Most philosophers and psychologists who have explored the psychology of climate change have focused only on motivational issues—getting people to act on what morality requires of them. This is misleading, however, because there are other psychological processes directed not at motivation but rather our ability to grasp the implications of climate change in a general way—what Stephen Gardiner has called the ‘grasping problem’. Taking the grasping problem as my departure point, I draw two conclusions from the relevant psychological literature: 1) (...) ethicists and policy makers should focus less on changing individuals’ behaviors and more on changing policy; and 2) even though solutions to climate change must come at the level of policy, progress on this front will be limited by incompatible moral norms. (shrink)

This is the first volume to address directly the question of the speciation of modern Homo sapiens. The subject raises profound questions about the nature of the species, our defining characteristic, and the brain changes and their genetic basis that make us distinct. The British Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences have brought together experts from palaeontology, archaeology, linguistics, psychology, genetics and evolutionary theory to present evidence and theories at the cutting edge of our understanding of these issues.Palaeontological and (...) genetic work suggests that the transition from a precursor hominid species to modern man took place between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago. Some contributors discuss what is most characteristic of the species, focussing on language and its possible basis in brain lateralization. This work is placed in the context of speciation theory, which has remained a subject of considerable debate since the evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics and Darwinian theory. The timing of specific transitions in hominid evolution is discussed, as also is the question of the neural basis of language. Other contributors address the possible genetic nature of the transition, with reference to changes on the X and Y chromosomes that may account for sex differences in lateralization and verbal ability. These differences are discussed in terms of the theory of sexual selection, and with reference to the mechanisms of speciation.These essays will be vital reading for anyone interested in the nature and origins of the species, and specifically human abilities. (shrink)

If patients are to be partners rather than subjects, contributing effectively to clinical research in which they have an interest, both they and investigators must change their ways. The case is argued here that the conduct of clinical research fulfils an essential need of society and that, therefore, in the interests of society, there is a moral imperative that it be done. Further essays will develop this theme, questioning along the way whether consent is a redundant concept.

In a series of articles, I argue for a different relationship between investigators and subjects of clinical research – one that is based on partnership in shared aims. This would require significant behavioural change since any relationship of this nature requires each partner to recognise their duties within it. This third essay examines the duties that would fall on patients in this partnership.

First delivered as a lecture course at the University of Padua by one of Italy’s most brilliant, and certainly its most controversial, Leninists, The Factory of Strategy is concerned to read Lenin in terms of contemporary Marxist exigencies, especially in advanced industrial nations. Divided unequally into five parts, it deals with: the internal dynamism of Lenin’s thought; the question of the organization of the Soviets; methodology, via Lenin’s reading of Hegel; the abolition of the state, via State and Revolution; and (...) a critical reading of Lenin’s attack on German Marxists. Throughout, the work is inspired by two convictions: that Lenin offers the most adequate methodology for revolution, and that his thought must be restructured in terms of the changed situation of the contemporary world. (shrink)

Section 1 One of the big problems facing us is the need to plan for the betterment and improvement of society. In any status quo there are many unsatisfactory moments and experience shows that with changing conditions, even those elements of our communal structure that work well will often get out of step and become a problem. We need then to introduce devices both to alleviate present troubles and, if possible, to anticipate future ones. On the whole, it might appear (...) to the untutored eye that the matter is relatively simple. For instance, if we keep increasing prices of commodities without increasing incomes, and especially if we allow inflation to proceed unfettered as well, the situation will certainly deteriorate. What we need to. (shrink)

This paper outlines and defends a processual theory of peoplehood. On our theory, a people is, roughly speaking, composed of two things. First, an unfolding series of events coordinated by the practices of constituting, governing, or changing a polity's authoritative institutions. Second, individual persons whose lives and interests are intensely affected by these events and institutions. We call this theory deep processualism. We outline the theory by showing how it would answer five questions: the questions of constituents, individuation, origination, termination, (...) and membership: What are the chief constituents of peoples? What individuates peoples? Under what conditions do peoples originate? Under what conditions do peoples cease to be? Under what conditions is a person a member of the people? We also consider alternative theories of the nature of peoples, theories due to Juergen Habermas, Bruce Ackerman, Philip Pettit, and James Fishkin. We defend our theory on the ground that it is not embarrassed by the difficulties that we pin on these alternative theories. (shrink)

