A summary of the existing literature related to moral distress (MD) and the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) reveals a high-tech, high-pressure environment in which effective teamwork can be compromised by MD arising from different situations related to: consent for treatment, futile care, end-of-life decision making, formal decision-making structures, training and experience by discipline, individual values and attitudes, and power and authority issues. Attempts to resolve MD in PICUs have included the use of administrative tools such as shift worksheets, the (...) implementation of continuing education, and encouragement to report. The literature does not yet show these approaches to be effective in the resolution of MD. The need to acknowledge MD among PICU teams is discussed and an argument made that, to facilitate understanding among team members, practice stories need to be shared. (shrink)

BackgroundThere have been notable investments in large multi-partner research programmes across the agriculture-nutrition-health (ANH) nexus. These studies often involve human participants and commonly require research ethics review. These ANH studies are complex and can raise ethical issues that need pre-field work, ethical oversight and also need an embedded process that can identify, characterise and manage ethical issues as the research work develops, as such more embedded and dynamic ethics processes are needed. This work builds on notions of ‘ethics in practice’ (...) by developing an approach to facilitate ethical reflection within large research programmes. This study explores the application of a novel ‘real-time research ethics approach’ (RTREA) and how this can support ethical mindfulness. This involves embedding ethical analysis and decision-making within research implementation, with a continuous dialogue between participants and researchers. The aim is to improve ethical responsiveness and participant experience, which in turn may ethically support adherence and retention. In this case study, a bioethics team (BT) was embedded in a community-based randomised, controlled trial conducted in rural Malawi, titled the ‘Addressing Hidden Hunger with Agronomy’. To identify ethical issues, the researchers conducted ten focus group discussions, fourteen in-depth interviews with key informants, two workshops, observed two sensitisation and three activity meetings conducted by the trial team, and analysed fifteen reports from pre-trial to trial implementation.ResultsThe RTREA facilitated the identification of social and ethical concerns and made researchers aware of participants’ ‘lived research experience’. To address concerns and experiences, the BT worked with researchers to facilitate conversation spaces where social and ethical issues were discussed. Conversation spaces were designed to create partnerships and promote participatory methods to capture trial participants’ (TPs) perspectives and experiences.ConclusionsThe use of RTREA showed the value of real-time and continuous engagement between TPs and researchers. These real-time processes could be embedded to complement traditional ethical guidance and expert opinions. A deeper engagement appeared to support greater operationalising of principles of inclusion, empowerment, and participant autonomy and supported researchers ‘ethical mindfulness’ which in turn may support instrumental outcomes of high recruitment, retention, and adherence levels. (shrink)

Scholars in the early seventeenth century who studied ancient Greek scientific theories often drew upon philology and history to reconstruct a more general picture of the Greek past. Gassendi's training as a humanist historiographer enabled him to formulate a conception of the history of philosophy in which the rationality of scientific and philosophical inquiry depended on the historical justifications which he developed for his beliefs. Professor Joy examines this conception and analyzes the nature of Gassendi's historical training, especially its relationship (...) to his career as a physicist and astronomer. She shows how he rehabilitated Epicurean atomism by bringing together the arguments of the Greek atomists and those of his contemporaries. In doing so, he produced an account of the natural world which made it an object of empirical study and mechanical explanation. (shrink)

The use of social media platforms (such as Facebook) for research recruitment has continued to increase, especially during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Social media enables researchers to reach diverse communities that often do not have their voices heard in research. Social media research recruitment, however, can pose risks to both potential participants and the researchers. This topic paper presents ethical considerations related to social media recruitment, and offers an example of harassment and hate speech risks when social media is used (...) for research recruitment. We explore the implications of hate speech risks for ethical research. (shrink)

