Background Nurses experienced intense ethical and moral challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our 2020 qualitative parent study of frontline nurses’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic identified ethics as a cross-cutting theme with six subthemes: moral dilemmas, moral uncertainty, moral distress, moral injury, moral outrage, and moral courage. We re-analyzed ethics-related findings in light of refined definitions of ethics concepts. Research aim To analyze frontline U.S. nurses’ experiences of ethics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research design Qualitative analysis using a directed content (...) methodology. Participants and research context The study included 43 nurses from three major metropolitan academic medical centers and one community hospital in the northeastern, mid-Atlantic, midwestern, and western United States. Ethical considerations Participant privacy and data confidentiality were addressed. Findings Moral dilemmas arose from many situations, most frequently related to balancing safety and patient care. Moral uncertainty commonly arose from lacking health information or evidence about options. Moral distress occurred when nurses knew the right thing to do, but were prevented from doing so, including with end-of-life issues. Moral injury (accompanied by suffering, shame, or guilt) occurred after doing, seeing, or experiencing wrongdoing, often involving authority figures. Nurses expressed moral outrage at events and people within and outside healthcare. Despite difficult ethical situations, some nurses exemplified moral courage, sometimes by resisting policies they perceived as preventing compassionate care, guided by thinking about what was best for patients. Discussion This content analysis of ethics-related subthemes revealed conceptual characteristics and clarified distinctions with corresponding exemplars. Conceptual clarity may inform responses and interventions to address ethical quandaries in nursing practice. Conclusions Ethics education in nursing must address the moral dilemmas of pandemics, disasters, and other crises. Nurses need time and resources to heal from trying to provide the best care when no ideal option was available. (shrink)

Sensory dysfunction has been shown to be a part of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Nowadays we have an objective, non-invasive tool with which to measure neural manifestations of sensory dysfunction. Defined as time-locked changes to external stimuli in the EEG, event-related potentials (ERPs) provide an objective index of information processing in the human brain. Importantly, ERPs may be analyzed through a variety of approaches such as conventional ERP analysis, analysis in the time-frequency domain, microstate segmentation and topographical analysis, as well (...) as source localisation analysis. Each of the methods gives distinct information; they also supplement each other. Here, an attempt is made to verify the validity of combining different approaches to study sensory dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders. For example, the data from a schizophrenic patient and an age- and sex-matched healthy subject generate a picture of the events which emerges after visual, proprioceptive and simultaneous presentation of stimuli in both modalities. This approach, though time-consuming, allows the visualisation of changes appearing in the malfunctioning brain as compared to the healthy brain. These methods could ultimately lead to a better establishment of one or more endophenotypes for the schizophrenic disorders. They might also serve as a way to track changes in response to various medications and therapies. (shrink)

Introduction: Physical distancing under the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic had a significant impact on lifestyles, including exercise routines. In this study, we examined the relationship between mental health and addictive behaviors, such as excessive exercise and the use of image and performance enhancing drugs across 12 sport disciplines.Materials and methods: A large cross-sectional sample of the adult population was surveyed. The mean age was 33.09. The number of male participants was 668. The use of IPEDs was assessed in conjunction with (...) psychometric measures such as the Exercise Addiction Inventory and the Appearance Anxiety Inventory. The participants were grouped into activity group and non-activity group according to the presence or absence of their exercise habits. The results were compared between these groups, as well as across sport disciplines, while taking into account the relationship between different psychological measures and IPEDs consumption.Results: The frequency of IPEDs use was higher among AG than NAG, although AG participants reported less history of addictions than NAG. The logistic regression analysis revealed that scores equal to or above cutoff points, in both the EAI and AAI, predicted the IPEDs use. Regarding the differences across the various sport disciplines, those who were involved in practicing Weight Lifting and Cross Fit were found to be more at risk of excessive exercising and more inclined to use a wide range of IPEDs.Conclusions: Although exercise could help to increase well-being and prevent addictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, our results show that those in the AG are particularly vulnerable to excessive IPEDs use. Sport disciplines associated with higher EAI and AAI scores have also shown a higher tendency to excessive IPEDs use. Furthermore, the factor of having above the cutoff scores in EAI or AAI in each sport could indicate larger IPEDs consumption regardless of the discipline. In light of the current findings, it is necessary to better define the “non-excessive” levels of exercise in various sport disciplines and an adequate intake of IPEDs to ensure the safety and well-being of people during a pandemic. (shrink)

