A Scientific Integrity Consortium developed a set of recommended principles and best practices that can be used broadly across scientific disciplines as a mechanism for consensus on scientific integrity standards and to better equip scientists to operate in a rapidly changing research environment. The two principles that represent the umbrella under which scientific processes should operate are as follows: Foster a culture of integrity in the scientific process. Evidence-based policy interests may have legitimate roles to play in influencing aspects (...) of the research process, but those roles should not interfere with scientific integrity. The nine best practices for instilling scientific integrity in the implementation of these two overarching principles are Require universal training in robust scientific methods, in the use of appropriate experimental design and statistics, and in responsible research practices for scientists at all levels, with the training content regularly updated and presented by qualified scientists. Strengthen scientific integrity oversight and processes throughout the research continuum with a focus on training in ethics and conduct. Encourage reproducibility of research through transparency. Strive to establish open science as the standard operating procedure throughout the scientific enterprise. Develop and implement educational tools to teach communication skills that uphold scientific integrity. Strive to identify ways to further strengthen the peer review process. Encourage scientific journals to publish unanticipated findings that meet standards of quality and scientific integrity. Seek harmonization and implementation among journals of rapid, consistent, and transparent processes for correction and/or retraction of published papers. Design rigorous and comprehensive evaluation criteria that recognize and reward the highest standards of integrity in scientific research. (shrink)

Genesis 2–3 is among the most beloved yet misunderstood texts in the Hebrew Bible. Many biblical and post-biblical interpretations focus on themes of sin, death, and God’s banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. These have fostered misapprehensions regarding the value of God’s creation and the dangerous image of an “Old Testament God of wrath.” This essay uses space-critical analysis to focus on the spaces of Eden—from ground to bodies to gardens—to show that Ivan Illich’s notion of (...) “conviviality” best captures Eden’s true ethic of cooperation, environmental caretaking, and the positive portrait a gentle God who makes humans by hand. (shrink)

This review article discusses the relationship between deference and the presumption of constitutionality, as discussed in Brian Foley’s book, Deference and the Presumption of Constitutionality. Foley argues for the rejection of the presumption of constitutionality as it operates in the Irish Constitution, proposing instead a ‘due deference’ approach. This approach would require courts to give varying degrees of weight to the legislature’s conclusions that particular legislative provisions are constitutional. The article praises Foley’s book, particularly its stronger justification of due deference (...) which focuses on its ability to foster a culture of justification which, in turn, facilitates popular sovereignty. The review also provides a criticism of the argument made in the book and discusses its application to the UK constitution. First, the review argues that the focus on constitutional as opposed to institutional factors to determine deference may, in practice, undermine Foley’s justification of due deference. Second it argues that Foley’s justification of deference may be best served in the UK constitution by a theory of democratic dialogue as opposed to the application of due deference. (shrink)

This article examines the responses of two communities to hate crimes in their cities. In particular it explores how community understandings of responsibility shape collective responses to hate crimes. I use the case of Bridesberg, Pennsylvania to explore how anti-racist work is restricted by backward-looking conceptions of moral responsibility (e.g. being responsible). Using recent writings in feminist ethics.(1) I argue for a forward-looking notion that advocates an active view: taking responsibility for attitudes and behaviors that foster climates in which (...) hate crimes are more likely to occur, even when a person's individual actions do not contribute directly to harms. Using the case of Billings, Montana, I explain how recent Not In Our Town campaigns take responsibility for hate crimes in the ways feminist literature suggests. -/- I take as my point of departure hate crimes committed against the family of Bridget Ward, an African American woman, who moved into the suburb of Bridesburg in 1996. When issues of responsibility for racism arose in the local press, most Bridesbergers insisted that their community was not racist; they blamed only the individual vandals. This narrow blame-assigning focus is in keeping with most Anglo-American definitions of responsibility as belonging essentially to individuals and not to communities. Traditionally, moral and legal theory construct responsibility from a perspective that looks downward and back. These perspectives are preoccupied with punishment and reward, praise and blame; they assume justice is done when guilty parties are found and tried. -/- This focus masks deeper community problems. As Elizabeth Spelman remarks, "tolerance is easy if those who are asked to express it need not change a whit." (2) Focus on praise and blame is, in part, a function of race privilege. Bridesberg is 98% white, and part of "the arrogance whitely behavior" is positioning one's self as a judge, expert, and problem solver. (3) The view from this particular subject position limits attention to individuals and their actions, rather than to communities and their practices; it shifts attention away from the fact that Bridesberger's collective practice of distrusting outsiders has lead to hate crimes in the past. Pointing to vandals and claiming "they are racist" does not free one's community of racism. It reinscribes a community spirit that is resistant to change. -/- The second part of this essay explores what communities like Bridesberg might have done to prevent violence. Often there is little individuals alone can do to stop racial violence, but that there is a sense in which community members are obligated to organize themselves. Strategies that focus community responsibility on retribution rather than long-term change, are short lived and ineffective. Anti-racist activism requires a forward-looking view of responsibility: one that aims at inoculating the community against increased risk of violence. This requires taking responsibility for the fact that one's town might foster climates in which hate crimes are more likely to occur. It requires that we begin inquiry in the lives of those harmed. -/- Collective citizen efforts to prevent Aryan groups from gaining a foothold in Billings, Montana offers a clear illustration of how to take responsibility for hate crimes using strategies designed consciously to prevent further hate crimes (e.g., when Black Churches were threatens, all community members attended services there; when a rock was thrown through a window with a menorah, many homes displayed menorahs). The community responses in Billings are a stark contrast to those of Bridesburg, and serve as a powerful example of how forward-looking notions of responsibility can translate into effective political strategy. Although, these strategies are not in and of themselves feminist, they are powerful illustrations of what feminists mean by forward-looking views. The success of resident's collective action and coalition building gave rise to a national Not In Our Town campaign used in about a dozen cities today. (shrink)

