Souzy Dracopoulou , Ethics and values in health care management.

The current study investigated age differences in the use of attentional deployment, positive reappraisal and suppression while regulating responses to sadness-eliciting content. We also tested to what extent these emotion regulation strategies were useful for each age group in managing response to age-relevant sad information. Forty-two young participants (Mage = 18.5, SE =.15) and 48 older participants (Mage = 71.42, SE = 1.15) watched four sadness-eliciting videos (about death/illness, four to five minutes long) under four conditions—no-regulation (no regulation instructions), attentional (...) deployment (divert attention away), positive reappraisal (focus on positive outcomes) and suppression (conceal emotional expressions). We assessed negative emotional experience, expression, skin conductance level (SCL) and visual fixation duration while participants watched the emotional clips and followed the instructions for each condition. Results suggest that older adults were more successful than younger adults at implementing both attentional deployment and positive reappraisal. Ability to suppress emotions appears to remain stable with age. Within age-group comparisons suggested that for the older adults, positive reappraisal was a more useful emotion regulation strategy than the others, while the pattern among younger adults was less conclusive. Age-relevant differences in motivation and successful emotion regulatory efforts based on theoretical and empirical literatures are discussed. (shrink)

Human–nonhuman chimeras have been the focus of ethical controversies for more than a decade, yet some related issues remain unaddressed. For example, little has been said about the relationship between the origin of transferred cells and the morally relevant capacities to which they may give rise. Consider, for example, a developing mouse fetus that receives a brain stem cell transplant from a human and another that receives a brain stem cell transplant from a dolphin. If both chimeras acquire morally relevant (...) capacities as a result of transplantation, and if those capacities are indistinguishable, should the difference in cell origin matter to how we classify these creatures? I argue that if morally relevant capacities are easy to detect, cell origin is irrelevant to how the chimera ought to be treated. However, if such capacities are hard to detect, cell origin should play a role in considerations about how to treat the chimera. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to point out the basic areas of judgment made by employees considering the ethical or unethical behaviour of employers in the workplace. The authors analyse this subject from three perspectives: The first one is labour legislation in Poland; the second is the perspective of employers, especially codes of ethical standards created by contemporary organizations, and the third perspective is the point of view of employees. The conclusions in this area have been made on the (...) basis of research in two Polish insurance companies. The authors attempted to create a ranking of ethical elements significant for employees. Such knowledge could be very useful for creating proper personnel policy in any organisation. (shrink)

Although collegial relationships are among the most prevalent types of interpersonal relationships in our lives, they have not been the subject of much philosophical study. In this paper, we take the first step in the process of developing an ethics of collegiality by establishing what qualifies two people as colleagues and then by determining what it is that gives value to collegial relationships. We argue that A and B are colleagues if both exhibit sameness regarding at least two of the (...) following three features: the same work content or domain of activity; the same institutional affiliation or common purpose; and/or the same status or level of responsibility. Moreover, we describe how the potential value of collegial relationships is grounded in the relationship goods that two colleagues have reason to generate qua colleagues, namely, collegial solidarity and collegial recognition. Two interesting conclusions that can be drawn from our analysis are that one has to be proficient at one’s work if one is to be considered a good colleague and that we are also more likely to be better colleagues if we regard the work we do as valuable. Finally, we draw special attention to the working conditions that are conducive to the generation of good collegial relationships and suggest some policies to promote them. (shrink)

The relationship between teacher and student is an important element of school education and as such irreplaceable: If we want schools to be good places for those who teach and learn there, we must make sure that the educational relationships between teachers and students are good, too. In research about school education, surprisingly little attention is paid to the normative dimension of the relationship between teacher and student. This lacuna points to a desideratum in the philosophy of education: More should (...) be said about the normative structure of the teacher-student relationship, its role in teaching and learning, and its final value for teacher and student. Answering these fundamental philosophical questions is the core of this book. It offers a normatively rich concept of a good teacher-student relationship that is based on the analysis of two major relationship goods: trust and care. Moreover, the book explains the instrumental value of a good educational relationship for the student’s achievement of epistemic aims of school education as well as the final value of such a relationship for teacher and student. (shrink)

