Big Data and Artificial Intelligence have a symbiotic relationship. Artificial Intelligence needs to be trained on Big Data to be accurate, and Big Data's value is largely realized through its use by Artificial Intelligence. As a result, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence practices are tightly intertwined in real life settings, as are their impacts on society. Unethical uses of Artificial Intelligence are therefore a Big Data problem, at least to some degree. Efforts to address this problem have been dominated by (...) the documentation of Ethical Artificial Intelligence principles and the creation of technical tools that address specific aspects of those principles. However, there is mounting evidence that Ethical Artificial Intelligence principles and technical tools have little impact on the Artificial Intelligence that is created in practice, sometimes in very public ways. The goal of this commentary is to highlight four interconnected areas society can invest in to close this Ethical Artificial Intelligence publication-to-practice gap, maximizing the positive impact Artificial Intelligence and Big Data have on society. For Ethical Artificial Intelligence to become a reality, I argue that these areas need to be addressed holistically in a way that acknowledges their interdependencies. Progress will require iteration, compromise, and transdisciplinary collaboration, but the result of our investments will be the realization of Artificial Intelligence's and Big Data's tremendous potential for social good, in practice rather than in just our hopes and aspirations. (shrink)

Psychopathy is a disorder characterized by severe and frequent moral violations in multiple domains of life. Numerous studies have shown psychopathy-related limbic brain abnormalities during moral processing; however, these studies only examined negatively valenced moral stimuli. Here, we aimed to replicate prior psychopathy research on negative moral judgments and to extend this work by examining psychopathy-related abnormalities in the processing of controversial moral stimuli and positive moral processing. Incarcerated adult males (N = 245) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging protocol (...) on a mobile imaging system stationed at the prison. Psychopathy was assessed using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R). Participants were then shown words describing three types of moral stimuli: wrong (e.g., stealing), not wrong (e.g., charity), and controversial (e.g., euthanasia). Participants rated each stimulus as either wrong or not wrong. PCL-R total scores were correlated with not wrong behavioral responses to wrong moral stimuli, and were inversely related to hemodynamic activity in the anterior cingulate cortex in the contrast of wrong > not wrong. In the controversial > noncontroversial comparison, psychopathy was inversely associated with activity in the temporal parietal junction and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These results indicate that psychopathy-related abnormalities are observed during the processing of complex, negative, and positive moral stimuli. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, many health systems, including those in the UK, developed triage guidelines to manage severe shortages of ventilators. At present, there is an insufficient understanding of how the public views these guidelines, and little evidence on which features of a patient the public believe should and should not be considered in ventilator triage.MethodsTwo surveys were conducted with representative UK samples. In the first survey, 525 participants were asked in an open-ended format to provide (...) features they thought should and should not be considered in allocating ventilators for COVID-19 patients when not enough ventilators are available. In the second survey, 505 participants were presented with 30 features identified from the first study, and were asked if these features should count in favour of a patient with the feature getting a ventilator, count against the patient, or neither. Statistical tests were conducted to determine if a feature was generally considered by participants as morally relevant and whether its mean was non-neutral.ResultsIn Survey 1, the features of a patient most frequently cited as being morally relevant to determining who would receive access to ventilators were age, general health, prospect of recovery, having dependents, and the severity of COVID symptoms. The features most frequently cited as being morally irrelevant to determining who would receive access to ventilators are race, gender, economic status, religion, social status, age, sexual orientation, and career. In Survey 2, the top three features that participants thought should count in favour of receiving a ventilator were pregnancy, having a chance of dying soon, and having waited for a long time. The top three features that participants thought should count against a patient receiving a ventilator were having committed violent crimes in the past, having unnecessarily engaged in activities with a high risk of COVID-19 infection, and a low chance of survival.ConclusionsThe public generally agreed with existing UK guidelines that allocate ventilators according to medical benefits and that aim to avoid discrimination based on demographic features such as race and gender. However, many participants expressed potentially non-utilitarian concerns, such as inclining to deprioritise ventilator allocation to those who had a criminal history or who contracted the virus by needlessly engaging in high-risk activities. (shrink)

