Advocacy has become an accepted and integral attribute of nursing practice. Despite this adoption of advocacy, confusion remains about the precise nature of the concept and how it should be enacted in practice. The aim of this study was to investigate general nurses’ perceptions of being patient advocates in Ireland and how they enact this role. These perceptions were compared with existing theory and research on advocacy in order to contribute to the knowledge base on the subject. An inductive, qualitative (...) approach was used for this study. Three focus group interviews with a total of 20 practising nurses were conducted with a sample representing different grades in a general hospital setting. Data analysis was carried out using elements of Strauss and Corbins’ approach to concept development. The findings indicate that the principal role of the nurse advocate is to act as an intermediary between the patient and the health care environment. The results highlight that advocacy did, however, result in nurses becoming involved in conflict and confrontation with others and that it could be detrimental to nurses both professionally and personally. It was also clear that when enacting advocacy, nurses distinguished between ‘clinical advocacy’ and organizational advocacy. (shrink)

Featuring a new code of ethics for journalists and essays by 14 journalism thought leaders and practitioners, The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century, by Kelly McBride and Tom Rosenstiel, examines the new pressures brought to bear on journalism by technology and changing audience habits. It offers a new framework for making critical moral choices, as well as case studies that reinforce the concepts and principles rising to prominence in 21st century communication. The book addresses the (...) unique problems facing journalism today, including how we arrive at truth in an era of abundant and unverified information; the evolution of new business models and partnerships; the presence of journalists on independent social media platforms; the role of diversity; the meaning of stories; the value of images; and the role of community in the production of journalism. (shrink)

Featuring a new code of ethics for journalists and essays by 14 journalism thought leaders and practitioners, The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century, by Kelly McBride and Tom Rosenstiel, examines the new pressures brought to bear on journalism by technology and changing audience habits. It offers a new framework for making critical moral choices, as well as case studies that reinforce the concepts and principles rising to prominence in 21st century communication. The book addresses the (...) unique problems facing journalism today, including how we arrive at truth in an era of abundant and unverified information; the evolution of new business models and partnerships; the presence of journalists on independent social media platforms; the role of diversity; the meaning of stories; the value of images; and the role of community in the production of journalism. (shrink)

Thousands of youth suffering from acquired brain injury or other early-life neurological disease live, mature, and learn with only limited communication and interaction with their world. Such cognitively capable children are ideal candidates for brain-computer interfaces. While BCI systems are rapidly evolving, a fundamental gap exists between technological innovators and the patients and families who stand to benefit. Forays into translating BCI systems to children in recent years have revealed that kids can learn to operate simple BCI with proficiency akin (...) to adults. BCI could bring significant boons to the lives of many children with severe physical impairment, supporting their complex physical and social needs. However, children have been neglected in BCI research and a collaborative BCI research community is required to unite and push pediatric BCI development forward. To this end, the pediatric BCI Canada collaborative network was formed, under a unified goal to cooperatively drive forward pediatric BCI innovation and impact. This article reflects on the topics and discussions raised in the foundational BCI-CAN meeting held in Toronto, ON, Canada in November 2019 and suggests the next steps required to see BCI impact the lives of children with severe neurological disease and their families. (shrink)

Tom Beauchamp and James Childress have always maintained that their four principles approach (otherwise known as principlism) is a globally applicable framework for biomedical ethics. This claim is grounded in their belief that the principles of respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice form part of a 'common morality', or collection of very general norms to which everyone who is committed to morality subscribes. The difficulty, however, has always been how to demonstrate, at least in the absence of a full-blooded (...) analysis of the concept of morality, whether the four principles are foundational, and so globally applicable, in this way. In the recently published sixth edition of Principles of Biomedical Ethics, an imaginative and non-question-begging empirical method of determining the common morality's norms is suggested. In this paper, I outline this method, before arguing that it is difficult to see how it might be thought to achieve its purpose. (shrink)