During human-human interaction, emotion plays a vital role in structuring dialogue. Emotional content drives features such as topic shift, lexicalisation change and timing; it affects the delicate balance between goals related to the task at hand and those of social interaction; and it represents one type of feedback on the effect that utterances are having. These various facets are so central to most real-world interaction, that it is reasonable to suppose that emotion should also play an important role in human-computer (...) interaction. To that end, techniques for detecting, modelling, and responding appropriately to emotion are explored, and an architecture for bringing these techniques together into a coherent system is presented. (shrink)

The aim of this analysis was to examine the effects on stature in two nationally representative samples of Polish 19-year-old conscripts of maternal and paternal education level, and of degree of urbanization, before and after the economic transition of 1990. Data were from two national surveys of 19-year-old Polish conscripts: 27,236 in 1986 and 28,151 in 2001. In addition to taking height measurements, each subject was asked about the socioeconomic background of their families, including paternal and maternal education, and the (...) name of the locality of residence. The net effect of each of these social factors on stature was determined using four-factor analysis of variance. The secular trend towards increased stature of Polish conscripts has slowed down from a rate 2·1 cm per decade across the period 1965–1986 to 1·5 cm per decade between 1986 and 2001. In both cohorts, mean statures increase with increasing size of locality of residence, paternal education and maternal education. The effect of each of these three social factors on conscript height is highly significant in both cohorts. However, the effect of maternal education has increased substantially while that of size of locality of residence and paternal education diminished between 1986 and 2001. These results imply that the influence of parental education on child growth cannot be due solely to a relationship between education and income, but is also perhaps a reflection of household financial management which benefits child health and growth by better educated parents, regardless of level of income. In addition they suggest that, irrespective of whether there are one or two breadwinners in the family, it is the mother, more so than the father, who is principally responsible for the extent to which such management best favours child health and growth. The asymmetry between the importance of maternal as against paternal education for child growth, clearly seen in the 1986 cohort, became more accentuated in 2001, after the abrupt transition from a command to a free-market economy in the early 1990s. (shrink)

We propose a new approach for tracing value change. Value change may lead to a mismatch between current value priorities in society and the values for which technologies were designed in the past, such as energy technologies based on fossil fuels, which were developed when sustainability was not considered a very important value. Better anticipating value change is essential to avoid a lack of social acceptance and moral acceptability of technologies. While value change can be studied historically and qualitatively, we (...) propose a more quantitative approach that uses large text corpora. It uses probabilistic topic models, which allow us to trace values that are latent. We demonstrate the approach for five types of value change in technology. Our approach is useful for testing hypotheses about value change, such as verifying whether value change has occurred and identifying patterns of value change. The approach can be used to trace value change for various technologies and text corpora, including scientific articles, newspaper articles, and policy documents. (shrink)

In a modern democratic society appearance has great importance. This is especially true of the dress code in health care sphere. More recently, changing your appearance by getting tattoos and body modifications has been decried by different generations in the medical community. However, what is significance of appearance of a medical officer during epidemiological instability around the world? The response to this question was given in our study. The objectives of the study are: to interrogate the attitude of medical university (...) students to medical officers with tattoos as well as to identify medical students who are "exposed" to the fashionable trend of tattoos and body modifications. To implement these objectives, the study involved 106 medical students of various levels of degree and faculties of Rostov state medical University. The results of the study showed that the majority of medical students has not resorted to changes in their appearance, although tattoos and body modifications did not avoid the community of medical students. (shrink)

There is evidence that asexual reproduction has a long-term disadvantage when compared to sexual reproduction. This disadvantage is usually assumed to arise from the more efficient incorporation of advantageous mutations by sexual populations. We consider here the effect on asexual and sexual populations of changes in the fitness of harmful mutations. It is shown that the re-establishment of equilibrium following environmental change is generally faster in sexual populations, and that the mutational load experienced by the sexual population can be significantly (...) less during this period than that experienced by an asexual one. Changes in the fitness of harmful mutations may therefore impose a greater long-term disadvantage on asexual populations than those which are sexual. (shrink)

Minimally, metaphysical realists hold that there exist some mind-independent entities. Metaphysical realists also hold that we can speak meaningfully or truthfully about mind-independent entities. Those who reject metaphysical realism deny one or more of these commitments. This Element aims to introduce the reader to the core commitments of metaphysical realism and to illustrate how these commitments have changed over time by surveying some of the main families of views that realism has been contrasted with: such as scepticism, idealism, and anti-realism.

