Ambient assisted living technologies can provide assistance and support to persons with dementia. They might allow them the possibility of living at home for longer whilst maintaining their comfort and security as well as offering a way towards reducing the huge economic and personal costs forecast as the incidence of dementia increases worldwide over coming decades. However, the development, introduction and use of AAL technologies also trigger serious ethical issues. This paper is a systematic literature review of the on-going scholarly (...) debate about these issues. More specifically, we look at the ethical issues involved in research and development, clinical experimentation, and clinical application of AAL technologies for people with dementia and related stakeholders. In the discussion we focus on: the value of the goals of AAL technologies, the special vulnerability of persons with dementia in their private homes, the complex question of informed consent for the usage of AAL technologies. (shrink)

Modes of rationality in nursing documentation: biology, biography, and the ‘voice of nursing’ This article is based on a discourse analysis of the complete nursing records of 45 patients, and concerns the modes of rationality that mediated text‐based accounts relating to patient care that nurses recorded. The analysis draws on the work of the critical theorist, Jürgen Habermas, who conceptualised rationality in the context of modernity according to two types: purposive rationality based on an instrumental logic, and value rationality based (...) on ethical considerations and moral reasoning. Our analysis revealed that purposive rationality dominated the content of nursing documentation, as evidenced by a particularly bio‐centric and modernist construction of the workings of the body within the texts. There was little reference in the documentation to central themes of contemporary nursing discourses, such as notions of partnership, autonomy, and self‐determination, which are associated with value rationality. Drawing on Habermas, we argue that this nursing documentation depicted the colonisation of the sociocultural lifeworld by the bio‐technocratic system. Where nurses recorded disagreements that patients had with medical regimes, the central struggle inherent in the project of modernity became transparent — the tension between the rational and instrumental control of people through scientific regulation and the autonomy of the subject. The article concludes by problematising communicative action within the context of nursing practice. (shrink)

The French existentialists Simone de Beauvoir and Jean‐Paul Sartre are renowned philosophers of freedom. But what “existentialist freedom” is is a matter of disagreement amongst their interpreters and, some argue, between Beauvoir and Sartre themselves. Since the late 1980s several scholars have argued that a Sartrean conception of freedom cannot justify the ethics of existentialism, adequately account for situations of oppression, or serve feminist ends. On these readings, Beauvoir disagreed with Sartre about freedom—making existentialist ethics, resistance to oppression, and feminism (...) coherently defensible. This article identifies four conceptions of freedom in order to clarify the questions of whether and how they disagreed, arguing that some incompatibilist readings of Sartre and Beauvoir conflate or confuse these conceptions in ways that render their conclusions unconvincing. However, there are stronger grounds on which to claim that Beauvoir disagreed with Sartre about morality—and the conditions of its possibility. (shrink)

What makes certain mental states subject to evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, and others arational? In this paper, I develop and defend an account that explains why belief is governed by, and so appropriately subject to, evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, one that does justice to the complexity of our evaluative practice in this domain. Then, I sketch out a way of extending the account to explain when and why other kinds of (...) mental states are rationally evaluable. I argue that the cognitive or psychological mechanisms that give rise to and sustain our mental states help to render our mental states appropriate targets for evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification when the operation of these mechanisms is responsive, in a specific way, to our judgments about which kinds of considerations constitute rationalizing and justifying reasons for being in states of the relevant sort. (shrink)

We argue the need for academics to resist and challenge the hegemonic discourse of sustainable development within the corporate context. Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory provides a useful framework for recognizing the complex nature of sustainable development and a way of conceptualizing counter-hegemonies. Published empirical research that analyzes sustainable development discourse within corporate reports is examined to consider how the hegemonic discourse is constructed. Embedded assumptions within the hegemonic construction are identified including sustainable development as primarily about economic development, progress, (...) growth, profitability, and “responsibly” managed levels of resource depletion. We call for multiple voices in the discursive field to debate and to resist closure and highlight the possibilities for academic researchers to actively resist the hegemonic construction. Specifically, we advocate vigilance and awareness, critical and reflective analyses, challenge and resistance based on other frames of reference, and strategies for communicating both within and outside the academy. (shrink)

