Concern about high-profile ethical lapses by business managers has led to an increasing emphasis on ethics instruction in business schools. Various pedagogical methods are used to expose business students to real-world ethical dilemmas, yet students may not readily grasp the linkages between ethical theories and dilemmas to identify possible ethical solutions. Venn diagrams are a valuable instructional tool in business ethics classes when used with other teaching methodologies such as case studies. We describe how the use of Venn diagrams assists (...) students in visualizing the key points of and the connections between ethical theories and dilemmas to shed light on possible ethical solutions. Examples of teaching exercises are provided along with ideas for future research in the use of Venn diagrams in activating moral imagination and improving ethical reasoning. Overall, positive student reactions to the introduction of Venn diagrams in business ethics classrooms support the use of this methodology. (shrink)

Concern about high-profile ethical lapses by business managers has led to an increasing emphasis on ethics instruction in business schools. Various pedagogical methods are used to expose business students to real-world ethical dilemmas, yet students may not readily grasp the linkages between ethical theories and dilemmas to identify possible ethical solutions. Venn diagrams are a valuable instructional tool in business ethics classes when used with other teaching methodologies such as case studies. We describe how the use of Venn diagrams assists (...) students in visualizing the key points of and the connections between ethical theories and dilemmas to shed light on possible ethical solutions. Examples of teaching exercises are provided along with ideas for future research in the use of Venn diagrams in activating moral imagination and improving ethical reasoning. Overall, positive student reactions to the introduction of Venn diagrams in business ethics classrooms support the use of this methodology. (shrink)

In this consensus report by a diverse group of academics who conduct and/or are concerned about social and behavioral genomics (SBG) research, the authors recount the often‐ugly history of scientific attempts to understand the genetic contributions to human behaviors and social outcomes. They then describe what the current science—including genomewide association studies and polygenic indexes—can and cannot tell us, as well as its risks and potential benefits. They conclude with a discussion of responsible behavior in the context of SBG research. (...) SBG research that compares individuals within a group according to a “sensitive” phenotype requires extra attention to responsible conduct and to responsible communication about the research and its findings. SBG research (1) on sensitive phenotypes that (2) compares two or more groups defined by (a) race, (b) ethnicity, or (c) genetic ancestry (where genetic ancestry could easily be misunderstood as race or ethnicity) requires a compelling justification to be conducted, funded, or published. All authors agree that this justification at least requires a convincing argument that a study's design could yield scientifically valid results; some authors would additionally require the study to have a socially favorable risk‐benefit profile. (shrink)

Advance care directives for health care have been promoted as a way to improve end-of-life decision making. These documents allow a patient to state, in advance of incapacity, the types of medical treatments they would like to receive, to name a surrogate to make those decisions, or to do both. Although studies have shown that both physicians and patients generally have positive attitudes about the use of these documents, relatively few individuals have actually completed one.What underlies this discrepancy between attitudes (...) and behavior with regard to advance care directives? One obvious explanation is lack of access. Emanuel et al. estimated that approximately 90 percent of the population desire an advance care directive, and they pointed to access as the major barrier. Yet interventions that increase accessibility have typically failed to yield more than a 20 percent completion rate. Thus, it appears that access is not the sole determinant of advance care directive completion. (shrink)

Clinical trials for acute conditions such as myocardial infarction and stroke pose challenges related to informed consent due to time limitations, stress, and severe illness. Consent processes shou...

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page W12-W13.

Street’s “Darwinian Dilemma” is a well-known epistemological objection to moral realism. In this paper, I argue that “third-factor” replies to this argument on behalf of the moral realist, as popularized by Enoch :413–438, 2010, Taking morality seriously: a defense of robust realism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011), Skarsaune :229–243, 2011) and Wielenberg :441–464, 2010, Robust ethics: the metaphysics and epistemology of godless normative realism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014), cannot succeed. This is because they are instances of the illegitimate form (...) of reasoning known as “bootstrapping.” The phenomenon of bootstrapping has been discussed in detail, most notably by Vogel :602–623, 2000) and Cohen :309–329, 2002), in a different context as an objection to reliabilism and related theories of knowledge. I introduce four different characterizations of the error of bootstrapping from the epistemic literature in order to argue that the form of reasoning exemplified by third-factor replies would be deemed illegitimate by every one of them. I conclude that the moral realist should abandon third-factor replies, or else suggest a novel diagnosis for what goes wrong in bootstrapping cases that does not apply equally to the realist’s form of argument. However, I am not optimistic about the prospects for this latter strategy. (shrink)

