In their target article, Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland (2023) address a longstanding debate within the bioethics and organ transplantation community regarding whether controlled donation after circula...

The purpose of this study was to determine the development of moral judgement in first-year and senior baccalaureate nursing students. These students were enrolled in three separate nursing programmes, each of which differed significantly in ethical content. The sample totalled 180 students enrolled in three New England programmes. Programme A included an ethics course taught by a professor of ethics. Programme B integrated ethical issues into all nursing theory courses. Programme C did not include ethical content in theory courses. The (...) design was of a developmental cross-sectional study. The dependent variable was the development of moral judgement, as measured by Rest’s Defining Issues Test. The independent variable was the amount of ethics taught in the nursing programmes and the level of academic education. The senior nursing students from programme A scored significantly higher than the other senior groups on the Defining Issues Test. The conclusion is that an ethics course with group participation and a decision-making element significantly facilitated nursing students’ development of moral judgement. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that one can articulate a historically attuned and analytically rich model for understanding jazz in its various inflections. That is, on the one hand, such a model permits us to affirm jazz as a historically conditioned, dynamic hybridity. On the other hand, to acknowledge jazz’s open and multiple character in no way negates our ability to identify discernible features of various styles and aesthetic traditions. Additionally, my model affirms the sociopolitical, legal (Jim Crow and copyright (...) laws), and economic structures that shaped jazz. Consequently, my articulation of bebop as an inflection of Afromodernism highlights the sociopolitical, and highly racialized context in which this music was created. Without a recognition of the sociopolitical import of bebop, one’s understanding of the music is impoverished, as one fails to grasp the strategic uses to which the music and discourses about the music were put. (shrink)

This paper examines what managers ought to do when confronted with apparent moral conflicts between their managerial responsibilities and the general requirements of morality, specifically when those conflicts are driven by the institutional environment. I examine Google’s decision to enter the Chinese search engine market as an example of such a conflict. I consider the view that Google’s managers engaged in justifiable moral compromise in making the choice to engage in self-censorship and show how this view depends on the idea (...) of genuine moral dilemmas or irresolvable moral conflicts. I argue that there are serious reasons to doubt the existence of genuine moral dilemmas both in the abstract, as well as in the context of managerial responsibility. I propose an alternative account for what Google’s managers ought to do, as well as others who face relevantly similar situations. The account contains two conditions for permissibly contributing to another party’s failure to live up to their moral responsibilities. The first condition is that the manager must intend and act in such a way as to minimize the firm’s complicity in the other entity or actor’s failure, which in most cases will imply a duty for the manager to take actions that aim towards changing the institutional context. Under the second condition, managers ought to communicate to the firm’s constituents that they take seriously the importance of the interests at stake. (shrink)

Argues that morality can exist without religion, suggests that values and principles of conduct emerge from life, and examines the consequences of moral absolutism.

Cost-benefit analysis is commonly understood to be intimately connected with utilitarianism and incompatible with other moral theories, particularly those that focus on deontological concepts such as rights. We reject this claim and argue that cost-benefit analysis can take moral rights as well as other non-utilitarian moral considerations into account in a systematic manner. We discuss three ways of doing this, and claim that two of them (output filters and input filters) can account for a wide range of rights-based moral theories, (...) including the absolute notions of moral rights proposed by Hayek, Mayo, Nozick, and Shue. We also discuss whether the use of output filters and input filters can be generalized to cover other non-utilitarian theories, such as Kantian duty ethics and virtue ethics. (shrink)

This empirical study advances the understanding of the theory of investment in human capital by outlining limitations to its applicability in the context of return to education. The study uses the concept of moral hazard to examine circumstances when financial support for education purpose generates less desirable post-graduation incomes. This study explores the relationship between financial support and post-graduation incomes using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation that is designed to measure the economic situation of individuals. Results (...) suggest that students are less likely to engage in moral hazardous behavior to the degree to which they are older and to the degree to which they receive costlier financial assistance. (shrink)

