Garrett Cullity contends that fairness is appropriate impartiality (See Cullity (2004) Chapters 8 and 10 and Cullity (2008)). Cullity deploys his account of fairness as a means of limiting the extreme moral demand to make sacrifices in order to aid others that was posed by Peter Singer in his seminal article ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’. My paper is founded upon the combination of (1) the observation that the idea that fairness consists in appropriate impartiality is very vague and (2) the (...) fact that psychological studies show the self-serving bias is especially likely to infect one’s judgements when the ideas involved are vague. I argue that Cullity’s solution to extreme moral demandingness is threatened by these findings. I then comment on whether some other theories of fairness are vulnerable to the same objection. (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.

Problematic substance use (PSU) among nurses has wide‐ranging adverse implications. A critical integrative literature review was conducted with an emphasis on building knowledge regarding the influence of structural factors within nurses' professional environments on nurses with PSU. Five thematic categories emerged: (i) access, (ii) stress, and (iii) attitudes as contributory factors, (iv) treatment policies for nurses with PSU, and (v) the culture of the nursing profession. Conclusions were that an overemphasis on individual culpability and failing predominates in the literature and (...) that crucial knowledge gaps exist regarding the influence of structural factors on driving and shaping nurses' substance use. (shrink)

While vaccination rates in the United States are high — generally over 90 percent — rates of exemptions have been going up, and preventable diseases coming back. Aside from their human cost and the financial cost of treatment imposed on those who become ill, outbreaks impose financial costs on an already burdened public health system, diverting resources from other areas. This article examines the financial costs of non-vaccination, showing how high they can be and what they include. It makes a (...) case for requiring those who do not vaccinate to cover the costs of outbreak caused by their choice. Such recouping is justified because the choice not to vaccinate can easily be seen as negligent. But even if it is not, that choice involves imposing costs on others, and there are good reasons to require the actors to internalize those costs. The article proposes alternative statutory and regulatory schemes to cover the costs imposed on the public purse, focusing on no-fault mechanisms. We consider both ex ante mechanisms like a tax or a fee that will go into a no-fault fund to cover the costs and ex post mechanisms like a statutory authorization for recoupment of those costs by health officials. (shrink)

Nurses’ experiences in, and the overall effectiveness of, widely used alternative‐to‐discipline programs to manage nurses’ substance‐use problems have not been adequately scrutinized. We uncovered the conflicted official and experiential ways of knowing one such alternative‐to‐discipline program in a Canadian province. We explicated this conflict through an institutional ethnography analysis. Ethnographic data from interviews with 12 nurses who were enrolled in an alternative‐to‐discipline treatment program and three program administrators, as well as institutional texts, were analyzed to explore how institutional practices and (...) power relations co‐ordinated and managed nurses’ experiences. Analysis revealed the acritical acceptance of a standardized program not based on current norms of practice. Potential and actual conflicts of interest, power imbalances, and prevailing corporate interests were rife. Nurses were not afforded the same rights to quality ethical health care as other citizens. ‘Expert’ physicians’ knowledge was privileged while nurses’ knowledge was subordinated. Conclusions were that regulatory bodies cannot rely on the taken‐for‐granted standardized treatment model in widespread use. Individualized treatment alternatives reflecting current, scientific evidence must be offered to nurses, and nurses’ knowledge, expertise, and experiences need to be included in decision‐making processes in these programs. (shrink)

Marcus Arvan’s Rightness as Fairness is a highly ambitious book. In fewer than 230 pages, Arvan hopes to demonstrate that we ought to evaluate moral theories in a similar manner to the sciences, that existing moral theories fall short on that evaluation, that moral normativity reduces to instrumental rationality, and that a new theory of rightness as fairness meets the scientific evaluative standards better than any of the alternatives. I’m afraid I was unconvinced that we should abandon our preferred moral (...) theories in favor of rightness as fairness. (shrink)

Marcus Arvan’s Rightness as Fairness is a highly ambitious book. In fewer than 230 pages, hopes to demonstrate that we ought to evaluate moral theories in a similar manner to sciences, that existing moral theories fall short on that evaluation, that moral normativity reduces to instrumental rationality, and that a new theory of ‘rightness as fairness’ meets the scientific evaluative standards better than any of the alternatives.

The punchy central claim of Torbjörn Tännsjö's book is that act-utilitarianism best explains our considered intuitions about the moral status of different kinds of killing. An interesting aspect of this book is Tännsjö's revisionary methodology, which he names 'Applied Ethics (Turned Upside Down)'. So, why does Tännsjö choose applied ethics (turned upside down) to argue for act-utilitarianism's role in explaining our considered intuitions about killing and what, exactly, is his innovative method of moral investigation?

