The Western world is experiencing a resurgence of interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, most of which are derived from plants or fungi with a history of Indigenous ceremonial use. Recent research has revealed that psychedelic compounds have the potential to address treatment‐resistant depression and anxiety, as well as post‐traumatic stress disorder and addictions. These findings have contributed to the decriminalization of psychedelics in some jurisdictions and their legalization in others. Despite psychedelics’ opaque legal status, numerous companies and individuals (...) are profiting from speculative investments with few, if any, benefits accruing to Indigenous Peoples. In this paper, we suggest that the aptly named “psychedelic renaissance,” like the European Renaissance, is made possible by colonial extractivism. We further suggest that Indigenous philosophical traditions offer alternative approaches to reorient the “psychedelic renaissance” towards a more equitable future for Indigenous Peoples, psychedelic medicines, and all our relations. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 70-72.

New agrifood technologies are often difficult to grasp for the public, which may lead to resistance or even rejection. Insight into which technology features determine public acceptability of the technology could offer guidelines for responsible technology development. This paper systematically assesses the relative importance of specific technology features for consumer response in the agrifood domain in two consecutive studies. Prominent technology features were selected from expert judgment and literature. The effects of these features on consumer evaluation were tested in a (...) consumer study. Fictitious technologies were used to avoid any uncontrollable contextual influences that existing new technologies may evoke. Results show that technologies that were seen as more natural and newer were perceived less risky, more beneficial, and were evaluated more positively. Technologies applied to food were judged to be more beneficial, but also more risky than those applied to non-food. Technologies used in the production process were perceived to be less risky and evaluated more positively than those used in the product. Technologies owned by the market leader were perceived to be more beneficial, and evaluated more positively than those that were freely available. In a next study, effects of the technology features on consumer response were tested for existing new agrifood technologies. This study replicated the results for perceived naturalness, perceived newness, and place in the production process where the technology is applied. However, in contrast to the first study, we did not find an effect of application area and technology ownership. (shrink)

Who should define what constitutes ethical and lawful medical practice? Judges? Doctors? Scientists? Or someone else entirely? This volume analyses how effectively criminal law operates as a forum for resolving ethical conflict in the delivery of health care. It addresses key questions such as: how does criminal law regulate controversial bioethical areas? What effect, positive or negative, does the use of criminal law have when regulating bioethical conflict? And can the law accommodate moral controversy? By exploring criminal law in theory (...) and in practice and examining the broad field of bioethics as opposed to the narrower terrain of medical ethics, it offers balanced arguments that will help readers form reasoned views on the ethical legitimacy of the invocation and use of criminal law to regulate medical and scientific practice and bioethical issues. (shrink)

For over a decade, we have watched the state affairs/practitioner constituency within the American Psychological Association move steadily to become the single largest group—clearly a majority—within the membership ranks of the association. Over the same period of time and as the obverse of related demographic phenomena, the research/academic constituency has shrunk to around 30% of the membership. Since power over the affairs of and the destiny of APA has traditionally resided in the hands of the latter, it probably would have (...) been too much to hope that the visionaries in the research/academic community would have made way gracefully for new leadership to be seated in the positions of authority in the association, a leadership more attuned to the needs of APA's majority. So it is not surprising that an orderly transfer of power has not taken place. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Scientific editors’ policies, including peer review, are based mainly on tradition and belief. Do they actually achieve their desired effects, the selection of the best manuscripts and improvement of those published? Editorial decisions have important consequences—to investigators, the scientific community, and all who might benefit from correct information or be harmed by misleading research results. These decisions should be judged not just by intentions of reviewers and editors but also by the actual consequences of their actions. A small but growing (...) number of studies has put editorial policies to a strong scientific test. In a randomized, controlled trial. blinding reviewers to author and institution was usually successful and improved the quality of reviews. Two studies have shown that, contrary to conventional wisdom, reviewers early in their careers give better reviews than senior reviewers. Many studies have shown low agreement between reviewers but there is disagreement about whether this represents a failing of peer review or the expected and valuable effect of choosing reviewers with complementary expertise. In a study of whether manuscripts are improved by peer review and editing, articles published in Annals of Internal Medicine were improved in 33 of 34 dimensions of reporting quality, but published articles still had room for improvement. Because of the central place of peer review in the scientific community and the resources it requires, more studies are needed to define what it does and does not accomplish. (shrink)