Leaders, particularly new leaders, seek to establish high levels of trust, as it has been associated with higher levels of effectiveness and group outcomes. This study is designed to understand how trust changes and develops for leaders in a new role and the implications of that change. Although calls for research on trust over time have been made for the past 2 decades, our knowledge of this phenomenon is still quite limited. The findings indicate that leader and unit performance is (...) a function not only of absolute trust level, but is also affected by the direction and magnitude of change in trust across time periods, with the highest levels of effectiveness being associated with leaders who exhibited an increase in trust from the group over time. The data also suggest that the direction and rate at which trust grew was determined by initial expectations and transformational leadership behaviors. (shrink)

This article examines corporate social disclosures (CSD) in an African developing economy (Mauritius) as provided in the annual reports of listed companies from 2004 to 2007. Informed by the country’s social, political and economic context and legitimacy theory, we hypothesise that the extent and variety of CSD themes (social, ethics, environment and health and safety) will be enhanced post-2004 and will be influenced by profitability, size, leverage and industry affiliation. We find a significant increase in the volume and variety of (...) CSD, although information in relation to social activities remains the most prominent form of disclosure. This is in contrast to previous studies which reported on the primacy of employee disclosures in developing countries. Using a pooled regression analysis, we also observe that size does explain variations in overall CSD and social disclosures, whilst leverage is positively related to changes in environmental and health and safety disclosures. There is no profitability relationship, and the effects of industry affiliation on CSD are non-significant or contrary to expectations. Overall, we assert that legitimacy, as a strategic and managerially driven approach favouring symbolic actions, is the prevailing motivation underlying the progression of CSD in Mauritius. (shrink)

There is a growing consensus in Britain on the importance of character, and on the belief that the virtues that contribute to good character are part of the solution to many of the challenges facing modern society. Parents, teachers and schools understand the need to teach basic moral virtues to pupils, such as honesty, self-control, fairness, and respect, while fostering behaviour associated with such virtues today. However, until recently, the materials required to help deliver this ambition have been missing in (...) Britain. The Knightly Virtues Programme, devised by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, aims to help solve this challenge. The programme, designed for 9 to 11 year olds, draws on selected classic stories to help teach moral character in schools. This approach has proved to be popular with children and teachers, with more than 5,000 pupils from one hundred schools having participated in the programme so far. Fifty-five of these schools and 3,272 pupils were directly involved in different stages of the research. Based at the University of Birmingham, the Jubilee Centre houses leading academics dedicated to researching the various ways in which good character, which underpins the building blocks of society, can be developed. Recent research from the Centre has shown that the qualities that make up character can be learnt and taught, and suggests that we need a new emphasis on their importance in schools and in professional education. This report from the Centre into the use of classic literature within schools sets out the ways in which the Knightly Virtues Programme is able to develop the virtue literacy of school pupils, and the extent to which an understanding and awareness of good moral character can make positive changes to behaviour. The impact of the programme has been tested using several rigorous research methods, detailed in this report alongside their findings, which provide substantial empirical evidence for the effectiveness of using stories to develop virtue literacy. (shrink)

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Genetic studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with the risk of prostate cancer. It remains unclear whether such genetic variants are associated with disease aggressiveness. The NCI-SPORE Genetics Working Group retrospectively collected clinicopathologic information and genotype data for 36 SNPs which at the time had been validated to be associated with PC risk from 25,674 cases with PC. Cases were grouped according to race, Gleason score and aggressiveness. Statistical analyses were used to compare the frequency (...) of the SNPs between different disease cohorts. After adjusting for multiple testing, only PC-risk SNP rs2735839 was significantly and inversely associated with aggressive and high-grade disease in European men. Similar associations with aggressive and high-grade disease were documented in African-American subjects. The G allele of rs2735839 was associated with disease aggressiveness even at low PSA levels in both European and African-American men. Our results provide further support that a PC-risk SNP rs2735839 near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 may be associated with aggressive and high-grade PC. Future prospectively designed, case-case GWAS are needed to identify additional SNPs associated with PC aggressiveness. (shrink)

