Mandatory reporting of various forms of abuse, from violence to corruption, is an attempt by the state to intervene in circumstances where there is a public or a private interest that ought to be protected. This intrusion of the state into what is often a very personal space, such as the home, is largely justified on the basis of the need to provide protection to prevent further harm, and in services to vulnerable populations such as children, the disabled or the (...) elderly. In some instances, researchers and other members of the study team may encounter reportable information requiring the consideration of mandatory reporting in the design, implementation and review of health research. This is not simple. There are complex and competing interests at play, particularly as there are differing approaches in law and ethical guidelines. This article aims to describe the mandatory reporting obligations in South African law, discussing the ways in which these provisions apply within the context of health research, and to propose some factors that could be used to determine whether it is ethical or not to report information. (shrink)

Background The South African legal framework requires mandatory parental/legal guardian consent for all research with children. Ethics guidelines provide some reprieve by allowing RECs to grant waivers of parental or guardianship consent in certain defined circumstances. In the first instance, consent may be provided by a proxy when parents or guardians are unavailable, for example with orphaned children. In the second instance, guidelines permit adolescent self-consent when the nature of the study justifies this approach, for example, research on sensitive issues (...) like sexual behaviour or substance use. Discussion South African guidelines set several conditions that must be met for waivers to be granted. These norms overlap with those in international guidelines. However, the ethical norms, especially related to self-consent are sometimes vague. This article critically evaluates the consent norms in the national ethics guidelines and makes recommendations for reform to ethics guidelines in a way that recognises the value of child participation in research, their evolving decision-making capacity and their best interests. Conclusion Recommendations are made to harmonise ethics guidelines and law in a way that promotes child participation in research, to ensure additional protections for adolescents when self-consent is allowed, and to withdraw procedural requirements for the community endorsement of self-consent strategies. (shrink)

Background South Africa is likely to be the first country in the world to host an adolescent HIV vaccine trial. Adolescents may be enrolled in late 2007. In the development and review of adolescent HIV vaccine trial protocols there are many complexities to consider, and much work to be done if these important trials are to become a reality. Discussion This article sets out essential requirements for the lawful conduct of adolescent research in South Africa including compliance with consent requirements, (...) child protection laws, and processes for the ethical and regulatory approval of research. Summary This article outlines likely complexities for researchers and research ethics committees, including determining that trial interventions meet current risk standards for child research. Explicit recommendations are made for role-players in other jurisdictions who may also be planning such trials. This article concludes with concrete steps for implementing these important trials in South Africa and other jurisdictions, including planning for consent processes; delineating privacy rights; compiling information necessary for ethics committees to assess risks to child participants; training trial site staff to recognize when disclosures trig mandatory reporting response; networking among relevant ethics commitees; and lobbying the National Regulatory Authority for guidance. (shrink)

Until recently, any sex or sexual activity with a person under the age of 16 was criminalised, regardless of consent. All such incidents were considered criminal offences and needed to be reported to the police. This paper explores the knowledge, practices and perspectives of seventeen social workers in KwaZulu-Natal in relation to their mandatory reporting responsibilities on consensual underage sex. All social workers were clear about their reporting responsibilities regarding child abuse and non-consensual underage sex. However, findings suggest that social (...) workers were less clear on the exact circumstances in which they ought to report consensual underage sex. Most participants indicated that they would make individual assessments about when to report underage consensual sex and sexual activity. Such decisions would be influenced by structural factors, the personal circumstances of affected children and the availability of other interventions to address early sexual activity. This study has shown that social workers are struggling to comply with mandatory reporting responsibilities involving underage consensual sex. Most social workers approach reporting of consensual sex and sexual activity differently to other reporting responsibilities and use a case-by-case approach. Given these findings, it is argued that parliament should consider reforming mandatory reporting provisions so that there is a distinction between the obligation to report consensual and non-consensual sexual offences against children. The mandatory obligation to report non-consensual sexual offences against children should remain but the obligation to report consensual sex or sexual activity should be discretionary and depend on the facts of each case. (shrink)