Many philosophical disputes, most prominently disputes in ontology, have been suspected of being merely verbal and hence pointless. My goal in this paper is to offer an account of merely verbal disputes and to address the question of what is problematic with such disputes. I begin by arguing that extant accounts that focus on the semantics of the disputed statement S do not capture the full range of cases as they might arise in philosophy. Moreover, these accounts bring in heavy (...) theoretical machinery. I attempt to show that we can capture the full range of cases with an approach that is theoretically lightweight. This approach explains verbal disputes as a pragmatic phenomenon where parties use the same utterance type S with different speaker’s meaning. Moreover, it provides an answer to the crucial question Jackson’s pragmatic account leaves, at best, highly implicit. Based on my account, we can distinguish between different ways in which disputes can be verbal and different extents to which they are defective. Distinguishing between these varieties of verbalness furthermore allows us to specify what kind of substantive issues remain to be discussed once the linguistic confusion is resolved. (shrink)

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

The article provides proof that the concept of time articulated in Russian philosophy of the nineteenth century was very close to the understanding of time in the philosophy of Henri Bergson. This explains the close attention of Russian culture to the philosophical system of the French thinker at the beginning of the twentieth century. It also allows us to hypothesize about the possible influence of the ideas of Russian philosophers of the late nineteenth century on Bergson. Bergson’s most original idea (...) is the recognition of the metaphysical primacy of the subjective, inner time of the human in relation to physical time. In physical time, only the moment of the present has real existence; in internal time, designated by Bergson as duration, all moments of the past are preserved as real, and this is expressed by memory. Internal time turns out to be the spiritual Absolute from which the entire material world originates. A very similar metaphysical concept is presented in Pyotr Chaadaev’s Philosophical Letters. According to Chaadaev, each person is directly involved in the spiritual Absolute, which has the characteristic of integral time. In this time, all moments are in unity, and there is no division into the past, present, and future; this division arises only in the time intrinsic to the material reality that originates from the spiritual Absolute. In the religious teaching of Leo Tolstoy, personality is defined as the appearance of God within the limits of material existence, so a person is simultaneously involved in the earthly physical time and absolute time, which manifests itself through memory. The article concludes that Bergson’s ideas determined the most important features of Russian avant-garde culture of the twentieth century; in particular, thanks to them, the opposite trends of Russian thought were brought to unity: metaphysics of pan-unity and personalism. (shrink)

On the basis of an interdisciplinary approach linking taxation, marketing, and corporate social responsibility, the present research investigates the effects of media reports on aggressive and responsible corporate tax strategies (CTSs) on corporate success with consumers. By means of two laboratory experiments (N = 150, 360), we analyze the effects of the CTSs on corporate reputation, consumer purchase intention, and the consumer’s willingness to pay. Our results suggest that aggressive CTSs diminish corporate success with consumers, whereas responsible CTSs enhance it. (...) Nevertheless, consumers are not willing to pay a price premium for products sold by responsible tax-planning companies, but rather punish aggressive tax-planning companies through a slightly lower willingness to pay. Finally, consumers’ tax morale and their attitude toward tax avoidance are important moderating variables. Given the growing level of media interest in taxation, our findings are crucial for assessing consumer-related non-tax costs and the benefits of different CTSs. (shrink)

The notion of exemplification is essential for Goodman’s theory of symbols. But Goodman’s account of exemplification has been criticized as unclear and inadequate. He points out two conditions for an object x exemplifying a label y: (C1) y denotes x and (C2) x refers to y. While (C1) is uncontroversial, (C2) raises the question of how “refers to” should be interpreted. This problem is intertwined with three further questions that consequently should be discussed together with it. Are the two necessary (...) conditions (C1) and (C2) conjointly sufficient? Do they amount to a definition of “exemplification”? Which notions of Goodman’s theory are basic, and hence undefined? In this paper, we address these questions and defend a reconstruction of the notion of exemplification that interprets “refers to” in (C2) as exemplificational reference and hence treats “exemplification” as a basic notion of Goodman’s theory. Firstly, we argue that even though the notion of exemplification is not defined, it is still sufficiently clear. This ensures its contribution to Goodman’s theory of symbols. Secondly, we show that our account is plausible as an interpretation of Goodman’s and Elgin’s writings, although it implies that some of Goodman’s theorems about selfreference have to be weakened. Thirdly, we argue that it is the only materially adequate reconstruction of Goodman’s notion of exemplification, whereas the alternative definitional accounts fail. (shrink)

