For manufacturing enterprises to successfully enter the “Industry 4.0” era and establish advantages in the new wave of the Industrial Revolution, they must use Internet thinking to transform manufacturing enterprises and promote the in-depth integration of informatization and industrialization under the premise of managing and controlling risks, to achieve transformation and upgrading. Research on and management of the risks of manufacturing enterprises’ Internet strategic transformation directly affects the success or failure of enterprises’ transformation. This study constructed a risk evaluation model (...) for a manufacturing enterprise’s Internet strategic transformation based on the back propagation artificial neural network and conducted a case study on one enterprise. (shrink)

This study explored the relationship among the emotional labor, psychological capital, and mental health of preschool teachers. A questionnaire survey was conducted on 411 preschool teachers in China. The results revealed the following: One emotional labor strategy had a significant negative effect on mental health, whereas two emotional labor strategies had significant positive effects. The psychological capital of preschool teachers had a complete mediation on the relationship between expression of naturally felt emotions and mental health and between the deep acting (...) and mental health. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship is a sustainable development tool that supports the alleviation of poverty and unemployment. Focusing on the promotion of entrepreneurial intention under the background of entrepreneurship education, this study used a structural equation model to examine the role of entrepreneurship policy, entrepreneurial practice, and entrepreneurial spirit on the EI of 384 college students from 22 universities in Guangdong Province. The test results show that there are significant positive correlations between EPo and EI; EPo and EPr; EPo and ES; and EPr (...) and EI. They also support the hypothesis that EPr enhances the positive effect that EPo has on EI. This study puts forth measures to improve EI and makes contributions to future research on EE. (shrink)

Although death statutes permitting physicians to declare brain death are relatively uniform throughout the United States, academic debate persists over the equivalency of human death and brain death. Alan Shewmon showed that the formerly accepted integration rationale was conceptually incomplete by showing that brain-dead patients demonstrated a degree of integration. We provide a more complete rationale for the equivalency of human death and brain death by defending a deeper understanding of the organism as a whole and by using a novel (...) strategy with shared objectives to justify death determination criteria. Our OaaW account describes different types of OaaW, defining human death as the loss of status as a human OaaW. We defend human death as similar to nonhuman death in terms of wakefulness, but also distinct in terms of the sui generis properties, particularly conscious awareness. We thereby defend the equivalency of brain death and human death using a resulting neurocentric rationale. (shrink)

The Neo‐Darwinian concept of natural selection is plausible when one assumes a straightforward causation of phenotype by genotype. However, such simple 1:1 mapping must now give place to the modern concepts of gene regulatory networks and gene expression noise. Both can, in the absence of genetic mutations, jointly generate a diversity of inheritable randomly occupied phenotypic states that could also serve as a substrate for natural selection. This form of epigenetic dynamics challenges Neo‐Darwinism. It needs to incorporate the non‐linear, stochastic (...) dynamics of gene networks. A first step is to consider the mathematical correspondence between gene regulatory networks and Waddington's metaphoric ‘epigenetic landscape’, which actually represents the quasi‐potential function of global network dynamics. It explains the coexistence of multiple stable phenotypes within one genotype. The landscape's topography with its attractors is shaped by evolution through mutational re‐wiring of regulatory interactions – offering a link between genetic mutation and sudden, broad evolutionary changes. (shrink)