The phrase "applied ethics" has lost much of the charm it initially had for philosophers. Alasdair MacIntyre, Tom Beauchamp, and others pointed out a decade ago that it is a mistake to think of ethics as a body of theory that can be carted in, when necessary, to sort out some particularly messy real-world moral dilemma.(1) According to these critics' line of thought there may be good reasons to distinguish pure from applied mathematics, for example, but ethics is not (and (...) should not pretend to be) the same sort of inquiry as mathematics. Every time we advertise a course in applied ethics, we implicitly suggest a separation between theory and practice. This separation rings especially false for those of us whose philosophical orientation derives from the work of the classical American pragmatists. In this paper I want to discuss a conception of applied ethics -- call it "applying ethics" -- that is rooted in pragmatic philosophy, and to suggest a kind of practice which I think could be quite valuable both for society at large and for the society of philosophers concerned with ethics. (shrink)

Tom Beauchamp and James Childress are confident that their four principles—respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice—are globally applicable to the sorts of issues that arise in biomedical ethics, in part because those principles form part of the common morality (a set of general norms to which all morally committed persons subscribe). Inevitably, however, the question arises of how the principlist ought to respond when presented with apparent counter-examples to this thesis. I examine a number of strategies the principlist might (...) adopt in order to retain common morality theory in the face of supposed counter-examples. I conclude that only a strategy that takes a non-realist view of the common morality’s principles is viable. Unfortunately, such a view is likely not to appeal to the principlist. (shrink)

The current study examined how ingroup and outgroup Theory of Mind predicts children’s and adolescents’ reasoning for their acceptability judgments of intergroup bullying of Syrian refugee peers and group support of intergroup bullying. Participants included 587 Turkish middle and high school students. Participants read a bias-based bullying story with a Syrian refugee peer targeted by an ingroup Turkish peer. Then, participants rated the acceptability of bullying and group support of bullying and were presented with a reasoning question after each acceptability (...) question. Reasoning codes included Fairness, Refugee Status/War, Prejudice and Discrimination, Harm, Prescriptive Norms, Group Functioning, and Relationship with the Bully. Participants’ ingroup and outgroup ToM abilities were evaluated as predictors of reasoning. Results documented that middle school students were more likely to attribute mental states to their ingroup members compared to outgroup members while high school students’ ToM performance did not differ across contexts. Further, the more unacceptable participants judged bullying to be, the more they reasoned about the bullying by referencing fairness, refugee status, discrimination, and harm. Results also documented that ingroup and outgroup ToM were positively related to attribution to fairness and participants’ usage of multiple reasoning judgments while only outgroup ToM was a significant predictor of reasoning around refugee status/war, discrimination, and prejudice. The findings provide implications for intervention programs that tackle intergroup bullying by examining bystanders’ social cognitive skills in a specific context. (shrink)

I review Daniel Kelly's 2011 book on disgust. I am convinced by his arguments that disgust should not be appealed to in moral judgement. I am bit more sceptical about the model of disgust itself.

Writing in a special issue of this journal dedicated to the theme “Irish Utopias” almost a decade ago, Tom Moylan framed in explicitly spatial terms the historical complexity of the utopian problematic in the Irish context and posited the existence of “a ‘utopian’ strain in Irish culture”: “[The] proclivity to imagine … hopeful other places, to think possibility by way of places that are, simultaneously, specifically located, bounded, and yet open and potentially transformative takes many forms in the Irish cultural (...) heritage, morphing through time, often contradictory or conflictual, yet often incorporating an oblique, prismatic entry to a marvellous space that enables the writer, singer, or artist (or traveller... (shrink)

Tom Kelly argues that instrumentalist aeeounts of epistemie rationality fail beeause what a person has reason to believe does not depend upon the eontent of his or her goals. However, his argument fails to distinguish questions about what the evidence supports from questions about what a person ought to believe. Once these are distinguished, the instrumentalist ean avoid Kelly’s objeetions. The paperconcludes by sketehing what I take to be the most defensible version of the instrumentalist view.

