In this article, cluster analysis is used to explore the conflicting results reported when the Defining Issues Test is used to explain moral reasoning ability in business situations. Using a convenience sample, gender, age, work experience, and ethics training were examined to determine their impact on the level of moral reasoning ability as measured by the Defining Issues Test. Using the whole sample, a significant difference was found for average P scores reported for males and females, but no significant differences (...) were found based on age, work experience, and ethics training. However, the sample fell into distinct clusters that identified distinct male and female groupings. While females naturally fell into two distinct high- and low-moral reasoning ability clusters, male clusters were dominated more by work experience and ethics training. Clearly there are other factors mitigating the level of moral reasoning ability for males which require further exploration. The findings suggest that while the P score provides an initial point of comparison, the real benefit to the test is in exploring what is different for males and females in terms of training needs, and the impact of work experience on the moral reasoning ability, and most importantly, how to make ethics training enticing. Recommendations for future research are also discussed. (shrink)

In this Matters Arising article, we outline how the recent article “The impact on patients of objections by institutions to assisted dying: a qualitative study of family caregivers’ perceptions” (White et al., 2023 Mar 13;24(1):22) informed Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) implementation in our large Australian public health setting, where objections do not emanate from, but within, the institution. In reporting the harms to patients and caregivers created by institutional objection, White et al. provide an evidenced-based road map for potential potholes (...) or risks associated with VAD implementation. We discuss the complexities emerging from the diverse views of health professionals and the ethical tensions arising from such, especially within certain specialties, and how we developed systemic strategies that support patients, caregivers and staff alike. We highlighted the need to shift from “Do you support VAD?“ to “How can we support you as healthcare professionals to integrate VAD into your practice, in a way that complies with the legislation, meets the needs of patients and caregivers, and feels safe and does not compromise your moral stance?“. (shrink)

Proceedings of a conference held May 25-26, 2012 at the University of Notre Dame.

O artigo pretende aproximar as ideias protofeministas desenvolvidas pelo filósofo e teólogo francês François Poulain de la Barre (1647-1723) das estratégias de escrita formuladas pelas autoras seiscentistas da assim chamada literatura preciosa, tais como Madeleine de Scudéry (1607-1701) e Madame de Lafayette (1634-1693). Critica, para tanto, a divisão proposta por Elsa Dorlin (1974-) entre o feminismo lógico e a préciosité duplamente: através de uma reflexão mais ampla sobre os limites da separação entre filosofia e literatura e, num segundo momento, a (...) partir da análise direta dos argumentos de Poulain. Procura, assim, demonstrar a associação possível entre a confecção de uma ordem fabulada como procedimento filosófico legítimo e o emprego da imaginação como modelo da produção literária. (shrink)

This book presents recent advancements in positive psychology, specifically its application across broad areas of current interest. Chapters include submissions from various international authors in the field and cover discussion and presentation of relevant research, theories, and applications. The volume covers topics such as CBT, Student Resilience, Active Aging, Humour, Mindfulness, Character Strengths, Education, Health, Relationships, Workplaces, Performance, Technology, Design, and Communities. With the growing interest in the applications of positive psychology across diverse fields within psychology and beyond, this book (...) will make a worthwhile contribution to the field. It will also fill the current need for a volume that highlights specifically the various recent advancements in positive psychology into diverse fields and as such will be of benefit to a wide range of professionals, including psychologists, educators, clinicians, therapists, and many others. (shrink)

A radical crítica à linguagem efetuada por Spinoza, que insiste em seu necessário potencial falsificador, parece equipará-lo aos seus contemporâneos. Mais do que isso, parece introduzir um problema insolúvel para a possibilidade de comunicação unívoca da verdade – incluindo a expressão dA radical crítica à linguagem efetuada por Spinoza, que insisteem seu necessário potencial falsificador, parece equipará-lo aos seus contemporâneos. Mais do que isso, parece introduzir um problema insolúvel para a possibilidade de comunicação unívoca da verdade — incluindo a expressão (...) de sua própria filosofia. Neste artigo, procuro refletir sobre esta crítica e propor uma alternativa ao caráter imaginativo das palavras, apostando na distinção entre linguagem e método. Esta propostainterpretativa permitirá reclassificar a posição spinozista e manter sua originalidade frente às demais concepções de seu período histórico.e sua própria filosofia. Neste artigo, procuro refletir sobre esta crítica e propor uma alternativa ao caráter imaginativo das palavras, apostando na distinção entre linguagem e método. Esta proposta interpretativa permitirá reclassificar a posição spinozista e manter sua originalidade frente às demais concepções de seu período histórico. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence surveillance can be used to diagnose individual cases, track the spread of Covid‐19, and help provide care. The use of AI for surveillance purposes (such as detecting new Covid‐19 cases and gathering data from healthy and ill individuals) in a pandemic raises multiple concerns ranging from privacy to discrimination to access to care. Luckily, there exist several frameworks that can help guide stakeholders, especially physicians but also AI developers and public health officials, as they navigate these treacherous shoals. (...) While these frameworks were not explicitly designed for AI surveillance during a pandemic, they can be adapted to help address concerns regarding privacy, human rights, and due process and equality. In a time where the rapid implementation of all tools available is critical to ending a pandemic, physicians, public health officials, and technology companies should understand the criteria for the ethical implementation of AI surveillance. (shrink)