When two people need a kidney transplant, but only one kidney is available, we need to decide who gets it. If one of the potential recipients needs the kidney because of their own voluntary behavior, but the other is not at all responsible for needing a kidney, then we need to decide whether this fault should be a consideration in favor of the other patient getting the kidney. While there has been considerable philosophical debate on this issue, there is far (...) less research into the views of the public. To explore opinions on these issues, we first asked survey participants to ascribe or deny responsibility for the risky behavior for kidney disease, and for being deprived of a kidney in cases of drinking alcohol, drug abuse, smoking and unhealthy eating when the patient did or did not stop the risky behavior after being diagnosed with kidney disease. Next, we asked participants who should get the kidney when the patient who engaged in risky behavior did or did not know, or have easy access to, the information that the behavior was risky. We found that participants generally ascribed responsibility on the basis of knowledge but allocated the kidney on the basis of access to information. These findings have important implications for moral theories as well as medical policies. (shrink)

For much of the twentieth century, philosophy and science went their separate ways. In moral philosophy, fear of the so-called naturalistic fallacy kept moral philosophers from incorporating developments in biology and psychology. Since the 1990s, however, many philosophers have drawn on recent advances in cognitive psychology, brain science, and evolutionary psychology to inform their work. This collaborative trend is especially strong in moral philosophy, and these three volumes bring together some of the most innovative work by both philosophers and psychologists (...) in this emerging interdisciplinary field. The neuroscience of morality is in its infancy, with the first brain imaging studies of moral development undertaken only in 2001. The contributors to volume 3 sample the best work in this very new field, discussing a variety of approaches, including functional imaging, lesion studies, abnormal psychology, and developmental neuroscience. Each chapter includes an essay, comments on the essay by other scholars, and a reply by the author of the original essay. Topics include the neural basis of moral emotions and moral judgments as well as comparisons of normal adult moral judgments with those made by children, adolescents, and people with psychopathy, brain damage, and autism. Contributors to Volume 3 Abigail Baird, William Casebeer, Cordelia Fine, Nathan Fox, Uta Frith, Jordan Grafman, Joshua Greene, Catherine Hynes, Fatima Azavedo Ignacio, Richard Joyce, Jerome Kagan, Leonard Katz, Kent Kiehl, Jeanette Kennett, Melanie Killen, Daniel Lapsley, Heidi Maibom, Victoria McGeer, John Mikhail, Jorge Moll, Shaun Nichols, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, Adina Roskies, Jana Schaich Borg, Katrina Sifferd, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Michael Smith, Mark Timmons, Frederick de Vignemont, Paul Whalen, Roland Zahn. (shrink)

For much of the twentieth century, philosophy and science went their separate ways. In moral philosophy, fear of the so-called naturalistic fallacy kept moral philosophers from incorporating developments in biology and psychology. Since the 1990s, however, many philosophers have drawn on recent advances in cognitive psychology, brain science, and evolutionary psychology to inform their work. This collaborative trend is especially strong in moral philosophy, and these three volumes bring together some of the most innovative work by both philosophers and psychologists (...) in this emerging interdisciplinary field. The neuroscience of morality is in its infancy, with the first brain imaging studies of moral development undertaken only in 2001. The contributors to volume 3 sample the best work in this very new field, discussing a variety of approaches, including functional imaging, lesion studies, abnormal psychology, and developmental neuroscience. Each chapter includes an essay, comments on the essay by other scholars, and a reply by the author of the original essay. Topics include the neural basis of moral emotions and moral judgments as well as comparisons of normal adult moral judgments with those made by children, adolescents, and people with psychopathy, brain damage, and autism. Contributors to volume 3:_ _Abigail Baird, William Casebeer, Cordelia Fine, Nathan Fox, Uta Frith, Jordan Grafman, Joshua Greene, Catherine Hynes, Fatima Azavedo Ignacio, Richard Joyce, Jerome Kagan, Leonard Katz, Kent Kiehl, Jeanette Kennett, Melanie Killen, Daniel Lapsley, Heidi Maibom, Victoria McGeer, John Mikhail, Jorge Moll, Shaun Nichols, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, Adina Roskies, Jana Schaich Borg, Katrina Sifferd, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Michael Smith, Mark Timmons, Frederick de Vignemont, Paul Whalen, Roland Zahn. (shrink)

