When Western Christianity came to Asia, it merged with Eastern religions and histories and developed very differently in different places. Today Asian women in each country build up very unique images of God. They practice Eastern forms of worship and liturgical rites, and do indigenized theologies. They simultaneously try to find their own ways of naming, imaging, believing in and communicating with their own God. Korean Christianity has inherited many images of God from Western Christian doctrines and theologies. However, when (...) it meets and merges with Koreanized Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shamanism, some of the images of God in Christianity are transformed and re-imagined in Korean women's social cultural and religious contexts. As an Asian woman, especially a Korean woman, I would like to introduce one of the many Asian women's theologies, Korean women's images of God. It cannot represent all Asian women's ways of doing theologies, but it will give some clues to show how Asian women do theologies in their own context. In particular, I will examine three images of God that demonstrate how Western Christianity and Eastern religions meet and are transformed in Korean Christian women's living contexts. (shrink)

Religious/spiritual communities in the United States hold significant differences in the relative valuing of social order and progress toward social justice, and religious/spiritual leaders play an influential role in fostering those values. This recognition has prompted calls for theological education to revise the process of student formation, equipping them to address an increasingly diverse social world and the social disparities within their larger communities. Right-wing authoritarianism tends to be associated with a preference for social order and various forms of prejudice, (...) and negatively associated with prosocial attitudes and behaviors. However, there is a limited amount of research examining associations between right-wing authoritarianism and the prosocial constructs of social justice commitment and compassion. The present study explored the longitudinal associations between right-wing authoritarianism, social justice commitment, and compassion in a sample of graduate students from 18 Christian seminaries across North America over two and a half years of their education. Longitudinal data analysis indicated that right-wing authoritarianism exerted a negative influence on social justice commitment and compassion, during the initial time interval which then faded over time. Results also indicated a reciprocal process among right-wing authoritarianism and social justice commitment. Practical implications centered on the potential for interventions targeting the reduction of right-wing authoritarianism to increase social justice commitment and compassion, and interventions targeting greater social justice commitment to lower right-wing authoritarianism. (shrink)

A variety of stakeholders including investors, corporate managers, customers, suppliers, employees, researchers, and government policy makers have long been interested in the relationship between the financial performance of a corporation and its commitment to business ethics. As a subject of research, the relations between business ethics and corporate valuation has yet to be thoroughly quantified and investigated. This article is an effort to amend this inadequacy by demonstrating a statistically significant association between ethical commitment and corporate valuation measures. Consistent with (...) anecdotal evidence, we have found a significant association between the ethical commitment of Korean companies and their valuation on the Korean stock market. However, the result reveals that the association between ethical commitment and financial performance is not significantly supported. (shrink)

Based on a questionnaire survey, this study is the first to systematically focus on Mongolian managers' perceptions of BE. As such, this paper (1) examines Mongolian managers' views of BE, (2) compares BE perceptions in Mongolia to those in the USA, Japan and Korea, and (3) identifies differences and similarities between the four national groups. We find that unethical practices exist and are quite common in Mongolia, where nearly half of the respondents have experienced ethical conflicts during their career. These (...) conflicts mostly arose in relation to respondents' superiors and colleagues and were related to fairness or discrimination. The results indicate that in their (un)ethical decision-making, Mongolian mangers are situational, but also place importance on the behaviour of their superiors. Finally, situational questions revealed that unlike respondents from the other three national groups, Mongolian managers do not see a significant difference between their own BE attitudes and those of an average manager. (shrink)