This book examines philosophical approaches to linguistic vagueness, a puzzling feature of natural language that gives rise to the ancient Sorites paradox and challenges classical logic and semantics. -/- The Sorites, or Paradox of the Heap, consists in three claims: (1) One grain of sand does not make a heap. (2) One billion grains of sand do make a heap. (3) For any two amounts of sand differing by at most one grain: either both are heaps of sand, or neither (...) one is. The third claim is rendered plausible by an initial conviction that vague predicates like ‘heap’ tolerate small changes. However, the repeated application of a tolerance principle to the second claim yields the further proposition that one grain of sand does make a heap – which contradicts claim number one. Consequently, many philosophers reject or modify tolerance principles for vague predicates. -/- Inga Bones reassesses prominent responses to the Sorites and defends a Wittgensteinian dissolution of the paradox. She argues that vague predicates are, indeed, tolerant and discusses how this finding relates to the paradox itself, to the notion of validity and to the concept of a borderline case . (shrink)

Clendinnen, Inga I want to begin with the question 'what is a humanist?' largely because you answered that question superbly and succinctly with your Australian Humanist of the Year choice last year.

ABSTRACT I here explore how an ethics of rhythm can shed light on what promotes and inhibits recognition between people across our vulnerable lives, and the need for a renewal of the philosophy of pedagogy. I argue that philosophy itself has contributed to a certain oblivion regarding how we follow and create rhythmic societies, the need for a more profound and fine-tuned listening attitude as a philosophical-ethical marker, using among others Barthes concept of rhuthmos, Kierkegaards concept of repetition, Herbart’s concept (...) of pedagogical tact and Kristeva’s existential relationship. What forms of imposed rhythms of life can be said to cast light on new ways of living together today? I argue that rhythms affect, shape and set boundaries for interpersonal relationships. Moreover, that they serve as incentives for an ethic, or better; as views, perspectives and concepts to think with when describing the rhythm of the Anthropocene. (shrink)

Anleitungen zur Selbstperfektionierung wurden geschrieben, um für eine radikale Lebensreform zu werben. Die Kommunikation unter den Reformbefürwortern erfolgte über Schreiben, Lesen und Diskutieren, um Praktiken, Kenntnisse und den Zusammenhalt zu fördern. Da es nur wenigen gelang, sich zeitlebens einem entsagungsvollen Lebensstil zu unterziehen, erwachten immer wieder Bewegungen, die aufs Neue Ängste und Hoffnungen der Menschen artikulierten und zeitgemäße Rezepte für ein glücklicheres Leben lieferten. Ältere Schriften wurden von späteren Generationen verarbeitet und neu interpretiert. Waren die Anleitungen überzeugend, förderten sie über (...) längere Zeit soziokulturelle Prozesse innerhalb der Gesellschaft. Zunächst radikal scheinende Forderungen wurden schließlich allgemein anerkannt. (shrink)

Die über viele Jahrhunderte erteilten Ratschläge zur Askese wurden von denjenigen befolgt, die sich nach Perfektion sehnten und ein ideales Leben im Diesseits wie im Jenseits anstrebten. Dieses menschliche Sehnen ist das eigentliche Movens, das Körper und Geist zu einem asketischen Dasein (ver)führt. Auf die beiden Frauenbewegungen des 3./4. Jahrhunderts und des 12./14. Jahrhunderts trifft dies zu. Die Intensität und Größenordnung dieses Aufbruchs verdanken sie weiblicher Kreativität und Emotionalität, hingebungsvollem Ringen um Gottes Liebe und einer ganz besonderen Spiritualität. Religio bedeutet (...) Bindung an etwas oder an jemanden. Die Religiosae suchten voll Fantasie, Hoffnung und Glauben die Bindung an Christus. Dabei galt immer die Verheißung des Basilius Caesariensis: „Let us die that we may live“. (shrink)

