In artificial intelligence (AI), responses generated by machine-learning models (most often large language models) may be unfactual information presented as a fact. For example, a chatbot might state that the Mona Lisa was painted in 1815. Such phenomenon is called AI hallucinations, seeking inspiration from human psychology, with a great difference of AI ones being connected to unjustified beliefs (that is, AI “beliefs”) rather than perceptual failures). -/- AI hallucinations may have their source in the data itself, that is, the (...) source content, or in the training procedure, i.e. the way the knowledge was encoded in the model’s parameters, so that errors in encoding and decoding textual and non-textual representations can cause hallucinations. In this paper, we will observe how such errors come to life and how they might be mitigated. For this purpose, we will analyze the usability of justification logics, to behave as a proof checker for validating the correctness of large language models’ (LLM) responses. Justification logic was developed by S. Artemov, and later on mostly by Artemov and M. Fitting, deriving its main idea from the logic of proofs (LP): knowledge and belief modalities are seen as justification terms, i.e. t:X stands for t is a (proper) justification for X. Justification logic originated from attempts to create semantics for intuitionistic logic where proofs were the most proper justifications, but in further development, justification logic could be applied to different kinds of justifications). With the recent attempts to mitigate incorrect LLM responses, we will analyze various guardrails that are currently used for LLM responses, and see how the logic of justification may provide its benefits as an AI safety layer against false data. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Giving an Account of OneselfChris LundbergGiving an Account of Oneself. Judith Butler. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005. Pp. x + 149. $18.95, softcover.Giving an Account of Oneself, Judith Butler's recent foray into moral philosophy, is a lucid interrogation of the problem of responsibility in the wake of contemporary critiques of the subject. In it, Butler moves beyond her concern with the conditions of subjectivity and its performances (...) towards a fuller consideration of life with others. Butler proffers an answer to the problem of post-subjective responsibility that resonates with the best elements of the rhetorical traditions, [End Page 329] though perhaps Butler's project might also benefit from a more thorough engagement with the problem of rhetoric in its specificity.Though works such as Gender Trouble earned a reputation (perhaps unfairly) for being theoretically dense to the point of obscurity, Giving an Account of Oneself is clearly and elegantly argued. Butler's argument is that moral philosophy relies on the ability of subjects to give an account of themselves and their actions. Such an account seems difficult in the face of blistering critiques of an autonomous, self-possessed, transparent, and naturally given subject of intention. How can one affirm responsibility in the post-subjective moment? As Butler puts it: "does the postulation of a subject who is not self-grounding … whose conditions of emergence can never fully be accounted for, undermine the possibility of responsibility and, in particular, of giving an account of oneself" (19)? What are the assumptions latent in critiques of the humanist subject that might deny the possibility of giving an account of oneself? Inspired by Foucault's interrogation of a naturalized truth of the subject, Lacan's account of a subject produced and dispossessed by the Symbolic Order, and Derrida's critique of presence, such critiques locate the subject as an effect of the operations of discourse, conceived broadly. Despite the force of these critiques, Butler claims that a view of the subject nested in and dispossessed by discourse provides possibilities for ethics. Butler's reframing of ethics draws on two assumptions that underwrite "post" accounts of the subject: that the subject is both an effect of discourse and of differential relation to others.The first assumption is that a subject produced within discourse is also a subject that is dependent on and interpenetrated by others. Drawing on her continuing engagement with Hegel, the work of Adriana Cavarero, Levinas's conception of alterity and Laplanche's theory of seduction, Butler argues that the subject is endowed with a "fundamental sociality" (33). The markers of fundamental sociality differ for each of these theorists: Hegel relies on the concept of recognition; Cavarero appropriates Arendt's space of appearance; Levinas argues for the priority of an ethical relation to the other over ontology; and Laplanche conceives of the emergence of subjectivity as a primal seduction of a child by the adult world. But each of these framings of the subject is united by a basic commitment that subjects are produced in relation to others both as a generative point and as a horizon.The second assumption is that when a subject dependent on other subjects attempts to give an account of itself, it does so within a structure of address. A subject makes a claim for itself only in the presence of others—an account of oneself both aims at the self but also simultaneously aims at presenting the self to another. On this reading, accounts of oneself are not transparent descriptions [End Page 330] of a subject's interiority: rather, an account of oneself must be a narrative, a discursive gathering of the self that can never fully recover the conditions of its emergence. Narrative is not simply a mode of communicating the content and intentions of a self to the other. Narrative is simultaneously the precondition for a subject naming and providing retroactive order to its own subjectivity. But where there are narratives, there is always the risk of narrative closure, or that the narrative is repeated without interruption. Put in terms of Butler's concern with ethics, is there not always a risk that a narrative becomes a self... (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 94 Heft: 1 Seiten: 115-157.