The activities and consequences of workplace bullying and harassment have been widely explored in the literature but mainly studied within the scope of individuals or at the team level. Taking a holistic approach, we associate the concept of bullying with firm-level performance as well as stakeholders’ responses in the market. In this paper, we examine whether and how market investors react to the news of corporate harassment by top officials of publicly listed firms in Korea. Using a standard event study (...) methodology and multiple regression analysis with matched sample, we find significantly negative stock price reactions to news of corporate bullying. We also find that the impact is more salient if emotional bullying is involved and discuss both the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between corporate commitment to business ethics and financial reporting quality. We posit that companies with a higher level of ethical commitment exhibit better quality financial reporting than those with a lower level of ethical commitment. Consistent with our prediction, we find that companies with a higher level of ethical commitment are engaged in less earnings management, report earnings more conservatively, and predict future cash flows more accurately than those with a lower level of ethical commitment. (...) We also find that corporate commitment to business ethics has perpetuating effects on future financial reporting quality. (shrink)

This paper presents a critical reflection on insights into the ongoing endeavours for community engagement by Ayara and MAL; two urban grassroot organisations in Bogota, Colombia, where a long history of internal conflicts has resulted in diverse human right violations. The paper presents examples of the grassroots organisations’ unique methods of engagement that promotes building collective intelligence from the bottom–up through creative collaboration and design processes, leading to rebuilding social fabrics that support the common good for the people of Bogota.

A variety of stakeholders have long been interested in the factors that are related to firm valuation. This article investigates why companies with more comprehensive corporate governance (CG) have a value premium over companies with less comprehensive CG. We posit and find that the cost of equity capital (COC) decreases with the strength of CG, suggesting that the value premium stems from the lower COC for more comprehensive CG. We also find that the COC is lower for companies with strong (...) commitment to business ethics (BE) than for those with weak commitment to BE and that the beneficial effect of CG on the COC is more pronounced for companies with weak commitment to BE than for those with strong commitment to BE. Companies with more comprehensive CG tend to exhibit strong commitment to BE, but the beneficial effect of corporate ethical commitment is not completely subsumed by CG. Our results suggest that companies could lower their cost of equity capital and increase firm value by adopting more comprehensive CG practices and committing to higher standards of BE. (shrink)

Background Nurses providing care to patients with end-of-life or terminal illnesses often encounter ethically challenging situations leading to moral distress. However, existing quantitative studies have examined moral distress using instruments that address general clinical situations rather than those specific to end-of-life care. Furthermore, qualitative studies have often been limited to participants from a single unit or those experiencing moral distress-induced circumstances. A comprehensive and integrated understanding of the overarching process of moral distress is vital to discern the unique circumstances surrounding (...) end-of-life care and its consequential impacts. Research objectives To explore the moral distress experiences of nurses who are frequently involved in caring for patients with end-of-life or terminal illnesses and apply it to two existing theories: the model of moral distress and the ecological model. Research design A qualitative descriptive approach was employed. Participants and research context Seven focus group interviews involving 30 nurses were performed. The subsequent transcriptions underwent rigorous content analysis. Ethical considerations We obtained Institutional Review Board approval from a university. Focus group interviews were conducted with nurses who agreed to participate and signed the consent form. Findings The moral distress-inducing factors and nurses’ perceived impact of moral distress were identified and categorized based on moral distress theories and ecological models. A total of 15 categories and 30 subcategories across the following 4 domains were derived: (1) intrapersonal, (2) interpersonal, (3) organizational, and (4) structural factors. Conclusions End-of-life-specific circumstances induced moral distress among nurses, with both negative and positive impacts identified. Effective organizational and policy support is essential to manage conflicts, form a healthy organizational culture, provide training, and prevent unnecessary expenses due to the negative consequences of moral distress. (shrink)

This paper argues that the philosophical analysis of moral responsibility would benefit from focusing more on the social freedom of individuals. In a critique of Frankfurt, it is argued that an individual only is responsible for the consequences of her action if she had the opportunity not be responsible for them. The resulting theory of moral responsibility is applied to the analysis of collective decision processes, and in particular to political decision making. The main conclusion is that, though we do (...) not bear ‘absolute responsibility’ for all of the consequences of our actions, our moral and political responsibility is larger than often is assumed. (shrink)