It has been hypothesized that psychedelic experiences elicit lasting psychological benefits by altering narrative selfhood, which has yet to be explicitly studied. The present study investigates retrospective reports (n = 418) of changes to narrative self that participants believe resulted from, or were catalysed by, their psychedelic experience(s). Responses to open-ended questions were analysed using inductive and deductive thematic coding and interpreted within agent-centred approaches to development and well-being. Themes include decentred introspection, greater access to self-knowledge, positive shifts in self-evaluation (...) processes, greater psychological and behavioural autonomy, and enhanced connectedness with others and the world. While this explorative qualitative study offers some initial support for the explanation that changes to narrative self are a cornerstone of psychedelics' therapeutic and transformative potential, methodological and recruiting limitations preclude the ability to make objective claims and generalizations. Future scientific research is necessary to further elucidate this hypothesized mechanism. (shrink)

Technology has expanded genomic research and the complexity of extracted gene-related information. Health-related genomic incidental findings pose new dilemmas for nurse researchers regarding the ethical application of disclosure to participants. Consequently, informed consent specific to incidental findings is recommended. Critical Social Theory is used as a guide in recognition of the changing meaning of informed consent and to serve as a framework to inform nursing of the ethical application of disclosure consent in genomic nursing research practices.

Understanding terrestrial carbon metabolism is critical because terrestrial ecosystems play a major role in the global carbon cycle. Furthermore, humans have severely disrupted the carbon cycle in ways that will alter the climate system and directly affect terrestrial metabolism. Changes in terrestrial metabolism may well be as important an indicator of global change as the changing temperature signal. Improving our understanding of the carbon cycle at various spatial and temporal scales will require the integration of multiple, complementary and independent methods (...) that are used by different research communities. Tools such as air sampling networks, inverse numerical methods, and satellite data allow us to study the strength and location of the global- and continental-scale carbon sources and sinks. Bottom-up studies provide estimates of carbon fluxes at finer spatial scales and examine the mechanisms that control fluxes at the ecosystem, landscape, and regional scales. Bottom-up approaches include comparative and process studies that provide the necessary mechanistic information to develop and validate terrestrial biospheric models. An iteration and reiteration of top-down and bottom-up approaches will be necessary to help constrain measurements at various scales. We propose a major international effort to coordinate and lead research programs of global scope of the carbon cycle. (shrink)

Body memory comprises the acquired dispositions that constitute an individual's present capacities and experiences. Phenomenological accounts of body memory describe its effects using dynamical metaphors: it is conceived of as curvatures in an agent-environment relational field, leading to attracting and repelling forces that shape ongoing sensorimotor interaction. This relational perspective stands in tension with traditional cognitive science, which conceives of the underlying basis of memory in representational-internal terms: it is the encoding and storing of informational content via structural changes inside (...) the brain. We propose that this tension can be resolved by replacing the traditional approach with the dynamical approach to cognitive science. Specifically, we present three of our simulation models of embodied cognition that can help us to rethink the basis of several types of body memory. The upshot is that, at least in principle, there is no need to explain their basis in terms of content or to restrict their basis to neuroplasticity alone. Instead these models support the perspective developed by phenomenology: body memory is a relational property of a whole brain-body-environment system that emerges out of its history of interactions. (shrink)

Nurses have moral obligations incurred by membership in the profession to participate knowingly in health policy advocacy. Many barriers have historically hindered nurses from realizing their potential to advance health policy. The contemporary political context sets additional challenges to policy work due to polarization and conflict. Nursing education can help nurses recognize their role in advancing health through political advocacy in a manner that is consistent with disciplinary knowledge and ethical responsibilities. In this paper, the authors describe an exemplar of (...) Elizabeth Barrett's “Power as Knowing Participation in Change” theory as a disciplinary lens within a doctoral nursing health policy course. Barrett (radically) emphasizes “power as freedom” instead of “power as control.” This approach is congruent with nursing disciplinary values and enhances awareness of personal freedom and building collaborative relationships in the policy process. The theory was used in concert with other traditional policy content and frameworks from nursing and other disciplines. We discuss the role of nursing ethics viewed as professional responsibility for policy action, an overview of Barrett's theory, and the design of the course. Four student reflections on how the course influenced their thinking about policy advocacy are included. While not specific to policymaking, Barrett's theory provides a disciplinary grounding to increase students' awareness of freedom and choices in political advocacy participation. Our experience suggests that Barrett's work can be fruitful for enhancing nurses' awareness of choices to participate in change across settings. (shrink)