Matthew Liao is to be commended for editing Moral Brains, a fine collection showcasing truly 12 excellent chapters by, among others, James Woodward, Molly Crocket, and Jana Schaich 13 Borg. In addition to Liao’s detailed, fair-minded, and comprehensive introduction, the book 14 has fourteen chapters. Of these, one is a reprint (Joshua Greene ch. 4), one a re-articulation of 15 previously published arguments (Walter Sinnott-Armstrong ch. 14), and one a literature review 16 (Oliveira-Souza, Zahn, and Moll ch. (...) 9). The rest are original contributions to the rapidly 17 developing field of neuroethics. (shrink)

Conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) presents many opportunities in the psychotherapeutic landscape—such as therapeutic support for people with mental health problems and without access to care. The adoption of CAI poses many risks that need in-depth ethical scrutiny. The objective of this paper is to complement current research on the ethics of AI for mental health by proposing a holistic, ethical, and epistemic analysis of CAI adoption. First, we focus on the question of whether CAI is rather a tool or an (...) agent. This question serves as a framework for the subsequent ethical analysis of CAI focusing on topics of (self-) knowledge, (self-)understanding, and relationships. Second, we propose further conceptual and ethical analysis regarding human-AI interaction and argue that CAI cannot be considered as an equal partner in a conversation as is the case with a human therapist. Instead, CAI’s role in a conversation should be restricted to specific functions. (shrink)

This paper presents a proposal for the description of gesture phases derived from articulatory characteristics observable in their execution. Based on the results of an explorative study examining the execution of gesture phases of ten German speakers, the paper presents two sets of articulatory features, i.e., distinctive and additional features by which gesture phases are characterized from a context-independent and context-sensitive point of view. It will be shown that gesture phases show a particular distribution of the features, thus distinguishing one (...) phase from another. Furthermore, changes in the execution of phases in linear successions can be described by means of features. Contrary to other accounts, whose focus on gesture phases is primarily in relation to speech and/or adjacent phases, this proposal concentrates on the visible physical characteristics of gesture phases. (shrink)

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Příspěvek se snaží ukázat, jaký dopad mělo poznávání přírody Nového světa na utváření specific- kých podob raně novověké vědecké kooperace a vědy obecně. Záměrem textu je prezentovat originální metody a formy vědění, které v souvislosti s kooperativním poznáváním Nového světa především ve Španělsku vznikaly a jež v soudobé Evropě neměly obdobu. Studie tak chce poukázat na význam, který mělo poznávání Nového světa Španěly v procesu tzv. vědecké revoluce, resp. proměny vědecké praxe i teoretických episte- mologických schémat.

This review summarizes the research on ethical decision-making from 2004 to 2011. Eighty-four articles were published during this period, resulting in 357 findings. Individual findings are categorized by their application to individual variables, organizational variables, or the concept of moral intensity as developed by Jones :366–395, 1991). Rest’s four-step model for ethical decision-making is used to summarize findings by dependent variable—awareness, intent, judgment, and behavior. A discussion of findings in each category is provided in order to uncover trends in the (...) ethical decision-making literature. A summary of areas of suggested future research is provided. (shrink)