Cheyne and Girard characterize felt presence during sleep paralysis attacks as a pre-hallucinatory expression of a threat-activated vigilance system. While their results may be consistent with this interpretation, they are nonetheless correlational and do not address a parsimonious alternative explanation. This alternative stipulates that FP is a purely spatial, hallucinatory form of a common cognitive phenomenon—social imagery—that is often, but not necessarily, linked with threat and fear and that may induce distress among susceptible individuals. The occurrence of both fearful and (...) non-fearful FPs in a multiplicity of situations other than sleep paralysis attacks supports the notion that FPs are hallucinatory variants of social imagery and that they are not necessarily bound to threat-activated vigilance. Evidence linking FPs with anxiety disorders supports the notion that the distress they evoke may be mediated by a more general affective distress personality factor. To illustrate the predominantly spatial character of FP hallucinations, similarities between FP and phantom limbs are summarized and the possibility that these two phenomena are parallel expressions of a mirror neuron system is considered. (shrink)

Abstract:It is a common belief that obesity is wholly or partially a question of personal choice and personal responsibility. It is also widely assumed that when individuals are responsible for some unfortunate state of affairs, society bears no burden to compensate them. This article focuses on two conceptualizations of responsibility: backward-looking and forward-looking conceptualizations. When ascertaining responsibility in a backward-looking sense, one has to determine how that state of affairs came into being or where the agent stood in relation to (...) it. In contrast, a forward-looking conceptualization of responsibility puts aside questions of the past and holds a person responsible by reference to some desirable future state of affairs and will typically mean that he or she is subjected to criticism, censure, or other negative appraisals or that he or she is heldcost-responsible in some form, for example, in terms of demanded compensation, loss of privileges, or similar. One example of this view is the debate as to whether the obese should be denied, wholly or partially, free and equal access to healthcare,notbecause they are somehow personally responsible in the backward-looking sense but simply because holding the obese responsible will have positive consequences. Taking these two conceptions of responsibility into account, the authors turn their analysis toward examining the relevant moral considerations to be taken into account when public policies regarding obesity rely on such a conception of responsibility. (shrink)

Rosemary Hennessy confronts some of the impasses in materialist feminist work on rethinking `woman' as a discursively constructed subject. She argues for a theory of discourse as ideology taking into account the work of Kristeva, Foucault and Laclau.

We investigate how the perceived uncertainty of a conditional affects a person's choice of conclusion. We use a novel procedure to introduce uncertainty by manipulating the conditional probability of the consequent given the antecedent. In Experiment 1, we show first that subjects reduce their choice of valid conclusions when a conditional is followed by an additional premise that makes the major premise uncertain. In this we replicate Byrne. These subjects choose, instead, a qualified conclusion expressing uncertainty. If subjects are given (...) a third statement that qualifies the likelihood of the additional premise, then the uncertainty of the conclusions they choose is systematically related to the suggested uncertainty. Experiment 2 confirms these observations in problems that omit the additional premise and qualify the first premise directly. Experiment 3 shows that the qualifying statement also affects the perceived probability of the consequent given the antecedent of the conditional. Experiment 4 investigates the effect of suggested uncertainty on the fallacies and shows that increases in uncertainty reduce the number of certain conclusions that are chosen while affirming the consequent but have no effect on denying the antecedent. We discuss our results in terms of rule theories and mental models and conclude that the latter give the most natural account of our results. (shrink)

The past decade has seen an explosion of work on the history of the human sciences during the Cold War. This work, however, does not engage with one of the leading human sciences of the period: linguistics. This article begins to rectify this knowledge gap by investigating the influence of linguistics and its concept of study, language, on American public, political and intellectual life during the postwar and early Cold War years. I show that language emerged in three frameworks in (...) this period: language as tool, language as weapon, and language as knowledge. As America stepped onto the international stage, language and linguistics were at the forefront: the military poured millions of dollars into machine translation, American diplomats were required to master scores of foreign languages, and schoolchildren were exposed to language-learning on a scale never before seen in the United States. Together, I argue, language and linguistics formed a critical part of the rise of American leadership in the new world order — one that provided communities as dispersed as the military, the diplomatic corps, scientists and language teachers with a powerful way of tackling the problems they faced. To date, linguistics has not been integrated into the broader framework of Cold War human sciences. In this article, I aim to bring both language, as concept, and linguistics, as discipline, into this framework. In doing so, I pave the way for future work on the history of linguistics as a human science. (shrink)