Are epistemic reasons merely a species of instrumental practical reasons, making epistemic rationality a specialized form of instrumental practical rationality? Or are epistemic reasons importantly different in kind? Despite the attractions of the former view, Kelly (2003) argues quite compellingly that epistemic rationality cannot be merely a matter of taking effective means to one’s epistemic ends. I argue here that Kelly’s objections can be sidestepped if we understand epistemic reasons as instrumental reasons that arise in light of the aims held (...) by social collectives of which we are members, rather than being fixed by our own individual goals. This social version of epistemic instrumentalism would not be subject to counterexamples that point to the failure of individual people to possess desires or goals that would account for all of the epistemic reasons we find it natural to attribute to them. I conclude by comparing the proposed view to the alternative version of instrumentalism defended by Kornblith (1993). I argue that the social view I sketch here has one noteworthy advantage. It better accounts for the intuitive distinctness of our practical and epistemic reasons for belief in cases where flouting epistemic norms would better help us to achieve our own individual goals. (shrink)

Trust is a key component in delivering quality and respectful care within health care systems. However, a growing lack of confidence in health care, particularly among specific subgroups of the population in the United States, could further widen health disparities. In this essay, we explore one approach to building trust and reaching diverse communities to promote health: engaging community‐based organizations (CBOs) as trusted community messengers. We present case studies of partnerships in health promotion, community education, and outreach that showcase how (...) CBOs’ programs build and leverage trust in health care systems through their workforce, services, and engagement with the community. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the composition of an optimal portfolio made of two dependent risky assets. The investor is first assumed to be a risk-averse expected utility maximizer, and we recover the existing conditions under which all these investors hold at least some percentage of their portfolio in one of the assets. Then, we assume that the decision maker is not only risk-averse, but also prudent and we obtain new minimum demand conditions as well as intuitively appealing interpretations for (...) them. Finally, we consider the general case of investor’s preferences exhibiting risk apportionment of any order and we derive the corresponding minimum demand conditions. As a byproduct, we obtain conditions such that an investor holds either a positive quantity of one of the assets or a proportion greater than 50 %. (shrink)

This paper weakens the expectation dependence concept due to Wright and its higher-order extensions proposed by Li to conform with the preferences generating the almost stochastic dominance rules introduced in Leshno and Levy. A new dependence concept, called excess dependence is introduced and studied in addition to expectation dependence. This new concept coincides with expectation dependence at first-degree but provides distinct higher-order extensions. Three applications, to portfolio diversification, to the determination of the sign of the equity premium in the consumption-based (...) CAPM, and to optimal investment in the presence of a background risk, illustrate the usefulness of the approach proposed in the present paper. (shrink)

The author argues that well-known forms of relativism are unable to accommodate, at once, a set of three highly intuitive theses about the distinctive character of moral reasons. Yet the author argues it is possible to formulate a novel form of normative relativism that has the power to accommodate these claims. The proposed view combines the relativist idea that the normative facts are attitude-dependent with the insight that there are non-human agents to which it makes sense to attribute the kinds (...) of attitudes that give rise to normative reasons. Societies, too, can possess reasons to pursue their aims. What distinguishes moral reasons from reasons of practical rationality is that the former apply directly to societies in virtue of aims held by each society as a group, while the latter apply directly to persons in light of their own individual interests. (shrink)