This paper invites us to reimagine parents as history makers and parenthood as a political space where parents and adult educators collaborate in reading and acting on the world that is, with a view to achieving a world that is not. The pandemic provides a backdrop to a fundamental understanding that while the virus may claim to be entirely democratic, the pandemic has failed the equity test. The asymmetrical world that is calls for a reinvention of adult education as a (...) space in which the excesses of neoliberalism are resisted in preparation for a shift in consciousness that might promote collective action against today’s far-from-equitable reality. Parents as ‘Subjects’ is a cris de coeur for a liberatory parent-focused education that rehumanizes parents in a world that will be. (shrink)

Traditionally, heated philosophical debates regarding the status of categories have turned on questions of "nominal" vs "real" existence, where the role and significance of rhetoric and politics is obscured. Feminists in the late 20th century acknowledge a variety of elements involved in the construction of categories such as "human," "nature," rhetoric and logic. I argue for a position which undercuts the traditional debates between nominalism and realism, and using "wo men" as a case study, demonstrate the intricacies of the relationship (...) of logic and rhetoric in category construction. (shrink)

This dissertation is comprised of three parts. The first part is an intellectual historical thesis, regarding the place of Jean Piaget in philosophic thought. In Chapter One I outline the differences between my thesis and Piaget's position on the development of spatial concepts. My second chapter places his theory within the context of congruent accounts from the philosophy of nature, neurophysiology, and philosophy of psychology. Chapter Three situates him in relation to a selection of philosophers in the history of western (...) philosophy, through a metapsychology. ;In Part II I provide a dynamic account of the order of conceptual development, and clarification of the concepts of topological space, projective space, and euclidean or metric space.$\sp1$ In three chapters I outline a systematic analysis of the genetic development of the concepts based on an analysis and critique of Piaget's observations. The emergence of each concept is shown to be a result of the experience of some incongruity between the concept immediately preceding, and experience. The order I outline differs in some specifics from that suggested by Piaget's broad outline, and I explain the differences as they occur. ;The third part of this dissertation is the most tentative. Chapter Nine discusses the kind of testing I will employ when I test the logical order of concepts. There are four kinds of modes which I use to test each concept. This is followed by Chapter Ten, which tests the dynamic development of concepts of space. In this I attempt to confirm those changes in the development of the concepts, as well as Piaget's overall framework, through the use of Piaget's pre-logical modes as well as others I have extracted from the dynamic development of concepts. ftn $\sp1$ I note here that Piaget means, by euclidean geometry, metric geometry. The distinction between geometry with a euclidean and a non-euclidean metric is not crucial for the purpose of this thesis. (shrink)

Pilcher, Carmel Review(s) of: Aboriginal church paintings: Reflecting on our faith, by Eugene Stockton Editor with Terence O'Donnell (Lawson: Blue Mountain Education and Research Trust Publishers, 2010), pp.45, $20.00.

Pilcher, Carmel Review of: Earth unites with heaven: An introduction to the liturgical year, by Gerard More, Northcote, VIC: Morning Star, 2014, pp. 75, $12.95.

In the latter half of the 20th century, Western medicine moved death from the home to the hospital. As a result, the process of dying seems to have lost its spiritual dimension, and become a matter of prolonging material life by means of medical technology. The novel quandaries that arose led in turn to medico-legal regulation. This paper describes the recent regulation of dying in Israel under its Dying Patient Law, 2005. The Law recognizes advance directives in principle, but limits (...) their effect and form through complex medico-legal artifices. It reflects a culture that places high value on both scientific medicine and the sanctity of life as such, and illustrates a medical culture that pitches battle against death. At the same time, the Law constructs the will of the individual in a medico-legal language that is alien to the lay person. The paper suggests an alternative approach to advance care planning that is patient-centred and addresses the psycho-social needs of the individual in terms of her relational autonomy. From this perspective, advance care planning becomes an opportunity to extract the patient from the medical context and allow her to speak about her approaching death with close ones in her own terms of reference. To this end, there is a need for facilitation of an intimate encounter where patients can speak about their concerns with their loved ones. The paper also presents a methodological approach of attentive listening, which can be applied across diverse cultures and circumstances. (shrink)

