The article starts by offering a definition of fake kindness focused on the dissociation between the behavioural components of kindness and the intent to sincerely pay some heed to the needs of others. Using the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu, this definition is then used to articulate how fake kindness can be conceptualized as a specific form of symbolic violence. Such a view allows explanations as to how and why the prevalence and effectiveness of fake kindness vary according to microsociological (...) norms and values. The generic definition and conceptualization of fake kindness as a form of symbolic violence are then used to discuss how nursing’s enthrallment with the concept of caring and its operationalization as a moral compass likely fosters the growth of fake kindness within the profession. In this view, the institutional enforcement of propriety and well-behaved professionalism is more likely to lead to toxic environments than to healthy workplaces. We hope that being able to understand how professional norms and institutional rules are sometimes turned into social tools to enforce obedience and existing hierarchies can empower victims of those phenomena to resist them more effectively. It might also contribute to increasing the awareness of well-meaning nurses or people in position of authority who have been socialized in environments where fake kindness is normalized. (shrink)

The amount allocated to publicly funded health care for 2005/06 in New Zealand, a small country of some four million people, is $NZ 9.68 billion, or 6.2% of GDP, an increase from the 5.7% of GDP in 2000/01. The Minister of Finance has recently signalled that spending in health and education has outpaced economic growth, and that the present rate of growth in health spending, which has grown at about 7% a year over the last decade, is unsustainable. Despite these (...) big funding increases in recent years, the perception of New Zealanders is that the extra spending has made little difference, at least to hospital services and to people’s ability to access treatment. In surveys, health emerges as a leading concern for New Zealanders. Their concern is apparently less about the quality of services, than about their ability to access treatment - whether they will be able to access timely health care when they or their family members need it. (shrink)

The amount allocated to publicly funded health care for 2005/06 in New Zealand, a small country of some four million people, is $NZ 9.68 billion, or 6.2% of GDP, an increase from the 5.7% of GDP in 2000/01. The Minister of Finance has recently signalled that spending in health and education has outpaced economic growth, and that the present rate of growth in health spending, which has grown at about 7% a year over the last decade, is unsustainable. Despite these (...) big funding increases in recent years, the perception of New Zealanders is that the extra spending has made little difference, at least to hospital services and to people’s ability to access treatment. In surveys, health emerges as a leading concern for New Zealanders. Their concern is apparently less about the quality of services, than about their ability to access treatment - whether they will be able to access timely health care when they or their family members need it. (shrink)

During normal aging there is a decline in cognitive functions that includes deficits in oral discourse production. A higher level of education and more frequent reading and writing habits might delay the onset of the cognitive decline during aging. This study aimed at investigating the effect of education and RWH on oral discourse production in older adults. Picture-based narratives were collected from 117 healthy adults, aged between 51 and 82 years with 0–20 years of formal education. Measures of macro, microlinguistic (...) and modalizations were computed and entered as dependent variables in hierarchical regression analyses that included age, education and RWH as regressors. Results revealed that higher education explained a better performance at the macrostructure and microstructure dimensions. Higher frequency of RWH explained the production of fewer modalizations. These results demonstrate the positive effect of education and RWH in oral discourse production in older adults. Therefore, higher attention should be given to these social factors. (shrink)

One of the fundamental methodological problems of economics as a separate science is the question whether economic theorists are able to restrict themselves to the description of facts without assessing them. Is it possible to create an economic theory utterly deprived of value judgements? In other words – is economics a positive science? This problem is still debatable, notwithstanding efforts to eradicate all value judgements from economic analysis and to treat it as a touchstone of the scientificity of economic reasoning. (...) The main purpose of the article is to analyse Sedláček arguments and to confront his stance with other approaches. Furthermore, an attempt is made to assess whether his position could be attractive for contemporary mainstream economists. (shrink)

This paper presents the benefits they can obtain business which aim to protect the environment. The environment protection has found its place and affects the process of systemic change of the Polish economy. This article assumes that building a competitive economy and enterprise development based on the principle of sustainable development requires the development of mechanisms for mutual benefits. These will be the economic mechanisms, technical and technological, and social. All these mechanisms are concentrated in clusters. Pursue sustainable development policies, (...) an emphasis on environmental protection will be the general element for them a competitive advantage. Sustainable development will in this case be both the agent and the goal of economic and entrepreneurship development. Basing on the assumption that economic development is possible through the achievement of competitive advantage, sustainable development should be treated as its source. (shrink)

