Recently, much attention has been paid to ‘rational requirements’ and, especially, to what I call ‘rational requirements of formal coherence as such’. These requirements are satisfied just when our attitudes are formally coherent: for example, when our beliefs do not contradict each other. Nevertheless, these requirements are puzzling. In particular, it is unclear why we should satisfy them. In light of this, I explore the conjecture that there are no requirements of formal coherence. I do so by trying to construct (...) a theory of error for the idea that there are such requirements. (shrink)

Although rituals are believed to lower anxiety, the underlying mechanism of anxiety reduction has not been explained well enough. According to Boyer and Liénard (2006), ritualized behavior decreases the anxiety levels because it swamps working memory. This blocks anxious thoughts’ access to consciousness. As a result, ritualized behavior lowers anxiety temporarily but maintains it in the long run. In the article, I analyze what processes should be engaged in ritualized behavior to bring the aforementioned outcomes. I propose that ritualized behavior (...) has anxiolytic properties if it preoccupies consciousness without placing too many demands on cognitive control. While conscious preoccupation with ritualized behavior should reduce anxiety, cognitive control load related to efforts to concentrate on ritualized behavior may bring immediate paradoxical effects of self-regulation, i.e., anxiety increases. Moreover, since anxiety disrupts attentional control capabilities, ritualized behavior should not be too cognitively demanding if an anxious person is to perform it. (shrink)

The essays in this collection show how law is relevant in both an "instrumental" and a "constitutive" sense, as a tool to accomplish particular purposes and as ...

ABSTRACT In this article, I respond to various interpretations of important aspects of my authored book, Across Black Spaces. I discuss the importance of thinking beyond Eurocentric/western meta‐philosophical assumptions regarding the production of knowledge. I articulate and defend forms of philosophical engagement that trouble sites of white privilege and white power. I highlight the importance of philosophy as a site for engaging issues of existential catastrophe and disaster. And last, I defend the position that African American philosophy is, by its (...) historical development within the context of anti‐Blackness, a collective site of Black opposition and resistance. (shrink)

Drawing on institutional and signaling theories, this study examines how environmental corporate social responsibility affects firm performance in a dysfunctional institutional environment. We extend the ECSR literature by suggesting that ECSR indirectly influences firm performance through the mediating effects of business and political legitimacy. Based on a dataset of 238 firms in China, we find that ECSR affects business and political legitimacy followed by firm performance. Moreover, legal incompleteness weakens and legal inefficiency strengthens the effects of ECSR on business and (...) political legitimacy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Truth about Narrative, Or:How Does Narrative Matter?Ruth Ronen and Efrat BibermanIn the summer of 1898, a sixteen-year-old girl, intelligent and good looking, entered Freud's clinic in Vienna. The girl, whom Freud would call Dora, suffered recurrent attacks of aphonia (inability to speak) and of coughing, attacks that came on and passed off spontaneously. Freud soon discovers that Dora's illness is connected to the love affair her (...) father is having with a Frau K., a family acquaintance, while the lover's husband is courting Dora herself. In analyzing the history of Dora, Freud unfolds the course of events that brought Dora to the clinic and produces her case by means of a fragmentary discourse consisting of Dora's speech, her dreams and thoughts as revealed to Freud while the analysis was going on. The psychoanalytic discourse yet also consists of Freud's own reports and interpretations of Dora's dreams, actions and speech and of his overall understanding of her case, an understanding that undergoes a few radical changes during the analysis. When Dora decides to leave the treatment three months later, which is much too soon in Freud's view, Freud interprets her act as an act of vengeance against himself, repeating her neurotic reactions to the romantic complexity she recounted through the person of Freud. However, when Freud learns later that Dora got married and has overcome her hysterical sicknesses, he re-reads her second dream as announcing that Dora was about to tear herself free from her father (from Mr. K. she tore herself free through an act of vengeance) and "had been reclaimed once more by the realities of life."1How has the narration of the case of Dora by herself and by Freud, changed her situation from a hysterical subject who suffers from severe symptoms, to a subject "able to be reclaimed by the realities of life"? [End Page 118] How has Dora's spoken words to Freud, and his way of responding and directing her speech, changed her situation so radically? What is the power of narrative in changing or affecting the object of narration? What constitutes the "true story" of a subject and how is it affected by the narrative modes by which the story is presented? Can narrative change the facts of the matter narrated? In this paper, as part of the attempt to define the constitutive power of narrative, a power that cannot yet reduce the constituted subject to an effect of discourse (Dora after psychoanalysis surely cannot be viewed as a construct of discourse, yet is so different from what she was prior to analysis), we will examine these questions as addressed in two, apparently diverse, contexts: that of analytic aesthetics and that of psychoanalytic thought. We will show that these two perspectives tackle similar problems regarding narrativity yet choose to solve them in ways that raise important questions regarding the effects of narrative.IIt is a widely spread opinion about narrative that it creates its own world in the act of telling, that "the structures of narrative impose some kind of barrier between language and fact; rather than being directly 'mirrored', the facts, as represented in narrative, are filtered through layers of linguistic artifice."2 The diagnosis that narrative somehow distorts or constructs the events it recounts, that narration changes the modality of what is narrated, is one important implication of the booming interest in narrative in the 1980s and 90s. To understand how such an implication was drawn, requires that the nature of the interest in narrative is more closely qualified as part of the growing attention paid to the pervasiveness of narrative in discourses traditionally considered to lie outside the domain of narrative rendering, and to the naturalness of narrative presentation in extra-literary contexts. These pervasiveness and naturalness of narrative were often interpreted as reflecting the literariness or fictionality of discourses that officially claim to be committed to reality and truth.Yet, how did it come about that the discovery of narrative elements in a wide variety of contexts was interpreted as entailing the fictionalizing of these discursive contexts? As narrative entails the imposition of structure on... (shrink)