This article offers an analysis of marketing as an ideological set of practices that makes cultural interventions designed to infuse social relations with biopolitical injunctions. We examine a contemporary site of heightened attention within marketing: the rise of online communities and the attendant profession of social media marketing managers. We argue that social media marketers disavow a core problem; namely, that the object at stake, the customer community, barely exists. The community therefore functions ideologically. We describe the ideological gymnastics necessary (...) for maintaining momentum behind a practice that barely exists and we ponder why such ideologies are necessary, and what they allow the marketer to do. Working with such concepts as ‘the wild’, ‘communicative capitalism’, and ‘biopolitical marketing’, we explore a genre of popular business literature that proselytizes for online customer communities and we reflect on the broader implications. (shrink)

The rapid development of assisted reproduction technologies for the treatment of infertility appears to empower women through expanding their individual choice, but it is also creating new forms of suffering for them and their collaborators, especially in the context of transnational third-party reproduction. This paper explores the possibility of framing the ethical discourse around third-party reproduction by bringing attention to concerns of altruistic empathy for women who collaborate in the reproductive process, in addition to those of individualistic choice. This would (...) entail moving beyond an ethic of liberty that is based on self-interest and the language of rights, to an alternative ethic of care that is based on self-restraint and the language of responsibilities. An ethic of care and responsibility would cultivate the empathetic self-reflection of the autonomous actor in relation to those others who are part of the enterprise of bringing a child into the world. (shrink)

Michael Dummett has claimed that analytic philosophy is distinguished from other schools in its belief that a comprehensive philosophical account of thought can only be attained by developing a philosophical account of language. Dummett himself argues persuasively for the priority-of-Ianguage thesis. This, in effect, metaphilosophical position is of special importance for his more straightforwardly philosophical views, for he holds that philosophical investigations of the concepts of objectivity and reality grow directly out of the philosophy of thought. But I argue that (...) some of what Dummett says about the priority of language over thought is problematic, that there may yet be a serious role for concepts within the theory of meaning, and that Dummett’s failure to acknowledge this role both hobbles his account of linguistic understanding and has deleterious consequences for his discussions of metaphysical realism-robbing him of the resources with which he might have avoided some of his anti-realist conclusions. (shrink)

Background Metaphors are central to the human understanding of complex issues; through the immediate associations they evoke and frame problems and suggest solutions. Our suggestion of Music in the Park as a metaphor for health systems reform brings to the forefront the environmentally diverse but bounded spaces of health services that offer a variety of attractors within their confines, while pushing into the background organizational and economic concerns.Reflections Parks, like health services, are embedded in their local landscape, serving their communities, (...) but most importantly parks are public spaces, publically funded, ideally offering universal access and equity and to be shared by all who want to go there.Music, like health, is tangible, technical and scientific, yet ultimately experiential and based on meaning. While it encompasses a wide range of styles and approaches, music making requires as its most important skill active listening which brings with it to be ‘in the moment’, to take personal risks and to draw energy and inspiration from the participants. Hence ‘audiences’ are equally active participants because music only has meaning if it internally resonates with the listener and only can exist in what is a co-constructed experience.Conclusions Music in the Park is a metaphor for primary health care systems based on shared values of experts and unique local communities. Health professionals are players in this arena, who develop and practise the full range of their skills in response to individual and community needs and preferences. Their leadership works through inspiration and empowerment, making patients ‘co-producers’ of their own health and ‘co-shapers’ of their health services. (shrink)

Anthony Collins is known mostly as an eighteenth-century freethinker who contributed to ideas of rational religion and religious toleration, as a close friend of John Locke, and as a necessitarian and materialist who held a significant correspondence with Samuel Clarke. Yet, his political philosophy has rarely received serious attention, and he remains a neglected figure in the history of political thought. This article attempts to recover Collins as a philosopher who developed a complex political theory, by focusing on his conceptions (...) of liberty and authority. It shows that he conceptualised liberty, and liberty of thought in particular, both as non-interference and non-domination, namely, an absence of censorship as well as an absence of continuous tyranny over the minds of humankind. Then, it shows that Collins also developed a thorough idea of civil authority, according to which even religious liberties may depend in some cases on the discretion of the civil sovereign. Finally, this article suggests that Collins’s multi-layered theory continued to develop after his lifetime, and that he therefore had a prominent place in eighteenth-century debates of liberty and authority. (shrink)