This is the first collection to bring together well-known scholars writing from feminist perspectives within critical discourse analysis. The theoretical structure of CDA is illustrated with empirical research in Eastern and Western Europe, New Zealand, Asia, South America and the US, demonstrating the complex workings of power and ideology in discourse in sustaining particular gender(ed) orders. These studies deal with texts and talk in domains ranging from parliamentary settings, news and advertising media, the classroom, community literacy programs and the workplace.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether certain self-discrepancies predicted the extent to which individuals experienced suicidal ideation. The Selves Questionnaire (an idiographic measure of self-beliefs) was administered to 152 undergraduate participants, who also completed measures of hopelessness, depression, and suicidal ideation. Three kinds of self-discrepancies were associated with suicidal ideation: actual:ideal, actual:ought, and actual:ideal:future. Covariance structure analyses indicated a best-fitting model suggesting that, actual:ideal and actual:ideal:future self-discrepancies contribute to hopelessness, which in turn contributes to depression and suicidal (...) ideation. The findings suggest that self-discrepancy, as a form of negative self-evaluation, may contribute to an individual's risk for suicidal ideation. Moreover, the findings point to an integration of self-discrepancy theory with hopelessness theory. (shrink)

We propose six guideposts that states and hospitals should follow to respect disability rights when designing policies for the allocation of scarce, lifesaving medical treatments. Four relate to criteria for decisions. First, do not use categorical exclusions, especially ones based on disability or diagnosis. Second, do not use perceived quality of life. Third, use hospital survival and near-term prognosis (e.g., death expected within a few years despite treatment) but not long-term life expectancy. Fourth, when patients who use ventilators in their (...) daily lives (e.g., home ventilation) present to acute care hospitals, their personal ventilators should not be reallocated to other patients. Fifth, designate triage officers to assess patients individually on the basis of objective medical evidence, not stereotypes or assumptions. Sixth, include disability rights advocates in policy development and dissemination. (shrink)

The article provides a critical analysis of a postfeminist identity that is emergent in a set of beauty advertisements, called ‘entitled femininity’. Three major discursive themes are identified, which are constitutive of this postfeminist feminine identity: 1) ‘It’s about me!’ focuses on pampering and pleasuring the self; 2) ‘Celebrating femininity’ reclaims and rejoices in feminine stereotypes; and 3) ‘Girling women’ encourages a youthful disposition in women of all ages. The article shows that entitled femininity occupies an ambivalent discursive space, which (...) celebrates as well as repudiates feminism, and re-installs normative gendered stereotypes. The ambivalence, it is argued, contributes to fostering a culture of post-critique, which numbs resistance and deflects criticism. For all its appearances to be pro-women, feminine entitlement based squarely on an entitlement to consume offers a rather limited and problematic vision of femininity and gender equality. (shrink)

In a recent BioEssays paper [W. F. Martin, BioEssays 2017, 39, 1700115], William Martin sharply criticizes evolutionary interpretations that involve lateral gene transfer into eukaryotic genomes. Most published examples of LGTs in eukaryotes, he suggests, are in fact contaminants, ancestral genes that have been lost from other extant lineages, or the result of artefactual phylogenetic inferences. Martin argues that, except for transfers that occurred from endosymbiotic organelles, eukaryote LGT is insignificant. Here, in reviewing this field, we seek to correct some (...) of the misconceptions presented therein with regard to the evidence for LGT in eukaryotes. A recent paper dismisses claims of lateral gene transfer into eukaryotic genomes. We counter the arguments made in that paper and discuss the extensive evidence for LGT in eukaryotes. (shrink)

Could an entire society count as an agent in its own right? I argue here that it could. While previous defenders of group agency have focused primarily on groups such as states and corporations that exhibit a great deal of formalized internal structure, less attention has been devoted to more loosely structured social groups. I focus on defending the claims that societies can have ends or goals and that they engage in end-directed behavior. I defend this view by responding to (...) three potential objections. The first is the allegation that the attribution of ends to societies would be redundant, given that the properties of any group will supervene upon the properties of the group’s individual human members. The second is the charge that societies are not genuine agents engaged in end-directed actions because their behavior is not under their own direct control. The third is the concern that while it may be useful to speak of societies ‘as if’ they were agents, this does not indicate that societies really act in pursuit of ends. I draw upon a functionalist approach from the philosophy of mind to argue that all three objections can be addressed by the defender of social agency. (shrink)

Ronald Sandler's ‘Climate change and ecosystem management’ provides a fine summary of reasons to modify our approach to ecosystem management given ‘rapid and uncertain ecological change’. We...

