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Kant and the supposed right to lie
No full text1. Timmermann, Jens (2013). Kantian Dilemmas? Moral Conflict in Kant’s Ethical Theory. Archiv
für Geschichte der Philosophie 95, 36–64. Ca. 12,000 words.
Abstract: This paper explores the possibility of moral conflict in Kant’s ethics. An analysis of the only explicit
discussion of the topic in his published writings confirms that there is no room for genuine moral dilemmas.
Conflict is limited to non-conclusive ‘grounds’ of obligation. They arise only in the sphere of ethical duty
and, though defeasible, ought to be construed as the result of valid arguments an agent correctly judges to
apply in the situation at hand. While it is difficult to determine in theory what makes some of them
stronger than others, these ‘grounds’ can account for practical residue in conflict cases and for a plausible
form of agent regret. The principle that ‘ought implies can’ survives intact.
2. Timmermann, Jens (2025). Kant and the Supposed Right to Lie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ca. 103,000 words (main body of text) + 4,300 words (appendix).
Abstract: In his 1797 essay ‘On a Supposed Right to Lie from Love of Humanity’, Kant argues that when only
a con dent lie might save a friend, one must, if asked, reply truthfully and thus betray his hiding-place to the
person who wants to kill him. This is the first monograph to explore Kant’s essay in detail. Jens
Timmermann examines the background of the piece (Kant was provoked by Benjamin Constant and his
translator, Carl Friedrich Cramer); the history of the example (which was also discussed by, amongst others,
Augustine, Fichte and Johann David Michaelis); the peculiarities of Constant’s version of the case; and
Kant’s core argument against Constant: lying, or a right to lie, would undermine contractual rights and spell
disaster for all humanity. This rich interpretative resource, which includes a facing-page translation of
Kant’s essay, will be of wide interest to Kant scholars and moral philosophers
Impacts of acute hypoxia on the short-snouted seahorse metabolism and behaviour
Get PDFFunding: This study was supported by the FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., through CEEC Individual call (2020.00174.CEECIND to M.S.P., and 2021.01030.CEECIND to J.R.P.) and a project grant to M.S.P. (PTCD/BIA-BMA/28647/2017, LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-028647), and also through the strategic project UIDB/04292/2020 awarded to MARE and project LA/P/0069/2020 granted to the Associate Laboratory ARNET. R.B. work is funded by national funds through the FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the scope of the projects UIDB/00297/2020 and UIDP/00297/2020 (Center for Mathematics and Applications).Seahorses are one of the most unique and enigmatic animals, recognized as flagship species for several conservation issues. Unfortunately, seahorses' populations have been declining and their unique lifestyle may constrain the ability of these animals to evolve in the future climate scenarios. They inhabit shallow coastal waters that display daily or seasonal environmental fluctuations. Yet, few studies have scrutinized the impacts of climate changes on these iconic species. Within this context, the objective of this work was to test the effects of an extreme hypoxia exposure (~27 % dissolved oxygen for approximately 7 h) on the metabolism, behaviour and food intake of the temperate seahorse Hippocampus hippocampus. Regarding metabolism, hypoxia exposure led to a significant reduction in metabolic rates and an increase in ventilation rates. Seahorses showed signs of movement lethargy under oxygen depletion. The results show that a small but extreme exposure to hypoxia is tolerable by seahorses despite inducing metabolic and behavioural changes, that may jeopardize the future development and survival of these iconic organisms.Peer reviewe
Identifying clusters of multimorbid disease and differences by age, sex, and socioeconomic status : a systematic review
Get PDFBackground The prevalence of multimorbidity has been growing due to the ageing population and increasingly unhealthy lifestyles. There is interest in identifying clusters of disease and how they are influenced. Aims This systematic review aims to (i) investigate the most common clusters in the adult population with multimorbidity (ii) identify methods used to define clusters (iii) examine if clusters differ based on age, sex and socioeconomic status. Methods We searched Medline, Embase, SCOPUS, Web of Science Core Collection, and CINAHL using concepts of multimorbidity and clustering techniques to identify relevant papers. Secondary data, including commonly reported clustering techniques, identified clusters, and other characteristics were extracted. All studies were quality assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Bias