The concept of missed care refers to an irrefragable truth that required nursing care, which is left undone, occurs in the delivery of health care. As a technical concept, missed care offers nurses the opportunity to articulate a problematic experience. But what are we to make of missed care from an ethical perspective? Can nurses be held morally responsible for missed care? Ethically speaking, it is generally accepted that if a person has a moral obligation to do something, s/he needs (...) to have the capacity to do it. If a person does not have the capacity to fulfil a moral obligation, then s/he cannot be held responsible for failing to do so. This is captured by the “ought implies can” (OIC) principle. This paper brings the OIC principle to the forefront of the discussion on missed care. It is contended that nurses – qua moral agents – may be discharged from a moral obligation to carry out a required caring act because of some inability that is not of their making and therefore may not be morally responsible for missed care. However, the OIC principle may not be applied to all situations of missed care depending on their causes. In addition, following in the thought of Sapontzis (The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1991, XXIX, 383–393) it is contended that when an original obligation to deliver a required act of care cannot be fulfilled, other obligations may be generated as summed up in the “Principle of Making Amends” and the “Principle of Appropriate Feeling.” It is the view of this paper that these further principles could prevent the OIC principle from being used to simply excuse omissions of care from a normative standard and could support the view that nurses continue to have alternative obligations to make amends and to respond with appropriate feelings to missed care. (shrink)

This paper seeks to contribute to the discussion on national corporate social responsibility plans from the perspectives of the three logics as articulated in Caritas in Veritate, by using the Irish national CSR plan as an example. Good for Business, Good for the Community: Ireland’s National Plan on Corporate Social Responsibility 2014–2016 maintains that CSR activities can enable organisations to build relationships and trust with communities. One of the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis was the decrease in trust in (...) banking systems and in business more broadly. It is well recognised that relationships of trust are essential to the life of the market, the state and civil society. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate contends that corresponding to the life of the market, the state and civil society are three logics: the logic of exchange, the logic of public obligation and the logic of gift. This paper proposes that the normative framework of the three logics of Caritas in Veritate can be read into the Irish national CSR plan. This paper argues that the examples of CSR initiatives proffered by the plan could point organisations in the direction of the logic of gift and therefore enable the rebuilding of relationships of trust with citizens and communities. (shrink)

This article argues thatPanegyricus LatinusXII(9), a speech performed before Constantine in Trier in 313c.e.following his defeat of Maxentius the previous year, acted as a crucial localized act of communication to the emperor. Through a series of allusions and the careful presentation of his narrative, the orator made a case for the continued political and cultural importance of Trier within the newly expanded Constantinian empire.

Diagnostic self-testing devices are being developed for many illnesses, chronic diseases and infections. These will be used in hospitals, at point-of-care facilities and at home. Designed to allow earlier detection of diseases, self-testing diagnostic devices may improve disease prevention, slow the progression of disease and facilitate better treatment outcomes. These devices have the potential to benefit both the individual and society by enabling individuals to take a more proactive role in the maintenance of their health and by helping society improve (...) health and reduce health costs. However, the full implications of future home-based diagnostic technology for individuals and society remain unclear due to their novelty. We argue that the development of diagnostic tools, especially for home use, will heighten a number of ethical challenges. This paper will explore some of the ethical implications of home-based self-testing diagnostic devices for the autonomous and relational dimensions of the person. This will be facilitated by examining the impact of diagnostic devices for individual autonomy, for the delivery of accurate diagnosis and for the personal significance of the information for the user. The latter will be examined using Charles Taylor's view of personhood and his emphasis on human agency and interpretation. While the ethical issues are not necessarily new, the development of home-based self-testing diagnostic devices will make issues regarding autonomy, accuracy of information and personal significance more and more demanding. This will be the case particularly when an individual's autonomous choices come into conflict with the person's relational responsibilities. (shrink)

This essay examines the early career of the chemist Emil Erlenmeyer (1825–1909), focusing on his various endeavors in industrial consulting and entrepreneurship, and his eventual decisive turn, in 1862, to academic research and teaching. This case study offers insights into the developing relationship between theory-based academic research and artisanal and industrial practice in the German states during the 1850s and 1860s. Attention is paid to the relevance of this material to the contemporary historiography of “technoscience.”.

