Do we need a new ethics? And if so: why? Just because Kant's Categorical Imperative (Cat. Imp.) seems to be no longer valid? Are there, nevertheless, values that survive the so-called "decay of values"? And if there are limits of ethics, e.g. in system conditions, one can ask if new legit requests are to be made. Or can ethics even be absorbed (or "abolished") in anthropology and philosophy of history?

As obstetric medicine has become more sophisticated, so Caesarean section (CS) has become safer. It is now seen as equally safe or, in some circumstances, safer than vaginal birth. Under the new National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines on CS that were published in November 2011, requests for CS are to be given more weight. Women requesting CS can no longer be seen as compromising their control over birth. Rather, they are merely exercising their power, with the new (...) guidelines offering them an increasing role in the decision-making process regarding how they give birth. However, these new guidelines also present new problems, bringing the rights of patients and obstetricians into conflict. In order to mediate these tensions, a virtue-based approach to obstetric ethics is needed as a supplement to the rule- and right-based guidance provided by NICE. (shrink)

This article introduces a series of measures of the geographical manifestation of a subset of unsolicited commercial email, i.e. spam, used to perpetrate 'advanced fee fraud'. Known as '419 spam', this activity has strong historic ties to Nigeria, where similar frauds were operated via physical letters and faxes during the 1970s and 1980s. This article's analysis reveals that 419 spam operates via a globally dispersed network that nevertheless contains a clear agglomeration of activity in West Africa. Building upon theories of (...) the intersection of cyberspace, states, and individuals, this article argues that 419 spam exemplifies the challenge offered by the Internet to the dominance of states by allowing individuals and movements to create social space that transcends borders. This process is an intriguing and ironic parallel to the description of the rise of the European nation-state as an 'imagined community' that challenged medieval systems of authority and existing social epistemologies. The emerging 'networks of imagination' developed by transnational social movements and criminal networks to define their sphere of operations present a similar challenge to the primacy of existing authority embedded in the state, particularly for states in crisis such as Nigeria. The article concludes with an examination of the off-line and online implications of 419 spam and its network of imagination for the Nigerian state and its inhabitants. Ranging from strengthening public conceptions of West Africa as a sea of corruption to a decreased ability to interact with the outside world, 419 spammers are playing an important, if illicit, role in the construction and use of Nigeria's and the world's Internet. (shrink)

I ask you to X. You now have a reason to X. My request gave you a reason. How? One unpopular theory is the epistemic account, according to which requests do not create any new reasons but instead simply reveal information. For instance, my request that you X reveals that I desire that you X, and my desire gives you a reason to X. Peter Schaber has recently attacked both the epistemic account and other theories of the reason-giving force (...) of requests. Schaber defends a new theory of the reason-giving force of requests according to which request give reasons because it is valuable for requesters and requestees that requests have this power. In this paper I argue that Schaber's attack on the epistemic account fails, and that his own theory ought to be rejected because it faces compelling objections. (shrink)

This paper explores the common argument proposed by opponents of the legalization of euthanasia that permitting ending a patient’s life at their request will lead to the eventual legalization of terminating life without request. The author’s examination of data does not support the conclusion that a causal connection exists between legalizing ending of life on request and an increase in the number of cases without request.

In The Alchemy of Race and Rights Patricia Williams notes that when people of color are asked to understand such practices as racial profiling by putting themselves in the shoes of white people, they are, in effect, being asked to, ‘look into the mirror of frightened white faces for the reality of their undesirability’ (1992, 46). While we often see understanding another as ethically and epistemically virtuous, in this paper I argue that it is wrong in some cases to ask (...) another to attempt to understand certain positions or lines of thought. In developing my argument I draw on the work of María Lugones to argue for a view of agency that is epistemically interdependent. I examine the case described by Patricia Williams to demonstrate specifically how the understanding requested in this case unfairly undermines both epistemic and non-epistemic agency. I distinguish appropriate requests for understanding from inappropriate requests so as to make clear that I am not suggesting that it is wrong to make such requests when the understanding sought after is difficult, painful, or even when it forces one to reconsider the meaning of one’s actions. Finally, I examine an example from Susan Brison to show how strategic refusals to understand may provide a pathway toward new ways of knowing and being in resistance to oppressive regimes. (shrink)

Although requests constitute a type of action that have been widely discussed within conversation analysis-oriented work, they have only recently begun to be explored in relation to the situated and multimodal dimensions in which they occur. The contribution of this paper resides in the integration of bodily-visual conduct (gaze and facial expression, gesture and locomotion, object manipulation) into a more grammatical account of requesting. Drawing on video recordings collected in two different hair salons located in the French-speaking part of (...) Switzerland and in France (23 h in total), this paper analyzes clients’ negative requests by exploring how they interface with the participants’ embodied conducts. Contrary to what the literature describes for positively formulated requests, with negative requests clients challenge an expectable next action (or ongoing action) by the hairdresser. One linguistic format constitutes the focus of this article, roughly glossable as ‘You don’t do [action X] too much (huh)’. Our analysis of a consistent collection of such formatted turns will show that clients present them (and hairdressers tend to treat them) in different ways, depending on how they relate to embodied conduct: When these turns are used by the client as instructions, they are accompanied by manipulations of the client’s own hair and tend to occur toward the initial phase of the encounter, at a stage when hairdressers and clients collaboratively negotiate the service in prospect. When uttered as directives, these turns are not accompanied by any touching practices from the client and are typically observable in subsequent phases of the encounter, making relevant an immediate linguistic or/and bodily response from the professional, as shown by the client who is actively pursuing mutual gaze with him/her. Therefore, an action cannot be distinguished from another on the basis of the turn format alone: Its sequential placement and the participants’ co-occurring embodied conduct contribute to its situated and shared understanding. By analyzing the clients’ use of a specific linguistic format conjointly with the deployment of specific embodied resources, this study will advance our understanding of how verbal resources and embodiment operate in concert with each other in the formation and understanding of actions, thereby feeding into new areas of research on the grammar-body interface. (shrink)

In the Netherlands, in 2002, euthanasia became a legitimate medical act, only allowed when the due care criteria and procedural requirements are met. Legally, an Advanced Euthanasia Directive can replace direct communication if a patient can no longer express his own wishes. In the past decade, an exponential number of persons with dementia share a euthanasia request with their physician. The impact this on physicians, and the consequent support needs, remained unknown. Our objective was to gain more insight into the (...) experiences and needs of Dutch general practitioners and elderly care physicians when handling a euthanasia request from a person with dementia. We performed a qualitative interview study. Participants were recruited via purposive sampling. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using the conventional thematic content analysis. Eleven general practitioners and elderly care physicians with a variety of experience and different attitudes towards euthanasia for PWD were included. Euthanasia requests appeared to have a major impact on physicians. Difficulties they experienced were related to timing, workload, pressure from and expectations of relatives, society’s negative view of dementia in combination with the ‘right to die’ view, the interpretation of the law and AEDs, ethical considerations, and communication with PWD and relatives. To deal with these difficulties, participants need support from colleagues and other professionals. Although elderly care physicians appreciated moral deliberation and support by chaplains, this was hardly mentioned by GPs. Euthanasia requests in dementia seem to place an ethically and emotionally heavy burden on Dutch GPs and elderly care physicians. The awareness of, and access to, existing and new support mechanisms needs further exploration. (shrink)

This paper defends the epistemic account of the normativity of requests. The epistemic account says that a request does not create any reasons and thus does not have any special normative power. Rather, a request gives reasons by revealing information which is normatively relevant. I argue that compared to competing accounts of request normativity, especially those of David Enoch and James H.P. Lewis, the epistemic account gives better answers to cases of insincere requests, is simpler, and does a (...) better job incorporating the importance of relationships. I also defend the epistemic account from three objections: that requests are important because they constitute consent, that requests and wishes must be normatively different, and that some requests do not provide any new information. (shrink)