Previous research suggests that exposure to nature may reduce delay discounting and thereby facilitate healthier dietary intake. This pre-registered study examined the impact of online exposure to images of natural scenes on delay discounting and food preferences. It was predicted that exposure to images of natural scenes would be associated with: lower delay discounting; higher desirability for fruits and vegetables ; and delay discounting would mediate the effect of nature-image exposure on food desirability. Adult participants were recruited to an online (...) between-subjects experiment in which they viewed a timed sequence of six images either showing natural landscape scenes or urban scenes. They then completed measures of mood, delay discounting and rated their momentary desire to eat four fruits and vegetables, and four energy-dense foods. There was no statistically significant effect of experimental condition on delay discounting or food desirability. Bayes factors supported the null hypothesis for discounting, and energy-dense food desirability, but provided no strong evidence for either hypothesis for F&V desirability. These findings indicate that brief online exposure to images of nature does not affect momentary impulsivity or energy-dense food preference, whereas for preference for less-energy dense foods, the evidence was inconclusive. (shrink)

Betrachtet man den Gebrauch der Worte ‘Moral’ und ‘Vernunft’ etwas genauer, so stellt man fest, dass nicht klar ist, was sie bezeichnen bzw. wie Moral und Vernunft zusammenhängen. In dem Buch ‘Rationalität in der Angewandten Ethik’, in dem sich verschiedene Autoren die Aufgabe gestellt haben, diese Umstände in das Licht der Betrachtung zu rücken, finden wir Fragen darüber, wie “Moral”, “Angewandte Ethik” und “Vernunft” (auch in der Anwendung) zu verstehen und zu vereinen sind.

Stem cells may have a special importance in the neoplastic behavior of certain lineages as well as in the normal development of these tissues. The role of oncogenes, and their normal cellular analogues, in stem cell behavior is therefore of special interest. This review describes recent results on the effects of virally‐mediated src‐gene transfer into hemopoietic stem cells in the physiological and developmental properties of these cells.

Transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4), a member of the TRP superfamily, is a broadly expressed, cell surface‐localized cation channel that is activated by a variety of environmental stimuli. Importantly, TRPV4 has been increasingly implicated in the regulation of cellular morphology. Here we propose that TRPV4 and the cytoskeletal remodeling small GTPase RhoA together constitute an environmentally sensitive signaling complex that contributes to pathological cell cytoskeletal alterations during neurological injury and disease. Supporting this hypothesis is our recent work demonstrating direct (...) physical and bidirectional functional interactions of TRPV4 with RhoA, which can lead to activation of RhoA and reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton. Furthermore, a confluence of evidence implicates TRPV4 and/or RhoA in pathological responses triggered by a range of acute neurological insults ranging from stroke to traumatic injury. While initiated by a variety of insults, TRPV4–RhoA signaling may represent a common pathway that disrupts axonal regeneration and blood–brain barrier integrity. These insights also suggest that TRPV4 inhibition may represent a safe, feasible, and precise therapeutic strategy for limiting pathological TRPV4–RhoA activation in a range of neurological diseases. (shrink)

BackgroundConcerns about decision making related to resuscitation have led to two important challenges in the courts resulting in new legal precedents for decision-making practice. Systematic research investigating the experiences of doctors involved in decisions about resuscitation in light of the recent changes in law remains lacking.AimTo analyse the practice of resuscitation decision making on hospital wards from the perspectives of doctors.DesignThe data presented in this paper were collected as part of a wider research study of end-of-life care in an acute (...) hospital setting. Data collection comprised ethnographic non-participant observation on two acute hospital wards and individual interviews with patients, relatives and healthcare professionals caring for patients thought to be approaching the end of life. Data were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach.ResultsDiscussions and decision making about resuscitation present many challenges for those involved on acute medical wards. The data highlight the potential for multiple interpretations of legal precedents, creating misunderstandings that may impact patient care in less positive ways.ConclusionsThis paper provides unique insights into how doctors respond to the changing medico-legal culture and the subsequent effects on patient care. It demonstrates how the juridification of medical practice can occur. It highlights the potential benefit of a structure to support clinicians, patients and relatives in discussing and navigating decisions around care at the end of life in line with the patient’s wishes and preferences. Recommendations for future research are made and legal ramifications are discussed. (shrink)

Animals do a wide range of work in our society, but they are rarely recognized as workers or accorded any labour rights, and their working conditions are often oppressive and exploitative. Drawing on law, ethics, and labour studies, the essays in this volume explore the potential and dangers of animal labour.