Solomon has made the case, in Social Empicism (2001) for socially naturalized analysis of the dynamics of scientific inquiry that takes seriously two critical insights: that scientific rationality is contingent, disunified, and socially emergent; and that scientific progress is often fostered by factors traditionally regarded as compromising sources of bias. While elements of this framework are widely shared, Solomon intends it to be more resolutely social, more thoroughly naturalizing, and more ambitiously normative than other contextualizing epistemologies currently on offer. Four (...) focal issues are addressed in the commentaries that follow: Solomon's characterization of empirical success as a goal of science (Clough); her distinction between empirical and non-empirical decision vectors and the viability of the multivariate analysis she proposes for assessing epistemic fairness in their distribution (Clough; Richardson); the plausibility of her thesis that normatively appropriate consensus is a (rare) limiting case rather than an intrinsically desirable outcome of inquiry (Oreskes; Richardson); and her conviction that a socially naturalized analysis of science can ground norms of scientific rationality (Longino; Oreskes). (shrink)

Dementia has rapidly become a major global health crisis. As the aging population continues to increase, the burden increases commensurately on both individual and societal levels. The behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia are a prominent clinical feature of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. BPSD represent a myriad of manifestations that can create significant challenges for persons living with dementia and their care providers. As such, BPSD can result in detriments to social interaction with others, resulting in harm to the (...) psychosocial health of the person with dementia. While brain deterioration can contribute to BPSD as the disease progresses, it may be confounded by language and communication difficulties associated with ADRD. Indeed, when a person with dementia cannot effectively communicate their needs, including basic needs such as hunger or toileting, nor symptoms of pain or discomfort, it may manifest as BPSD. In this way, a person with dementia may be attempting to communicate with what little resources are available to them in the form of emotional expression. Failing to recognize unmet needs compromises care and can reduce quality of life. Moreover, failing to fulfill said needs can also deteriorate communication and social bonds with loved ones and caregivers. The aim of this review is to bring the differential of unmet needs to the forefront of BPSD interpretation for both formal and informal caregivers. The overarching goal is to provide evidence to reframe the approach with which caregivers view the manifestations of BPSD to ensure quality of care for persons with dementia. Understanding that BPSD may, in fact, be attempts to communicate unmet needs in persons with dementia may facilitate clinical care decisions, promote quality of life, reduce stigma, and foster positive communications. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Historically, maternal HIV research has focused on prevention of mother‐to‐child transmission and child outcomes, with little focus on the health outcomes of mothers. Over the course of the HIV epidemic, the approach to including pregnant women in research has shifted. The current landscape lends itself to reviewing the public health ethics of this research. This systematic review aims to identify ethical barriers and considerations for including pregnant and postpartum women living with HIV in treatment adherence and retention research. We (...) completed a systematic literature review following PRISMA guidelines with analysis using a relational ethics perspective. The included studies (n = 7) identified ethical barriers related to (a) women research participants as individuals, (b) partner and family dynamics, (c) community perspectives on research design and conduct, and (d) policy and regulatory implications. These broader contextual factors will yield research responsive to, and respectful of, the needs of pregnant and postpartum women living with HIV. While current regulatory and policy environments may be slow to change, actions can be taken now to foster enabling environments for research. We suggest that a relational approach to public health ethics can best support the needs of pregnant and postpartum women living with HIV; acknowledging this population as systematically disadvantaged and inseparable from their communities will best support the health of this population. (shrink)

Background: Trust has been identified as a vital value in the nurse–patient relationship. Although increasingly the subject of empirical inquiries, the specific processes used by nurses to foster trust in nurse–patient relationships with older immigrants of non-English speaking backgrounds hospitalised for end-of-life care have not been investigated. Aims: To explore and describe the specific processes that nurses use to foster trust and overcome possible cultural mistrust when caring for older immigrants of non-English speaking backgrounds hospitalised for end-of-life care. (...) Research design: A qualitative descriptive approach was used. Twenty-two registered nurses were recruited from four metropolitan health services in Melbourne, Australia. Ethical considerations: Research approval was granted by the Human Research Ethics Committees of the host institution and four participating health services. Findings: Thematic analysis revealed that fostering trust encompassed the following three commensurate stages: establishing trust, strengthening trust and sustaining trust. Underpinning the successful achievement of these stages was the nurses’ moral commitment (reflected in their intentional, conscious and conscientious approach) to fostering trust as an essential ingredient of quality end-of-life care. Discussion: This study has shown that while professional competencies are important to providing quality end-of-life care to older immigrant patients of non-English speaking backgrounds, it is a nurse’s moral commitment to fostering trust that may ultimately lay the foundations for a trusting quality care relationship to be established and sustained. Conclusion: This study has captured the processes used by nurses to foster trust as an essential element of quality end-of-life care in older immigrants. The characteristics of trust and the different factors influencing its expression in diverse cultural contexts are, however, under-researched. Accordingly, gaps remain in the knowledge and understanding of the specific cultural nuances and manifestations of trust across and within different cultures. This is an area that is germane to further cross-cultural and international collaborative scholarly inquiry and research. (shrink)