We propose the Selfish Goal model, which holds that a person's behavior is driven by psychological processes called goals that guide his or her behavior, at times in contradictory directions. Goals can operate both consciously and unconsciously, and when activated they can trigger downstream effects on a person's information processing and behavioral possibilities that promote only the attainment of goal end-states (and not necessarily the overall interests of the individual). Hence, goals influence a person as if the goals themselves were (...) selfish and interested only in their own completion. We argue that there is an evolutionary basis to believe that conscious goals evolved from unconscious and selfish forms of pursuit. This theoretical framework predicts the existence of unconscious goal processes capable of guiding behavior in the absence of conscious awareness and control (theautomaticity principle), the ability of the most motivating or active goal to constrain a person's information processing and behavior toward successful completion of that goal (thereconfiguration principle), structural similarities between conscious and unconscious goal pursuit (thesimilarity principle), and goal influences that produce apparent inconsistencies or counterintuitive behaviors in a person's behavior extended over time (theinconsistency principle). Thus, we argue that a person's behaviors are indirectly selected at the goal level but expressed (and comprehended) at the individual level. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In a Buddhist treatise from around the fourth century CE there is a very remarkable story which serves as a thought experiment calling us to question the nature of self and the identity of persons. Lost in Sanskrit, the passage is fortunately preserved in a Chinese translation, the Dà zhìdù lùn. We here present the first reliable translation directly from the Classical Chinese, and discuss the philosophical significance of the story in its historical and literary context. We emphasise the (...) philosophical importance of embedding the story in two framing narratives, and demonstrate that the story taps a range of intuitions, and indeed fears, about the survival of the self which have also played a large role in the history of the topic in the West, and which continue to be of great contemporary concern. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle has made the famous distinction between intellectual knowing-that and practical knowing-how. Since knowledge in Confucianism is not merely intellectual but also practical, many scholars have argued that such knowledge is knowing-how or, at least, very similar to it. In this essay, focusing on Wang Yangming’s moral knowledge, I shall argue that it is neither knowing-that nor knowing-how, but a third type of knowing, knowing-to. There is a unique feature of knowing-to that is not shared by either knowing-that or (...) knowing-how: a person with knowing-to will act accordingly, while neither knowing-that nor knowing-how, whether separately or combined, will dispose or incline its possessor to act accordingly. (shrink)

The stunning possibility of “reprogramming” differentiated somatic cells to express a pluripotent stem cell phenotype (iPS, induced pluripotent stem cell) and the “ground state” character of pluripotency reveal fundamental features of cell fate regulation that lie beyond existing paradigms. The rarity of reprogramming events appears to contradict the robustness with which the unfathomably complex phenotype of stem cells can reliably be generated. This apparent paradox, however, is naturally explained by the rugged “epigenetic landscape” with valleys representing “preprogrammed” attractor states that (...) emerge from the dynamical constraints of the gene regulatory network. This article provides a pedagogical primer to the fundamental principles of gene regulatory networks as integrated dynamic systems and reviews recent insights in gene expression noise and fate determination, thereby offering a formal framework that may help us to understand why cell fate reprogramming events are inherently rare and yet so robust. (shrink)

Packed with ideas designed to help children learn to sing, this booklet offers criteria for selecting songs, strategies to bring out the best in children's voices, and suggestions for games, ideas, and resources.

Despite its prevalence in emerging economies, everyday-life business deviance and its antecedents have received surprisingly little research attention. Drawing on strain theory and the business-ethics literature, we develop a socio-psychological explanation for this deviance. Our analysis of 741 owners of Chinese small- and medium-sized enterprises suggests that materialism and trust in institutional justice affect EBD both directly and indirectly in a relationship mediated by the ethical standards of SME owners. These findings have important implications for researching deviant business behavior within (...) SMEs. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We combine prior research on ethical decision-making in organizations with a rational choice theory of corporate crime from criminology to develop a model of corporate offending that is tested with a sample of U.S. managers. Despite demands for increased sanctioning of corporate offenders, we find that the threat of legal action does not directly affect the likelihood of misconduct. Managers’ evaluations of the ethics of the act, measured using a multidimensional ethics scale, have a significant effect, as do outcome expectancies (...) that result from being associated with the misconduct but not facing formal sanctions. The threat of formal sanctions appears to operate indirectly, influencing ethical evaluations and outcome expectancies. Obedience to authority also affects illegal intentions, with managers reporting higher prospective offending when they are ordered to engage in misconduct by a supervisor. (shrink)

As patient autonomy expands, a highly controversial issue has emerged. Should the advance directives of refusing life-saving treatments or requesting euthanasia of persons with dementia who express changed minds or are often in a happy state be fulfilled? There are two autonomy-related positions. The mainstream position in philosophical discussions supports the priority of ADs based on precedent autonomy. Buchanan and Brock, and Dworkin represent this view. The other position supports the priority of PWDs’ current wishes based on minimal autonomy represented (...) by Jaworska. By rethinking the theoretical and practical challenges of the two positions and their arguments respectively, the paper concludes that in such a scenario, the priority of ADs is morally indefensible, and it is also challenging to establish minimal autonomy defend the moral priority of PWDs’ current wishes. For PWDs whose past values, beliefs, and preferences fade away but who retain apparent intrinsic sentience of well-being, a modified defined quality-of-life approach serves as another reasonable basis in their medical decision-making, and the ADs and the QoL should be further merged to reduce the uncertainty of the grey zone. (shrink)