Epistemic evaluation is often appropriately prescriptive in character because believers are often capable of exercising some kind of control—call it doxastic control—over the way in which they regulate their beliefs. An intuitively appealing and widely endorsed account of doxastic control—the immediate causal impact account—maintains that a believer exercises doxastic control when her judgments about how she ought to regulate her beliefs in a particular set of circumstances can cause the believer actually to regulate her beliefs in those circumstances as she (...) judges she ought to. I show here that the immediate causal impact account is ultimately untenable. Nevertheless, the immediate causal impact account gets something important about the nature of doxastic control right: exercising doxastic control involves being such that one’s conception of ideal belief regulation somehow shapes the way in which one actually regulates one’s beliefs. Thus, I develop here an alternative account according to which, insofar as she exercises doxastic control, a believer’s conception of ideal belief regulation shapes the way in which she actually believes by exerting causal power directly on her dispositions to regulate her beliefs in certain ways. I defend this alternative against other competitors by showing that it can be extended to supply a unified account of rational control that explains why evaluation with respect to the various different norms of rationality that govern the way in which we form, revise and sustain not only our beliefs, but also our intention, hopes, fears, etc. is often appropriately prescriptive. (shrink)

What form does power take in situations of retaliation against whistleblowers? In this article, we move away from dominant perspectives that see power as a resource. In place, we propose a theory of normative power and violence in whistleblower retaliation, drawing on an in-depth empirical study. This enables a deeper understanding of power as it circulates in complex processes of whistleblowing. We offer the following contributions. First, supported by empirical findings we propose a novel theoretical framing of whistleblower retaliation and (...) the role of mental health, which draws upon poststructuralist psychoanalytic thinking. Specifically, we highlight how intra- and inter-psychic affective and ambivalent attachments to organizations influence the use of normative violence in cases of whistleblower retaliation. The second contribution is empirical and builds upon the existing literature on whistleblower retaliation by highlighting how organizations position whistleblower subjects as mentally unstable and unreliable individuals, to undermine their claims. We conclude by highlighting the implications of normative power for the outcomes of whistleblower struggles. (shrink)

In 2006, and again in 2007, I suffered the miscarriages of two wanted and painstakingly planned pregnancies. In the aftermath of each, I found myself unprepared, as do many women who miscarry, for the devastation I would feel. In my attempts to cope, I sought solace in the written testimony of other women who had miscarried, in the medical statistics that reassured me I still had a strong chance of carrying another pregnancy to term, in the experiences of friends and (...) colleagues who had dealt with miscarriage and other reproductive difficulties, and in the expertise of counselors who helped me process my thoughts and feelings. While each of these avenues was helpful in its own right, I still found myself struggling.. (shrink)

This article presents an axiological reading of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, reframing its most famous sentence ‘one is not born, but becomes, a woman’ as a claim about femininity, love, and alienation under particular conditions of sexual hierarchy. Because this sentence is often taken to express the thesis of The Second Sex on social constructionist readings, Section 1 rejects the aptness of this approach on three grounds. Section 2 outlines an alternative, axiological reading, which better attends to all (...) of the work’s parts, and to Beauvoir’s emphasis on the concrete inseparability of the physiological, sexual, economic, legal, religious, moral, and aesthetic dimensions of women’s situations. Section 3 turns to the sister ‘one is not born’ clause, in Volume I—‘one is not born, but becomes, a genius’—to show that Beauvoir’s account of frustrated freedom in The Second Sex concerns not only alienated labour, sex, and love, but also aesthetic creativity and moral invention. (shrink)

The Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings (GCC) aims to stop the export of unethical research practices from higher to lower income settings. Launched in 2018, the GCC was immediately adopted by European Commission funding streams for application in research that is situated in lower and lower-middle income countries. Other institutions soon followed suit. This article reports on the application of the GCC in two of the first UK-funded projects to implement this new code, one situated in (...) India and one in Pakistan. Through systematic ethics evaluation of both projects, the practical application of the GCC in real-world environments was tested. The findings of this ethics evaluation suggest that while there are challenges for implementation, application of the GCC can promote equity in international research collaborations. (shrink)

The Chicago school of pragmatism was one of the most controversial and prominent intellectual movements of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Spanning the ferment of academic and social thought that erupted in those turbulent times in America, the Chicago pragmatists earned widespread attention and respect for many decades. They were a central force in philosophy, contesting realism and idealism for supremacy in metaphysics, epistemology and value theory. Their functionalist views formed the Chicago school of religion, which sparked intense scrutiny (...) into the real meaning of theism, religious experience and the role of religious values in society. Their social standpoint on psychology generated the Chicago school of sociology, social psychology and symbolic interactionism that dominated the social sciences until the 1960s. Their educational philosophy was a major component of progressivism, aiming to make schools more responsive to the democratic and industrial character of the country. In economics, labour issues, civil rights and liberal politics, the Chicago school was also impossible to ignore This four-volume set focuses on the cornerstones of the thought grounding such intellectual activism: their philosophies of human nature, intelligence, values and social purpose. While other collections of the writings of the most prominent Chicago pragmatists (John Dewey, George Mead and James Tufts) offer some of their own individual work, no other collection captures the entire breadth and depth of the movement as a whole. Key writings of these major philosophers are set in their proper context of important writings of James Angell, Edward Ames, Addison Moore, and of many of their graduates who had significant careers, including Ella Flagg Young, H. Heath Bawden, Arthur Rogers, Irving King, Kate Gordon, Douglas Macintosh, William Wright, Clarence Ayres and Charles Morris. Also included are their debates with many critics, such as James Mark Baldwin, George Santayana, William Montague, Roy Wood Sellars and William Hocking. Spanning roughly fifty years, the 130 pieces are brought together from several dozens of now obscure and increasingly rare books, journals and archival sources. This collection will be indispensable for the study of American intellectual history, and especially the evolution of American philosophy, psychology, sociology, religion, education and politics. --130 articles gathered into an indispensable collection covering the entire Chicago pragmatism movement --all materials are reset, annotated, indexed and enhanced by new editorial introductions --includes a wealth of obscure, rare and hard-to-find original materials --indispensable for the study of American intellectual history, and especially the evolution of American philosophy, psychology, sociology, religion, education and politics. (shrink)

What makes an external whistleblower effective? Whistleblowers represent an important conduit for dissensus, providing valuable information about ethical breaches and organizational wrongdoing. They often speak out about injustice from a relatively weak position of power, with the aim of changing the status quo. But many external whistleblowers fail in this attempt to make their claims heard and thus secure change. Some can experience severe retaliation and public blacklisting, while others are ignored. This article examines how whistleblowers can succeed in bringing (...) their claims to the public’s attention. We draw on analyses of political struggle by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Specifically, we propose that through the raising of a demand, the whistleblowing subject can emerge as part of a chain of equivalences, in a counter-hegemonic movement that challenges the status quo. An analysis of a high-profile case of tax justice whistleblowing-that of Rudolf Elmer-illustrates our argument. Our proposed theoretical framing builds upon and contributes to literature on whistleblowing as organizational parrhesia by demonstrating how parrhesiastic demand might lead to change in public perception through the formation of alliances with other disparate interests—albeit that the process is precarious and complex. Practically, our article illuminates a persistent concern for those engaged in dissensus via whistleblowing, and whose actions are frequently ignored or silenced. We demonstrate how such actions can move towards securing public support in order to make a difference and achieve change. (shrink)