Intercultural discourse (especially via a lingua franca when interlocutors have a false impression that they are speaking one and the same language) adds a new dimension – facework (the establishment of culture-sensitive politeness strategies) – to the theory and practice of argumentation from a number of perspectives: its specificity as compared to ordinary argumentational discourse, the interpretation of the concept of incommensurability, and the conduct of international negotiations. Politeness systems relevant for different cultures are not unpredictable, but represent linguistically and (...) cognitively a highly generalised universal system which can be adopted by interlocutors and used in practical discourse. Politeness expressions are governed by linguistic components – by language forms of a certain type and by specific discourse patterns. The proper choice of language forms and discourse patterns adds a special dimension to argumentative schemata. The politeness-relevant packaging of discourse adds a zero-step to the normative stages of an argumentative discussion (establishing hierarchical relations as such), and needs permanent alignment of these relations, by using correct language forms and discourse patterns. (shrink)

This article aims to deepen the understanding of courage through a theoretical analysis of classical philosophers’ work and a review of published and unpublished empirical research on courage in nursing. The authors sought answers to questions regarding how courage is understood from a philosophical viewpoint and how it is expressed in nursing actions. Four aspects were identified as relevant to a deeper understanding of courage in nursing practice: courage as an ontological concept, a moral virtue, a property of an ethical (...) act, and a creative capacity. The literature review shed light on the complexity of the concept of courage and revealed some lack of clarity in its use. Consequently, if courage is to be used consciously to influence nurses’ ethical actions it seems important to recognize its specific features. The results suggest it is imperative to foster courage among nurses and student nurses to prepare them for ethical, creative action and further the development of professional nursing practices. (shrink)

Definiciones de epistemología hay muchas, al igual que clases y estilos. Sin embargo, más allá de esta diversidad, es necesario contar con una definición básica que guíe nuestra comprensión del tema. Dos serán las preguntas que nos ayuden a ello en este artículo: a) ¿qué es la epistemología? y b) ¿para qué le sirve al científico?

Two recent arguments purport to find a new and firmer foundation for evidentialism in the very nature of the concept of belief. Evidentialism is claimed to be a conceptual truth about belief, and pragmatism to be ruled out, conceptually. But can the conclusion of such conceptual arguments be regarded as the denial of pragmatism? The pragmatist traditionally conceived belief through its motivational role. Therefore, when confronted with conceptual evidentialism, the pragmatist should cede the term ‘belief,’ but insist that pragmatism be (...) understood as a claim about another attitude, a motivational duplicate of belief. Thus, the original dispute is simply relocated terminologically. (shrink)

This article reports a study exploring the meaning of the complex phenomenon of moral responsibility in nursing practice. Each of three focus groups with a total of 14 student nurses were conducted twice to gather their views on moral responsibility in nursing practice. The data were analysed by qualitative thematic content analysis. Moral responsibility was interpreted as a relational way of being, which involved guidance by one’s inner compass composed of ideals, values and knowledge that translate into a striving to (...) do good. It was concluded that, if student nurses are to continue striving to do good in a way that respects themselves and other people, it is important that they do not feel forced to compromise their values. Instead they should be given space and encouragement in their endeavours to do good in a relational way that advances nursing as a moral practice. (shrink)

French truc and machin (‘thing’) can function as placeholders, fillers or in general extender constructions. The aim of our paper is to investigate whether the prosodic characteristics of these three different uses may give a clue as to their respective status. For our analysis, we extracted 112 occurrences of truc and 57 occurrences of machin from the audio data of the PFC Corpus, which were analysed using Praat, focusing on the acoustic duration, the individual pitch contour and the integration of (...) machin and truc into the intonation contour of the utterance. As in previous studies, our results show that the prosodic patterns vary remarkably and show a highly heterogeneous picture so that the use of prosodic properties as cues for disambiguation is problematic. However, we are able to show some weak tendencies which point to a close functional link between placeholders and fillers reflecting their pragmatic functions. There is no evidence for prosodic weakening or even phonetic reduction in placeholders. Furthermore, we detect some evidence for the detachment typical of pragmatic markers in the case of fillers. The prosodic characteristics of truc and machin in general extender constructions diverge from both the placeholder and the filler functions. Their prosody seems to be largely determined by the particular respective construction into which both forms are strongly integrated. (shrink)

Contrasting its author’s microhistorical approach with other historical methodologies, especially that of Keith Thomas, Clendinnen praises Kirsten McKenzie’s A Swindler’s Progress: Nobles and Convicts in the Age of Liberty for deftly tying the apparently idiosyncratic stories of a transported convict and the noble family whose scion he impersonated to more pervasive dynamics in nineteenth-century British imperial culture.