Although we can observe noticeable progress in gender diversity on corporate boards, these boards remain far from gender balanced. Our paper builds on social identity theory to examine the impact of corporate elites—men and women who sit on multiple corporate boards—on board diversity. We extend the main argument of social identity theory concerning favouritism based on homophily by suggesting that boards with men with multiple appointments are unwilling to include female board members to protect the monopoly value generated by their (...) elite status. The empirical analysis, based on DAX 30 firms in the period of 2010–2015, shows that the presence of multi-board men is negatively associated with women’s participation, while the presence of multi-board women and other women on management boards is positively related to gender diversity on boards. Furthermore, robustness tests support and confirm our conclusion that multi-board men have a significant association with board diversity, even with small size. Additionally, we find a significant effect arising from pressure related to the introduction of gender quotas in Germany, effective in 2016, indicating the effectiveness of gender quota policies for board gender diversity. (shrink)

In the literature on expert trust, it is often assumed that track records are the gold standard for evaluating expertise, and the difficulty of expert identification arises from either the lack of access to track records, or the inability to assess them. I show, using a computational model, that even in an idealized environment where agents have a God’s eye view on track records, they may fail to identify experts. Under plausible conditions, selecting testimony based on track records ends up (...) reducing overall accuracy, and preventing the community from identifying the real experts. (shrink)

Recently, ethicists have posited that consideration of epigenetic mechanisms presents novel challenges to concepts of justice and equality of opportunity, such as elevating the importance of environments in bioethics and providing a counterpoint to gross genetic determinism. We argue that new findings in epigenetic sciences, including those regarding intergenerational health effects, do not necessitate reconceptualization of theories of justice or the environment. To the contrary, such claims reflect a flawed understanding of epigenetics and its relation to genetics that may unintentionally (...) undermine appeals to social justice. We provide a brief summary of epigenetic sciences, focusing on phenomena central to the current ethical discourse. We identify three fallacious modes of reasoning arising from the emergent literature on the ethical and policy implications of epigenetics, including mischaracterization, undue extrapolation, and exceptionalism. We end by discussing how these issues may work against mobilizing health equity policies and present a more modest claim regarding the value of new epigenetic knowledge to health justice by setting this discourse within the context of known themes in biomedical ethics and health policy. (shrink)

There is an eminent tradition of thought that sees in the phenomenon of time something contradictory. This tradition has been recently revived by some contemporary proponents of dialethism – the view that there are true contradictions. In this paper, I will contribute to this line of thinking by tracing the first steps of a dialethic account of time-consciousness. In particular, I will argue that the experiential flow of time can be accounted for in the framework of an intentionalist approach to (...) temporal perception if we conceive of time-consciousness as a quasi-multiplicity, i.e., a multiplicity of non-self-identical parts, hence the embrace of dialethism. Section 1 introduces dialethism, discusses Priest's dialethic theory of motion and time, and motivates the project of a dialethic account of time-consciousness. Section 2 introduces the intentionalist approach to time-consciousness and distinguishes pure intentionalism from sense-data intentionalism; both subscribes to a certain Principle of Simultaneous Awareness but interprets it differently. In Sect. 3, I offer an in-depth analysis of this principle and identify its core as the requirement of self-unification, i.e., the requirement that time-consciousness unifies itself in flowing without any higher-order act of unification. Section 4 then argues that pure intentionalism can satisfy this requirement by embracing dialethism. I conclude by noting how the dialethic account of time-consciousness incorporates a central extensionalist insight within an intentionalist outlook. (shrink)

Incivility among employees in frontline encounters is prevalent, but little is known about its impact on customers’ ethics-related perceptions and behaviors. Drawing upon the stimulus–organism–response paradigm, this study examines how witnessing incivility among employees can serve as a social atmospheric cue to influence customers’ perceived ethicality of an organization and their subsequent behaviors. According to our results, in response to employee-to-employee incivility witnessed during frontline encounters, customers perceive the uncivil employees’ organization to have a lower level of ethicality. In turn, (...) customers engage more in unethical behavior and less in customer citizenship behavior. We further demonstrate that the negative effect of uncivil employee-to-employee interactions on customers’ perception of the ethicality of an organization is amplified when customers have an a priori perception that the organization is competent. The findings hold theoretical and practical implications for the management of employee-to-employee incivility and unethical customer behavior during frontline encounters. (shrink)

