Grice introduced generalized conversational implicatures with the following example: "Anyone who uses a sentence of the formX is meeting tz woman this evening would normally implicate that the person to be met was someone other than X’s wife, mother, sister, or perhaps even close platonic friend" (1975 : 37). Concerning this example, he suggested the following account: When someone, by using the form of expression an JQ implicates that the X does not belong to or is not otherwise closely connected (...) with some identifiable person, the implicature is present because the speaker has failed to be specific in a way in which he might have been expected to be specific. (Grice 1975: 38.) Grice went on to sketch an explanation as to why such an implicature should arise, involving the different ways in which we behave towards things that are closely related to.. (shrink)
Over the past three or four decades, the concept of medical ethics has changed from a limited set of standards to a broad field of debate and research. We define medical ethics as an arena of moral issues in medicine, rather than a specific discipline. This paper examines how the disciplines of health care ethics and health care law have developed and operated within this arena. Our framework highlights the aspects of jurisdiction (Abbott) and the assignment of responsibilities (Gusfield). (...) This theoretical framework prompted us to study definitions and changing responsibilities in order to describe the development and interaction of health care ethics and health law. We have opted for the context of the Dutch debate about end-of-life decisions as a relevant case study. We argue that the specific Dutch definition of euthanasia as 'intentionally taking the life of another person by a physician, upon that person's request' can be seen as the result of the complex jurisdictional process. This illustrates the more general conclusion that the Dutch debate on end-of-life decisions and the development of the two disciplines must be understood in terms of mutual interaction. (shrink)
We examine the role of professional jurisdiction in the convergence of science and business by exploring the relationship between professional jurisdiction and ethical decision-making. We apply the concept of professional jurisdiction (Abbott 1988) to the turf wars over vertebrate fossils among professional fossil collectors, vertebrate paleontologists, and the professional associations. We posit a series of hypotheses relating to how perceptions of professional jurisdiction influence stakeholders’ ethical decision-making frameworks concerning the sale and purchase of vertebrate fossils, as well as how (...) professional paleontologists who work with vertebrate fossils and other stakeholders differ in ethical decision-making if vertebrate fossils are perceived inside or outside of their professional jurisdiction. We develop a time-line of jurisdiction battles over vertebrate fossils and a model of the influence of professional jurisdiction perceptions on ethical decision-making. We propose a methodology for examining ethical decision-making using the Multidimensional Ethics Survey (MES). (shrink)
