Memory perfttrmattce of 118 individuals who had been iu close dating relationships for at least 3 months was studied. For a memory task ostensibly to be performed by pairs, some Ss were paired..

This study emphasizes that Nietzsche was not finished as a thinker when he collapsed in early January 1889. It is unlikely that he would have returned to and continued Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but he considered publishing the fourth part (which had not yet been published) as a bridge between Zarathustra and the unfinished Revaluation of All Values. More importantly, during his last years he worked hard on revaluing values, often in line with what he had written in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. (...) This present study performs detailed analyses of Nietzsche’s texts and late notes to examine the direction of that unfinished work; it will function as a stimulus to further research on the direction, interpretation and consequences of Nietzsche’s late thought. (shrink)

Few observers of relationship dynamics would dispute the claim of interdependence theorists that a defining feature of close relationships is the extent to which partners influence each other's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. However, partners do not behave simply in response to each other's behavior; both partners in a given relationship bring themselves - indeed, their selves - into the relationship as well. Not only are individuals' selves enormously complex and rich in content, but so too are the multitude (...) of personality characteristics, including traits, values, attitudes, motives, and emotions, that contribute to selves' richness. Gaines, Jr provides a major integration of research on personality with research on relationship science, and demonstrates how personality constructs can be readily incorporated into the two most influential theories of close relationships: attachment theory and interdependence theory. This study will be of value to scholars in the fields of close relationships, personality psychology, communication studies, and family studies. (shrink)

Coregulation refers to the process by which relationship partners form a dyadic emotional system involving an oscillating pattern of affective arousal and dampening that dynamically maintains an optimal emotional state. Coregulation may represent an important form of interpersonal emotion regulation, but confusion exists in the literature due to a lack of precision in the usage of the term. We propose an operational definition for coregulation as a bidirectional linkage of oscillating emotional channels between partners, which contributes to emotional stability for (...) both partners. We propose several distinctions and raise unanswered questions that will need to be addressed in order to understand the relevance of coregulation for well-being in adulthood. (shrink)

The main task of this paper is to draw a normative picture of close interpersonal bonds and demonstrate why they are ethically relevant and important. I start by showing that the notion of ‘close relationships’ is a notion in its own right—overlapping with but not reducible to the notion of ‘love,’ ‘friendship,’ or ‘kinship.’ Then, I go on to discuss particular features of close relationships. I start with consensuality, reciprocity, persistence in time. After that, I (...) move on to non-instrumental treatment and the mutual sharing of responsibility, which is connected with treating the interests of the close other as one’s own. Another features I discuss are truthfulness in the way we narrate our autobiographical stories, openness to the close other’s co-creation of our narrative truth, and the readiness to co-create the narrative truth of the close other in return. Finally, I focus on trust; I show that the kind of trust which is characteristic of close relationships is connected with particular competences that a person should manifest in order to be a trustworthy close-relationship partner. From the fact that no person is morally infallible, it can be inferred that we need to depend on competent others in order to take full respon­sibility for ourselves as moral agents. The people we choose to be in close relationships with are precisely such competent others; they are the guardians and the co-authors of our moral agency and our narrative identity. (shrink)

The essay examines the impartialist view of justice as the first virtue of all relationships. I argue that in close associations where duties, obligations, and rights of persons are situationally contingent, abstract principles of justice fail to yield a unified moral perspective about what is fair. Solidarity and trust as moral emotions develop more complex moral competencies that go beyond what principles of justice alone require.