The ongoing process of democratisation lead to the growing importance of the electoral systems that regulate the procedures of gaining and legitimizing power in democracy. Taking it into account it is worth asking about the relationship between these particular ‘game rules’ contained into electoral law and the respect of the rule of law, being one of the basic norms of a democratic system. A question then may be raised about the existence and the character of the relation between electoral systems (...) and the level of political corruption. It is worth noticing that besides the research conducted by political scientists and the representatives of various branches of social sciences the significant analysis of the issue have been presented by the economists. In this article a brief overview of the economic studies on the relationship between level of political corruption and the electoral systems is presented so as to assess to what degree this approach may be treated as fruitful. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine whether relational mobility on a country level related to individuals’ tendencies to restrict their movement following the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic and following the issuance of stay-at-home orders in their country. We use data on geographic mobility, composed of records of geolocation information provided via mobile phones, to examine changes in geographic mobility at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We show that individuals in countries with higher RM tended to decrease their geographic (...) mobility more than those in countries with lower RM following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar results were found for wealth gross domestic product, but were independent of RM. These results suggest that individuals in countries with higher RM were more responsive to calls to reduce geographic mobility. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric Jahrgang: 45 Heft: 1 Seiten: 277-287.

Semantic contextualism claims that sentences ascribing knowledge or lack thereof (sentences like "S knows that p" and "S doesn't know that p") are context dependent: they express different propositions in different contexts of utterance. "Knows that" is either indexical or elliptical and refers to different relations in different circumstances. Invariantism argues in turn that the knowing relation is just one and the proposition expressed by a given knowledge ascription does not depend on context. A special case of invariantism is interest-relative (...) invariantism proposed recently by Jason Stanley. According to |R| knowledge is conceptually linked to practical interests. Whether or not true beliefs count as knowledge depends on the costs of being wrong; on the stakes in a given situation (I may know that the bank will be open on Saturday if I have no important business to be done in the bank; if however I have an impending bill coming due I will not count as knowing that the bank will be open on Saturday even though my evidence as regard bank opening hours has not changed). It is argued in the paper that the difference between various contexts in which knowledge ascriptions are made is not a difference in stakes. Moreover knowledge has to be distinguished from willingness to be sure. One may know something but not be sure about it and may be sure about something but not to know it. The higher the stakes the more sure one usually wants to be, but the height of the stakes does not have such an impact on knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper one of the popular conceptions of rigidity of general names is presented and discussed. According to this view general terms\' rigidity consists in the fact that they have the same abstract designatum (namely a kind or a property) in all possible words. It is argued that the view which says that all general names are in fact abstract names is no good, because (i) in postulating the existence of abstract designatum, it \'multiplies entities beyond necessity\', (ii) it (...) either trivialises the notion of rigidity or else entangles us in an unresolvable discussion as to the nature of universals, (iii) is ad hoc, and (iv) rigidity defined in this conception cannot play any of the roles that Kripke wanted the notion of rigidity for general terms to play. (shrink)

The main focus of this thesis is indeterminate identity and its relations to vague objects and to imprecise designation. Evans's argument concerning indeterminate-identity statements is often regarded as a proof that vague objects cannot exist. In chapter I I try to argue that the argument may be refuted by vague objects theorists. In chapter II I present various accounts of what indeterminate identity between objects may consist in and three different characteristics of it. I argue that there are objects whose (...) identity is indeterminate and that such indeterminacy is ontic in the sense that it concerns individuation and spatio-temporal boundaries of objects. I also formulate the argument showing that terms designating indeterminately identical objects cannot be precise designators. Chapter III is devoted to problems concerning vagueness and identity-over-time. The indeterminate answer to the questions concerning diachronic identity in puzzling cases can be regarded as the correct response by both endurantists and perdurantists. However, while for perdurantists the whole vagueness of persistence conditions is a conceptual matter, for endurantists it deserves the name of "ontic vagueness". Chapter IV focuses on questions concerning vagueness and identity-at-a-time. I offer a new solution to the problem of the many, according to which in each case in which the problem arises there is - contrary to appearances - only one object present. The problem arises because each such object has many precisifications, which nevertheless have no ontological significance. I also propose a new account of what it takes for an object to be vague. Chapter V deals with indeterminate identity in the domain of quanta. The first part investigates the various problems concerning identity and individuation of quantum particles, whereas the second part is devoted to analysis and critique of E. J. Lowe's example of alleged indeterminate identity-over-time between electrons. (shrink)