To showaffective empathyis to share in another person's experiences, including her emotions. Most philosophers who write about emotions accept the broadly cognitivist view that emotions are rationally connected with beliefs. We argue that affective empathy is also rationally connected with belief; you can only share in another's emotions insofar as you can share certain of her beliefs. In light of that claim, we argue that affective empathy brings both epistemic dangers and epistemic benefits, that the ideal of universal empathy cannot (...) be built upon affective empathy, and that affective empathy cannot be the basis of morality. (shrink)

In dieser Studie untersucht Monika Palowski das kontrovers diskutierte Phänomen der Klassenwiederholung erstmals aus Perspektive der Wissenssoziologischen Diskursanalyse. Anhand von insgesamt über 700 Texten aus Erziehungswissenschaft und Printmedien werden machtvolle Diskursstränge und -formationen rekonstruiert, die nicht nur die Wahrnehmung von Klassenwiederholung und schulischer Selektion, sondern auch der betroffenen Subjekte je spezifisch präfigurieren und dadurch Klassenwiederholung teils auch legitimieren. Die Ergebnisse der Analyse sind daher einerseits für die erziehungswissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit schulischer Selektion und Bildungsungerechtigkeit relevant, andererseits aber auch für die (...) Diskurs- und Subjektivierungsforschung. (shrink)

This beautifully illustrated book documents the exceptional postcard collection of Adolf Feller. In 1889 Feller, a Swiss entrepreneur, began collecting postcards on various business trips as mementos of his travels. When news of his hobby reached his friends and relatives, others began sending picture postcards as well. After his death, Feller's daughter, Elisabeth, continued to seek out postcards from around the world. The collection now includes 54,000 postcards from 140 countries, with especially impressive examples from 1893–1930, the height of the (...) picture postcard's popularity. A wonderful testament to one man's obsession, The World in Pocket-Size Format provides a new way to experience the history of the postcard as a means of both artistic expression and communication. (shrink)

Wspołcześnie filozoficzne studia nad ludzką tworczością nie zamykają się jedynie na opisie życiorysow geniuszy i na estetycznych analizach oryginalnego wytworu. Wraz z poszerzeniem granic pojęcia creatio, rozumianego obecnie często jako uniwersalna ludzka potencjalność tworzenia (kreatywność), rozszerzyło się też pole możliwych analiz do podjęcia w ramach kiełkującej dopiero dziedziny filozofii tworczości. Pojawiły się też jednocześnie nowe dylematy do rozwiązania.W niniejszym tekście pokazuję ową rożnorodność i problematyczność wspołczesnych badań nad fenomenem tworczości poprzez (1) wymienienie głownych opozycyjnych głosow w dzisiejszych analizach, a także (...) (2) przez opisanie obecnie wiodących kierunkow studiow podejmowanych wokoł tego zagadnienia. Podniesione zostaną tutaj m.in. takie problematyczne kwestie jak: egalitarność vs. elitarność tworczości, miejsce świadomości i racjonalności w procesie tworczym, natura tworczości naukowej, perspektywa międzykulturowa w badaniach nad kreatywnością, naturalizowanie ludzkiej tworczości czy też rola wyobraźni oraz dziecięcej zabawy w udawanego w kształtowaniu zdolności tworczych człowieka. (shrink)

Teaching writing to doctoral students or academics at a technical university is a challenging task. Because they need to publish their research findings in English to pursue academic careers, they are usually highly motivated and expect a lot of the class. Their language competences, however, very often lack enough proficiency and may contribute to manuscript rejection. The paper focuses on language issues based on the rules of controlled natural languages and guidelines of Plain English. It shows how employing these issues (...) improves grammatical quality and readability of science-oriented written texts. The paper describes four principles: removing nominalisation and using the so-called strong verbs to make the message simpler and more direct; combining nouns in strings to express complex ideas economically; applying grammatical consistency for coordinate elements in sentences to make them less chaotic; and reducing wordiness to obtain a more precise and comprehensible piece of writing. Sample phrases and sentences from authentic student writing as well as their improved versions are provided to each of the guidelines so that a reader has a deeper insight into how the principles work in a specialist context. Because problems with, for example, research papers, grant proposals or reports are common to various disciplines and at various levels, the Author of the paper draws conclusions that these principles should be implemented not only in a technical but also legal, medical and business writing course offered by English teachers to both young researchers and experienced scientists. (shrink)