The death of Jesse Gelsinger in 1999 during a gene therapy trial raised many questions about the ethical review of medical research. Here, the author argues that the principle of justice is interpreted too narrowly and receives insufficient emphasis and that what we permit in terms of bodily invasion affects the value we place on individuals. Medical research is a societally supported activity. As such, the author contends that justice requires that invasive medical research demonstrates sufficiently compelling societal benefit. Many (...) consider this societal benefit to be self evident. However, medical research is a complex activity; it yields new treatments but also creates financial rewards and affects health resource allocation. As research evolves into a multibillion pound, multinational enterprise, justice requires a much broader analysis of societal benefit. Without such evaluation we risk undermining the value of bodily integrity and of research participants. (shrink)

In April 2002 a new law regarding euthanasia came into effect in the Netherlands. This law holds that euthanasia remains a criminal offence unless it is performed by a physician who acts according to six specified rules of due care and reports the case to a review committee. The six rules of due care are similar to those of the previous regulation and are largely based on jurisprudence. Completely new, however, is the article concerning a competent patient who has written (...) an advance directive requesting euthanasia under certain circumstances. The law stipulates that a physician may act according to that written request, as long as he or she fulfils all other rules of due care. The author defends the view that these requests are neither feasible nor ethically justifiable, and presents both moral and practical arguments for this, claiming that for consistency reasons one cannot act on the basis of a written statement and fulfil the other rules of due care at the same time. The author also examines a difficult case of a demented, severely depressed woman who had written a living will requesting euthanasia before she became demented. (shrink)

This book argues that a conscientiously objecting medical professional should receive an exemption only if the grounds of an objector's refusal are reasonable. It defends a detailed, contextual account of public reasonability suited for healthcare, which builds from the overarching concept of Rawlsian public reason. The author analyzes the main competing positions and maintains that these other views fail precisely due to their systematic inattention to the grounding reasons behind a conscientious objection; he argues that any such view is plausible (...) to the extent that it mimics the 'reason-giving requirement' for conscience objections defended in this work. Only reasonable objections can defeat the prior professional obligation to assign primacy to patient well-being, therefore one who refuses a patient's request for a legally available, medically indicated, and safe service must be able to explain the grounds of their objection in terms understandable to other citizens within the public institutional structure of medicine. The book further offers a novel policy proposal to deploy the Reasonability View: establishing conscientious objector status in medicine. It concludes that the Reasonability View is a viable and attractive position in this debate. A New Theory of Conscientious Objection in Medicine: Justification and Reasonability will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in bioethics, medical ethics, and philosophy of medicine, as well as thinkers interested in the intersections between law, medical humanities, and philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, we identify and describe a new practice for responding to unfinished requests, which we call telescoping responses, due to their being designed for telescoping the request sequence forward in the face of troubles with progressivity and in producing the request. Considering cases from an American shoe repair shop, we demonstrate that telescoping responses serve to telescope request sequences exactly because they are neither syntactically, prosodically or pragmatically fitted to the unfinished requests that they respond to.

Belgium is one of very few countries where euthanasia on the basis of psychiatric illness is legally possible. Three physicians involved in the euthanasia of a 38-year-old woman suffering from psychiatric illness recently faced a criminal trial for “murder by poisoning”, for allegedly having failed to comply with several requirements of the Belgian Euthanasia Law. Although none of the physicians were convicted, the case generated extensive debate, in the media and the general public as well as in the medical profession (...) and among policy makers. In this chapter, we take this trial as the starting point for a critical analysis of the clinical-psychiatric, ethical, and legal issues involved in evaluating euthanasia requests in cases of complex psychiatric disorders. In these cases, the requirements of the Belgian Euthanasia Law could be improved by mandating the advice of two psychiatrists, who are experts in the treatment of the specific condition of the person requesting euthanasia. Simultaneously with the process of evaluating the euthanasia request, there should be a parallel treatment track in which all therapeutic and recovery-oriented options are explored. These two tracks should not be in the hands of the same physician. (shrink)

There is a regulatory option for conscientious objection in health care that has yet to be systematically examined by ethicists and policymakers: granting a liberty to request exemption from prescribed work tasks without a companion guarantee that the request is accommodated. For the right-holder, the liberty’s value lies in the ability to seek exemption without duty-violation and a tangible prospect of reassignment. Arguing that such a liberty is too unreliable to qualify as a right to conscientious objection leads to the (...) problem of consistently distinguishing its effects from those of a right to conscientious objection that is made conditional on an individual assessment of the objector’s motivation. These properties require that we distinguish the liberty to request exemption from more restrictive policy choices, and that we subject it to greater scrutiny in the wider moral discourse as a possible variant of a right to conscientious objection. (shrink)

I greatly enjoy meeting with all of you today, because I see you are all especially capable and intelligent young people. In the future you certainly can help America to be even better; you can cause its glory to be even greater. Today I would like to thank Professor Lancaster very much for inviting me here to meet with all of you. I fully see this professor's methods, by which he is able to cause your knowledge to increase daily. So, (...) day by day you have new things to learn. One can say that among present-day professors, his professorial methodology represents a very special kind of genius. I hope that you will all be able to receive this professor's continually fine inducement. Since your professor teaches you in this way, none of you should be ungrateful for the hopes which he has for you. (shrink)

Patients have received experimental pharmaceuticals outside of clinical trials for decades. There are no industry-wide best practices, and many companies that have granted compassionate use, or ‘preapproval’, access to their investigational products have done so without fanfare and without divulging the process or grounds on which decisions were made. The number of compassionate use requests has increased over time. Driving the demand are new treatments for serious unmet medical needs; patient advocacy groups pressing for access to emerging treatments; internet (...) platforms enabling broad awareness of compelling cases or novel drugs and a lack of trust among some that the pharmaceutical industry and/or the FDA have patients’ best interests in mind. High-profile cases in the media have highlighted the gap between patient expectations for compassionate use and company utilisation of fair processes to adjudicate requests. With many pharmaceutical manufacturers, patient groups, healthcare providers and policy analysts unhappy with the inequities of the status quo, fairer and more ethical management of compassionate use requests was needed. This paper reports on a novel collaboration between a pharmaceutical company and an academic medical ethics department that led to the formation of the Compassionate Use Advisory Committee. Comprising medical experts, bioethicists and patient representatives, CompAC established an ethical framework for the allocation of a scarce investigational oncology agent to single patients requesting non-trial access. This is the first account of how the committee was formed and how it built an ethical framework and put it into practice. (shrink)

In May 2013 a new Assisted Dying Bill was tabled in the House of Lords and is currently scheduled for a second reading in May 2014. The Bill was informed by the report of the Commission on Assisted Dying which itself was informed by evidence presented by invited experts.

Background: New Zealand health and disability providers are expected to have local open disclosure policies in place, however, empirical analysis of these policies has not been undertaken. Aim: This study aims to examine the scope and content of open disclosure policies in New Zealand compare open disclosure policies in New Zealand, and provide baseline results for future research. Methods: Open disclosure policies were requested from all twenty New Zealand District Health Boards in June 2016. A total of twenty-one policies were (...) received, with nineteen policies included in the review. The data were analysed using conventional content analysis. Areas of identified guidance were categorised categorized under the headings: 1) identification of an adverse event, 2) actions before disclosure, 3) disclosure of harm, and 4) actions after disclosure. Results: A total of forty-six distinct areas of guidance could be categorized under the different phases of the open disclosure life-cycle. Conclusion: This review has identified significant unwarranted heterogeneity and important gaps in open disclosure documents in New Zealand which urgently needs to be addressed. Open disclosure policies which are both flexible and specific should enhance the likelihood that injured patients’ needs will be met. (shrink)