Critical accounts over the past years have focused on neoliberalism as a subject of knowledge; there has been a recently growing interest in neoliberalism as an object of knowledge. This article considers the theoretical, epistemological and political implications of the relationship between neoliberalism as an epistemic subject and neoliberalism as an epistemic object. It argues that the ‘gnossification’ of neoliberalism – framing it an epistemic project, and deriving implications for political engagement from this – avoids engaging with numerous ambiguous elements (...) of the production of knowledge. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of the ‘scholastic fallacy’ and Boltanski and Chiapello’s work in sociology of critique, the article lays out a framework for the study of the relationship between epistemic, moral, and political elements of critique of neoliberalism, including the conditions of its own production in contemporary academic contexts. (shrink)

What is the impact of mission on ethical business culture? This question was analyzed through a qualitative case study of a large nonprofit organization in the human services industry with a solid history of ethical business practices and consistent use of a values-based decision-making model. This research explored ethical decision making, ethical business culture, and congruence between enacted and espoused institutional values. Institutional values were identified, and the following pair of research questions was examined: To what extent were incongruent values (...) found between espoused and enacted values? To what extent did incongruent values impact the ethical business culture? Incongruent enacted values were present in the culture, but negative impact was diminished by a larger number of congruent enacted values. Additional findings revealed that an intense commitment to the mission by all employees was the common thread that wound throughout the organization’s ethical business culture and essentially abrogated the undesirable effects of incongruent and negative values. (shrink)

This paper attempts to give a survey of the origin of the present collection of some forty works of Grotius in the present Scientific Library of Olomouc. After a short introduction about education in the Czech lands and especially in Olomouc, the present works of Grotius are discussed in connection with their origin. Most works were added to the collection due to the Josephine abolition of monasteries in the 1780s. Premonstratensian and Cistercian monasteries were the most important former possessors. A (...) couple of Grotiana were donated by noblemen. A look is given to some course books that have been preserved. A complete list of all works of Grotius printed before 1800, present in the Scientific Library with an identification of their owners, is given in the annex. (shrink)

Studie se zabývá problematikou renesančních historiae naturalis, zejména potom vztahem, který v tomto žánru zaujímala empirie a tradiční vědění. Článek analyzuje rozdíly mezi historiae naturalis Starého světa (Gessner, Aldrovandi) a světa Nového (Oviedo, Hernández). Hlavním cílem textu je charakterizovat specifika těchto dvou typů „přírodní historie“ a stejně tak ukázat jejich podobnosti a poukázat na „zdánlivé paradoxy“.

This paper explores the problem of racial privilege in US American feminist thought. Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s analysis of ethics, particularly her ideas of epistemic discontinuity and teleopoietic reading, I argue that a specific kind of ethical openness can help feminist social-political philosophy better negotiate the legacy of white privilege. Spivak’s work calls for a reconsideration and reworking of the subject who theorizes. Her analysis of ethics suggests that racially privileged feminists must be able to confront their own complicity in (...) order to engage in political critique less likely to recreate historical patterns of racial domination and exclusion. (shrink)

Jorge Luis Borges is working for decades now on the execution of the nightmare. Perhaps his most celebrated instance is "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius ". It would take much work to sift the fabricated references in Borges' works from the ones deliberately misread from the over-emphasis on an author's casual remark, etc.

Recently, there has been growing interest in the use of ontology as a fundamental tool for representing domain-specific conceptual models to improve the semantics, accuracy, and relevance of domain users’ query results. Although the amount of data has grown steadily over the past decade, much data shares similar characteristics that can be captured by a foundational ontology. In this paper, we show how queries based on a foundational ontology can be evaluated and their performance measured. We also present a Foundational (...) Patterns benchmark to help select the most efficient triple memory and its layout. We evaluate the foundational benchmark with both generated and real datasets for state-of-the-art triple stores. (shrink)