The study of dyadic coregulation has emerged as a compelling and innovative approach to understanding the links between close relationships and health and functioning. However, the study of dyadic coregulation has been hampered, in part, by the lack of a precise operational definition of the construct and a lack of a framework for systematically evaluating and statistically modeling coregulatory processes. Butler and Randall (2013) present a cogent framework that clearly defines what coregulation is and what it is not, (...) which is critical for advancing this important area of study. Nevertheless, several important questions still remain unaddressed, including the role of individual differences in coregulatory processes; the feasibility of distinguishing between coregulation and related constructs, such as stress-buffering; and potential clinical implications of coregulation. (shrink)

Mentalization is a form of social cognition that enables to perceive and interpret human behaviour in terms of intentional mental states and is influenced by social context. Hence, we examined mentalization related to specific attachment relationships. This study involved 115 participants who reported their relationship-specific and global attachment styles, and perspective-taking tendency towards their attachment figures. Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task-Revised was used as a proxy for mentalization disregarding relationships. The results showed that perspective-taking was associated (...) with relationship-specific attachment avoidance whereas global characteristics of mentalization were not related to attachment quality. Our findings indicate that the link between attachment quality and mentalization is relationship-specific. (shrink)

This paper explores the compatibility between the Daoist art of emptying one’s heart-mind and the art of creating close relationships. The fact that a Daoist sage is characterized by an empty heart-mind makes him somewhat different from an average human being: since a full heart-mind is characteristic of the human condition, the sage transcends what makes us human. This could alienate him from others and make him incapable of developing close relationships. The research goal of this (...) paper is to investigate whether – in spite of being an unusual human being – a Daoist sage has the abilities necessary for creating close bonds with others. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Anthony Close THE EMPIRICAL AUTHOR: SALMAN RUSHDIE'S THE SATANIC VERSES HOBBES, comparing the author ofan action to the owner ofgoods, asserts, "And as the right of possession, is called dominion; so the right of doing any action, is called authority" (Leviathan, Book I, chap. 16). My purpose in this essay is to apply this Hobbesian maxim to the relation Author/Text, expanding somewhat Hobbes's notion of authority. I presuppose (...) that in our day-to-day dealings with our fellow men, we envisage each others' acts as exhibiting purpose and commitment, which make them ours in more than the platitudinous sense that we performed them. By virtue of that, they confer on us a privileged, though clearly not unchallengeable, authority in saying what they are and what they are for. Such, in effect, is the position reached by Austin in How to Do Things with Words, and it broadly corresponds to that of various philosophical writings on human action—by Anscombe, Davidson, and Melden.1 To be sure, we may legitimately consider human behavior from other viewpoints (e.g., structuralist, anthropological, psychoanalytical, Marxist) trained on its unconscious presuppositions. Yet, insofar as such theorizing fails to acknowledge the priority of the Hobbesian perspective, it will seem perverse for a reason that has been well put by Charles Taylor. Precisely because history is made up of purposeful activity, Taylor argues, we need to explain historical patterns in a way that is "intelligible in relation to conscious action" even though they may not "issue from conscious action."2 By this criterion much of our modern literary theory is defective. A vivid measure of the deficiency is provided by the furor over Salman Rushdie's TL· Satanic Verses, culminatingin thefatwa pronounced against Philosophy and Literature, © 1990, 14: 248-267 Anthony Close249 him by the Ayatollah Khomeini in February 1989. I take it that for anyone vocationally committed to the practice or study ofliterature and to the cause of freedom of expression, the defense of Rushdie cannot be a matter of indifference. Nor can one be indifferent to the chasm of misunderstanding that separates Rushdie and his apologists from the novel's Muslim opponents. I believe that these two causes—defending Rushdie and bridging the chasm—can be reconciled by offering better explanations ofhis novel in place ofcrude denunciations or, from some non-Muslim quarters, smug and knowing dismissals. Yet, as we shall see, the task of explanation could be considered hamstrung by our modern poetics. I was reminded ofHobbes's textby Rushdie's lucid and cogent defense of his novel in TL· Independent (London, February 4, 1990). Against the accusations that he had deliberately reviled the Islamic faith, he argued as follows. Though TL· Satanic Verses, like many novels that Rushdie esteems, is a work of radical dissent, questioning, and reimagining, it is motivated by a spirit of serious inquiry rather than debunking derision. More particularly, it reflects a determination that underlies all Rushdie's work: "to create a literary language and literary forms in which the experience offormerly-colonised, still-disadvantaged peoples might find full expression." He continues: "It is written from the very experience of uprooting, disjuncture and metamorphosis... that is the migrant condition, and from which, I believe, can be derived a metaphor for all humanity.... [It] celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs. It rejoices in mongrelisation and fears the absolutism of the Pure." Note the insistence on how these themes flow direcdy from Rushdie's own experience. Two days after the publication of this article, Harold Pinter gave on Rushdie's behalf a lecture on the relationship of literature to religion and society at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. In this lecture, Rushdie articulated a Bakhtinian view of the novelist's function: to dramatize ironically and noncommittally the clash of voices, languages, and ideologies in a world without gods and without traditionsanctioned truth. Rushdie referred specifically, I think, to a species of postmodernist novel which we may dub "palimpsest history";3 the species includes Rushdie's works, García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Carlos Fuentes's Terra Nostra... (shrink)