Pure time preference is a preference for something to come at one point in time rather than another merely because of when it occurs in time. In opposition to Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit we argue that it is not always irrational to be guided by pure time preferences. We argue that even if the mere difference of location in time is not a rational ground for a preference, time may nevertheless be a normatively neutral ground for a preference, and (...) this makes it plausible to claim that the preference is rationally permitted. (shrink)

The question of how to respond to the deep political divides in the United States today has resulted in the emergence of two camps. On one side are those who argue that the cultivation of civic virtues like civility will lead to more respectful interpersonal relationships through which consensus and mutual understanding can be built. On the other are those who argue that our commitment to justice is primary and may require uncivil behavior to disrupt and change unjust structural relationships. (...) In Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society, Jason Springs helps to bridge the divide between these two positions. Because he takes a relational approach that centers both interpersonal and structural relationships, Springs makes both mutual respect and just structures central to his conception of healthy conflict. Taking relationality seriously thus helps to overcome this impasse, but it also raises significant questions about the impact of asymmetrical relationships on citizens’ responsibilities to engage in healthy conflict. (shrink)

Feminist ethics -- Necessity and the evasion of responsibility -- Relational personhood and the violence of war -- Intention matters -- From evading to expanding responsibility -- Taking responsibility for harmdoing in war -- Just war and just peace.

ABSTRACTBusiness actors often act in ways that may harm other parties. While the law aims to restrict harmful behavior and to provide remedies, legal systems do not anticipate all contingencies and legal regulations are not always well-enforced. This article argues that the logic of double effect, which has been developed and deployed in other areas of practical ethics, can be useful in helping business actors decide whether or not to pursue potentially harmful activities in commonplace business activity. The article illustrates (...) how LDE helps to explain the exploitative nature of payday lending, the distinction between permissible and impermissible forms of market competition, and the potential wrong of imposing risk of harm on others. The article also addresses foundational debates about LDE itself. We offer the article as an illustration of the sort of “midlevel” theorizing that can address directly the needs of practitioners. (shrink)

At no time in the past century have there been fiercer battles over our public schools than there are now. Parents and educational reformers are challenging not only the mission, content, and structure of mass compulsory schooling but also its underlying premise—that the values promoted through public education are neutral and therefore acceptable to any reasonable person. In this important book, Rosemary Salomone sets aside the ideological and inflammatory rhetoric that surrounds today’s debates over educational values and family choice. (...) She offers instead a fair-minded examination of education for democratic citizenship in a society that values freedom of conscience and religious pluralism. And she proposes a balanced course of action that redefines but does not sever the relationship between education and the state. Salomone demonstrates how contemporary conflicts are the product of past educational and social movements. She lays bare some of the myths that support the current government monopoly over education and reveals how it privileges those of economic means. Through a detailed case study of recent controversy in a suburban New York school district, the author explores the legal and policy issues that arise when widely disparate world views stand in the way of political compromise on educational materials, techniques, and programs. Salomone builds a case for educational governance that places the developmental needs of the child at the center of family autonomy. She advances a plan that respects diverse values and visions of schooling while preserving the core commitments that bind our nation. (shrink)

Feminist critiques of intention challenge some aspects of traditional just war reasoning, including the criteria of right intention and discrimination. I take note of these challenges and propose some directions just war reasoners might take in response. First, right intention can be evaluated more accurately by judging what actors in war actually do than by attempting to uncover inward dispositions. Assessing whether agents in war have taken due care to minimize foreseeable collateral damage, avoided intentional targeting of noncombatants, corrected previous (...) mistakes in their later actions, and taken responsibility to repair unintended damage they cause are examples of ways in which just war reasoners can evaluate intention by looking at actions. (shrink)

The vital status of patients who are a part of controlled donation after circulatory death (cDCD) is widely debated in bioethical literature. Opponents to currently applied cDCD protocols argue that they violate the dead donor rule, while proponents of the protocols advocate compatibility. In this article, we argue that both parties often misinterpret the moral implications of the dead donor rule. The rule as such does not require an assessment of a donor’s vital status, we contend, but rather an assessment (...) of whether procurement of organs in cDCD cause the death of the donor or not. We then argue that commonly practiced cDCD protocols do not violate the dead donor rule, since the donation does not trigger or cause the death of the donors. (shrink)