This paper presents a non-preference-based approach to the analysis of negative freedom. It is argued that a proper understanding of (different conceptions of) negative freedom necessitates an examination of the consequences of changes in the set of feasible alternatives. For this reason the paper does not focus on freedom rankings of opportunity sets but on freedom rankings of opportunity situations, i.e., pairs consisting of a feasible set and an opportunity set. Three different freedom rankings of opportunity situations are axiomatically characterised. (...) Each of the three rankings forms a generalisation of the purely cardinality-based freedom ranking of opportunity sets presented by Pattanaik and Xu (1990). (shrink)

Dutch euthanasia legislation states that an act of euthanasia is only permissible if it is based on a voluntary request made in a situation of unbearable suffering to which there are no alternatives.The central question of this article is whether these criteria can be satisfied simultaneously. In an analysis of several (partly overlapping) definitions of voluntariness it is argued that there are circumstances in which this question should be answered negatively.The possible incompatibility of the criteria reveals a tension between different (...) defences of the permissibility of euthanasia. (shrink)

This article analyses the relationship between rights and capabilities in order to get a better grasp of the kind of consequentialism that the capability theory represents. Capability rights have been defined as rights that have a capability as their object (rights to capabilities). Such a definition leaves the relationship between capabilities and rights to a great extent underspecified since nothing is said about the nature of those rights. Hence, it is not precluded that they are mere negative liberties, something that (...) capability theorists deny. On the other hand, to say that all capability rights are substantive in the sense that they themselves are capabilities (rights as capabilities) will in a significant number of cases fail to match well with our intuitions. This article presents an account of the relationship between rights and capabilities that avoids these problems of underspecification and of plausibility, respectively. First, it is argued that to take the idea of capability rights seriously, three new ‘list issues’ need to be addressed. Second, developing a point made by Nussbaum, it is argued that capability rights are to be defined as being purely instrumental. Whereas the resulting analysis of capability rights solves the problems of underspecification and plausibility, it raises doubts about the claim that the capability approach gives more importance to rights than do traditional forms of consequentialism. (shrink)

A hard choice is a situation in which an agent is unable to make a justifiable choice from a given menu of alternatives. Our objective is to present a systematic treatment of the axiomatic structure of such situations. To do so, we draw on and contribute to the study of choice functions that can be indecisive, i.e., that may fail to select a non-empty set for some menus. In this more general framework, we present new characterizations of two well-known choice (...) rules, the maximally dominant choice rule and the top-cycle choice rule. Together with existing results, this yields an understanding of the circumstances in which hard choices arise. (shrink)

In 'Yeogi (禮記)', the Chinese scriptures of Confucianism, they recoded the solar calendar of modern viewpoints. According to the ancient document, the 24 solar terms was one of seasonal divisions in a year. The regularly change of the four seasons play an important part in the national economic project. For a national economy depended on agriculture in East Asia of ancient times, the administration to pay no regard to the change of the season was directly connected to the fall of (...) the nation. And then the legislator must enact laws to reflect the change of the season. According to the 'Wolryeong (月令)' in 'Yeogi (禮記)', there is recoded national regulations to suit with the each twelve momth. The first month of spring is the prime of the year (February). The month shows sign of new livingthings. The ruler take order to protect the first breath of spring and ought to put a ban on the military training and labor mobilization. The reasons are to safeguard the new life and not to interrupt the preparation for farming. Confucian attach value to the nature within a human’s way of life. Therefore the norm of human do correlate closely with the principle of nature. The rule of Wuju (宇宙) was not a simple concept of the natural phenomenon and Cheon (天) was not the Almighty for himself. Cheon was just the existence of virtue and moral influence in the confidence of man. And Ji (地) was the Mother of all things. In this space man had to manage the world in sympathy with the process of cheonJi (天地); Cheonsi (天時), JIri (地利), Inhwa (人和). (shrink)