This paper examines the outcomes of Preserving the Past Together, a workshop series designed to build the capacity of local heritage managers to engage in collaborative and community-based approaches to archaeology and historic preservation. Over the past two decades practitioners of these approaches have demonstrated the interpretive, methodological, and ethical value of integrating Indigenous perspectives and methods into the process and practice of heritage management and archaeology. Despite these benefits, few professional resources exist to support the development of collaborative relationships (...) between local heritage managers and Tribal nations. Filling this need, Preserving the Past Together’s interactive workshops and keynote lectures involved participants in a discussion of the central themes in collaborative and Indigenous approaches to archaeology today, highlighting the local challenges and opportunities that exist for archaeologists, heritage managers, and Tribal nations to work together to care for the past. This paper presents an overview of the event series’ goals, the strategies it used to foster collaboration among the diverse stakeholders of the Salish Sea, and the next steps the project’s co-directors are taking to further support communication and collaboration between stewards and stakeholders in the Pacific Northwest. (shrink)

This chapter explores the role that non-textual narrations of biblical stories can play in Christian life and practice. Our case study is the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Kabuga, Rwanda. The stations at the shrine tell the story of Jesus’s life and passion, incorporating images from the Catholic devotional tradition of Divine Mercy and elements evoking the Rwandan genocide. While many philosophical accounts of narratives presuppose that narratives are textual, material and visual art like the Kabuga shrine can also be (...) narrative, in that, like text, material and visual art can selectively represent multiple events and connections between them. We argue that material-visual narratives like the shrine can be effective in achieving commonly identified functions of narratives, such as focusing attention, immersing in a story, engaging the emotions, and fostering a common perspective on the world. We further argue that material-visual art is well-suited to narrating the Gospel in particular, for it can present the Gospel story alongside other stories (in this case, the story of the Rwandan genocide) and in so doing reframe these other stories in light of the Gospel. (shrink)

The college hookup scene is a profoundly gendered and heteronormative sexual field. Yet the party and bar scene that gives rise to hookups also fosters the practice of women kissing other women in public, generally to the enjoyment of male onlookers, and sometimes facilitates threesomes involving same-sex sexual behavior between women. In this article, we argue that the hookup scene serves as an opportunity structure to explore same-sex attractions and, at least for some women, to later verify bisexual, lesbian, or (...) queer sexual identities. Based on quantitative and qualitative data and combining queer theory and identity theory, we offer a new interpretation of women’s same-sex practices in the hookup culture. Our analysis contributes to gender theory by demonstrating the utility of identity theory for understanding how non-normative gender and sexual identities are negotiated within heteronormatively structured fields. (shrink)

There is increased recognition of a common suite of global challenges that hamper food system sustainability at the community scale. Food price volatility, shortages of basic commodities, increased global rates of obesity and non-communicable food-related diseases, and land grabbing are among the impediments to socially just, economically robust, ecologically regenerative and politically inclusive food systems. While international political initiatives taken in response to these challenges and the groundswell of local alternatives emerging in response to challenges are well documented, more attention (...) is needed to the analysis of similarities between community approaches to global pressures. While we are not suggesting the application of a template set of good practices, the research reported in this paper point to the benefits of both sharing good practices and enabling communities to adopt good practices that are suited to their place-based capacities. The work also suggests that sharing community-derived good practices can support and reinforce global networks of sustainable community food systems, foster knowledge co-creation and ultimately cement collective action to global pressures. In turn these networks could enhance the sustainability and resilience of community food systems and facilitate wide scale food system transformation. (shrink)

In this chapter we explore two important questions that we believe should be central to any discussion of the ethics and politics of cultural heritage: What are the harms associated with appropriation and commodification, specifically where the heritage of Indigenous peoples is concerned? And how can these harms best be avoided? Archaeological concerns animate this discussion; we are ultimately concerned with fostering postcolonial archaeological practices. But we situate these questions in a broader context, addressing them as they arise in connection (...) with the appropriation of Indigenous cultural heritage, both past and present. (shrink)

We propose a ‘Moral Imagination’ methodology to facilitate a culture of responsible innovation for engineering and product teams in technology companies. Our approach has been operationalized over the past two years at Google, where we have conducted over 50 workshops with teams from across the organization. We argue that our approach is a crucial complement to existing formal and informal initiatives for fostering a culture of ethical awareness, deliberation, and decision-making in technology design such as company principles, ethics and privacy (...) review procedures, and compliance controls. We characterize some distinctive benefits of our methodology for the technology sector in particular. (shrink)