Recent research has linked the reduction of abnormal accruals to corporate governance metrics. The results of these studies, however, are based on samples taken from periods prior to promulgated board independence requirements. In other words, during this time period, management not only had discretion over accounting accruals, but also significant influence over the choice of membership on the board of directors. This study suggests that ethical management practices may be a correlated omitted variable in these studies, thus resulting in causal (...) inference problems in the previous research. We argue that, rather than the board of directors monitoring and reducing abnormal accruals as has been posited, management who was not engaging in abusive earnings management was attempting to signal the market regarding the quality of the firm’s financial information through its choice of board membership. (shrink)

Although multimodal input has the potential to lead to more sound learning outcomes, it carries the risk of causing cognitive overload, making it difficult to determine the exact effects of multimodal input on the second language phrase learning. This study tests the efficacy of multimodal input on L2 phrase learning. It adopts a mixed-method approach by utilizing both quantitative and qualitative data. The experimental design is a 2 × 3 mixed model, with a group [the experimental group and the control (...) group ] as the between-subject factor and time as the within-subject factor. A total of 66 participants were divided into two groups. All materials incorporated three aspects of phrase knowledge, but the materials of the CG were unimodal in that they were offered only on paper, and of the EG were multimodal in that they included pictures, audio recordings, and video clips. After the treatment, a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were given to the EG learners to explore their perceptions of using multimodal materials to learn L2 phrases. The results indicate that both groups had significant gains in learning phrases, but students with the multimodal input achieved significantly better results than those with the unimodal input. Moreover, the EG students had a generally positive attitude toward the use of multimodal resources. This study validates the efficacy of multimodal input on the acquisition of English phrases and shows that cognitive overload was avoided by sequencing the information. (shrink)

This study examined how self-worth of students mediated and moderated their perceived positive teacher-student relationships and student engagement among middle-school students from rural China. Eighth graders completed surveys measuring their perceived relationships with teachers, their self-worth, and engagement. Statistical analyses revealed significant correlations among all three variables, with the strongest being between teacher-student relationships and student engagement. The structural equation modeling indicated that self-worth partially mediated the effect of teacher-student relationships on student engagement; however, positive teacher-student relationships were a stronger (...) predictor. Multigroup analyses identified self-worth as a moderator, whereby students with lower self-worth were more reliant on positive teacher-student relationships to enhance their engagement. This study provides insights into how self-worth of students and their perceived positive teacher-student relationships influence their academic engagement in disadvantaged rural areas of China. (shrink)

Technological products such as computer, communication, and consumer electronic products, apps, smart wearables, and streaming services have become inseparable from people’s lives. In technological fields of practice, imagination, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship may influence one another. A vivid imagination can generate creativity and trigger the entrepreneurial intention to “bring new things to the market.” This study aims to understand the formation of internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study explores and empirically tests how (...) technology product imagination disposition and social support impact internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. Drawing from self-determination theory, this study proposes and examines the mediating role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the relationship between technology product imagination disposition and internet entrepreneurial intention, as well as the relationship between social support and internet entrepreneurial intention. We conducted a survey of 568 adults in Taiwan and used partial least squares to test our hypotheses. The results show the following: Technology product imagination disposition is positively associated with challenge, enjoyment, compensation, and outward motivation. Social support is positively associated with challenge, enjoyment, compensation, and outward motivation. Challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation are positively associated with internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. Technology product imagination disposition intensifies internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products by strengthening challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation. Social support intensifies internet entrepreneurial intention by increasing challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation. The partial mediation model represents a significant improvement in the total effect over the direct effect. We discuss the implications of these results for research and internet entrepreneurship practices. (shrink)

Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, we develop and test a theoretical model that specifies how and when employee humor toward leaders affects leader abusive supervision. We propose that employee humor is negatively associated with leader abusive supervision via leader relational energy. Furthermore, the negative indirect relationship between employee humor and leader abusive supervision via leader relational energy is stronger for female leaders than for male leaders. An experiment and a multi-wave, multi-source field study provide substantial support for our hypotheses. (...) Our findings contribute to the abusive supervision literature by identifying employee humor as a safe and effective bottom-up approach to prevent leader abusive supervision. (shrink)

The fateful combination of (i) the Dunning‐Kruger effect (ignorance of one's own ignorance) with (ii) the nonlinear dynamics of the echo‐chamber between reviewers and editors fuels a self‐reinforcing collective delusion system that sometimes spirals uncontrollably away from objectivity and truth. Escape from this subconscious meta‐ignorance is a formidable challenge but if achieved will help correct a central deficit of the peer‐review process that stifles innovation and paradigm shifts.