This paper examines the structure of moral responsibility for outcomes. A central feature of the analysis is a condition that we term the ‘avoidance potential’, which gives precision to the idea that moral responsibility implies a reasonable demand that an agent should have acted otherwise. We show how our theory can allocate moral responsibility to individuals in complex collective action problems, an issue that sometimes goes by the name of ‘the problem of many hands’. We also show how it allocates (...) moral responsibility in the classic Frankfurt example. (shrink)

Recent theories of negative freedom see it as a value-neutral concept; the definition of freedom should not be in terms of specific moral values. Specifically, preferences or desires do not enter into the definition of freedom. If preferences should so enter then Berlin's problem that a person may enhance their freedom by changing their preferences emerges. This paper demonstrates that such a preference-free conception brings its own counter-intuitive problems. It concludes that these problems might be avoided if the description of (...) the constraints which specify an agent's lack of freedom include the intentions of those who constrain the agents. (Published Online July 31 2007) Footnotes1 Versions of this paper have been read to a diverse set of academics in Bayreuth, Germany; Groningen, Netherlands; LSE, UK; and in Dublin, Ireland. We would like to thank participants at those sessions for their comments. We also thank anonymous referees, Ian Carter and Luc Bovens for their help in improving the paper. (shrink)

Humor is a contextual phenomenon that exists in all societies, although the impact of humor may differ across different cultures. The data for this research was collected using an ethnographic approach, incorporating participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Based in three different South Korean organizations, this research offered the opportunity to interact in depth with workers of varying ages, genders, hierarchical levels, and organizational roles. Observations were complimented by 46 in-depth interviews and ad hoc follow-up discussions. This paper adopts a Confucian (...) perspective to understand the perception and use of workplace humor in these South Korean organizations. Confucian philosophy emphasizes the value of formality within society in order to maintain respectful relationships between individuals. We suggest that humor is used in these South Korean workplaces to support traditional Confucian values of harmony and hierarchy, and the changing cultural values in these workplaces influence humor perceptions in complex ways. The Confucian value of harmony maintained through the idea of hierarchy creates pressure for organizational members, to accept and cope with contentious humor in the workplace. In particular, the clash between the need to maintain harmonious relationships in the workplace (through obedience towards superiors) and the desire to reject some types of humor highlights issues for younger organizational members. Internal conflict creates distress for younger employees who may hold more Westernized values and this affects their emotional, psychological well-being. This study presents a cross-cultural perspective to organizational humor, and suggests that humor may not always be a positive experience for organizational members, but instead may create psychological distress in some employees. (shrink)

This paper examines the structure of moral responsibility for outcomes. A central feature of the analysis is a condition that we term the 'avoidance potential', which gives precision to the idea that moral responsibility implies a reasonable demand that an agent should have acted otherwise. We show how our theory can allocate moral responsibility to individuals in complex collective action problems, an issue that sometimes goes by the name of 'the problem of many hands'. We also show how it allocates (...) moral responsibility in the classic Frankfurt example. (shrink)

Designed for classroom use, this authoritative anthology presents key selections from the best contemporary work in philosophy of film. The featured essays have been specially chosen for their clarity, philosophical depth, and consonance with the current move towards cognitive film theory Eight sections with introductions cover topics such as the nature of film, film as art, documentary cinema, narration and emotion in film, film criticism, and film's relation to knowledge and morality Issues addressed include the objectivity of documentary films, fear (...) of movie monsters, and moral questions surrounding the viewing of pornography Replete with examples and discussion of moving pictures throughout. (shrink)

Since the Korean Philosophy of Education Society was established in 1964, the question regarding the nature of Philosophy of Education as a modern discipline has always been a vexing question to mo...