Within a context of rapid growth and diversification in higher degree research programs, there is increasing pressure for the results of doctoral research to be made public. Doctoral students are now being encouraged to publish not only after completion of the doctorate, but also during, and even as part of their research program. For many this is a new and challenging feature of their experience of doctoral education. _Publishing Pedagogies for the Doctorate and Beyond_ is a timely and informative collection (...) of practical and theorised examples of innovative pedagogies that encourage doctoral student publishing. The authors give detailed accounts of their own pedagogical practices so that others may build on their experiences, including: a program of doctoral degree by publication; mentoring strategies to support student publishing; innovations within existing programs, including embedded publication pedagogies; co-editing a special issue of a scholarly journal with students; ‘publication brokering’, and writing groups and writing retreats. With contributions from global leading experts, this vital new book: explores broader issues pertaining to journal publication and the impacts on scholarly research and writing practices for students, supervisors and the academic publishing community takes up particular pedagogical problems and strategies, including curriculum and supervisory responses arising from the ‘push to publish’ documents explicit experiences and practical strategies that foster writing-for-publication during doctoral candidature. _Publishing Pedagogies for the Doctorate and Beyond_ explores the challenges and rewards of supporting doctoral publishing and provides new ways to increase research publication outputs in a pedagogically sound way. It will be a valued resource for supervisors and their doctoral students, as well as for program coordinators and managers, academic developers, learning advisors, and others involved in doctoral education. (shrink)

This study, the third in a series of three, draws on a broader Norwegian research project exploring the phenomenon of support for young persons with mental health issues. The aim was to explore and explicate the sense of “nourishing communion”, as a somewhat neglected aspect of support. Fourteen Norwegian young adults, aged 18-25, were interviewed about their experiences of support. Data was analyzed using van Manen’s hermeneutic-phenomenological approach to open up possible meanings of how nourishing communion is concretely lived. Analysis (...) was supplemented by in-depth reflexive dialogues between the first and second author, which fostered a nourishing communion akin to the processes and dimensions of our phenomenon of interest. Findings highlight five intertwined existential themes: a) trusting the other to hold vulnerability safely; b) flourishing in mutual participation; c) acceptance in a felt togetherness; d) feeling found and received; and e) feeling an attuned resonance. The notion of “nourishing communion” as a significant but neglected element of support challenges current practice, suggesting the need for a different approach to collaboration with young persons and their networks. From the perspectives both of individual professional engagement and of policy making, there is a need for further exploration of how young persons might be supported to create and maintain a broader range of nourishing relationships. (shrink)

Notwithstanding worrying implications of prisons which are seemingly without moral purpose in terms of people being attracted to the radicalism and relational dimensions of new faiths, there are positive signs of changes and hope in prisons. The question becomes about how we can best foster and protect that which money can’t buy in prisons.

Causation is the main foundation upon which the possibility of science rests. Without causation, there would be no scientific understanding, explanation, prediction, nor application in new technologies. How we discover causal connections is no easy matter, however. Causation often lies hiddenfrom view and it is vital that we adopt the right methods for uncovering it. The choice of methods will inevitably reflect what one takes causation to be, making an accurate account of causation an even more pressing matter. This enquiry (...) informs the correct norms for an empirical study of the world. In Causation in Science and the Methods of Scientific Discovery, Rani Lill Anjum and Stephen Mumford propose nine new norms of scientific discovery. A number of existing methodological and philosophical orthodoxies are challenged as they argue that progress in science is being held back by an overlysimplistic philosophy of causation. (shrink)

Evidence based medicine (EBM) is under critical debate, and person centered healthcare (PCH) has been proposed as an improvement. But is PCH offered as a supplement or as a replacement of EBM? Prima facie PCH only concerns the practice of medicine, while the contended features of EBM also include methods and medical model. I here argue that there are good philosophical reasons to see PCH as a radical alternative to the existing medical paradigm of EBM, since the two seem committed (...) to conflicting ontologies. This paper aims to make explicit some of the most fundamental assumptions that motivate EBM and PCH, respectively, in order to show that the choice between them ultimately comes down to ontological preference. While EBM has a solid foundation in positivism, or what I here call Humeanism, PCH is more consistent with causal dispositionalism. I conclude that if there is a paradigmatic revolution on the way in medicine, it is first of all one of ontology. (shrink)

We report on the deliberations of an interdisciplinary group of experts in science, law, and philosophy who convened to discuss novel ethical and policy challenges in stem cell research. In this report we discuss the ethical and policy implications of safety concerns in the transition from basic laboratory research to clinical applications of cell-based therapies derived from stem cells. Although many features of this transition from lab to clinic are common to other therapies, three aspects of stem cell biology pose (...) unique challenges. First, tension regarding the use of human embryos may complicate the scientific development of safe and effective cell lines. Second, because human stem cells were not developed in the laboratory until 1998, few safety questions relating to human applications have been addressed in animal research. Third, preclinical and clinical testing of biologic agents, particularly those as inherently complex as mammalian cells, present formidable challenges, such as the need to develop suitable standardized assays and the difficulty of selecting appropriate patient populations for early phase trials. We recommend that scientists, policy makers, and the public discuss these issues responsibly, and further, that a national advisory committee to oversee human trials of cell therapies be established. **NB we did not reccommend a NAC, we think it might be appropriate**. (shrink)

