Some bioethicists argue that conscientious objectors in health care should have to justify themselves, just as objectors in the military do. They should have to provide reasons that explain why they should be exempt from offering the services that they find offensive. There are two versions of this view in the literature, each giving different standards of justification. We show these views are each either too permissive (i.e. would result in problematic exemptions based on conscience) or too restrictive (i.e. would (...) produce problematic denials of exemption). We then develop a middle ground position that we believe better combines respect for the conscience of healthcare professionals with concern for the duties that they owe to patients. Our claim, in short, is that insofar as objectors should have to justify themselves, they should have to do it according to the standard that we defend rather than according to the standards that others have developed. (shrink)

When physicist Alan Sokal recently submitted an article to the postmodernist journal Social Text, the periodical's editors were happy to publish it--for here was a respected scientist offering support for the journal's view that science is a subjective, socially constructed discipline. But as Sokal himself soon revealed in Lingua Franca magazine, the essay was a spectacular hoax--filled with scientific gibberish anyone with a basic knowledge of physics should have caught--and the academic world suddenly awoke to the vast gap that has (...) opened between the scientific community and their mould-be critics. But the truth is that not only postmodern critics but Americans in general have a weak grasp on scientific principles and facts. In Connected Knowledge, physicist Alan Cromer offers a way to bridge the chasm, with a lively, lucid account of scientific thinking and a provocative new agenda for American education. Science, Cromer argues, is anything but common sense: It requires a particular habit of mind that does not come naturally. For example, something as simple as buoyancy can only be explained through Archimedes' principle--that a body in a fluid is subject to an upward force equal to the weight of fluid it displaces--yet few scientists could arrive at this ancient concept by trial and error. School children, however, are often given a ball and a tank of water, and asked to explain buoyancy any way they can. Today's de emphasis on teaching pupils necessary facts and principles, he argues, "far from empowering them, makes them slaves of their own subjective opinions." This movement in education, known as Constructivism, has close ties to postmodern critics (such as the editors of Social Text) who question the objectivity of science, and with it the existence of an objective reality. Cromer offers a ringing defense of the knowability of the world, both as an objective reality and as a finite landscape of discovery. The advance of scientific knowledge, he argues, is not unlike the mapping of the continents; at this point, we have found them all. He shows how the advent of quantum mechanics, rather than making knowledge less certain, actually offers a more precise understanding of the behavior of atoms and electrons. Turning from philosophy to education, he argues that instead of allowing students to flounder, however creatively, schools should follow a progressive curriculum that returns theoretical knowledge to the classroom. Connected Knowledge, however, goes much farther. As a discipline that insists upon connecting theory with measurable reality, physical science offers a new direction for reforming the social sciences. Cromer also shows how some of the hottest issues in public policy--including the debates over special education and group variations in I.Q., can be resolved through clear, hard headed thinking. For example, he argues for use of the G.E.D. as a national educational standard, with a new "politics of intelligence" to guide the distribution of school resources. Always forthright and articulate, Alan Cromer offers a startling new vision for integrating science, philosophy, and education. (shrink)

In _Politics with Beauvoir_ Lori Jo Marso treats Simone de Beauvoir's feminist theory and practice as part of her political theory, arguing that freedom is Beauvoir's central concern and that this is best apprehended through Marso's notion of the encounter. Starting with Beauvoir's political encounters with several of her key contemporaries including Hannah Arendt, Robert Brasillach, Richard Wright, Frantz Fanon, and Violette Leduc, Marso also moves beyond historical context to stage encounters between Beauvoir and others such as Chantal Akerman, (...) Lars von Trier, Rahel Varnhagen, Alison Bechdel, the Marquis de Sade, and Margarethe von Trotta. From intimate to historical, always affective though often fraught and divisive, Beauvoir's encounters, Marso shows, exemplify freedom as a shared, relational, collective practice. _Politics with Beauvoir_ gives us a new Beauvoir and a new way of thinking about politics—as embodied and coalitional. (shrink)

Does asking about trauma history create participant distress? If so, how does it compare with reactions to other personal questions? Do participants consider trauma questions important compared to other personal questions? Using 2 undergraduate samples (Ns = 240 and 277), the authors compared participants' reactions to trauma questions with their reactions to other possibly invasive questions through a self-report survey. Trauma questions caused relatively minimal distress and were perceived as having greater importance and greater cost-benefit ratings compared to other kinds (...) of psychological research in an undergraduate human subjects pool population. These findings suggest that at least some kinds of trauma research appear to pose minimal risk when compared to other minimal risk research topics, and that participants recognize the importance of research about trauma. (shrink)