Most business ethics scholars interested in understanding individual moral cognition or reasoning rely on the Defining Issues Test. They typically report that managers and business students exhibit a relatively high percentage of principled moral reasoning when resolving ethical dilemmas. This article applies neurocognitive processes and Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, and its more recent revision, as theoretical foundations to explore whether differences emerge when using a recognition of learning task, such as the DIT or similar instruments, versus a formulation of (...) knowledge task, such as the Moral Judgment Interview or similar instruments, to assess individual moral reasoning. The data show that significantly different levels of moral reasoning are detected when using a recognition-based versus formulation-based moral reasoning instrument. As expected, the recognition-based approach reports an inflated, higher moral reasoning score for subjects compared with using a formulation-based instrument. Implications of these results for understanding an individual’s moral reasoning are discussed. (shrink)

This study investigates the effect of each component of CEO compensation, including cash-based component (salary and bonus), equity-based component (stock grant and stock option), and other perks on disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) information of global firms. The study uses 2SLS IV estimation method and a sample of 580 US-based firms in a seven-year period. The study finds that equity-based remuneration has a significant and positive impact on a firm's CSR disclosure while CEO salary, bonus, and other perquisites have (...) significant detrimental effects on CSR disclosure. The paper indicates that a CEO's motivation for CSR reporting might arise from stock grant and option; meanwhile, salary, bonus and other perks could demotivate the CEO in this regard. Our findings offer insight into designing CEO compensation packages to meet shareholders' interests and stakeholders' expectations for a sustainable business. (shrink)

Creationism and evolutionism are taken to typify a fundamental opposition among the diverse beliefs about creation to be found in the United Kingdom and the United States. A comparison between the two types and the two countries suggests that people may be more concerned about the credibility and consequences of belief in an alternative account of our origins than about the actual method by which we were created. Examples of concern include interpretations of the Bible, ethical implications, and the epistemological (...) standings of revelation and/or science that are thought to follow from acceptance of a particular belief concerning how we got here. (shrink)

Cohn et al. (2019) designed the field experiment about the lost wallets across 40 countries to examine whether people attempt to contact the owners to return the 17,000 wallets. We discussed the design flaw in their experimental settings by reanalyzing the relationship between the rates of wallet return, in the Cohn et al. (2019)’s data, and the percentage of the Internet penetration (over population) as an upper bound of proportion email users. We found that countries with limited access to email (...) have a lower rate of wallets’ return after controlling other factors. Furthermore, we revisited the Abeler et al. (2019)’s aggregated data to study whether the dishonest behaviors in the laboratory could predict the actual honesty behavior or not. It turns out that what happens in the lab makes no sense to our reality. This comment contributes to the extant literature about an experimental designation for honesty studies. (shrink)

This text is the introduction to V. Amit & N. B. Salazar, Pacing Mobilities. Timing, Intensity, Tempo & Duration of Human Movements, New York/Oxford, Berghahn, 2020, 202 p. It is also available on Berghahn publisher website.

