On its establishment, the World Health Organization (WHO) defined health as a fundamental human right deserving legal protection. Subsequently, the Ottawa Charter reaffirmed health as a fundamental right, and emphasized health promotion as the most appropriate response to global health issues. Here we suggest that the WHO definition of health as more than simply the absence of illness is not normative, and therefore requires standardization. To date such standardization unfortunately is lacking.

In this interview, Jean-Luc Marion recalls the intellectual world of Paris in 1970s, reflecting on how his engagement with the ubiquitous “death of God” question led to the sketches of God without Being first presented at this 1979 Colloquium, and discusses the criticism it provoked not only from Heideggerians but also from Thomists. He discusses the reception history of phenomenology in France the reasons for the particular power it gained among thinkers of his generation. Finally, he recounts how his (...) work has led from the 1979 Colloquium through the “Theological Turn” and up to his forthcoming D’ ailleurs, la révélation, which he briefly previews here. Marion closes with words on originality, criticism, and the particular challenges of the contemporary world that await philosophical thinking today. (shrink)

La raison pour laquelle il y a inadéquation de notre connaissance à la nature des corps extérieurs, mais aussi à celle de notre corps propre ainsi qu'à celle notre esprit, et donc à la nature de notre ego, c'est que nous sommes des êtres finis. Pour Descartes comme pour Spinoza la finitude de notre entendement rend impossible l'adéquation de la connaissance. À la connaissance adéquate, Descartes substitue la connaissance complète : certaine, mais non-absolue, vérifiée, mais seulement provisoire. La mise au (...) jour de cette première origine cartésienne de la théorie spinoziste de l'idée adéquate conduit l'auteur à l'hypothèse suivante : cette théorie accomplirait au sein de la métaphysique rationnelle développée dans l'Éthique la doctrine de la révélation et de la grâce présente dans la pensée théologique chrétienne. Dès lors il met en évidence la correspondance entre la vision béatifique suarézienne et la connaissance adéquate spinozienne, la première anticipant historiquement la seconde, à cette différence près que pour Thomas d'Aquin comme pour Suarez, « c'est la vision béatifique qui commande la connaissance », alors que c'est l'inverse pour Spinoza. Pour l'auteur, c'est le refus de toute création qui a conduit Spinoza à retrouver le modèle théologique de la vision béatifique comme moyen d'accès à la connaissance adéquates des choses et de Dieu. (shrink)

Inversion Quelle fonction pouvons-nous reconnaitre à la philosophie de la religion? Devons-nous même lui en reconnaître encore une? On pourrait en douter, ne serait-ce qu’en considérant son origine, en fait moderne. À proprement parler, il ne saurait y avoir de philosophie de la religion, car elle ne peut intervenir sans la constitution, ou plutôt la reconstitution d’un concept de « religion ». Or ce concept a une origine moderne, rendue possible par l’éclatement de la catholicité occidenta...

This latest work from one of the world's leading political philosophers will appeal to audiences from a variety of fields, including philosophy, political science, women's studies, ethnic studies, sociology, and communications studies.

The essay theorizes the responsibilities moral agents may be said to have in relation to global structural social processes that have unjust consequences. How ought moral agents, whether individual or institutional, conceptualize their responsibilities in relation to global injustice? I propose a model of responsibility from social connection as an interpretation of obligations of justice arising from structural social processes. I use the example of justice in transnational processes of production, distribution and marketing of clothing to illustrate operations of structural (...) social processes that extend widely across regions of the world. The social connection model of responsibility says that all agents who contribute by their actions to the structural processes that produce injustice have responsibilities to work to remedy these injustices. I distinguish this model from a more standard model of responsibility, which I call a liability model. I specify five features of the social connection model of responsibility that distinguish it from the liability model: it does not isolate perpetrators; it judges background conditions of action; it is more forward looking than backward looking; its responsibility is essentially shared; and it can be discharged only through collective action. The final section of the essay begins to articulate parameters of reasoning that agents can use for thinking about their own action in relation to structural injustice. a Footnotesa Thanks to David Alexander, Daniel Drezner, David Owen, and Ellen Frankel Paul for comments on an earlier version of this essay. Thanks to David Newstone for research assistance. (shrink)