Intervening on causal systems can illuminate their underlying structures. Past work has shown that, relative to adults, young children often make intervention decisions that appear to confirm a single hypothesis rather than those that optimally discriminate alternative hypotheses. Here, we investigated how the ability to make informative causal interventions changes across development. Ninety participants between the ages of 7 and 25 completed 40 different puzzles in which they had to intervene on various causal systems to determine their underlying structures. Each (...) puzzle comprised a three‐ or four‐node computer chip with hidden wires. On each trial, participants viewed two possible arrangements of the chip's hidden wires and had to select a single node to activate. After observing the outcome of their intervention, participants selected a wire configuration and rated their confidence in their selection. We characterized participant choices with a Bayesian measurement model that indexed the extent to which participants selected nodes that would best disambiguate the two possible causal structures versus those that had high causal centrality in one of the two causal hypotheses but did not necessarily discriminate between them. Our model estimates revealed that the use of a discriminatory strategy increased through early adolescence. Further, developmental improvements in intervention strategy were related to changes in the ability to accurately judge the strength of evidence that interventions revealed, as indexed by participants' confidence in their selections. Our results suggest that improvements in causal information‐seeking extend into adolescence and may be driven by metacognitive sensitivity to the efficacy of previous interventions in discriminating competing ideas. (shrink)

Knowledge is a presumed motivator for changed consumption practices in ethical eating discourse: the consumer learns more about where their food comes from and makes different consumption choices. Despite intuitive appeal, scholars are beginning to illuminate the limits of knowledge-focused praxis for ethical eating. In this paper, we draw from qualitative interviews and focus groups with Toronto mothers to explore the role of knowledge in conceptions of ethical foodwork. While the goal of educating children about their food has become central (...) to Canadian and American discourses of “good” mothering, we identify a paradoxical maternal expectation surrounding meat consumption: to raise informed child consumers who know where their food comes from, and to protect children from the harsh realities of animal slaughter. Rather than revealing the story behind the meat on a child’s plate, mothers seek to shield children from knowledge of meat production. Our analysis of the child consumer contributes to ethical eating scholarship and illuminates a larger paradox surrounding knowledge of meat in an industrialized food system. In the practice of feeding children, mothers confront the visceral discomforts of meat consumption; their reactions speak to discordant feelings involved with eating meat in a setting far-removed from the lives and deaths of animals. Ultimately, the paper illustrates the limits of consumer-focused strategies for food-system change that call on individual mothers to educate young consumers and protect childhood innocence, all while getting ethically-sourced meals on the table. (shrink)

The capacity to perceive internal bodily states is linked to emotional awareness and effective emotional regulation. We explore individual differences in emotional awareness in relation to the fading affect bias, which refers to the greater dwindling of unpleasant compared to pleasant emotions in autobiographical memory. We consider interoceptive awareness and alexithymia in relation to the FAB, and private event rehearsal as a mediating process. With increasing interoceptive awareness, there was an enhanced FAB, but with increasing alexithymia, there was a decreased (...) FAB. Further, the effects of interoceptive awareness were partially mediated by private rehearsal of pleasant events. We provide novel evidence that capacity for emotional awareness and thus effective processing is an important factor predictive of the FAB. Moreover, our results imply an important role for maintaining positive affect in the FAB. Our findings offer new insights into the effects of interoception and alexithymia on autobiographical memory, and support concepts of the FAB emerging as a result of adaptive emotional regulation processes. (shrink)

Evidence suggests that the incidence of research misconduct is not in decline despite efforts to improve awareness, education and governance mechanisms. Two responses to this problem are favoured: first, the promotion of an agent-centred ethics approach to enhance researchers’ personal responsibility and accountability, and second, a change in research culture to relieve perceived pressures to engage in misconduct. This article discusses the challenges for both responses and explains how normative coherence through values alignment might assist. We argue that research integrity (...) and research ethics convey mixed messages, which are likely to contribute to a form of normative confusion. For the successful adoption of an agent-centred approach, normative coherence is needed between the two. To facilitate normative coherence, we propose that research ethics and research integrity be underpinned by a shared set of moral values that can be enacted via codes and guidelines and imbue research environments. Furthermore, to facilitate culture change, the same normative coherence is necessary at all levels of an institution. Only via values alignment between institutional aims, management, institutional practices and researchers can an ethical culture become truly embedded in research institutions. (shrink)