Der Schulphilosoph Leibniz und der physikotheologische Dichter Brockes bilden eine historische Konstellation in der Frühaufklärung. Leibniz markiert eine Lücke in der rationalistischen Epistemologie: Er stößt in der Logik auf eine ästhetische Dimension der Erkenntnis, ohne dass er dabei die Ästhetik von der Logik trennt. Im Irdischen Vergnügen in Gott (1721-1748), dessen Zentrum die Wahrnehmung, Beobachtung und Beschreibung von Naturphänomenen bildet, inszeniert Brockes diese ästhetische Dimension der Erkenntnis. Die Gedichtsammlung entwickelt dabei eine Proto-Ästhetik in poetischer Form, deren Grundzüge in diesem Beitrag (...) entwickelt werden sollen. Leibniz, the rationalist philosopher, and Brockes, the poet inspired by physicotheology, form a historical constellation within the early German enlightenment. Leibniz points to a gap within rationalist epistemology: Within logic he encounters an aesthetic mode of cognition without separating logic from aesthetics. In his ›Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott‹ (1721-1748), the main theme of which is the observation and description of natural phenomena, Brockes performs the aesthetic mode of cognition in poetic form. Consequently, Brockes’ monumental anthology develops a prototype of aesthetic theory in poetic form which shall be outlined in this article. (shrink)

The condition of liberty which Sen used in his famous theorem on the impossibility of the Paretian liberal was defined in terms of individual preferences. The preference-based approach has been the subject of much criticism, which led to the evolution of the game-theoretic analysis of rights. In this approach no references to individual preferences are made. Two questions are examined in this paper: how can different types of right be distinguished within a game-theoretic setting, and how do rights come into (...) existence? These questions are addressed on the basis of ideas originating from legal theory The discussion shows that an analysis of rights should take account of the whole legal system of which a legal norm forms part. Furthermore, it reveals that preferences should be re-introduced into the formal study of individual rights. (shrink)

Machine learning systems are making considerable inroads in society owing to their ability to recognize and predict patterns. However, the decision-making logic of some widely used machine learning models, such as deep neural networks, is characterized by opacity, thereby rendering them exceedingly difficult for humans to understand and explain and, as a result, potentially risky to use. Considering the importance of addressing this opacity, this paper calls for research that studies empirically and theoretically how machine learning experts and users seek (...) to attain machine learning explainability. Focusing on automated trading, we take steps in this direction by analyzing a trading firm’s quest for explaining its deep neural network system’s actionable predictions. We demonstrate that this explainability effort involves a particular form of human–machine interaction that contains both anthropomorphic and technomorphic elements. We discuss this attempt to attain machine learning explainability in light of reflections on cross-species companionship and consider it an example of human–machine companionship. (shrink)

Designed for classroom use, this authoritative anthology presentskey selections from the best contemporary work in philosophy offilm. The featured essays have been specially chosen for theirclarity, philosophical depth, and consonance with the current movetowards cognitive film theory Eight sections with introductions cover topics such as thenature of film, film as art, documentary cinema, narration andemotion in film, film criticism, and film's relation to knowledgeand morality Issues addressed include the objectivity of documentary films,fear of movie monsters, and moral questions surrounding the (...) viewingof pornography Replete with examples and discussion of moving picturesthroughout. (shrink)

The most valuable finding of my first sightseeing trip was that medieval Europe was the seat of Christendom and that Christianity defines the West. I was amazed to see that Europe reveals so much of its past. I had not had such an experience in the United States, where I had lived as a student and then as a professor of economics.As I glimpsed the West, I found myself rediscovering Confucian civilization and how much I am still Confucian, although I (...) was born into a Presbyterian family in Korea. But then, Korea is the most Confucian country. Curious about the West since my first trip, whenever I can I have toured Europe in search of the meaning of the West.While travelling in Europe, my mind often jumps back to my early life in Korea and Japan. I am struck by the vivid contrast in appearance between medieval European towns and Asian towns, which were grey and as flat as pancakes. Medieval towns are stony and solid. Nothing is flimsy. Shaped by spires, domes, and towers, a European town's silhouette rises and falls like a stock market graph. Europeans obviously loved the vertical emphasis. A traveller can see either a soaring church tower or a castle keep miles away on the horizon. Churches predominate, as if to emphasize that the main business of the town is the worship and glorification of God. (shrink)