Objective: To examine students’ attitudes and potential behaviour to a competent patient’s request for withdrawal of treatment as they pass through a modern medical curriculum.Design: Cohort design.Setting: University of Glasgow Medical School, United Kingdom.Subjects: A cohort of students entering Glasgow University’s new learner centred, integrated medical curriculum in October 1996.Methods: Students’ responses before and after year 1, after year 3, and after year 5 to the assisted suicide vignette of the Ethics in Health Care Survey instrument, were examined quantitatively and (...) qualitatively. Analysis of students’ multichoice answers enabled measurement of the movement towards professional consensus opinion. Analysis of written justifications helped determine whether their reasoning was consistent with professional consensus and enabled measurement of change in knowledge content and recognition of the values inherent in the vignette. Themes on students’ reasoning behind their decision to withdraw treatment or not were also identified.Results: Students’ answers were found to be consistent with professional consensus opinion precurriculum and remained so throughout the curriculum. There was an improvement in the knowledge content of the written responses following the first year of the curriculum, which was sustained postcurriculum. However, students were found to analyse the section mainly in terms of autonomy, with few responses considering the other main ethical principles or the wider ethical perspective. Students were unclear on their legal responsibilities.Conclusions: Students should be encouraged to consider all relevant ethical principles and the wider ethical perspective when deliberating ethical dilemmas. Students should have a clear understanding of their legal responsibilities. (shrink)

Why Can a Japanese Unagi-Sentence Be Used in a Request? The objective of this paper is to reveal why the so-called Unagi-sentence in Japanese can be widely used in the context of request within the framework of cognitive linguistics and cognitive pragmatics. The Unagi-sentence, which is known as a representative sentence of the Japanese language, has been analyzed for years in various manners from various viewpoints. For instance, the sentence "Boku-wa Unagi-da" when literally translated into English reads I am an (...) eel. One of the most influential reasons for this sentence being regarded as characteristic to Japanese seems to be the clear difference in the sense in that the literally translated version in English means the identification between I and an eel, whereas the Unagi-sentence in Japanese indicates who orders the eel dish or sometimes requests the waiter to put a proper dish in a proper place. This thesis discusses the schematic meaning of the "X-wa Y-da" pattern in Japanese; further, it discusses the tendency for the Japanese language, unlike English, to depend more heavily on contextual information when the construed mental images are encoded. Through the discussion, I will reveal that the study of the Unagi-sentence from the viewpoint of cognitive linguistics sheds a new light on the contrastive studies in the field of pragmatics. (shrink)