Bernard Lonergan's cognitive theory challenges us to raise questions about both the cognitive process through which obesity is perceived as a behaviour change issue and the objectivity of such a moral judgment. Lonergan's theory provides the theoretical tools to affirm that anti-fat discrimination, in the United States of America and in many industrialized countries, is the result of both a group bias that resists insights into the good of other groups and a general bias of anti-intellectualism that tends to set (...) common sense against insights that require any thorough scientific analyses. While general bias diverts the public's attention away from the true aetiology of obesity, group bias sustains an anti-fat culture that subtly legitimates discriminatory practices and policies against obese people. Although anti-discrimination laws may seem to be a reasonable way of protecting obese and overweight individuals from discrimination, obesity bias can be best addressed by reframing the obesity debate from an environmental perspective from which tools and strategies to address both the social and individual determinants of obesity can be developed. Attention should not be concentrated on individuals' behaviour as it is related to lifestyle choices, without giving due consideration to the all-encompassing constraining factors which challenge the social and rational blindness of obesity bias. (shrink)

This essay on the life and work of Pamela Sue Anderson traces aspects of her scholarly work that I was very fortunate to share with her over twenty-six years. What brought us together was our commitment to feminism but also our strong interest in the work of Paul Ricoeur – which seemed to many people an odd combination, given Ricoeur’s silence on the topic of women and gender issues. Over the years, we met at conferences, read each other’s books, and (...) published articles in each other’s publications. My principal aim is to chart her own journey and her relation to the work of Paul Ricoeur. What was remarkable in Pamela’s work was her passionate commitment, which was especially contagious. Her early work on the philosopher Kant was rigorous in ways that helped to initiate a wealth of new scholarship and increased an awareness of Ricoeur’s Kantian influence. In relation to Ricoeur’s work, Pamela was intrigued by his silence on women, but she realized that, given his dialogical approach, she could attempt not only to introduce feminist insights but also to expand his ideas so as to incorporate philosophy of religion. First, she integrated Ricoeur’s approach of the hermeneutics of suspicion to assist in this task. Then she adapted his writings on hospitality. But it was only when Ricoeur turned his attention to human suffering and vulnerability in his later years – a topic that resonated deeply with Pamela – that she was moved to write specifically in ways that helped incorporate her insights with Ricoeur’s in constructive ways. Her final publications reflect her wise and thought-provoking conclusions. (shrink)

This paper is a survey of a number of women scholars who, during the last 20 years, have made extremely valuable contributions to the meanings and interpretations of the terms ‘violence,’ ‘vulnerability,’ and ‘precariousness.’ Each scholar has proposed in-depth insights that demonstrate that the terms they have examined can be reconfigured in more constructive and less definitive ways. In their respective pertinent observations, they have challenged the existing negative theories that associate violence with weakness and vulnerability with anger. Even though (...) there are critics who have found fault with these authors’ proposals, the impact of their studies has had revolutionary repercussions. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur's early appreciation of hermeneutics introduced a dynamic interaction between a reader and a text. Employing both explanation and understanding, aided by the catalyst of Kantian creative imagination, Ricoeur revitalized hermeneutics from being simply a method of interpreting the literal meaning of a text. Such an openness to the text, as a form of otherness, initiated new insights into human ways of being and acting. In time, however, Ricoeur became disheartened by the unmerited suffering that he witnessed human beings (...) were inflicting on other beings. He qualified his hermeneutic foundations so as to introduce compassion and justice as modes of action towards rejected and mistreated others. (shrink)

Although Paul Ricœur never wrote a book on acting and suffering, the essay focuses on Ricœur’s engagement with this topic. It was one of Ricœur’s abiding interests that consistently appeared over the years in a number of his works. Given his compassionate affirmation of life in this world, he was vitally concerned about human beings’ inhumanity, in the form of inflicting unmerited suffering on their fellow beings. His distress on this issue was clearly evident. This essay is an overview of (...) Ricœur’s endeavors to try and alleviate such injustice by a commitment to an ethically grounded approach that aimed at “the good life with and for others, in just institutions.”. (shrink)

Peter A Joy reviews Assessing Lawyer's Ethics: A Practitioner's Guide by Adrian Evans.