BackgroundMedical aid in dying was introduced in Quebec in 2015. Quebec clinical guidelines recommend that MAiD be approached as a last resort when other care options are insufficient; however, the law sets no such requirement. To date, little is known about when and how requests for MAiD are situated in the broader context of decision-making in end-of-life care; the timing of MAiD raises potential ethical issues.MethodsA retrospective chart review of all MAiD requests between December 2015 and June 2017 at two (...) Quebec hospitals and one long-term care centre was conducted to explore the relationship between routine end-of-life care practices and the timing of MAiD requests.ResultsOf 80 patients requesting MAiD, 54% received the intervention. The median number of days between the request for MAiD and the patient’s death was 6 days. The majority of palliative care consults came less than 7 days prior to the MAiD request and in another 25% of cases occurred the day of or after MAiD was requested. 35% of patients had no level of intervention form, or it was documented as 1 or 2 at the time of the MAiD request and 19% were receiving life-prolonging interventions.InterpretationWe highlight ethical considerations relating to the timing of MAiD requests within the broader context of end-of-life care. Whether or not MAiD is conceptualised as morally distinct from other end-of-life options is likely to influence clinicians’ approach to requests for MAiD as well as the ethical importance of our findings. We suggest that in the wake of the 2015 legislation, requests for MAiD have not always appeared to come after an exploration of other options as professional practice guidelines recommend. (shrink)

We have a thriving biotechnology industry in the United States. There are over 1,450 biotechnology companies developing diagnostic and treatment technologies in medicine, creating more nutritional foods, and innovating new industrial processes. Yet this $28.5 billion sector of the economy is not without controversy. The “bio” in biotechnology comes from living, biological entities - people, plants, animals, and even bacteria. In the realm of biobanking, people are the source of the raw material for the discovery of genes for research, diagnosis, (...) and therapy, raising a host of issues about rights and responsibilities, fiduciary duties and societal obligations. (shrink)

Abstract:Shareholders’ relationship to the firm is a central theme in corporate governance, yet the investors’ perspective has been virtually ignored in governance research. This paper attempts to explain the previously unexplored role of trust in the investor decision-making process. The proposed model suggests that trust acts as the antecedent of the risk variable in existing investor decision-making models. Stock ownership involves both financial and ethical risk, which by definition requires some level of implicit trust in management and the market.

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 3, Page 1198-1203, September 2022.

ITC technologies have come to comprehensively represent images and expectations of the future. Hopes of ongoing progress, economic growth, skill upgrading and possibly also democratisation are attached to new ICTs as well as fears of totalitarian control, alienation, job loss and insecurity. Currently, with the terms "Industry 4.0." and ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution”, public institutions, private institutions, and literature refer to the inchoate transformation of production of goods and services resulting from the application of a new wave of technological innovations: interconnected (...) collaborative robots; machine learning; Artificial Intelligence; 3D printers connected to digital development software; simulation of interconnected machines; integration of the information flow along the value chain; multidirectional communication between manufacturing processes and products. According to the main representations of Industry 4.0. by private and public institutions, its effects are expected to be mainly positive, for what regards productivity, economic opportunities and the future of work. The positive potentials now attributed to the new cycle of innovation evoke and expand those attributed to the previous waves of innovation linked to ITC technologies, and, even before, to the transition from Fordism to Post-Fordism. However, these transformations have so far not achieved any of the promises they raised. Improvements for workers in terms of work conditions, work performance and work relationships cannot be determined by any technical innovation in itself, being technological innovation always socially shaped. (shrink)

Industry groups engage in venue shifting when they seek to overturn or alter restrictive regulations imposed by one political venue through another. A critical step in this process is resolving uncertainties surrounding the preference of the targeted venue and the nature of the relevant policy proposal. While existing studies emphasize a long-term trial-and-error process of policy learning, we focus on nascent industries and argue that ventures seek other information sources to resolve these uncertainties quickly. In particular, nascent industry groups are (...) likely to perceive that the targeted venue will support their policy proposal if the targeted venue is ideologically distant from the venue that has enacted the restrictive regulations, if the targeted venue has recently supported other nascent industry groups’ similar policy proposals, or if the industry groups themselves are more exposed to industry peers’ success in promoting the same policy proposal in other jurisdictions. Under these conditions, the industry groups invest more to influence the targeted venue in response to restrictive regulations enacted by other venues. We find support for our theory by examining how from 2013 to 2019 the small unmanned aircraft systems industry trade associations in the United States lobbied state governments to nullify local regulations. (shrink)

How educators and students process and respond to emotions can either enhance or impede the development of the whole child. Social and emotional learning refers to the processes of developing social and emotional competencies, which depend on individuals’ capacity to recognize, understand, and manage emotions. Consensus across disciplines about the importance of EI highlights the need to advance the science of how to teach SEL. RULER, an evidence-based approach to teaching EI, provides an educational framework that encompasses a set of (...) practices for comprehensive SEL integration across a school or district. In this article, we describe RULER, explain how it teaches EI, and summarize evidence of its effectiveness. (shrink)

Based upon Ajit Maan's groundbreaking theory of Internarrative Identity, this collection focuses upon redefining self, slave narrative, the black Caribbean diaspora, and cyberspace to explore the interconnection between identity and life experience as expressed through personal narrative.