Purpose/methods: This study investigated the relationship between ethics education and training, and the use and usefulness of ethics resources, confidence in moral decisions, and moral action/activism through a survey of practicing nurses and social workers from four United States (US) census regions. Findings: The sample (n = 1215) was primarily Caucasian (83%), female (85%), well educated (57% with a master's degree). no ethics education at all was reported by 14% of study participants (8% of social workers had no ethics education, (...) versus 23% of nurses), and only 57% of participants had ethics education in their professional educational program. Those with both professional ethics education and in-service or continuing education were more confident in their moral judgments and more likely to use ethics resources and to take moral action. Social workers had more overall education, more ethics education, and higher confidence and moral action scores, and were more likely to use ethics resources than nurses. Conclusion: Ethics education has a significant positive influence on moral confidence, moral action, and use of ethics resources by nurses and social workers. (shrink)

BackgroundTo help inform the development of more accessible, acceptable, and effective ethics consultation (EC) training programs, we conducted an EC training needs assessment, exploring ethics practitioners’ opinions on: the relative importance of various EC practitioner competencies; the potential market for EC training (that is, how many individuals would benefit and how much individuals and hospitals would be willing to pay); and the preferred content, format, and characteristics of EC training.MethodsAs part of a multipart study, we surveyed “best informants” who self-identified (...) as the person most actively involved in EC or healthcare ethics in a random sample of 600 U.S. general hospitals, stratified for bed size.ResultsThe competency that was ranked most important for a lead or solo ethics consultant was knowledge of ethics, while common sense was ranked least important. The median estimated number of individuals at each hospital who would benefit from EC training was six at the basic level, three at the advanced level, and two for EC management training. In 19.1 percent of hospitals, respondents thought their hospital would not be willing to pay anything for EC training within the next two years. Respondents thought potential trainees would be likely to participate in EC training on multiple different topics. Opinions varied widely on preferred formats. Most respondents thought it very important to be able to interact with instructors and with other trainees, practice EC skills, receive a certificate for completing EC training, and complete EC training during work hours.ConclusionsThese findings provide U.S. population data that may be useful to healthcare educators and bioethics leaders in their efforts to develop EC training programs and products that match trainees’ preferences and needs. (shrink)

Although rationing by clinical judgment is controversial, its acceptability partly depends on how it is practiced. In this paper, rationing by clinical judgment is defined in three different circumstances that represent increasingly wider circles of resource pools in which the rationing decision takes place: triage during acute shortage, comparison to other potential patients in a context of limited but not immediately strained resources, and determination of whether expected benefit of an intervention is deemed sufficient to warrant its cost by reference (...) to published population based thresholds. Notions of procedural justice are applied along with an analytical framework of six minimal requisites in order to facilitate fair bedside rationing: (1) a closed system that offers reciprocity, (2) attention to general concerns of justice, (3) respect for individual variations, (4) application of a consistent process, (5) explicitness, and (6) review of decisions. The process could be monitored for its applicability and appropriateness. (shrink)

People react negatively not only to injustices they personally endure but also to injustices that they observe as bystanders at work—and typically, people observe more injustices than they personally experience. It is therefore important to understand how organizations can restore observers’ perceptions of justice after an injustice has occurred. In our paper, we employ a policy capturing design to test and compare the restorative power of monetary compensation, procedure changes and apologies, alone and in combination, from the perspective of third (...) parties. We extend previous research on remedies by including different degrees of compensation and procedural changes, by comparing the effects of sincere versus insincere apologies and by including apologies from additional sources. The results indicate that monetary compensation, procedure changes, and sincere apologies all have a significant and positive effect on how observers perceive the restoration of justice. Insincere apologies, on the other hand, have no significant effect on restoration for third parties. Procedural changes were found to have the strongest remedial effects, a remedy rarely included in previous research. One interpretation of this finding could be that observers of injustice prefer solutions that are not short sighted: changing procedures avoids future injustices that could affect other people. We found that combinations of remedies, such that the presence of a second remedy strengthens the effect of the first remedy, are particularly effective. Our findings regarding interactions underline the importance of studying and administering remedies in conjunction with each other. (shrink)