Background:Academic ethical awareness is an important aspect especially for nursing students who will provide ethical nursing care to patients in future or try to tread the path of learning toward professional acknowledgement in nursing scholarship.Purpose:The purpose of this study was to explore academic ethical awareness and its related characteristics among undergraduate nursing students.Methods:This study commenced the survey with cross-sectional, descriptive questions and enrolled convenient samples of 581 undergraduate nursing students from three universities in South Korea. It was investigated with structured (...) questionnaires including general characteristics and academic ethical awareness related.Ethical considerations:This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at National University.Findings:Academic ethical awareness was the highest regarding behaviors violating the respect or confidentiality of patients and cheating on exams, while it was the lowest for inappropriate behaviors in class. From the result of general characteristics difference, male students showed higher score than female students in relative; first-year students showed higher score than other year students; the higher score was rated from students who were highly satisfied with their major than the other not satisfied with their major; and students with low academic stress showed higher ethical awareness score than persons with higher stress.Conclusion:Personal behaviors were rated with low ethical awareness in relative, but items related to public rules and actual effects on patients or others were rated with higher score. Nursing satisfaction and academic stress are main factors on ethical awareness. To improve overall ethical awareness level of nursing students, it is required to provide more education about the importance of personal behaviors in class and need to improve the understanding of how it will be connected with future situation and effect. (shrink)

BackgroundAn increasing number of studies utilize intracranial electrophysiology in human subjects to advance basic neuroscience knowledge. However, the use of neurosurgical patients as human research subjects raises important ethical considerations, particularly regarding informed consent and undue influence, as well as subjects’ motivations for participation. Yet a thorough empirical examination of these issues in a participant population has been lacking. The present study therefore aimed to empirically investigate ethical concerns regarding informed consent and voluntariness in Parkinson’s disease patients undergoing deep brain (...) stimulator (DBS) placement who participated in an intraoperative neuroscience study.MethodsTwo semi-structured 30-minute interviews were conducted preoperatively and postoperatively via telephone. Interviews assessed participants’ motivations for participation in the parent intraoperative study, recall of information presented during the informed consent process, and participants’ postoperative reflections on the research study.ResultsTwenty-two participants (mean age = 60.9) completed preoperative interviews at a mean of 7.8 days following informed consent and a mean of 5.2 days prior to DBS surgery. Twenty participants completed postoperative interviews at a mean of 5 weeks following surgery. All participants cited altruism or advancing medical science as “very important” or “important” in their decision to participate in the study. Only 22.7% (n = 5) correctly recalled one of the two risks of the study. Correct recall of other aspects of the informed consent was poor (36.4% for study purpose; 50.0% for study protocol; 36.4% for study benefits). All correctly understood that the study would not confer a direct therapeutic benefit to them.ConclusionEven though research coordinators were properly trained and the informed consent was administered according to protocol, participants demonstrated poor retention of study information. While intraoperative studies that aim to advance neuroscience knowledge represent a unique opportunity to gain fundamental scientific knowledge, improved standards for the informed consent process can help facilitate their ethical implementation. (shrink)

Some critics nowadays are calling for the development of a transracial or “color-blind” society. They claim that the current focus on multiculturalism is causing undue social conflict. In general, these critics want to promote an absolute culture that provides a universal standard for assimilation. The problem with this approach to maintaining social order is that diversity is undermined, along with key elements of democracy. What is needed, instead, is an image of society that does not require unquestioned assimilation in order (...) to insure solidarity. In this way, the democratization of culture can be promoted. (shrink)