This article introduces the concept of epistemic positioning to theorize the relationship between identity-based epistemic judgements and the reproduction of social inequalities, including those of gender and ethnicity/race, in the academia. Acts of epistemic positioning entail the evaluation of knowledge claims based on the speaker’s stated or inferred identity. These judgements serve to limit the scope of the knowledge claim, making it more likely speakers will be denied recognition or credit. The four types of epistemic positioning – bounding (reducing a (...) knowledge claim to elements of personal identity), domaining (reducing a knowledge claim to discipline or field associated with identity), non-attribution (using the claim without recognizing the author) and appropriation (presenting the claim as one’s own) – are mutually reinforcing. Given the growing importance of visibility and recognition in the context of increasing competition and insecurity in academic employment, these practices play a role in the ability of underrepresented groups to remain in the academic profession. (shrink)

Literature on categorization often invokes historical legacies to explain why states adhere to statistical categories that inadequately capture their population, and especially minority groups. The failure of the 2011 German census to produce reliable numbers on the country’s largest religious minority, Muslims, could be viewed as a case in point. However, this ignores the fact that in the late 1980s officials successfully counted Muslims. This article traces how officials changed their approach to Muslim enumeration over the course of designing the (...) 2011 census. Drawing on internal ministerial documents and interviews, I show that the reversal of statistical visibility was the result of a recoupling process. Through this process, old state-religion laws that officials had previously ignored now became rigorously applied to the census. An extra-statistical debate on religious education triggered this recoupling by reviving narrow, legal categories of religion and alerting church representatives and legal experts to imprecise census terms. Using the German case and other empirical examples, I describe a more uneven influence of historical legacies than commonly suggested by research on categorization. Rather than viewing legacies as having a stable, or even growing, influence on categorization, I argue that they only take effect when they become politicized and enforced by powerful actors. I call for a more nuanced analysis of the role historical factors play in determining trajectories of census categorization, especially those that are invoked to explain the reluctance of European states to collect ethno-cultural data. (shrink)

This book offers a thorough technical elaboration and philosophical defense of an objectivist informational interpretation of quantum mechanics according to which its novel content is located in its kinematical framework, that is, in how the theory describes systems independently of the specifics of their dynamics. -/- It will be of interest to researchers and students in the philosophy of physics and in theoretical physics with an interest in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Additionally, parts of the book may be used (...) as the basis for courses introducing non-physics majors to quantum mechanics, or for self-study by those outside of the university with an interest in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The past years have witnessed a growing awareness of the role of institutions of knowledge production in reproducing the global climate crisis, from research funded by fossil fuel companies to the role of mainstream economics in fuelling the idea of growth. This essay argues that rethinking knowledge production for post-carbon futures requires engaging with the co-determination of modes of knowing and modes of governing. The ways in which knowledge production is embedded in networks of global capitalism shapes how we (can) (...) think about the future. The essay argues for an attentivity to the material and infrastructural sides of knowledge production, which will enable us to re-think transition to post-carbon futures in ways that recognize the deep structural, spatial and social inequalities underpinning knowledge production. (shrink)

Big social data have enabled new opportunities for evaluating the applicability of social science theories that were formulated decades ago and were often based on small- to medium-sized samples. Big Data coupled with powerful computing has the potential to replace the statistical practice of sampling and estimating effects by measuring phenomena based on full populations. Preparing these data for analysis and conducting analytics involves a plethora of decisions, some of which are already embedded in previously collected data and built tools. (...) These decisions refer to the recording, indexing and representation of data and the settings for analysis methods. While these choices can have tremendous impact on research outcomes, they are not often obvious, not considered or not being made explicit. Consequently, our awareness and understanding of the impact of these decisions on analysis results and derived implications are highly underdeveloped. This might be attributable to occasional high levels of over-confidence in computational solutions as well as the possible yet questionable assumption that Big Data can wash out minor data quality issues, among other reasons. This article provides examples for how to address this issue. It argues that checking, ensuring and validating the quality of big social data and related auxiliary material is a key ingredient for empowering users to gain reliable insights from their work. Scrutinizing data for accuracy issues, systematically fixing them and diligently documenting these processes can have another positive side effect: Closely interacting with the data, thereby forcing ourselves to understand their idiosyncrasies and patterns, can help us to move from being able to precisely model and formally describe effects in society to also understand and explain them. (shrink)