BackgroundLiterature on issues relating to comprehension during the process of obtaining informed consent (IC) has largely focused on the challenges potential participants can face in understanding the IC documents, and the strategies used to enhance comprehension of those documents. In this review, we set out to describe the factors that have an impact on comprehension and the strategies used to enhance the IC process in sub-Saharan African countries.MethodsFrom November 2021 to January 2022, we conducted a literature search using a PRISMA (...) tool. We searched electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, EBSCOHOST) to identify relevant peer reviewed studies. We then reviewed the references of these articles to find additional literature that might have been missed through the initial search. We were particularly interested in full text articles in English that focused on the IC process in SSA published between 2006 and 2020. We included systematic reviews, and studies from Western and Asian countries that included data about SSA. We excluded articles that focused on medical interventions and studies that did not require IC.ResultsOut of the 50 studies included most were multi-country (n = 13) followed by single country studies in South Africa (n = 12); Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda (n = 5) each; Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria (n = 2)each ; and one each for Botswana, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique. We identified three areas of focus: (1) socio-cultural factors affecting IC; (2) gaps in the ethical and legal frameworks guiding the IC process; and (3) strategies used to improve participants’ understanding of IC.ConclusionOur review showed wide recognition that the process of achieving IC in SSA is inherently challenging, and there are limitations in the strategies aimed at improving comprehension in IC. We suggest that there is a need for greater flexibility and negotiation with communities to ensure that the approach to IC is suited to the diverse socio-cultural contexts. We propose moving beyond the literal translations and technical language to understanding IC comprehension from the participants’ perspectives and the researchers’ views, while examining contextual factors that impact the IC process. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 5, Page 576-586, June 2022.

In what follows, I analyze Ralph Strode's treatise on obligations. I have used a hitherto unpublished edition of the text (based on 14 manuscripts) made by Prof. E.J. Ashworth. I first give a brief description of Strode's text, which is all the more necessary given that it is not available to the average reader; I also offer a reconstruction of the rules proposed by Strode, following the style of reconstruction used in my analysis of Burley's and Swyneshed's (...) rules elsewhere—that is, essentially based on the idea that obligationes can be viewed as logical games. In the second part, I address Strode's explicit arguments contra Swyneshed. In the third part, I discuss Strode's epistemic and pragmatic approach to obligationes. (shrink)

James Bond 007 strode into the human imagination in the novel Casino Royale in 1953 and hit the movie screens with Dr. No in 1962. He has become one of the best-known personalities, real or imagined, in global history. One out of every four people in the entire world has now seen a Bond movie, and every month thousands of new readers become addicted to Ian Fleming’s original Bond stories. In James Bond and Philosophy, seventeen scholars examine hidden philosophical (...) issues in the hazardous, deceptive, glamorous world of Double-0 Seven. Is Bond a Nietzschean hero who graduates "beyond good and evil"? Does Bond paradoxically break the law in order, ultimately, to uphold it like any "stupid policeman"? What can Bond’s razor-sharp reasoning powers tell us about the scientific pursuit of truth? Does 007’s license to kill help us understand the ethics of counterterrorism? What motivates all those despicable Bond villains—could it be a Hegelian quest for recognition? (shrink)