ABSTRACT When does a state of affairs constitute a harm to someone? Comparative accounts say that being worse off constitutes harm. The temporal version of the comparative account is seldom taken seriously, due to apparently fatal counterexamples. I defend the temporal version against these counterexamples, and show that it is in fact more plausible than the prominent counterfactual version of the account. Non-comparative accounts say that being badly off constitutes harm. However, neither the temporal comparative account nor the non-comparative account (...) can correctly classify all harms. I argue that we should combine them into a hybrid account of harm. The hybrid account is extensionally adequate and presents a unified view on the nature of harm. (shrink)

The current research investigated the role of gratitude in economic decisions about offers that vary in fairness yet benefit both parties if accepted. Participants completed a trait/dispositional gratitude measure and then were randomly assigned to recall either an event that made them feel grateful or the events of a typical day. After the gratitude induction task, participants played the ultimatum game, deciding whether to accept or reject fair offers and unfair offers from different proposers. Results showed that trait gratitude was (...) positively correlated with respondents’ acceptance of unfair offers. However, experimentally induced momentary gratitude did not influence acceptance of unfair offers. The trait or disposition to be grateful involves the enduring capacity across different types of situations and benefactors to see the good that is present, even when that benefit is small. Accordingly, dispositional gratitude – but not momentarily induced gratitude – was associated with a greater propensity to accept even the small benefits within unfair offers which otherwise pose barriers to making the effective economic decision of accepting offers regardless of their relative size. (shrink)

In a criminal trial, a judge or jury needs to reason about what happened based on the available evidence, often including statistical evidence. While a probabilistic approach is suitable for analysing the statistical evidence, a judge or jury may be more inclined to use a narrative or argumentative approach when considering the case as a whole. In this paper we propose a combination of two approaches, combining Bayesian networks with scenarios. Whereas a Bayesian network is a popular tool for analysing (...) parts of a case, constructing and understanding a network for an entire case is not straightforward. We propose an explanation method for understanding a Bayesian network in terms of scenarios. This method builds on a previously proposed construction method, which we slightly adapt with the use of scenario schemes for the purpose of explaining. The resulting structure is explained in terms of scenarios, scenario quality and evidential support. A probabilistic interpretation of scenario quality is provided using the concept of scenario schemes. Finally, the method is evaluated by means of a case study. (shrink)

While Hegel's metaphysics was long reviled, it has garnered more interest in recent years, with even the so-called non-metaphysical Hegelians starting to explicitly discuss Hegel’s metaphysical commitments. This brings up the old question: what are the social-philosophical implications of Hegel’s metaphysics? This chapter provides a unique answer to this question by contrasting the former non-metaphysical reading (as developed by Robert Pippin) with a traditional way of interpreting Hegel’s metaphysics and social philosophy, whose lineage includes not Wittgenstein, Sellars, or Brandom, but (...) rather Schelling, Marx, and Adorno. After discussing the two varieties of metaphysics (Sections 1–3), I will argue that a traditional metaphysical Hegel is more realist when it comes to assessing the power of social structures (Section 4), focused on structural freedom rather than agency (Sections 5 and 6), and more empowering for and lenient towards individuals who can make their interests count and are free to be irrational and egoist (Section 7). (shrink)

This article examines the human placenta not only as a scientific, medical and biological entity but as a consumer bio-product. In the emergent placenta economy, the human placenta is exchanged and gains potentiality as food, medicine and cosmetics. Drawing on empirical research from the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Japan, the authors use feminist cultural analysis and consumer theories to discuss how the placenta is exchanged and gains commodity status as a medical supplement, smoothie, pill and anti-ageing lotion. (...) Placenta preparers and new mothers cite medical properties and spirituality as reasons for eating or encapsulating the placenta, reinstating ideas of the liberated good mother. Meanwhile, the cosmetics industry situates the placenta as an extract and hence a commodity, re-naturalizing it as an anti-ageing, rejuvenating and whitening bio-product. The authors conclude that, in the emergent bio-economy, the dichotomy between the inner and the outer body is deconstructed, while the placenta gains clinical and industrial as well as affective value. (shrink)