The trend to centralization of the Mizrahi narrative has become an integral part of the nationalistic, ethnic, religious, and ideological-political dimensions of the emerging, complex Israeli identity. This trend includes several forms of opposition: strong opposition to "melting pot" policies and their ideological leaders; opposition to the view that ethnicity is a dimension of the tension and schisms that threaten Israeli society; and, direct repulsion of attempts to silence and to dismiss Mizrahim and so marginalize them hegemonically. The Mizrahi Democratic (...) Rainbow [The Keshet], the most prominent proponent and representative of this trend, was established in the 1990s with the intention of being a leading civic and political body in Israeli society. While it was the Mizrahi worldview that led to selection of the organization's name and aims, their vision was to be involved in social struggle on behalf of other groups in Israeli society. Since it was established, The Keshet has aimed to function as an assertive, long-term alternative coalition exerting influence, power, and pressure on the Israeli narrative network. And, indeed, the organization has succeeded in disrupting Israeli discourse, principally, by challenging the ideological foundations of the Zionist meta-narrative. Nearing the end of the first decade of the 21st century and nearly a decade since it was established, The Keshet not only represents the most current wave of Mizrahi discourse, it has changed it to such a great degree that it is impossible to ignore its influence. Further, this alternative narrative may have significant potential to advance the internal Jewish discourse so fundamental at this time given the changing Israeli situation and regional conditions. And, while it is possible to view The Keshet and this new narrative as a continuation of the Mizrahi struggle, as a narrative The Keshet's agenda represents a post-colonial perspective and multi-cultural alternative to Zionism as a social vehicle. Amidst all of this, The Keshet continues to offer concrete proposals to change the Jewish character of the state as well as its internal and external relations. One of the primary goals of this study was to examine the rise of the Mizrahi narrative over the last two decades and the new Mizrahi discourse in Israeli society. More specifically, the study sought to attain an in-depth understanding of the central narrative created and represented by The Keshet. An additional goal was to investigate the influence of The Keshet's activity and the narrative it constructed in regard to other narratives. In particular, the study focused on The Keshet's opposition to the central Zionist narrative that infuses civic, political, and academic frameworks in Israel. Accordingly, the primary research questions investigated in the study sought to determine: What has been the influence of the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow on the Mizrahi narrative in Israel? And, what are implications of such influence for the central Zionist narrative? Methodologically, the study was based on narrative and comparative analyses of texts from different periods of the older and newer Mizrahi narratives. The corpus included two types of texts: First, academic texts and opinion pieces, both philosophical and programmatic in nature, published in magazines, journals, books, as well as position papers; second, all of the texts published by prominent and influential figures who charted the path of The Keshet or led it organizationally and/or intellectually over the last twenty years (e. g., Yehudah Shenhav, Yossi Yona, Moshe Krief among others). All texts were examined by means of philosophical, historical and critical hermeneutic tools. This analysis revealed different levels of Mizrahi and civic discourse in Israel as well as among The Keshet's founders and leading ideologues. The study was based on a three stage process model, developed for purposes of this study, for investigation and analysis of the new Mizrahi narrative as well as other oppositional narratives, in particular opposition to the hegemonic meta-narrative. The stages are: issuing the challenge, dissolution and, liberation; that is, liberation is the measure of the ultimate success of the struggle for narrative change. Such change is not based on success in the field, but rather on a radical, fundamental reversal of thought, discourse patterns, stylistic structures, as well as forms of questioning - in this case of taken-for-granted racist mechanisms. However, the principal change is in achieving a deep, inner de-legitimization of the signifiers, categories, and reproductions of all manner of mockery that are based on immoral colonialist processes that are reinforced by regimes of fear and intimidation whose self-destruction began upon their very creation. This three stage model charts the course of the oppositional Mizrahi narrative from: accounting for the past (passing judgment on the so-called historic colonialist Zionism) to writing a new (pure Mizrahi) history and creation of a Mizrahi-Arab identity separate from the Ashkenazic, identified as Zionist. Contemporary post-colonialist discourse is integral in these stages. Such a perspective has been transformed by transitions from - binarism to hybridity, Orientalism to Occidentalism, the politics of "liberation" to "constructive" politics, from the history of consciousness to the history of change, as well as from nationalist to post-nationalist questions. Fundamentally, according to this approach, political and other struggles for the emerging narrative of Mizrahi (or Arab) history seek to centralize it in society and weave it amidst the models of multiculturalism. Undertaken in parallel, the central characteristics of all these stages are borrowed from countries in which the need for national reconciliation led to renunciation of apartheid and racist policies and historical judgment of the hegemony supported by racist leaders. In addition, these three moves were undertaken in Keshet and its ideologues by means of substantive symbolic violence directed at the hegemonic Ashkenazic discourse, which included creation of hatred of it, use of stereotypes the opposite of oppressive discourse, and adoption of an arrogant point of view toward it. This stands in stark contrast to the claims of the self-proclaimed new Mizrahi stance of a discourse established on purely ethical grounds that sought to cleanse itself of these very same oppressive elements. The model developed for and demonstrated in this study allows for analysis of oppositional narratives in which the libratory stage evolves into a form of entrapment, as appears to be occurring to the new Mizrahi discourse. This conclusion is based on the observations shared by many Keshet proponents including leading intellectuals who worked on the manifestos that were the subject of criticism from the Zionist camp. The study identified and defined the following six interwoven strata, which for purposes of explication are each discussed in a separate chapter: The first chapter presents a general theoretical discussion of the issue of the narrative and the inter-narrative struggle that has become central and applicable in various ways in the latest generation (e. g., anthropologically, hermeneutically, and philosophically). The analysis surveys different discussions in the inter-narrative struggle and locates them in the contexts, relations, and meanings derived from, representing, and indeed reproducing the narrative of national identity. The second chapter includes a historical survey of the older Mizrahi struggle that existed prior to the ascendance of the new Mizrahi narrative. Initially, Mizrahi discourse focused on expressing the ethnic protest that grew in years to follow. These feelings of discrimination and social distancing of the immigrants from Islamic countries gave birth to expressions of protest, the most prominent of which were Wadi Salib and the Black Panther Movement's various activities. The research literature contains many explanations for the exacerbation of the ethnic problem and creation of a situation that could not be ignored. The consensus academic view reached at the end of the 1970s identified a number of primary factors for this situation: the existence and extensive numbers of different ethnic groups; the relative or absolute segregation of frameworks within which members of these ethnic groups lived and acted; and the significant overlap between socio-economic status and feelings of discrimination retained by members of the Mizrahi group due years of neglect by the Ashkenazic establishment, the strengthening of Mizrahi social, cultural, and political power, as well as the emergence of a Mizrahi elite that identified with Mizrahi problems. The severe consequences of feelings of discrimination were expressed in a long series of events, such as: rioting by residents of the Rehovot Sharayim neighborhood in 1956; events of Wadi Salib in Haifa in 1959; and a chain of activities involving the Black Panthers in the 1970s. Protest was also an aspect of the "tent movement" in the 1970s and 1980s. Political activities were advanced by the Tami Movement that competed in the election for the 10th Knesset in 1981 and the Shas Movement that has continued to garner political power since being found in 1984. The 1980s and 1990s were characterized as the era of radical consciousness of Mizrahi discourse as well as by the rise to power, in consecutive order, of the political parties – Tami, Shas, and the Mizrahim HaHadashim [the New Mizrahi]. The latter party laid the foundations of the new radical Mizrahi discourse from which emerged such cultural activities as: Iton Aher [A Different Newspaper]; Bimat Kivon Aher [Another Direction Forum]; Efir'yon journal; the Halah Organization for Education in Neighborhoods, Development Towns, and Villages; Kedma; the newspaper – Patish [Hammer]; and, eventually the establishment of Keshet. The third chapter presents an examination of the materialization of the inter-narrative struggle in the case of Israel, with a specific focus on The Keshet and the new Mizrahi narrative advanced by it and intellectuals. The Keshet ideology is examined in the context of its grounding in post-colonial thought, especially that of Edward Said; the directions proposed by Ella Shohat and her followers; the central thinkers of the narrative in Israel in the last decade; and the harsh critique leveled at the Ashkenazic-Zionist narrative. The practical steps proposed for implementation within the multicultural model are also examined. Here the effort to reduce the centrality of Zionism while revealing its oppressive mechanisms was undertaken in parallel with use of these mechanisms in order to create a Mizrahi space with broad margins inclusive of alternative forms of Israeli identity in the Middle East and in conjunction with Arabs within and beyond Israel. Mizrahi traditionalism is examined in the fourth chapter in two particular respects. First, the criticism of the new Mizrahi narrative leveled by the renewed view and, second, the implications of the alternative in terms of creating a Mizrahi space that does not oppose Zionism. Rather, in opposing the post-colonialist perspective, this renewed traditionalist perspective criticizes as well as values Zionism. This space seeks to be both Jewish and Mizrahi. It does not detach itself from nationalist Zionism but rather views itself as a continuation of this tradition and, accordingly, is an effort to develop a next stage in its development. For example, an essential dimension of the traditionalist perspective, "commitment," is considered in this stage to be a fertile basis for dialogue with the past and as an anchor for contemporary interpretation of Mizrahi and other Jews' identities in Israel. The fifth and sixth chapters deal with all of the vectors of criticism directed at the new Mizrahi narrative, including its ideological foundations, philosophical stance, as well as intellectual and practical basis in the Israeli sphere in the face of Palestinian nationalism. These vectors of criticism from within and beyond The Keshet deal with issues, such as, the meaning of the movement's activities and the narrative that it offers regarding questions of Israeli identity, Israeli collective memory, and Mizrahi self-perception. At the same time, it must confront the capitalist neo-liberal narrative in a global world and thrive in a context in which it must make itself manifest amidst oppositional narratives. The final chapter presents a comprehensive, critical analysis of the new Mizrahi narrative. It does so by means of a theoretical model that examines it as an oppositional narrative – one that seeks to challenge the hegemonic meta-narrative, to dissolve the boundaries of the narrative discourse, and to propose liberation and redemption that may led to entrapment amidst a changing, a-dichotomous realities (e. g., global economic development in the face of Zionist nationalisms that display ideological strength as well as development of the sense of being an Israeli that maintains its vitality and continuity while being constituted by sectors that challenge being a Mizrahi, such as co-ethnic subjects. The Keshet's influence is dramatic and extends in a number of central directions. Its political activity and non-entry into the domains of the Israeli parliament granted the movement significant power in civic discourse and contributed to changing the persona of the Mizrahi discourse; for example, from political-party struggles over budgets and obtaining shares of the regime to changing the face of Israeli society and the centrality of the Mizrahi narrative. This change included deconstructing the Ashkenazic narrative and constructing comprehensive Ashkenazic-Zionist guilt, as evident in the Ehud Barak's request for collective forgiveness. This was accomplished through the participation of leading members of Keshet who appeared in prominent intellectual forums and engaged in lively discourse - principally in academic, social, and media domains. Such participation gave new meaning to various aspects of Israeli society while establishing different models of multiculturalism. The rise of the new Mizrahi narrative is a significant marker in the inter-narrative struggle as it represents a desire for separate or hybrid identities. And, the deep probing of the narrative constructed by leaders of The Keshet and those who identify with the movement produced a number of clear ways to distinguish it from the old Mizrahi struggle, whose history was portrayed through social protests, in a manner similar to linear vectors marked with wars and elections. The old Mizrahi struggle selected the traditional tactical struggle identified usually with social and political movements that seek to change political, social, and economic reality - from the bottom up. Their primary demand was to change decisions as well as the division of social goods and resources. Hence, this older period of struggle was not aimed at opposing the ideological foundations of the hegemonic narrative nor did it seek to undermine in a radical manner the unique nature of the state of Israel as a revolutionary solution for the problems of the Jews according to the Zionist approach, as a national home for the Jewish people, and recognition of the right to an preferred and meta-definition of Jewish nationalism. In contrast, the top down struggle advanced by the new narrative is part of an ideological movement led by the educated that is assertive and ground in post-colonialist theory. Accordingly, it was critical of the techniques and mechanisms of oppression as well as sought to attack the Zionist ideological foundations and to reveal its racist operations and the regimes that have preserved it so efficiently for many years. The uniqueness of this narrative is the intellectual offensive that continues to be advanced and, in parallel, development of the discourse struggle in Israel concerning the justification for Zionism and the concrete political proposal that Jews reject the taken-for-granted status of it as an ideology. This new narrative recognizes the historic difficulties of subversion as an emancipatory and, principally, moral effort. In addition, the new Mizrahi narrative shares the foundations and narrative of Palestinian victimization. In its radical version, the new Mizrahi narrative seeks to connect to the Palestinian narrative in order to create a new space here. According to this version, this action will take place gradually. The first stage will be characterized by opposition to Western European, Ashkenazic Zionism. The Eurocentric Zionism will surrender in the second stage, to be followed in the last stage by creation of a coalition of Jews and Arabs that will be establish through concrete actualization of the refugee status and victimization that is shared by both Palestinians and Mizrahim (whether as Mizrahim or Jewish-Arab). Not a speculative academic exercise, the goal sought by this narrative is delineate and to achieve a multicultural model in which equality, liberty, and social justice will overcome the nationalism and colonialism of either side; that is it will be neither Zionist nor Jewish. Thus, this approach stresses what is shared (e.g., acceptance of the Arab space and not a rejection of it; the legitimacy of the Arab language and culture). This is part of detachment from and historic judgment of the colonialist Zionist enterprise. This possibility includes moral elements that remove the evil and harm caused by Zionism for many years as well as inner cleansing – primarily among Ashkenazim – of attitudes towards Jews and non-Jews. Though, in this regard, it should be noted that, to date, the new narrative has not made similar claims that Palestinians undergo a similar process. The assumption seems to be that this should be tested, that the coalition proposed is a possibility that will be recognized by the Palestinians, and that they are prepared to undergo a similar, shared moral process that involves negating the state of Israel as a Jewish, Western state, a state of the Jewish people, and not only for those who live within it. These Mizrahi thinkers conducted a significant move through deconstruction and substitution of the Eurocentric narrative with a multi-cultural proposal that is optimistic and even attractively naïve. Today, they acknowledge that they did not take into account Palestinian nationalist violence directed to citizens, the traditionalist alternative, and widespread opposition within the Mizrahi community toward what is perceived to be Mizrahi seclusion. They also did not take into account the harsh criticism rendered by young and educated Mizrahim who claim that they were born into a complex, multi-dimensional, multi-layered identity that includes internalization of the language of the West and rules of the game of this complex identity. And, though they are critical of some of its values, this makes it difficult to mount internal emotional opposition to the West and to the globalization contained within this world. Hence, this more familiar world is preferred over the values of the Mizrahi-Arab alternative, particularly in regard to problems in the domains of democratic citizenship, stance taken toward women, and freedom of speech. Further, educated Mizrachim reject the post-colonialist perspective and are stridently critical of its dichotomization. They claim that such a division is irrelevant in a world in which older ideologies have collapsed and new spheres – such as cyberspace and others – are open to them in which they can present themselves with an Israeli identity that is not categorized as necessarily Mizrahi. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic played as a booster to the cultural, social, and economic transformations triggered by the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, increasing the diffusion and employment of technological devices and requiring to reconsider the traditional approach to work and organization. Dealing with an emblematic organizational case, the article highlights the main key capabilities requested to face the current scenario, suggesting transformed attitudes needed to cope with the unfolding complex, uncertain, changing digital and blended world. The findings, gathered through an extensive survey (...) involving 500 people who started working at a distance during the 2020 lockdown period, underline the main actionable skills to be achieved for enhancing agile work, hybrid professional roles and new work, and organizational and managerial cultures. (shrink)