Tom Kelly argues that instrumentalist accounts of epistemic rationality fail because what a person has reason to believe does not depend upon the content of his or her goals. However, his argument fails to distinguish questions about what the evidence supports from questions about what a person ought to believe. Once these are distinguished, the instrumentalist can avoid Kelly’s objections. The paper concludes by sketching what I take to be the most defensible version of the instrumentalist view.

There is strong disagreement about whether indicative conditionals have truth values. In this paper, I present a new argument for the conclusion that indicative conditionals have truth values based on the claim that some true statements entail indicative conditionals. I then address four arguments that conclude that indicative conditionals lack truth values, showing them to be inadequate. Finally, I present further benefits to having a worldly view of conditionals, which supports the assignment of truth values to indicative conditionals. I conclude (...) that certain types of account of indicative conditionals, which have been ignored in the literature partly on the basis of assigning truth values to indicative conditionals, deserve consideration. (shrink)

Argument that full grounds modally entail what they ground.

Characterization of a form of explanation involving grounding on the model of mechanistic causal explanation.

Discussion of the challenge that acquaintance with the nature of experience poses to physicalism.

Discussion of partial grounds that aren't parts of full grounds; definition of full grounding in terms of partial grounding.

The moral/conventional task has been widely used to study the emergence of moral understanding in children and to explore the deficits in moral understanding in clinical populations. Previous studies have indicated that moral transgressions, particularly those in which a victim is harmed, evoke a signature pattern of responses in the moral/conventional task: they are judged to be serious, generalizable and not authority dependent. Moreover, this signature pattern is held to be pan‐cultural and to emerge early in development. However, almost all (...) the evidence for these claims comes from studies using harmful transgressions of the sort that primary school children might commit in the schoolyard. In a study conducted on the Internet, we used a much wider range of harm transgressions, and found that they do not evoke the signature pattern of responses found in studies using only schoolyard transgressions. Paralleling other recent work, our study provides preliminary grounds for skepticism regarding many conclusions drawn from earlier research using the moral/conventional task. (shrink)

Discussion of a metaphysical sense of 'inheritance' and cognate notions relevant to fundamentality.

Amendment of the Witmer, Butchard, and Trogdon (2005) account of intrinsic properties with the aim of neutrality between competing theories of what is fundamental.

Argument that priority monism is best understood as being a contingent thesis.

Accounts of the value of patient choice in contemporary medical ethics typically focus on the act of choosing. Being the one to choose, it is argued, can be valuable either because it enables one to bring about desired outcomes, or because it is a way of enacting one’s autonomy. This paper argues that all such accounts miss something important. In some circumstances, it is having the opportunity to choose, not the act of choosing, that is valuable. That is because in (...) many situations whether one has, or is denied, that opportunity conveys how one is seen. In particular, it conveys whether or not one is seen as an equal and competent member of society. Adequately recognising this fact has implications for what healthcare professionals should do, ones that require a move away from the current focus on autonomy. The paper draws out these implications by focusing on patients who may struggle to be recognised as competent and equal members of society, and whose autonomy may thus itself sometimes be in question. (shrink)

Defense of a psychological account of what it is for an artwork to be complete.

The conceptual literature increasingly portrays corporate philanthropy (CP) as an old-fashioned and ineffective operationalization of a firm’s corporate social responsibility. In contrast, empirical research indicates that corporations of all sizes, and both in developed and emerging economies, actively practice CP. This disadvantaged status of the concept, and research, on CP, complicates the advancement of our knowledge about the topic. In a systematic review of the literature containing 122 journal articles on CP, we show that this business practice is loaded with (...) unique characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses, and both conceptual and practical challenges that require renewed attention. We identify six interrelated but distinctive research themes in the literature: concept, motives, determinants, practices, business outcomes, and social outcomes. Dividing the literature on CP into six research themes creates an insightful comprehensive map of this intellectual terrain. Moreover, we distinguish among the level at which CP is analyzed: individual, organizational, institutional, or any combination of these levels. The review reveals significant gaps in the knowledge on CP. Most importantly we find that the conceptualization is limited, the research is mostly quantitative, the effects of CP on society are severely under-researched, and there is a lack of multilevel analyses. A detailed future research agenda is offered, including specific suggestions for research designs and measurements. (shrink)