This article attempts a contextual study of the origin and early development of August Kekulé's theory of aromatic compounds. The terminus a quo is essentially August Hofmann's coining of the modern chemical denotation of ‘aromatic’ in 1855; the terminus ad quem is the first full codification of Kekulé's theory in the sixth fascicle of his Lehrbuch der organischen Chemie, published in the summer of 1866. Kekulé's theory is viewed in context with the earlier and concurrent experimental work of such chemists (...) as Hermann Kolbe, Friedrich Beilstein, Rudolph Fittig, and Hugo Müller. The reception of the theory is briefly examined. Attention is paid to the role of Kekulé's molecular models and of his celebrated dream anecdote of the snake that seizes its own tail. The episode is used as a case study for the continuity of scientific progress, and to illustrate the close reciprocal interactions of hypothesis and experiment in the evolution of a scientific theory. (shrink)

Social cognition refers to a discipline in which researchers seek to understand social phenomena in terms of models which emphasize the role of cognitive processes (e.g., attention, encoding, cognitive organization, storage, memory) in mediating social thought and action. Although social cognition is a relatively new field, it is important to note that social psychologists have long been concerned with many of the same issues that are central to cognitive science, such as how people store and retrieve information about their environment (...) in memory. Thus, it would be inaccurate to portray the emergence of social cognition as the first time that social psychologists have focused on the role of cognition in mediating social behavior. Nevertheless, it is true that in the mid‐to‐late 1970s, a branch of social psychology emerged which was unique in the extent to which it overlapped with the theoretical orientation of, and the methodological tools employed by, cognitive psychologists. It is this time period that most scholars peg as the era in which social cognition grew and matured as a discipline in its own right. (shrink)

In mammals, the Y chromosome induces testis formation and thus male sexual development; in the absence of a Y chromosome, gonads differentiate into ovaries and female development ensues. Molecular genetic studies have identified the Y‐located testis determining gene SRY as well as autosomal and X‐linked genes necessary for gonadal development. The phenotypes resulting from mutation of these genes, together with their patterns of expression, provide the basis for establishing a hierachy of genes and their interactions in the mammalian sex determination (...) pathway. (shrink)

In light of an historical obsession with human error, Krueger & Funder (K&F) suggest that social psychologists should emphasize the strengths of social perception. In our view, however, absolute levels of accuracy (or error) in any given experiment are less important than underlying processes. We discuss the use of the process-dissociation procedure for gaining insight into the mechanisms underlying accuracy and error.

The Pittsburgh protocol relies heavily on traditional moral distinctions, particularly the principle of double effect, to justify "managing" the dying process of a prospective organ donor in order to yield viable organs for transplantation. These traditional moral distinctions can be useful, particularly in casuistic or case-specific moral analysis, but their invocation here is unpersuasive, and potentially dangerous. The protocol relies on elaborate apologetics to avoid a candid confrontation with the moral challenge it poses—society's willingness to bring about the death of (...) one patient (in isolation and with potential discomfort) in order to benefit another patient. Not only will this protocol fail to solve the problem it purports to address, it threatens to undermine the delicate social accommodations by which we distinguish the living from the dead, permissible "allowings to die" from impermissible killings, and those from whom organs may be removed from those whose bodies must remain inviolate. (shrink)

In Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography, John Marincola downplays the importance of an historian's choice to use first-, rather than third-, person verbs to represent his actions as an historical protagonist within his narrative. Marincola's justification for this rests on the incongruous groupings that arise if one divides first-person narrators from third: among the former we find Velleius, Eutropius and Ammianus representing Latin historians of the Empire. However, as part of a wider study which examines Ammianus' nuanced use of (...) allusion to earlier Latin authors, Gavin Kelly has recently argued for a series of close intertextual relationships between Eutropius and Ammianus. I argue here that Ammianus' relationship with Eutropius also extends to their personal roles within their narratives, and that Ammianus' use of the first person singular makes a bold statement about his historiographical programme. (shrink)