This chapter treats Hubert Dreyfus’ account of skilled coping as part of his wider project of demonstrating the sovereignty of practical intelligence over all other forms of intelligence. In contrast to the standard picture of human beings as essentially rational, individual agents, Dreyfus argued powerfully on phenomenological and empirical grounds that humans are fundamentally embedded, absorbed, and embodied. These commitments are present throughout Dreyfus’ philosophical writings, from his critique of Artificial Intelligence research in the 1970s and 1980s to his rejection (...) of John McDowell’s conceptualism in his 2005 APA Presidential Address. The present chapter articulates Dreyfus’ proposal for a contentless, non-mentalistic form of intentionality by contrasting his position with that of his U.C. Berkeley colleague John Searle and defending it as a plausible alternative to the so-called “Standard Story” of intentional action as the effect of an agent’s mental states. (shrink)

Corpus surveys have shown that the exact forms with which idioms are realized are subject to variation. We report a rating experiment showing that such alternative realizations have varying degrees of acceptability. Idiom variation challenges processing theories associating idioms with fixed multi-word form units, fixed configurations of words, or fixed superlemmas, as they do not explain how it can be that speakers produce variant forms that listeners can still make sense of. A computational model simulating comprehension with naive discriminative learning (...) is introduced that provides an explanation for the different degrees of acceptability of several idiom variant types. Implications for multi-word units in general are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall present the theoretical view on the reliability democracy as presented in Prijić Samaržija’s book Democracy and Truth, and examine its validity through the case of the division of epistemic labour in the process of deliberation on autism treatment policies. It may appear that because of their strong demands, namely, the demand for rejection of medical authority and for exclusive expertise on autism, autistic individuals gathered around the neurodiversity movement present a threat to the reliability democracy.

This introduction consists of two parts. In the first part, the special issue editors introduce inductive metaphysics from a historical as well as from a systematic point of view and discuss what distinguishes it from other modern approaches to metaphysics. In the second part, they give a brief summary of the individual articles in this special issue.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

In this book, Kristina Musholt offers a novel theory of self-consciousness, understood as the ability to think about oneself. Traditionally, self-consciousness has been central to many philosophical theories. More recently, it has become the focus of empirical investigation in psychology and neuroscience. Musholt draws both on philosophical considerations and on insights from the empirical sciences to offer a new account of self-consciousness—the ability to think about ourselves that is at the core of what makes us human. -/- Examining theories (...) of nonconceptual content developed in recent work in the philosophy of cognition, Musholt proposes a model for the gradual transition from self-related information implicit in the nonconceptual content of perception and other forms of experience to the explicit representation of the self in conceptual thought. A crucial part of this model is an analysis of the relationship between self-consciousness and intersubjectivity. Self-consciousness and awareness of others, Musholt argues, are two sides of the same coin. -/- After surveying the philosophical problem of self-consciousness, the notion of nonconceptual content, and various proposals for the existence of nonconceptual self-consciousness, Musholt argues for a non-self-representationalist theory, according to which the self is not part of the representational content of perception and bodily awareness but part of the mode of presentation. She distinguishes between implicitly self-related information and explicit self-representation, and describes the transitions from the former to the latter as arising from a complex process of self–other differentiation. By this account, both self-consciousness and intersubjectivity develop in parallel. (shrink)