Three centuries of history have made us take it for granted that mechanism and empiricism are natural allies. I want to suggest in this article that that alliance ought to surprise us a good deal more than it does, and that it arose out of contingent historical circumstance. This claim is perhaps best approached by considering initially a fundamental issue upon which the mechanists of the seventeenth century were themselves divided. In the “Proemial Discourse” to The Origin of Forms and (...) Qualities, According to the Corpuscular Philosophy, Robert Boyle confronted his readers with an issue which continues to confront modern interpreters of the history of the mechanical philosophy. Boyle stated that he intended to “write rather for the Corpuscularians in general, than any party of them.” What he knew and what modern commentators have since also realized is that the interprétation of the mechanical philosophy crucially depends on whether one chooses to take seriously the conflicts which existed among the seventeenth-century proponents of mechanism or whether one decides deliberately to ignore such conflicts of party. I propose in this article to examine the historical and philosophical consequences of viewing the mechanisms of the seventeenth-century natural philosophers from each of these standpoints. In pursuing this line of inquiry, I shall call attention to certain salient features of their thought which made it rationally justifiable for them either to write for corpuscularians in general or to write for a particular party, but rationally unjustifiable to do both. (shrink)

In the last decades of his life, Ricoeur was dismayed by the undiminishing amount of violence that humans inflicted on one another. He felt impelled to address this unjustified suffering. He moved from theoretical philosophical discussions to develop an ethical project directed toward a just society. I trace Ricoeur’s development, starting from Fallible Man and Freedom and Nature, by way of The Symbolism of Evil, Oneself as Another, and The Course of Recognition, as he delineates his project. In this journey, (...) Ricoeur emerges from the strict Protestant training of his youth to a more pluralist and inclusive ideal. During his elaboration of the ethical, as well as political and social conditions where human beings can flourish, Ricoeur does not appeal directly to religious terminology. Nonetheless, his work remains imbued with a deep love of humankind and wisdom, the roots of which remain entangled in his Christian background. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur's theory of narrative has implications for a wide spectrum of contemporary thought. This collection of essays explores many of the areas to which his narrative strategies can be fruitfully applied, including architecture, psychology, psychoanalysis, feminist theory, ethics, sociology, medieval and contemporary literature, and religious studies. The book provides an introduction to the creative and productive resources of Ricoeur's narrative theory and offers a helpful survey of many of his key concepts for those who may be unfamiliar with Ricoeur's (...) work. (shrink)

Good nutrition plays an important role in the optimal growth, development, health and well-being of individuals in all stages of life. Healthy eating can reduce the risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some types of cancer. However, the capitalist mindset that shapes the food environment has led to the commoditization of food. Food is not just a marketable commodity like any other commodity. Food is different from other commodities on the market in that it is (...) explicitly and intrinsically linked to our human existence. While possessing another commodity allows for social benefits, food ensures survival. Millions of people in United States of America are either malnourished or food insecure. The purpose of this paper is to present a critique of the current food system using four meanings of the common good--as a framework, rhetorical device, ethical concept and practical tool for social justice. The first section of this paper provides a general overview of the notion of the common good. The second section outlines how each of the four meanings of the common good helps us understand public practices, social policies and market values that shape the distal causal factors of nutritious food inaccessibility. We then outline policy and empowerment initiatives for nutritious food access. (shrink)

This essay explores the work of both Paul Ricoeur and Luce Irigaray particularly in regard to their appeal to imagination and imaginary constructs as ways of introducing change in thought and action. While metaphor is at the heart of Ricoeur’s theory, Irigaray eschews metaphor – at least consciously. Nevertheless, there are a number of fruitful ways that their work can be compared and contrasted, especially on the question of the other, and the concept of recognition.

This collection of essays is dedicated to the prolific career of Paul Ricoeur. Honoring his work, this anthology addresses questions and concerns that defined Ricoeur’s.