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to identify factors motivating women to take part in endometriosis research and to determine if these factors differ for women participating in clinical versus basic science studies. METHODS: A consecutive series of 24 women volunteering for participation in endometriosis‐related research were asked to indicate, in their own words, why they chose to volunteer. In addition, the women were asked to rate, on a scale of 0 to 10, sixteen potentially motivating factors. The (...) information was gathered in the form of an anonymous self‐administered questionnaire. RESULTS: Strong motivating factors (mean score >8) included potential benefit to other women's health, improvement to one's own condition, and participation in scientific advancement. Weak motivating factors (mean score <3) included financial compensation, making one's doctor happy, and use of ‘natural’ products. No difference was detected between clinical and basic science study participants. CONCLUSION: This study is the first study to specifically investigate the factors that motivate women to take part in endometriosis research. Understanding why women choose to take part in such research is important to the integrity of the informed consent process. The factors most strongly motivating women to participate in endometriosis research related to improving personal or public health; the weakest, to financial compensation and pleasing the doctor. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 63-65.

Introduction: Screen-based and mobile technology has grown at an unprecedented rate. However, little is understood about whether increased screen-use affects executive functioning, the range of mental processes that aid goal attainment and facilitate the selection of appropriate behaviors. To examine this, a systematic review was conducted.Method: This systematic review is reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using Web of Science, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Scopus databases to identify (...) articles published between 2007 and March 2020, examining the use of mobile technologies on aspects of EF in healthy adults aged 18–35 years. In total 6079 articles were screened by title, and 39 screened by full text. Eight eligible papers were identified for inclusion. Our methods were pre-registered on the PROSPERO international prospective register of systematic reviews.Results: A total of 438 participants were included across the eight studies. Five of the eight studies examined more than one EF. Five studies measured inhibition, and four studies measured decision-making. Smartphone use was negatively associated with inhibition and decision-making. Working memory performance was found to be improved by increased time engaging in video games and by refraining from smartphone use prior to bedtime. Quality assessments indicated high risk of methodological biases across the studies and a low quality of evidence for determining the relationship between technology use and executive functioning.Conclusions: This review highlights the scarcity of the literature in this area. It presents a call for rigorous and objective research to further our understanding of the impact of mobile technology on different aspects of executive function. (shrink)

The purpose of the study was to develop an understanding of how nursing students gained perspective on nursing care of diverse populations through watching documentaries in a cultural diversity course. The basis of this paper is our analyses of students’ written responses and reactions to documentaries viewed in class. The guiding theoretical frameworks for the course content and the study included postcolonial feminism, Foucauldian thought, and cultural safety. Krathwohl's Taxonomy of the Affective Domain was used to identify themes and determine (...) how undergraduate nursing students were progressing in achieving learning outcomes. Our findings suggest that while the use of documentaries serves as a tool for deepening students’ understanding of the realities of various populations, this activity, in the absence of critical reflection, may inadvertently promote stereotypes and further marginalize different people groups. Even though nursing students reflected on the importance of cultural safety in nursing, our findings indicate that their actions may not reflect this, especially since these students are in the early stages of the nursing program. Students need to be provided with a space where they can explore implicit biases evoked by exposure to new information about different people groups as a way of enhancing culturally safe care. (shrink)