This article critically reflects on some of the themes and assumptions at stake in the “transracialism” controversy, and connects them to important works in critical race theory: namely Rey Chow's notion of “coercive mimeticism” and Sara Ahmed's critique of white liberal multiculturalism. It argues that the analytic account of “race” that Tuvel draws upon in her article—Sally Haslanger's—is politically problematic, both on its own terms and in light of broader reflections on racialized and gendered power relations. In particular, I critique (...) Haslanger's assumption that all racial identities exist on the same conceptual plane: that a single variable definition of “race” can be applied to any particular racialized group—including white and nonwhite racial identities. This erases racialized power relations, especially where, in liberal “multicultural” nations, whiteness constitutes the implied standard against which an appearance of “racial difference” is conjured. Finally, I extend my argument to the issue of treating “race” and gender analogously. Rejecting this move, I propose an alternative way of conceptualizing these as analytically distinct, yet constitutively interdependent, phenomena. In order to situate the debate historically, I consider an example of “racial transgression” from twentieth‐century China. (shrink)

Study of Inference (anumāna) according to the Nyāyabhūṣaṇa, an autocommentary by Bhāsarvajña, 10th century, on his Nyāyasāra, aphorism on Nyaya philosophy.

This informative and entertaining study addresses ethical considerations for deceptive works and proposes cataloging solutions that are provocative and designed to spark debate. An extensive annotated bibliography describes books that are not what they seem.

This article describes a philosophy session with ten-year-old students centered around aesthetics, and in particular on questions about the meaning of music. The students explore the nature of music and art, including questions about what makes something music, artist intention, and the relation of art and the expression of emotion. The session involves a performance of John Cage’s work 4’ 33” and the way in which the performance can inspire a conversation with young people about philosophy of music. The article (...) depicts such a conversation in a fifth grade classroom. The students examine whether silence can be music, whether art must express emotion, and whether it is the external properties of a work or our experience of it that define it as music. Music is deeply important to most people, and yet it evokes some of the most challenging questions of aesthetics. Discussing these questions can serve to illustrate some of the ways in which philosophical enigmas lie behind many of our most ordinary experiences. The surprising experience of attending a performance of Cage’s work, combined with being outside of the classroom for a special event and the relevance of music in the students’ lives, create a powerful environment for philosophical inquiry. The students are able to grasp immediately the complex issues raised by the work, and the resulting search for meaning within the philosophical community of inquiry can be a transformative moment. (shrink)

This article examines a frequent assumption of sociological accounts of knowledge: the idea that knowledge acts. The performativity of knowledge claims is here analysed through the prism of ‘sociological excuses’: the idea that sociological explanations can act as ‘excuses’ for otherwise unacceptable behaviour. The article builds on Austin’s distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary effects to discuss the relationship between sociological explanation, sociological justification and sociological critique. It argues that understanding how (and if) sociological explanations can act requires paying attention to (...) social and political conditions of performativity and their transformation in late liberalism. (shrink)

This review paper discusses the perspective of complex biological systems as applied to inheritance and ontogeny, focusing on the continuity of genetic, epigenetic and microbiotic inheritance. The informational processuality within this continuity can be used as to exemplify the insufficiency of hierarchical concepts in grasping the complex and integrated nature of biological processes. The argument follows Bruni and Giorgi in emphasizing that while structures and substrates are organized hierarchically, communicational processes are organized heterarchically. The essay also argues the insufficiency of (...) a single, basic, i.e. genetic level of description, which is the prevalent idea of twentieth century biology, to explain all phenotypic variation. I argue that inheritance and development cannot be fully explained by some sub- or super-ordination and that such descriptions are merely heuristic tools that do not reflect the nature of such processes. (shrink)