The author argues that a correct approach to the question of tolerance cannot ignore the increasing importance of the religious factor on the political, cultural and social scene of the last few years. The common European model of the relationship between the State and religious faiths that may be called the Law possesses some margins of elasticity. These margins of elasticity may be defined as tolerance. A mechanism of selection allows the law to welcome those new requests for liberty (...) that do not undermine the fundamental features of the model. (shrink)

Background: Studies have found that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are more likely to make errors in appropriately producing referring expressions (‘the dog’ vs. ‘the black dog’) than are controls but comprehend them with equal facility. We tested whether this anomaly arises because comprehension studies have focused on manipulating perspective-taking at a ‘generic speaker’ level. Method: We compared 24 autistic eight- to eleven-year-olds with 24 well-matched neuro-typical controls. Children interpreted requests (e.g. ‘Can I have that ball?’) in contexts (...) which would be ambiguous (i.e. because the child can see two balls) if perspective-taking were not utilized. In the interlocutor-specific perspective-taking condition, the target was the particular object which was new for the speaker. Children needed to take into account what the speaker had played with before and the fact that they were now expressing excitement about something new. In two control ‘speaker-generic’ conditions we tested children’s ability to take the visual perspective of the speaker (where any speaker who stood behind a particular barrier would have the same perspective). Results: The autistic group were significantly less likely to select the target and significantly more likely to request clarification in the ‘interlocutor-specific’ condition. Performance in the ‘interlocutor-generic’ (visual) perspective taking conditions did not differ between groups. Conclusion: Autistic children, even those who are not intellectually-impaired, tend to have more difficulty than neuro-typical peers in comprehending referring expressions when this requires understanding that people comment on what is new for them. (shrink)

Euthanasia and assisted dying are illegal in India according to Sections 306 and 309 of the Indian Penal Code, and Article 21 of the Constitution of India. There have been a number of cases where the Indian High Courts and Indian Supreme Court issued differing verdicts concerning the right to life and the right to die. Nevertheless, on 7 March 2011, a paradigm shift happened as a result of the Indian Supreme Court's judgment on involuntary passive euthanasia in the case (...) of Aruna Shanbaug. In its judgment, the Supreme Court requested the government to prepare a law on euthanasia. Accordingly, the 241st Report of the Law Commission of India proposed a bill to permit passive euthanasia. In May 2016 the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued the draft bill for public comment in order to create an informed decision. The Indian people are divided on the issue of euthanasia. The majority of the scientific community welcome it, while some religious groups oppose it. Hindus, in general, express both supporting and opposing views on euthanasia, whereas, Christians and Muslims have hardened their opposition against it. The Supreme Court judgment and the Report of the Law Commission pave the way for the development of new policies pertaining to passive euthanasia by the central government of India. Once such legislation is passed, passive euthanasia may, and probably will, have an enormous impact on the cultural, political, public and medical spheres of India in the near future. (shrink)

In many countries grappling with the politics of equal recognition, the experiences, beliefs and reasons for action of people who identify as non-binary are starting to be seen as valid and intelligible.1 And, despite some gender clinics still responding cautiously to requests for non-standard medical interventions, their treatment needs are now recognised in major clinical guidelines. This is the current social context in which Notini and colleagues outline the case of ‘Phoenix’, an 18-year-old birth-assigned woman, who has requested the (...) indefinite continuation of puberty suppression, a treatment that was initiated when the client was 11 years old to mitigate their intense distress at the onset of puberty. Drawing on a conception of health as overall well-being, the authors conclude that OPS is ‘consistent with the proper goals of medicine’, and that there are ‘equity-based reasons’ for offering OPS to adults as a group. They concede that the physical risks are greater for OPS than for hormonal interventions generally provided to people with a binary gender identity. They also acknowledge the need for ‘a fine-grained ethical evaluation of Phoenix’s particular situation’ to assess whether the potential benefits of OPS outweigh the potential harms for this individual. Here I respectfully raise three points to amplify the authors’ discussion. First, there seem to be significant ethical issues of a general, not a particular, kind arising from the type of individual evaluation they call for. Following initial screening for significant mental distress and other major vulnerabilities, the key undertaking …. (shrink)

In an examination of the psychological aspect of passing, this essay challenges Sandy Stone's conceptualization and subsequent request for transsexuals to forego the act. Employing an auto-ethnographical approach, this essay contends that considering the “psychic” dimensions of passing requires different, and more hopeful, articulations about transsexual bodies, such that gendered and racialized transsexual bodies are produced not simply in terms of social reading and physical embodiment, but also through psychic affirmation and disavowal.

