or to alter how research is conducted in order to be responsive to dissent. Only this last option has the potential to address all the types of reasons that motivate us to take dissent seriously; however, this would involve a significant reshaping of the practice of animal research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to shed light on and introduce the ethics of earnings management (EM) to researchers and students in the academic community in light of Kohlberg's theory. Design/methodology/approach: The paper contextualises and analyses the relevant literature to provide insights around the key concepts of the issue of ethics of EM. Therefore, theoretical approach has been adopted by reviewing the literature using a descriptive method. The study suggests relevance of the theory of moral development and reasoning by Kohlberg (1969) as an approach in the process of exploring the background and the reasons behind ethics of managers regarding EM. This theory helps to explain how individuals demonstrate and justify a sense of right or wrong. Thus, the paper is a literature review concluded with a proposed conceptual framework. Findings: The paper provides conceptual insights about the ethics of EM, and it proposes a link between manager's ethics regarding the phenomenon of EM and the framework of moral reasoning theory by Kohlberg (1969). Originality/value: The importance and implications of Kohlberg's theory, in terms of EM, resides within the fact that the theory is concerned with questions about how one ought to act – being as it acknowledges the well-known ethical theories. The work of Kohlberg can be classified as a descriptive analysis to the extent that it attempts to describe individuals' moral development. This integration of normative and descriptive ethics, in turn, enables the theory to be used to explore managers' moral reasoning in a more helpful way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some researchers interested in assessing moral reasoning among business practitioners or students have developed their own vignettes or scenarios set in business contexts, based on assumptions that the situations presented in the often-used Defining Issues Test (DIT) will somehow be inappropriate for these specific types of respondents. This paper is the first to examine in depth both the actual details contained in these business-oriented scenarios and empirical findings emerging from them. Among this paper's conclusions are: (1) assumptions underpinning the presumed superiority of business-oriented vignettes have yet to be tested; (2) the DIT possesses considerable advantages unavailable in alternative measures; (3) many business-oriented scenarios have underlying Dilemma themes that seem inherently ambiguous and thus of questionable relevance for assessing moral reasoning; (4) these scenarios have no obvious equivalent in the DIT and thus cannot definitively be placed under the umbrella of the latter's demonstrated construct validity; and (5) meaningful empirical findings have not clearly emerged from investigations using business-oriented vignettes. In light of these conclusions, we recommend that investigators interested in moral reasoning advance knowledge in a coherent and unified way by using the DIT that seems entirely appropriate for use among respondents with business experience or training. Although alternative measures may have value for assessing ethical judgments, evidence of their validity as a measure of moral reasoning is lacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Slawistik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl is a debate - style activity that aims to help students cultivate skills of moral deliberation. While a fair amount has been written about the pedagogical benefits of Ethics Bowl, relatively little attention has been given to potential ethical criticisms of the activity. In this paper I present some reflections on an ethical challenge to Ethics Bowl, namely that applying the characteristic approach of Ethics Bowl to some issues of contemporary ethical controversy can be immoral. The concern is that treating certain topics as "open to debate" conveys disrespect for certain individuals, and risks normalizing harmful viewpoints. I argue that we should take this challenge seriously; indeed, the guiding values behind Ethics Bowl require that we do so. I conclude that conducting Ethical Bowl in an ethical manner requires caution and skill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that applied ethics can itself be morally problematic. As illustrated by the case of Peter Singer's criticism of social practice, morally loaded communication by applied ethicists can lead to protests, backlashes, and aggression. By reviewing the psychological literature on self-image, collective identity, and motivated reasoning three categories of morally problematic consequences of ethical criticism by applied ethicists are identified: serious psychological discomfort, moral backfiring, and hostile conflict. The most worrisome is moral backfiring: psychological research suggests that ethical criticism of people's central moral convictions can reinforce exactly those attitudes. Therefore, applied ethicists unintentionally can contribute to a consolidation of precisely those social circumstances that they condemn to be unethical. Furthermore, I argue that the normative concerns raised in this paper are not dependent on the commitment to one specific paradigm in moral philosophy. Utilitarianism, Aristotelian virtue ethics, and Rawlsian contractarianism all provide sound reasons to take morally problematic consequences of ethical criticism seriously. Only the case of deontological ethics is less clear-cut. Finally, I point out that the issues raised in this paper provide an excellent opportunity for further interdisciplinary collaboration between applied ethics and social sciences. I also propose strategies for communicating ethics effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a multidimensional theoretical scheme to analyze professional ethics in the field of political public relations. We suggest investigating the decisions of these professionals using moral foundations theory because human ethical reasoning is