The use of non-human primates in biomedical research is a contentious issue that raises serious ethical and practical concerns. In the European UnionEuropean Union, where regulations on their use are very tight, the number of non-human primates used in research has been in decline over the past decade. However, this decline has been paralleled by an increase in numbers used elsewhere in the world, with less regard for some of the ethical issues. There is evidence that researchers from high-income countries, (...) where regulations on the use of non-human primates are strict, may be tempted to conduct some of their experiments in countries where regulation is less strict, through new collaborative efforts. In collaborative ventures, equivalence in the application of ethical standardsEthical standards in animal research, regardless of location, is necessary to avoid this exploitationExploitation. (shrink)

This article traces the "dialogue" between the work of the philosophers Luce Irigaray and Emmanuel Levinas. It attempts to construct a more nuanced discussion than has been given to date of Irigaray's critique of Levinas, particularly as formulated in "Questions to Emmanuel Levinas" (Irigaray 1991). It suggests that the concepts of the feminine and of voluptuosity articulated by Levinas have more to contribute to Irigaray's project of an ethics of sexual difference than she herself sometimes appears to think.

Legal responses to battered women who kill have long animated scholarly debate and law reform activity. In September 2012 after 47 years of alleged abuse, Frenchwoman Jacqueline Sauvage fatally shot her abusive husband three times in the back. The subsequent contested trial, conviction for murder, unsuccessful appeal and later presidential pardon of Sauvage thrust the French law of self-defence into the spotlight. The Sauvage case raises important questions surrounding the adequacy of the French criminal law in this area, the ongoing (...) proliferation of gendered stereotypes in law and the need for reform. In the wake of the Sauvage case, this article provides a timely analysis of the gendered law of self-defence in France. Drawing from an in-depth analysis of the judgments imposed in the Sauvage case, this article examines the adequacy of French legal responses to battered women who kill and ignites an argument for further law reform. (shrink)

People in liberal societies tend to feel a little uncomfortable talking about male genital cutting, but generally do not think it is morally abhorrent. But female genital cutting is widely consider...

This paper explores the potential of 'new nature writing' - a literary genre currently popular in the UK - as a kind of arts activism, in particular in terms of how it might engage with the environmental crisis and lead to a kind of collective politics. We note the limitations of the genre, notably the reproduction of class, gender and ethnic hierarchies, the emphasis on nostalgia and loss, and the stress on individual responses rather than collective politics. But we also (...) take seriously the claims of art to enable us to imagine other futures, suggesting that new nature writing has the potential to play a role in collective forms of environmental justice and capabilities. (shrink)

This article reviews three new books analysing the phenomenon of neoliberalism through religious lenses and comments on how Christian ethics should navigate among various distinct uses of the term ‘neoliberalism’ and the solutions a Christian ethical approach proposes to the ways in which neoliberalism harms humans and societies.

While documentary ethics has been largely normative to date, there is growing interest in alternative forms of ethical thinking. The work of Emmanuel Levinas in particular is providing a way of thinking through both the ethics of documentary viewing and production. This article begins by drawing attention to the link between documentary ethics and aesthetics and then uses Levinas's work to consider the ethical relations established in observational documentary production. Of the different documentary modes, the observational has been the source (...) of particular ethical difficulties, yet viewed from a Levinisian perspective it is possible to identify ways in which observation preserves the alterity of the documentary subject. (shrink)

Recalcitrant emotions, such as fear of flying, are emotions that persist even though they are in tension with the emoter’s considered belief. A widely accepted argument against cognitivist theories of emotion holds that recalcitrant emotions show that emotions are more like sensory states than like thoughts or beliefs. I show that this argument does not succeed: Emotions are usually sensitive to our changing beliefs in a way that is more akin to cognitive states than to sensations. Moreover, empirical evidence strongly (...) suggests that beliefs sometimes behave much like recalcitrant emotions do. (shrink)

Concerns about values and caring in the USA are being widelyvoiced in many sectors of the society, including agriculture.The time seems right to bring new ideas about the ethics ofagriculture and eating into public discourse. The Society iswell situated to initiate the dialogue, and Paul Thompson'sbook {\it Spirit of the Soil} provides an excellentstarting point.