The fourteenth-century thinker Thomas Bradwardine is well known in both the history of science and the history of theology. The first of the Merton Calculators (mathematical physicists) and passionate defender of the Augustinian doctrine of salvation through grace alone, he was briefly archbishop of Canterbury before succumbing to the Black Death in 1349. This new edition of his Insolubilia, made from all thirteen known manuscripts, shows that he was also a logician of the first rank. The edition is accompanied by (...) a full English translation. In the treatise, Bradwardine considers and rejects the theories of his contemporaries about the logical puzzles known as 'insolubles,' and sets out his own solution at length and in detail. In a substantial introduction, Stephen Read describes Bradwardine's analysis, compares it with other more recent theories, and places it in its historical context. The text is accompanied by three appendices, the first of which is an extra chapter found in two manuscripts (and partly in a third) that appears to contain further thoughts by Bradwardine himself. The second contains an extract from Ralph Strode's Insolubilia, composed in the 1360s, repeating and enlarging on Bradwardine's text; and the third consists of an anonymous text that applies Bradwardine's solution to a succession of different insolubles"--P. [4] of cover. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Appreciating Susan SontagFred RushMuch education from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s was self-education. Although one might happen to take a university course that incorporated contemporary art and criticism, it was a rarity. More often one supplemented university fare with one's own reading, listening, and viewing of cutting-edge art, anthropology, music, philosophy, linguistics, etc. Susan Sontag was for many Americans of that time a preeminent guide in this process, opening (...) doors to some of the most interesting and influential European work in art and criticism. Sontag's essayistic output—and she was one of the supreme writers in that genre—was seminal. Any sociologist or intellectual historian of the period would have to take her work greatly into account. Her incisive takes on her subject matter were not for everyone. Although trained as a philosopher at the then epicenter of the Anglophone philosophical world, Harvard, she did not tiptoe through academic complexities and was, therefore, decidedly out of step with the philosophical temperament of that time. She strode in, proselytized for her favorites, excoriated her enemies, and left no one in the room ignorant of the fact that she had been there, dominated the conversation and, on the way out, rearranged the furniture.Sontag's views generally have not received much philosophical attention. Even those who prize her critical work have tended to sell short the early, programmatic essays like "Against Interpretation" and "On Style." Perhaps this neglect is self-wrought. Sontag is often at her best when engaged in what one might call first-order criticism, that is, criticism of particular works of art on their own terms. Her work in critical theory tends to be both abstracting and declamatory and, so, operates against her strong suit. Moreover, Sontag's theory of criticism commits her to [End Page 36] the precedence of critical practice over theorizing. Accordingly, she is led to reduce the importance of those early essays. Yet this is where the interest of philosopher will fall, if indeed it falls at all.Sontag's main concern relevant to the philosophy of literature and to aesthetic theory more broadly is what she takes to be the colonization of aesthetic and critical response by what she terms "theory." Critical response is always, to some degree theoretical of course, so her point cannot be one that is ascribed sometimes to her, i.e., that critical response is supposed to be non-theoretical tout court. An "erotics of art," the famous formula contained in the last sentence of "Against Interpretation," is after all an erotics, which was in the ancient world a genre of theoretical investigation, not erotic experience or even erotica. Criticism can be theoretical in many senses as well. By itself the term "theory" does not rule out much unless one appends to it constraints having to do with the internal structure of bodies of knowledge that either qualify or disqualify them as theories correctly so-called. Sontag seems most concerned about two aspects of theoretical accounts of art: (A) their systematicity and (B) their use of modes of interpretation that undercut the aesthetic nature of works. With regard to (B), she is wary particularly of accounts of literary value that appeal to unconscious or subterranean social forces as determinative of meanings of works. The problem with (A) is that systematicity, she claims, tends toward exclusion and reduction, destroying the particularity of individual works.These two contentions comprise the diagnostic and negative side of Sontag's programmatic work in literary theory, i.e., what is to be avoided in one's experience and judgment of art. What is to be avoided is "interpretation," but what is interpretation exactly? What is the scope of Sontag's claim against it? Do her early essays provide a stable, convincing account of the relation between theory, on the one hand, and experience and criticism, on the other? Is she caught between formalism and a more politically engaged kind of criticism? On the positive side, what kind of critical response to literature is appropriate to its aesthetic nature? Is Sontag's replacement for interpretation viable? Sontag presents her answers to the first set of questions in an unstructured... (shrink)

L'ed. delle Obligationes si basa su quattro mss.: Praha, Knihovni Metropolitni Kapituly, M.CXLV ; Oxford, New College, E 289 ; Praha, Státní Knihóvna CSR, VIII E 11 ; Salamanca, Biblioteca de la Universidad, 2358 . Nell'introduzione l'A. prende in esame la tradizione manoscritta delle opere di Giovanni Tarteys, fornendo anche una breve notizia biografica di questo magister artium attivo ad Oxford tra la fine del Trecento e gli inizi del Quattrocento. Segue un'analisi comparata del De Obligationibus di Giovanni con le (...) trattazioni analoghe di altri maestri, tra i quali Rodolfo Strode, Gualterio Burley, Paolo da Venezia e Giovanni Wyclif. Discussi infine i criteri di edizione. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dimensions of Agency in Lincoln’s Second InauguralAndrew C. HansenSix days before he delivered his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln strode into his White House office. Greeting him were G. B. Lincoln, John A. Bingham, and Francis Carpenter, the last of whom had been living with Lincoln in the White House for six months, painting a portrait of the president reading the Emancipation Proclamation to the cabinet. It is (...) Carpenter's delineation of the president's entrance that contains the "only known description of the preliminaries of the Second Inaugural" (Barondess 1954, 62). "Mr. Lincoln came in through the side passage which had lately been constructed," Carpenter writes, "holding in his hand a roll of manuscripts." Lincoln turned to his guests and quipped, "Lots of wisdom in that document, I suspect; it is what will be called my 'second inaugural' " (quoted in Barondess, 62).The content and modesty of Carpenter's description of the "preliminaries of the Second Inaugural" give the rhetorical critic a telling preview of what might be discovered in a reading of Lincoln's composition of that manuscript. The understatement in the length and simplicity of the address subtly and poignantly charms the reader. And there is "lots of wisdom" in the Second Inaugural: along with the Gettysburg Address, it contains the words of Lincoln that most abide. In a letter to an admiring Thurow Weed, who had penned Lincoln that his inaugural was "the neatest but the most pregnant and effective use to which the English Language was ever put," Lincoln wrote that he "expected" the Second Inaugural to "wear as well as—perhaps better than—anything I have ever produced" (quoted in Barondess 1954, 78).Underscoring Lincoln's perspicacity when he wrote to Weed that he "expected" the speech to "wear well," Carl Schulz's designation of the address as a "sacred poem" and the frequency with which that epithet is quoted by other critics confirm Lincoln's assessment of the oratorical endurance [End Page 223] of the piece. The estimation of the rhetorical durability of the address is perhaps best proven by its ability to withstand the polemics of its detractors, both immediately after its delivery and in successive generations, and the encomia of its admirers, both the obscure journalists and the renowned poets.1 Lately, only praise surrounds the Second Inaugural. Ronald C. White's thorough overview of the Second Inaugural's basic stylistic characteristics and how the oration resonates within Lincoln's social, political, and intellectual context is modestly entitled Lincoln's Greatest Speech (2002). In the last line of Lincoln at Gettysburg, Wills concludes that the Second Inaugural "is the only speech worthy to stand with" the Gettysburg Address (1992, 189) and later argues in the Atlantic Monthly that Lincoln "was at the peak of his creativity when he wrote the Second Inaugural Address" (1999, 70). The Second Inaugural seemingly speaks beyond its content and situation.Contained within the aura of adoration that surrounds the Second Inaugural is a significant charge to the rhetorical critic: what is it particularly about the address that sustains its agency and permits it to escape the evanescence accorded to most rhetorical efforts? When the agency of discourse helps to eliminate or extenuate the immediate exigency that calls forth that speech, it usually becomes remanded to the annals of history and is examined by the public or by scholars only when that historical nidus forces itself back upon the public's or the scholar's attention. The speech is exhausted by its situation and swallowed by its surrounding and future events. There are, however, those speeches like the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural that practice their persuasion on audiences beyond the immediate exigency. They persist, they talk to us still, and their agency endures. Why is this true of Lincoln's Second Inaugural? This is the question that motivates my close reading of Lincoln's speech; and, as I hope to demonstrate, it is only through a close reading that such a question even makes sense. After explicating the scholarship that the Second Inaugural has generated and the critical assumptions that drive my close textual analysis, the essay will proceed with the work... (shrink)