This manuscript examines argument engagement in close relationships. Two pilot studies were conducted to identify what factors naïve actors report matter to them when considering whether to engage in an interpersonal argument, and to develop and pre-test measurement scales for these factors. The main study examined which of these factors predicted participants’ behavioral intent to engage in an argument about different topics and with different partners. Results indicated intent to engage was predicted by five factors: one’s orientation to (...) the topic, one’s preparedness for an argument, the costs of arguing, the effort involved in arguing, and one’s right to speak one’s mind. Several of these factors are new contributions to argument engagement research. A discussion of these results and their implications are presented. (shrink)

Background In June 2016, Canada legalized medical assistance in dying (MAiD). From the outset, some healthcare institutions (including faith-based and non-faith-based hospitals, hospices, and residential aged care facilities) have refused to allow aspects of MAiD onsite, resulting in patient transfers for MAiD assessments and provision. There have been media reports highlighting the negative consequences of these “institutional objections”, however, very little research has examined their nature and impact. Methods This study reports on findings from 48 semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with (...) MAiD assessors and providers, MAiD team members (working to coordinate care and lead MAiD programs in institutions and health authorities), and family caregivers on their experiences with institutional objection. Participants were recruited from the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. Data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Results Themes identified were: (1) basis for institutional objection (with objections commonly rooted in religious values and a particular philosophy of palliative care); (2) scope of objection (demonstrating a wide range of practices objected to); (3) lack of transparency regarding institutional position; (4) impacts on patients; (5) impacts on health practitioners; and (6) catalysts for change. Participants reported that many institutions’ objections had softened over time, lessening barriers to MAiD access and adverse impacts on patients and health practitioners. Participants attributed this positive change to a range of catalysts including advocacy by health practitioners and family members, policymaking by local health authorities, education, and relationship building. Nevertheless, some institutions, particularly faith-based ones, retained strong objections to MAiD, resulting in forced transfers and negative emotional and psychological impacts on patients, family members, and health practitioners. Conclusions This paper adds to the limited evidence base about the impacts of institutional objection and can inform practical and regulatory solutions in Canada and abroad. Reform is needed to minimize the negative impacts on patients, their caregivers, and health practitioners involved in MAiD practice. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt’s exposition of the human condition provides the basic framework for a theoretical perspective on close relationships. According to Arendt, the human condition is comprised of three modes of activity: labor, work, and action. Labor is need-driven behavior, work concerns goal-directed activity and the fabrication of things, and action involves the mutual validation of unique individuals. Within this framework, the gift is the means by which relational ties are made concrete. I propose a model of gift-giving organized (...) by two axes: whether or not the partner is singularized by the gift and whether or not the gift is given with an expectation of a return gift. I then apply this model to the three modes of the human condition. (shrink)