Perceived integrity of managers affects employee attitudes. Yet its impact on employee behavior and organizational performance is unknown. Addressing this gap, we examine the effect of perceived integrity in leadership on both subjective firm performance and objective employee productivity. Applying dynamic capabilities theory, we propose that perceived integrity in leadership may not only directly affect the outcome variables but also moderate the effect of the firm’s multiple-strategy implementation on outcome variables. We test the hypotheses using multiple informants from a transitional (...) economy with an ineffective legal and incomplete institutional environment, which could seriously challenge the leader’s commitment to integrity. As hypothesized, perceived integrity is associated with manager’s perception of firm performance directly and objective employee productivity through its moderating role in the firm’s implementation process of dual strategies. The results illustrate that perceived integrity in leadership plays as an important driver for employee productivity in dual-strategy and non-strategy firms. We provide detailed discussions about the integrity challenge and call for additional future research on this topic. (shrink)

This paper examines how scientific understanding is enhanced by virtual entities, focusing on the case of the synthetic cell. Comparing it to other virtual entities and environments in science, we argue that the synthetic cell has a virtual dimension, in that it is functionally similar to living cells, though it does not mimic any particular naturally evolved cell (nor is it constructed to do so). In being cell-like at most, the synthetic cell is akin to many other virtual objects (...) as it is selective and only partially implemented. However, there is one important difference: it is constructed by using the same materials and, to some extent, the same kind of processes as its natural counterparts. In contrast to virtual reality, especially to that of digital entities and environments, the details of its implementation is what matters for the scientific understanding generated by the synthetic cell. We conclude by arguing for the close connection between the virtual and the artifactual. (shrink)

Varieties of chemical and phase equilibria are controlled by the minimum Gibbs energy principle, according to which the Gibbs energy for a system will have the minimum value at any given temperature and pressure. It is understood that the minimum is with respect to all nonequilibrium states at the same temperature and pressure. The abstract relation between Gibbs energy and the equilibrium constant is deduced from fundamental laws of thermodynamics. However, actual use of this relation calls for the Gibbs energy (...) as a function of concentrations of the chemicals. Since thermodynamics is formulated without any reference to materials, how does one get that relation? This article provides the answer, and in the process shows that application of theory to experiments requires several intermediate layers where theory and experiment commingle. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: People have inferred that our lives are absurd from the supposed fact that nothing we do will matter in a million years. In this article, I critically discuss this argument for absurdity. After explaining how two refutations in the literature fail to undermine the best version of the argument, I produce several considerations that together do take much of the force out of the argument. I conclude by suggesting that these considerations not only refute this argument for absurdity, (...) but also constitute a motivation to be moral.RÉSUMÉ: On a pu déduire que nos vies sont absurdes en supposant que rien de ce que nous faisons n’aura d’importance dans un million d’années. Dans cet article, j’évalue cet argument en faveur de l’absurdité. Après avoir expliqué comment deux réfutations formulées dans la littérature sur le sujet sont impuissants à contrecarrer la meilleure version de cet argument, je formule plusieurs considérations qui concourrent à réduire de beaucoup la force de cet argument. Je conclus en suggérant que ces considérations non seulement réfutent l’argument en faveur de l’absurdité, mais aussi justifient l’agir moral. (shrink)

Human tissue and body parts have been used in one way or another for millennia. They have been preserved and displayed, both in museums and public shows. Real human hair is used for wigs, while some artists even use human tissue in their works. Blood, bone marrow, whole organs and a host of other structures and human substances are all transplanted into living persons to treat illness. New life can be created from gametes through in vitro fertilisation , while the (...) creation of cell lines keeps tissue alive indefinitely. These uses create significant challenges for the legal system in the UK. The major challenge for the law is to balance the competing demands of those groups who have vested interests in human tissue—researchers, medical practitioners, patients, families, the community and the police, among many others. It must provide sufficient control to users of tissue, but also take account of the fact that our bodies hold psychological importance for us while we live and, after we die, for those we leave behind. To some degree the law has been successful, but we still lack a comprehensive, coherent approach to the regulation of human tissue. Partially as a reaction to this lack of a comprehensive approach, some commentators have turned to applying the concept of property to human tissue means to achieve regulatory outcomes they support. (shrink)