In his theory of evolution, Darwin recognized that the conditions of life play a role in the generation of hereditary variations, as well as in their selection. However, as evolutionary theory was developed further, heredity became identified with genetics, and variation was seen in terms of combinations of randomly generated gene mutations. We argue that this view is now changing, because it is clear that a notion of hereditary variation that is based solely on randomly varying genes that are unaffected (...) by developmental conditions is an inadequate basis for evolutionary theories. Such a view not only fails to provide satisfying explanations of many evolutionary phenomena, it also makes assumptions that are not consistent with the data that are emerging from disciplines ranging from molecular biology to cultural studies. These data show that the genome is far more responsive to the environment than previously thought, and that not all transmissible variation is underlain by genetic differences. In Evolution in Four Dimensions (2005) we identify four types of inheritance (genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbol-based), each of which can provide variations on which natural selection will act. Some of these variations arise in response to developmental conditions, so there are Lamarckian aspects to evolution. We argue that a better insight into evolutionary processes will result from recognizing that transmitted variations that are not based on DNA differences have played a role. This is particularly true for understanding the evolution of human behavior, where all four dimensions of heredity have been important. (shrink)

Toril Moi has argued that recent deconstructive challenges to the concept of gender and to the viability of the sex/gender distinction have brought feminist and queer theory to a place of increasing theoretical abstraction. She suggests that we should abandon the category of gender once and for all, because it is founded on a nature–culture distinction and it tends incorrigibly to essentialize women’s lives. Moi argues that feminist and queer theories should replace the concept of gender with a concept of (...) the lived body derived from existential phenomenology. In this essay I take up and develop this suggestion, and argue that there are several advantages that a category of the lived body has over a category of gender for feminist and queer theories: (1) no nature–culture distinction is necessary but the body can be described as historically and socially specific; (2) it is not necessary to break out a gendered and “raced” part of identity with this category; (3) differences of sexual desire can be described without recourse to an “inner core” of identity or “sexual orientation.” I go on to argue, however, that it is important to retain a concept of gender for a theoretical purpose beyond that which Moi and those she criticizes conceive. In recent years feminist and queer theories have tended to conceive their theorizing as restricted to identity and subjectivity. How large scale social structures differentially position people in relations of privilege and disadvantage has been ignored, relatively. This essay argues then that theorizing structural processes and inequalities is crucial, and that a concept of gender is important for such theorizing. I propose three aspects of gendered social structure that are irreducible to one another: (1) a sexual division of labor (2) normative heterosexuality, and (3) hierarchies of power. In each case I illustrate the social theoretical work these categorizations of gendered structure can and should do. (shrink)

This study examines the role of corporate philanthropy in the management of reputation risk and shareholder value of the top 100 ASX listed Australian firms for the 3 years 2011–2013. The results of this study demonstrate the business case for corporate philanthropy and hence encourage corporate philanthropy by showing increasing firms’ investment in corporate giving as a percentage of profit before tax, increases the likelihood of an increase in shareholder value. However, the proviso is that firms must also manage their (...) reputation risk at the same time. There is a negative association between corporate giving and shareholder value which is mitigated by firms’ management of reputation. The economic significance of this result is that for every cent in the dollar the firm spends on corporate giving, Tobin’s Q will decrease by 0.413 %. In contrast, if the firm increase their reputation by 1 point then Tobin’s Q will increase by 0.267 %. Consequently, the interaction of corporate giving and reputation risk management is positively associated with shareholder value. These results are robust while controlling for potential endogeneity and reverse causality. This paper assists both academics and practitioners by demonstrating that the benefits of corporate philanthropy extend beyond a gesture to improve reputation or an attempt to increase financial performance, to a direct collaboration between all the factors where the benefits far outweigh the costs. (shrink)

