Neuroimaging studies on moral decision-making have thus far largely focused on differences between moral judgments with opposing utilitarian (well-being maximizing) and deontological (duty-based) content. However, these studies have investigated moral dilemmas involving extreme situations, and did not control for two distinct dimensions of moral judgment: whether or not it is intuitive (immediately compelling to most people) and whether it is utilitarian or deontological in content. By contrasting dilemmas where utilitarian judgments are counterintuitive with dilemmas in which they are intuitive, we (...) were able to use functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of intuitive and counterintuitive judgments across a range of moral situations. Irrespective of content (utilitarian/deontological), counterintuitive moral judgments were associated with greater difficulty and with activation in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, suggesting that such judgments may involve emotional conflict; intuitive judgments were linked to activation in the visual and premotor cortex. In addition, we obtained evidence that neural differences in moral judgment in such dilemmas are largely due to whether they are intuitive and not, as previously assumed, to differences between utilitarian and deontological judgments. Our findings therefore do not support theories that have generally associated utilitarian and deontological judgments with distinct neural systems. (shrink)

Recent research on moral decision-making has suggested that many common moral judgments are based on immediate intuitions. However, some individuals arrive at highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions about when it is permissible to harm other individuals. Such utilitarian judgments have been attributed to effortful reasoning that has overcome our natural emotional aversion to harming others. Recent studies, however, suggest that such utilitarian judgments might also result from a decreased aversion to harming others, due to a deficit in empathic concern and social (...) emotion. The present study investigated the neural basis of such indifference to harming using functional neuroimaging during engagement in moral dilemmas. A tendency to counterintuitive utilitarian judgment was associated both with ‘psychoticism’, a trait associated with a lack of empathic concern and antisocial tendencies, and with ‘need for cognition’, a trait reflecting preference for effortful cognition. Importantly, only psychoticism was also negatively correlated with activation in the subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC), a brain area implicated in empathic concern and social emotions such as guilt, during counterintuitive utilitarian judgments. Our findings suggest that when individuals reach highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions, this need not reflect greater engagement in explicit moral deliberation. It may rather reflect a lack of empathic concern, and diminished aversion to harming others. (shrink)

Background:In recent years, operating theatre nurse students’ education focused on ethics, basic values and protecting and promoting the patients' dignity in perioperative practice. Health professionals are frequently confronted with ethical issues that can impact on patient’s care during surgery.Objective:The objective of this study was to present what operating theatre nursing students perceived and interpreted as undignified caring in perioperative practice.Research design:The study has a descriptive design with a hermeneutic approach. Data were collected using Flanagan’s critical incident technique.Participants and research context:Operating (...) theatre nurse students from Sweden and Norway participated and collected data in 2011, after education in ethics and dignity. Data consisting of 47 written stories and the text were analysed with hermeneutical text interpretation.Ethical considerations:The study was approved by the Karlstad University's Research Ethics Committee.Findings:The findings show careless behaviour and humiliating actions among health professionals. Health professionals commit careless acts by rendering the patient invisible, ignoring the patient’s worry and pain and treating the patient as an object. They also humiliate the patient when speaking in negative terms about the patient’s body, and certain health professionals blame the patients for the situation they are in. Health professionals lack the willingness and courage to protect the patient’s dignity in perioperative practice.Discussion:In the discussion, we have illuminated how professional ethics may be threatened by more pragmatic and utilitarian arguments contained in regulations and transplant act.Conclusion:The findings reveal that patients were exposed to unnecessary suffering; furthermore, the operating theatre nurse students suffered an inner ethical conflict due to the undignified caring situations they had witnessed. (shrink)

This collaborative companion piece, written as a postscript to the three preceding essays, highlights four themes in comparative religious ethics that emerge through our focus on sex and gender: language, embodiment, justice, and critique.

Se realizó un estudio cuali-cuantitativo en la Comunidad Rural "El León" de la provincia de Camagüey. Se utilizó el método etnográfico y la evaluación del Análisis de la Situación de Salud en el periodo 2007-2015 con el objetivo de describir las características socio históricas y de salud de esta población, conjuntamente con profesionales de enfermería comunitaria. Se crearon instrumentos validados por expertos. Se aplicaron grupos focales, observación participante, entrevistas en profundidad a informantes clave, socioculturales, estructuradas abiertas y la cerrada para (...) combinarla con los resultados del Análisis de la Situación de Salud en el proceder cuantitativo. Se triangularon sus resultados. Se evidenció: falta de sentido de pertenencia de los pobladores, indisciplinas sociales que perjudican la comunidad y su salud, deterioro de las relaciones interpersonales, sistema eco cultural deficiente, y se identificó la necesidad de emprender otras acciones comunitarias que provoquen el cambio y modifiquen el cuadro de salud comunitaria. The quantitative and qualitative in the Community Rural accomplished a study itself "The Lion" of Camagüey's province. The 2007-2015 for the sake of describing the characteristics utilized the ethnographic method and the evaluation of Health's Analysis of the Situation in the period itself member historic and of health of this population together with nursing professionals, communal. They created instruments validated by experts. They applied focal groups, participating observation, you interview key, socio cultural to informants in depth, structured open and the closed to combine it with the results of Health's Analysis of the Situation in the quantitative action. They triangulated his results. It became evident: The inhabitants's pointlessness of possession, social indiscipline that the community and his health, deterioration of personal relations, system harm cultural deficient echo, and the need to undertake another communal actions was identified that they provoke the change and modify the picture of communal health. (shrink)