In this book Grace Jantzen constructs a Quaker spirituality of beauty as a theological-philosophical response to a world preoccupied with death and violence. Having mapped the foundations of western cultural violence in the Greco-Roman period and the Judea-Christian tradition in _Foundations of Violence_ and _Violence to Eternity_, she now offers her alternative vision. This vision is an original and creative feminist reading of the Quaker tradition, considering George Fox and the writings of Quaker women, exploring the themes of inner light (...) and beauty as alternatives to violence and the obstacles to building such an alternative world. After showing how seventeenth-century Quakers offered a different option for modernity, she maps the philosophical and ethical implications of engaging with the world through beauty and its transforming power. Written for everyone interested in contemporary spirtuality, it explains how Quaker ideas can provide a way to transform our violent world into one that celebrates life rather than death, peace rather than violence. This work is the second of two posthumous publications to complete Grace M. Jantzen’s _Death and the Displacement of Beauty_ collection, which began with Foundations _of Violence_. (shrink)

In this volume _Grace M. Jantzen_ continues her groundbreaking analysis of death and beauty in western thought by examining the religious roots of death and violence in the Jewish and Christian tradition, which underlie contemporary values. She shows how man’s fear of the female is often implicated in religious violence and in her critique of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament she examines a range of themes that show the western preoccupation with necrophilia. She examines the relation of (...) death to the Jewish covenant, the nature of monotheism, Holy War and the Christian covenant and kingdom. However, Jantzen recognises that submerged beneath these themes in Judaism and Christianity are traces of an alternative world of beauty and life. Jantzen’s internationally recognised feminist philosophy of religion puts forward a powerful analysis of patriarchy and violence and reveals the hidden power of natality. Her work is a searching challenge for our times and one that gives hope in a violent world. This work is the first of two posthumous publications to complete her impressive genealogy death and beauty of western thought. (shrink)

The encounter occurred aboard the presidential yacht USS Potomac, the same steel-hulled craft that, half a century ago, carried Roosevelt to his meeting with Churchill wherein they secretly plotted World War II. It cruised on the San Francisco Bay as helicopters hovered above, dropping smoke flares to mark a jumper from the Golden Gate Bridge.

Many misappropriations and exclusions have arisen from the Western tendency to reduce and manipulate the ideas and values of non- Western religions and philosophies to fit within Western concepts and categories. How might comparative philosophy and religion change if the concepts and categories of non-Western philosophies and religions were taken as primary? This volume explores this question through Western analytic and phenomenological approaches of eminent scholars from both fields, infused with fresh strategies and modalities derived from or inspired by non-Western (...) traditions. A truly groundbreaking collection,_ After Appropriation_ inaugurates an entirely new integrative discipline of comparative religion and philosophy. (shrink)

This Collision uses an encounter with Cathy Choi’s B1206 , coupled with theories of aesthetic empathy, to articulate how hijacking as an aesthetic concept might work. The aesthetic faculty of empathy conceives of the aesthetic experience as “feeling into” a given work. This concept furnishes a useful framework for thinking about aesthetic hijacking, as “feeling into” something implies the displacement of the work or its viewer. Hijacking, then, could foreground that displacement by emphasizing spatial uncertainty. Furthermore, hijacking could be an (...) inversion of the process of “feeling into” a given work, indicating a process whereby the work forces its way into the viewer and the space s/he inhabits. (shrink)

Historically, academic journals have served a different purpose than the Academy itself. Journals have served as privileged sites for the articulation and concretization of specific modes of knowledge and control.

In much eighteenth-century British literary criticism, passion distinguishes poetry from philosophy, whose ideas are too abstract to evoke emotion. At the end of the century, however, William Wordsworth radically refuses this distinction between poetry and philosophy, rejecting the centrality of passion for poetry. Instead, developing ideas latent in the work of James Beattie, he places affection at the heart of his poetic theory. This essay uncovers "the affections" as a major site of meaning for Wordsworth: calm, rationalized emotions, they yoke (...) together the philosophical and the poetical, enabling poetry not merely to stimulate emotion but moreover to think through it. (shrink)