In responding to three reviews of Evolution in Four Dimensions (Jablonka and Lamb, 2005, MIT Press), we briefly consider the historical background to the present genecentred view of evolution, especially the way in which Weismann’s theories have influenced it, and discuss the origins of the notion of epigenetic inheritance. We reaffirm our belief that all types of hereditary information—genetic, epigenetic, behavioural and cultural—have contributed to evolutionary change, and outline recent evidence, mainly from epigenetic studies, that suggests that non-DNA heritable variations (...) are not rare and can be quite stable. We describe ways in which such variations may have influenced evolution. The approach we take leads to broader definitions of terms such as ‘units of heredity’, ‘units of evolution’, and ‘units of selection’, and we maintain that ‘information’ can be a useful concept if it is defined in terms of its effects on the receiver. Although we agree that evolutionary theory is not undergoing a Kuhnian revolution, the incorporation of new data and ideas about hereditary variation, and about the role of development in generating it, is leading to a version of Darwinism that is very different from the gene-centred one that dominated evolutionary thinking in the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

: The essay theorizes the logic of masculinist protection as an apparently benign form of male domination. It then argues that authoritarian government is often justified through a logic of masculinist protection, and that this is the form of justification for the security regime that has emerged in the United States since September 11, 2001. I argue that those who live under a security regime live within an oppressive protection racket. The paper ends by cautioning feminists not ourselves to adopt (...) a stance of protector toward women in so-called less developed societies. (shrink)

What an honor to have political and educational theorists of such caliber take up ideas from my work! What a daunting task to try to respond! My remarks will touch on the following questions: What are some key issues of distributive justice in education today? Why does defining justice in terms of oppression and domination imply that issues of justice cannot be reduced to distribution? How does normalization constitute a major process enacting oppression, and what does this imply for education? (...) What does it mean to include marginalized groups in economic opportunity and democratic process, and how can educational institutions foster such inclusion? Why do issues of religion and other forms of cultural expression belong to a distinct category of justice? Are values of freedom of expression and tolerance in tension with the project of democratic inclusion? How shall we consider transnational issues of educational justice? (shrink)

Dans le champ de la linguistique francaise, Olga Galatanu est de ceux qui ont muni l'analyse du discours et des interactions verbales d'un modele semantique de description. La Semantique des Possibles Argumentatifs qu'elle developpe depuis une vingtaine d'annees adhere aux visions argumentative, stereotypique, referentielle, cognitiviste de la langue, et s'attache a rendre compte de la construction des representations en langue et en discours.<BR> Les articles que ses collaborateurs et amis lui offrent dans ce volume se rapportent de pres ou de (...) loin a la SPA. Certains en partagent les postulats: sens referentiel et denomination, interfaces semantique-syntaxe et semantique-pragmatique, construction discursive du sens, valeurs; d'autres reprennent et developpent des elements specifiques de la SPA: possibles argumentatifs, deploiements argumentatifs, modalites; d'autres encore montrent les convergences et complementarites entre la SPA et des theories voisines.<BR> Les analyses portent notamment sur l'attitude metalinguistique des locuteurs, la malleabilite semantique des mots, la negociation des sens et des valeurs, les principes et strategies discursives qui regulent la communication, l'heterogeneite discursive, la presentation de soi, la construction d'objets discursifs, les actes de langage indirects, etc.". (shrink)

Mental time travel and language enable us to go back and forth in time and to organize and express our personal experiences through time reference. People with Alzheimer’s disease have both mental time travel and time reference impairments, which can greatly impact their daily communication. Currently, little is known about the potential relationship between time conceptualization and time reference difficulties in this disease. A systematic review of the literature was performed to determine if this link had already been investigated. Only (...) three articles integrated both time conceptualization and time reference measures. However, the link between the two was not systematically analyzed and interpreted. This review highlights the lack of research addressing the question of the influence of time conceptualization impairments in Alzheimer’s disease on other cognitive domains, and especially language. (shrink)

Gesundheit and colleagues offer dramatic examples of the medical treatment of terrorists but then pose the suggestion that those who engage in terrorism forfeit their right to medical care, and, consequently, that physicians have no obligation to treat them. Their argument presupposes that a physician’s obligation to provide medical care depends on the patients’ right to health care. Therefore, someone who commits heinous and abhorrent acts thereby waives the right to health care and the physicians’ duty to provide health care (...) might consequently be absolved. This view may appeal to physicians who have experienced the complexity and discomfort of treating someone whose morality or even humanity they question, such as a rapist, a serial killer, or a perpetrator of genocide. However we have grounds to believe that the duty of physicians to treat is not based on the moral worth of patients, but rather on the duties that physicians have, and this notion renders any concern about the unacceptability of any person’s behavior irrelevant in determining whether to provide treatment. We will first argue that not all duties are directly derived from rights, and then illustrate how deontological views, along with common views on the role morality of physicians, provide a basis for offering indiscriminate medical care. Second, we will discuss the physician’s role in the context of war, and offer one compelling moral reason on the basis of which warfare norms do indeed obligate physicians to extend their duty to care toward enemies, terrorists included, independently of whatever right they maintain. (shrink)