Se realizó una intervención comunitaria en el asentamiento rural "El León" de Camagüey basada en los resultados de un estudio anterior. Su objetivo fue implementar un sistema de acciones socio-sanitarias colectadas en un manual que organizó contenidos de antropología socio cultural, psicología y sociología de la salud, fue conducida por profesionales de enfermería cuyo encargo social les asigna una mayor permanencia e intercambio con los pobladores. Se potenció el trabajo comunitario a partir de febrero de 2010. La investigación constituyó un (...) diseño mixto, con un estudio cuasi experimental sin grupo control combinado con métodos cualitativos. La evaluación final efectuada en el periodo 2013-2015 exhibió modificaciones positivas en indicadores del Análisis de la Situación de Salud y el entorno comunitario. Se demostró la importancia de la aplicación de las acciones comunitarias por el personal de enfermería como agente de cambio de desarrollo local y protagonista de sostenibilidad. A community intervention was carried out at the rural settlement "El León". Its objective was to implement a system of actions led by nursing professionals whose social role assigns them longer permanence and interchange with the inhabitants of the community. Community work was fostered from February 2010 with social and sanitary actions based on socio-cultural anthropology, psychology and health sociology knowledge. The investigation had a mixed design, being a quasi-experimental study without control group combined with qualitative methods. The final evaluation, which took place from 2013-2015, showed positive modifications in Health Analysis indicators and community environment. The importance of the application of community actions by nursing personnel as agents of change for local development and sustainability leaders was demonstrated. (shrink)

This commentary explores a number of issues raised by Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel in 'Describing Inner Experience'. The commentary argues for expanding the definition of mental imag-ery, by which it is a virtually universal human attribute; reintroduces a theory of response organization, the meaning complex, to conceptu-alize unsymbolized thinking; draws on work with Guided Affective Imagery to comment on the fragility versus robustness of mental imagery; comments on the virtues and probable flaws of Descriptive Experience Sampling , including an evolutionary explanation (...) of the flaws; and describes a pair of alternatives to DES: idiothetic experience sampling in which rating scales immediately follow the narrative reports, in place of delayed interviews, and the growing promise of coupling experience sampling with brain imaging. (shrink)

Written by two of the leading figures in the field, this is a lucid and systematic introduction to semantics as applied to transformational grammars of the ...

O pensamento ético de Levinas, que se volta para o amanhã-agora, porvir, expõe a ideia de que algo (infinito) se infiltra, de modo subversivo, na ordem das palavras e das coisas, indicando a modulação de uma nova subjetividade que diz respeito à concretude da relação com outrem, responsabilidade hiperbólica do para-o-outro.

Introduction: Time and the shared world -- The "subject" of inquiry -- Mineness and the practical first-person -- Being and otherness: Sartre's critique -- Heideggerian aprioricity and the categories of being -- The temporality of care -- Fursorge: acknowledging the other Dasein -- Authenticity, inauthenticity, and the extremes of Fursorge -- Conclusion.

Background The aim was to explore how the clinical ethics committees in Norway have worked and functioned within mental health care and addiction treatment services. Methods Analysis of 256 annual reports from clinical ethics committees from 2003 to 2012 and a survey to clinicians who had used a clinical ethics committee. Results Dilemmas related to coercion, confidentiality, information, and patient autonomy dominated. The committees established only for psychiatric hospitals, had received more cases from mental health and addiction services than the (...) committees also serving somatic services. Many of the case discussions involved both somatic and mental health care, complicated legal issues as well as ethical dilemmas. Mental health care professionals that have used the clinical ethics committees evaluated the clinical ethics committees deliberation as useful. Conclusion Given the many difficult ethical dilemmas in mental health care ethics work need to be strengthened. The complexity of the cases requires varied and interdisciplinary competence and training among the clinical ethics committee members. (shrink)

This essay is a critical review of two recent collections, Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance, edited by Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby and Feminism as Critique: On the Politics of Gender, edited by Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell. While the collections differ in their manner of addressing the critical sources that have inspired them-the former relying upon a single theorist, the latter attempting to move through some of the philosophical history that constitutes our present theoretical terrain-both attempt to (...) think through and thus revisualize some of the categories of difference which we have inherited. Though the best essays from these collections are celebrated for demonstrating how "feminism as critique" can work to move us toward a clearer and more inclusive feminist theory, questions are raised about what the inattention to race in these volumes suggests about our own role in the construction of power and knowledge, and the erasures that help to secure them both. (shrink)

Their treatment of such human rights political participation, freedom of conscience, and religious toleration demonstrate, Oh says, that Islam should have a ...