Does responsible leadership matter when assembling an inclusive supply chain at the Base-of-the-Pyramid? Current literature implicitly assumes that it does not. BOP scholars initially focused on the importance of shaping innovative and disruptive offerings, with radically improved price–performance ratios. Subsequent studies tended to focus on barriers to implementation of large-scale ventures at the BOP. Their common characteristic was the fact that the attributes and roles of the individuals involved were deemed unimportant. If the opportunity was there, provided (...) barriers were removed and the right value proposition was offered, the inclusive venture should take off. We evaluate three cases of leaders who succeeded in building inclusive ventures at the BOP, in contexts marked by institutional voids—where formal markets were weakly structured or nonexistent. Building a viable business under those circumstances entailed two tasks: imagining what is possible and then turning that vision into a reality. We found that, in carrying out those tasks, individuals do matter. Sampled cases show that working with nontraditional partners in inclusive supply chains requires more than aligning material incentives. Our analysis suggests that responsible leadership with a strong ethical foundation can provide powerful leverage to ensure buy-in and commitment from the various actors involved. We show how RL can impact organizations and external stakeholders through positive upward spirals. Our analysis contributes to the literature on BOP and RL by confirming, extending, and challenging existing knowledge. We propose two novel attributes and argue that context matters, influencing how RL is operationalized and defined. Understanding the critical role of RL in the construction of inclusive supply chains adds a critical missing link that sheds light into the micro level of new business creation, development, and consolidation at the BOP. (shrink)

In China, Buddhism and Taoism are two major religions. Using a sample of 10,363 firm-year observations from the Chinese stock market for the period of 2001–2010, I provide strong and robust evidence that religion (i.e., Buddhism and Taoism on the whole) is significantly negatively associated with owner-manager agency costs. In particular, using firm-level religion data measured by the number of religious sites within a radius of certain distance around a listed firm’s registered address, I find that religion is significantly negatively (...) (positively) associated with expense ratio (asset utilization ratio), the positive (reverse) proxy for owner-manager agency costs. This finding is consistent with the following view: religiosity has remarkable effects on the way how an individual thinks and behaves, and thereof can curb managers from unethical business practices. Moreover, my findings suggest that the negative association between religion and owner-manager agency costs is attenuated for firms with strong external monitoring mechanisms such as higher Marketization and high-quality auditors. Furthermore, after separating Buddhism from Taoism, my finding indicates that above conclusions are only available for Buddhism, suggesting that different religions may have asymmetric influence on owner-manager agency costs. Above results are robust to various measures of religiosity and a variety of robustness checks. (shrink)

Responsible investment is increasingly prevalent, and both financial and moral concerns can drive such investment. In this article, we investigate how responsible investors of different wealth weigh financial and moral arguments. Prior research on different factors that may codetermine responsible investment behavior yield competing predictions about the influence of personal wealth on investment. We conduct a large-scale natural field experiment on responsible investment, wherein we treat investors with financial, moral, and no arguments. We find that there is a statistically and (...) economically significant difference in responsiveness to financial and moral arguments between investors of different wealth. Specifically, financial arguments are more effective than are moral arguments for high wealth investors but not for low wealth investors, and the effect is particularly high for the wealthiest investors. The findings hold for several different measures of wealth. Our findings contribute to the understanding of the moderating effect of wealth on responsible investment choice. Furthermore, these insights may enable more fine-tuned strategies to stimulate responsible investment among different individual investor segments. (shrink)

In a range of contexts, individuals arrive at collective decisions by sharing confidence in their judgements. This tendency to evaluate the reliability of information by the confidence with which it is expressed has been termed the ‘confidence heuristic’. We tested two ways of implementing the confidence heuristic in the context of a collective perceptual decision-making task: either directly, by opting for the judgement made with higher confidence, or indirectly, by opting for the faster judgement, exploiting an inverse correlation between confidence (...) and reaction time. We found that the success of these heuristics depends on how similar individuals are in terms of the reliability of their judgements and, more importantly, that for dissimilar individuals such heuristics are dramatically inferior to interaction. Interaction allows individuals to alleviate, but not fully resolve, differences in the reliability of their judgements. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of confidence and collective decision-making. (shrink)