Background Implementing person-centred care (PCC) in nursing homes is challenging due to a gap between theory and practice. Bridging this gap requires suitable education, which focuses on learning how to attune care to the values and preferences of residents and take moral, relational, and situational aspects into account. Staff’s stories about the care they provide (i.e. caring stories) may deliver valuable insights for learning about these aspects. However, there is limited research on using staff's narratives for moral learning. Objective This (...) study aims to provide insight into the perspectives of nursing staff on using their caring stories to learn about PCC. Research design In this qualitative research, we conducted two rounds of interviews with 17 participants working in nursing homes. We wanted to obtain nursing staff’s perceptions of working with their caring stories and the impact on PCC. Ethical considerations Participation was voluntary, and participants provided written consent. The study protocol is approved by The Institutional Review Board of the Medical Ethical Committee Leiden-Den Haag-Delft. Findings Working with caring stories enables nursing staff to provide PCC and improves job satisfaction. It increases awareness of what matters to residents, fosters information rich in context and meaning, and enhances voice and vocabulary. Through in-depth team reflections, nursing staff discussed the significant moments for residents, which centralizes the discussions on the moral quality of care. Discussion Working with caring stories fosters dialogue on PCC and enhances reflection on ethical situations in daily encounters, contributing to the moral development of nursing staff. Putting nursing staff’s narratives at the centre of learning suits their daily practice and intrinsic motivation. Therefore, the outcomes of this study are an addition to the existing literature about using narratives in long-term care. Conclusion Using nursing staff's narratives contributes to PCC and positively impacts nursing staff. We recommend using staff's caring stories as a vehicle for moral learning in the transition to PCC. (shrink)

In a criminal trial, evidence is used to draw conclusions about what happened concerning a supposed crime. Traditionally, the three main approaches to modeling reasoning with evidence are argumentative, narrative and probabilistic approaches. Integrating these three approaches could arguably enhance the communication between an expert and a judge or jury. In previous work, techniques were proposed to represent narratives in a Bayesian network and to use narratives as a basis for systematizing the construction of a Bayesian network for a legal (...) case. In this paper, these techniques are combined to form a design method for constructing a Bayesian network based on narratives. This design method is evaluated by means of an extensive case study concerning the notorious Dutch case of the Anjum murders. (shrink)

This study focuses on how moral aspects of purpose shape collaborative processes. It does so by analyzing the unfolding of 21 relationships between four nonprofits and their funders using a framework based on French pragmatist sociology to help uncover the deeply held, ideological and moral beliefs that underscore assumptions about what the overarching purpose of a collaborative effort is or should be. This study contributes to the literature on single and cross-sectoral collaboration by showing that the way partners handle and (...) reconcile differences about purpose is related to the forms of agreement likely to be achieved. It also suggests that certain forms of agreement are inherently more enduring than others. Taken as a whole, this study provides some plausible explanations as to why so many collaborations fail despite their seeming benefits for all the parties involved. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to illustrate concrete problems in the asymmetrical nurse–patient power relationship. It is an ethical demand that the nurse is faced with the challenges that the power in the relation is administered so that the patient's room for action is expanded and trust maintained. It is an essential message in care philosophy, but in clinical practice, success is not always achievable. A hidden and more or less unconscious restriction of the patient's room for action may (...) result in the excesses of care. Three selected aspects: dependence, trust, and power described by the Danish philosopher K.E. Løgstrup and the Norwegian nursing philosopher Kari Martinsen's care philosophy has inspired this empirically based examination of some current barriers in the asymmetrical nurse–patient relationship. On the basis of qualitative interviews with six patients and six nurses, the research thus provides an identifying and problem‐exploratory examination of some current obstacles in which the handling of trust and power reflects the excesses of care. The findings develop three themes. ‘Being a burden’ acknowledges that the balance of power will always tip to the nurse's advantage. The second theme, ‘Doing only what's absolutely necessary’, shows how a fixation with ‘technicalism’ creates a distance between people that may constrain the patient's room for action. The last theme is concerning the nurse's ability to navigate between closeness and distance is essential in avoiding ‘the excesses of care’, paternalism, and overprotectiveness. A situation in which distance takes the upper hand and care turns into paternalism. A different situation would arise if the nurse's emotions became sentimental or intimate with the result that closeness gets the upper hand. To avoid a harmful exercise of power and the excesses of care, the findings have demonstrated that a relationship‐based caring is a demand for situation‐specific sensitive attention skills. (shrink)