scale. Results From a total of 24,231 papers, 125 were included in the review. There was a total of 918 different clusters identified, which were categorized into 59 broad groups. A cardiometabolic cluster appeared most frequently within the identified studies and across age strata. The most common clustering technique was Latent Class Analysis (n = 51). Disease cluster prevalence appeared to differ based on age, whereas no differences could be identified by sex. Conclusion Across the 125 papers identified, irrespective of clustering method, a relatively common set of clusters of disease were found. The Cardiometabolic cluster was the most frequently identified cluster across all age groups. Studies that stratified participants by age or sex identified distinct clusters within each subgroup, which differed from those observed in clusters formed from the general adult population (18+).Latent class analysis was the most common clustering technique within this review, but it was not explored if different clustering methods led to different clusters. Further work is needed to distinguish the most prevalent clusters within specific stratified cohorts of different ages, sex, and socioeconomic status; nonetheless, data strongly suggests that there are different clusters that arise dependent on stratifications. With the expected increasing burden of multimorbidity, healthcare services may need to think about the most prevalent disease combinations within certain strata and how joint-specialist services can be tailored to treat those common conditions.Peer reviewe
Student wellbeing in higher education : the role of stressors, student identity, and social support
Get PDFUniversity student populations are often characterised by low levels of subjective wellbeing. To understand student wellbeing from the social perspective, this study aimed to explore the prediction of wellbeing by social factors over and above the effects of stress. A particular focus was placed on the impact of social support from different sources, but also on the effects of social identification with students in one’s academic-discipline and university, and the impact of incompatible social identities at home and on campus. A sample of university students (n = 321) completed an online survey comprising measures of academic-discipline social identification (with one’s discipline and university), social identity incompatibility, stress experienced from negative life events as well as two measures of subjective wellbeing. The conducted analyses suggested that social support drawn from friends and family predicted more positive wellbeing, while support from a significant other did not. Moreover, this relationship mediated the positive impact of university identification on wellbeing, but the same was not found for discipline identification. Identity incompatibility predicted poorer wellbeing and was correlated with lower perceived social support and perceptions of higher experienced stress, which suggests a crucial role of this factor in predicting student wellbeing. The obtained results carry multiple implications for further understanding of the relationship between the three social processes, different forms of stress and student wellbeing, but also to existing preventative strategies which address the social dimension of the student experience.Peer reviewe
‘A marriage of convenience’ : inter-organizational learning through strategic collaboration
Get PDFCollaboration is often used to combine capabilities and share resources to deliver strategic goals. The process has potential to support organizational learning and intertwining of knowledge between participating organizations. However, this often overlooks the complexities and contexts that make collaborations prone to failure. This paper explores inter-organizational learning between two police forces in the United Kingdom as they embark on a strategic partnership through collaboration. We investigate how learning emerges through the collaboration, what tensions surface as the partnership develops and how these tensions are resolved. Our research contributes to inter-organizational learning theory in three ways. Firstly, we show that inter-organizational learning is a multi-level process through practices that occur at inter-personal, inter-group and inter-organizational levels. Secondly, we highlight that key tensions attenuate the effectiveness of learning processes. Finally, we note that the outcomes of institutionalized learning — that is, merging infrastructure, standardizing processes and creating a shared identity — are interconnected, and that inter-organizational learning cannot be achieved without all three being embedded successfully. We offer new and important insights into the collaborative learning efforts that promote strategic partnership and integration.Peer reviewe
Are philosophers functionally integrated enough to socially know?