The philosophy of language in the Gongsun Longzi 公孫龍子 has been a hot topic since the 20th century, but there is still controversy about what point Gongsun Long 公孫龍 is making. This article reviews representative studies of the philosophy of language in the Gongsun Longzi in Sinophone academia since 2000. Some studies (especially in journal articles) conceive that one or two of the discourses are on the philosophy of language, while the other discourses concern ontology, epistemology, semiotics, or logic. In (...) contrast, certain scholars read the whole book as being about the philosophy of language. The divergence lies in whether the common thread is linguistic meaning or concept, and whether Gongsun Long’s doctrine is unveiled by one or several theories. These differences lead to a wide variation in their interpretation of the key terms and claims in the Gongsun Longzi. It is found that there is no theoretical framework that can perfectly interpret the book without incurring any criticism, and more efforts are needed to elucidate the philosophy of language in the Gongsun Longzi. (shrink)

Background:The right of children to have their voice heard has been accepted by researchers, and there are increasing numbers of qualitative health studies involving children. The ethical and methodological issues of including children in research have caused worldwide concerns, and many researchers have published articles sharing their own experiences.Objectives:To systematically review and synthesise experts’ opinions and experiences about ethical and methodological issues of including children in research, as well as related solution strategies.Research design:The research design was a systematic review of (...) opinion-based evidence, based on the guidelines by Joanna Briggs Institute.Methods:A search of five computerised databases has been conducted in April 2014 and 2271 articles were found. After screening the titles, abstracts, full texts and appraising the quality, 30 articles were finally included in the review. A meta-aggregative approach was applied in the data analysis and synthesis process.Ethical considerations:Ethical approval is not needed as it is a systematic review of published literature.Results:Six themes were identified, including evaluating potential risks and benefits, gaining access, obtaining informed consent/assent, protecting confidentiality and privacy, building rapport and collecting rich data. The similarities and differences between research involving children and that involving adults were indicated.Conclusion:All potential incentives should be justified when designing the study. Further studies need to research how to evaluate individual capacity of children and how to balance protecting children’s right to participate and their interests in the research. Cultural differences related to researching children in different regions should also be studied. (shrink)

As virtue ethics has developed into maturity, it has also met with a number of objections. This essay focuses on the self-centeredness objection: since virtue ethics recommends that we be concerned with our own virtues or virtuous characters, it is self-centered. In response, I first argue that, for Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucianism, the character that a virtuous person is concerned with consists largely in precisely those virtues that incline him or her to be concerned with the good of others. While such (...) an answer is also available to the Aristotelian virtue ethics, I argue that Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucianism can better respond to the objection on two deeper levels: (1) a virtuous person is not only concerned with others’ external well-being but also their virtuous characters, and (2) a virtuous person’s concern with others’ wellbeing, both internal and external, is neither self-indulgent nor self-effacing. (shrink)

This study attempts to investigate the relationships among the ethical beliefs of Chinese consumers and orientations based on attitudinal attributes: materialism and moral philosophies (idealism and relativism). In addition, this study examines Chinese consumers' ethical beliefs in relation to five selected demographic characteristics (gender, age, religion, family income and education). Based on this exploratory study of 284 Chinese consumers, the following statistically significant findings were discovered. First, Chinese consumers regard that a passively benefiting activity is more ethical, but actively benefiting (...) from an illegal or a questionable activity is unacceptable. Second, the two dimensions of passively benefiting and no harm/no foul can be used to distinguish the consumers who endorse higher levels of idealism or relativism. Third, Chinese consumers with a high level of materialism are more likely to actively benefit from illegal and questionable activities, and the passively benefiting actions. Finally, the more ethical Chinese consumers seem to be younger, be religious, and have a lower family income. (shrink)

