OBJECTIVES: To compare the perceptions of physician executives and clinicians regarding ethical issues in Saudi Arabian hospitals and the attributes that might lead to the existence of these ethical issues. DESIGN: Self-completion questionnaire administered from February to July 1997. SETTING: Different health regions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. PARTICIPANTS: Random sample of 457 physicians (317 clinicians and 140 physician executives) from several hospitals in various regions across the kingdom. RESULTS: There were statistically significant differences in the perceptions of physician (...) executives and clinicians regarding the existence of various ethical issues in their hospitals. The vast majority of physician executives did not perceive that seven of the eight issues addressed by the study were ethical concerns in their hospitals. However, the majority of the clinicians perceived that six of the same eight issues were ethical considerations in their hospitals. Statistically significant differences in the perceptions of physician executives and clinicians were observed in only three out of eight attributes that might possibly lead to the existence of ethical issues. The most significant attribute that was perceived to result in ethical issues was that of hospitals having a multinational staff. CONCLUSION: The study calls for the formulation of a code of ethics that will address specifically the physicians who work in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As a more immediate initiative, it is recommended that seminars and workshops be conducted to provide physicians with an opportunity to discuss the ethical dilemmas they face in their medical practice. (shrink)

This paper explores one aspect of the political in the early Hegel, that of criminal action and its relationship to the concept of recognition in the System of Ethical Life. While it is clear that in this work Hegel thinks that criminal action plays an important role in the transformation of simple ethical communities, it is not clear that, for Hegel, the formal character of crime in the struggle for recognition is anything but negative. I attempt to show how this (...) role for crime leads Hegel to a legalistic conception of Right that has no solid connection with recognition as a social force. (shrink)

In the summer of 1997 one could scarcely enter a bookstore in Beijing without encountering Wang Xiaobo's pensive and defiant look on the cover of dozens of books displayed at the entrance. Wang had suddenly died in the spring of that year at the age of forty-five. Born in Beijing in 1952 to a family of intellectuals, he remained attached to China's capital despite periods of separation, such as during the Cultural Revolution, when he was sent to Yunnan to "learn (...) from the peasants" and taught in a "people-run-school" in Shandong, and also during the 1980s, when he studied in the United States . Wang always returned to Beijing, in the late 1970s to study economy and business at the People's University and in the late 1980s to teach there. After retiring in 1993, he devoted his time to writing: poetry, novels, essays, non-fiction, and a movie script. (shrink)

The unknown nature of tomorrow’s research makes informed consent in biobank research a challenge. Whether the consent given by biobank participants is ‘broad’ or ‘narrow’, the ever present question remains the same: are new activities covered by the original consent? In this article, we focus on the meaning of, and the relation between, broad consent and re-consent in biobank research. We argue that broad consent should be understood as consenting to a framework—a framework which covers aims, core conditions for acceptable (...) use, governance and how these affect participants. Changes that alter the framework in a fundamental way call for re-consent. Three biobank cases of current international interest are used to debate when re-consent is an ethical necessity: whole-genome sequencing, data sharing and commercial utilization. These reflections give us a more nuanced view on what consent is for. We claim that the introduction of broad consents in biobank research has not represented a betrayal of individual participant interests, as some critics have asserted. Broad consents combined with the possible use of re-consent are in certain settings not inferior, but rather ethically superior to narrow consents. In population-based research biobanks, they allow for a reconciliation between individual interest and public matters in society at large. (shrink)

Nonadherence to treatment continues to be one of psychiatry's greatest challenges. To improve adherence and thus improve the care of patients, clinicians and patients' family members sometimes resort to hiding medication in food or drink, a practice referred to as covert/ surreptitious medication. The practice of covert drug administration in food and beverages is well known in the treatment of psychiatrically ill world-wide but no prevalence rates exist. Covert medication may seem like a minor matter, but it touches on legal (...) and ethical issues of a patient's competence, autonomy, and insight. Medicating patients without their knowledge is not justifiable solely as a shortcut for institutions or families wishing to calm a troublesome patient and thus alleviate some of the burdens of care giving. The paramount principle is ensuring the well-being of a patient who lacks the competence to give informed consent. Ethically, covert/surreptitious administration can be seen as a breach of trust by the doctor or by family members who administer the drugs. Covert medication contravenes contemporary ethical practice. Legally, treatment without consent is permissible only where common law or statute provides such authority. The practice of covert administration of medication is not specifically covered in the mental health legislation in developing countries. Many of the current dilemmas in this area have come to public attention because of two important developments in medical ethics and the law - the increasing importance accorded to respect for autonomy and loss of the parens patriae jurisdiction of the courts [parens patriae means 'parent of the country'; it permitted a court to consent or refuse treatment on behalf of an 'incapacity', or alternatively to appoint a guardian with such powers]. (shrink)

Increasingly, national governments across the globe are prioritizing investments in neuroscience. Currently, seven active or in-development national-level brain research initiatives exist, spanning four continents. Engaging with the underlying values and ethical concerns that drive brain research across cultural and continental divides is critical to future research. Culture influences what kinds of science are supported and where science can be conducted through ethical frameworks and evaluations of risk. Neuroscientists and philosophers alike have found themselves together encountering perennial questions; these questions are (...) engaged by the field of neuroethics, related to the nature of understanding the self and identity, the existence and meaning of free will, defining the role of reason in human behavior, and more. With this Perspective article, we aim to prioritize and advance to the foreground a list of neuroethics questions for neuroscientists operating in the context of these international brain initiatives. (shrink)

The Socio-Cultural pluralism and its fabrics in our society have been under the threat of religious fundamentalism and ideological extremism, which firmly believe that there can only one way of true expression and all other forms, are either substandard or false. This attitude has torn away the world into different isolated islands of human settlements. This state of affair is the outcome of multidimensional causes and one among them, no doubt, is related to one of the central issues of Philosophy, (...) i.e., the relation between ‘one and many’. The ontological dimension of the problem of ‘one and many’ cannot be solved withouthaving the proper understanding of epistemological solutions. The epistemic tools of the Advaita Vedanta are powerful enough to suggest pragmatic solutions to the good old problem of ‘one and many’ that attains new relevance in the era of Globalization. The logic of identity in difference and the logic of difference are the two types of logical systems, which are instrumental for the formulation of various types of claims to know of the western tradition. The logic of identity in difference has been clearly designed and defined by the classical logic or the Aristotelian logic. The symbolic logic encarves the various nuances of the logic of difference. The Advaita System has envisaged a new logic i.e., the logic of identity, which is implicit in the Upanisdic mahavakyya ‘Ayam Āthmam Brahma’. The paper intents to explore the possibility of application of the logic of identity in socio-cultural issues of the present day world. (shrink)

Emotional stimuli (e.g. words, images) are often remembered better than neutral stimuli. However, little is known about how memory is affected by an environmentally induced emotional state (without any overtly emotional occurrences) – the focus of this study. Participants were randomly assigned to discovery (n = 305) and replication (n = 306) subsamples and viewed a desktop virtual environment before rating their emotions and completing objective (i.e. item, temporal-order, duration) and subjective (e.g. vividness, sensory detail, coherence) memory measures. In both (...) samples, a Partial Least Squares Correlation analysis showed that an emotional state characterised by high negative emotion (i.e. threat, fear, anxiety) and arousal was reliably associated with better memory in both objective (i.e. item) and subjective (i.e. vividness and sensory detail) domains. No reliable associations were observed for any temporal memory measures (objective or subjective). Thus, an environmentally induced state of negative emotion corresponds with enhanced memory for indices of episodic memory pertaining to “what” happened, but not necessarily “when” it happened. (shrink)