This article explores the unusually high levels of cosmetic surgery in South Korea – for both women and men. We argue that existing explanations, which draw on feminist and postcolonial positions, presenting cosmetic surgery as pertinent only to female and non-western bodies found lacking by patriarchal and racist/imperialist economies, miss important cultural influences. In particular, focus on western cultural hegemony misses the influence in Korea of national identity discourses and traditional Korean beliefs and practices such as physiognomy. We show how (...) these beliefs provide a more ‘gendered’ as opposed to feminist analysis, which allows space for discussion of men’s surgeries. Finally, we critique the accepted notion of the ‘western body’, especially its position in some literature as a more unobtainable ideal for non-western than for western women. We argue that this body has little in common with actual western women’s bodies, and more in common with a globalized image, embodying idealized elements from many different cultures. (shrink)

Heidegger and ethics is a contentious conjunction of terms. Martin Heidegger himself rejected the notion of ethics, while his endorsement of Nazism is widely seen as unethical. This major new study examines the complex and controversial issues involved in bringing them together. By working backwards through his work, from his 1964 claim that philosophy has been completed to _Being and Time_, his first major work, Joanna Hodge questions Heidegger's denial that his enquires were concerned with ethics. She discovers a (...) form of ethics in Heidegger's thinking which elucidates his important distinction between metaphysics and philosophy. Against many contemporary views, she proposes therefore that ethics can be retrieved and questions the relation between ethics and metaphysics that Heidegger had made so pervasive. (shrink)

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2012! Contemporary picturebooks open up spaces for philosophical dialogues between people of all ages. As works of art, picturebooks offer unique opportunities to explore ideas and to create meaning collaboratively. This book considers censorship of certain well-known picturebooks, challenging the assumptions on which this censorship is based. Through a lively exploration of children's responses to these same picturebooks the authors paint a way of working philosophically based on respectful listening and creative and authentic interactions, rather (...) than scripted lessons. This dialogical process challenges much current practice in education. The authors propose that a courageous and critical practice of listening is central to the facilitation of mutually educative dialogue. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of education studies, philosophy of education, literacy teaching and learning, children's literature, childhood and pedagogy. (shrink)

Exercise-based rehabilitation forms a key part of the UK National Health Service patient-care pathway for cardiac rehabilitation (CR). Only around half of all eligible patients attend core CR, however, with social inequalities affecting participation. Few qualitative studies have explored in-depth the key factors influencing engagement with CR, specifically from a sociological theoretical, and ethnographic perspective. Utilising an ethnographic approach allowed us to get a sense of the embodied experiences of 10 participants attending or declining core CR, together with a further (...) seven family members/significant others. This provided in-depth appreciation of participants’ lifeworld contexts as key influences on CR participation. The article draws on these qualitative data and focuses on 1) participants’ initial thoughts about CR; and 2) navigating the field of CR, analysed via thematic analysis. We utilise a Bourdieusian theoretical perspective to theorise the findings, including salient socio-cultural factors influencing attendance/non-attendance and (non)adherence. The article findings highlight how perceptions of CR and the ability to navigate the field are strongly influenced by habitus and capital, and how personal biographies and socio-material conditions affect adherence to CR programmes. The study provides original insights into embodied experiences of exercise-based CR, and novel understandings of the reasons for drop-out/poor adherence, theorised from a Bourdieusian perspective. (shrink)

A person who is liable to defensive harm has forfeited his rights against the imposition of the harm, and so is not wronged if that harm is imposed. A number of philosophers, most notably Jeff McMahan, argue for an instrumental account of liability, whereby a person is liable to defensive harm when he is either morally or culpably responsible for an unjust threat of harm to others, and when the imposition of defensive harm is necessary to avert the threatened unjust (...) harm. Others may favour a purely noninstrumental account of liability: one that looks only to the past behaviour of the potentially liable person. We argue that both views are vulnerable to serious objections. Instead we develop and defend a new view of liability to defensive harm: the pluralist account. The pluralist account states that liability to defensive harm has at least two bases. First, if an attacker is morally or culpably responsible for an unjust attack then he has forfeited what we call his agency right, and in doing so he has made himself partially liable to defensive harm. Whether the attacker is fully liable to defensive harm depends, however, on whether the imposition of defensive harm would infringe a different right held by the attacker: his humanitarian right. Humanitarian rights are rights to be provided with urgently needed resources or to be protected from serious harms when others can do so at reasonably low cost. We argue the pluralist account avoids the objections to which the instrumental and noninstrumental views are vulnerable, coheres with our intuitive reactions in a wide range of cases, and sheds new light on the way different rights combine to determine a person's liability to suffer harm. (shrink)

Unprecedented advances in medicine, genetic engineering, and demographic forecasting raise new questions that strain the categories and assumptions of traditional ethical theories. Heyd's approach resolves many paradoxes in intergenerational justice, while offering a major test case for the profound problems of the limits of ethics and the nature of value.