contextual, and the examination of ethics in a one-dimensional manner as previous researchers have done overlooks the complexity of the moral choices that such professionals make. The prospects of the proposed theoretical approach are demonstrated on 16 interviews with post-soviet Russian political PR industry leaders that were conducted from March 2018 to April 2020. Our empirical findings show that Russian political PR specialists employ all moral foundations, however, in their narratives the "care/harm" and "authority/respect" foundations were not mentioned very often. Overall, this paper makes a critical contribution to research on professional ethics in political public relations, and it provides important insight into the specifics of moral reasoning in the Russian political PR industry that is insufficiently described in the current literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Excellence' underpins debates within sports ethics from the nature of sport to the permissibility of doping. Despite the central role that excellence occupies in ethical reasoning about sport, it has garnered more support than scrutiny in the literature. Little has been said about how this value can be advanced or undermined. This paper addresses that lacuna by demonstrating that excellence has a complexity that has previously gone unnoticed. Specifically, excellence has four distinct elements: the 'cluster of excellence', the 'quantum of excellence', the 'clarity of excellence', and the 'balance of excellence'. Correspondingly, excellence can be advanced or undermined in any of four ways. This analysis yields the 'Excellence Principle' – a principle that provides a desideratum for any broad internalist (i.e. interpretivist) theory of sport and a normative framework with which to undertake excellence-based reasoning in sports ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine learning (ML) trains itself by discovering patterns of correlations that can be applied to new inputs. That is a very powerful form of generalization, but it is also very different from the sort of generalization that the west has valorized as the highest form of truth, such as universal laws in some of the sciences, or ethical principles and frameworks in moral reasoning. Machine learning's generalizations synthesize the general and the particular in a new way, creating a multidimensional model that often retains more of the complex differentiating patterns it has uncovered in the training process than the human mind can grasp. Particulars speak louder in these models than they do in traditional generalizing frameworks. This creates an odd analogy with recent movements in moral philosophy, particularly the feminist ethics of care which rejects the application of general moral frameworks in favor of caring responses to the particular needs and interests of those affected by a moral decision. This paper suggests that our current wide-spread and justified worries about ML's inexplicability—primarily arising from its reliance on staggeringly complex patterns of particulars—may be preparing our culture more broadly for a valorizing of particulars as at least as determinative as generalizations, and that this might help further advance the importance of particulars in ideas such as those put forward by the ethics of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Filosofija, Sociologija is the property of Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Various aspects of sustainable food consumption have been studied within the Social Sciences in the last years. Specifically, the analysis of motivations and determinants behind alternative economic practices has gained prominence in disciplines such as Sociology, Psychology, Economics and Marketing, seeking to understand, measure and calculate consumers' decision-making processes and actions through the application of cognitive theories and qualitative predictive models. Anthropology--more specifically through the practice of ethnography--, has also made significant contributions, mostly toward the analysis and description of contemporary cooperative experiences, both in rural and urban settings. However, within this field, few studies have focused on the underlying values, as well as the symbolic, emotional/affective, and identity-based incentives that exist behind the participation in sustainable, proenvironmental, organic, and fair-trade food initiatives. This kind of perspective might help in comprehending how different people or social groups conceptualize their habits and link them to certain representations or beliefs. At the same time, it can provide information about the way in which actionrelated values appear in discourse and become embodied, whether they are uniform, conflicting, precede practice or emerge as a post-personal reflection of those involved. Through a review, synthesis, and analysis of qualitative literature--meta-ethnography--this paper seeks to present an overview of available academic work on the social, political, personal, material, and ethical reasons associated with partaking in alternative food networks. The findings will be analyzed and discussed in relation to a constructivist perspective, as well as debates around identity, social distinction, and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pravni Vjesnik is the property of Pravni fakultet Sveucilista J. J. Strossmayera u Osijeku and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While Marion disavows talking about ethics and does not explicitly articulate or directly engage with ethical issues, I argue that his views of human reason and the irreducibility of the human person is salient to phenomenological ethical inquiry. An analysis and explication of Marion's thoughts on the human person and reason support the view that his phenomenological thoughts have ethical implications as they broaden the scope of ethical inquiry to characterize ethical life more comprehensively. Thus, his views on the irreducible human person and reason are enriching, helpful, and relevant in ethical philosophizing and practice. The first part of this paper broadly discusses the context of Marion's phenomenological project and its relation to ethics. The second part analyzes Marion's