There are three primary aims of the book. The first, set out in the book's introduction, is to explain how two fairly recent developments in philosophy, externalism and modalism, provide the basis for a promising account of knowledge - an account that achieves anti-skeptical results and avoids Gettier-style counterexamples that are based on an agent having warranted beliefs that are merely luckily true. Epistemological externalism is the thesis that not all the factors that make a true belief a case of (...) knowledge need to be cognitively accessible or "internal" to the agent. Modalism, as the author construes it, is the use of possible worlds talk in clarifying what would or might be the case and what is necessarily so." "The second objective is to work through the different modalized epistemologies extant in the literature, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, with a view toward constructing a working theory. Finally, the author proposes the theory that knowledge is reliably formed, sensitive true belief, and defends the theory against objections."--Jacket. (shrink)

Using traditional meta-analytic techniques, we compile relevant research to enhance conceptual appreciation of ethical climate theory (ECT) as it has been studied in the descriptive and applied ethics literature. We explore the various treatments of ethical climate to understand how the theoretical framework has developed. Furthermore, we provide a comprehensive picture of how the theory has been extended by describing the individual-level work climate outcomes commonly studied in this theoretical context. Meta-analysis allows us to resolve inconsistencies in previous findings as (...) well as confirm the central tenets of the overall ethical climate framework. In addition, we consider the ethical climate relationships in the larger context of the␣theoretical framework, using path analysis to test the structural relationships. Overall, our results provide evidence of the relationships between ethical climate perceptions and individual-level work outcomes. Based on our analyses, we offer future research directions important for further development of ECT. (shrink)

Research has documented that individuals consider outcomes, intentions, and transgressor negligence when making morally relevant judgments (Nobes, Panagiotaki, & Engelhardt, 2017). However, less is known about whether individuals attend to both victim and transgressor negligence in their evaluations. The current study measured 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds (N = 70), 7‐ to 12‐year‐olds (N = 54), and adults' (N = 97, ages 18–25 years) moral judgments about scenarios in which an accidental transgression occurred involving property damage or physical harm. Participants were either (...) assigned to conditions where the victim or the transgressor was negligent. Results revealed attention to negligence among all participants across a range of different moral judgment measures (including acceptability judgments, punishment judgments, and attributions of blame), with age‐related increases in attention to negligence evident. Results provide novel evidence that children and adults consider not just outcomes and intentions, but also the role of negligence in both victims and transgressors, when making social decisions. (shrink)

Technological developments in the sphere of artificial intelligence (AI) inspire debates about the implications of autonomous weapon systems (AWS), which can select and engage targets without human intervention. While increasingly more systems which could qualify as AWS, such as loitering munitions, are reportedly used in armed conflicts, the global discussion about a system of governance and international legal norms on AWS at the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (UN CCW) has stalled. In this article we argue for the (...) necessity to adopt legal norms on the use and development of AWS. Without a framework for global regulation, state practices in using weapon systems with AI-based and autonomous features will continue to shape the norms of warfare and affect the level and quality of human control in the use of force. By examining the practices of China, Russia, and the United States in their pursuit of AWS-related technologies and participation at the UN CCW debate, we acknowledge that their differing approaches make it challenging for states parties to reach an agreement on regulation, especially in a forum based on consensus. Nevertheless, we argue that global governance on AWS is not impossible. It will depend on the extent to which an actor or group of actors would be ready to take the lead on an alternative process outside of the CCW, inspired by the direction of travel given by previous arms control and weapons ban initiatives. (shrink)