My question in this talk is “Does Knowledge Matter?” Before I give you my answer —which is “not in itself,” roughly—I need to explain exactly what the question means. Think of epistemology as studying our beliefs and the process of inquiry by which we arrive at them.1 There will be many ways of sorting our beliefs, in themselves or with reference to the inquiry that led to them. Some of these won’t be particularly interesting. No one much cares (...) whether a particular belief is the product of an inquiry that began on a Tuesday. We do care about whether a belief arose from an inquiry that was wellconducted (whatever that means); it reflects on how good the believer is as a believer. The question is: Should we care whether a belief counts as knowledge? Here I’m thinking of ‘knowledge’ as we intuitively judge it when we’re not thinking about philosophical concerns; including the judgment that (at least many) people make that knowledge is lacking in Gettier cases. So: When we evaluate a belief, should we care whether it’s knowledge, including the avoidance of Gettier cases? Mark Kaplan (1985) has given an argument that we shouldn’t care. Suppose someone has a Gettiered belief; it’s justified and true but fails to amount to knowledge because of a false lemma or some such. Kaplan points out that this can’t lead to any criticism of your methods of inquiry. Ex hypothesi your belief is justified; the conduct of your inquiry was entirely proper. Nor (though Kaplan does not emphasize this point) is your belief erroneous. Kaplan’s conclusion is that the concept of knowledge does not.. (shrink)

Scholars have long debated whether leader's integrity affects managerial decision making with respect to social responsibility. In this paper, we propose a model in which transformational leadership mediates integrity and corporate social responsibility and examine the relationship between these concepts. A survey of 170 senior managers from 50 organizations was conducted. Results indicate that integrity is a predictor of transformational leadership behavior and that transformational leaders’ behaviors are linked to CSR practices. It was also found that leaders rated with higher (...) integrity are engaged in CSR because they exhibit more transformational leadership behaviors. These findings add to the extant literature by demonstrating that integrity is important as transformational leaders engage more actively on ‘responsible’ behaviors. Practical implications call for an understanding among corporate leaders of the benefits of integrity and how it relates to transformational leadership. Organizations can improve their selection and leadership development processes by focusing on these two dimensions. (shrink)

In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein conceives of tautology as 'saying nothing'. More precisely, he holds -- or so this essay contends -- that it says nothing in virtue of possessing a zero quantity of sense. Insofar as it is the limit of a series of propositions of diminishing quantity of sense, tautology resembles a degenerate conic section. But it also resembles the result of a summing together of equal and opposite linear vector quantities. Both of these models shape Wittgenstein's conception of (...) tautology in the Tractatus, though they are not fully reconciled. Many of the puzzling features of the Tractatus's view of logic arise from this failure to affect the needed reconciliation. These points are argued for by working through the development of Wittgenstein's views on these matters in the Wartime Notebooks and other pre-Tractatus writings. (shrink)

Consequentialists typically think that the moral quality of one's conduct depends on the difference one makes. But consequentialists may also think that even if one is not making a difference, the moral quality of one's conduct can still be affected by whether one is participating in an endeavour that does make a difference. Derek Parfit discusses this issue – the moral significance of what I call ‘participation’ – in the chapter of Reasons and Persons that he devotes to what (...) he calls ‘moral mathematics’. In my paper, I expose an inconsistency in Parfit's discussion of moral mathematics by showing how it gives conflicting answers to the question of whether participation matters. I conclude by showing how an appreciation of Parfit's error sheds some light on consequentialist thought generally, and on the debate between act- and rule-consequentialists specifically. (shrink)

Computer ethics is a relatively young discipline,hence it needs time both for reflection and forexploring alternative ethical standpoints in buildingup its own theoretical framework. Feminist ethics isoffered as one such alternative particularly to informissues of equality and power. We argue that feministethics is not narrowly confined to ‘women's issues’ but is an approach with wider egalitarianapplications. The rise of feminist ethics in relationto feminist theory in general is described and withinthat the work of Gilligan and others on an ‘ethic of (...) care’. We argue for the need to connect theory toempirical evidence. Empirical studies of gender andbusiness and computer ethics are reviewed. We noteconcerns with surveying a student audience, the issueof how far questionnaires and interviews can get tothe heart of ethical beliefs and problems ofperforming statistical analyses of quantitative data.Although we recognize them, our own small surveycannot avoid all these problems. Nevertheless byrefining our scenarios we are able to offer analternative reading of a hacking problem in terms ofan ethic of care thereby pointing a way forward forfuture research in computer ethics inspired byfeminist theory. (shrink)