Tekst stanowi krytyczne omówienie książki Jacka Migasińskiego W stronę fenomenologii niezjawiskowej, która jest doskonałym podsumowaniem współpracy polsko-francuskiej i realizuje jedną z najistotniejszych jej funkcji, czyli owocny dialog między badaczami z różnych krajów. Recenzowana książka jest kompetentnym komentarzem do tego, co dzieje się w fenomenologii francuskiej, a jej autor koncentruje się głównie na analizie tekstów Emmanuela Lévinasa i Maurice’a Merleau-Ponty’ego. Na książkę Jacka Migasińskiego składa się jedenaście esejów o rozmaitej fenomenologicznej tematyce: znajdziemy w niej problematykę intersubiektywności, czasu, afektywności i próby budowania (...) dyskursu perfomatywnego w fenomenologii na przykładzie filozofii Lévinasa. Tytułowe określenie „fenomenologia niezjawiskowa” oznacza odsłonięcie najgłębszych źródeł sensu władającego każdym z penetrowanych obszarów i obalenie dualizmów panujących w klasycznym myśleniu, ale także transgresyjność fenomenologii i jej skłonność do nadmiaru. To właśnie ta metoda, polegająca na testowaniu granic i na wykraczaniu poza nie w procedurze przelicytowywania tego, co może być źródłem fenomenów, wyznacza kierunek, w jakim według Migasińskiego zmierza dziś fenomenologia francuska. (shrink)

In an e-mail of June 2002, some women on Gender Link noticed that in Polish there is an expression, ‘husband of trust’, used to describe a person in the workplace appointed to represent workers’ interests. This role is more often than not given to women, and yet they are called ‘husbands of trust’. ‘Isn't that strange,’ they said. ‘Isn't it time to change this?’. It is. The change in gender role identities has started with questioning the language. It has started (...) with asking who has produced and is reproducing the language, and for whom. The journey has not stopped there. From looking at language it has continued through social stereotypes, work, labour, money and the division of power, and reached the law and legal system itself. In Poland, the path has been rather circuitous and uneasy for we are, more than many other countries, bound by Catholic tradition mingled with apparent freedom. We had the ethos of Solidarity, and Lech Wałęsa. Wałęsa had a badge of the Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus on his jacket, which somehow helped label all Polish women, even those still very young, a ‘Mother Pole’. To resist that identity one needed to look beneath the image and be brave enough to call oneself just a woman. This article will try to analyse that process. (shrink)

Humans have a fundamental need to belong. This, need, as Kimberley Brownlee argues in her book Being Sure of Each Other grounds the human right against social deprivation. But in addition to having a human right against social deprivation, we also have a right to associational freedom, which is grounded in our right to autonomy. We cannot be forced into relationships; we are free to choose our friends and loved ones.? In this paper I discuss what our right to associational (...) freedom morally permits us to do when are already in an intimate relationship and, relatedly, what our relationship-dependent duties require of us in such cases. What exactly are the constraints on our right to associational freedom? And what is the content and scope of our relationship-dependent duties, given that our right to associational freedom conflicts with the fulfillment of these duties?? After providing some clarifications as to how we should understand intimate relationships that have ended, I will first highlight what relationship-dependent duties are and how they correlate with a right to associational control. I will then discuss several break-up scenarios, the aim of which is to determine the conditions that justify constraints being imposed on the right to associational freedom and to delineate the scope of relationship-dependent duties. (shrink)

What’s the basis for considering an egg donor a genetic parent but not a mitochondrial donor? I will argue that a closer look at the biological facts will not give us an answer to this question because the process by which one becomes a genetic parent, i.e., the process of reproduction, is not a concept that can be settled by looking. It is, rather, a concept in need of philosophical attention. The details of my argument will rest on recent developments (...) in biological technology, but the persuasiveness of my argument will turn on the history of another biological concept, death. Given some important similarities between the two concepts, the way in which ‘death’ evolved in the recent past can provide guidance on how we should think about ‘reproduction.’. (shrink)