Current education paradigms were informed by the classical Newtonian worldview of brain functioning in which the mind is simply the physical activity of the brain, and our thoughts cannot have any effect upon the physical world. However, researchers in the field of quantum mechanics found that the outcomes of certain subatomic experiments are determined by the consciousness of the observer, leading philosophers to propose that the observed and the observer are linked. Quantum mechanics also demonstrates that distant minds may behave (...) in simultaneous correlational ways, in the absence of being linked through any known energetic signal. Further, researchers in this field propose that an external memory space is operating in the human brain, suggesting that this proposed external memory space may be a quantum field surrounding the brain and interacting with other fields, generating a global mental field of information flow. This article proposes that current education paradigms, which have been informed by a classical Newtonian physics worldview may need to be expanded to include a quantum mechanics worldview. The author seeks to understand if, and how, quantum mechanics could inform education practices, theories and paradigms and invites discussion, debate and speculation on the implications this would have for education systems. (shrink)

This paper inquiries into the complex issue of informed consent applying artificial intelligence in medical diagnostic consultations. The aim is to expose the main ethical and legal concerns of the New Health phenomenon, powered by intelligent machines. To achieve this objective, the first part of the paper analyzes ethical aspects of the alleged right to explanation, privacy, and informed consent, applying artificial intelligence in medical diagnostic consultations. This analysis is followed by a legal analysis of the limits and requirements for (...) the explainability of artificial intelligence. Followed by this analysis, recommendations for action are given in the concluding remarks of the paper. (shrink)

Uncertainty, insufficient information or information of poor quality, limited cognitive capacity and time, along with value conflicts and ethical considerations, are all aspects thatmake risk managementand riskcommunication difficult. This paper provides a review of different risk concepts and describes how these influence risk management, communication and planning in relation to forest ecosystem services. Based on the review and results of empirical studies, we suggest that personal assessment of risk is decisive in the management of forest ecosystem services. The results are (...) used together with a reviewof different principles of the distribution of risk to propose an approach to risk communication that is effective aswell as ethically sound. Knowledge of heuristics and mutual information on both beliefs and desires are important in the proposed risk communication approach. Such knowledge provides an opportunity for relevant information exchange, so that gaps in personal knowledge maps can be filled in and effective risk communication can be promoted. (shrink)

Ethical issues around triage have been at the forefront of debates during the Covid‐19 pandemic. This essay compares both discussion and guidelines around triage and the reality of what happened in the United States and in Europe, both in anticipation of and during the first wave of the pandemic. Why did the issue generate so many vivid debates in the United States and so few in most European countries, although the latter were also affected by the rationing of health care (...) resources? Are countries with socialized health care systems better equipped to face the hard choices of triaging? Important lessons in transparency, trust, and accountability for policy‐makers can be drawn from this comparison, demonstrating that fostering public involvement and ethical debate remains a critical element for the sustained acceptance of any triage plan. (shrink)

In today’s pandemic, many countries have experienced shortages of medical resources and many healthcare providers have often been faced with dramatic decisions about how to allocate beds, intensive care, or ventilators. Despite recognizing the need for triage, responses are not the same everywhere, and opinions and practices differ around what guidelines should be used, how they should be implemented, and who should ultimately decide. To some extent, triage issues reflect community values, revealing a given society’s moral standards and ideals. Our (...) goal is to study two countries which share many common features—Italy and France—as they deal with the pandemic, revealing the moral organization of medicine and healthcare, the power structures, and the nature of the disruptions in each context. (shrink)

