Ethics

A person (pl.: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility. The defining features of personhood and, consequently, what makes a person count as a person, differ widely among cultures and contexts.

Violence is often defined as the use of physical force or power by humans to cause harm and degradation to other living beings, such as humiliation, pain, injury, disablement, damage to property and ultimately death, as well as destruction to a society's living environment. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation." There is growing recognition among researchers and practitioners of the need to include violence that does not necessarily result in injury or death.

War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organized groups. It is generally characterized by widespread violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces. Warfare refers to the common activities and characteristics of types of war, or of wars in general. Total war is warfare that is not restricted to purely legitimate military targets, and can result in massive civilian or other non-combatant suffering and casualties.

Blame is the act of censuring, holding responsible, making negative statements about an individual or group that their action or actions are socially or morally irresponsible, the opposite of praise. When someone is morally responsible for doing something wrong their action is blameworthy. By contrast, when someone is morally responsible for doing something right, we may say that his or her action is praiseworthy. There are other senses of praise and blame that are not ethically relevant. One may praise someone's good dress sense, and blame the weather for a crop failure.

Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to controlling sources of bias and error. These activities are characterized by accounting and controlling for biases. A research project may be an expansion of past work in the field. To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole.

Daniel Waterman (born 1962) is a British philosopher, artist, writer, freelance researcher, locksmith, and Ayahuasca provider, living in the Netherlands. He is the author of Entheogens, Society & Law: Towards a Politics of Consciousness, Autonomy & Responsibility, edited by Casey William Hardison, and published in 2013.

Sten Philipson is a Swedish ethicist and Professor of Ethics and Value Research at Strömstad Academy. Born 1946. Cand. theol. 1969, Uppsala University. Master degree from Harvard University 1981. Doctorate from Uppsala University 1982. His thesis contained among other topics an analysis of the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and its application to science. In 1983 Sten was appointed assistant professor of faith and ideology at Uppsala University. Sten Philipson has written thirteen books on various subjects and published a number of articles relating to ethics and value research, particular concerning issues within healthcare. His last book - Kan en värdegrund ge framgång? - was published in December 2011.

Vojin B. Rakic (born 1967 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia) is a philosopher and political scientist. He publishes in English, but also in Serbian. He has a PhD in political science from Rutgers University in the United States. His publications on bioethics (human enhancement in particular), Kant, and cosmopolitan justice are considered as influential writings in the international academic arena.

Miguel A. De La Torre (born October 6, 1958) is a professor of Social Ethics and Latino/a Studies at Iliff School of Theology, a religious scholar, author, and an ordained minister.

Max Lüscher (September 9, 1923 – February 2, 2017) was a Swiss psychotherapist known for inventing the Lüscher color test, a tool for measuring an individual's psychophysical state based on his or her color preferences. Besides research, teaching and practicing psychotherapy in Basel, Lüscher worked for international companies, amongst other things giving color advice. His book The Lüscher Test has been translated into more than 30 languages.