Many favor representationalism about color experience. To a first approximation, this view holds that experiencing is like believing. In particular, like believing, experiencing is a matter of representing the world to be a certain way. Once you view color experience along these lines, you face a big question: do our color experiences represent the world as it really is? For instance, suppose you see a tomato. Representationalists claim that having an experience with this sensory character is necessarily connected with (...) representing a distinctive quality as pervading a round area out there in external space. Let us call it “sensible redness” to highlight the fact that the representation of this property is necessarily connected with the sensory character of the experience. Is this property, sensible redness, really co-instantiated with roundness out there in the space before you? (shrink)

ABSTRACT: People have inferred that our lives are absurd from the supposed fact that nothing we do will matter in a million years. In this article, I critically discuss this argument for absurdity. After explaining how two refutations in the literature fail to undermine the best version of the argument, I produce several considerations that together do take much of the force out of the argument. I conclude by suggesting that these considerations not only refute this argument for absurdity, (...) but also constitute a motivation to be moral.RÉSUMÉ: On a pu déduire que nos vies sont absurdes en supposant que rien de ce que nous faisons n’aura d’importance dans un million d’années. Dans cet article, j’évalue cet argument en faveur de l’absurdité. Après avoir expliqué comment deux réfutations formulées dans la littérature sur le sujet sont impuissants à contrecarrer la meilleure version de cet argument, je formule plusieurs considérations qui concourrent à réduire de beaucoup la force de cet argument. Je conclus en suggérant que ces considérations non seulement réfutent l’argument en faveur de l’absurdité, mais aussi justifient l’agir moral. (shrink)

In many base rate studies, a judgment is required for which the base rates are relevant, and subjects do not use them. It is inferred that the base rates are ignored; I question this inference. Second, I argue that the base rate fallacy is not less significant for what it reveals about human reasoning, if it occurs less frequently than has been alleged.

In this paper, I argue that various disputes in ontology have important ramifications and so are worth taking seriously. I employ a criterion according to which whether a dispute matters depends on how integrated it is with the rest of our theoretical projects. Disputes that arise from previous tensions in our theorizing and have additional implications for other issues matter, while insular disputes do not. I apply this criterion in arguing that certain ontological disputes matter; specifically, the disputes (...) over concrete possible worlds and coincident material objects. Finally, I consider how one could show that some ontological disputes do not matter, using a Platonism/nominalism dispute as an example. (shrink)

How do we individuate the senses, what exactly do we do when we do so, and why does it matter? In the following article, I propose a general answer to these related questions based on Franz Brentano's views on the senses. After a short survey of various answers offered in the recent literature on the senses, I distinguish between two major ways of answering this question, causally and descriptively, arguing that only answers giving priority to description and to (...) the classification involved in it are on the right track for a general answer to the related questions. In the second part of the article, I argue that Brentano's descriptive psychology is an attractive candidate for such an answer. His descriptive psychology provides a plausible account of the classification involved in description, in particular regarding the classification of sensory qualities. I close the article by briefly explaining how Brentano spells out the priority of descriptive answers over causal ones. (shrink)

This paper argues that not only does history matter to legal epistemology, but also that understanding legal epistemology can yield a certain understanding of the past. The paper focuses on the common law practice of precedent and argues that there is no set of rules, principles, reasons or material facts that constitute the fixed or foundational content of past decisions, but rather that what is taken by a judge resolving a particular dispute to be the content of past (...) decisions depends on the active and creative construal of relevance engaged in by that judge. Precedents are better thought of as `thick resources with dynamic content'. Such content is constrained by a variety of stabilising practices, but never so constrained as to determine how it can be construed to be relevant. This image of law's past may offer a general view of the past as something with which we can actively and creatively relate in the course of coping with the present. (shrink)

I sometimes wonder whether some proponents of physician-assisted suicide or physician-assisted death think they own the copyright to such catchy phrases as “death with dignity” and “a good death” so that if you are against PAS or PAD, thenyou must be againsta dignified death or a good death. If one removes the quotation marks around phrases like “aid-in-dying” or “compassionate care for the dying,” I am not opposed to such end-of-life care either. Indeed, how couldanybodybe against this type of care?I (...) do not want to abandon dying patients anymore than Dr. Timothy Quill does. Although, unfortunately, it will not always be easy to achieve the desired result, I agree with him that it ought to be a goal of medicine “to help people die well, to help them receive a good death” — or at least “the best possible” death under the circumstances. I part company with Professor Quill, however, when he urges us to change the law in the majority of our states so that in some circumstances patients may achieve a “good death” or a “dignified” one by means of lethal drugs. (shrink)

The current ethical-legal consensus — prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia, but (1) allowing patients to forgo all life-saving treatment, and (2) permitting pain relief that increases the risk of death — is a means of having it both ways. This is how we often make “tragic choices.”.