Our emotional faculties respond to successes, gains, advantages, threats, losses, obstacles, and other personally significant objects or situations, producing positive or negative evaluations of them according to their perceived import. Being an evaluative response is a feature that emotions share with paradigm attitudes (beliefs, intentions, judgments, etc.). However, recently philosophers have been reluctant to treat emotions as attitudes. The usual reasons given have to do with the automaticity of emotions and their occasional recalcitrance. In this article, I argue that these (...) things shouldn't disqualify emotions from counting as genuine attitudes. Our emotions do bear the kind of relationship with our reasons that is characteristic of our attitudes. (shrink)

This book sets out first to explain how two fairly recent developments in philosophy, externalism and modalism, provide the basis for a promising account of knowledge, and then works through the different modalized epistemologies extant in the literature, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, the author proposes the theory that knowledge is reliably formed, sensitive true belief, and defends the theory against objections.

The sensitivity principle is a compelling idea in epistemology and is typically characterized as a necessary condition for knowledge. This collection of thirteen new essays constitutes a state-of-the-art discussion of this important principle. Some of the essays build on and strengthen sensitivity-based accounts of knowledge and offer novel defences of those accounts. Others present original objections to sensitivity-based accounts and offer comprehensive analysis and discussion of sensitivity's virtues and problems. The resulting collection will stimulate new debate about the sensitivity principle (...) and will be of great interest and value to scholars and advanced students of epistemology. (shrink)

Knowledge closure is the claim that, if an agent S knows P, recognizes that P implies Q, and believes Q because it is implied by P, then S knows Q. Closure is a pivotal epistemological principle that is widely endorsed by contemporary epistemologists. Against Knowledge Closure is the first book-length treatment of the issue and the most sustained argument for closure failure to date. Unlike most prior arguments for closure failure, Marc Alspector-Kelly's critique of closure does not presuppose any (...) particular epistemological theory; his argument is, instead, intuitively compelling and applicable to a wide variety of epistemological views. His discussion ranges over much of the epistemological landscape, including skepticism, warrant, transmission and transmission failure, fallibilism, sensitivity, safety, evidentialism, reliabilism, contextualism, entitlement, circularity and bootstrapping, justification, and justification closure. As a result, the volume will be of interest to any epistemologist or student of epistemology and related subjects. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement that it would be both morally and legally wrong to treat a competent patient, or to carry out research with a competent participant, without the voluntary consent of that patient or research participant. Furthermore, in medical ethics it is generally taken that that consent must be informed. The most widely given reason for this has been that informed consent is needed to respect the patient’s or research participant’s autonomy. In this article I set out to challenge (...) this claim by considering in detail each of the three most prominent ways in which ‘autonomy’ has been conceptualized in the medical ethics literature. I will argue that whilst these accounts support the claim that consent is needed if the treatment of competent patients, or research on competent individuals, is to respect their autonomy, they do not support the claim that informed consent is needed for this purpose. (shrink)

Tumor suppressor genes represent a broad class of genes that normally function in the negative regulation of cell proliferation. Loss‐of‐function mutations in these genes lead to unrestrained cell proliferation and tumor formation. A fundamental understanding of how tumor suppressor genes regulate cell proliferation and differentiation should reveal important aspects of signalling pathways and cell cycle control. A recent report describing the Drosophila tumor suppressor gene warts has implications in the study of the human myotonic dystrophy gene(1). These genes encode members (...) of a cyclic AMP‐dependent protein kinase subfamily that includes other plant and animal orthologues. (shrink)

It is generally held that doctors and researchers have an obligation to obtain informed consent. Over time there has been a move in relation to this obligation from a requirement to disclose information to a requirement to ensure that that information is understood. Whilst this change has been resisted, in this article I argue that both sides on this matter are mistaken. When investigating what information is needed for consent to be informed we might be trying to determine what information (...) a person would need in order to consent at all, or we might be trying to determine what information a person needs in order to make an informed choice about whether or not to consent. I argue that the obligation to ensure understanding only applies to information generated by the first type of enquiry; but that much of the information generally thought necessary in order for consent to be informed is only required if our concern is with the second type of enquiry. For this reason it is neither the case that doctors and researchers should ensure all the information they provide is understood, nor is it the case that their only obligation is to disclose it. (shrink)

Discussion of atomistic and monistic theses about abstract reality.