1. IntroductionA paternalistic act is one in which the protection or promotion of a subject's welfare is the primary reason for attempted or successful coercive interference with an action or state of that person. My aim in this paper is to determine the conditions under which such acts are Justified. The route I take is through the concept of consent, with actual consent providing the foundation for a rather complex condition which I claim is necessary and sufficient for the Justification (...) of paternalism.Because a paternalistic act apparently violates a subject's right to non-interference, it constitutes a problem in the general area of rights. Ideally, then, one should have a developed and convincing theory of rights — that is, a theory which contains an analysis of the concept of a right, and offers solutions to the central problems, e.g. who has rights and why, what considerations override prima facie rights, and how the relative importance of prima facie rights is determined — from which the solutions to various problems about paternalism can be derived. (shrink)

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is tasked with facing the hundred-year history of Indian Residential Schools. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is frequently invoked in relation to the Canadian TRC, perhaps because this is one of the few TRCs worldwide that Canadians know. Whilst the South African TRC is mainly applauded as an international success, I argue that loose analogizing is often more emotive than concise. Whilst much indeed can be drawn from the South African experience, it (...) is important to specify the Canada–South Africa analogy. In this article, I do so by focussing on the institutional approach to truth and how this relates to issues of settler/White denial. The South African experience teaches that narrow approaches to truth collude with superficial views of reconciliation that deny continuities of violence. Consequently, I argue that Indigenous–settler reconciliation requires a broad truth that locates residential schools on a continuum of violence, linking extraordinary abuses with structural injustices and historic colonization with lived relationships. (shrink)

"Künstlerische Selbstverletzung - seit den 1960er Jahren international fester Bestandteil der Performance Art - polarisiert, verstört und wirft vor allem Fragen nach Handlungsmotivationen auf. Rosemarie Brucher deutet dieses radikale Phänomen als Bewältigungsversuch bedrohter Autonomie und damit in erster Linie als Ermächtigungsstrategie. In dieser Ambivalenz aus Subjektermächtigung und Naturunterwerfung lässt sich künstlerische Selbstverletzung vor dem Hintergrund von Immanuel Kants Ästhetik des Erhabenen lesen, was die Autorin exemplarisch an VALIE EXPORT und Stelarc darlegt. Eine solche Bezugsetzung eröffnet nicht nur einen innovativen Zugang (...) zu dieser Kunstform, sondern wirft zugleich auch ein neues Licht auf Kants Erhabenheitskonzeption"--Back cover. (shrink)

Four experiments investigated uncertainty about a premise in a deductive argument as a function of the expertise of the speaker and of the conversational context. The procedure mimicked everyday reasoning in that participants were not told that the premises were to be treated as certain. The results showed that the perceived likelihood of a conclusion was greater when the major or the minor premise was uttered by an expert rather than a novice (Experiment 1). The results also showed that uncertainty (...) about the conclusion was higher when the major premise was uttered by a novice and an alternative premise by an expert, compared to when the major premise was uttered by an expert and the alternative by a novice (Experiment 2). Similarly, the believability of a conclusion was considerably lower when the minor premise was uttered by a novice and denied by an expert, as opposed to when an expert uttered the minor premise and a novice denied it (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 showed that the nature of the uncertainty induced by a denial of the minor premise depended on whether or not the context was a conversation. These results pose difficult problems for current theories of reasoning, as current theories are based on the results of experiments in which the premises are treated as certain. Our discussion of the results emphasises the importance of pragmatics in reasoning, namely, the role of general knowledge about the world in assessing the probability of a premise uttered by an expert or a novice and the role of interpretations of the premise based on pragmatic inferences in revising these initial probabilities. (shrink)