thoughts on the human person as a phenomenon of event and his attempt to broaden our understanding of human reason through fundamental phenomenological concepts like the types of phenomena, the saturated phenomenon, and his phenomenology of love or charity. The third part examines the implications of his views on a phenomenological ethical inquiry by demonstrating how they enrich our ethical or moral capacity to deal with ethical concerns, issues, and problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policing in many parts of the world—the United States in particular—has embraced an archetypal model: a conception of the police based on the tenets of individuated archetypes, such as the heroic police "warrior" or "guardian." Such policing has in part motivated moves to (1) a reallocative model: reallocating societal resources such that the police are no longer needed in society (defunding and abolishing) because reform strategies cannot fix the way societal problems become manifest in (archetypal) policing; and (2) an algorithmic model: subsuming policing into technocratic judgements encoded in algorithms through strategies such as predictive policing (mitigating archetypal bias). This paper begins by considering the normative basis of the relationship between political community and policing. It then examines the justification of reallocative and algorithmic models in light of the relationship between political community and police. Given commitments to the depth and distribution of security—and proscriptions against dehumanizing strategies—the paper concludes that a nonideal-theory priority rule promoting respect for personhood (manifest in community and dignity-promoting policing strategies) is a necessary condition for the justification of the above models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that a realist account of the modality of moral supervenience is superior to a non-cognitivist account. According to the recommended realist account, moral supervenience amounts to strong supervenience where the outer 'necessary' is conceptual and the inner metaphysical. It is argued that non-cognitivism faces a critical choice between weak and strong supervenience where both options are implausible on this view. However, non-cognitivism seems to have an important advantage: It can explain why the outer 'necessary' is conceptual by reference to the function of moral language to influence behaviour. In the main part of the paper, I argue that realism is able to explain why 'necessary' in moral supervenience needs to be understood in the recommended manner by reference to the connection between moral properties and moral reasons. Moreover, I argue that the realist account has other attractive features. In contrast to non-cognitivism, it can unify the normative sphere by being generalizable to other normative notions. In addition, it can be part of an explanation of why moral language can have the function to influence behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethics is crucial to engineering, although disagreement exists concerning the form engineering ethics education should take. In part, this results from disagreements about the goal of this education, which inhibit the development of and progress in cohesive research agendas and practices. In this regard, engineering ethics faces challenges like other professional ethics. To address these issues, this paper argues that the ultimate goal of engineering ethics education should be more long-term ethical behaviors, but that engineering ethics must more fully engage with the fields of empirical moral and cultural psychology to do so. It begins by considering reasons for adopting ethical behaviors as the ultimate goal of ethics education, and moves on to discuss why ethical behaviors have not been adopted as the goal of ethics education. The paper ends by considering responses to these problems, why ethical behaviors should still be adopted as the ultimate goal of ethics education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News about celebrity athlete transgressions is nearly an everyday occurrence in today's media channels. Whether the public stigmatizes these individuals as a result of these indiscretions and how this process is enacted is not yet evident in the literature. This paper seeks to answer the question of whether and how the psychological process of stigma formation occurs with regard to celebrity athletes who transgress. Further, the paper also seeks to clarify the impact of this stigmatization in the context of sponsorship and celebrity endorsement. A total of 219 US residents who were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk participated in this experimental study. We employed structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses. The results show that the impact of negative moral emotions on stigma formation for transgressed athletes is partially mediated by internal attribution. Moreover, negative moral emotions and stigmas have a direct positive (negative) impact on moral coupling (moral decoupling and rationalization), and ultimately influence the attitude toward the transgressed athlete and sponsored brand. The findings suggest that brand managers should consider the transgression history as a key determinant for endorsement decisions because sport consumers may have already formed a strong perception of stigma toward those athletes and those perceptions in turn determine the overall evaluations of endorsed athletes and sponsored brands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business ethics can be taught as a stand-alone course or be woven throughout a curriculum. There is a debate over whether to teach ethics in the form of theory or real-world connectedness or both. A moral-judgment gap exists, and many believe Business education should promote knowledge and skills that enable ethical intentions to be followed with ethical behaviors. This conceptual paper diagrams where the gap exists in Business Ethics education and theorizes how multi-modal, learning-centered ethics teaching can bridge this shortfall. Literature from the field of Education is drawn upon for pedagogies that promote learning and application. Case studies, constructed