Literacy is an essential skill. Learning to read is a requirement for becoming a self-providing human being. However, while spoken language is acquired naturally with exposure to language without explicit instruction, reading and writing need to be taught explicitly. Decades of research have shown that well-structured teaching of phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and letter-to-sound mapping is crucial in building solid foundations for the acquisition of reading. During the COVID-19 pandemic, children worldwide did not have access to consistent and structured teaching (...) and are, as a consequence, predicted to be behind in the development of their reading skills. Subsequent evidence confirms this prediction. With the best evidence-based practice in mind, we developed an online version of a well-structured early literacy training program for 5-year-old children. This 2-week online Reading Camp program is designed for pre-K children. It incorporates critical components of the fundamental skills essential to learning to read and is taught online in an interactive, multi-sensory, and peer-learning environment. We measure the participants’ literacy skills and other related skills before and after participating in the online Reading Camp and compare the results to no-treatment controls. Results show that children who participated in the online Reading Camp improved significantly on all parameters in relation to controls. Our results demonstrate that a well-structured evidence-based reading instruction program, even if online and short-term, benefits 5-year-old children in learning to read. With the potential to scale up this online program, the evidence presented here, alongside previous evidence for the efficacy of the in-person program, indicates that the online Reading Camp program is effective and can be used to tackle a variety of questions regarding structural and functional plasticity in the early stages of reading acquisition. (shrink)

This study develops a detailed reading of the interrelations between aesthetics, ideology, language, gender and political economy in two highly influential works by Edmund Burke: his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757), and the Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Tom Furniss's close attention to the rhetorical labyrinths of these texts is combined with an attempt to locate them within the larger discursive networks of the period, including texts by Locke, (...) Hume and Smith. This process reveals that Burke's contradictions and inconsistencies are symptomatic of a strenuous engagement with the ideological problems endemic to the period. Burke's dilemma in this respect makes the Reflections an audacious compromise which simultaneously defends the ancien régime, contributes towards the articulation of radical thought, and makes possible the revolution which we call English Romanticism. (shrink)

"In recent years, we have grown accustomed to philosophical language that is intensely self-conscious and rhetorically thick, often tragic in tone. It is enlivening to read Bergson, who exerts so little rhetorical pressure while exacting such a substantial effort of thought.... Bergson's texts teach the reader to let go of entrenched intellectual habits and to begin to think differently—to think in time.... Too much and too little have been said about Bergson. Too much, because of the various appropriations of his (...) thought. Too little, because the work itself has not been carefully studied in recent decades."—from Thinking in Time Henri Bergson, whose philosophical works emphasized motion, time, and change, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. His work remains influential, particularly in the realms of philosophy, cultural studies, and new media studies. In Thinking in Time, Suzanne Guerlac provides readers with the conceptual and contextual tools necessary for informed appreciation of Bergson's work. Guerlac's straightforward philosophical expositions of two Bergson texts, Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory, focus on the notions of duration and memory—concepts that are central to the philosopher's work. Thinking in Time makes plain that it is well worth learning how to read Bergson effectively: his era and our own share important concerns. Bergson's insistence on the opposition between the automatic and the voluntary and his engagement with the notions of "the living," affect, and embodiment are especially germane to discussions of electronic culture. (shrink)

In this book, Suzanne Kirschner traces the origins of contemporary psychoanalysis back to the foundations of Judaeo-Christian culture, and challenges the prevailing view that modern theories of the self mark a radical break with religious and cultural tradition. Instead, she argues, they offer an account of human development which has its beginnings in biblical theology and neoplatonic mysticism. Drawing on a wide range of religious, literary, philosophical and anthropological sources, Dr Kirschner demonstrates that current Anglo-American psychoanalytic theories are but (...) the latest version of a narrative that has been progressively secularized over the course of nearly two millennia. She displays a deep understanding of psychoanalytic theories, while at the same time raising provocative questions about their status as knowledge and as science. (shrink)

Do individuals have a positive right of self-defence? And if so, what are the limits of this right? Under what conditions does this use of force extend to the defence of others? These are some of the issues explored by Dr Uniacke in this comprehensive 1994 philosophical discussion of the principles relevant to self-defence as a moral and legal justification of homicide. She establishes a unitary right of self-defence and the defence of others, one which grounds the permissibility of the (...) use of necessary and proportionate defensive force against culpable and non-culpable, active and passive, unjust threats. Particular topics discussed include: the nature of moral and legal justification and excuse; natural law justifications of homicide in self-defence; the Principle of Double Effect and the claim that homicide in self-defence is justified as unintended killing; and the question of self-preferential killing. This is a lucid and sophisticated account of the complex notion of justification, revolving around a critical discussion of trends in the law of self-defence. (shrink)

Translator's Preface LA LOGIQUE DE HUSSERL, etude sur "Logique for- melle et logique transcendentale" the original of the present translation, was published ...