Elite athletes, coaches and high-performance staff are exposed to a range of stressors that have been shown to increase their susceptibility to experiencing mental ill-health. Despite this, athletes may be less inclined than the general population to seek support for their mental health due to stigma, perceptions of limited psychological safety within sport to disclose mental health difficulties and/or fears of help-seeking signifying weakness in the context of high performance sport. Guidance on the best ways to promote mental health within (...) sporting environments is increasing, though current frameworks and position statements require greater focus on a whole of system approach, in which the needs of athlete, coaches and high-performance staff are considered within the context of the broader ecological system in which they operate and perform. This paper synthesizes existing research, reviewed for translatability by mental health professionals working in elite sport, to provide an evidence-informed framework with real world utility to promote mentally healthy environments for all stakeholders in elite sporting organizations, from athletes through to administrators. Recommendations are provided to positively impact the mental wellbeing of athletes and support staff, which may in turn influence athletic performance. This framework is intended to provide sporting organizations with evidence-informed or best practice principles on which they can develop or progress their policies to support mental health promotion and prevent the onset of mental health difficulties. It is intended that the framework can be adapted or tailored by elite sporting organizations based upon their unique cultural, contextual and resourcing circumstances. (shrink)

Summary The recovery of the Camp Century deep ice core in 1966 – the first ice core to reach all the way through a polar ice sheet to bedrock – marked a shift from an era of United States military dominated glaciological research in Greenland to an era of climate oriented research on the island. This paper aims to provide an understanding of this shift. I show that the Camp Century ice core was at the heart of a complex blend (...) of environmental, military and scientific interests. By deconstructing these interests, I ultimately show that the island of Greenland underwent two reimaginings during the early Cold War. First, the island was reimagined as part of the US Cold War military sphere: driven by the need to secure the North American continent, the US established a hegemonic military colonization of Greenland. In the second reimagining of the island, environmental geography led the way: the scientific results of the Camp Century ice core and political concern about climatic change converged in the early 1970s to build Greenland into a unique location for pursuing research on climate questions. This paper adds to the literature by contextualizing the Camp Century ice core at the interface between the history of science, environmental history and Cold War history, and thereby illuminating Greenland as a dual geopolitical entity and environmental space. By highlighting the interaction of climatic change, geophysical sciences and national security narratives, it responds to recent historiographic calls to unite a set of narratives which, too often, talk past one another. (shrink)

This article offers an account of settler witnessing of residential school survivor testimony that avoids the politics of recognition and the pitfalls of colonial empathy. It knits together the concepts of bearing witness, Indigenous storytelling, and affective reckoning. Following the work of Kelly Oliver, it argues that witnessing involves a reaching beyond ourselves and responsiveness to the agency and self-determination of the other. Given the cultural genocide of residential schools, responsiveness to the other require openness to and nurturing of Indigenous (...) ways of knowing and being. In order to illustrate the complexities and challenges of settler witnessing, the author reflects on her experiences in attending six of the TRC’s national events and, in particular, what she has learned from Frederick “Fredda” Paul, Passamaquoddy Elder, healer, storyteller, and residential school survivor. The article analyzes aesthetics and emotions in the staging of TRC events and making meaning over time and the temporality of transitional justice. (shrink)

The relationship between international order and justice has long been central to the study and practice of international relations. For most of the twentieth century, states and international society gave priority to a view of order that focused on the minimum conditions for coexistence in a pluralist, conflictual world. Justice was seen either as secondary or sometimes even as a challenge to order. Recent developments have forced a reassessment of this position. This book sets current concerns within a broad historical (...) and theoretical context; explores the depth and scope of this presumed solidarism amidst the difficulties of acting on the basis of a more strongly articulated liberal position; and underscores the complexity and abiding tensions inherent in the relationship between order and justice. Chapters examine a wide range of state and transnational perspectives on order and justice, including those from China, India, Russia, the United States, and the Islamic world. Other chapters investigate how the order-justice relationship is mediated within major international institutions, including the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and the global financial institutions. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the advent of two feminist judgment-writing projects, the Women’s Court of Canada, and the Feminist Judgments Project in England. This article analyses these projects in light of Carol Smart’s feminist critique of law and legal reform and her proposed feminist strategies in Feminism and the Power of Law (1989). At the same time, it reflects on Smart’s arguments 20 years after their first publication and considers the extent to which feminist judgment-writing projects may reinforce or trouble (...) her conclusions. It argues that both of these results are discernible—that while some of Smart’s contentions have proved to be unsustainable, others remain salient and have both inspired and hold important cautions for feminist judgment-writing projects. (shrink)