Recent research indicates that among young women, Blacks have lower employment rates than whites. Evidence is provided about whether young Black women's lower employment rates stem from structural features of the labor market, discrimination, or changing family or individual characteristics. Data show that Black women exit full-time employment at higher rates because they are more likely to be laid off, to leave because they work in temporary/seasonal jobs, and to leave for other reasons. Structural features of the labor market are (...) key in explaining Black women's higher rates of lay-offs, exits from temporary/seasonal work, and exits for other reasons. Individual characteristics and discrimination play a role in Black women's higher rates of lay-offs and exits for other reasons while family characteristics are important in explaining Black women's higher rates of leaving temporary/seasonal work and leaving for other reasons. Evidence suggests that Black women's higher exit rates are indicative of disadvantage in the labor market. (shrink)

Unconsented intimate exams on men and women are known to occur for training purposes and diagnostic reasons, mostly during gynecological surgeries but also during prostate examinations and abdominal surgeries. UIEs most often occur on anesthetized patients but have also been reported on conscious patients. Over the last 30 years, several parties—both within and external to medicine—have increasingly voiced opposition to these exams. Arguments from medical associations, legal scholars, ethicists, nurses, and some physicians have not compelled meaningful institutional change. Opposition is (...) escalating in the form of legislative bans and whistleblower reports. Aspiring to professional and scientific detachment, institutional consent policies make no distinction between intimate exams and exams on any other body part, but patients do not think of their intimate regions in a detached or neutral way and believe intimate exams call for special protections. UIEs are found to contribute to moral erosion and moral distress of medical students and compromise the sacred trust between the medical community and the general public. This paper refutes the main arguments in favor of the status quo, identifies a series of harms related to continuing the current practice, and proposes an explicit consent policy for intimate exams along with specific changes to medical school curriculum and institutional culture. Because patients are the rights-holders of their bodies, consent practices should reflect and uphold patient values which call for explicit consent for intimate exams. (shrink)

We read with interest Lanphier and Anani’s manuscript on trauma-informed ethics consultation. Their model rightly integrates trauma-informed principles within the ethics c...

In this comprehensive introduction to animal ethics, Lori Gruen weaves together poignant and provocative case studies with discussions of ethical theory, urging readers to engage critically and empathetically reflect on our treatment of other animals. In clear and accessible language, Gruen provides a survey of the issues central to human-animal relations and a reasoned new perspective on current key debates in the field. She analyses and explains a range of theoretical positions and poses challenging questions that directly encourage readers (...) to hone their ethical reasoning skills and to develop a defensible position about their own practices. Her book will be an invaluable resource for students in a wide range of disciplines including ethics, environmental studies, veterinary science, women's studies, and the emerging field of animal studies and is an engaging account of the subject for general readers with no prior background in philosophy. (shrink)

This article compares Hannah Arendt's famous essay on Adolf Eichmann's trial in Israel in 1961 to Simone de Beauvoir's little studied piece, "An Eye for an Eye," on the trial of Robert Brasillach in France in 1945. Arendt and Beauvoir each determine the complicity of individuals acting within a political order that seeks to eliminate certain forms of otherness and difference, but come to differing conclusions about the significance of the crimes. I explain Beauvoir's account of ambiguity, on which she (...) draws in her judgment of Brasillach and elaborates in her 1948 Ethics of Ambiguity, ana measure it against Arendt's account of Eichmann's thoughtlessness and its effects on the destruction of conditions of worldly plurality. Linking the failure of ethical judgment on the part of individuals to prior systemic political conditions, Beauvoir helps us recognize struggles over the meaning of bodies and conditions of inequality as central to politics. (shrink)

Corporate governance and finance are dynamic academic fields that offer myriad opportunities for business ethics analysis. Within the corporate governance triad in recent years, shareholders have increased their power over boards of directors and executives through both regulation and movements to change corporate by-laws. The impact of board characteristics on firm performance has proven elusive, leading to questions concerning board processes and individual director beliefs and behaviors. At the same time, CEOs have lost considerable power, leaving many struggling to regain (...) their control and maintain their compensation levels, while others adopt a stewardship approach to their posts. In the field of finance, the recent financial debacle has led to a reexamination of financial regulation and of the fundamental nature and purpose of the industry. All of these issues provide business ethicists fodder for investigation and analysis. (shrink)