Individuals are faced with the many opportunities to pirate. The decision to pirate or not may be related to an individual''s attitudes toward other ethical issues. A person''s ethical and moral predispositions and the judgments that they use to make decisions may be consistent across various ethical dilemmas and may indicate their likelihood to pirate software. This paper investigates the relationship between religion and a theoretical ethical decision making process that an individual uses when evaluating ethical or unethical situations. An (...) ethical decision making model was studied for general unethical scenarios and for the unethical behavior of software piracy. The research model was tested via path analysis using structural equation modeling and was found to be appropriate for the sample data. The results suggest that there is a relationship between religion and the stages of an ethical decision making process regarding general ethical situations and software piracy. (shrink)

Suzanne de Castell; On Writing of Theory and Practice, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 39–49, https://doi.org/10.1111.

Philosophers of science have offered various accounts of climate model evaluation which have largely centered on model-fit assessment. However, despite the wide-spread prevalence of process-based evaluation in climate science practice, this sort of model evaluation has been undertheorized by philosophers of science. In this paper, I aim to expand this narrow philosophical view of climate model evaluation by providing a philosophical account of process evaluation that is rooted in a close examination of scientific practice. I propose dynamical adequacy as a (...) metric by which scientists test and evaluate models that represent and produce key regional climate processes and features. I argue that process-based evaluation confirms the adequacy of a regional climate model for simulating and predicting future changes of a specific regional climate feature. I offer a case study of how, in practice, scientists establish the reliability of model projections by assessing the dynamical adequacy of such models. I also show how process-based evaluation mitigates some well-known shortcomings of model-fit assessment and supports the adequacy and reliability of climate model projections against philosophical objections, like confirmational holism. Such adequacy is especially important for decision makers who need reliable regional model projections to guide their climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. (shrink)

DNA sequence variation is abundant in wild populations. While molecular biologists use genetically homogeneous strains of model organisms to avoid this variation, evolutionary biologists embrace genetic variation as the material of evolution since heritable differences in fitness drive evolutionary change. Yet, the relationship between the phenotypic variation affecting fitness and the genotypic variation producing it is complex. Genetic buffering mechanisms modify this relationship by concealing the effects of genetic and environmental variation on phenotype. Genetic buffering allows the build-up and storage (...) of genetic variation in phenotypically normal populations. When buffering breaks down, thresholds governing the expression of previously silent variation are crossed. At these thresholds, phenotypic differences suddenly appear and are available for selection. Thus, buffering mechanisms modulate evolution and regulate a balance between evolutionary stasis and change. Recent work provides a glimpse of the molecular details governing some types of genetic buffering. BioEssays 22:1095–1105, 2000. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Although the most common understanding of suicide is intentional self-killing, this conception either rules out someone who lacks mental capacity being classed as a suicide or, if acting intentionally is meant to include this sort of case, then what it means to act intentionally is so weak that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide. This has implications in health care, and has a further bearing on issues such as assisted suicide and health insurance. In this paper, I argue (...) that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide at all. Rather, I develop a novel approach that deploys the structure of a homicide taxonomy to classify and characterise suicides to arrive at a conceptually robust understanding of suicide. According to my analysis of suicide, an agent is the proximate cause of his death. Suicide is ‘self-killing,’ rather than ‘intentional self-killing.’ Adopting this understanding of suicide performs several functions: We acquire an external standard to assess diverging analyses on specific cases by appealing to homologous homicides. Following such a taxonomy differentiates types of suicides. This approach has application in addressing negative connotations about suicide. As a robust view, adding intention is an unnecessary complication. It is more consistent with psychological and sociological assessments of suicide than ‘intentional self-killing.’ It has useful applications in informing public policy. This paper’s focus is on classifying types of suicides, rather than on the moral permissibility or on underlying causes of suicidal ideation and behaviour. (shrink)