A code of ethics for the practice of nursing seeks to capture, in a written document, the normative values, ethical principles and standards of good care to guide nurses – qua moral agents. A codification of the accepted collective values of nursing can play a constitutional and directional role for the profession. It can further stimulate discussions about nursing that reflect the dynamic essence of the profession. Consequently, there is merit to continually reflecting on a code’s function and role especially (...) when a new or revised code is introduced to the nursing profession and the wider public such as the European Nursing Council’s Code of Ethics and Conduct for European Nursing. This paper examines codes of ethics in general and the European Nursing Council Code in particular using the framework of Gaumnitz and Lere. Although the European Nursing Council Code has all the ingredients of a contemporary professional ethics code, our position is that future iterations or addenda to this Code should be aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and take a more radical step in becoming an exemplar of a nursing code that can be a catalyst for the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals. (shrink)

A textbook for the undergraduate who is meeting the Lebesgue integral for the first time, relating it to the calculus and exploring its properties before deducing the consequent notions of measurable functions and measure.

This article describes two experiments on awareness in recognition memory for novel faces. Two kinds of awareness, recollective experience and feelings of familiarity in the absence of recollective experience, were measured by "remember" and "know" responses. Experiment 1 showed that "remember" but not "know" responses were reduced by divided attention at study. Experiment 2 showed that massed versus spaced repetition of faces in the study list had the opposite effects on "remember" and "know" responses. Massed repetition increased "know" responses and (...) reduced "remember" responses. Spaced repetition increased "remember" responses and reduced "know" responses. The results of both experiments replicate previous findings from the verbal domain in the domain of face recognition, and hence they increase the ecological validity of this experiential approach to memory and awareness and the generality of its database. These findings are discussed from a rehearsal perspective on factors influencing the two states of awareness and in relation to the alternative "process dissociation" procedure. (shrink)

This essay describes the complexities, challenges, and pleasures of translating from German into English a charming fantasy about the world of molecules, published in 1882 by the chemist and historian Hermann Kopp (1817–1892).

A mathematical model based upon catastrophe theory is derived to describe the kinematics of the wing beat in Dipteran flight. The parameters of the model correspond to anatomical and physiological characteristics of the insect.

Interpretations of human nature driven by scientific analyses of the origin and development of the human species often assume metaphysical naturalism. This generates restrictive and distortive accounts of key facets of human life and ethics. It fails to make sense of human altruism, and it operates within a wider philosophical framework that lacks explanatory power. The accounts of theistic evolution that seek to redress this, however, too easily fail to take sufficient account of the unique contribution of interpretations from a (...) specifically Christian epistemic base. The latter involve a Christological and, hence, eschatological approach which is intrinsic to the interpretation of human nature in light of the purpose and intentionality of the Creator. Phenomenological approaches to the nature of humanity lack the categories to distinguish between human nature as the object of divine intentionality and its present dysfunctional and, ultimately, subhuman state. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDiagnostic self‐testing devices are being developed for many illnesses, chronic diseases and infections. These will be used in hospitals, at point‐of‐care facilities and at home. Designed to allow earlier detection of diseases, self‐testing diagnostic devices may improve disease prevention, slow the progression of disease and facilitate better treatment outcomes. These devices have the potential to benefit both the individual and society by enabling individuals to take a more proactive role in the maintenance of their health and by helping society improve (...) health and reduce health costs. However, the full implications of future home‐based diagnostic technology for individuals and society remain unclear due to their novelty.We argue that the development of diagnostic tools, especially for home use, will heighten a number of ethical challenges. This paper will explore some of the ethical implications of home‐based self‐testing diagnostic devices for the autonomous and relational dimensions of the person. This will be facilitated by examining the impact of diagnostic devices for individual autonomy, for the delivery of accurate diagnosis and for the personal significance of the information for the user. The latter will be examined using Charles Taylor's view of personhood and his emphasis on human agency and interpretation.While the ethical issues are not necessarily new, the development of home‐based self‐testing diagnostic devices will make issues regarding autonomy, accuracy of information and personal significance more and more demanding. This will be the case particularly when an individual's autonomous choices come into conflict with the person's relational responsibilities. (shrink)

