Illness creates a range of negative emotions in patients including anxiety, fear, powerlessness, and vulnerability. There is much debate on the ‘therapeutic’ or ‘helping’ nurse–patient relationship. However, despite the current agenda regarding patient-centred care, the literature concerning the development of good interpersonal responses and the view that a satisfactory nursing ethics should focus on persons and character traits rather than actions, nursing ethics is dominated by the traditional obligation, act-centred theories such as consequentialism and deontology. I critically examine these theories (...) and the role of duty-based notions in both general ethics and nursing practice. Because of well-established flaws, I conclude that obligation-based moral theories are incomplete and inadequate for nursing practice. I examine the work of Hursthouse on virtue ethics’ action guidance and the v-rules. I argue that the moral virtues and a strong (action-guiding) version of virtue ethics provide a plausible and viable alternative for nursing practice. I develop an account of a virtue-based helping relationship and a virtue-based approach to nursing. The latter is characterized by three features: (1) exercising the moral virtues such as compassion; (2) using judgement; and (3) using moral wisdom, understood to include at least moral perception, moral sensitivity, and moral imagination. Merits and problems of the virtue-based approach are examined. I relate the work of MacIntyre to nursing and I conceive nursing as a practice: nurses who exercise the virtues and seek the internal goods help to sustain the practice of nursing and thus prevent the marginalization of the virtues. The strong practice-based version of virtue ethics proposed is context-dependent, particularist, and relational. Several areas for future philosophical inquiry and empirical nursing research are suggested to develop this account yet further. (shrink)

An organizing framework is set out for the diverse literature on business ethics in relation to strategic management. It consists of sets of bi-polar components, spanning themes and topical themes, with a derived typology of contributions. Then, in the spirit of classical pragmatism, the organizing framework is re-cast as an integrative conceptual model of the strategy–ethics relationship. The approach recognizes that both pragmatism and dialectics can underpin progress towards integration, encompassing both normative and empirical aspects.

Deep ecology has been criticized for being anti-anthropocentric, ignorant of feminism, and utopian. Most of the arguments against deep ecology, however, are based on uncritical use of these terms. Deep ecology places anthropocentrism, feminism, and utopianism into a proper perspective--deep anthropology-which pennits understanding of the human relationships with other beings in nature, in a total-fieldmodel, without accepting unhealthy extremes. The principles of deep ecology are concerned with creating good places, rather than the “no places” of modem industrial cultures.

The rational-agent frame of reference for the analysis of corporate strategic decision-making may be expanded to a moral-agent perspective where decision content is seen as comprising both commercial and ethical factors. Relevant factors may then be classified on the basis of the ethical decision principles to which they relate: rational-egoism, self-referential altruism or deontology. This approach is then applied to the problem of decision support for strategic divestment by MNCs.

Simon Schaffer has published a constructivist analysis of the acceptance of Newton’s theory of color that focuses on Newton’s experiments, the continual controversies over them, and his power and authority. In this article, I show that Schaffer’s account does not agree with the historical evidence. Newton’s theory was accepted much sooner than Schaffer holds, when and in places where Newton had little power; many successfully repeated the experiments and few contested them; and theory mattered more than experiment in acceptance. I (...) also present an alternative account of the acceptance of Newton’s theory that shows that, despite criticism when it was first published in 1672, the theory, or parts of it, gradually came to be accepted by mathematical scientists—including Huygens and Leibniz—and Scottish natural philosophers by the time of the publication of the Opticks in 1704. On the Continent, it was coming to be accepted within a decade or so after its publication, that is, before 1716, when Newton replied to a challenge, purportedly by Leibniz, that Schaffer sees as the crucial conflict that at last gave Newton’s experiments their authority. (shrink)

Reacting against the dominance of obligation-based moral theories in both general and nursing ethics, the author proposes a 'strong' (action-guiding) account of a virtue-based approach to moral decision-making within contemporary nursing practice. Merits and criticisms of obligation and virtue-based approaches to morality are identified and examined. One of the author's central premises is that the notions of moral goodness and badness carry more moral weight than the traditionally important notions of moral rightness and wrongness. Therefore, the author argues that in (...) order to deliver morally good care, it is vital to consider the kind of nurse one is and this means examining one's moral character. This book will be rewarding reading for a wide range of readers including clinical nurses, nurse educators and nurse ethicists; indeed, anyone interested in morality and ethics and the work of nurses will find this book stimulating reading. (shrink)

From a national U.S. sample of senior academic biochemists, ninety-four indicated that they personally knew of an incident of scientific wrongdoing. Among these individuals, less formal actions against an offending individual were endorsed when either actions were believed to have the potential to publicly embarrass the offending individual, or the actions might adversely affect the professional career of the whistleblower. These relationships remain significant after controlling for professional status, career age, and current level of formal departmental administrative responsibility. Study limitations (...) and implications are discussed. (shrink)