This study examined differences between university students who were caught and sanctioned for cheating, students admitting to cheating but who were not caught, and students reporting that they had never cheated. Our findings showed that noncheaters are older, have better grade point averages, and have more sophisticated moral and epistemological reasoning skills. Qualitative analyses revealed that denial of responsibility and injury were the most common neutralization techniques and differed between the sanctioned and self-reported cheaters. We discuss the need to examine (...) the extent to which reasoning skills have a causal impact on cheating behaviors. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 2, Page 7-9, March‐April 2022.

In the Italian national elections in 2013, the Movimento Cinque Stelle, founded just four years earlier, gained 25 percent of votes, more than any other party. Analyses and interpretations are divided between those who consider M5S a member of the family of European populism and those who see M5S’s propositions as akin to the values of the left and social movements. The debate on M5S fits into the context of important ongoing trends in European politics: the growth of populist political (...) movements; the emergence of outsider parties able to challenge stable political systems; changing relationships between parties and social movements; changes in the forms of political organizing. This article investigates the political and cultural nature of this party by analyzing its discourse on democracy, its organizational choices and its main issues; comparing these elements with populism and the left; and linking its fundamental characteristics to contemporary economic processes usually termed “digital capitalism.”. (shrink)

Abstract:To date, our understanding of ethical decision making and behavior in organizations has been concentrated in the area of moral judgment, largely because of the hundreds of studies done involving cognitive moral development. This paper addresses the problem of our relative lack of understanding in other areas of human morality by applying a recently developed construct—moral approbation—to illuminate the link between moral judgment and moral action. This recent work is extended here by exploring the effect that organizations have on ethical (...) behavior in terms of the moral approbation construct. (shrink)

Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? How can we feel happy and free? The answers to these and other life questions are gathered in Tiny Buddha, Simple Wisdom for Life's Hard Questions. Tiny Buddha began as a quote-a-day Twitter account, @tinybuddha, in 2008. Lori Deschene's daily wisdom posts about mindfulness, non-attachment, and happiness became so popular that she now has more than 200,000 twitter followers who share quotes and stories about inspiration in their daily lives.Deschene (...) asked her Twitter followers to contribute their thoughts and perspectives on the difficult questions that influence how we live our everyday lives: thoughts about the meaning of life, pain, happiness, fate, and more.Tiny Buddha, Simple Wisdom for Life's Hard Questions is a combination of the amazing responses that she received along with her own insightful essays, and insights from wise teachers around the world and throughout time. Deschene explores how these issues have played out in her own life and offers action-oriented suggestions to help people empower themselves, even in a world with so much uncertainty. The result is a guide that helps readers discover the endless possibilities for a life lived mindfully in the present, and connected to others. (shrink)

In this paper, i provide an introduction to development ethics and make some observations about integral human development. i argue that although there is very little dialogue between these two traditions, they have a lot of common ground, and can helpfully inform one another. International development ethics is a largely secular field concerned with ethical reflection on the ends and means of development. i discuss four levels of ethical reflection: meta-ethical, normative, practical, or applied, and personal or integral. The first (...) three of these levels are well established in philosophical ethics. i introduce the fourth with the hope of encouraging more discussion of how individuals engaged in the theory and practice of development ethics ought to navigate the various spheres of their own lives. This last stage of ethical reflection and action can benefit greatly from work done in integral human development. Integral human development is integral in at least two ways: development is not simply economic development, but development the whole person, including social, political, creative, spiritual, etc., and development is the development of every person, whether the person is a marginalize peasant or a powerful élite. i explain why this second way of integration is both less discussed and more radical than the first. Resumen En este artículo, ofrezco una introducción a la ética del desarrollo y hago algunas observaciones sobre el desarrollo humano integral. Sostengo que, aunque hay muy poco diálogo entre estas dos tradiciones, tienen mucho terreno común y pueden ayudarse mutuamente. La ética del desarrollo internacional es un campo ampliamente secular que se ocupa de la reflexión ética sobre los fines y los medios de desarrollo. Discuto cuatro niveles de reflexión ética: meta-ético, normativo, práctico, o aplicado, y personal o integral. Los tres primeros de estos niveles están bien establecidos en la ética filosófica. Presento el cuarto con la esperanza de fomentar una mayor discusión sobre cómo los individuos involucrados en la teoría y la práctica de la ética del desarrollo deben navegar por las diversas esferas de sus propias vidas. Esta última etapa de reflexión y acción ética puede beneficiarse enormemente del trabajo realizado en el desarrollo humano integral. El desarrollo humano integral es integral en al menos dos maneras: el desarrollo no es simplemente desarrollo económico, sino el desarrollo de toda la persona, incluyendo social político, creativo, espiritual etc., y el desarrollo es el desarrollo de cada persona, sea la persona un campesino marginado o una de la ponderosa elite. Explico por qué esta segunda forma de integración es menos discutida y más radical que la primera. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to describe the extent to which nurses perceive the ethical dimensions of clinical practice situations involving patients, families and health care professionals. Using the composite theory of basic moral principles and the professional standard of care established by legal custom as a framework, situations involving ethical dilemmas were gleaned from the nursing literature. They were reviewed for content validity, clarity and representativeness in a two-stage process by expert panels. The situations were presented in a (...) written format to a convenience sample of nurses (n = 125), who were primarily staff nurses (65.6%). Respondents' judgements about whether the main issue of each situation concerned ethics ranged from a low of 0.8% to a high of 40%. From analyses of the categories into which the majority of subjects placed each situation, it was concluded that these nurses generally perceived ethics as the main issue in situations that directly involve patients' autonomy. Analysis yielded unanticipated findings about the themes in ethical situations to which nurses in practice may respond. (shrink)