Fifty-five 4-year-old children took part in a study focused on children's accounts of the situations that caused happiness, anger, sadness and fear in themselves, their friends, and their mothers. Themes, agents, and adequacy of accounts were studied at two time points. Interpersonal causes of anger and happiness were cited by many children; confusion about causes of anger and sadness was not evident, although the notion of loss and controllability as factors distinguishing causes of anger versus sadness found some support. Accounts (...) for self, friend, and mother differed considerably, suggesting emotion understanding could usefully be considered in relation to specific relationships. Analysis of individual differences showed that children who scored high on deception, emotion understanding, and false belief tasks at 47 months gave more adequate and differentiated accounts of mothers' and friends' emotions seven months later. Implications for our views of children's close relationships are discussed. (shrink)

This paper challenges a common dogma of the literature on forgiveness: that only victims have the standing to forgive. Attacks on third-party forgiveness generally come in two forms. One form of attack suggests that it follows from the nature of forgiveness that third-party forgiveness is impossible. Another form of attack suggests that although third-party forgiveness is possible, it is always improper or morally inappropriate for third parties to forgive. I argue against both of these claims; third-party forgiveness is possible, and (...) in some cases it is morally appropriate for third parties to forgive (or refuse to forgive) wrongdoers for wrongs done to victims. I also propose an explanation of third parties’ standing to forgive: third parties have the standing to forgive when it is appropriate for them to take wrongs done to victims ‘personally’. While appropriately ‘taking a wrong personally’ does not require seeing oneself as a victim, it typically does require being in some form of personal relationship with victims. Thus, while the standing to forgive is not grounded exclusively in having been wronged, the prerogative to forgive is normally limited to victims and their loved ones. And once we recognize the importance of third-party forgiveness in our moral lives and the norms that govern it, we can more easily adjudicate between competing accounts of the nature of forgiveness.​. (shrink)

This article presents a quantitative analysis of how different socio-cultural factors, including lifestyle, affect the extent to which different media are perceived as indispensable for maintaining close relations with family and friends. Through applying ‘indispensability’ as an indicator of the mediatization of social life, the study provides a concrete illustration of how mediatization is continuously molded through socio-cultural processes in everyday life. The results are based on a national survey conducted in Sweden and show that e-mail and video calls (...) constitute a culturally distinctive ensemble of communication, especially in comparison to online chat functions and Facebook. E-mail is valued especially among people with higher education who lead globally oriented lifestyles thus testifying to the enduring status of text-based communication in the longer format as a cultural marker. The study thus suggests that the modalities of communication that certain media make possible are important to how these media are perceived as cultural properties as well as social technics. (shrink)

Social robots and their interactions with children are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with the emergence of child-robot relationships as a likely result. However, adequate measurement instruments that tap into concepts associated with child-robot relationship formation are scarce. We aimed to develop three measures that can be used to assess children’s closeness to, trust in, and perceived social support from, a social robot. We established the validity and reliability of these measures among 87 Dutch children aged 7 to 11 years old. (...) Because of their shortness, the measures can efficiently be applied by scholars aiming to gain insight into the general process of child-robot relationship formation and its specific sub-processes, that is, the emergence of closeness, trust, and perceived social support. (shrink)