This article gives an overview of 4 important lacunae in political liberalism and identifies, in a preliminary fashion, some trends in the literature that can come in for support in filling these blind spots, which prevent political liberalism from a correct assessment of the diverse nature of religious claims. Political liberalism operates with implicit assumptions about religious actors being either ‘liberal’ or ‘fundamentalist’ and ignores a third, in-between group, namely traditionalist religious actors and their claims. After having explained what makes (...) traditionalist religious actors different from liberal and fundamentalist religious actors, the author develops 4 areas in which political liberalism should be pushed further theoretically in order to correctly theorize the challenge which traditional religious actors pose to liberal democracy. These 4 areas are: the context of translation; the politics of exemptions; the multivocality of theology; and the transnational nature of norm-contestation. (shrink)

This research replicates Bhattacharjee et al. :1167–1184, 2013) moral decoupling model and extends the original along the dimensions of theory, method, and context. Adopting a branding perspective and focusing on the corporate domain rather than the public figures investigated by Bhattacharjee and colleagues, this research examines the proposition that consumers dissociate judgments of morality from judgments of performance to justify purchasing from companies deemed to act immorally. The original study is further extended by applying the model in a different cultural (...) context and employing a more realistic stimulus to establish external and ecological validity. The results of the replication generally support the original findings, in particular, under conditions of higher product involvement, a theoretical extension. (shrink)

When forecasting their own behavior, people are often inaccurate and tend to predict that they will engage in more socially desirable behavior than they actually do. The problem with inaccurate behavioral forecasts is that they can lead to negative consequences both for the self and for others. One particularly negative consequence may be that such errors can produce overly harsh evaluations and condemnation of others who do not act in a way that most people predict they themselves would act. This (...) paper identifies these common behavioral forecasting errors, why they occur, and the negative interpersonal and unintended, unethical consequences they can have. (shrink)

When forecasting their own behavior, people are often inaccurate and tend to predict that they will engage in more socially desirable behavior than they actually do. The problem with inaccurate behavioral forecasts is that they can lead to negative consequences both for the self and for others. One particularly negative consequence may be that such errors can produce overly harsh evaluations and condemnation of others who do not act in a way that most people predict they themselves would act. This (...) paper identifies these common behavioral forecasting errors, why they occur, and the negative interpersonal and unintended, unethical consequences they can have. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to establish a hierarchical level of deception which does not apply only to humans and non-human animals, but also to the rest of the living world, including plants. We will follow the hierarchical categorization of deception, set forth by Mitchell (1986), in which the first level of deception starts with mimicry, while the last level of deception includes learning and intentionality, usually attributed to primates. We will show how such a hierarchy can be attributed (...) to bacteria, plants, and fungi, see that self-deception is not inherent only to humans, and then connect the evolutionary roots of deception with the philosophical notion of intentionality. (shrink)

In todays’ super-diverse societies, communication and interaction in clinical encounters are increasingly shaped by linguistic, cultural, social and ethnic complexities. It is crucial to better understand the difficulties patients with migration background and healthcare professionals experience in their shared clinical encounters and to explore ethical aspects involved. We accompanied 32 migrant patients during their medical encounters at two outpatient clinics using an ethnographic approach. Overall, data of 34 interviews with patients and physicians on how they perceived their encounter and which (...) difficulties they experienced are presented. We contrasted the perspectives on the difficult aspects and explore ethical questions surrounding the involved issues. Patients and physicians describe similar problem areas, but they have diverging perspectives on them. Two main themes were identified by both patients and physicians: >patients’ behaviour in relation to doctors’ advice relationship issues<. A deeper understanding of the difficulties and challenges that can arise in cross-cultural settings could be provided by bringing together healthcare professionals’ and patients’ perspectives on how a cross- cultural clinical encounter is perceived. Ethical aspects surrounding some of the difficulties could be highlighted and should get more attention in clinical practice and research. (shrink)