본 논문은 학교교육과 인성교육의 변별점을 주목하고, 그 틈새에 니체의 놀이정신을 요청한다. 시험이라는 장치를 매개로 표준화되고 동질화되는 학교교육과 달리, 인성교육은 개인의 입장에서는 삶 전반을 통해 실현되고, 공동체의 입장에서는 구성원 모두의 참여를 요청해야 한다. 우리는 니체의 놀이정신을 통해서 그것의 가능성을 타진해보고자 한다. 이때 정신이란, 추상화된 개념어가 아니다. 그것은 긍정의 파토스를 삶 속에서 지속시키는 핵심동력을 말한다. 니체의 비유를 차용하자면, 인생이라는 전체 작품에 대해 지치지 않고 다시 한번(da capo)을 외치면서 긍정하는 ‘힘’이다. 본 논문에서는 웃음, 도취, 자기 자신을 놀이정신의 핵심요소로 불러온다. 이때 웃음이란 필연적인 것을 (...) 임의적으로, 합목적적인 것을 무목적적인 것으로 전환할 때 터트리는 것으로 우리로 하여금 어린아이의 즐거움을 일순간에 일깨우는 ‘힘’이다. 놀이정신을 견지하는 또 다른 파토스는 바로 도취다. 도취란 우리가 좀 더 모험가가 되도록 우리를 추동하는 것으로, 한마디로 말해 머리끝부터 발끝까지에 이르는 생리학적인 사실이다. 마지막으로 놀이정신은 삶을 매순간 살아내는 ‘자기 자신’을 요청한다. 우리가 니체의 놀이정신을 인성교육의 요소로 주목하며 주창하는 바는, 소위 일회성에 그치는 힐링이나 수동성에 머무는 긍정이 아니다. 그것은 학생들로 하여금 생기를 진작하는 스스로의 ‘힘’을 구축하게 하려는 것이다. (shrink)

Clinicians sometimes disagree about how much to honor surrogates’ deeply held cultural values or traditions when they differ from those of the host country. Such a controversy arose when parents requested a cultural accommodation to let their infant die by withdrawing life saving care. While both the parents and clinicians claimed to be using the Best Interests Standard to decide what to do, they were at an impasse. This standard is analyzed into three necessary and jointly sufficient conditions and used (...) to resolve the question of how much to accommodate cultural preferences and how to treat this infant. The extreme versions of absolutism and relativism are rejected. Properly understood, the Best Interests Standard can serve as a powerful tool in settling disputes about how to make good decisions for those who cannot decide for themselves. (shrink)

Databases play a fundamental role in today’s world, being used by most companies, especially those that offer services through the Internet. Today there is a wide variety of database models, each adapted for use according to the specific requirements of each application. Traditionally, the relational models with centralized architectures have been used mostly due to their simplicity and general-purpose query language, which made relational systems suitable for almost any application. However, with the growth of the Internet in recent decades, both (...) in the number of users and in the amount of information, those centralized models began to suffer availability and scalability issues. To address those issues, the use of decentralized architectures and alternative database models began to arise, eventually replacing relational databases and centralized architectures when the requirements on availability and scalability are high. Those database models alternative to the traditional relational model are grouped under the name of NoSQL. In this article, we present a NoSQL database developed as an end of degree work, with a flexible data model based on documents and a fully decentralized architecture based on the Gossip protocol for node discovery and a distributed hash table, in particular the rendezvous hashing algorithm, used to distribute and replicate the data across all the nodes. The main goals of the system are to achieve high availability and high scalability. High availability is achieved thanks to the replication of the data, while high scalability is achieved by its decentralized architecture, which allows multiple entry points from the requests, and the data distribution, effectively increasing the database capacity by increasing the number of nodes. (shrink)

For the past year we have been introducing teachers in western Massachusetts to Philosophy for Children by means of letters, bulletins, and informational demonstrations. Occasionally we find that a number of teachers in a given school district are interested in the idea, but they may not want to commit themselves to the time and expense of taking a course for college credit. A useful alternative, at least in Massachusetts, has been for the teachers to apply to the state for funding (...) to set up a Commonwealth Inservice program. If their proposal is approved, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts pays for a consultant to conduct the requested program and supplies a fixed amount of money for materials. Upon successful completion of the program teachers receive inservice credit which count toward salary increments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Descartes’s Lettre Apologétique aux Magistrats d’Utrecht:New Facts and MaterialsErik-Jan BosThe lettre apologétique aux magistrats d’utrecht was Descartes’s final effort to obtain satisfaction from the Municipality or ‘Vroedschap’ of Utrecht. In 1643 the Vroedschap had condemned Descartes’s Epistola ad Dinetum and Epistola ad Voetium in defence of Descartes’s opponent Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676), professor of Theology at the University of Utrecht.1 In the Lettre apologétique Descartes requests the Utrecht Vroedschap (...) to revoke their condemnation, to clear his name and to reconsider Voetius’s position.The Lettre apologétique receives little attention in modern editions of Descartes’s works. Adam and Tannery give both the French and the Latin version of the Lettre apologétique, but with scanty annotation and an unsatisfactory introduction (AT VIIIB).2 The only other edition of the Lettre apologétique is provided by Verbeek, in La Querelle d’Utrecht (1988), but it does not go beyond Adam and Tannery’s edition.3In 1992, however, Verbeek noted that the Lettre apologétique could not possibly date from 1645, which was the hypothesis of Adam and Tannery and still is the [End Page 415] prevailing view.4 This raises once again the question of the real date of the Lettre apologétique as well as of the history of the text. In this essay I propose a new date and a new account of the history of the text. I also draw attention to the Dutch version of the Lettre apologétique, which Descartes sent to the Utrecht Vroedschap in 1648, but first I will give a short survey of Descartes’s dispute with Voetius.1. THE UTRECHT QUARRELIf we are to believe Descartes in his Lettre apologétique, it was Voetius who started the quarrel in 1639 by accusing him of atheism in several disputations, an accusation to which Voetius stuck throughout the affair.5 Descartes admits he is not mentioned in the writings of the Utrecht theologian, but “[Voetius] counted among the characteristics of atheism everything he knew to be commonly attributed to me” (AT VIIIB 205). A few years later, in 1641, Voetius called the adherents of the New Philosophy atheists outright. In a reaction to Descartes’s champion in Utrecht, the professor of medicine Henricus Regius (1598–1679), who claimed Aristotelian philosophy to be of no use for explaining natural phenomena, Voetius warned that the rejection of traditional philosophy would lead to scepticism and eventually to disbelief. With Descartes’s help Regius furnished a reply, in which he insinuated that it was, instead, the obscurities in Neo-Scholastic thought which led to the denial of God.6 This answer elicited protest from the University Senate. On the Senate’s request the Utrecht Vroedschap confiscated Regius’s book and forbade the teaching of any ideas deviating from Aristotle. Regius having been silenced, Descartes proceeded in a personal capacity. He vehemently attacked Voetius, first in the Epistola adDinetum, then in an elaborate work, the Epistola ad Voetium. The latter was meant as a response to a book opposing Descartes published by the professor of philosophy in Groningen, Martin Schoock (1614–1669), a friend of Voetius.7 The Vroedschap then condemned the works and Descartes became [End Page 416] subject to criminal charges. Thanks to his influential friends, Descartes was never put on trial, yet he felt that his reputation had been badly damaged. Several times he demanded satisfaction from the Utrecht Vroedschap, but to no avail.Until recently, the texts published in the polemic between Descartes and Voetius were considered to be of no more than anecdotal value in Descartes’s biography. It is only for the past decade that their philosophical relevance has been recognized. From what seemed to be unpromising material, various scholars have presented new perspectives on both Voetius and Descartes.8 They have shown that the objections raised by Voetius and Schoock against Cartesian philosophy prove to be more fundamental and to the point than formerly believed. Although Descartes never made a serious attempt on his own to meet Voetius on philosophical grounds, his writings are interesting because he brings forward theoretical positions which before he had... (shrink)

BackgroundWhile previous research has examined various aspects of ethics consultation (EC) in U.S. hospitals, certain EC practices have never been systematically studied.MethodsTo address this gap, we surveyed a random stratified sample of 600 hospitals about aspects of EC that had not been previously explored.ResultsNew findings include: in 26.0% of hospitals, the EC service performs EC for more than one hospital; 72.4% of hospitals performed at least one non-case consultation; in 56% of hospitals, ECs are never requested by patients or families; (...) 59.0% of case consultations involve conflict; the usual practice is to visit the patient in all formal EC cases in 32.5% of hospitals; 56.6% of hospitals do not include a formal meeting in most EC cases; 61.1% of hospitals do not routinely assess ethics consultants’ competencies; and 31.6% of hospitals belong to a bioethics network. We estimate the total number of non-case consultations performed in U.S. hospitals to be approximately one half the number of case consultations; we estimate the total number of ECs performed in U.S. hospitals, including both case and non-case consultations, to be just over 100,000 per year.ConclusionsThese findings expand our current understanding of EC in U.S. hospitals, and raise several concerns that suggest a need for further research. (shrink)