We explore an unsolved challenge in the era of evidence-based medicine (EBM): the recognition of the patient as an epistemic agent or ‘knower’. While patients are increasingly acknowledged as carriers of values and preferences, it seems more challenging to acknowledge them as carriers of important causal information. In contrast, the science of pharmacovigilance depends on patient testimonies as valuable sources of causal evidence. This incompatibility can give rise to cases of what has been called participatory epistemic injustice. We analyse the (...) testimony of a chronic pain patient and co-author of this article, Christine. Christine gives an auto-ethnographic account of her interactions with healthcare professionals trying to find the right pharmacological treatment for her condition. Through the analysis of her own story, she identifies some relevant themes for the epistemic interaction between healthcare professionals and chronic pain patients. We argue that such epistemic interactions are increasingly shaped by EBM and its conception of causality, which devalues patient subjective testimonies and emphasises statistical evidence. We conclude that outlier patients face an inherent risk of being left vulnerable to participatory epistemic injustice, particularly regarding the discovery of novel, rare adverse effects of medicines. (shrink)

The material interpretation of conditionals is commonly recognized as involving some paradoxical results. I here argue that the truth functional approach to natural language is the reason for the inadequacy of this material interpretation, since the truth or falsity of some pair of statements ‘p’ and ‘q’ cannot per se be decisive for the truth or falsity of a conditional relation ‘if p then q’. This inadequacy also affects the ability of the overall formal system to establish whether or not (...) arguments involving conditionals are valid. I also demonstrate that the Paradox of Indicative Conditionals does not actually involve a paradox, but instead contains some paralogistic elements that make it appear to be a paradox. The discussion of the paradox in this paper further reveals that the material interpretation of conditionals adversely affects the treatment of disjunctions. -/- Much has been said about these matters in the literature that point in the same direction. However, there seems to be some reluctance against fully complying with the arguments against the truth functional account of conditionals, since many of the alternative accounts rely on the material conditional, or at least on an understanding of the conditional as a function of antecedent and consequent in a similar sense as the material conditional. My argument against truth functionality indicates that it may in general involve similar problems to treat conditionals as such functions, whether one deals with theories of truth, assertability or probability. (shrink)

Omissions are sometimes linked to responsibility. A harm can counterfactually depend on an omission to prevent it. If someone had the ability to prevent a harm but didn’t, this could suffice to ground their responsibility for the harm. Michael S. Moore’s claim is illustrated by the tragic case of Peter Parker, shortly after he became Spider-Man. Sick of being pushed around as a weakling kid, Peter became drunk on the power he acquired from the freak bite of a radioactive spider. (...) When a police officer called to Spider-Man to stop an escaping burglar, which he could have done easily, he failed to act. He was through taking orders. The omission was followed by a crime. That very same burglar later robbed Peter’s own house and when challenged he shot dead Peter’s Uncle Ben. Later, Spider-Man tracked down the killer and, when seeing his face close up, the possibility of prevention dawned on him. He could have stopped this crook and had he done so Uncle Ben would still be alive. Stan Lee’s tale of power finished with a Shakespearean twist. Young Peter realised the truth of the WGPCGR-thesis: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. We too will endorse the WGPCGR-thesis. There is a close connection between our notions of moral and legal responsibility and the powers we have as causal agents. This will be particularly important when it comes to the case of omissions: where we had the power to act but failed to do so. We hope to show the connections between the notions of power, cause, act, omission and responsibility but also some of the nuances. We will do so with particular reference to Moore’s account in Causation and Responsibility. (shrink)

There is a strong case to be made for thinking that an obscure logic, KR, is better than classical logic and better than any relevant logic. The argument for KR over relevant logics is that KR counts disjunctive syllogism valid, and this is the biggest complaint about relevant logics. The argument for KR over classical logic depends on the normativity of logic and the paradoxes of implication. The paradoxes of implication are taken by relevant logicians to justify relevant logic, but (...) considerations on the normativity of logic show that only some of the paradoxes of implication are genuine. KR avoids all the genuine paradoxes of implication, unlike classical logic. Overall, KR avoids the genuine paradoxes of implication and avoids the major objection to relevant logics. This combination of features provides strong reason to give KR a place in the conversation about the right logic. (shrink)

This is the first of two companion articles drawn from a larger project, provisionally entitled Undisciplining Moral Epistemology. The overall goal is to understand how moral claims may be rationally justified in a world characterized by cultural diversity and social inequality. To show why a new approach to moral justification is needed, it is argued that several currently influential philosophical accounts of moral justification lend themselves to rationalizing the moral claims of those with more social power. The present article explains (...) how discourse ethics is flawed just in this way. The article begins by identifying several conditions of adequacy for assessing reasoning practices designed to achieve moral justification and shows that, when used in contexts of cultural diversity and social inequality, discourse ethics fails these conditions. It goes on to argue that the failure of discourse ethics is rooted in its reliance on a broader conception of moral epistemology that is invidiously idealized. It concludes by pointing to the need to rethink both the mission and the method of moral epistemology. (shrink)

In an explanation ‘y because x’, because can be used to express an explanatory relation between an explanandum ‘y’ and an explanans ‘x’. But because can also be used to express the speaker’s reason for uttering ‘y’. This difference will be elucidated by connecting it with the distinction between the at-issue dimension and the speaker dimension of meaning. There are also internal relations between if and because that can help us find and analyse different uses of because, and thus also (...) different types of explanatory relations. (shrink)