Get PDFAccording to accounts like Alexander Bird’s Minimal Functional Account of social knowledge, various groups like those within the sciences can socially know that , even if no particular individual within that group knows that . Bird’s primary example of a group that has such knowledge is the community of semiconductor physicists – which, as he contends, is sufficiently functionally integrated to satisfy accounts like his own. But, what about specialist communities within philosophy? Do they satisfy accounts like Bird’s own? Should they? As I will suggest in this article, some of them should, but do not appear to do so – at least, as of yet.Peer reviewe
Spatial and temporal heterogeneity foster high fish biodiversity in an Amazonian floodplain
Get PDFFunding: Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá, FUNDREF 10.13039/501100005387; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas, FUNDREF 10.13039/501100004916; Petrobras Ambiental; Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, FUNDREF 10.13039/501100003545; Natural Environment Research Council, FUNDREF 10.13039/501100000270, GRANT #(s) NE/T004487/1; European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, FUNDREF 10.13039/100004431, GRANT #(s) 10002799.The high biodiversity of tropical ecosystems was one of the earliest ecological patterns to be reported, but the ecological processes that maintain this diversity remain unresolved. Here, we revisit Pianka’s 1966 hypothesis that spatial heterogeneity contributes to tropical biodiversity. Using a comprehensive survey of a fish community in a central Amazonian floodplain, conducted over the 2003, 2012, and 2022 hydrological cycles, we ask if the high levels of environmental heterogeneity (both temporal and spatial) that characterize this ecosystem constrain the capacity of species to dominate local assemblages. We find rapid replacement of dominant species, with local species richness inversely related to dominance. Marked turnover in fish community structure and composition is also present, with different functional groups favored under changing environmental conditions. By showing that turnover in dominant species fuels species coexistence, we identify an ecological mechanism that helps explain how environmental heterogeneity can foster tropical biodiversity.Peer reviewe
Towards a flexible approach for understanding and comparing traces
Get PDFFunding: This work has been supported by the Austrian Funding Council (FWF) under Meitner M 3338-N.We assume given a set of behavioural models of computation (event structures) that can be extracted from specifications, processes, code and/or data depending on the application, and have labels containing additional information of interest (e.g., an integer variable representing a measure in the context of the computation). In this paper we present our vision towards a formal flexible approach to search for optimal traces of execution with respect to different parameters of interest (e.g., time, efficacy, cost and/or concurrency), enriched with a mechanism to understand the difference between (sub-optimal) traces and their formalisation as explanations. The underlying idea of the approach is to be generalisable and hence suited to tackle practical problems in a variety of domains from aerospace, automotive and automation industries, as well as systems and applications developed for healthcare. Our examples here come from a healthcare based context
Isothiourea catalysed enantioselective generation of point and axially chiral iminothia- and iminoselenazinanones
No full textFunding: We acknowledge the EaSICAT Centre for Doctoral Training (AJN, ASG) for funding. ADS thanks the EPSRC Programme Grant “Boron: Beyond the Reagent” (EP/W007517) for support. MB thanks EaStCHEM and the School of Chemistry for support.Symmetrical and unsymmetrical thioureas, as well as unsymmetrical selenoureas, are used in an isothiourea-catalysed Michael addition-lactamisation protocol using α,β-unsaturated pentafluorophenyl esters to generate iminothia- and iminoselenazinanone heterocycles with high enantioselectivity (up to 99 : 1 er). The scope and limitations of this process have been widely investigated (40 examples in total) with unsymmetrical thio- and selenoureas containing ortho-substituted N-aryl substituents giving atropisomeric products, leading to an effective process for iminothia- and iminoselenazinanones heterocyclic products containing both point and axially chiral stereogenic elements with excellent stereocontrol (up to >95 : 5 dr and 98 : 2 er). Mechanistic investigation showed that (i) the catalytically liberated aryloxide could deprotonate an electron-deficient thiourea; (ii) in the absence of an isothiourea catalyst, this leads to formation of racemic product; (iii) a crossover experiment indicates the reversibility of the thia-Michael addition. Computational analysis has identified the factors leading to enantioselectivity within this process, with stereocontrol arising from the lactamisation step within the catalytic cycle.Peer reviewe
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