142 research outputs found
"In between hopes and fears": Exploring moral emotions and perceptions around genetically modified micro-organisms (GMMs)
No full textSolving the world food problem, health, and sustainability issues have become principal objectives of modern biotechnology. With the help of genetic engineering, the DNA of micro-organisms can be altered to produce value-added products (e.g., enzymes, vitamins, and alternative proteins) efficiently and sustainably. There has been lots of research activity about public perception and acceptance of genetic engineering in the food industry during the last decades. The EU Regulations provide significant loopholes, and companies fear strong anti-genetically modified organisms (GMO) lobby due to early scandals to notably GMO plants and animals. Until now, most research groups studied the public perception of genetically modified animals (GMAs) and genetically modified plants (GMPs). However, the public perception towards genetically modified micro-organisms (GMMs) has not been studied intensively, while valuable products are hampered. This research explores public emotions and underlying ethical concerns towards GMMs in the dairy-based industry through literature research, semi-structured expert interviews, and online questionnaires. Experts in this field hypothesize that people look differently towards specific GMO products and that consumer acceptance rises when a clear benefit is given. Techno-ethical scenarios were created to study laypeople and to verify different propositions made by experts. Roeser (2018) argues that moral emotions can play an important role in judging the ethical aspects of risky technologies. We used the theoretical approach from Roeser (2018) as a guideline to offer concrete recommendations for further study and essential elements to consider for decision-making on GMM technology. From this research, it can be concluded that the opinions, as in other debates, do not seem to be polarized. The majority of the public feels optimistic about GMM products when it gives a clear benefit. The emotions point to ethical concerns that are most important for specific types of products and consumers. The negative emotions (fear, anger, powerlessness, irritation, and disgust) and positive emotions (interest, hope, joy, happiness, and surprise) link to awareness, trustworthiness, and autonomy to be essential for GMM product acceptance.Management of Technology (MoT
No default syntactic scope for advance planning in sentence production: Evidence from finite mixture models
No full textR and Stan code for a pooled reanalysis of phrasal planning scope data (Hardy et al., 2019; 2020; Martin et al., 2010; Roeser et al., 2019) using linear mixed effects models (LMM) and mixture models (Mixture of Gaussians; MoG). The LMM code is based on Sorensen et al. (2016). The MoG code is based on Vasishth et al. (2017a); see also Vasishth et al. (2017b)
Subjective sleep quality exclusively mediates the relationship between morningness-eveningness preference and self-perceived stress response
No full textRoeser K, Meule A, Kübler A, Schlarb A. Subjective sleep quality exclusively mediates the relationship between morningness-eveningness preference and self-perceived stress response. Chronobiology International. 2012;29(7):955-960.Eveningness preference has been associated with lower sleep quality and higher stress response compared with morningness preference. In the current study, female morning (n = 27) and evening (n = 28) types completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and were additionally challenged with an arithmetic stress-induction task. Evening types reported lower subjective sleep quality and longer sleep latency than morning types. Furthermore, evening types reported higher self-perceived stress after the task than morning types. Subjective sleep quality fully mediated the relationship between morningness-eveningness preference and stress response. Poor sleep quality may, therefore, contribute to the elevated health risk in evening types. (Author correspondence: [email protected])
Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/07420528.2012.69912
Passion for the Art of Morally Responsible Technology Development
No full textIn this article, we discuss the importance of emotions for ethical reflection on technological developments, as well as the role that art can play in this. We review literature that argues that emotions can and should play an important role in the assessment and acceptance of technological risk and in designing morally responsible technologies. We then investigate how technologically engaged art can contribute to critical, emotional-moral reflection on technological risks. The role of art that engages with technology is unexplored territory and gives rise to many fascinating philosophical questions that have not yet been sufficiently addressed in the literature.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Ethics & Philosophy of Technolog
Emotional Engineers: Toward Morally Responsible Design
No full textEngineers are normally seen as the archetype of people who make decisions in a rational and quantitative way. However, technological design is not value neutral. The way a technology is designed determines its possibilities, which can, for better or for worse, have consequences for human wellbeing. This leads various scholars to the claim that engineers should explicitly take into account ethical considerations. They are at the cradle of new technological developments and can thereby influence the possible risks and benefits more directly than anybody else. I have argued elsewhere that emotions are an indispensable source of ethical insight into ethical aspects of risk. In this paper I will argue that this means that engineers should also include emotional reflection into their work. This requires a new understanding of the competencies of engineers: they should not be unemotional calculators; quite the opposite, they should work to cultivate their moral emotions and sensitivity, in order to be engaged in morally responsible engineering.Values and TechnologyTechnology, Policy and Managemen
Introduction to the Special Issue on Climate Ethics: Uncertainty, Values and Policy
No full textClimate change is a pressing phenomenon with huge potential ethical, legal and social policy implications. Climate change gives rise to intricate moral and policy issues as it involves contested science, uncertainty and risk. In order to come to scientifically and morally justified, as well as feasible, policies, targeting climate change requires an interdisciplinary approach. This special issue will identify the main challenges that climate change poses from social, economic, methodological and ethical perspectives by focusing on the complex interrelations between uncertainty, values and policy in this context. This special issue brings together scholars from economics, social sciences and philosophy in order to address these challenges.Ethics & Philosophy of Technolog
Understanding Risks and Moral Emotions in the Context of COVID-19 Policy Making: The Case of the Netherlands
No full textIn most countries, including the Netherlands, decision-making about the COVID-19 policy measures was initially based on medical information, and only later did it also include insights from social sciences. However, ethical implications of COVID-19 policy measures have not frequently been explicitly considered. As a result, critical ethical issues have been overlooked, and values, concerns, and emotions have not been considered appropriately. In this chapter, I will argue that emotions can help to make important moral dilemmas around decision-making about COVID-19 explicit and to make ethically justified decisions. I will do so by zooming in specifically on how the Netherlands has handled the pandemic so far. My discussion aims to contribute to morally better and more socially acceptable decision-making about the challenges that COVID-19 poses, as well as to hopefully learn lessons for possible future pandemics.Values Technology and Innovatio
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