Naturalism is a pan-Asian view of the world and way of life. Unlike the atheistic naturalism in the West, Asian naturalism, which rests upon an organic view of the world as represented by key concepts such as the Dao, Heaven, and Emptiness, is basically spiritual. Going beyond the traditional Western antithesis of naturalism and supernaturalism, matter and spirit, it can even be called “supernatural naturalism.” As a living example of Asian naturalism, this article examines the ethics of threefold reverence: reverence (...) toward Heaven, all human beings, and all beings, animate and inanimate. Threefold reverence constitutes the cardinal teaching of Cheondogyo or the Eastern Learning, a native Korean religio-philosophical movement which arose in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The ecological-environmental crisis of our age cannot be overcome without a fundamental change in our attitude toward nature. Recovering humanity’s primal sense of reverence toward all beings in nature is a vital part of this change. (shrink)

Using a unique data set of causal usage drawn from research articles published between 2006–2008 in the American Journal of Sociology and American Sociological Review, this article offers an empirical assessment of causality in American sociology. Testing various aspects of what we consider the conventional wisdom on causality in the discipline, we find that “variablistic” or “covering law” models are not the dominant way of making causal claims, research methods affect but do not determine causal usage, and the use of (...) explicit causal language and the concept of “mechanisms” to make causal claims is limited. Instead, we find that metaphors and metaphoric reasoning are fundamental for causal claims-making in the discipline. On this basis, we define three dominant causal types used in sociology today, which we label the Probabilistic, Initiating and Conditioning types. We theorize this outcome as demonstrating the primary role that cognitive models play in providing inference-rich metaphors that allow sociologists to map causal relationships on to empirical processes. (shrink)

This article discusses three policy ideas that address the limitations of the traditional welfare state: universal basic income (UBI), universal basic services (UBS), and the social economy. As a lens from which to evaluate these policy alternatives, we develop a concept of active citizenship as an interactive and recursive process between people’s equal political influence and the institutional conditions in which they are placed. While the social policy discourse on active citizenship has centred on the debate between increasing individual responsibilities (...) or enhancing people’s capabilities, our conception recentres the political dimension of active citizenship as people’s capacity, not only to exercise individual self-determination, but also collective self-determination over shared conditions. We conclude that, in addition to the conditions for security and autonomy, opportunities for organised social cooperation are necessary to achieve a virtuous cycle between people’s political influence and the institutions that support it. (shrink)

This paper challenges a popular thesis which we call the explanatory primitiveness thesis (for short, EPT), namely, the thesis that identities leave no logical space wherein explanatory questions may be formulated and explanatory gaps may reside. We argue that while EPT is, in all likelihood, flawless when the relevant domain consists of identity statements flanked by proper names of individuals it is a mistake to hold that the thesis generalizes to cover all identity statements. In particular, we argue that EPT (...) fails decisively with respect to an important class of identity statements, viz., those in which natural kinds are identified across different theoretical levels (i.e., the so-called inter-level type-identities). If correct, our result shows EPT to be much more limited in scope than is usually supposed. Moreover, and perhaps more significantly, it shows that there is no inherent absurdity in the idea that certain type-identity statements, in particular psychophysical type-identity statements, suffer from an explanatory gap. (shrink)

This article explores how leadership is done in a ‘leaderless’ team. Drawing on a corpus of more than 120 hours of audio-recorded meetings of different interdisciplinary research groups and using a discourse analytic framework and tools, we examine how leadership is enacted in a team that does not have an assigned leader or chair. Our specific focus is the discursive processes through which team members conjointly solve disagreements and negotiate consensus – which are two activities associated with leadership. More specifically, (...) we analyse how meaning is collaboratively constructed and how team members arrive at a solution in those instances where there is some kind of disagreement, or even conflict, among team members. This discourse analytic study thus contributes to leadership research in two ways: i) by exploring some of the discursive processes through which leadership is actually performed in a ‘leaderless team’; and ii) by looking at a largely under-researched leadership constellation, namely distributed leadership. We thereby illustrate some of the benefits that discourse analytical approaches offer to an understanding of the specific processes that are involved in the complexities of leadership performance. (shrink)