Social robots and their interactions with children are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with the emergence of child-robot relationships as a likely result. However, adequate measurement instruments that tap into concepts associated with child-robot relationship formation are scarce. We aimed to develop three measures that can be used to assess children’s closeness to, trust in, and perceived social support from, a social robot. We established the validity and reliability of these measures among 87 Dutch children aged 7 to 11 years old. (...) Because of their shortness, the measures can efficiently be applied by scholars aiming to gain insight into the general process of child-robot relationship formation and its specific sub-processes, that is, the emergence of closeness, trust, and perceived social support. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Close Enemies: The Relationship of Psychiatry and Psychology in the Assessment of Mental DisordersPhilippe Le Moigne, PhDAs Peter Zachar rightly points out in his comment, the assessment of mental disorders underwent new developments with the release of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-V in 2013 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Whereas in 1980, the manual had been thought of in a rigorously categorical way, on the basis (...) of distinct and closed syndromic entities, this new version advocated the development of a radically dimensionalist approach, with the diagnosis aiming this time to restore the whole symptomatological picture of the patient on a spectrum of ratings are supposed to cover the entirety of psychiatric semiology (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).For its part, my article aimed to show how standardized assessment, guided by the return of psychiatry’s authority and the assertion of its legitimacy in the diagnostic field, gave the ascendancy in the 1980s to the classificatory tradition and thus to the categorical model, to the detriment of personality approach and test psychology which offered a competing solution here. This perspective, historically dated, may have led the reader to think that there is an antagonism that cannot be overcome here. Rather, it should be seen as a form of structuring opposition, or even a “complementarity inscribed in rivalry,” between psychiatry and psychology, which is naturally susceptible to change over time.Indeed, the reversal operated by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-V is not total because it cannot be total. The defense of the dimensionalist approach, dear to the psychological testing tradition, was intended here to allow the identification of co-morbidities, present in most patients but poorly apprehended by the categorical approach, and to open up diagnosis to prevention by screening for minor manifestations of psychopathology when they suggest the [End Page 259] development of a manifest episode of the disease in the more or less long term. The risk here is that we end up with overdiagnosis and thus an over-representation of false positives (Wakefield, 2015). In other words, this type of approach does not escape the obligation to determine threshold scores, likely to indicate the lower limit of the disorder, and thus to resort to a categorical approach. There is a first affinity between the two perspectives which obeys, beyond the divergences in principle, a technical requirement.But the two approaches have even more in common when we look at their epistemological background: they share the idea that the representation and the intervention on mental disorder, to use Ian Hacking’s expression (1983), must be based on the model proposed by the physical and natural sciences. And as Greta Kaluzeviciute aptly points out in her comment, this orientation leads to the idea of measuring mental disorder in particular to conduct elaborate quantification operations to determine, for example, whether two entities are statistically distinct or whether a drug has a significant effect on the evolution of a pathology.This is in fact an old question that can be formulated as follows, to use the expression of the psychometrician Joel Michell (1999): are psychological dimensions metric? In other words, if we want to apply the language of numbers to mental disorders, they must share its properties, two of which seem essential: it must be possible to establish that each mental disorder, in the same way as qualities attributable to length for example, has a zero and can be divided by means of gradients (or degrees of intensity) whose interval is constant (Le Moigne, 2018; Michell, 1999). For lack of space, let us only address the second condition. This one has already been denied by many, starting with Bergson at the end of the nineteenth century (1889). He does not believe in the quantification of psychological expressions, starting with sensations. What is the common point, he wrote, between the feeling of a mild pain, as one feels a stiffness, and the sensation of a needle being hammered into your flesh? For him, one and the other of these intensities are incomparable, so that they do not belong to a similar register of sensations that one could stage from a 0 toward a... (shrink)

Professors are increasingly encouraged to adopt multiple role relationships with their students. Regardless of professor intent, these relationships carry risks. Left unexamined is whether student–faculty social multiple relationships impact student in-class behaviors. Provocatively, our exploratory study provides empirical support suggesting that when undergraduate students perceive that their professors engage in the multiple faculty–student relationships of friendships, drinking (alcohol) relationships, and sexual partnerships, students report they are more likely to engage in uncivil behaviors in the professor’s (...) classroom. Accordingly, our study provides a backdrop against which to think more substantively about the professorial role and the boundaries that accompany it. (shrink)

This paper argues that close personal relationships play an important role in our judgments about what is fair. I start with an explanation of leading theories of fairness, highlighting the potential for further work on the grounds of fairness. Next, I offer an account of close personal relationships as having the ability to generate legitimate and reasonable expectations of one or other party to a judgment about fairness, or both. I show how and when close (...) personal relationships can ground fairness. (shrink)