Shortages of new therapeutics to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced clinicians, public health officials, and health systems to grapple with difficult questions about how to fairly allocate potentially life-saving treatments when there are not enough for all patients in need (1). Shortages have occurred with remdesivir, tocilizumab, monoclonal antibodies, and the oral antiviral Paxlovid (2) -/- Ensuring equitable allocation is especially important in light of the disproportionate burden experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by disadvantaged groups, including Black, Hispanic/Latino and (...) Indigenous communities, individuals with certain disabilities, and low-income persons. However, many health systems have resorted to first-come, first-served approaches to allocation, which tend to disadvantage individuals with barriers in access to care (3). There is mounting evidence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in access to medications for COVID-19 (4, 5). -/- One potential method to promote equitable allocation is to use a weighted lottery, which is an allocation strategy that gives all eligible patients a chance to receive the scarce treatment while also allowing the assignment of higher or lower chances according to other ethical considerations (6). We sought to assess the feasibility of implementing a weighted lottery to allocate scarce COVID-19 medications in a large U.S. health system and to determine whether the weighted lottery promotes equitable allocation. (shrink)

Metaphysics has had a long history of debate over its viability, and substantivity. This thesis explores issues connected to the realism question within the domain of metaphysics, ultimately aiming to defend a realist, substantive metaphysics by responding to so-called deflationary approaches, which have become prominent, and well supported within the recent metametaphysical and metaontological literature. To this end, I begin by examining the changing nature of the realism question. I argue that characterising realism and anti-realism through theories of truth unduly (...) places epistemology prior to ontology, and is unwarranted in assuming a non-neutrality between theories of truth and positions within the realism debate. I therefore propose a characterisation of realism and anti-realism understood through truthmaking. This produces a suitable working characterisation of realism that will be used within the remainder of this project. In the second section, I trace the historical influences upon current deflationary approaches to metaphysics, most prominently those of Carnap, and Putnam. I argue that Quine’s supposed attack on Carnap’s anti-metaphysical thought fails, and show how current deflationary thought, most prominently exhibited by Hirsch, came to focus on linguistically derived concerns over the substantivity of metaphysics. In the third section, I outline a number of issues for the deflationist, and defend the coherency and legitimacy of the unrestricted existential quantifier. Focusing on the linguistic aspect of deflationism, I argue that the conception of language that the deflationist relies upon lacks suitable empirical and theoretical support within linguistics and other related domains. Furthermore, I suggest that linguistic analysis in fact supports the claim that the quantifier carries no inherent restrictions. This restores our ability to suitably posit the unrestricted existential quantifier, as a quantifier wherein the domain is only restricted by metaphysically substantive restrictions. Through this, I argue that metaphysics is a substantive domain of discourse. Lastly, I sketch a positive account of how, under an empirically and theoretically justified conception of language, metaphysics can be coherently held to be a realist, substantive enterprise, contra claims that hold that the nature of language inherently prevents metaphysics being considered to be a substantive domain of discourse. (shrink)

Ecological sciences have informed environmental ethics from its inception as a scholarly pursuit in the 1970s-so much so that we now have ecological ethics, Deep Ecology, and ecofeminism. Throughout the 20th century, however, most ecologists remained enthralled by the myth that science is value-free. Closer study of science by philosophers reveals that metaphors are inescapable and cognitively indispensable to science, but that metaphors are value-laden. As we confront the enormous challenges of the 21st century-the prospect of a 6th mass extinction, (...) acidifying oceans, rising sea level, and global warming-ecologists can no longer remain aloof from public discourse about what actions to take to address these problems. And that means that 21st century ecologists understand that right action is guided by ethics. However, integration of ethical ideas into academic curricula and ecologists' research agendas is still meager. Aldo Leopold, 1947 President of the Ecological Society of America, keenly understood that latent in ecological sciences is an organizing worldview, with implications for reordering societal values and expanding ethics to embrace "soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land." Going beyond Leopold's land ethic, contemporary environmental ethics includes eco-social justice and the realization that as important as biodiversity is cultural diversity, inter-cultural, inter-institutional, and international collaboration requiring a novel approach known as biocultural conservation. Right action in confronting the challenges of the 21st century requires science and ethics to be seamlessly integrated. Contemporary science proposes the concept of the inclusive ecosystem that recognizes humans as components. In this book, this "inclusive conviction is endorsed, fortunately, by over forty contributors sharing their accounts, of living well in place, combining nature and culture, residing on landscapes: biocultural ethics" (Holmes Rolston, III). (shrink)