Should wilderness be understood as primarily untrammeled or primarily natural? In this paper, we examine the conceptual and philosophical roots of untrammeled and natural in the context of the 1964 Wilderness Act and show how in some situations tension can arise between them, leading to a stewardship dilemma and subsequent debate over the future conservation role of wilderness. After showing that this debate is ultimately rooted in a false dichotomy, we offer a conceptual framework that presents managers with the tools (...) necessary to shepherd the wilderness idea through the changing environmental realities of the Anthropocene, and continue to allow wilderness to be both a cornerstone and touchstone for conservation in the 21st century. (shrink)

Background: Coercion can cause harm to both the patient and the patient’s family. Few studies have examined how the coercive treatment of a close relative might affect young next-of-kin. Research questions: We aimed to investigate the views and experiences of health professionals being responsible for supporting young next-of-kin to patients in mental health care in relation to the needs of these young next-of-kin in coercive situations and to identify ethical challenges. Research design: We conducted a qualitative study based on semistructured, (...) focus group interviews and an individual interview. Participants and research context: We held three focus group interviews with six to seven children-responsible staff in each group and one individual interview with a family therapist. The participants were recruited from three hospital trusts in the eastern part of Norway. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the National Data Protection Official for Research and based on informed consent and confidentiality. Findings: Coercion was not a theme among the participants in relation to their work with young next-of-kin, and there was much uncertainty related to whether these young people need special support to deal with the coercive treatment of their close relative. Despite the uncertainty, the study indicated a need for more information and emotional support among the youth. Discussion: Few studies have addressed the potential impact of coercive treatment of a close family member on young next-of-kin. The findings were consistent with existing research but highlighted disagreement and uncertainty among the children-responsible staff about to what extent the young next-of-kin should visit and whether they should enter the ward unit or not. We identified ethical challenges for the children-responsible staff related to the principle of not inflicting harm. Conclusion: From the perspective of children-responsible staff, it appears that the coercive treatment of a close family member entails a need for extra support of young relatives both in relation to information and the facilitation of visits, but more systematic knowledge about these issues is needed. (shrink)

Standards of excellence in the sphere of work are often taken to be at odds with our ethical obligations in general. In an age of commerce little attention is paid to how the manner in which things are done impacts on the agent's character. Jane Jacobs' phenomenology of our moral intuitions about the public world of work reveal two frameworks, the 'commercial moral syndrome' stressing fairness, and the 'guardian moral syndrome' emphasizing loyalty. In the latter set of values we have (...) a way of countering the bias of contemporary culture. This is best understood as a modified Aristotelian approach. The example of adversarial advocacy in the legal profession is taken as an illustration. (shrink)

Standards of excellence in the sphere of work are often taken to be at odds with our ethical obligations in general. In an age of commerce little attention is paid to how the manner in which things are done impacts on the agent's character. Jane Jacobs' phenomenology of our moral intuitions about the public world of work reveal two frameworks, the 'commercial moral syndrome' stressing fairness, and the 'guardian moral syndrome' emphasizing loyalty. In the latter set of values we have (...) a way of countering the bias of contemporary culture. This is best understood as a modified Aristotelian approach. The example of adversarial advocacy in the legal profession is taken as an illustration. (shrink)

Most of our knowledge about how social exclusion affects those who ostracize and those who are being ostracized is based on questionnaires administered after the ostracism situation is over. In this research, we strive to further our understanding of the internal dynamics of an ostracism situation. We therefore examine individuals’ language—more specifically, function words—as a behavior indicative of psychological processes and emergent states that can be unobtrusively recorded right in the situation. In online chats, 128 participants talked about a personal (...) topic in groups of three. In the experimental group (n = 79), two conversation partners ignored every contribution by the third. We found that, compared to the control group, these targets of ostracism used language indicative of a self-focus and worsened mood, but not of social focus or positivity, although positivity was related to a writer’s likeability. Sources of ostracism use language suggesting that they are distancing themselves from the situation, and they further engaged in victim derogation. We discuss how our results highlight the severity and potential self-sustainability of ostracism. (shrink)