Extrapolation from a well-understood base population to a less-understood target population can fail if the base and target populations are not sufficiently similar. Differences between laboratory mice and humans, for example, can hinder extrapolation in medical research. Mice that carry a partial or complete human physiological system, known as humanized mice, are supposed to make extrapolation more reliable by simulating a variety of human diseases. But what justifies our belief that these mice are similar enough to their human counterparts to (...) simulate human disease? I argue that, unless three requirements are met in the process of humanizing mice, very little does. My requirements are not meant to provide necessary and sufficient conditions that guarantee a particular outcome. Instead, they serve as a heuristic for guiding scientific judgments involving extrapolation. In developing each requirement, I engage with philosophical issues concerning the nature of model-based science and the mechanistic approach (and its limits) to making generalizations in the life sciences. (shrink)

"Im Zentrum von Javier Cercas’ Anatomia de uninstante steht eine Geste: Adolfo Suárez, der zu Beginn des Putsches inmitten von Schüssen zu seinem Sessel zurückkehrt, sich hinsetzt und zurücklehnt, umgeben von leeren Sesseln. Am Beispiel von Cercas’ Nacherzählung eines Kippmoments des Postfranqismus wird die Rückkehr zum Ereignis als historische Heuristik wissens- und medienhistorisch beleuchtet. Dabei werden Charakteristiken einer Geschichtsschreibung herausgearbeitet, die sich seit 1970 für die exzessive Beschreibung eines Mikromomentes interessiert. Javier Cercas’s novel Anatomia de un instante is centered upon (...) a gesture: Adolfo Suárez, returning to his chair at the beginning of the coup in the midst of shots, sits down and leans back, surrounded by empty armchairs. Using the example of Cercas’s recounting a tipping moment of Postfranqism, the paper illuminates the return to the event as historical heuristics in the light of knowledge and media histories. Furthermore, it sketches the characteristics of a historiography, which, since 1970, has been interested in the excessive description of a micromoment. ". (shrink)

Die philosophische Kausaldebatte hat in den vergangenen vier Jahrzehnten eine neue Blüte erlebt. Kontrafaktische, interventionistische, mechanistische und transfertheoretische Ansätze haben sich neben den bislang dominierenden Regularitätstheorien etabliert. Vertreter aller dieser Ansätze sehen sich jedoch mit Gegenbeispielen konfrontiert, keine Theorie scheint allen unseren intuitiven Kausalurteilen gerecht werden zu können. Dieses Buch führt anhand ausgewählter Beispiele in die aktuelle Debatte ein und liefert eine Erklärung für die derzeitige Patt-Situation. Der Grund dafür, dass sich zu jedem Ansatz offenbar mühelos Gegenbeispiele finden lassen, liegt, (...) so zeigt die Autorin, in einer bislang unbemerkten Mehrdeutigkeit des Ausdrucks »kausaler Zusammenhang«. Wer danach fragt, was ein kausaler Zusammenhang sei, kann damit entweder einen konkreten Vorgang – Verursachung – oder einen Zusammenhang zwischen zwei Tatsachen – kausale Relevanz – meinen. Der Unterschied zwischen diesen beiden Begriffen wird mit Hilfe einer sprachphilosophischen Analyse singulärer Kausalaussagen belegt und auf zwei verschiedene Zugänge zu kausalen Zusammenhängen – Kausalwahrnehmung und kausales Schließen – zurückgeführt. (shrink)

Anthropologie und Moralphilosophie wurden von Kant ausfuhrlicher und differenzierter behandelt als bisher angenommen. Daruber hinaus sind beide Disziplinen notwendig voneinander abhangig und aufeinander bezogen. Seine Konzeption des Verhaltnisses von Anthropologie und Moralphilosophie weist Kant aus als wurdigen Gesprachspartner in der modernen Anthropologie- und Moralphilosophie-Diskussion.".