In everyday interactions, humans naturally exhibit behavioral cues, such as gaze and head movements, that signal their intentions while interpreting the behavioral cues of others to predict their intentions. Such intention prediction enables each partner to adapt their behaviors to the intent of others, serving a critical role in joint action where parties work together to achieve a common goal. Among behavioral cues, eye gaze is particularly important in understanding a person's attention and intention. In this work, we seek to (...) quantify how gaze patterns may indicate a person's intention. Our investigation was contextualized in a dyadic sandwich-making scenario in which a “worker” prepared a sandwich by adding ingredients requested by a “customer.” In this context, we investigated the extent to which the customers' gaze cues serve as predictors of which ingredients they intend to request. Predictive features were derived to represent characteristics of the customers' gaze patterns. We developed a support vector machine-based (SVM-based) model that achieved 76% accuracy in predicting the customers' intended requests based solely on gaze features. Moreover, the predictor made correct predictions approximately 1.8 s before the spoken request from the customer. We further analyzed several episodes of interactions from our data to develop a deeper understanding of the scenarios where our predictor succeeded and failed in making correct predictions. These analyses revealed additional gaze patterns that may be leveraged to improve intention prediction. This work highlights gaze cues as a significant resource for understanding human intentions and informs the design of real-time recognizers of user intention for intelligent systems, such as assistive robots and ubiquitous devices, that may enable more complex capabilities and improved user experience. (shrink)

Whether or not a public relations code of ethics should be enforced, among others, has become one of the most widely controversial topics, especially after the Hill and Knowlton case in 1992. I take the position that ethical codes should be enforced and address this issue from eight aspects: (a) Is a code of ethics an absolute prerequisite of professionalism? (b) Should problems of rhetoric per se in a code of ethics become a rationale against code enforcement? (c) Is a (...) code of ethics of any significance? (d) Is the ethical code is enforceable, (e) Would the licensure system interfere with the freedom of expression of the practitioners? (f) Do PR practitioners choose to be ethical (if they do) because they have to be or because they want to be? (g) Would the public interest be virtually assured as a result of a public relations? and (h) Can education in ethics overcome the ethical problems in public relations? (shrink)

The purposes of research were to describe the neonatal clinicians' personal views and attitudes on neonatal ethical decision-making, to identify factors that might affect these attitudes and to compare the attitudes between neonatal physicians and neonatal nurses in Taiwan. Research was a cross-sectional design and a questionnaire was used to reach different research purposes. A convenient sample was used to recruit 24 physicians and 80 neonatal nurses from four neonatal intensive care units in Taiwan. Most participants agreed with suggesting a (...) do not resuscitate (DNR) order to parents for dying neonates (86.5%). However, the majority agreed with talking to patients about DNR orders is difficult (76.9%). Most participants agree that review by the clinical ethics committee is needed before the recommendation of ‘DNR’ to parents (94.23%) and nurses were significantly more likely than physicians to agree to this (p=0.043). During the end-of-life care, most clinicians accepted to continue current treatment without adding others (70%) and withholding of emergency treatments (75%); however, active euthanasia, the administration of drug to end-of-life, was not considered acceptable by both physicians and nurses in this research (96%). Based on our research results, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage for neonatal clinicians are needed. In Taiwan, neonatal physicians and nurses hold similar values and attitudes towards end-of-life decisions for neonates. In order to improve the clinicians' communication skills with parents about DNR options and to change clinicians' attitudes for providing enough pain-relief medicine to dying neonates, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage are needed. (shrink)

Vagueness is understood as the problem of associating imprecise application criteria with ordinary predicates such as ‘bald’ or ‘blue’. It is often construed as due to one’s tolerance to a minute difference in forming a verdict on the application of a vague predicate. This paper reports an experiment conducted to test the effect of tolerance, using as paradigm categorisation tasks performed with respect to transitional series, e.g., a series of tomatoes from red to orange. The findings suggest a negative effect (...) of tolerance on categorisation with vague predicates. The implication of the findings for certain commonly-held assumptions about tolerance is discussed. (shrink)