When someone encounters an explanation perceived as weak, this may lead to a feeling of deprivation or tension that can be resolved by engaging in additional learning. This study examined to what extent children respond to weak explanations by seeking additional learning opportunities. Seven‐ to ten‐year‐olds (N = 81) explored questions and explanations (circular or mechanistic) about 12 animals using a novel Android tablet application. After rating the quality of an initial explanation, children could request and receive additional information or (...) return to the main menu to choose a new animal to explore. Consistent with past research, there were both developmental and IQ‐related differences in how children evaluated explanation quality. But across development, children were more likely to request additional information in response to circular explanations than mechanistic explanations. Importantly, children were also more likely to request additional information in direct response to explanations that they themselves had assigned low ratings, regardless of explanation type. In addition, there was significant variability in both children's explanation evaluation and their exploration, suggesting important directions for future research. The findings support the deprivation theory of curiosity and offer implications for education. (shrink)

Having been supressed and denied their rights by successive Syrian governments over the years, Syrian Kurds are now asserting a de facto autonomy. Since the withdrawal of the Syrian President's forces from the ethnically Kurdish areas in the early months of the current civil war, the inhabitants have declared a self-rule government along the lines of the Kurdistan regional government in northern Iraq. For Syrian Kurds, the creation of a small autonomous region is a dream fulfilled, albeit one unrecognized by (...) the international community. Some 15% to 17% of the Syrian population is Kurdish. Whether they can achieve statehood will depend on a reading of international law and on how the international community reacts. There are certain aspects which differentiate Kurdish self-rule in Syria from its counterpart in Iraq. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.Kurdish Regional Self-rule Administration in Syria: A new Model of Statehood and its Status in International Law Compared to the Kurdistan Regional Government in IraqVolume 17, Issue 3LOQMAN RADPEY DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1468109916000190Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. Kurdish Regional Self-rule Administration in Syria: A new Model of Statehood and its Status in International Law Compared to the Kurdistan Regional Government in IraqVolume 17, Issue 3LOQMAN RADPEY DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1468109916000190Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. Kurdish Regional Self-rule Administration in Syria: A new Model of Statehood and its Status in International Law Compared to the Kurdistan Regional Government in IraqVolume 17, Issue 3LOQMAN RADPEY DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1468109916000190Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

It is widely accepted in clinical ethics that removing a patient from a ventilator at the patient’s request is ethically permissible. This constitutes voluntary passive euthanasia. However, voluntary active euthanasia, such as giving a patient a lethal overdose with the intention of ending that patient’s life, is ethically proscribed, as is assisted suicide, such as providing a patient with lethal pills or a lethal infusion. Proponents of voluntary active euthanasia and assisted suicide have argued that the distinction between killing and (...) letting die is flawed and that there is no real difference between actively ending someone’s life and "merely" allowing them to die. This paper shows that, although this view is correct, there is even less of a distinction than is commonly acknowledged in the literature. It does so by suggesting a new perspective that more accurately reflects the moral features of end-of-life situations: if a patient is mentally competent and wants to die, his body itself constitutes unwarranted life support unfairly prolonging his or her mental life. (shrink)

This paper examines and critiques the ethical issues in postmortem sperm retrieval and the use of postmortem sperm to create new life. The article was occasioned by the recent request of the parents of a West Point cadet who died in a skiing accident at the Academy to retrieve and use his sperm to honor his memory and perpetuate the family name. The request occasioned national media attention. A trial court judge in New York in a two-page order authorized both (...) the retrieval and use of the postmortem sperm. (shrink)

The 1981 Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) established the validity of both cardio-respiratory and neurological criteria of death. However, many religious traditions including most forms of Haredi Judaism (ultra-orthodox) and many varieties of Buddhism strongly disagree with death by neurological criteria (DNC). Only one state in the U.S., New Jersey, allows for both religious exemptions to DNC and provides continuation of health insurance coverage when an exception is invoked in its 1991 Declaration of Death Act (NJDDA). There is yet (...) no quantitative or qualitative data on the frequencies of religious exemptions in New Jersey. This study gathered information about the frequency of religious exemptions and policy in New Jersey that was created out of respect for religious beliefs. Literature and internet searches on topics related to religious objections to DNC were conducted. Fifty-three chaplains and heads of bioethics committees in New Jersey hospitals were contacted by phone or email requesting a research interview. Respondents answered a set of questions about religious exemptions to DNC at the hospital where they worked that explored the frequency of such religious exemptions in the past five years, the religious tradition indicated, and whether any request for a religious exemption had been denied. This study was approved by the Northeastern University Institutional Review Board (IRB #: 16–03-15). Eighteen chaplains and bioethics committee members participated in a full research interview. Of these, five reported instances of religious exemptions to DNC occurring at the hospital at which they worked for a total of approximately 30–36 known exemptions in the past five years. Families sought religious exemptions because of faith in an Orthodox Judaism tradition and nonreligious reasons. No failed attempts to obtain an exemption were reported. Religious exemptions to DNC in New Jersey do occur, although very infrequently. Prior to this study, there was no information on their frequency. Considering religious exemptions do occur, there is a need for national or state policies that addresses both religious objections to DNC and hospital resources. More information is needed to better understand the impact of granting religious exemptions before new policy can be established. (shrink)

In 2008 New Zealand's pharmaceutical management agency, PHARMAC, made its final decision on the funding of trastuzumab (Herceptin) for HER2-positive early stage breast cancer. PHARMAC declined to fund the 12-month Herceptin regimen requested by the drug's manufacturer, funding instead a 9-week treatment regimen. The decision was justified on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence of additional long-term health benefits from the longer treatment course, which, coupled with the high cost of the drug, did not make the 12-month regimen sufficiently (...) cost-effective. This paper examines the criticism of PHARMAC's decision that ultimately led to the government's decision to expand the health budget in order to fund the 12-month regimen. It defends PHARMAC's decision against the charge of unfairness, arguing that for high-cost drugs with limited proven effectiveness it is not unfair to deny funding on grounds of cost-effectiveness, since although some moral priority must be given to helping those with serious diseases like breast cancer, the capacity of such drugs to swamp health care budgets is itself a significant moral issue. It concludes that the decision to expand the health budget to pay for Herceptin exacerbates rather than solves the political and moral problems involved in prioritizing health care resources. (shrink)

Upon first consideration, the desire of an individual to amputate a seemingly healthy limb is a foreign, perhaps unsettling, concept. It is, however, a reality faced by those who suffer from body integrity identity disorder (BIID). In seeking treatment, these individuals request surgery that challenges both the statutory provisions that sanction surgical operations and the limits of consent as a defence in New Zealand. In doing so, questions as to the influence of public policy and the extent of personal autonomy (...) become important. Beyond legal issues, BIID confronts dominant conceptions of bodily integrity, medical treatment, and ethical obligations. This paper seeks to identify the relevant public policy concerns raised by BIID in New Zealand and the limits of autonomy, before moving on to consider how BIID sufferers may legally seek the treatment they require and how a doctor might be protected from criminal proceedings for assault for performing this treatment. It will be argued that it is possible to legally consent to the amputation of a healthy limb as medical treatment and that public perception should not be allowed to take precedence over this right. (shrink)

In the Netherlands the government's proposal for the legal regulation of euthanasia, assisted suicide and the termination of a patient's life without request has been approved by Parliament. The defence of this proposal is to a large extent based on a specific interpretation of data about the practice of euthanasia in that country, published in 1991 (the Remmelink Report). This paper discusses both the interpretation of the data and the new law. On the basis of that and other data, the (...) author concludes that many cases of euthanasia, assisted suicide and termination of a patient's life without request remain unnotified and therefore unreviewed by the legal authorities. It is argued that the new law will not guarantee an improvement to this situation. In short, the new law will not protect effectively the lives of patients, and must, therefore, be open to ethical and legal objection. (shrink)