Scientists and decision makers rely on climate models for predictions concerning future climate change. Traditionally, physical processes that are key to predicting extreme events are either directly represented or indirectly represented. Scientists are now replacing physically based parameterizations with neural networks that do not represent physical processes directly or indirectly. I analyze the epistemic implications of this method and argue that it undermines the reliability of model predictions. I attribute the widespread failure in neural network generalizability to the lack of (...) process representation. The representation of climate processes adds significant and irreducible value to the reliability of climate model predictions. (shrink)

In this essay Suzanne Rice examines Aristotle's ideas about virtue, character, and education as elements in an Aristotelian conception of good listening. Rice begins by surveying of several different contexts in which listening typically occurs, using this information to introduce the argument that what should count as “good listening” must be determined in relation to the situation in which listening actually occurs. On this view, Rice concludes, there are no “essential” listening virtues, but rather ways of listening that may (...) be regarded as virtuous in the context of particular concrete circumstances. (shrink)

BackgroundExisting clinical ethics support (CES) instruments are considered useful. However, users report obstacles in using them in daily practice. Including end users and other stakeholders in developing CES instruments might help to overcome these limitations. This study describes the development process of a new ethics support instrument called CURA, a low-threshold four-step instrument focused on nurses and nurse assistants working in palliative care. MethodWe used a participatory development design. We worked together with stakeholders in a Community of Practice throughout the (...) study. Potential end users (nurses and nurse assistants in palliative care) used CURA in several pilots and provided us with feedback which we used to improve CURA.ResultsWe distinguished three phases in the development process. Phase one, Identifying Needs, focused on identifying stakeholder and end user needs and preferences, learning from existing CES instruments, their development and evaluation, and identify gaps. Phase two, Development, focused on designing, developing, refining and tailoring the instrument on the basis of iterative co-creation. Phase three, Dissemination, focused on implementation and dissemination. The instrument, CURA, is a four-step low-threshold instrument that fosters ethical reflection.ConclusionsParticipatory development is a valuable approach for developing clinical ethics support instruments. Collaborating with end users and other stakeholders in our development study has helped to meet the needs and preferences of end users, to come up with strategies to refine the instrument in order to enhance its feasibility, and to overcome reported limitations of existing clinical ethics instruments. (shrink)

I argue that in the Phaedo, Plato maintains that the soul is located in space and is capable of locomotion and of interacting with the body through contact. Numerous interpreters have dismissed these claims as merely metaphorical, since they assume that as an incorporeal substance, the soul cannot possess spatial attributes. But careful examination of how Plato conceives of the body throughout his corpus reveals that he does not distinguish it from the soul in terms of spatiality. Furthermore, assigning spatial (...) attributes to the soul plays an important role in Plato’s account of the relation of body and soul. (shrink)

This research aims to explore the relationship between corporate governance and CSR: What are the major factors that play a direct role in the establishment of this relationship? How does context and institutional background impact upon the relationship between CSR and Governance? Using in-depth semi-structured interviews from two types of governance systems in three countries over three years, this study has demonstrated that in practice, within different settings, CSR is being used both as a strategy as well as a reaction (...) to different drivers. We call this adaptive governance where governance can be defined as a flexible system of action incorporating strategic and monitoring activities that determines the way a company enacts its responsibilities to its shareholders and stakeholders and which is determined at any given time by the interrelationship of institutional drivers and behavioural norms. Governance systems and their interrelationships with CSR are demonstrated as fluid according to the national and institutional context, economic situation and industry impact. In the eyes of practitioners corporate governance includes both structural and behavioural factors as well as responsibilities and actions towards shareholders and stakeholders. Contextual factors that this research highlights to be important to the incorporation of CSR into governance include the economic environment, national governance system, regulation and soft law, shareholders, national culture, behavioural norms and industry impacts. Hypotheses on the impact of institutional contexts, industry impacts and economic situations on different types of CSR actions are proposed for further research. (shrink)