This review summarizes the empirical ethical decision-making (EDM) research in business published between 2012 and 2022. Utilizing Rest's (Moral development: advances in research and theory, Praeger, New York, 1986) four-step model for EDM and Jones' (Acad Manag Rev, 16(2): 366-395, 1991) theory of moral intensity, 85 articles, resulting in 388 findings, were analyzed. Empirical findings in awareness, intent, judgment, and behavior were categorized by their application to individual and organizational factors resulting in the application of 624 and 62 factors, respectively. (...) A maturing of the research environment is seen through the need for grouping individual factors into themes, essentially forming new connections within EDM research. This article prioritizes new factors and themes, such as bad behaviors, customers and selling, fantasy and imagination, and negative experiences. Additionally, new research in reoccurring themes such as demographics, feelings, personality, and power have elements that were seen in prior reviews but are more nuanced in the current. Furthermore, this quinary review discusses the evolution of EDM research highlighting the relationships studied and modifiers and mediators used. These themes help shape the landscape of EDM research by illustrating the intersectionality of variables. This article advances the understanding of how these foundational models are being nuanced to understand more deeply the EDM process. A call for future research incorporating intersectionality, the continued pursuit of complex relationships, longitudinal research, and major societal and organizational movements is included. Research into the effects of underrepresented demographics such as gender identity, veteran status, and ability is suggested. Furthermore, we question whether Rest (1986) and Jones' (1991) models are inherently Western and if comparing outcomes with a decolonialized research method might give insight into EDM. We present this latest 10-year collection of EDM empirical research based on Rest (1986) and Jones (1991) as a tool for new and future scholars to utilize in their research endeavors. (shrink)

Environmental crises, which are consequences of resource-intensive lifestyles and are characterized to a large extent by both a changing climate and a loss of biodiversity, stress the urgent need for a global social-ecological transformation of the agro-food system. In this regard, the bioeconomy and bioeconomic innovations have frequently been seen as instrumental in addressing these grand challenges and contributing to more sustainable land use. To date, the question of how much bioeconomic innovations contribute to sustainability objectives remains unanswered. Against this (...) background, we study four bioeconomic innovations using the case study of animal production and manure utilization in relation to their potential contributions to a social-ecological transformation. The analysis is based on the application of analytical categories derived from the literature that assess the normativity of these innovations and their implicit cultural changes. The results show that the innovations examined manifest existing thought styles and the incumbent socio-technical regime rather than contribute to a more fundamental transition. In this respect, we stress the importance of evolving alterative ideas in innovation design, applying more integrative approaches, such as embedding innovation processes into transdisciplinary processes, and developing adaptive and reflective governance approaches. In return, bioeconomic innovations should adjust towards the design mission of a social-ecological transformation and include a multitude of actors to discuss and harmonize contesting imaginaries and ethical concerns. (shrink)

The relationship between academic freedom and freedom of speech features prominently in public and political discussions concerning the role of universities in Western liberal democracies. Recently, these debates have attracted increased attention, owing in part to media framing of a ‘free speech crisis’, especially in UK and US universities. One type of response is to regulate academic expression through legislation, such as the UK’s 2023 Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. This article offers a critical analysis of the assumptions concerning (...) the performativity of speech in this kind of legal intervention. It extends Judith Butler’s discussion of the concept of ‘harmful speech’ as reported by Butler (Excitable speech: a politics of the performative, Routledge Classics, London, 1997) to conceptualize speech-acts as performative not only when it comes to populations, but also when it comes to institutions. Reconceptualizing universities as producing as well as being constituted by speech-acts, the article argues that the effects of free speech legislation need to be considered in the context of the transformation of universities and other political actors (including governments and student unions) in the second half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century. It argues that legal enforcement of free speech at universities further obscures the distinction between negative and positive liberties identified by Isaiah Berlin (Two Concepts of Liberty, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1958), and considers this shift as part of the reconfiguration of political ontology in late modernity. (shrink)