Over the past few decades, public anxiety about how people interact with science has spawned cycles of discourse across a wide range of media, public and private initiatives, and substantial research endeavors. National and international STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education initiatives and research have addressed how students interact with science and pursue careers in STEM fields. Researchers concerned with adult interaction with science have focused on factors that influence how citizens gather and interpret scientific knowledge and form positions (...) on scientific issues, applications, and/or policy in a politicized democratic milieu. Building from research on how the public interacts with science in and outside of formal education, this study focuses on attitudes toward science among students in 4th, 7th, and 10th grades and their parents. Little research to date has paired the STEM experiences of adults with their children. We find that the extent to which parents are positively oriented toward science significantly shapes their children’s attitudes toward science. Furthermore, between 7th and 10th grades, students with parents holding positive orientations toward science are more likely to sustain positive attitudes toward science. Since the foundation for most adults’ interactions with science develops in the K-12 environment, we demonstrate that the foundation, as expressed in adulthood, may directly affect the ways the next generation of students interacts with science. We offer insights into the importance of developing student learning into the social scientific research on public understanding of science and how important scientific issues of today interplay with society. (shrink)

A lexicon of Hebrew terms and their Romance equivalents from Maimónides’ treatise on logic and philosophy, al-Maqālah fi-ṣināʻat al-manṭiq, circulated in Hebrew aljamiado among Jews and conversos immersed in 15th-century humanism. This lexicon is one of several texts included in a manuscript which also includes literary works by converso authors such as Alfonso de la Torre’s Visión deleytable and Alfonso de Cartagena’s translation of sentenciae by Seneca, as well as three other philosophical lexicons. This collection of texts recorded in MS (...) Parma 2666 reveals that 15th-century Jews and/or conversos –the only people capable of reading the Hebrew aljamiado– read and interpreted De la Torre’s Visión in the context of the Judeo-Arabic philosophical tradition, which is also the basis for Maimónides’ Manṭiq, available in Hebrew and Latin translations. In this article I examine how the philosophic vocabulary developed in al-Manṭiq, accessible in Romance in the lexicons in MS Parma 2666, reflects the Maimonidean epistemology as it survived and developed among 15th-century Jewish and converso readers of the Visión deleytable. (shrink)

This article adopts the combined perspectives of critical discourse studies and (critical) intersectionality studies to examine efforts at movement-building by Pink Dot SG, an LGBTQ group, which has developed within the illiberal geopolitical space of Singapore. The term ‘intersectionalisation’ is introduced to refer to a reflexive meta-discursive strategy which mobilizes the intersectionality of social identities (such as gender, sexuality, race, class, generation, and nationality) to advance particular sociopolitical objectives. The article illustrates three ways intersectionalisation operates in Pink Dot’s official videos: (...) (i) to create solidarities within the LGBTQ community; (ii) to advocate for the LGBTQ community by straight allies, and (iii) to forge alliances dialogically between queer and straight communities in Singapore. The analysis of the videos shows that interactions between various assemblages of intersectional identities of privilege and marginality are brought to the fore in building the social movement, and how its discourse navigates a terrain of complicated power dynamics. (shrink)

In Singapore, top down public education campaigns have long been a mode of governance by which the conduct of citizens is constantly regulated. This article examines how in two fairly recent campaigns, a new approach to campaign communication is used that involves media interdiscursivity, viz., the mixing of discourses and genres in which the media constitute a significant element. The present approach involves the appropriation of a popular local television character, ‘Phua Chu Kang’, in order to address the public through (...) educational rap music videos. Media interdiscursivity is based on an attempt to engage the public via a discourse of the ‘lifeworld’. The present article analyzes the ‘lifeworld’ discourse in terms of a combination of two processes, ‘informalization’ and ‘communitization’. The dual processes are examined and discussed in relation to the choice of Phua Chu Kang as an ‘ordinary’ and almost ‘real’ person, including his informal register and speech style; his use of Singlish; and his construction of ‘community.’ The presence of Singlish, in particular, is interesting because it is included as part of PCK’s public performance of the lifeworld. The article concludes by considering this form of media interdiscursivity as the government’s shrewd way of achieving its social governance goals. (shrink)