Adaptive evolution is usually assumed to be directed by selective processes, development by instructive processes; evolution involves random genetic changes, development involves induced epigenetic changes. However, these distinctions are no longer unequivocal. Selection of genetic changes is a normal part of development in some organisms, and through the epigenetic system external factors can induce selectable heritable variations. Incorporating the effects of instructive processes into evolutionary thinking alters ideas about the way environmental changes lead to evolutionary change, and about the interplay (...) between genetic and epigenetic systems. (shrink)

We prove the following theorems: (1) If X has strong measure zero and if Y has strong first category, then their algebraic sum has property s 0 . (2) If X has Hurewicz's covering property, then it has strong measure zero if, and only if, its algebraic sum with any first category set is a first category set. (3) If X has strong measure zero and Hurewicz's covering property then its algebraic sum with any set in APC ' is a (...) set in APC '. (APC ' is included in the class of sets always of first category, and includes the class of strong first category sets.) These results extend: Fremlin and Miller's theorem that strong measure zero sets having Hurewicz's property have Rothberger's property, Galvin and Miller's theorem that the algebraic sum of a set with the γ-property and of a first category set is a first category set, and Bartoszynski and Judah's characterization of SR M -sets. They also characterize the property (*) introduced by Gerlits and Nagy in terms of older concepts. (shrink)

This article focuses on the role of the interchromatin compartment (IC) in shaping nuclear landscapes. The IC is connected with nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) and harbors splicing speckles and nuclear bodies. It is postulated that the IC provides routes for imported transcription factors to target sites, for export routes of mRNA as ribonucleoproteins toward NPCs, as well as for the intranuclear passage of regulatory RNAs from sites of transcription to remote functional sites (IC hypothesis). IC channels are lined by less‐compacted (...) euchromatin, called the perichromatin region (PR). The PR and IC together form the active nuclear compartment (ANC). The ANC is co‐aligned with the inactive nuclear compartment (INC), comprising more compacted heterochromatin. It is postulated that the INC is accessible for individual transcription factors, but inaccessible for larger macromolecular aggregates (limited accessibility hypothesis). This functional nuclear organization depends on still unexplored movements of genes and regulatory sequences between the two compartments. (shrink)

Eh bien! Tu es quoi toi, dit le Pigeon? Je vois bien que tu essaies de me raconter des histoires! Je. Je suis une petite fille, dit Alice, pas très sûre d'elle car tous les changements qu'elle avait subis ce jour-là lui revenaient à l'esprit. En voilà une bonne, vraiment! dit le Pigeon d'un ton plus que dédaigneux. Les Aventures d'Alice au Pays des merveilles. En juin 1992 s'est tenu à Amsterdam, dans les deux universités, le premier colloque international sur (...) les jeunes filles... (shrink)

Cet article s’inscrit dans le cadre d’une recherche doctorale portant sur les représentations de la séparation chez des enfants placés en Protection de l’enfance. Il s’intéresse ici spécifiquement au dessin de la famille de deux enfants d’âge de latence placés en foyer. L’article analyse chaque dessin en profondeur puis tente de dégager les éléments saillants communs aux enfants rencontrés, tout en les mettant en lien avec les mouvements transféro-contretransférentiels à l’œuvre dans ces rencontres-séparations. Ces dessins montrent de grandes difficultés de (...) représentation, les personnes dessinées sont peu différenciées. Cette indistinction pourrait être mise en lien avec le concept de mentalisation qui aurait été mis à mal par les traumatismes vécus par ces enfants. Mais ce trouble de la mentalisation semble aussi fonctionner comme un mécanisme de défense contre les reviviscences traumatiques et des mouvements pulsionnels agressifs. (shrink)