Does matter consist of the simple or is it divisible into infinity? This is the question posed by the second antinomy of the Critique of Pure Reason. In this first comprehensive systematic study of the antinomy of division, its derivation, the proofs for thesis and antithesis as well as the resolution are analysed. The developmental and historical dimensions of the topic are also discussed. The study shows that although the antinomy of division is on the one hand a critique of (...) metaphysics, it nevertheless achieves a positive result for Kant's transcendental philosophy: On the one hand, the resolution of the antinomy represents a conceptual sharpening of realism and idealism as well as of the transcendental concept of appearance. On the other hand, it shows that the structure of matter is conditioned by a priori determinations of reason and understanding. These insights are highly relevant not only for Kant's enterprise of an a priori foundation of the natural sciences, but also for the problem of the soul. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement among both supporters and opponents that affirmative action either must not violate any principle of equal opportunity or procedural justice, or if it does, it may do so only given current extenuating circumstances. Many believe that affirmative action is morally problematic, only justified to the extent that it brings us closer to the time when we will no longer need it. In other words, those that support affirmative action believe it is acceptable in nonideal theory, but (...) not ideal theory. This paper argues that affirmative action is entirely compatible with equal opportunity and procedural justice and would be even in an ideal world. I defend a new analysis of Rawlsian procedural justice according to which it is permissible to interfere in the outcomes of procedures, and thus I show that affirmative action is not morally problematic in the way that many have supposed. (shrink)

How do people evaluate causal relationships? Do they just consider what actually happened, or do they also consider what could have counterfactually happened? Using eye tracking and Gaussian process modeling, we investigated how people mentally simulated past events to judge what caused the outcomes to occur. Participants played a virtual ball‐shooting game and then—while looking at a blank screen—mentally simulated (a) what actually happened, (b) what counterfactually could have happened, or (c) what caused the outcome to happen. Our findings showed (...) that participants moved their eyes in patterns consistent with the actual or counterfactual events that they mentally simulated. When simulating what caused the outcome to occur, participants moved their eyes consistent with simulations of counterfactual possibilities. These results favor counterfactual theories of causal reasoning, demonstrate how eye movements can reflect simulation during this reasoning and provide a novel approach for investigating retrospective causal reasoning and counterfactual thinking. (shrink)

The main thesis of this article is that in Christian Wolff’s Deutsche Metaphysik, empirical sources of knowledge play important if not foundational roles and that inductive methods of reasoning are extensively applied. It is argued that experiential self-awareness plays a foundational role and that empirical evidence, phenomena, and scientific theories from the empirical sciences of Wolff’s time are used for inferential purposes. Wolff also makes use of inductive reasoning, i.e., abduction to hidden causes of empirical phenomena, and inferences to the (...) best or to the only possible explanation. Wolff’s Deutsche Metaphysik is therefore a prefiguration and an interesting case of inductive metaphysics in the contemporary sense. From this contemporary perspective, Wolff draws the distinction between valid and speculative abductions in a different way – but it is also different from that of his more empirically oriented contemporaries. (shrink)

The tension between economic policy and health policy is a longstanding dilemma, but one that was brought to the fore with the World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement in 1994. The pharmaceutical industry has long argued that intellectual property protection is vital for innovation. At the same time, there are those who counter that strong IPP negatively impacts the affordability and availability of essential medicines in developing countries. However, actors on both sides of the debate were (...) in agreement that something needed to be done to address the HIV/AIDS crisis, especially in developing countries. In response to sustained and significant pressure from civil society groups, members of the World Trade Organization agreed to the Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health in 2001. The Declaration clarified that countries unable to manufacture the needed pharmaceuticals could obtain more affordable generics elsewhere if necessary. (shrink)