narratives, and simulations function as several key components useful for developing complex skills needed for applying ethical reasoning. Additional components and strategies that undergird and reinforce the case studies and other active learning components are laid out in pyramid form toward an overall best-practices approach to developing principled moral reasoning in Business Ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The animal‐centric approach so far predominantly employed in risk assessment has been questioned in recent years due to a number of shortcomings regarding performance, consistency, transferability of results, sustainability, costs and ethical reasons. Alternatives to animal testing, collectively termed NAMs, may have the potential to deliver sound, cost‐effective, prompt and reliable information, but their regulatory acceptance has not been established yet. The main reasons behind this are mostly related to actual methodological obstacles, with particular reference to addressing complex endpoints such as repeated‐dose toxicity, the issue of translating the concept of adversity to NAMs, and doubts of stakeholders about the level of chemical safety ensured by NAMs. With the aim of providing an updated view on major conceptual and methodological developments in the field of toxicology, a symposium and a workshop were organised by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung, BfR) and Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research on 15–17 November 2021 in Berlin. The conference, entitled 'Challenges in Public Health Protection in the 21st Century: New Methods, Omics and Novel Concepts in Toxicology' brought together eminent scientists with representatives from industry and regulatory authorities. The organisation, day‐to‐day operations and the reporting of the event main outcomes in a position paper were the main focus of the present EFSA EU‐FORA work programme. Tasks pertaining to 'The use of NAMs and omics data in risk assessment' were implemented under the shared supervision of units 'Testing and Assessment Strategies Pesticides' and 'Effect‐based Analytics and Toxicogenomics' of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of collective intelligence has been studied in much greater detail in small groups than in larger ones. Nevertheless, in groups of several hundreds or thousands of members, it is well-known that the social environment exerts a considerable influence on individual behavior. A few recent papers have dealt with some aspects of large group situations, but have not provided an in-depth analysis of the role of interactions among the members of a group in the creation of ideas, as well as the group's overall performance. In this study, we report an experiment where a large set of individuals, i.e., 789 high-school students, cooperated online in real time to solve two different examinations on a specifically designed platform (Thinkhub). Our goal of this paper 6 to describe the specific mechanisms of idea creation we were able to observe and to measure the group's performance as a whole. When we deal with communication networks featuring a large number of interacting entities, it seems natural to model the set as a complex system by resorting to the tools of statistical mechanics. Our experiment shows how an interaction in small groups that increase in size over several phases, leading to a final phase where the students are confronted with the most popular answers of the previous phases, is capable of producing high-quality answers to all examination questions, whereby the last phase plays a crucial role. Our experiment likewise shows that a group's performance in such a task progresses in a linear manner in parallel with the size of the group. Finally, we show that the controlled interaction and dynamics foreseen in the system can reduce the spread of "fake news" within the group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding reasons is essential both for understanding human behavior and for constructing a theory of moral conduct. Reasons have been widely viewed as the most basic elements in normative theory, and moral reasons have been considered the most basic elements in ethics. Arguably, rational acts are those best supported by reasons, and morally right acts are those best supported by moral reasons. There is little doubt, however, that what is good is also important for both the rationality and the morality of actions. Given these points, this paper explores four related questions: What kinds of elements, say facts or propositional attitudes, constitute (normative) reasons for action? What is the relation between considerations of value—for instance regarding the intrinsically good or intrinsically bad—and normative reasons for action? Are reasons—for belief as well as for actions—equivalent to grounds for them? And how do answers to these questions bear on ethical theory? This paper provides a partial theory of reasons, values, and grounds that distinguishes different kinds of reason‐ascribing locutions, reveals, in the light of that distinction, a kind of normative dependence of reasons on values, and represents both reasons and values as metaphysically grounded in elements of experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Above all, bird ringing must be safe for birds, for ethical reasons but also to ensure that data collection is not biased by marking effects. Bird ringing schemes are responsible for determining the size of the rings used to mark birds individually. This paper critically reviews the recommended ring sizes in the Aranzadi Ringing Scheme and proposes an objective criterion for ringers. A morphological analysis of tarsus width (MTW) and the width of the tibia–tarsus articulation (MAW), over a sample of more than 4000 individuals of 74 species of both passerines and non-passerines captured in Spain, revealed that the mean difference between the internal diameter of the recommended ring (IDR) and MTW was 32% in relation to MTW (sd 15.8%, 95% confidence interval 28–35%). Experience demonstrates that this clearance is adequate, but recommendations for rings with clearances either too narrow (<6%) or too wide (>50–60%) should be reviewed and changed, if possible, to