Research suggests that the incidence of moral distress experienced by health professionals is significant and increasing, yet the concept lacks clarity and remains largely misunderstood. Currently, there is limited understanding of moral distress in the context of midwifery practice. The term moral distress was first used to label the psychological distress experienced following complex ethical decision-making and moral constraint in nursing. The term is now used across multiple health professions including midwifery, nursing, pharmacy and medicine, yet is used cautiously due (...) to confusion regarding its theoretical and contextual basis. The aim of this study is to understand the concept of moral distress in the context of midwifery practice, describing the attributes, antecedents and consequences. This concept analysis uses Rodgers’ evolutionary framework and is the first stage of a sequential mixed-methods study. A literature search was conducted using multiple databases resulting in eight articles for review. Data were analysed using NVivo12©. Three core attributes were identified: moral actions and inactions, conflicting needs and negative feelings/emotions. The antecedents of clinical situations, moral awareness, uncertainty and constraint were identified. Consequences of moral distress include adverse personal professional and organisational outcomes. A model case depicting these aspects is presented. A midwifery focused definition of moral distress is offered as ‘a psychological suffering following clinical situations of moral uncertainty and/or constraint, which result in an experience of personal powerlessness where the midwife perceives an inability to preserve all competing moral commitments’. This concept analysis affirms the presence of moral distress in midwifery practice and provides evidence to move towards a consistent definition of moral distress. (shrink)

At least two recent collections of essays – Postmodernism and the Enlightenment and What’s Left of Enlightenment?: A Postmodern Question – have responded to postmodern critiques of Enlightenment by arguing that Enlightenment philosophes themselves embraced a number of post-modern themes. This essay situates Kant’s essay Was ist Aufklärung in the context of this recent literature about the appropriate characterization of modernity and the Enlightenment. Adopting an internalist reading of Kant’s Aufklärung essay, this paper observes that Kant is surprisingly ambivalent about (...) who might be Enlightened and unspecific about when Enlightenment might be achieved. The paper argues that this is because Kant is concerned less with elucidating his concept of Enlightenment and more with characterizing a political condition that might provide the conditions for the possibility of Enlightenment. This paper calls this political condition modernity and it is achieved when civil order can be maintained alongside fractious and possibly insoluble public disagreement about matters of conscience, including the nature and possibility of Enlightenment. Thus, the audience for the Aufklärung essay is not the tax collector, soldier or clergyman, but rather the sovereign. Kant enjoins and advises the prince that discord and debate about matters of conscience need not entail any political unrest or upheaval. It is in this restricted sense that the Enlightenment essay is Kant’s Machiavellian moment. (shrink)

Hva er vitenskap og hva anser vi som vitenskaplighet? Dette er spørsmål som kan være verdt å se nøyere på før vi aksepterer at det er et klart skille mellom den etablerte skolemedisinen og alt det vi kaller ”alternativ medisin” eller ”alternativ behandling”. For hva er det egentlig som gjør noe til etablert og noe annet til et alternativ? Er den etablerte medisin mer vitenskapelig enn den alternative, ved at den for eksempel benytter seg av mer vitenskapelige metoder? Er resultatene (...) til den etablerte behandlingen ”vitenskapelig bevist”, mens den alternative behandlingen ikke har noen vitenskapelig dokumenterte resultater å vise til? Og har den alternative tradisjonen et forklaringsproblem med hensyn til hvorfor behandlingen eventuelt fungerer, mens den etablerte tradisjonen kan henvise til entydige kausale modeller? -/- Hva vi er tilbøyelig til å svare på slike spørsmål avhenger av hva vi legger i begrepene vitenskap og vitenskapelighet. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has become one of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century. Food production and farming are a key if troubling component of that challenge. Livestock production accounts for well over half of annual global consumption of antimicrobials, though the contribution of the sector to drug resistance is less clear. As a result, there is an injunction to act in advance of incontrovertible evidence for change. In this paper we engage with the role of market actors in the (...) precautionary regulation of farming practices and AMR threats. The paper takes the UK poultry sector as exemplary of an audit-led process that has, in recent years, achieved impressive reductions in antimicrobial use. Using qualitative interview data with farmers and veterinarians we chart the changing practices that have accompanied this reduction in treatments. We use this analysis to raise some cautions around audit-led systems of regulation. Audits can lock farms and animals into particular versions of farming and animal health; they can elevate harmful compensatory practices (including disinfectant uses); and they can reproduce an actuarial approach to an issue that does not fit the conventions of risk management. The paper presents the considerable successes that have been achieved over a short period of time in a livestock sector, while generating notes of caution concerning the audit-led management of livestock-related AMR threats. (shrink)

The traditional blackface character Black Pete has been at the center of an intense controversy in the Netherlands, with most black citizens denouncing the tradition as racist and most white citizens endorsing it as harmless fun. I analyze the controversy as an utter failure, on the part of white citizens, of what Alison Jaggar has called multicultural literacy. This article aims to identify both the causes of this failure of multicultural literacy and the conditions required for multicultural literacy to (...) be possible. I argue that this failure of multicultural literacy is due to hermeneutical injustice and to white ignorance. I close by considering possible avenues for fostering multicultural literacy. (shrink)