BackgroundFrench military doctors are currently deployed in the Sahel to support the armed forces of Operation Barkhane, in medical or surgical units. As well as supporting French soldiers, their other missions are diverse and complex: medical assistance to civilians and persons under control (PUC), advice to commanding officers. These tasks can create ethical dilemmas when decisions are forced upon doctors that may be in conflict with medical values or fundamental principles. Little is known about the specific dilemmas experienced by French (...) military doctors in overseas operations. We therefore conducted a qualitative study among doctors and surgeons recently deployed to the Sahel to explore and better understand this question.MethodSemi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 20 French military doctors or surgeons deployed since January 2016 in medical or surgical facilities in Mali and Chad.ResultsAll interviewed doctors reported having faced several ethical dilemmas during missions. All reported dilemmas involved the treatment of civilians (while delivering community medical assistance) or of PUC. The dilemmas involved choices as to which patients to treat, the use of care as a means to an end by military authorities, and the level of care attainable in the absence of any possible hospital follow-up. Questions of delivering care at the risk of their own safety or the mission’s and of treating openly hostile patients were also brought up. Several dilemmas stemmed from the dual loyalty problem, namely the conflict between military doctors’ duty of care to patients and to the military institution, but this was not the only factor involved. Contextual factors (restricted resources and security constraints) and psychological factors (especially hostility towards the enemy) were also associated with many of the reported dilemmas.ConclusionThis is the first reported study focusing on the ethical dilemmas encountered by French military doctors in overseas operations. It provides unique insights into their ethical experiences and should prove useful in improving operational training for healthcare personnel deployed on overseas missions. (shrink)

To create an ecologically literate, motivated, and engaged citizenry, environmental education must help students develop practical wisdom. We discuss three elements of teaching central to this task: first, greater emphasis on contextualized knowledge, grounded in particular places and cases; second, multi-modal learning that engages students as whole persons both cognitively and affectively; and third, stronger connections between knowing and doing, or between knowledge and responsibility. We illustrate these elements through our experience teaching field-based environmental studies courses, but also emphasize ways (...) in which practical environmental education can be effectively incorporated into campus-based classes. (shrink)

Social change to undermine injustice usually should be pursued through democratic processes. A suitably defined model of deliberative democracy articulates how democracy can produce just policies. As usually understood, however, the model of deliberative democracy focuses too much on argument, privileges unity, assumes face‐to‐face discussion, and assumes a norm of order.

Theories of deliberative democracy presume too narrow an understanding of political communication. Several forms of communication additional to argument are important for political debate, especially between members of more dominant and more marginalized groups. Greeting, rhetoric, and narrative each have important functions for public acknowledgement of interlocutors and communication when premises are not shared.

Residential racial and class segregation produce or exacerbate distributive injustice and political exclusion. Integration as the dispersal of a concentrated minority among the majority, however, often has its own harmful consequences. An alternative ideal of differentiated solidarity combines positive affinity grouping with non‐discrimination and regional government that encourages attention to shared problems and inequality.

The scope of issues of justice extends globally on many issues. Governance of global society therefore needs transformed institutions. A vision of global democracy assumes a relational model of self‐determination as non‐domination in the context of inclusive and stronger global institutions.

Le but de cet ouvrage n'est pas de présenter une généalogie conceptuelle du châtiment ni de brosser un panorama exhaustif des travaux en philosophie, en criminologie ou en droit sur les justifications de la peine. De façon plus modeste, nous avons voulu offrir au public un ensemble de travaux permettant de voir d'un peu plus près nos conceptions modernes de la justice pénale. De l'idée selon laquelle les peines sont infligées pour le propre bien des criminels à celle selon laquelle (...) tout crime mérite d'être réparé par le châtiment, en passant par le caractère préventif des peines, nos conceptions de la légitimité des peines reposent sur un certain nombre de postulats en apparence assez simples et que pour cette raison l'on hésite à remettre en cause : nécessité de l'ordre public, dette du criminel à l'égard de ses victimes et de la société, etc. L'ensemble de ces articles permet de jeter un regard critique sur la justice pénale sans prétendre pour autant vouloir la disqualifier. (shrink)