The prioritisation of scarce resources has a particular urgency within the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic crisis. This paper sets out a hypothetical case of Patient X (who is a nurse) and Patient Y (who is a non‐health care worker). They are both in need of a ventilator due to COVID‐19 with the same clinical situation and expected outcomes. However, there is only one ventilator available. In addressing the question of who should get priority, the proposal is made that the (...) answer may lie in how the pandemic is metaphorically described using military terms. If nursing is understood to take place at the ‘frontline’ in the ‘battle’ against COVID‐19, a principle of military medical ethics—namely the principle of salvage—can offer guidance on how to prioritise access to a life‐saving resource in such a situation. This principle of salvage purports a moral direction to return wounded soldiers back to duty on the battlefield. Applying this principle to the hypothetical case, this paper proposes that Patient X (who is a nurse) should get priority of access to the ventilator so that he/she can return to the ‘frontline’ in the fight against COVID‐19. (shrink)

Acts of Christian forgiveness that run counter to natural inclinations and ethical intuitions raise questions about the nature of human identity and the basis of moral theology. An assessment of the biblical and theological warrant for Christian forgiveness challenges the ethical misappropriation of the language of covenant, torah and righteousness to that of contract, law and justice. The argument is made that forgiveness should be seen as normative—indeed, obligatory rather than supererogatory. A theological account is then provided of the conditions (...) under which our natural inclinations are transformed so as to facilitate an orientation of forgiveness. It is argued that the doctrines of the incarnation and human participation in the mind of Christ are axiomatic for interpreting the Christian life and thus moral theology. This leads to the conclusion that a combination of ‘reconciled exemplarism’ and ‘semantic externalism’ is key to the exposition of Christian ethics – the language of which tracks God’s historical engagement with humanity rather than denoting immanent, ethical categories. (shrink)

A new approach to environmental policy analysis is introduced that is designed to mitigate the exacerbation of environmental problems, which can result from the application of traditional approaches in environmental decision making. These approaches are problematic because they tend to rely on technical fixes, a single-discipline focus, and optimality. When such traditional approaches are applied, complex environmental problems are simplified beyond recognition, and the solution produced no longer matches the original problem. An alternative approach has been developed at the U.S. (...) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that is designed to improve the utilization of scientific research results and data (social, physical, and biological) through a more inclusive problem-solving process aimed particularly at difficult and complex environmental issues. Using a policy application pertaining to the EPA’s 1995 decision to approve a fuel additive, the authors illustrate how integrated environmental policy decision analysis can be made operational using this new approach. (shrink)

In the twelfth century, when military orders were first being established, the custom of child oblation was in decline in western monasteries, and the novitiate was acquiring a new importance. New foundations of monks and regular canons sought to ensure that recruits were subjected to a period of testing and training before they made their profession, while at Cluny Peter the Venerable insisted on a probationary period of at least a month. Since the rules governing their conventual life were based (...) upon those of existing religious institutions, the military orders were inevitably influenced by these trends. They rejected the practice of child oblation and in most cases instituted a period of probation for recruits. (shrink)

__Social Network Theory and Educational Change_ offers a provocative and fascinating exploration of how social networks in schools can impede or facilitate the work of education reform._ Drawing on the work of leading scholars, the book comprises a series of studies examining networks among teachers and school leaders, contrasting formal and informal organizational structures, and exploring the mechanisms by which ideas, information, and influence flow from person to person and group to group. The case studies provided in the book reflect (...) a rich variety of approaches and methodologies, showcasing the range and power of this dynamic new mode of analysis. An introductory chapter places social network theory in context and explains the basic tools and concepts, while a concluding chapter points toward new directions in the field. Taken together, they make a powerful statement: that the success or failure of education reform ultimately is not solely the result of technical plans and blueprints, but of the relational ties that support or constrain the pace, depth, and direction of change. This unique volume provides an invaluable introduction to an emerging and increasingly important field of education research. (shrink)

Surveys the current political situation worldwide and proposes emergent paradigms.

Building on research regarding the influence of national identity salience on attitudes towards international institutions and the impact of nationalism on foreign policy preferences, in a case study of America, I explore the role of chauvinistic nationalism to understand its impact on attitudes towards international jurisdiction of punishment for alleged human rights violations by members of the American military. Using binomial regression of survey responses from the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, I find that respondents with higher levels of chauvinistic (...) nationalist sentiment also have higher levels of opposition to the jurisdiction of international legal institutions to prosecute members of a nation’s military. This study is the first of its kind to offer a systematic and multivariate explanation for public opinion towards the jurisdiction of international human rights institutions over a nation’s armed forces using national survey data. (shrink)