bring them closer to a 32% standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the received view in metaethics, a Neo‐Humean theory of rationality entails that there cannot be any objective moral reasons, i.e. moral reasons that are independent of actual desires. In this paper, I argue that there is a version of this theory that is compatible with the existence of objective moral reasons. The key is to distinguish between (i) the process of rational deliberation that starts off in an agent's actual desires, and (ii) the rational principle that an agent employs in such a process. I maintain that it is the latter which explains why it is rational for an agent to have a certain desire, not the former. As a result, there might be two types of principles. The second type of principle leaves room for objective moral reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates an unexplored indexical dimension inherent in the mapping structure of metaphor. The empirical focus is on the metaphor of stain but the scope of indexicality in relation to metaphor might be on a more general level. Based on analyses of a political statement as well as transcripts from a therapy session it is argued that previous accounts on the stain metaphor within CMT are insufficient and only covers parts of the cognitive structures and social aspects of the metaphor. Hitherto, the stain metaphor has been analyzed as part of a larger framework on moral reasoning related to the conceptual metaphors GOOD IS CLEAN, BAD IS DIRTY. This cognitive schema relies on a dichotomy between clean and dirty objects claiming that we understand and experience unmoral, or socially unacceptable behaviors in terms of (interaction with) dirty or filthy objects. However, the analyses in this paper clarify that this account only addresses one dimensions of stains, that is, their tendency to be perceived as dirt, and thereby misses their status as traces or signs. Thus, the accounts offered by CMT miss the fundamental indexical constraints of the stain expression. The source domain of physical stains is in itself constrained by a relation of contiguity (spatiotemporal proximity and association) between the stain and the actions leading to the stain. Thus, in a single expression, the stain metaphor indicates temporal and causal relations in an easily accessible way. Further, the figurative use of "stain" can also be captured as a CAUSE FOR EFFECT metonymy allowing for an intuitive sense of causal relations as well. The central claim of the paper is that metaphor research needs to pay closer attention the kinds of perception of reality that metaphors make possible in-and-through their indexical constraint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is twofold: first, it seeks to provide a better understanding of lawyers' ethics in practice in the field of publicly funded asylum law. It does so by examining Dutch asylum legal aid lawyers' moral reasoning in respect of the ethically challenging issue of 'the hopeless case', employing a version of Christine Parker's four approaches to moral reasoning in legal practice: adversarial advocacy, responsible lawyering, moral activism and relational lawyering. Second, it aims to demonstrate the applicability of Parker's taxonomy, developed in a common law country (Australia), to a civil law country (The Netherlands). This paper shows, in line with what Parker argued, that lawyers may apply a combination of approaches – different ethical considerations carry different in weight in different circumstances. It provides illustrations of situations in which approaches coexist and compete and the circumstances in which one prevails over the other in the area under review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meaning and Linguistic Variation: The Third Wave in Sociolinguistics is a collection of works published in a variety of edited collections, journals, and conference proceedings. It also includes one unpublished conference paper. The collection traces the (ongoing) development of the concept of social meaning in language variation in 11 different papers. These are contextualized with personal reflections on variationist sociolinguistics and the profession of linguistics that frame each paper. This review article highlights some of the key themes in the collection: As well as social meaning itself, issues with style, clustering of variables, peripheral and core members of communities, and agency are discussed. Eckert's innovative proposal that variables can be differentiated on the basis of their relative "interiority" is considered, as is the assertion that linguistics transcends the referential properties of language to include the expressive and moral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the ethical concerns related to these journals and publishing in them. These concerns are poor editorial standards with lack of proper editorial board, editorial offices, academic fraud, deception and misinterpretations, trust deficit in research literature and lack of archiving policy. It is of utmost importance that the scholarly groups, researchers, academicians, editors, editorials boards, institutions, publishers should be aware of these predatory journals, and avoid supporting these journals by not publishing in them, or being a part of their editorial board members. Faculty members should also be discouraged for knowingly publishing in them. Scholarly community should support the legitimate and valid scholarly research enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a conceptual prescription: it argues that judges and lawyers should adopt a positivist concept of law, on normative grounds. The positivist view, I will argue, is more consistent with reasonable disagreement and majority rule than nonpositivist views, offers a better view of law's moral standing, and is more consistent with what Dworkin called 'integrity' than non-positivism. As the paper explains, this is an argument about what I call the 'operative' concept of law. As such, the argument avoids potential problems for conceptual prescription, and shows why even those who adopt non-positivist views about the nature of law might accept it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]