Background Recently, palliative care is increasingly important, with an emphasis on the process of dying with dignity. However, nurses who care for such patients experience the associated ethical dilemmas. Objective To explore the meaning of nurses’ experiences in dealing with ethical dilemmas in relation to palliative sedation. Research design A qualitative research design was employed with a thematic analysis approach. Participants and research context Using purposive sampling, 15 nurses, working at palliative care units for at least 1 year, were recruited (...) as participants. Data were collected using unstructured in-depth interviews, and data collection and analysis was performed simultaneously. Ethical considerations Ethical approval was obtained from the authors’ institutional review board. All participants provided informed consent. For the face-to-face interview, the South Korean standard COVID-19 quarantine guidelines, such as mandatory masking and social distancing, were followed. Results Dilemmas raised by patients, were related to concerns about appropriate drug dose; dilemmas raised by nurses, were related to passive care, sense of guilt for failure to predict death, and colleague’s disrespectful attitudes toward patients; dilemmas from patients’ families were related to demands for palliative sedation and reversal of those demands. Care actions to deal with ethical dilemmas comprised evidence-based care, person-centered thinking, reflecting on the death situation, compassion, providing explanation and help to family members. Conclusion Nurses’ ethical dilemmas were pre-dominantly influenced by themselves, rather than by the patients or their families, especially if they felt they could not do their best for patients. The core concept of care actions to deal with the ethical dilemmas, was person-centered care and compassion. Then, how patients and their family members perceive person-centered care and compassion, should be further explored to improve palliative sedation. (shrink)

Precision targeting of specific white matter bundles that traverse the subcallosal cingulate has been linked to efficacy of deep brain stimulation for treatment resistant depression. Methods to confirm optimal target engagement in this heterogenous region are now critical to establish an objective treatment protocol. As yet unexamined are the time-frequency features of the SCC evoked potential, including spectral power and phase-clustering. We examined these spectral features—evoked power and phase clustering—in a sample of TRD patients with implanted SCC stimulators. Electroencephalogram was (...) recorded during wakeful rest. Location of electrical stimulation in the SCC target region was the experimental manipulation. EEG was analyzed at the surface level with an average reference for a cluster of frontal sensors and at a time window identified by prior study. Morlet wavelets generated indices of evoked power and inter-trial phase clustering. Enhanced phase clustering at theta frequency was observed in every subject and was significantly correlated with SCC-EP magnitude, but only during left SCC stimulation. Stimulation to dorsal SCC evinced stronger phase clustering than ventral SCC. There was a weak correlation between phase clustering and white matter density. An increase in evoked delta power was also coincident with SCC-EP, but was less consistent across participants. DBS evoked time-frequency features index mm-scale changes to the location of stimulation in the SCC target region and correlate with structural characteristics implicated in treatment optimization. Results also imply a shared generative mechanism between evoked potentials evinced by electrical stimulation and evoked potentials evinced by auditory/visual stimuli and behavioral tasks. Understanding how current injection impacts downstream cortical activity is essential to building new technologies that adapt treatment parameters to individual differences in neurophysiology. (shrink)

Currently, there is a resurgence of interests in phenomenology in education. This article sheds light on the importance of hermeneutical phenomenology in teaching and learning based on the lived experience of a Sioux Indian adolescent boy, elicited from an ethnographic case study conducted at an alternative high school in the US. Employing narrative inquiry, this article seeks phenomenological ways of understanding students' lived experiences and explores the meaning of the pedagogical practice of hermeneutical phenomenology in education. I delve into how (...) hermeneutical understanding of the phenomena of students' lived experience can catapult both students and teachers into the personal growth and development in a reciprocal way. It is my hope that such an understanding will facilitate an educational aim that focuses on the ontology of being and becoming while students' existence is brought to the center of teaching and learning. (shrink)