This is the fifth book by Professor Alan E Singer on business ethics and strategy. This book emphasizes aspects that are thought to be most likely to rise to prominence in the years to come. These include ecological-understandings at the conceptual level and the participation at the practical level in a distributed system of global governance system that strives to uphold all of the human goods, including the positive and negative freedoms, but in a reasonably balanced way. In a (...) section on justice and politics, several issues related to social and environmental justice are duly viewed from both a theoretical perspective and from a corporate (strategic) perspective. A further section focuses upon the governance and ethical implications of what James Martin (founder of the 21st Century School at the University of Oxford) has called the technologies of sorcery: synthetic biology, nanotechnology, robotics and artificial general intelligence. The final section of the book applies a stable organizing framework to the teaching of ethics in business and politics. This book will be of interest to students and practitioners across a wide spectrum of academic subjects and professions. (shrink)

DNA joining enzymes play an essential role in the maintenance of genomic integrity and stability. Three mammalian genes encoding DNA ligases, LIG1, LIG3 and LIG4, have been identified. Since DNA ligase II appears to be derived from DNA ligase III by a proteolytic mechanism, the three LIG genes can account for the four biochemically distinct DNA ligase activities, DNA ligases I, II, III and IV, that have been purified from mammalian cell extracts. It is probable that the specific cellular roles (...) of these enzymes are determined by the proteins with which they interact. The specific involvement of DNA ligase I in DNA replication is mediated by the non‐catalytic amino‐terminal domain of this enzyme. Furthermore, DNA ligase I participates in DNA base excision repair as a component of a multiprotein complex. Two forms of DNA ligase III are produced by an alternative splicing mechanism. The ubiqitously expressed DNA ligase III‐α forms a complex with the DNA single‐strand break repair protein XRCC1. In contrast, DNA ligase III‐β, which does not interact with XRCC1, is only expressed in male meiotic germ cells, suggesting a role for this isoform in meiotic recombination. At present, there is very little information about the cellular functions of DNA ligase IV. (shrink)

Many leading management scientists have advocated ethicalism: the incorporation of social and ethical concerns into traditional "rational" OR-MS techniques and management decisions. In fact, elementary forms of decision analysis can readily be augmented, using ethical theory, in ways that sweep in ethical issues. In addition, alternative conceptual models of Decision-Analysis, Game-Theory and Optimality are now available, all of which have brought OR-MS and Business-Ethics into a closer alignment.

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Mill as an Act‐Utilitarian Mill as a Rule‐Utilitarian Moral Rules, Justice, and Supererogation Mill's Theory of the Right and “The Art of Life”.

Can events that take place after an individual’s death affect that person’s weIl-being? Aristotle apparently thought that they could, but Mark Overvold disagrees. Like other contemporary moral theorists, Overvold analyzes the notion of a person’s utility or welfare in terms of the fulfillment of the individual’s desires, but he adds the important qualification that the desites must be for states-of-affairs in which the agent is an essential constituent. The clear implication of such a view is that our welfare cannot be (...) affected by the post-mortem satisfaction of any of the interests which we had while alive.I shall defend Overvold against his critics who insist that at least some posthumous satisfactions can contribute to a person’s welfare. I shall also argue against Brad Hooker’s proposal that we revise Overvold’s theory in order to account for such cases. (shrink)

Currently, entrepreneurs and corporations overwhelmingly do not view the alleviation of global poverty as a strategic priority. Yet business activity can have a negative as well as a positive effect on each distinctive form of poverty. In order to reduce poverty, entrepreneurs have to find ways of limiting the negative aspects. This might be achieved by deliberately augmenting strategies so that they can achieve a synthesis, in partnership with governments and NGO’s.

Excerpt from Cultures and Institutions of Natural History: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science This volume consists mainly of papers delivered at two meetings cosponsored by the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale in Milan and the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The first, on the Culture of Natural History, was held in Milan, November l4-l 6, I996. The second, on Institutions of Natural History, was held in San Francisco, October 5 - 7, 1998. They followed two (...) earlier conferences on Biology as History (pinna and Ghiselin I996; Ghiselin and Pinna I996) likewise held in Milan and San Francisco. We intend to continue the series of meetings and have publications based on them in commemoration of the Academy's sesquicentennial in 2003. The emphasis here is mainly upon natural history museums and the kind of science that goes on in them. Although the essays were originally written to stand by themselves, when arranged in chronological order they suggest a common theme. To paraphrase Darwin, the culture and institutions of natural history have been, and are being, evolved. They have adapted to local circumstances, diversified, and sometimes even progressed. We may hope that the future holds more than just retrogression and extinction in store. Read as case studies the essays provide valuable insights into not just how, but why, the institutions have come into being and subsequently been transformed. Previous generations had quite different ideas than we do about how a collection of naturalia is supposed to function and how it should be organized. And there were con icting goals and serious disputes about policy, much as there are today. Often, though not always, the institutions turn out to be very different from what had been envisioned by their founders. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

