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Beyond Anthropocentrism? AI, Moral Responsibility, and the Shifting Boundaries of the Moral Community
No full textThe accelerating integration of AI into diverse facets of human life
– from cultural curation and media generation, to economic decision-
making and social interaction – presents social and ethical challenges
that extend beyond the immediate functional impacts. Besides
bias, privacy, job displacement, and similar issues, a more fundamental
transformation is occurring: AI systems are becoming autonomous
actors, compelling a re-examination of moral responsibility and the
constitution of our moral community. This presentation draws upon
foundational work in normative and applied ethics concerning moral
responsibility, moral agency, and the concept of the moral community
to explore how AI disrupts traditional frameworks of accountability.
The author argues that the current models attributing sole responsibility
to human designers, users, or owners are becoming inadequate.
Through their operational opacity (“black box” problem), emergent
behaviours, and distributed nature within complex socio-technical systems,
AI systems create ‘responsibility gaps’ or lead to a problematic
‘diffusion of responsibility’
Transnational families in times of global crisis: the importance of infrastructure availability
No full textThe paper discusses the intersections of different migration infrastructures us ing the
temporary labour migration from Serbia during the COVID-19 pandemic as an example to better
understand the complex relationships of relevant actors, net works, institutions, and
technologies involved in organizing migration and trans national family support and practices
in conditions of a global crisis. Strategies for building and maintaining family relationships and
connections between members of transnational families (TNF) are multiform. With the progress of
transport and ICT infrastructure, opportunities for regular and diverse types of TNF
communication between countries of origin and destination are also developing. Digital
technol ogies improve the opportunities for migrants and TNF members to communicate more
effectively with relevant state institutions, both in the countries of origin and destination ,
which can ease their often-vulnerable position. However, the investi gation of
communication methods and how the available migration infrastructure affects different
types of communication and the well-being of TNF members has been significantly less
researched. This topic is particularly important for a better understanding of migrant and TNF
features in times of global crises, when the state brings sudden and restrictive measures, such
as, for example, border closures and controls during the COVID-19 pandemic. In such
situations, the state's response often does not recognize the transnational forms of family
relations and vulnerabil ities, which appear and deepen in times of crisis. Also, in relation
to the domicile population, it is significantly more difficult for the state to communicate
important information about crisis measures and legal protection to the migrant
population, especially if they are on temporary visa regime. Also, in the countries of origin, the
records of the left-behind population are often missing, negatively impacting their social
protection. In such conditions , transnational family agency and complex in formal
infrastructures become dominant in preserving family support and care
Spatial Dimension of Ethno-Demographic Processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Breakup of Yugoslavia
No full textPolitical sexism and populism in Serbia: The role of individual authoritarianism
Full text linkRecent research suggests that sexist attitudes can significantly influence
political preferences and electoral behavior. Studies of recent elections in countries
such as the United States indicate that sexism is an increasingly important predictor
of party preferences. This paper investigates the impact of political sexism on populist
party preferences in Serbia. Given that the ruling party, Srpska Napredna Stranka
(SNS), exhibits populist characteristics, we expect sexist attitudes to be more prevalent
among its supporters. Using data from a 2021 online public opinion survey conducted
by the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade, which implemented the Comparative
Study of Electoral Systems Module 6 questionnaire, we find that authoritarian and
traditionalist party preferences are associated with higher levels of sexist political
attitudes. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that individual authoritarianism plays
a key role in shaping both sexist attitudes and populist support
Gender differences in left-right ideology: European men are more right-wing, women are more centrist?
No full textSince the 1990s, women appear to have become more left-wing or liberal-oriented compared to men (Dassonneville, 2020). In this paper, we examine whether this observation holds in the more recent survey data from Europe. We show that the exclusive focus on differences in average scores provides an incomplete picture of gender differences in ideology. Since both men and women tend to be centrist, the observed gender differences in averages may be due to differences in the relative popularity of the middle point of the scale. The analysis uses the ninth wave of the European Social Survey data (ESS 9.3), which covers 29 European countries. The results show that European women are, indeed, on average, positioned to the left compared to men. However, additional analyses revealed that these differences are partly due to men's preference for rightist ideological positions and partly to women's relatively more frequent positioning on the scale midpoint
Trust in science and COVID-19 vaccination: The role of institutional trust.
Full text linkThis study aims to investigate the moderating role of institutional trust (i.e., trust
in the authorities and trust in the healthcare system) in the relationship between
trust in science/official modern medicine and the attitudes of young people
towards getting the COVID-19 vaccine. The sample consisted of 791 participants
from Serbia (59.9% female), with an age range between 15 and 25 (M = 18.25, SD
= 2.670). All trust-related measures, including trust in science, official modern
medicine, the authorities and healthcare system had significant main effects in
all tested models, indicating that, with an increase in the trust-related measures,
the attitudes towards getting the COVID-19 vaccine tended to get more positive.