Die christlichen Urzeugnisse des Neuen Testamentes, insbesondere die Evangelien, zeichnen sich aus durch eine dem religiös-kulturellen Mainstream zuwiderlaufende Leibfreundlichkeit. Die Konsolidierung des Christentums in den ersten vier Jahrhunderten bringt den Neuplatonismus mit sich und kombiniert ihn mit den aus der jüdischen Tradition stammenden Heiligkeitsvorstellungen. Damit setzt sich das dualistische Denken mit seiner Trennung von Körper und Seele wieder durch und überschreibt die egalitären Ansätze des frühesten Christentums durch Minderbewertung von Frauen und Körperfeindlichkeit. – Am Beispiel asketischer Praktiken sowohl der frühen (...) Kirche wie des Mittelalters lässt sich die Ambivalenz von Körperfeindlichkeit und Körperkult, bei der einerseits grundlegende körperliche Bedürfnisse wie Essen, Trinken, Schlaf, Sauberkeit, Sexualität extrem unterdrückt werden und andererseits eine obsessive Beschäftigung mit dem Körper zu beobachten ist, gut aufzeigen. Gleichzeitig führt die Entkörperlichung zu einer Verwischung der Geschlechter, die Chancen für Frauen bietet, die sich dieser Entkörperlichungsstrategie zu unterziehen gewillt sind. Das 19. Jahrhundert bringt eine Renaissance und Verstärkung des kultischen Heiligkeitsgedankens, welcher sich mit dem Ideal der Virginität und der Marienverehrung verbindet. (shrink)

Reading is a complex cognitive task with the ultimate goal of comprehending the written input. For longer, connected text, readers generate a mental representation that serves as its basis. Due to limited cognitive resources, common models of discourse representation assume distinct processing levels, each relying on different processing mechanisms. However, only little research addresses distinct representational levels when text comprehension is assessed, analyzed or modelled. Moreover, current studies that tried to relate process measures of reading to comprehension did not consider (...) comprehension as a multi-faceted, but rather a uni-dimensional construct, usually assessed with one-shot items. Thus, the first aim of this paper is to use confirmatory factor analysis to test whether comprehension can be modelled as a uni-or multi-dimensional concept. The second aim is to investigate how well widely used one-shot items can be used to capture comprehension. 400 participants read one of three short stories of comparable length, linguistic characteristics, and complexity. Based on the evaluation of three independent raters per story, 16 wh-questions and 60 yes/no-statements were compiled in order to retrieve information at micro and inference level, and 16 main contents were extracted to capture information at the macro level in participants’ summaries. Still, only a fraction of these items showed satisfactory psychometric properties and factor loadings – a blatant result considering the common practice for item selection. For CFA, two models were set up that address text comprehension as either a one-dimensional construct, or a three-dimensional construct reflecting the three distinct representational levels. Across stories and item types, model fit was consistently better for the three-factor model providing evidence for a multi-dimensional construct of text comprehension. Our results provide concrete guidance for the preparation of comprehension measurements in studies investigating the reading process. (shrink)

The concept of the dialogical soul proposed by Joseph Ratzinger is a contemporary attempt to describe the anthropology of humanity in terms of basic, fundamental theological concepts. Epistemological approach of the dialogic soul is not about the division, but co-existence in the concept of humanity significantly different anthropological concepts. Modern neuroscience, although following completely different paths of knowing is currently concerning an important issue "of the embodied mind". Such a holistic effort to discover the truth about the man, though carried (...) out on completely different epistemological platforms, however, have some points in common. The difficulty in finding a common language for the dialogue in this field can be overcome and lead to dialogue, which is extremely difficult but doable. We must, however, at the beginning formulate certain fundamental axioms that define class concepts used in different areas of scientific activity. The concept of dialogical soul of Ratzinger’s now exceeds the barrier of scientific paradigms axioms. It does not stop on the vision of human oneself, but recognition of one in the area of relationships and makes room for a substantial dialogue with the world of modern science. (shrink)

This paper argues that critical realism is one of the main theoretical orientations of the social sciences in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Critical realism aims to study the transcende...