Friendship is undoubtedly perceived by individuals as a close relationship—based on a special bond and commitment. However, it is a relationship that is very limitedly regulated by the law and is not explicitly labeled as close by legislators. In this study, three research goals were set. The first goal is to determine how friendship is characterized in legal acts, legal literature, and judicial decisions. Marriage, parenthood, or even romantic relationships are to some extent protected by the law, (...) each to varying degrees. Friendship, on the other hand, differs as it does not appear in legal acts in the context of interpersonal relations. Nevertheless, friendship is not absent from legal discourse. This is because, at times, the object of protection in Polish law is not so much marriage, parenthood, etc., but broadly defined "closeness." For this reason, it was determined if and when friendship is considered a "close relationship" (goal 2). Third, with reference to the results obtained earlier, the costs and benefits of the residual coverage of friendship under the law were considered (goal 3). The primary context for these considerations was Polish legislation with incidental references to other legal systems. (shrink)

오늘날 산업 현장이나 대학교육에서 융복합이 메가트렌드가 되었으며 신화적 힘을 발휘하고 있다. 융복합 교육에 대한 철학적 담론도 지속적으로 이루어지고 있다. 위 담론에서 논자들은 많은 경우 융합학, 융복합, 학제간 연구를 혼용하는 문제를 안고 있다. 심지어 특정주제에 대한 철학적 성찰을 융복합으로 이해하는 경우도 있다. 융복합 시대에 철학의 역할에 대한 논의에 참여하는 논자들은 철학의 본래적 성격에 근거해 융복합 교육에서 철학이 주역이 될 수 있다고 주장한다. 이 논문은 그와 같은 주장의 근거가 약함을 보여줄 것이다. 전국의 많은 대학에서 철학에 기반을 둔 융복합 교과목을 개발 · 운영 (...) 한고 있다. 이와 관련해 이 논문은 기존에 운영되고 있는 교과목들이 융복합 교과목으로서의 요건을 충족시키는데 많은 한계가 있다는 점을 세 개의 사례분석을 통해 보여줄 것이다. 철학은 융복합 교육의 정당성을 부여하는 역할, 융복합 교육의 주역이 되기 이전에 융복합의 신화에 대한 분석과 계몽을 시도해야 한다. (shrink)

Background: Newer “closed-loop” neurostimulation devices in development could, in theory, induce changes to patients’ personalities and self-perceptions. Empirically, however, only limited data of patient and family experiences exist. Responsive neurostimulation (RNS) as a treatment for refractory epilepsy is the first approved and commercially available closed-loop brain stimulation system in clinical practice, presenting an opportunity to observe how conceptual neuroethical concerns manifest in clinical treatment. Methods: We conducted ethnographic research at a single academic medical center with an active RNS treatment program (...) and collected data via direct observation of clinic visits and in-depth interviews with 12 patients and their caregivers. We used deductive and inductive analyses to identify the relationship between these devices and patient changes in personality and self-perception. Results: Participants generally did not attribute changes in patients’ personalities or self-perception to implantation of or stimulation using RNS. They did report that RNS affected patients’ experiences and conceptions of illness. In particular, the capacity to store and display electrophysiological data produced a common frame of reference and a shared vocabulary among patients and clinicians .Discussion: Empirical experiences of a clinical population being treated with closed-loop neuromodulation do not corroborate theoretical concerns about RNS devices described by neuroethicists and technology developers. However, closed-loop devices demonstrated an ability to change illness experiences. Even without altering identify and self-perception, they provided new cultural tools and metaphors for conceiving of epilepsy as an illness and of the process of diagnosis and treatment. These findings call attention to the need to situate neuroethical concerns in the broader contexts of patients’ illness experiences and social circumstances. (shrink)