We develop and use mathematical models that describe changes in the South African population over the last decades, brought on by HIV and AIDS. We do not model all the phases in HIV progression but rather, we show that a relatively simple model is sufficient to represent the data and allows us to investigate important aspects of HIV infection: firstly, we are able to investigate the effect of awareness on the prevalence of HIV and secondly, it enables us to make (...) a comparison between South Africa and Botswana. A comparison is made between two models: a model that does not reflect awareness of the devastating impact of HIV and AIDS, and a model with an added psychological awareness factor. Both models are fitted to data that reflects the incidence of HIV and AIDS within South Africa. This allows us to examine the impact of psychological awareness. We show that inclusion of the effect of awareness is absolutely necessary to arrive at a model description that satisfactorily fits the available HIV and AIDS data for South Africa. We also show that a relatively simple modelling of awareness (as opposed to more complex mathematical techniques that have been used in past studies) is sufficient to accurately describe the observed patterns in the data. Even though awareness alone is not sufficient to eradicate any disease and other control strategies should be explored and implemented concurrently with educational campaigns, we are able to conclude (through thorough model analyses procedures) that the current level of awareness in South Africa is far below the level that is effectively required to eradicate HIV from the South African population. The awareness model is also fitted to HIV-related data for Botswana and we compare the results with the South African case. Though the effect of awareness is currently estimated at a much higher level in Botswana, other factors such as poorer health care and cultural differences may play a role in limiting the ability of awareness to combat HIV in Botswana. (shrink)

The 2006 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised recommendations for HIV testing in clinical settings contained seven specific changes to how health care facilities should provide HIV testing. These seven elements have been both supported and challenged in the lay and medical literature. Our first paper in BMC Medical Ethics presented an analysis of the three HIV testing procedural changes included in the recommendations. In this paper, we address the four remaining elements that concern HIV screening policy changes: (...) (1) nontargeted HIV screening, (2) making HIV screening similar to screening for other treatable conditions, (3) increasing HIV screening without assured additional funding for linkage to care, and (4) making patients bear the costs of increased HIV screening in health care settings. (shrink)

Measures of student ethical sensitivity and their increases help to answer questions such as whether accounting ethics should be taught at all. We investigate different sensitivity measures and alternatives to the well-established Defining Issues Test (DIT-2, Rest, J. R. et al. [1999, Postconventional Moral Thinking: A Neo-Kohlbergian Approach (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ]), frequently used to measure the effects of undergraduate accounting ethics education. Because the DIT measures cognitive development, which increases with age, the DIT scores for younger accounting students (...) are typically lower, have limited range, and are not likely to vary sufficiently with corresponding choices in ethical dilemmas. Since the DIT measures only the moral judgment component of ethical decision-making, we consider the multidimensional ethical scale (MES) to allow respondents to provide explanations for their moral and other judgments. The MES has been used to measure attitudes related to justice, utility, contractualism, egoism, and relativism. Unfortunately, the MES is not comparable in one-dimension to the DIT, and unlike the DIT, the MES has no theoretical or objective base. Therefore, we construct a comparable one-dimensional relative measure, a Composite MES Score, obtained from previous research on practicing accountants. We compare the reliability of this measure to the DIT in explaining the ethical choices of 54 specially chosen, somewhat homogeneous students, whose ages range from 18 to 19, and who are taking a second semester freshman accounting course at a private, religion-affiliated university. These particular students are relatively untrained in the formal use of questionable accounting choices. These students are less likely to recognize the dilemmas of the MES and are also less likely to demonstrate sufficient variation in their DIT scores, traditionally low for freshmen students. As freshmen, they are recent graduates of high school and more likely guided by other ethical influences including friends, family, or contractual obligations (some of the MES constructs) rather than higher cognitive development. This study confirms suspicions. We find the DIT scores do not vary sufficiently to explain the moral reasoning of freshmen. For eight dilemmas and 24 choices we find the DIT score correlates with only three choices, whereas the MES regression models have at least one significant construct for 23 out of 24 ethical choices. The Composite MES Score (a relative measure) also explains 23 out of 24 choices and is statistically related to the DIT in only one of the choices. Unlike the DIT, the Composite MES permits pretest and retesting with different dilemmas to evaluate changes in ethical sensitivity. These results argue for relative rather than absolute measures of sensitivity and guides beyond cognitive development (the DIT-score) to explain undergraduate student sensitivity. (shrink)