We distinguish between citizens of a state and strangers in a categorical way that seems clear and has the force of law behind it. In fact nationality is a highly contested phenomenon and one that is desired by many who are considered to be aliens or strangers. They range from guest-workers, to immigrants, to asylum seekers and they are often viewed with deep suspicion, even fear. The Kantian injunction to be hospitable to others is not being heeded, but should be (...) the major consideration in any new legislation. It may now be necessary to consider a new law of asylum, as many Western states seek to bar such people from entry even if they are fleeing persecution. Moreover, we will only be able to resolve this persecutory, exclusionist tendency if we develop a strong, secure sense of self. (shrink)

This piece, included in the drift special issue of continent. , was created as one step in a thread of inquiry. While each of the contributions to drift stand on their own, the project was an attempt to follow a line of theoretical inquiry as it passed through time and the postal service(s) from October 2012 until May 2013. This issue hosts two threads: between space & place and between intention & attention . The editors recommend that to experience the (...) drifiting thought that attention be paid to the contributions as they entered into conversation one after another. This particular piece is from the BETWEEN INTENTION & ATTENTION thread: Jeremy Fernando, Sitting in the Dock of the bay, watching... * R.H. Jackson, Reading Eyes * Gina Rae Foster, Nyctoleptic Nomadism: The Drift/Swerve of Knowing * Bronwyn Lay, Driftwood * Patricia Reed, Sentences on Drifitng * David Prater, drift: a way * * * * * Australia, Summer, 2012. …. essential humanity exists, and runs its course, within a system whose first principle is the preservation of balance. And arching over it all, is the logos of The Dreaming. How shall we state this when we fully understand it I do not know, but I should think we are more likely to ennoble it than not. Equilibrium ennobled is abidingness.” 1 On return to birthplace I write. Caught between jetlag and surprise, a relentless sun cracks my skin. Upright words fall under cockatoo roars. The attempt to settle, to be attentive, is shaken. Some kind of Dreaming surrounds and elements intrude without consent. Homeless at home. Exhausted, I fight sleep’s hard currents. Their victory would confuse the body clock, so the in-between wins. Half-there — half-awake — here in this place — I am driftwood. Driftwood: wood floating in or washed ashore by a body of water. A severed limb set adrift from the birthing body. Tossed from home it’s cast into processes of wind, water, sand, bacteria, decay and movement. Driftwood is orphaned members at the mercy and agency of weather, currents, submersion, and being thrown into dry world. Driftwood — singular plural. White man got no dreaming. Him go ‘nother way. White man, him go different Him got road belong himself. 2 photo: Bronwyn Lay The old man comes from the northern rivers. A while ago, he could no longer pay attention to wage slavery, so retreated north to be with dead redgum that lay abandoned in dry riverbeds. Derived from driftwood peoples tossed here by the sea, he followed the fragile river veins of his birth. He walked along water bodies and through country’s lungs. Some kind of displaced ancestral song compelled his leathered hands to pick up centuries old driftwood from flood plains. It emerged from under muddy creeks, was flung up by salt soaked coves, pushed underground by cracks in the claypan and lay embedded in mud and salinized soil. Smoothed and grooved in equal measure, the branches were marked by an organic alphabet that preceded him. As he held the wood, he touched decomposing circles that started with a blast and never ceased writing into abandoned flesh. When the ute was full the old man returned home having been away with the stuff that ‘growed him up’. His shed filled with red sawdust and the sound of tools at labour. His hands sculptured driftwood. History carved into itinerant skin. I sit opposite the old man. His body no longer holds the repetition of carpentry. He can no longer gift driftwood its detail. Outside redgum bits lie scattered around the fence line and beside the dam. He crouches over an unreliable computer researching the massacres of indigenous peoples that occurred along the same river veins that ‘growed him up’ long ago. Staring into the remnants of frontier resistance that he and I inherit, his eyes nurture fire. He discovers severed limbs and the slicing of tribes. In the ashes of sentences he sifts the lies that smoulder into our histories. In the 30’s the anthropologist Stanner said that due to certain factors — lack of change and isolation — the ideal and real come very close together in indigenous Dreaming. They are a people who were able to defeat history. 3 “If the Ideal and the Real drift too far away from one another (as they did at the end of the middle ages and seem increasingly to do this century) men face some difficult options. They have to change their way of life, or their philosophy, or both, or live unhappily somewhere in-between.” 4 Stanner says Indigenous Dreaming is blackfella thinking. 5 Dreamtime is not ethereal, not utopic, or otherworldly. It’s fused with the real and it’s not mine. I might never understand, but it’s the substance of my home. This here place ‘growed me up’. Is driftwood the unhappy in-between? Is it a radical itinerant written upon by currents? Where are we? The settler restless? photo: Alison Pouliot I return to the bush late one night, tired from high talk in city cafes, to find the old man at his computer. He’s either researching his white farming ancestors, or tracing unrecorded massacres of blackfellas. I laugh, “You know Dad, if you were indigenous you might go out by the dam and sing up your ancestors rather than try find them on a screen.” He peers over his glasses. His stare delivers an ancestral scold. He’s white man. Of course he archives. This is our way. One may see that, like all men, he is a metaphysician in being able to transcend himself. With the metaphysician goes a mood and spirit, which I can only call a mood or spirit of assent, neither despair nor resignation, optimism not pessimism, quietism nor indifference. The mood, and the outlook beneath it, make him hopelessly out of place in a world in which the renaissance has triumphed only to be perverted, and in which the products of secular humanism, rationalism and science challenge their own hopes, indeed their beginnings.” 