Much recent work in philosophy of memory discusses the question whether episodic remembering is continuous with imagining. This paper contributes to the debate between continuists and discontinuists by considering a previously neglected source of evidence for continuism: the linguistic properties of overt memory and imagination reports (e.g. sentences of the form ‘x remembers/imagines p’). I argue that the distribution and truth-conditional contribution of episodic uses of the English verb 'remember' is surprisingly similar to that of the verb 'imagine'. This holds (...) despite the presence of some remarkable truth-conditional differences between 'remember' and 'imagine'. I show how these differences can be explained by a continuist account of remembering on which remembering is past-directed, referential, and accurate experiential imagining. (shrink)

Cyberspeak, the language of cybernetics, or its metalanguage to be more precise, consists of words that are both explaining and describing human/animal and machine forms of control and communication, while in newspeak, words were value-laden, which means they had strong positive or negative connotations connected to their use. For example, a 'spy' could only be a foreign agent, while a Russian one was a 'patriot'. First, it will be shown how there are still remnants of cyberspeak in modern science, pinpointing (...) its cybernetic background and shaping our thoughts without us realizing they had any cybernetic origin whatsoever. Second, it will be investigated how newspeak, as its counterpart, can be analyzed from the theory of speech acts. Third, the current war in Ukraine allowed us a brief analysis of newspeak present in Russian public communication today (Putin's speeches), which will again be connected to their performative aspect. (shrink)

Devetnaesti vek za Rusku i Tursku carevinu predstavlja period donosenja reformskih zakona sa ciljem da se drzave modernizuju i, koliko mogu, odgovore duhu vremena. Premda su u Rusiji reforme kocene rezimom arakcejevstine i reakcionarnom politikom Nikolaja I, drzava je nacinila ozbiljan korak u borbi protiv sistemske korupcije donosenjem Krivicnog zakonika 1845. godine. Sa druge strane, Turska je bila pod nesumnjivo vecim stranim pritiskom kada je proces modernizacije bio u pitanju. Period tanzimata oznacava krupno razdoblje u kome se Turska, izmedju ostalog, (...) suocila sa sveprisutnom korupcijom. Krunu turskog reformatorskog rada na ovom polju predstavlja donosenje Krivicnog zakonika 1856. godine. U radu se analiziraju konkretni zakoni kojima je korupcija sankcionisana u ove dve carevine. (shrink)

Did you ever wonder why you are sometimes too tired to watch a film, and would rather watch some TV show? And then, you might end up watching five or six hours and binge watch an entire season, and yet feel too tired to commit yourself to a single 2-hour film piece. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, I will try to investigate whether there are any ontological differences in the form of a film or a television show. (...) Second, I will try to connect the newest neurological and psychological research regarding binging and attention span and see how seriality influences our brains. I will use the recent neurological findings to try to answer the question of why it seems easier to watch the same number of episodes rather than a single movie. Third, I will use David Lynch's and Mark Frost's third season of Twin Peaks as an example illustrating the blurry borders between a television show and a film, while contrasting it to the binge-watching phenomenon. (shrink)

Much of the literature on values in science is limited in its perspective because it focuses on the role of values in individual scientists’ decision making, thereby ignoring the context of scientific collaboration. I examine the epistemic structure of scientific collaboration and argue that it gives rise to two arguments showing that moral and social values can legitimately play a role in scientists’ decision to accept something as scientific knowledge. In the case of scientific collaboration some moral and social values (...) are properly understood to be extrinsic epistemic values, that is, values that promote the attainment of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Self-consciousness can be defined as the ability to think 'I'-thoughts. Recently, it has been suggested that self-consciousness in this sense can (and should) be accounted for in terms of nonconceptual forms of self-representation. Here, I will argue that while theories of nonconceptual self-consciousness do provide us with important insights regarding the essential genetic and epistemic features of self-conscious thought, they can only deliver part of the full story that is required to understand the phenomenon of self-consciousness. I will provide two (...) arguments to this effect, drawing on insights from the philosophy of language and on structural differences between conceptual and nonconceptual forms of representation. Both arguments rest on the intuition that while self-consciousness requires explicit self-representation, nonconceptual content can at best provide implicit self-related information. I will conclude that in order to explain the emergence of self-conscious thought out of more basic forms of representations one has to explain the transition between implicit self-related information and explicit self-representation. (shrink)