Qualitative research from a feminist perspective in the postmodern era: methodological, ethical and reflexive concerns Developing methodology is an ongoing process in certain types of qualitative research. This paper describes the process in a study of single midlife women, detailing reflexive concerns on the ethics of data collection and dissemination of research findings from a feminist postmodern perspective, as well as the way in which modification of techniques of analysis occurred as the study progressed. Beginning research questions were concerned with (...) identifying the impact of menopausal symptoms, and the debate surrounding HRT on the lives and decision‐making processes of single midlife women. Initial analysis of data, using grounded theory techniques, indicated a need to place greater emphasis on the way the women constructed or talked about the self, including the embodied self. This led to an exploration of the literature relating to reflexivity, identity construction and embodiment, including feminist poststructuralist interpretations of the discursive and embodied construction of self, and informed both the theoretical framework and the method. The way in which a type of analysis fitting under the broad rubric of discourse analysis, that is one that gave added emphasis to gendered subjectivity, directed further analysis is discussed, as well as the influence on the women of social and scientific discourses in circulation. (shrink)

The clinical application of the concept of patient autonomy has centered on the ability to deliberate and make treatment decisions (decisional autonomy) to the virtual exclusion of the capacity to execute the treatment plan (executive autonomy). However, the one-component concept of autonomy is problematic in the context of multiple chronic conditions. Adherence to complex treatments commonly breaks down when patients have functional, educational, and cognitive barriers that impair their capacity to plan, sequence, and carry out tasks associated with chronic care. (...) The purpose of this article is to call for a two-component re-conceptualization of autonomy and to argue that the clinical assessment of capacity for patients with chronic conditions should be expanded to include both autonomous decision-making and autonomous execution of the agreed-upon treatment plan. We explain how the concept of autonomy should be expanded to include both decisional and executive autonomy, describe the biopsychosocial correlates of the two-component concept of autonomy, and recommend diagnostic and treatment strategies to support patients with deficits in executive autonomy. (shrink)

Color conveys critical information about the flavor of food and drink by providing clues as to edibility, flavor identity, and flavor intensity. Despite the fact that more than 100 published papers have investigated the influence of color on flavor perception in humans, surprisingly little research has considered how cognitive and contextual constraints may mediate color–flavor interactions. In this review, we argue that the discrepancies demonstrated in previously-published color–flavor studies may, at least in part, reflect differences in the sensory expectations that (...) different people generate as a result of their prior associative experiences. We propose that color–flavor interactions in flavor perception cannot be understood solely in terms of the principles of multisensory integration but that the role of higher-level cognitive factors, such as expectations, must also be considered. (shrink)

In the decades after the Civil War, Southerners wrote and published their own history textbooks for secondary schools. These “mint julep textbooks,” as the Southern all-white editions were called by the 1960s, reinforced a Lost Cause narrative of the war for Southern audiences while competing with Northern versions of events. In this study, we employ both historical narrative and content analysis of six textbooks’ portrayals of John Brown, John Wilkes Booth, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. The textbooks that are compared– three (...) Southern and three Northern – were written from the 1870s through the 1910s. While subtle but important differences emerge between the Northern and Southern depiction of these three figures, an even more important trend developed when analyzing change over time. In this article we conclude that, as time progressed, Southern versions of events increasingly impacted Northern textbooks. By the 1930s, the mint julep version of these three figures became the national consensus, as reflected in the work of historian David Saville Muzzey. This consensus around events like the raid at Harpers Ferry, the assassination of Lincoln, and the massacre at Fort Pillow lasted for much of the 20th century. By the early 20th century, Northerners appeased Southern interests in the writing of history textbooks. (shrink)

Robert Wallace (1697–1771) was a leading minister of the Church of Scotland, but he remains a largely overlooked figure in the literature. Nevertheless, his participation in philosophical and theological debates offers a glimpse of the complex positions of the Scottish clergy – and of Scottish moderation on its own terms. Wallace’s moderation was evident, for example, in his opposition both to radical deism and orthodox dogmatism. Yet what makes Wallace’s case particularly interesting is that he described himself as a ‘moderate (...) freethinker’ in a letter to David Hume, while distinguishing elsewhere the ‘moderate’ and ‘sober’ freethinkers from the dangerously sceptical ones. Exploring his consistent statements on this issue in various writings throughout his career, this article investigates the self-identified moderation of Wallace – in opposition, for example, to his rival freethinker William Dudgeon – and thus the clergy’s attempt to use this category in the shaping of their vision of the Scottish Enlightenment. (shrink)