Jean-Paul Sartre is rarely discussed in the philosophy of religion. In 2009, however, Jerome Gellman broke the silence, publishing an article in which he argued that the source of Sartre’s atheism was neither philosophical nor existential, but mystical. Drawing from several of Sartre’s works – including Being and Nothingness, Words, and a 1943 review entitled ‘A New Mystic’ – I argue that there are strong biographical and philosophical reasons to disagree with Gellman’s conclusion that Sartre was a ‘mystical atheist’. Moreover, (...) I question the likelihood of drawing any definitive conclusions regarding the sources of Sartre’s ambiguous atheism. (shrink)

Ryle (1949, Chapter V) discusses a range of predicates which in different ways exemplify a property I shall call quasi-duality - they appear to report two actions or events in one predicate. Quasi-duality is the key property of predicates Ryle classed as achievements. Ryle's criteria for classification were not temporal or aspectual, and Vendler's subsequent adoption of the term achievement for the aktionsart of momentary events changes the term - Rylean achievements and Vendlerian achievements are in principle different classes. Nevertheless, (...) I shall argue in this paper that certain kinds of quasi-duality do have aspectual significance. This paper examines a number of quasi-dual predicates which are not generally discussed in the aktionsart literature, including break a promise, miscount, and cure the patient. Two types of quasi-dual predicates are identified and dubbed criterion predicates and causative upshot predicates. It is shown that both types of quasi-dual predicate lack process progressives, despite being durative, and it is argued that the lack of process progressives identifies these predicates as (aspectual) achievements. They are termed durative achievements to distinguish them from canonical, momentary achievements. It is argued that these predicates lack process progressives, and hence are achievements, because they express individual-level predicates on the event argument. A process progressive is stage-level for the event, and hence is incompatible with a predicate which is lexically individual-level for the event. (shrink)

Hegel famously argues that Kant’s account of critical distance depends upon an impoverished conception of freedom. In its place, Hegel introduces a richer conception of freedom, according to which the self who is capable of self-determination is multifaceted: wanting and thinking, social and individual. This richer conception gives rise to an account of critical reflection that emphasizes engagement with our motives and practices rather than radical detachment from them. But what is most distinctive about Hegel’s account is the idea that (...) when we reflect upon motives and practices, we draw upon shared self-understandings that are neither universal nor just particular to individuals. There is, Hegel argues, no presocial identity or self that can be detached from our socially constituted contexts of thought and value. This has important implications for how we conceive of critical reflection. (shrink)

The moral questions raised by synthetic media are considered in the context of posthumous documentary biography. Two possibilities are explored: firstly, that synthesis of the voice in biographical documentary deceives in a distinctive way and secondly, that it is possible for synthetic media to harm the subject of posthumous documentary.

There is a diversity of views among feminists who have been debating whether or not a women's movement exists in Britain today. In part this is due to the lack of a clear working definition of social movement. This article uses social movement theory to discuss the ambiguous signs that are taken to indicate either the movement's continuing existence or its disappearance: the growth of mainstream political organizations; a focus on `women' in cultural production; the `micro-politics' of everyday life. The (...) article looks at the history of second-wave feminism in England using the two main schools of social movement theory: the `contentious politics' model focusing on organizations and formal political structures; and the `submerged networks' theory that takes solidarity, conflict and challenging dominant cultural codes to be central to social movements. (shrink)