Critics have charged that John Stuart Mill''s discussion as of paternalism in On Liberty is internally inconsistent, noting, for example, the numerous instances in which Mill explicitly endorses examples of paternalistic coercion. Similarly, commentators have noted an apparent contradiction between Mill''s political liberalism – according to which the state should be neutral among competing conceptions of the good – and Mill''s condemnation of non-autonomous ways of life, such as that of a servile wife. More generally, critics have argued that while (...) Mill professes an allegiance to utilitarianism, he actually abandons it in favor of a view that values personal autonomy as the greatest intrinsic good. This paper presents an interpretation of Mill that provides a viable and consistent treatment of paternalism, thereby refuting each of the aforementioned critiques. Mill''s views, it argues, are consistently utilitarian. Moreover, the interpretation accounts for all of Mill''s departures from his otherwise blanket prohibition of paternalistic legislation. In particular, it explains his most notorious example, the condemnation of voluntary contracts for slavery. The interpretation emphasizes Mill''s conceptual linkage between autonomy and utility, noting his implicit use of at least three different senses of the notion of autonomy. (shrink)

The most prevalent approach to understanding recreation experiences in resource management has been a motivational research program that views satisfaction as an appropriate indicator of experience quality. This research explores a different approach to studying the quality of recreation experiences. Rather than viewing recreation experiences as a linear sequence of events beginning with expectations and ending with outcomes that are then cognitively compared to determine experience quality, this alternative approach views recreation as an emergent experience motivated by the not very (...) well-defined goal of acquiring stories that ultimately enrich one's life. Further, it assumes that the nature of human experience is best characterized by situated freedom in which the environment sets boundaries that constrain the nature of the experience, but that within those boundaries recreationists are free to experience the world in unique and variable ways. Therefore this alternative approach seeks a more context specific description of the setting/experience relationship that is intended to complement more general management frameworks (e.g., the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum) developed in conjunction with the motivational research program. (shrink)

The behavioural decision-theoretic concepts of mental accounting, framing and transaction utility have now been employed in marketing models and techniques. To date, however, there has not been any discussion of the ethical issues surrounding these significant developments. In this paper, an ethical evaluation is structured around three themes: (i) utilitarian justification (ii) the strategic exploitation of cognitive habits, and (iii) the claim of scientific status for the techniques. Some recommendations are made for ethical practices.

Newton se rehusó a usar el término “filosofía experimental”, ampliamente usado en la Inglaterra de la Restauración al comienzo de su carrera, hasta 1712 cuando añadió un pasaje al Escolio General de los Principia que exponía brevemente su metodología anti-hipotética. No obstante, los borradores para la Cuestión 23 de la segunda edición de la Óptica (1706) (que se convertiría en la Cuestión 31 en la tercera edición) muestran que con anterioridad había intentado introducir el término para explicar su metodología. Newton (...) introdujo el término por propósitos polémicos para defender su teoría de la gravedad contra las críticas de los cartesianos y los leibnizianos pero, especialmente en los Principia, contra Leibniz mismo. La "filosofía experimental" tiene poco que ver directamente con el experimento, sino que más bien designa de manera más amplia la ciencia empírica. Los manuscritos de Newton proporcionan la oportunidad de comprender el uso que hace de la “filosofía experimental” y la formulación de su metodología, especialmente de términos claves como “deducir”, “inducción” y “fenómenos”, a comienzos del siglo XVIII. (shrink)

The 300th anniversary of the publication of Isaac Newton’s Opticks in 1704 provides an occasion to review the history of its composition and publication. As a preliminary to presenting that history, Newton’s attitude to publication and response to criticism are examined. Newton’s clashes with Hooke and his presumed role as the cause of the delay in the publication of the Opticks until after his death are also scrutinized. Rather than simply presenting Newton and Hooke as quarrelsome, which they indeed were, (...) they are presented as rivals to be England’s leading optical authority. Although Newton announced his intention to publish a book very much like the Opticks in the winter of 1675–76, he did not begin to write it until 1687. It was composed in various stages, including new experimental investigations, by 1692, except for the part on diffraction. A planned, but unfulfilled, revision of the part on diffraction was responsible for delaying its publication for a number of years. (shrink)