This study explores the linear logic between consumer ethical beliefs (CEBs) and consumer unethical behavior (CUB) in a Chinese context. A relational view helps fill the belief–behavior gap by exploring the moderating role of relationship quality in reducing CUBs. Specifically, when consumers are more receptive to a set of actions that may be deemed inappropriate by moral principles, they are more likely to engage in unethical behaviors. However, when consumers perceive their misconduct as possibly damaging to the relationship developed with (...) the seller, they tend to refrain from unethical behaviors. CEBs and relationship quality also combine to affect unethical behaviors. Although consumers find the misconduct acceptable according to their ethical beliefs, they become less likely to conduct the behavior if they have a close relationship with the seller. The results contribute to a better understanding of the simplistic logic that connects CEBs and their unethical behaviors and shed light on how close relationships with consumers help contain CUBs. (shrink)

Recent research suggests an “Internet paradox”—that a communications technology might reduce social involvement and psychological well–being. In this article I examine some of the limitations of current Internet communication, including those of access, medium, presentation, and choice, that bear on the formation and maintenance of social relationships. I also explore issues central to human meaning in a technological culture—those of the history of the self, of individuality, and of human relationships—and suggest that social forces, technological and otherwise, have (...) increasingly eroded our social interconnectedness and even produced psychological fragmentation. Finally, by considering the psychology of privacy, subjectivity, and intimacy, I look at the historical and developmental processes of internalization by which we construct the “virtual interior” of mind. Understanding this link between human meaning and technological culture, in the form and pattern of our virtual interiors, may help us to see opportunities as well as dangers for the growth of our humanity, our ethics, and our spirituality. (shrink)

This article analyses domestic and foreign reactions to a 2008 report in the British Medical Journal on the complementary and, as argued, synergistic relationship between palliative care and euthanasia in Belgium. The earliest initiators of palliative care in Belgium in the late 1970s held the view that access to proper palliative care was a precondition for euthanasia to be acceptable and that euthanasia and palliative care could, and should, develop together. Advocates of euthanasia including author Jan Bernheim, independent from but (...) together with British expatriates, were among the founders of what was probably the first palliative care service in Europe outside of the United Kingdom. In what has become known as the Belgian model of integral end-of-life care, euthanasia is an available option, also at the end of a palliative care pathway. This approach became the majority view among the wider Belgian public, palliative care workers, other health professionals, and legislators. The legal regulation of euthanasia in 2002 was preceded and followed by a considerable expansion of palliative care services. It is argued that this synergistic development was made possible by public confidence in the health care system and widespread progressive social attitudes that gave rise to a high level of community support for both palliative care and euthanasia. The Belgian model of so-called integral end-of-life care is continuing to evolve, with constant scrutiny of practice and improvements to procedures. It still exhibits several imperfections, for which some solutions are being developed. This article analyses this model by way of answers to a series of questions posed by Journal of Bioethical Inquiry consulting editor Michael Ashby to the Belgian authors. (shrink)

In this paper we extend of the notion of algebraically closed given in the case of groups and skew fields to an arbitrary h-inductive theory. The main subject of this paper is the study of the notion of positive algebraic closedness and its relationship with the notion of positive closedness and the amalgamation property.

Looking closely at Adam Smith’s account of the spectator perspective – along with the compatible spectator accounts in Hutcheson and Hume – is especiallyhelpful to understanding one of the main themes of the Scottish Enlightenment. The Scots in response to Hobbesian egoism described a morality that does not need to overcome a human nature that pits individuals against each other. Rather each of the three Scots describes the empirical formation of our humanity and our moral sentiments in the context of (...) relating to and observing others. The three spectator accounts of Smith, Hutcheson, and Hume clearly describe this involvement of others in the formation of morality. Adam Smith explicitly gives an accounting of the importance and, in fact, necessity of others in the formulating of not only our moral evaluations but also the very possibility of understanding one’s humanity and having an idea of morality at all. In this paper, I explain Smith’s account specifically along with its similarity to Hutcheson’s and Hume’s and argue that these empiricists ground moral sentiments in person to person relationships. For the three Scots, being human and developing a morality is begun in interactions with others. We formulate who it is we are and can be and determine acceptable ways to interact in the company of others. (shrink)