This paper explores the tensions that arise when one considers the relevance of institutionalized philosophy to social, political, and environmental change. It considers the time it takes to think deeply, critically, creatively, against the urgent need for protest in the streets, for persuasion of our political representatives, for profound alterations to what we consume. Since philosophy in the academy can reek of disproportionate privilege and self-protection and norms that govern institutionalized philosophy often drive away some of the most curious minds (...) and diverse perspectives, this paper considers: if our philosophical work does not help in substantial ways to address social, political, and environmental crises, can we, in good conscience, continue it? To think through this question, this paper will share a video-based assignment on “activism” that helps me, and hopefully students in my classes, navigate, but not resolve, this tension. (shrink)

We tested two accounts of the cognitive process underlying the N400 event‐related potential component: one that it reflects meaning‐based processing and one that it reflects the processing of specific words. The experimental design utilized separable Persian phrasal verbs, which form a strongly probabilistic, long‐distance dependency, ideal for the study of probabilistic processing. In sentences strongly constraining for a particular continuation, we show evidence that between two low‐probability words, only the word that changed the expected meaning of the sentence increased N400 (...) amplitude, while a synonym of the most probable target word did not. The findings support an account of the N400 in which its underlying process is driven by the processing of meaning rather than of specific words. (shrink)

For much of his adult life, Nietzsche wrote notes on philosophical subjects in small notebooks that he carried around with him. After his breakdown and subsequent death, his sister supervised the publication of some of these notes under the title The Will to Power, and that collection, which is textually inaccurate and substantively misleading, has dominated the English-speaking discussion of Nietzsche's later thought. The present volume offers, for the first time, accurate translations of a selection of writings from Nietzsche's late (...) notebooks, dating from his last productive years between 1885 and 1889. Many of them have never before been published in English. They are translated by Kate Sturge from reliable texts in the Colli-Montinari edition, and they are edited by Rüdiger Bittner, whose introduction places them in the context of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole. (shrink)

In Australia research projects proposing the use of linked data require approval by a Human Research Ethics Committee . A sound evaluation of the ethical issues involved requires understanding of the basic mechanics of data linkage, the associated benefits and risks, and the legal context in which it occurs. The rapidly increasing number of research projects utilising linked data in Australia has led to an urgent need for enhanced capacity of HRECs to review research applications involving this emerging research methodology. (...) The training described in this article was designed to respond to an identified need among the data linkage units in the Australian Population Health Research Network and HREC members in Australia. (shrink)

This paper presents a method for teaching undergraduate students how to write better term papers in philosophy. The method integrates two key assignment components: scaffolding and peer review. We explain these components and how they can be effectively combined within a single term paper assignment. We then present the results of our multi-year research study on the integrated method. Professor observations, quantitative measures, and qualitative feedback indicate that student writing improves when philosophy term paper assignments are designed to generate multiple (...) rounds of drafting and review. (shrink)

This essay describes some of the work leading up to the first issue of the Journal as a way to understand why it took the form it did and why its guiding concepts are still relevant. Those concepts-identifying philosophical assumptions, interdisciplinary research, and systems thinking are probably more relevant than they were four decades ago, given how complex agricultural and food issues have become.

A 2009 decision by a Florida state trial court marks a recent addition to the long line of cases authorizing compelled medical treatment of pregnant women for the benefit of their unborn children. Despite recurring judicial and academic consideration of the issues involved, there is no consensus regarding the correct approach to take in cases that pit a woman's right to refuse medical treatment against the state's interest in protecting fetal health. Burton v. Florida, currently under appeal to Florida's First (...) District Court of Appeals, demonstrates the difficulty of emergency decision-making in this area and the need for robust ex ante consideration of the important interests at stake.In March 2009, pursuant to a petition by the State of Florida, the Leon County Circuit Court overrode a pregnant woman's informed refusal to consent to medical treatment, and ordered her to remain a hospital inpatient and submit to medical treatment. (shrink)