Wind damage to forests can be divided into (1) the direct damage done to the forest and(2) indirect effects. Indirect effects may be of different kinds and may affect the environ- ment as well as society. For example, falling trees can lead to power and telecommunica- tion failures or blocking of roads. The salvage harvest of fallen trees is another example and one that involves extremely dangerous work. In this overview we provide examples of different entities, services, and activities that (...) may be affected by wind damage to for- ests. We illustrate how valuation of the damage depends on the perspective applied and how the affected entities, services, and activities may represent different types of values. Finally we suggest means for how to actively manage the risk in an ethically sustainable way. Many of our examples will be drawn from the experiences of the wind damage Gudrun in southern Sweden on 8–9 January 2005. The direct as well as indirect effects, which are described, are by no means unique to the Gudrun wind damage event and similar or even worse effects have been described after the wind damage events Martin and Lothar in 1999, and Klaus in 2009. (shrink)

Propositionalism is the view that all intensional constructions (including nominal and clausal attitude reports) can be interpreted as relations to truth-evaluable propositional content. While propositionalism has long been silently assumed in semantics and the philosophy of language, it has only recently entered center stage in linguistic research. This article surveys the properties of intensional constructions, which require the introduction of fine-grained semantic values (intensions). It contrasts two ways of obtaining such values: through the introduction of either Russellian propositions or Frege-Church-style (...) senses. The article identifies propositionalism with a specific variant of the Russellian strategy, reviews key arguments for propositionalism, and compares familiar varieties of propositionalism on the basis of instructive examples. It closes by discussing various challenges for propositionalism and suggesting a generalization of propositionalism that meets some of these challenges. Because of the association of propositions with semantic information, the article also addresses the more general question of whether all information content (including mental and pictorial content) is propositional. (shrink)

This paper argues that while regulatory frameworks in aged care authorise restraints to protect vulnerable persons living with dementia from harm, they also serve as normalising practices to control challenging monstrous Others. This argument emerges out of an observed unease in aged care discourse where older people living with dementia are described as ‘vulnerable’, while dementia behaviours are described as ‘challenging’. Using narrative analysis on a case study from the Final Report of the Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality (...) and Safety (RCAC), this paper investigates how the RCAC (re)produced constructions of persons with dementia as ‘vulnerable monsters’. Drawing upon monstrous theory about ‘unruly and leaky’ bodies, extracts from the case study reveal how the RCAC repeated and reinforced monstrous constructions of dementia. Dementia behaviours, particularly ‘wandering’, were constructed through a dehumanising crisis frame that produced ‘challenging’ bodies and legitimised ‘last resort’ normalising practices, such as physical and chemical restraints. In failing to resist monstrous constructions of dementia behaviours, the RCAC accepted and authorised a regime of scaled responses leading to restrictive practices for control of challenging bodies in aged care. Although dementia care and restrictive practices received substantial attention in the RCAC, this paper reveals a missed opportunity for deeper review of institutionalised use of restraints that has relevance for ongoing reform of Australian aged care following conclusion of the RCAC. (shrink)

This paper examines two recent examples of compulsory licensing legislation: one globally embraced regime and one internationally controversial regime operating under the same WTO rules. In particular, we consider Canadian legislation and the use of compulsory licensing for HIV/AIDS drugs destined for a developing country. This is then contrasted with the conditions under which Thai authorities are pursuing compulsory licenses, the outcomes of their compulsory licenses, as well as the likely impact of the Thai policy. Finally, we construct a rubric (...) to evaluate characteristics of a successful regime. This is used to analyze the Canadian and Thai regimes and frame the expected implications of each national policy. It is hoped that the assessment will guide changes to compulsory licensing design to ensure that legitimate regimes are embraced while illegitimate ones are disallowed. (shrink)