6 The clinamen sometimes comes abstract — the rarefied swerve of possibility. But in the place we gather &mdash where this text has landed — in the heart of settler colony denial — the clinamen reminds of familiar violence and goes maximum. The earth’s swerve. Topography’s tip. Physics gone violent. Here, drift is initiated by the tear of flesh, scurvy voyages, frontier blood and the deracination from belonging. Here, war precedes drift. We all got tossed. Here. Pay attention. The country has its own gaze. ‘Lest we forget’. The seasonal turn on aborescent substances starts with a fall, an upwards rupture, a drop, a cut, a storm, a violence, a loss, forced migration, refugees, agricultural imperialism, settler wheat and poisoned rations. Pay attention to aftermath debris. Don’t drift too far from the real. History hasn’t settled into the water. It still tosses limbs back and forth. Surrounded by the backdrop of Dreaming country the old man archives and dreams. Both ways of settling into the real. But lest we forget, time, in this place, has no textual tick — tock. Our bodies know this, even though we persist with shipwreck illusions. It’s difficult being here. Here. Pay inattention. I walk through eucalyptus, over dried out clay pans and under kookaburras. It’s been two years in-between. This time country speaks strong underfoot. Forget books, forget texts, forget other lands and times, beginning and end. Be here. All falls raw. Leaves drop and refuse to compost. Bark untethers quick. Light denudes worlds. The heated horizon melts monoliths. It’s enough to make Cartesians shiver. Awake. Refuse the temptation to run. Have enough courage to drift into here. Love with a gum tree. Stand with her whole and dissolving. She moves light between our limbs, tossing them to wind. She — the original romance — is the dream that dares touch flesh and reaches over nightmares with elemental desire. I gaze and lose me. There’s no distance. The land that ‘growed me up’ speaks with symbiotic breath. There’s no division, no separation, no other. The gum is plastic arborescence. You be my body for me, always were. …..but I wake to driftwood histories and recall slaughters. Drifted, wicked fellow citizen — the other is someone else’s blind sleep. Betrayal maintains the other as mine. Archives reveal this place doesn’t belong to me. Body articulates that it became here. Gumtree cares not………her arms take me in anyway. “Like all men he is a philosopher in being able to use his power of abstract reason. His genius, his metier, and in some sense — his fate is that because of endowment and circumstance this power has channelled itself mainly into one activity, making sense out of social relations among men living together.” 7 The old man excavates seven generations of settler ancestors. They’re an ordinary lot with written-upon skin. He records genocides that occurred alongside his peoples fertility. Bodies rise from riverbeds like sovereign sacrifices. It hurts. It disrupts. He labours at the past with gestures that might go unnoticed in a country suffocated by rich amnesia. Inside walls, he seems attentive to historical details. Outside he seems inattentive to time, lost to us and embedded in a family of active matter — the bush. His driftwood skin appears around my eyes - grooves of experience, the rush of cruel sun, the push of blind winds, and the love of everything. The sovereign’s reluctant children are thrown here by, with and through blood, but country gets in and sculpts us here. photo: Chris Corrigan “But his abstractions do not put him at war with himself.” 8 The kangaroo family appears at dusk. When the sun is soft I follow the old man into the back paddock. Children skip behind us. In-between generations, I step into the old man’s driftwood leanings. My feet find traces of his understanding – the archivist that reads trees. Here, on home dirt, inattention and attention collapse as we wander into where we are. The roo family gaze at us. Through the grass the old man’s wooden finger articulates kin’s details. He points to the head male, the mother holding a joey in pouch and the young warriors side by side. My children, quieter than ever, meet the laser - eyed silence of another family. In half-light Dad, me, and the kids mirror the kangaroo constellation and stand gentle together. At the bushblock’s limit we encounter ancestral desires. White peoples are subject to driftwood histories. We’re severed limbs attempting to fuse here now, with what was, only to discover our skin becomes racked and embedded with the weather. Into the shelter and fissures of this difficult and ambiguous inheritance, I fall into dream light until balance saturates. Light breaks when the kangaroos move. They bounce someplace else without effort or impact. We turn and tread through the dark towards home. It’s time to sleep. Driftwood skin covers the country. Dreaming is still. photo: Bronwyn Lay NOTES W.E.H. Stanner, The Dreaming and Other Essays , (Melbourne: Black Inc. Agenda, 2009), 72. Ibid., 56. Stanner is recalling one intelligent old man who said to him, “with a cadence almost as though he had been speaking in verse.” Ibid., 60. Ibid., 69. Ibid., 58. Ibid., 67. Ibid., 68. Ibid., 59.  . (shrink)

In Book VII, p. 520, Socrates describes the arguments by which the philosophers must be induced to “return to the cave,” that is to say, to resume the practical business of politics from which they have escaped into the better life of contemplation. They must be shown that this sacrifice is a debt which they owe to the city in return for the opportunity which it has afforded them of becoming philosophers. “Will our pupils,"1 he continues, “when they hear this, (...) refuse to share in turn the toils of state, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time with one another in the heaven of ideas?” “Impossible,” Glaucon replies; “for they are just men, and the commands which we impose on them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not like our present ministers of state’. (shrink)