According to Aristotle, the most characteristic activity of friendship is “living together” [to suzên]. This paper seeks to understand living together in the light of his famous, foundational claim that humans are social by nature. Based on an interpretation of Nicomachean Ethics 9.9, I explain our need for friends in terms of a more fundamental human need to appreciate one's life as a whole. I then argue that friendship is built into the very structure of human life itself such that (...) human living is living together. (shrink)

Research from behavioural sciences shows that people reach decisions in a much less rational and well-considered way than was often assumed. The doctrine of informed consent, which is an important ethical principle and legal requirement in medical practice, is being challenged by these insights into decision-making and real-world choice behaviour. This article discusses the implications of recent insights of research on decision-making behaviour for the informed consent doctrine. It concludes that there is a significant tension between the often non-rational choice (...) behaviour and the traditional theory of informed consent. Responsible ways of dealing with or solving these problems are considered. To this end, patient decisions aids are discussed as suitable interventions to support autonomous decision-making. However, current PDAs demand certain improvements in order to protect and promote autonomous decision-making. Based on a conception of autonomy, we will argue which type of improvements are needed. (shrink)

This article uses a conversation analytic framework to describe a type of wh-question used to challenge a prior utterance, specifically to challenge the basis for or right to do an action done by the prior utterance. These wh-questions are able to do challenging because, rather than asking for new information, they are used to convey a strong epistemic stance of the questioner, a negative assertion. The utterances are designed as requests for an account for a prior claim or action, but (...) by conveying a negative assertion, they suggest that there is no adequate account available and, thus, that there are no grounds for the prior claim or action. The use of these questions in institutional settings can display participants' orientation to institutional goals, norms and roles, showing that institutional roles can thus be enacted, and goals accomplished, by means of practices of talk which are not, themselves, institutionally specific. (shrink)

There are several conceptions of truth, such as the classical correspondence conception, the coherence conception and the pragmatic conception. The classical correspondence conception, or Aristotelian conception, received a mathematical treatment in the hands of Tarski (cf. Tarski [1935] and [1944]), which was the starting point of a great progress in logic and in mathematics. In effect, Tarski's semantic ideas, especially his semantic characterization of truth, have exerted a major influence on various disciplines, besides logic and mathematics; for instance, linguistics, the (...) philosophy of science, and the theory of knowledge. The importance of the Tarskian investigations derives, among other things, from the fact that they constitute a mathematical, formal mark to serve as a reference for the philosophical (informal) conceptions of truth. Today the philosopher knows that the classical conception can be developed and that it is free from paradoxes and other difficulties, if certain precautions are taken. We believe that is not an exaggeration if we assert that Tarski's theory should be considered as one of the greatest accomplishments of logic and mathematics of our time, an accomplishment which is also of extraordinary relevance to philosophy, as we have already remarked. In this paper we show that the pragmatic conception of truth, at least in one of its possible interpretations, has also a mathematical formulation, similar in spirit to that given by Tarski to the classical correspondence conception. (shrink)

With the increased use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in wildlife conservation, issues around whether AI-based monitoring tools in wildlife conservation comply with standards regarding AI Ethics are on the rise. This review aims to summarise current debates and identify gaps as well as suggest future research by investigating (1) current AI Ethics and AI Ethics issues in wildlife conservation, (2) Initiatives Stakeholders in AI for wildlife conservation should consider integrating AI Ethics in wildlife conservation. We find that the existing literature (...) weakly focuses on AI Ethics and AI Ethics in wildlife conservation while at the same time ignores AI Ethics integration in AI systems for wildlife conservation. This paper formulates an ethically aligned AI system framework and discusses pre-eminent on-demand AI systems in wildlife conservation. The proposed framework uses agile software life cycle methodology to implement guidelines towards the ethical upgrade of any existing AI system or the development of any new ethically aligned AI system. The guidelines enforce, among others, the minimisation of intentional harm and bias, diversity in data collection, design compliance, auditing of all activities in the framework and ease of code inspection. This framework will inform AI developers, users, conservationists, and policymakers on what to consider when integrating AI Ethics into AI-based systems for wildlife conservation. (shrink)