Kant formulated a secular argument against suicide’s permissibility based on what he regarded as the intrinsic value of humanity. In this paper, I first show that Kant’s moral framework entails that some types of suicide are morally permissible. Just as some homicides are morally permissible, according to Kant, so are suicides that are performed according to equivalent maxims. Intention, foreseeability, voluntariness, diminished responsibility, and mental capacity determine the moral characterization of the killing. I argue that a suicide taxonomy that differentiates (...) types of suicide according to morally relevant criteria is compatible with Kantian ethics; it establishes that even where we hold a robust deontological sanctity of life position, we are not obligated to preserve the lives of people whose future life only offers profound suffering, and helping them to die may be justifiable if doing so honors their dignity and autonomy. Nevertheless, homicide and suicide are only weakly morally symmetrical in that even if a given suicide is morally impermissible, we do not normally have the right to prevent it forcibly, though this may be altered by juridical laws under some circumstances. (shrink)

The current process towards formalization within evaluation research, in particular the use of pre-set standards and the focus on predefined outcomes, implies a shift of ownership from the people who are actually involved in real clinical ethics support services in a specific context to external stakeholders who increasingly gain a say in what ‘good CESS’ should look like. The question is whether this does justice to the insights and needs of those who are directly involved in actual CESS practices, be (...) it as receivers or providers. We maintain that those actually involved in concrete CESS practices should also be involved in its evaluation, not only as respondents, but also in setting the agenda of the evaluation process and in articulating the criteria by which CESS is evaluated. Therefore, we propose a participatory approach to CESS evaluation. It focuses on the concrete contexts in which CESS takes place, reflective and dialogical learning processes, and how to be democratic and inclusive. In particular, this approach to CESS evaluation is akin to realist evaluation, dialogical evaluation, and responsive evaluation. An example of a participatory approach to evaluating CESS is presented and some critical issues concerning this approach are discussed. (shrink)

This article presents an ethics support instrument for healthcare professionals called CURA. It is designed with a focus on and together with nurses and nurse assistants in palliative care. First, we shortly go into the background and the development study of the instrument. Next, we describe the four steps CURA prescribes for ethical reflection: (1) Concentrate, (2) Unrush, (3) Reflect, and (4) Act. In order to demonstrate how CURA can structure a moral reflection among caregivers, we discuss how a case (...) was discussed with CURA at a psychogeriatric ward of an elderly care home. Furthermore, we go into some considerations regarding the use of the instrument in clinical practice. Finally, we focus on the need for further research on the effectiveness and implementation of CURA. (shrink)

This paper disputes Uwe Steinhoff’s view that a _jus ad bellum_ requirement of necessity can be merged with a condition of proportionality. It argues that the proposed merger detracts from a conceptual and moral understanding of the structure and rationale of both the necessity and the proportionality considerations applicable in a range of moral contexts, including those of war and so-called lesser evils cases, where these conditions are intended as action-guiding.

summary, crtiques, strengths and limitation of the article.

Many of the negative connotations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are linked to its perceived role as a public relations exercise. Following on calls for more positive engagement by public relations professionals in organisational strategic planning and given the rapidly increasing interest in CSR as a business strategy, this article addresses the question of how the theory and practice of public relations can provide direction and support for CSR. To this end, this article explores leadership styles and motivations of a (...) sample of corporate leaden from prominent Australian-based corporations in relation to their chosen CSR activities to examine the current position of, and potential for, professional communicators' impact in shaping CSR-driven policies at a strategic level. We find that while public relations theory has evolved, many leaders still see public relations professionals only as a source of positive publicity. Our findings suggest that the model of distributive leadership has more relevance to an emerging idea of public relations involvement in CSR than more traditional understandings of leadership. We conclude that the public relations profession needs to develop a greater understanding of senior management approaches to the development and dissemination of CSR activities to support organisational leadership as it currently operates with respect to CSR. (shrink)

Has exclusion of Darwin's views on evolution distorted 20c philosophy? Cunningham suggests a reappraisal.

The objective of this study is to evaluate if use of a patient decision aid, when choosing between a repeat cesarean or a trial of labor after a cesarean, reduces medical liability exposure. The authors conclude that use of a PDA conferred liability protection when potential jurors were presented with a hypothetical malpractice claim against an obstetrician following a TOLAC.

Suzanne de Castell, Helen Freeman; Education as a Socio-Practical Field: the theory/practice question reformulated, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 1.