Response to Skiles (2009) on Trogdon (2009) on intrinsic properties and fundamentality.

In this paper we aim to think systematically about, formulate, and begin addressing some of the challenges to applying theories of moral responsibility to behaviors shaped by a particular subset of unsettling psychological complexities: namely, implicit biases.

This article develops an unconventional perspective on the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill in at least four areas. First, it is shown that both authors conceived of utility as irreducibly multi-dimensional, and that Bentham in particular was very much aware of the ambiguity that multi-dimensionality imposes upon optimal choice under the greatest happiness principle. Secondly, I argue that any attribution of intrinsic worth to any form of human behaviour violates the first principles of Bentham's and Mill's utilitarianism, and that this (...) renders both authors immune to the claim by G. E. Moore that they committed a ‘naturalistic fallacy’. Thirdly, in light of these contentions, I find no flaw in Mill's ‘proof of utility’. Fourthly, I use the notion of intrapersonal utility weights to provide an interpretation of Mill's qualitative hedonism that is entirely consistent with his value monism. (shrink)

A comprehensive and systematic reconstruction of the philosophy of Charles S. Peirce, perhaps America's most far-ranging and original philosopher, which reveals the unity of his complex and influential body of thought. We are still in the early stages of understanding the thought of C. S. Peirce (1839-1914). Although much good work has been done in isolated areas, relatively little considers the Peircean system as a whole. Peirce made it his life's work to construct a scientifically sophisticated and logically rigorous philosophical (...) system, culminating in a realist epistemology and a metaphysical theory ("synechism") that postulates the connectedness of all things in a universal evolutionary process. In The Continuity of Peirce's Thought, Kelly Parker shows how the principle of continuity functions in phenomenology and semeiotics, the two most novel and important of Peirce's philosophical sciences, which mediate between mathematics and metaphysics. Parker argues that Peirce's concept of continuity is the central organizing theme of the entire Peircean philosophical corpus. He explains how Peirce's unique conception of the mathematical continuum shapes the broad sweep of his thought, extending from mathematics to metaphysics and in religion. He thus provides a convenient and useful overview of Peirce's philosophical system, situating it within the history of ideas and mapping interconnections among the diverse areas of Peirce's work. This challenging yet helpful book adopts an innovative approach to achieve the ambitious goal of more fully understanding the interrelationship of all the elements in the entire corpus of Peirce's writings. Given Peirce's importance in fields ranging from philosophy to mathematics to literary and cultural studies, this new book should appeal to all who seek a fuller, unified understanding of the career and overarching contributions of Peirce, one of the key figures in the American philosophical tradition. (shrink)

Julian Savulescu has given clear expression to a principle—that of “procreative beneficence”—which underlies the thought of many contemporary writers on bioethics. The principle of procreative beneficence holds that parents or single reproducers are at least prima facie obliged to select the child, out of a range of possible children they might have, who will be likely to lead the best life. My aim in this paper is to argue that prospective parents, just by dint of their being prospective parents, are (...) in fact not obliged to act on PPB. That is, there is something about their filling the role of prospective parents that exempts them from selecting the child with the best life. I urge that it is more realistic to view prospective parents as bound by a principle of acceptable outlook, which holds that they ought not to select children whose lives will contain an unacceptable amount of suffering. (shrink)

Epistemic luck has been the focus of much discussion recently. Perhaps the most general knowledge-precluding type is veritic luck, where a belief is true but might easily have been false. Veritic luck has two sources, and so eliminating it requires two distinct conditions for a theory of knowledge. I argue that, when one sets out those conditions properly, a solution to the generality problem for reliabilism emerges.