In cases of complicity in one’s own unfreedom and in structural injustice, it initially appears that agents are only vicariously responsible for their complicity because of the roles circumstantial and constitutive luck play in bringing about their complicity. By drawing on work from the phenomenological tradition, this paper rejects this conclusion and argues for a new responsive sense of agency and responsibility in cases of complicity. Highlighting the explanatory role of stubbornness in cases of complicity, it is argued that although (...) agents may only be vicariously responsible for becoming complicit, they can be held more directly responsible for entrenching their complicity. The complicit agent is responsible for their complicity to the extent that they fail to take responsibility for it. (shrink)

resumo É possível distinguir ao menos três etapas principais nas abordagens filosóficas da noção de sujeito: na etapa metafísica a estrutura do sujeito é pens a da em termos de substância; na etapa transcendental , o sujeito é visto como polarida de unificadora de horizontes; na etapa psic a na l í t ica, o sujeito é de f i n ido como estrutura vazia. O sujeito tra ns c e nde ntal é uma estrutura para o mu ndo, enqua (...) nto o sujeito psicanalítico precisa ter uma estrutura em si me s mo para estruturar sua ausênc ia ontológica. Para Lacan, essa ausênc ia ont o l ó g ica se torna manifesta me d ia nte a ling ua gem. A estrutura do sujeito é concebida como uma estrutura de significação. Este artigo compara esses três pontos de vista sobre o sujeito e discute que relevância a idéia de estrutura pode ter para a compreensão do conceito. palavras-chave Sujeito metafísico; sujeito transcendental; sujeito psic a nalítico; estrutura; Platão; Kant; Fichte; Lacan. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Testimony from victims of gendered violence is often wrongly disbelieved. This paper explores a way to address this problem by developing a phenomenological approach to testimony. Guided by the concept of ‘disclosedness’, a tripartite analysis of testimony as an affective, embodied, communicative act is developed. Affect indicates how scepticism may arise through the social moods that often attune agents to victims’ testimony. The embodiment of meaning suggests testimony should not be approached as an assertion, but as a process of (...) ‘articulating an understanding’. This account is deepened in the discussion of testimony as a communicative act. It is argued that testimony must be considered as a relational whole, and thus our aim in receiving victims’ testimony should be to honour the relational conditions under which the truth of testimony can be heard. Approaching testimony as the collaborative process of enabling an understanding to be articulated can enhance our conception of gendered violence, whilst also better serving the victims of gendered violence by helping to overcome the lack of trust and excessive scepticism with which victims’ testimony is often met. (shrink)

In the current paper, our aim is to explore the latent power dynamics surrounding corporate social responsibility in developing countries. To do this, we synthesize an analytic framework that borrows from both cross-cultural management literature as well as feminist considerations of power. We then use the framework to examine three streams of CSR literature. Our analysis uncovers the prevalence of arguments and discussions about indigenous and power-over themes rather than more generative, endogenous, and power-to themes. The paper concludes with the (...) suggestion for more space in the CSR literature for examining the realities and potentialities of local SME CSR expressions to counterbalance the overwhelming focus on MNCs. Such counterbalancing can better lead to the recognition that power and domination are not the only important dynamics to examine in CSR research. Just as important is the need for a more nuanced consideration of the role and contributions of different actors to the continuously unfolding CSR discourse. (shrink)

This book presents a series of informal biographies about major figures in the history of psychology. A unique combination of expertise and human appeal, the volume places the contributions of each pioneer in a new and fascinating perspective. For instance, several of the authors use the novel approach of having the pioneers return to the present day to reflect back on their work as it relates to the here and now. Revisions of speeches given in a popular series of invited (...) addresses at psychological conventions, the chapters offer appealing glimpses into the lives of individuals who made a difference in the early years of psychology as a field of study. Each of the five volumes in this series contains different profiles thereby bringing more than 100 of the pioneers in psychology more vividly to life. (shrink)

To improve the quality and efficiency of research, groups within the scientific community seek to exploit the value of data sharing. Funders, institutions, and specialist organizations are developing and implementing strategies to encourage or mandate data sharing within and across disciplines, with varying degrees of success. Academic journals in ecology and evolution have adopted several types of public data archiving policies requiring authors to make data underlying scholarly manuscripts freely available. The effort to increase data sharing in the sciences is (...) one part of a broader “data revolution” that has prompted discussion about a paradigm shift in scientific research. Yet anecdotes from the community and studies evaluating data availability suggest that these policies have not obtained the desired effects, both in terms of quantity and quality of available datasets. We conducted a qualitative, interview-based study with journal editorial staff and other stakeholders in the academic publishing process to examine how journals enforce data archiving policies. We specifically sought to establish who editors and other stakeholders perceive as responsible for ensuring data completeness and quality in the peer review process. Our analysis revealed little consensus with regard to how data archiving policies should be enforced and who should hold authors accountable for dataset submissions. Themes in interviewee responses included hopefulness that reviewers would take the initiative to review datasets and trust in authors to ensure the completeness and quality of their datasets. We highlight problematic aspects of these thematic responses and offer potential starting points for improvement of the public data archiving process. (shrink)