While it is almost always difficult to identify firm relationships between imaginative works of literature and contemporary philosophy, it seems sure that at any particular time literature and philosophy do not float free of each other. There was a particularly solid basis for the connection in the fourteenth century, when philosophical studies were basic in advanced education and major philosopher-theologians like Walter Burley and John Wycliffe were prominent public figures. Yet significant scholarship that relates Chaucer's poetry to the philosophy of (...) the age is quite limited. A major deterrent to scholars has been a misunderstanding of the philosophical temper of England at the time, especially the influence of nominalism. While it is true that William of Ockham , who is generally thought of as the most typical and influential nominalist, taught at Oxford in the early fourteenth century, it is equally a fact that the great Scholastic realist, John Duns Scotus , also lectured at Oxford shortly after 1300, and that it was mainly realism, not nominalism, that held sway in the English schools in the late fourteenth century. The important philosophers whom we associate with the court of Edward III and with Chaucer's sphere of activity were Scholastic realists: Burley, Thomas Bradwardine, Wycliffe, Ralph Strode. Especially in light of the central position of British philosophers in European Scholastic philosophy during the century, and of Chaucer's learning and wide experience, we may assume that he was exposed to current philosophical thought through his training, personal relationships, and the general cultural climate. In all probability the realist position was dominant in what he heard and learned. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 21 Ian Rumfitt has recently drawn our attention to a couple of paradoxes of signification, claiming that although Thomas Bradwardine’s “multiple-meanings” account of truth and signification can solve the first of them, it cannot solve the second. The paradoxes of signification were in fact much discussed by Bradwardine’s successors in the fourteenth century. Bradwardine’s solution appears to turn on a distinction between the principal and the consequential signification of an utterance. However, although such a distinction played (...) an important role in his successors’ theories, it is shown that Bradwardine’s account of signification does not admit any such distinction, no part being prior to the others. Accordingly his solution, unlike those of his successors, does not fall prey to Rumfitt’s paradoxes. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 54, Issue 4, pp 335 - 355 Ian Rumfitt has recently drawn our attention to a couple of paradoxes of signification, claiming that although Thomas Bradwardine’s “multiple-meanings” account of truth and signification can solve the first of them, it cannot solve the second. The paradoxes of signification were in fact much discussed by Bradwardine’s successors in the fourteenth century. Bradwardine’s solution appears to turn on a distinction between the principal and the consequential signification of an utterance. However, (...) although such a distinction played an important role in his successors’ theories, it is shown that Bradwardine’s account of signification does not admit any such distinction, no part being prior to the others. Accordingly his solution, unlike those of his successors, does not fall prey to Rumfitt’s paradoxes. (shrink)