A successful student has been defined as one who not only performs well in academics but is also happy. Hence, how to promote adolescents’ academic success and wellbeing is an important issue with which researchers have been concerned. A few studies have explored the relationship of filial piety to the academic achievement or life satisfaction of Chinese adolescents. However, in view of the close relationship between the two outcomes, the unique effects of filial piety on academic achievement and subjective (...) wellbeing and their underlying mechanisms need to be further clarified. Based on a sample of 677 students in Grade 6 (Mage = 12.24, SD = 0.36) and their parents in Beijing, China, this study examines how adolescents’ reciprocal filial piety (RFP) and authoritarian filial piety (AFP) are related to their academic achievement and subjective wellbeing. It also examines the mediating role of adolescents’ educational expectations in these relationships, and the moderating role of parents’ educational expectations in the relationships of adolescents’ filial piety to educational expectations and of adolescents’ educational expectations to academic achievement and subjective wellbeing. The results indicate that, when the two outcome factors are considered simultaneously, RFP is positively related to academic achievement and subjective wellbeing. In contrast, AFP is negatively related to academic achievement but not significantly related to subjective wellbeing. Moreover, adolescents’ educational expectations play a mediating role in the relationships of both RFP and AFP to academic achievement and subjective wellbeing. In addition, the positive effect of adolescents’ educational expectations on subjective wellbeing is stronger when mothers’ educational expectations are higher, supporting the moderating role of parents’ educational expectations. Our findings provide new insights into and implications for the moderated mediation mechanism underlying the links between filial piety and early adolescent development. (shrink)

In interprofessional clinical teams, the patients have interpersonal relationships with several practitioners. The aim of this study was to explore patients’ and practitioners’ perceptions of how such relationships may contribute to promote the whole team’s respect for the patient’s autonomy, as interpersonal patient–provider relationships may contribute to enhance patient autonomy. Sixteen qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 informants, including patients, nurses, physiotherapists, and physicians from three rehabilitation teams. Data were analysed according to Grounded Theory procedures. The (...) informants discussed interpersonal relationships as an integral and significant part of the team work. The practitioners tried to adjust their professional approach to the patients’ genuine opinions and let patients decide the teams’ goals. Close relationships with patients could be important to accomplish this, particularly described by nurses and physiotherapists, who could facilitate the communication with the rest of the team. (shrink)

In this chapter, I revisit the issue of the explanatory gap that is supposed to open when considering identity statements between physical and mental phenomena. I show that the question asked in the original formulation of the explanatory gap was this: ʻwhy this phenomenal character, rather than any other, is attached to this physiological process?ʼ I argue that this question can be answered, because there is a natural fit between the phenomenal character of experiences and their functional roles. For example, (...) pains feel inherently unpleasant, and that explains why they cause avoidance behaviour, and the felt location and intensity of pain indicates the location and extent of damage to the body. I discuss some other possible gaps in our understanding the relationship between the mental and the physical, and conclude that the fit between functional role and phenomenal character goes a long way, though probably not the whole way, to closing the explanatory gap. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between friendship and morality. Two ideas have been influential in the history of moral philosophy: the impartial standpoint and close friendship. These two perspectives on thought and action can conflict, however, and such a case is presented here. In an attempt to resolve these tensions, and understand the assumption that gives rise to it, I explore an alternative conception of moral conduct and friendship suggested by early Confucian thought. Within this account, moral conduct is (...) that which aims at harmony, understood as the appropriate blending of different elements. This suggests a conception of friendship that realizes harmony through a focus on shared activities, and the quality of interaction achieved between people as they participate in shared social events. This account offers a novel way of conceptualizing friendship, which also avoids the tension between the impartial standpoint and close friendship. (shrink)