Background The urgency of ensuring adequate moral courage in clinical nursing practice is evident. However, currently, there are few formal intervention plans targeted at enhancing the moral courage of nurses. Aim To develop a training program for improving the moral courage of nurses using the modified Delphi method. Research design A modified Delphi study. Participants and research context From November to December 2022, a literature review and expert group discussion were conducted to develop a preliminary training plan framework. From January (...) to March 2023, a two-round Delphi survey was performed, and a consensus was reached regarding the plan through online questionnaires. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Ethical considerations This study was approved by the institutional ethics committee (No. 138, 30 August 2021). All participants provided written informed consent. Results Consensus was reached on eight themes and 33 items to strengthen the moral courage training program for nurses. Conclusions Guided by a unified goal of moral education, a multi-level and acceptable intervention plan was designed to enhance the moral courage of nurses. (shrink)

This paper addresses one of the three main themes of Neville's The Goodness Is One, Its Manifestations Many: Whether Confucian ethics can be appropriately characterized as a virtue ethics. It first examines some unique features of virtues ethics, concluding that Confucian ethics may be plausibly regarded as a virtue ethics. Then it shows that virtue ethics is immune to the two diseases that Neville worries about: subjectivism and individualism. Finally, it argues that what Neville regards as salient features of Confucian (...) ethics, (1) situationism, (2) attention to knowledge and skills beyond virtues, and (3) consequentialism of principle, can all be kept intact when it is characterized as a virtue ethics. (shrink)

The present study aimed to delineate the characteristics of empathy and mental health in preschool teachers and examine the role of empathy in preschool teachers’ mental health. The sample in this study consisted of 4348 preschool teachers, who were divided into 4 groups according to their years of teaching experience (less than 2 years, 2 to 5 years, 5 to 10 years, and more than 10 years). The Chinese version of the Symptom Checklist 90 was used to measure the mental (...) health symptoms of the participants, and the Chinese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index was employed to assess various aspects of the participants’ empathy. The results indicated that preschool teachers scored higher than the controls for most mental symptoms, and most symptoms increased as teaching experience increased, independent of the effect of age. The study also found that the four dimensions of empathy showed different trends across the four teaching experience groups: fantasy remained stable, empathic concerns and perspective taking showed decreasing trends, and personal distress showed an increasing trend. Moreover, the present research found a relatively complex relationship between empathy and mental health in preschool teachers: while fantasy and personal distress positively predicted mental health symptoms in preschool teachers, perspective taking and empathic concern negatively correlated with most of the symptoms. It seems that empathy contains both risky and protective factors for individuals’ mental health, and these factors are affected by years of teaching experience. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore two questions:(1) Is symmetrical communication in public relations practice inherently ethical?(2) Does symmetrical communication contribute to public relations effectiveness and organizational effectiveness? Three surveys are undertaken to test seven research hypotheses for the purpose of cross-validating research findings. The results suggest that symmetrical communication is inherently ethical. Moreover, symmetrical communication indeed contributes to several performance measures, which include positive market performance, overall organizational effectiveness, conflict resolution, crisis management, favorable organizational reputation, and positive (...) media exposure, with the last two measures only partially supported. (shrink)

Objectives: To investigate the current situation of completing the informed consent for do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders among the competent patients with terminal illness and the ethical dilemmas related to it. Participants: This study enrolled 152 competent patients with terminal cancer, who were involved in the initial consultations for hospice care. Analysis: Comparisons of means, analyses of variance, Student’s t test, χ2 test and multiple logistic regression models. Results: After the consultations, 117 (77.0%) of the 152 patients provided informed consent for hospice (...) care and DNR orders. These included 21 patients (17.9%) who signed the consent by themselves, and 96 (82.1%) whose consent sheet was signed only by family members. The reasons why patients were not involved in the discussions toward the consent (n = 82) included poor physical or psychological condition (44.9%), concerns of the consultant hospice team (37.2%), and the family’s refusal (28.2%). On a multivariate analysis, patients’ awareness of their poor prognosis (odds ratio = 4.07, 95% confidence interval = 2.05 to 8.07) and their understanding of hospice care (2.27, 1.33 to 3.89) were two independent factors (p<0.01) that influenced their participation in the discussions or their personal signature in the informed consent. Conclusion: The family-oriented culture in Asian countries may violate the principles of the Patient Self-Determination Act and the requirements of the Hospice Care Law in Taiwan, which inevitably poses an ethical dilemma. Earlier truth-telling and continuing education of the public by hospice care workers will be helpful in solving such ethical dilemmas. (shrink)