Although the notion of spatiality has always lurked in the background of discussions of literary form, the self-conscious use of the term as a critical concept is generally traced to Joseph Frank's seminal essay of 1945, "Spatial Form in Modern Literature."1 Frank's basic argument is that modernist literary works are "spatial" insofar as they replace history and narrative sequence with a sense of mythic simultaneity and disrupt the normal continuities of English prose with disjunctive syntactic arrangements. This argument has been (...) attacked on several fronts. An almost universal objection is that spatial form is a "mere metaphor" which has been given misplaced concreteness and that it denies the essentially temporal nature of literature. Some critics will concede that the metaphor contains a half-truth, but one which is likely to distract attention from more important features of the reading experience. The most polemical attacks have come from those who regard spatial form as an actual, but highly regrettable, characteristic of modern literature and who have linked it with antihistorical and even fascist ideologies.2 Advocates of Frank's position, on the other hand, have generally been content to extrapolate his premises rather than criticize them, and have compiled an ever-mounting list of modernist texts which can be seen, in some sense, as "antitemporal." The whole debate can best be advanced, in my view, not by some patchwork compromise among the conflicting claims but by a radical, even outrageous statement of the basic hypothesis in its most general form. I propose, therefore, that far from being a unique phenomenon of some modern literature, and far from being restricted to the features which Frank identifies in those works , spatial form is a crucial aspect of the experience and interpretation of literature in all ages and cultures. The burden of proof, in other words, is not on Frank to show that some works have spatial form but on his critics to provide an example of any work that does not. · 1. Frank's essay first appeared in Sewanee Review 53 and was revised in his The Widening Gyre . Frank's basic argument has not changed essentially even in his most avante-garde statements; he still regards spatial form "as a particular phenomenon of modern avante-garde writing." See "Spatial Form: An Answer to Critics," Critical Inquiry 4 : 231-52. A useful bibliography, "Space and Spatial Form in Narrative," is being complied by Jeffrey Smitten .· 2. This charge generally links the notion of spatial form with Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound, the imagist movement, the "irrationality" and pessimistic antihistoricism of modernism, and the conservative Romantic tradition. Frank discusses the complex motives behind these associations in the work of Robert Weimann and Frank Kermode in his "Answer to Critics," pp. 238-48. W. J. T. Mitchell, editor of Critical Inquiry, is the author of Blake's Composite Art, and The Last Dinosaur Book: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon. The present essay is part of Iconology: The Image in Literature and the Visual Arts. "Diagrammatology" appeared in the Spring 1981 issue of Critical Inquiry. Leon Surette responds to the current essay in "‘Rational Form in Literature’". (shrink)

Provides an accessible account of the changing world of archaeological theory. It charts the emergence of the new emphasis on relations as well as engaging with current theoretical trends and the thinkers archaeologists regularly employ. This book will be an essential guide to cutting-edge theory for students and for professionals wishing to reacquaint themselves with this field. Oliver J.T. Harris is lecturer in archaeology in the School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester. Craig N. Cipolla is lecturer in (...) historical archaeology in the School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

The prospect of using cell-based interventions to treat neurological conditions raises several important ethical and policy questions. In this target article, we focus on issues related to the unique constellation of traits that characterize CBIs targeted at the central nervous system. In particular, there is at least a theoretical prospect that these cells will alter the recipients' cognition, mood, and behavior—brain functions that are central to our concept of the self. The potential for such changes, although perhaps remote, is cause (...) for concern and careful ethical analysis. Both to enable better informed consent in the future and as an end in itself, we argue that early human trials of CBIs for neurological conditions must monitor subjects for changes in cognition, mood, and behavior; further, we recommend concrete steps for that monitoring. Such steps will help better characterize the potential risks and benefits of CBIs as they are tested and potentially used for treatment. (shrink)