This paper examines potential ethical and legal issues arising during the research, develop- ment and clinical use of a proposed strategy in personalized medicine (PM): using human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived tissue cultures as predictive models of individ- ual patients to inform treatment decisions. We focus on epilepsy treatment as a likely early application of this strategy, for which early-stage stage research is underway. In relation to the research process, we examine issues associated with biological samples; data; health; vulnerable (...) populations; neural organoids; and what level of accuracy justifies using the iPSC-derived neural tissue system. In relation to clinical use, we examine potential uses in pre-natal screening, and effects on clinical decision-making. Although our focus is providing recommendations for researchers developing work in this area, we identify the novel issue of deciding on an acceptable accuracy level for the system. We also emphasize an issue thus far neglected in the ethics of PM: PM tends to represent treatment decisions as though they should be directed solely by biomedical information, but this in itself could be detri- mental to best personalizing treatment decisions in the clinic. (shrink)

In this timely book, Rosemary Salomone offers a reasoned educational and legal argument supporting single-sex education as an alternative to coeducation, particularly in the case of disadvantaged minority students. “A carefully organized, often lively... compendium of everything that matters in the debate: how boys and girls do in classes and on tests, their differing learning styles, and the legal tussles.”—Timothy A. Hacsi, _New York Times_ “Smart, objective, evenhanded. Must reading in this important debate.”—Susan Estrich, University of Southern California Law (...) School “Everyone concerned about inequalities in our schools and our society should want to read it.”—Michael Duffy, _Times Educational Supplement _ “If you have time for only one book and you really want to be informed about single-sex education, then make it _Same, Different, Equal._”—John Borst, _Education Today_ “The single best book I have read about single-sex education. A must-read for every educator who is concerned about the different outcomes for boys and girls in school.”—Michael Thompson, Ph.D, coauthor of _Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys_. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I argue that people have a right to self‐determination when they are plainly predominant in a certain territory and do not violate the civil liberties of minorities. But there is no self‐determination without the preservation of self‐identity and the cultural preservation that goes with its secure existence. So to preserve autonomy and self‐determination people must preserve their cultural identity and this cannot be securely sustained in modern conditions without a nation‐state concerned to nourish that identity. Such considerations support a (...) right to secession when certain conditions are met. The conditions are that the people in question have a cultural identity, live in a distinct territory which they have inhabited for a long time, form an extensive majority, and respect the civil liberties of the minorities living in that territory (as well as elsewhere). Where they are such a group they have a right to secede from a larger state to which they are historically attached. These conditions, I argue, are met in Quebec. (shrink)

Applying the concepts of dynamical systems theory to explain cognitive phenomena is still a fairly recent trend in cognitive science and its potential and consequences are not nearly mapped out. A decade ago, dynamical approaches were introduced as a paradigm shift in cognitive science and in this paper I concentrate on how to substantiate this claim. After having considered and rejected the possibility that continuous time is the crucial factor, I present Kelso's model of a near-cognitive phenomenon which invokes self-organization (...) as the guiding principle. Then, the explanatory strategy implicit in this approach is explicated and its underlying assumption presented. Finally, I discuss how we should characterize this explanatory framework using the notion of emergence. (shrink)

Requirement‐sensitive legal moralism is a species of legal moralism in which the legitimacy of turning moral into legal demands depends on the existence of a legitimate moral requirement, producing a legitimate social requirement, which can then ground a legitimate legal requirement. Crucially, each step is defeasible by contingent or instrumental, but not intrinsic moral factors. There is no genuinely moral sphere (e.g., a private sphere) in which the law is not to interfere; only contingent, non‐moral factors can defeat this. Using (...) William A. Edmundson's Three Anarchical Fallacies as a foil, this idea is spelled out; it is shown why considerations based on the harm principle, consent, and the fact of pluralism do not immediately defeat it, but several problems with Edmundson's account are examined to point out where the idea could be further developed. (shrink)