Two recent cases raise the question: Should the body be considered a form of property? Patients generally do not share in the profits derived from the applications of research on their body parts and products. Nor is their consent for research required so long as the body part is unidentified and is removed in the course of treatment. A market in body parts and products would require consent to all categories of research and ensure that patients are protected from coercion (...) and given the chance to be paid fairly for their contributions. Such a market might force us to rethink our policies prohibiting organ sales. Donors, recipients, and society will benefit from a market in body parts so long as owners—and no one else—retain control over their bodies. (shrink)

In the context of the worsening economic crisis analogies tend to be drawn between the economic and political crisis in Europe of the 1920s and 1930s and the current situation. Now as then, it is argued, there is the risk that a systemic economic crisis and the crisis of representative politics will in turn lead to authoritarian outcomes. Rarer, however, is the idea that the current political and economic crisis may lead to a “progressive” outcome. This article examines both options (...) under the light of the thinking of one of the most important interpreters of political crisis and change in the 1920s and 1930s: Antonio Gramsci. One of the central arguments in Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks is the crisis of parliamentarism and democratic politics. Gramsci did not limit his analysis to the crisis however. His theoretical undertaking also consisted in the attempt to imagine the conditions for moving beyond the democratic crisis in a progressive manner. What emerges is an existing continuity between the Gramscian categories of Cesarism-Bonapartism, economic-corporative State, hegemonic crisis and contemporary politics, particularly with reference to phenomena such as populism, technocracy and neo-liberalism; the utility of the conceptual category of Passive Revolution to comprehend the current forms of exerting power and building social consent; the potential fruitfulness of Gramsci’s schemata on counter-hegemonies, to understand the changes in the party-organization and the possibilities of building counter-hegemonies. (shrink)

Working in and around the ‘chain of command’: power relations among nursing staff in an urban nursing homeBy most accounts, the discipline of nursing enjoys considerable hegemony in US nursing homes. Not surprisingly, the ethos of this setting is influenced, in large part, by nursing’s value system. This ethos powerfully impacts both the residents who live in nursing homes and the staff who work there. Using ethnographic methods, this project explored power relations among nursing assistants and nurses in an urban (...) nursing home in the United States. Factors contributing to tensions among nursing staff were the stigma attached to nursing homes and those who work in them, as well as the long history of class conflict and power struggles within the discipline of nursing. The latter struggles, in turn, reflected nursing’s quest for professional status in the face of medicine’s hegemony over health‐care. Ultimately, these factors coalesced to produce a local work environment characterized by conflict — and by aides’ resistance to nurses’ domination. (shrink)

"In Entangled Empathy, scholar and activist Lori Gruen argues that rather than focusing on animal rights, we ought to work to make our relationships with animals right by empathetically responding to their needs, interests, desires, vulnerabilities, hopes, and unique perspectives. Pointing out that we are already entangled in complex and life-altering relationships with other animals, Gruen guides readers through a new way of thinking about and practicing animal ethics. Lori Gruen is Professor of Philosophy and Coordinator of Wesleyan (...) Animal Studies at Wesleyan University. She is the author of Ethics and Animals and co-editor, with Carol Adams, of Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Animals and the Earth."--Back cover. (shrink)