The article aims at resolving the issue whether the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has an exclusive jurisdiction under Article 344 of the Treaty on Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to resolve disputes between Member States, stemming from provisions of an international treaty, a party to which is the EU. This problem is especially relevant in cases when a mixed international agreement envisages independent institutions of dispute resolution. The position of the CJEU is expressed in the (...) case of Mox Plant. The European Commission applied to the CJEU against Ireland, because it considered that Ireland, which started an arbitration procedure against United Kingdom under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, has infringed the exclusive jurisdiction of the CJEU under Article 344 of the TFEU. The EU is also a Contracting Party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Therefore according to the consistence case practice of the Court, the provisions of the Convention that fall under the competence of the Union constitute an indivisible part of the EU legal system. Only in such case when a provision of a treaty is attributed to exclusive competence of the Member States, the jurisdiction of the CJEU regarding that provision can be negated. Thus, when deciding on the issue of exclusive jurisdiction of the CJEU in principle, a problem of attribution of the EU and Member States’ competences arises. (shrink)

World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement includes the Annex 2 Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) that reveals with WTO dispute settlement rules and procedures. The Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) is hereby established to administer these rules and procedures. The article analyses the problematic issues of the direct effect of the DSB decisions in the European Union (EU) legal order. ECJ concluded that an individual does not have the right to challenge, the incompatibility of Community measures with WTO rules, even if the DSB (...) had previously declared the EU legislation to be incompatible with those rules. The position of the ECJ is based on the WTO dispute settlement system specifics—the importance of the negotiation between the parties, even after the DSB decision-making and lack of reciprocity, which means that major commercial partners of the EU does not recognize the direct effect of DSB decisions. (shrink)

From the point of the EU law, the CJEU has the exclusive competence to interpret the EU legal norms and decide upon validity of the legal acts adopted by the EU institutions because it is the most effective method to ensure the unilateral interpretation of the EU law and to prevent its fragmentation. Thus, it can be presumed that all disputes between the Member States regarding the EU law must be solved by the CJEU. The paper aims at finding the (...) answer to the question whether international courts under the international law must refuse their jurisdiction in cases where disputes of the Member States relate with the EU law. With the view of this aim, arguments arising from the international law (for instance, prohibition of intervening into affairs of another legal system, prohibition of abuse of laws), on the basis of which an international court should decline its jurisdiction, and applicability of such arguments to the situation discussed is assessed and an independent approach is formulated. (shrink)

After coming into force of the Treaty of Lisbon it is acknowledged that better control and respect of the principle of subsidiarity is one of the most important and innovative goals of the Treaty. To achieve this goal, the Treaty introduces a mechanism which, apart from checking compliance of draft legislative acts with that principle, may eventually lead to a draft act to be deleted from the legislative agenda of the European Union on grounds of violation of subsidiarity. Within this (...) mechanism, crucial role is attributed to the national parliaments of the Member States. In this article, the reasons for overall inclusion of national parliaments in the European Union (hereinafter EU, the Union) activities are analysed. The role of national parliaments in the EU according to the specific provisions of the EU treaties is also discussed and the largest part of the work is devoted to the ex ante subsidiarity principle control mechanism (the Early Warning System), which gives the right for the national parliaments to influence the EU legislative process. (shrink)

Two modes of reasoning are used by humans – the `theoretical' (formal) and the `empirical' (non-formal), the first operating with inside-the-syllogism information, the second utilising out-of-the-syllogism information. Cross-cultural research (since Lévy-Bruhl, and especially after Luria) and developmental research (since Piaget) discovered respectively that members of `traditional' societies and children up to a certain age are able to operate only in the empirical mode.The paper brings together diverse discussions about usage of these modes in actual discourse (Ennis, Johnson-Laird, Moore, Olson, Ong, (...) etc.). It concentrates on contradictory opinions as to whether contemporary individuals after they acquire the formal mode preserve and utilise the empirical mode. In this connection it discusses results of neurological experiments investigating performance in solving syllogisms under conditions of transitory suppression of the left or the right hemisphere (Deglin et al.) which demonstrated that one and the same person, depending on which hemisphere is suppressed, uses both strategies. The activated right hemisphere utilizes the `empirical' pattern, the activated left hemisphere utilizes the `logical' pattern. Thus both mechanisms of reasoning are present in the brain simultaneously, but each of them is controlled by different hemispheres. (shrink)