The concept of sustainability was developed in response to stakeholder demands. One of the key mechanisms for engaging stakeholders is sustainability disclosure, often in the form of a report. Yet, how reporting is used to engage stakeholders is understudied. Using resource dependence and stakeholder theories, we investigate how companies within the same industry address different dependencies on stakeholders for economic, natural environment, and social resources and thus engage stakeholders accordingly. To achieve this objective, we conducted our research using qualitative research (...) methods. Our findings suggest that the resource dependencies on different stakeholders lead to development of different stakeholder relationships and thus appropriate resources within the company to execute engagement strategies that are informing, responding, or involving. Our research explains why diversity exists in sustainability disclosure by studying how it is used to engage stakeholders. We find that five sustainability reporting characteristics are associated with the company’s stakeholder engagement strategy: directness of communication, clarity of stakeholder identity, deliberateness of collecting feedback, broadness of stakeholder inclusiveness, and utilization of stakeholder engagement for learning. Our study develops the literature by providing insight into companies’ choices of stakeholder engagement strategy thus explaining diversity in sustainability reporting based on the characteristics and relationships with specific stakeholders. (shrink)

This study examines the relationships between a company''s emphasis on discretionary social responsibility, environment, and firm performance. It tests the proposition that environmental munificence and dynamism moderate the relationship between discretionary social responsibility and financial performance. Social responsibility was measured with a three-item scale in a sample of 62 firms using a questionnaire. Environmental munificence and dynamism were measured using archival sources as was financial performance (return on assets and return on sales). The results of moderated regression analyses and subgroup (...) analyses found a significant moderating effect of environment on the social responsibility-firm performance relationship. Discretionary social responsibility contributes to firm performance in environments that are dynamic and munificent. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

The concept of the self and its relation to moral action is complex and subject to varying interpretations, not only between different academic disciplines but also across time and space. This paper presents empirical evidence from a cross-cultural study on the Buddhist and Confucian notions of self in SMEs in Vietnam and Taiwan. The study employs Hwang’s Mandala Model of the Self, and its extension into Shiah’s non-self-model, to interpret how these two Eastern philosophical representations of the self, the Confucian (...) relational self and Buddhist non-self, can lead to moral action. By demonstrating the strengths of the model, emphasizing how social and cultural influences constrain the individual self and promote the social person leading to moral action, the paper extends understanding of the self with empirical evidence of the mechanisms involved in organizational contexts. (shrink)

Controlled human malaria infection (CHMI) studies involve the deliberate infection of healthy volunteers with malaria parasites under controlled conditions to study immune responses and/or test drug or vaccine efficacy. An empirical ethics study was embedded in a CHMI study at a Kenyan research programme to explore stakeholders’ perceptions and experiences of deliberate infection and moral implications of these. Data for this qualitative study were collected through focus group discussions, in‐depth interviews and non‐participant observation. Sixty‐nine participants were involved, including CHMI study (...) volunteers, community representatives and research staff. Data were managed using QSR Nvivo 10 and analysed using an inductive‐deductive approach, guided by ethics literature. CHMI volunteers had reasonable understanding of the study procedures. Decisions to join were influenced by study incentives, trust in the research institution, their assessment of associated burdens and motivation to support malaria vaccine development. However, deliberate malaria infection was a highly unusual research strategy for volunteers, community representatives and some study staff. Volunteers’ experiences of physical, emotional and social burdens or harms were often greater than anticipated initially, and fluctuated over time, related to specific procedures and events. Although unlikely to deter volunteers' participation in similar studies in furture, we argue that the dissonance between level of understanding of the burdens involved and actual experiences are morally relevant in relation to community engagement, informed consent processes, and ongoing support for volunteers and research staff. We further argue that ethics oversight of CHMI studies should take account of these issues in deciding whether consent, engagement and the balance of benefits and harms are reasonable in a given context. (shrink)

In this paper I respond to the view that Heidegger is unable to account for the possibility of immediately experiencing others in their concrete particularity. Critics have argued that since Mitsein characterizes Dasein’s mode of being regardless of the presence or absence of others, Heidegger has essentially granted it the status of an a priori category. In doing so, they argue, Heidegger reduces the other to a mere interchangeable token whose uniqueness is subsumed under the generality of the established category. (...) In contrast, I argue that the Heideggerian ‘a priori’ must be understood as a living responsiveness to particularity, not a top-down imposition of abstract categoriality. The argument further shows that this responsiveness must be understood in terms of temporal particularity. The bulk of the paper then demonstrates the nature of such responsiveness when it is the temporal particularity of the other Dasein that is being encountered. I show that such encounters are a necessary condition for the possibility of world time and the worldly space of shared significance. Because my encounter with the other Dasein is a direct experience of her originary temporality—the fundamental expression of her concrete care-defined way of being—such encounters are not simple subsumptions of the other to an a priori category. They are, rather, a temporal responsiveness to the unique mode of intuitive givenness characterizing other Dasein. (shrink)