Two out of four tested interactive effects were statistically significant: the interactive effect of trust in science and trust in healthcare, and trust in the official
modern medicine and trust in healthcare on the attitudes towards getting COVID-
19 vaccine. The study results suggest that distrust in the healthcare system is
a vulnerability factor in the afore-mentioned relationship. This prompts a critical
examination of the factors and conditions contributing to the pervasive lack of
trust among young people in Serbia towards the institutional entities that shape
and perpetuate perceptions and attitudes towards vaccination
Assessment of the Impact of Perceived Corruption on Economic Growth Using the GLS Model
Full text linkResearchers not only dissent on what effect corruption has on economic growth but also whether this effect holds in different institutional contexts. Some economists argue that corruption can stimulate economic growth in environments with poor governance and ineffective institutions (such as those in the Western Balkans region), while others suggest otherwise. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between perceived corruption and GDP per capita change in ten European countries from 2012 to 2021. Our goal is to examine whether non-EU Western Balkans countries, characterised by ineffective governance and underdeveloped institutions, are more or less sensitive to corruption compared to more developed European countries. To obtain robust estimates, we employ a feasible generalised least squares estimation method (GLS). Besides showing a negative effect on the full sample, our analysis confirms different intensities of corruption impact on economic growth under the two governance regimes. The research suggests that the negative effect of corruption is stronger in countries with developed institutions (EU countries). We find that the impact of corruption on economic growth in such countries amounts to up to 1.94 percent drop in GDP per capita after a one-unit rise in corruption level, while the one in non-EU WB countries stands at a maximum of 0.75 percent decrease. Compared to earlier findings, ours are characterised by the focus on Western Balkans countries, the inclusion of more recent data and a more comprehensive pre-estimation analysis
The impact of the public health crisis caused by the pandemic on gender inequalities in the labor market in Serbia
No full textThere is an obvious tendency that employed females have lower quality jobs and work in less favorable conditions compared to their male colleagues. Researches indicate there are no signs the situation is going to change in near future having in mind that many social, economic, and legal obstacles to the strengthening of the female population remained. Their position was further worsened by the pandemic, which neutralized long-term efforts to improve the position of the female population as a vulnerable social category. The aim of this paper is to show how the pandemic in the past two years has further deepened gender inequalities and put the female workforce in an even more unfavorable position. In the paper, a descriptive and comparative method was used to analyze the position of the male and female populations in the labor market
DISASTER CONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION: LESSONS FROM COVID-19 FOR ETHICS, POLITICS AND LAW
Full text linkThis volume is the result of a longstanding cooperation between
the editors and some of the contributors, which started in
2012, with their joint participation in the COST Action IS1201 Disaster
Bioethics organized under the leadership of Dublin City University
and Associate Professor Dónal O’Mathúna. Soon after, followed
a joint workshop entitled “Disaster and Social Justice: Victims, Vulnerabilities
and Resilience,” at the University of Copenhagen with
the COST Action IS1201 on 27-28 February 2014 in Copenhagen,
Denmark. The central topic of our shared discussion since then has
been the controversial relation between social and ethical issues
triggered by disasters, as well as bioethics as a theoretical and applied
discipline. These joint efforts resulted in an inter-universities
cooperation and the volume edited by D. O’Mathúna, V. Dranseika
and B. Gordijn titled Disasters: Core Concepts and Ethical Theories.
Ten years after our firsts scientific contacts concerning disaster issues,
Veselin Mitrović and Naomi Zack initiated a joint conference
“Social, Economic and Political Construction of COVID-19” organized
by the Institute of Social Sciences (ISS) and Lehman College,
CUNY in Belgrade, Serbia and New York, USA (virtual), in May 2023.
8
Preface
As with all such volumes, they are the result of many people’s
contributions and help. First of all, we would like to express
our utmost gratitude to all contributors for putting in so much
hard work to provide this volume with numerous excellent and
thought-provoking chapters. We are grateful to the Ministry of Science,
Technological Development and Innovations of the Republic
of Serbia for the financial support in realizing this book. Furthermore,
we would like to say a special “thank you” to Dragica Puljarević
and Goran Bašić, as well as the rest of the ISS publishing team,
for their tremendous support and patience with regard to putting
this volume together. We are grateful to the president of the Scientific
Council of the ISS Predrag Jovanović and the entire Council
membership, who supported the publishing of this book. Last,
but certainly not least, we owe gratitude to our proofreaders and
reviewers for their proofreading and language editing efforts. We
cannot stress enough how much we appreciate the final support
we received from those colleagues and honest friends who morally
and collegially supported us in the final phase of this project.
Veselin Mitrović & Dónal O’Mathúna
December 202