Cette contribution présente des types de petits corpus très hétérogènes, qui ne sont toujours pas clairement définis : les petits corpus oraux bilingues et plurilingues. Elle envisage d’abord de donner un aperçu de petits corpus et discute l’insécurité terminologique du domaine des corpus bi- et plurilingues. Ensuite, les bases de données de petits corpus bilingues Talkbank, HZSK, Sketchengine et CLAPOTY sont brièvement décrites pour discuter les possibilités de visualisation ainsi que de mise en disposition des données de corpus. Finalement, un (...) exemple concret est présenté : le corpus FM, un petit corpus bilingue français-anglais d’une variété du français canadien, parlée au Manitoba. (shrink)

The article follows dynamic changes and evolutions in the history of research theories in the field of humanities. It begins with an analysis of studies on group identity, and drawing from ideas by Ewa Domanska, it employs the metaphor of the see as the space in which one can navigate for new themes and ideas. A special importance is attached to the concept of autobiography, especially in reference to the researcher’s life and experience. Boleslaw Prus’s The Doll and its critical (...) reception offers a good case study to illustrate this approach of analysis which draws on private lives of interpreters and critics. The influence of autobiography on literary theory is analysed using Susan Faludi’s Backlash and In the Darkroom. (shrink)

The increasing focus on disability rights—as found, for instance, in the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities —challenges philosophical imaginaries. This article broadens the philosophical imaginary of freedom by exploring the relation of dependence, independence, and interdependence in the lives of people with disabilities. It argues that traditional concepts of freedom are rather insensitive to difference within humanity, and that the lives of people with severe disabilities challenge philosophers to argue and conceptualize freedom not only as independence (...) and interdependence but also as dependence. After tracing this need through a Hegelian understanding, via Julia Kristeva's work on disability, and finally the CRPD, it concludes that a unified solution might not be possible. Hence, it argues that disability issues necessitate philosophical modesty. (shrink)

The fascination of beauty has given rise to a long-standing European philosophical tradition on the idea of beauty the beginnings of which link back to ancient Greek mythology. However, at the dawn of Modernity the discourse on beauty slowly disappeared from theory and philosophy. While classical tradition dealt with the many and varied aspects of beauty in relation to cosmos, man's way of life, education and the arts, modern theory trivialized the idea of beauty and finally abandoned the topic. This (...) book is an attempt to put beauty on the agenda again by reviewing the very origin of this ancient idea. The reflections on beauty and the ugly are present already in Homer's mythology, and these ideas are further developed and refined in Plato's philosophy. Also Cicero is guided by the Greek legacy in his approach to life, rhetoric, and beauty. The examination of the ancient sources shows the profound knowledge, the elegance, the charm and wit present in ancient thinking. Instead of being just history, these sources hold sound counselling highlighting the importance of beauty. In this way the ancient legacy constitutes a challenge to the arrogance of modern thinking. (shrink)

This research investigates the impact of corporate tax strategies on consumers’ corporate social responsibility perceptions, willingness to pay, and attitude toward the firm in two laboratory experiments in the United States and Germany. Using the Becker–DeGroot–Marschak incentive-compatible mechanism, which avoids a social desirability bias found in prior research, our results indicate only a minor indirect effect of corporate tax strategies on WTP by way of the mediator CSR perceptions. However, we find a strong effect on attitude toward the firm again (...) mostly mediated by CSR perceptions. In contrast to German consumers, U.S. consumers’ CSR perceptions of tax avoidance are independent of whether a strategy is likely accepted by the tax authorities. Overall, we conclude that CSR perceptions are highly relevant when it comes to consumer responses to tax avoidance. (shrink)

In this article the main features and development trends of mediation as an alternative dispute resolution method are analyzed in the legal environment of the Republic of Lithuania. Mediation is analyzed as one of the primary informal alternative dispute resolution processes during which the third neutral, which is not authorized to take a decision during negotiations, helps the parties solve their dispute and the main aim of this process is the peaceful resolution of the dispute and the renewal of social (...) peace between parties. In order to create favourable legal environment for the implementation of mediation process, it is necessary to consolidate the main requirements for the mediation process: requirements for confidentiality, responsibility of mediators, legal power of conciliatory agreements, etc. In this article the legal regulation of mediation in the Republic of Lithuania is described as well. (shrink)