Media reporters often announce that we are on the verge of bringing back the woolly mammoth, even while there is growing consensus among scientists that resurrecting the mammoth is unlikely. In fact, current “de-extinction” efforts are not designed to bring back a mammoth, but rather adaptations of the mammoth using close relatives. For example, Harvard scientists are working on creating an Asian elephant with the thick coat of a mammoth by merging mammoth and elephant DNA. But how should such creatures (...) be classified? Are they elephants, mammoths, or both? Answering these questions requires getting clear about the concept of reproduction. What I hope to show is that with an appropriate notion of reproduction—one for which I will argue—resurrecting a member of Mammuthus primigenius is a genuine possibility. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary, social scientific analysis of the regulatory discourse on nanotechnology in the three German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria and Switzerland and in the EU between 2000 and 2013 has shown three distinct phases, characterised by shifts in the configuration of actors and in the thematic scope from nanotechnology to nano-materials. Compared to modes of governance based on traditional statutory law, modes of governance based on less binding forms of soft law and self-regulation (like codes of conduct, guidelines and certification (...) systems) and new modes of governance (like assessment studies, risk management frameworks as well as participatory and cooperative forms of communication and negotiation) have gained importance. Despite some similarities, two different cultures in governing nanotechnology can be distinguished: a product-oriented culture in statutory regulations (when speaking about products, the article is also referring to substances) and a risk-based culture in applying soft law based on new modes of governance. In addition, the different regulatory cultures have led to four strategic approaches: modes of governance mainly based on hard law and soft law at the EU level, modes of governance mainly based on cooperative and self-regulatory approaches in Germany, cooperative governance approaches in Austria and modes of governance mainly based on self-regulatory and soft law approaches in Switzerland. (shrink)

Willing and Understanding elucidates a variety of issues in and approaches to debating the will-intellect interplay in the late Middle Ages. Authored by prominent scholars in the field, the contributions offer different perspectives on the development of late medieval theories of the will. Charting a dense map of voluntarist and epistemological ideas - entrenched leitmotifs of late medieval philosophy, seminal insights sparking original trends, and ephemeral novelties - the volume is a testimony to the conceptual multidimensionality and ethical complexity of (...) the past and present iterations of the debate on the will. Contributors are Pascale Bermon, Magdalena Bieniak, Michael W. Dunne, Riccardo Fedriga, Giacomo Fornasieri, Tobias Hoffmann, Severin V. Kitanov, Monika Michałowska, Riccardo Saccenti, Sonja Schierbaum, Michael Szlachta, Łukasz Tomanek, and Francesco Omar Zamboni. (shrink)

This book provides a detailed commentary on the classic monograph by Alfred Tarski, and offers a reinterpretation and retranslation of the work using the original Polish text and the English and German translations. In the original work, Tarski presents a method for constructing definitions of truth for classical, quantificational formal languages. Furthermore, using the defined notion of truth, he demonstrates that it is possible to provide intuitively adequate definitions of the semantic notions of definability and denotation and that the notion (...) in a structure can be defined in a way that is analogous to that used to define truth. Tarski’s piece is considered to be one of the major contributions to logic, semantics, and epistemology in the 20th century. However, the author points out that some mistakes were introduced into the text when it was translated into German in 1935. As the 1956 English version of the work was translated from the German text, those discrepancies were carried over in addition to new mistakes. The author has painstakingly compared the three texts, sentence-by-sentence, highlighting the inaccurate translations, offering explanations as to how they came about, and commenting on how they have influenced the content and suggesting a correct interpretation of certain passages. Furthermore, the author thoroughly examines Tarski’s article, offering interpretations and comments on the work. (shrink)

This article generalises the refined A-translation method for extracting programs from classical proofs [U. Berger,W. Buchholz, H. Schwichtenberg, Refined program extraction from classical proofs, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 114 3–25] to the scenario where additional assumptions such as choice principles are involved. In the case of choice principles, this is done by adding computational content to the ‘translated’ assumptions, an idea which goes back to [S. Berardi, M. Bezem, T. Coquand, On the computational content of the axiom of (...) choice, JSL 63 600–622] and has been further elaborated in [U. Berger, P. Oliva, Modified bar recursion and classical dependent choice, in: M. Baaz, S.D. Friedman, J. Kraijcek , Logic Colloquium ’01, in: Lecture Notes in Logic, vol. 20, Springer, Berlin, 2005, pp. 89–107]. We further investigate the applicability of this extension by means of a small but non-trivial example, and discuss the formalisation as well as some optimisations necessary in order to extract terminating programs. Both formalisation and term extraction have been implemented in the interactive proof assistant Minlog. (shrink)