The Delegation for Medical Ethics within the Swedish Society of Medicine has taken the initiative to create national ethical guidelines on cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The reasons behind this initiative were indications of differences in the way decisions about cardiopulmonary resuscitation were made and documented and requests expressed by health-care professionals for new national ethical guidelines. During the process of creating the guidelines, a number of workshops were held with representatives from the delegation and clinical experts from various branches of medicine. (...) Several versions of the working document were sent to consultation bodies with requests for comments. We therefore believe that the final guidelines are well supported by the medical profession in Sweden. The purpose of this article is to present ethical issues on which it was difficult to reach consensus due to divergent opinions expressed by the people and organisations involved. The arguments for and against a particular point of... (shrink)

El presente ensayo compara un análisis fenomenológico de la propiedad con el nuevo realismo de Maurizio Ferraris. La comparación expone los límites de la perspectiva fenomenológica al mismo tiempo que también muestra los momentos estructurales de su modo de dación: momento intuitivo; momento de la solicitud; momento del reconocimiento; momento de la propiedad. Una vez expuesta la unidad de estos momentos, el ensayo pone de manifiesto cómo la perspectiva del nuevo realismo pensaría la propiedad a través de la nueva ontología (...) del objeto, es decir, como un objeto social vinculado a un acto social. Las conclusiones exponen el carácter fenoménico de la propiedad como condición del análisis fenomenológico, en contraposición al planteamiento de Ferraris, donde la propiedad sería tratada como un objeto. No obstante, ambas perspectivas pensarían la propiedad como un acto vinculado al deseo de apropiación, lo que permite una inves-tigación fenomenológica de la voluntad.The present essay compares a phenomenological study of the property with the new realism of Maurizio Ferraris. The comparison shows the limits of the phenomenological perspective and simultaneously the structural moments of its mode of givenness: the intuitive moment; the moment of the request; the moment of the admission; the moment of the ownership. Once the unity of these moments is exposed, the essay shows how the perspective of the new realism would think the property through a new ontology of the object, that is, as a social object related to a social act. The conclusions expose the phenomenological character of the property as a condition of the phenomenological approach in contrast to the Ferrari’s proposal, where the property would be treated as an object. Nevertheless, both perspectives would think the property as an act related to the wish of appropriation, which allows the phenomenological investigation of the will. (shrink)

OBJECTIVES: Cognitive and sensory difficulties frequently jeopardize informed consent of frail elderly patients This study is the first to test whether preliminary research experience could enhance geriatric patients' capacity to consent. DESIGN/SETTING: A step-wise consent procedure was introduced in a study on fluid balance in geriatric patients. Eligible patients providing verbal consent participated in a try-out of a week, during which bioelectrical impedance and weight measurements were performed daily. Afterwards, written informed consent was requested. Comprehension, risk and inconvenience scores (ranges: (...) 0-10) were obtained before and after the try-out by asking ten questions about the study's essentials and by asking for a risk and inconvenience assessment on a ten-points rating scale. SUBJECTS AND RESULTS: Seventy of the 78 eligible subjects started the try-out and 53 (68%) provided written consent. The comprehension score increased from 5.0 (+/- 2.3) to 7.0 (+/- 1.9) following the try-out (P < 0.001). The number of subjects capable of weighing risks and inconveniences increased from 32 to 48 (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Research experience improved the capacity to consent, still enabling an acceptable participation rate. Therefore, experienced consent seems a promising tool to optimize informed consent in frail elderly subjects. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 41, no. 3. © 2015 by Kathryn Kein 671 Kathryn Kein Recovering Our Sense of Humor: New Directions in Feminist Humor Studies At the 2014 annual meeting of the American Studies Association (ASA), the Humor Studies Caucus held a panel titled “Female Comedians and the Critical Power of Laughter.” After listening to presentations on Gilda Radner, Lily Tomlin, and Black women comedians’ 1960s comedy albums, one audience (...) member asked the panel if the classic theories of humor—Freud’s theory of the joke, Bergson’s thoughts on laughter (all conceived of in relation to the work of men)—applied when analyzing female comedic performers. One panelist immediately responded that she found none of those theories useful to her work on female comedians, and that instead she used queer theory to aid her analysis. This exchange at ASA points to many of the questions that scholars of humor and feminism are currently facing as they work to address a dearth of scholarship dealing with women, feminism, and comedy. The nods in agreement around the room spoke to the notion that scholarship on the topic of women in comedy is not merely filling in gaps, but breaking new ground. With a few notable exceptions, scholars have been relatively silent on topics involving women and/in comedy.1 The meager 1. See Susanne Lavin, Women and Comedy in Solo Performance: Phyllis Diller, Lily Tomlin, and Roseanne (New York: Routledge, 2004); June Sochen, ed., Women’s Comic Visions (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1991); John Limon, “Skirting, Kidding: Ellen Degeneres and Paula Poundstone,” in 672 Kathryn Kein scholarly space devoted to feminism and humor is likely shaped by the fraught relationship women and feminism have had with humor in our cultural imagination. Women have long battled a perception that they, as a sex, are biologically not funny. Men have always vastly outnumbered women on stand-up stages and in comedy writers’ rooms. Former Saturday Night Live writer Anne Beatts recalled that star John Belushi, being of the “chicks-aren’t-funny” school, often requested that the women writers be fired.2 In her bestselling Bossypants, Tina Fey recalls that the gender imbalance of the sketch comedy teams at Chicago’s Second City were due to the fact that directors believed “the audience doesn’t want to see a scene between two women.”3 In his 2007 piece in Vanity Fair brashly titled “Why Women Aren’t Funny,” Christopher Hitchens went so far as to call women and humor “antithetical.”4 In particular, feminist women have been painted as humorless and unable to take a joke. In The Promise of Happiness, Sarah Ahmed, defining her figure of the feminist killjoy, observes that “feminists are typically represented as grumpy his Stand-Up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000). 2. For further accounts of women comedy writers’ and performers’ experiences, see Yael Kohen, We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy: A Very Oral History (New York: Sarah Crichton Books, 2012). 3. Tina Fey, Bossypants (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2011), 87. 4. Christopher Hitchens, “Why Women Aren’t Funny,” Vanity Fair 557 (2007): 54 Books Discussed in This Essay All Joking Aside: American Humor and Its Discontents. By Rebecca Krefting. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. Pretty/Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics. By Linda Mizejewski. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014. The Queer Cultural Work of Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner. By Jennifer Reed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Kathryn Kein 673 and humorless.”5 In a variation of the age-old joke, when a jokester asks, “How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?” the respondent doesn’t say “How many?” but instead deadpans, “That’s not funny.” In different ways, the three books reviewed in this essay take up the conversation at ASA and tackle these same questions: How do we analyze humor produced by (and for?) women when our understanding of humor is decidedly male? What omissions have the gendered assumptions about humor caused in scholarship on feminism? How does humor work to address these assumptions? And how does the backdrop of these assumptions influence the comedy... (shrink)

Employers’ access to and use of criminal records as a selection mechanism in the labor market makes it far more difficult for ex-offenders to find jobs, especially regular, well-paid jobs, than those without criminal convictions. The paper asks whether there is anything morally problematic about this practice. The aims of the paper are twofold. First, arguments based on premises of wrongful discrimination against the current, commonest use of criminal records are critically discussed. It is argued that employers do not necessarily (...) engage in morally wrongful discrimination against job applicants when they use criminal records in recruitment screening. But it is also argued that ex-offenders who apply for jobs are subject to what can be called “structural and morally wrongful discrimination” when laws allow employers to request (or directly access) a job applicant’s full criminal record. Second, preliminary proposals on how criminal records can be used by employers in a way that avoids wrongful structural discrimination of ex-offenders will be presented and critically assessed. I suggest that it should be lawful for an employer to access an applicant’s criminal records only where there is a relevant and special match or link between the crime on the records and the job being applied for and the crime is serious. This proposal is defended against two objections, one based on concerns about crime prevention and the other based on the employer’s interest in knowing whom not to hire. (shrink)