"The Group Knobe Effect": evidence that people intuitively attribute agency and responsibility to groups

In the current paper, we present and discuss a series of experiments in which we investigated people’s willingness to ascribe intentions, as well as blame and praise, to groups. The experiments draw upon the so-called “Knobe Effect”. Knobe [2003. “Intentional action and side effects in ordinary language.” Analysis 63: 190–194] found that the positiveness or negativeness of side-effects of actions influences people’s assessment of whether those side-effects were brought about intentionally, and also that people are more willing to assign blame for negative side-effects of actions than they are to assign praise for positive side-effect of actions. Building upon this research, we found evidence that the positiveness or negativeness of side-effects of group actions influences people’s willingness to attribute intentions to groups (Experiment 1a), and that people are more willing to assign blame to groups for negative side-effects of actions than they are to assign praise to groups for positive side-effects of actions (Experiment 1b). We also found evidence (Experiments 2a, 2b, 3 and 4) that the “Group Knobe Effect” persists even when intentions and blame/praise are attributed to groups non-distributively, indicating that people tend not to think of group intentions and group blame/praise in distributive terms. We conclude that the folk are collectivist about group intentions, and also about the blameworthiness and praiseworthiness of groups

Automated N-Glycosylation Sequencing Of Biopharmaceuticals By Capillary Electrophoresis

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Sentimentalism and Moral Dilemmas

It is sometimes said that certain hard moral choices constitute tragic moral dilemmas in which no available course of action is justifiable, and so the agent is blameworthy whatever she chooses. This paper criticizes a certain approach to the debate about moral dilemmas and considers the metaethical implications of the criticisms. The approach in question has been taken by many advocates as well as opponents of moral dilemmas who believe that analysing the emotional response of the agent is the key to the debate about moral dilemmas. The metaethical position this approach is most naturally associated with is sentimentalism. Sentimentalists claim that evaluation, and in particular moral evaluation, crucially depends on human sentiment. This paper is not concerned with the question whether moral dilemmas exist, but rather with emotion-based arguments used on both sides of the debate. The first aim of the paper is to show that emotion-based arguments by friends or foes of moral dilemmas cannot garner support from sentimentalism. The second aim is to show that this constitutes a serious problem for sentimentalism

Separation window dependent multiple injection (SWDMI) for large scale analysis of therapeutic antibody N-glycans

There is a growing demand in the biopharmaceutical industry for large scale N-glycosylation analysis of biotherapeutics, especially monoclonal antibodies. To fulfill this high throughput analysis requirement with single column separation systems in most instances require finishing the entire analysis cycle including conditioning, injection and separation between sample injections. While in liquid chromatography it represents a challenge, multiple sample injection in capillary electrophoresis has already been demonstrated for one or two sample components by utilizing the concept of introducing sequential sample and buffer zones into the capillary tubing before the start of the separation process. It was also demonstrated in CEMS mode, mostly to follow one sample component, identified by precise mass measurement. Here we introduce a novel multiple injection approach for rapid large scale capillary electrophoresis analysis of samples with biopharmaceutical interest supporting multicomponent optical detection with laser induced fluorescence. In Separation Window Dependent Multiple Injection (SWDMI) mode, the samples are consecutively injected inpredefined time intervals, based on the window that covers the separation of all sample components. As a practical example, this newly developed SWDMI protocol was applied to rapid and large scale analysis of APTS labeled monoclonal antibody N-glycans using a short (20 cm effective length) capillary column. Full analysis of 96 samples (injected from a well plate) was obtained in 4 hours, in contrast to consecutive individual separation cycle processing of the same samples that required 12 hours

Special issue of EuJAP: Free Will and Epistemology

Preface to the Special Issue on Free Will and Epistemology written by Robert Locki

Exploitation and Remedial Duties

The concept of exploitation and potentially exploitative real-world practices are the subject of increasing philosophical attention. However, while philosophers have extensively debated what exploitation is and what makes it wrong, they have said surprisingly little about what might be required to remediate it. By asking how the consequences of exploitation should be addressed, this article seeks to contribute to filling this gap. We raise two questions. First, what are the victims of exploitation owed by way of remediation? Second, who ought to remediate? Our answers to these questions are connected by the idea that exploitation cannot be fully remediated by redistributing the exploiter's gain in order to repair or compensate the victim's loss. This is because exploitation causes not only distributive but also relational harm. Therefore, redistributive measures are necessary but not sufficient for adequate remediation. Moreover, this relational focus highlights the fact that exploitative real-world practices commonly involve agents other than the exploiter who stand to benefit from the exploitation. Insofar as these third parties are implicated in the distributive and relational harms caused by exploitation, there is, we argue, good reason to assign part of the burden of remediation to them

Glycosimilarity assessment of biotherapeutics 1: quantitative comparison of the N-glycosylation of the innovator and a biosimilar version of etanercept

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