Pregnant people experience moral judgment in healthcare settings that may be coded into clinical documentation. Stigmatizing language in medical records transmits bias between clinicians, potentially exacerbating disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality. We examined obstetrical records from 100 randomly selected patients who received prenatal and delivery care in an academic hospital system. Qualitative analysis sought to identify linguistic features conveying negative attitudes or moral judgment, revealing themes of epistemic injustice: (1) discrediting patient testimony as incompetent, unreliable, and hysterical; (2) unnecessary (...) details that are objectifying, stigmatizing, or unprofessional; and (3) judgments of maternal fitness, where women are labeled “bad mothers” by emphasizing neglectful, selfish, and debauched characteristics. We conclude by advocating for further validation of our findings, revisiting medical education paradigms, and supporting the development of natural language processing (NLP) technologies to detect and intercept stigma. (shrink)

Over the last two decades there has been a proliferation of partnerships between business and government, multilateral bodies, and/or social actors such as NGOs and local community organizations engaged in promoting development. While proponents hail these partnerships as an important new approach to engaging business, critics argue that they are not only generally ineffective but also serve to legitimate a neo-liberal, global economic order which inhibits development. In order to understand and evaluate the role of such partnerships, it is necessary (...) to appreciate their diversity with respect to not only the activities that they engage in, but also the degree to which they are subject to social control. This paper distinguishes four different types of business partnerships, based upon differing degrees of social control: conventional business; corporate social responsibility; corporate accountability; and social economy. Each type of partnership is described, their basic forms are noted, and the conditions and prospects for them contributing to development are examined. By way of conclusion, an analysis is offered of how the different types of business partnerships relate to different conceptions of development and function as policy paradigms to promote different globalization agendas. (shrink)

In Wisdom's Apprentice, twelve distinguished scholars pay grateful homage to their friend and mentor in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the study of the philosophia perennis.

In recent years India has been moving further in the direction of adopting an Anglo-American model of corporate governance. This decision, the result more of international economic and political pressures than public debate, in effect represents a new development strategy for the world's most populous democracy. In light of this situation, it is important to ask two basic questions: 1) why has the Anglo-American model of corporate governance been adopted? and; 2) can it be justified? This paper addresses the first (...) of these questions by distinguish and examining three historical models of governance in India: 1) the managing agency model in the colonial period; 2) the business house model that emerged after independence, and; 3) the Anglo-American model which has recently been adopted (and is still emerging). The second question is approached through an examination of the "development impact" of the new model, as indicated by such measures as growth, employment and respect for shareholder rights. (shrink)

This is a broad overview of how the prevalent family systems in the developing world influence sex preference for children. Son preference is evident in the data in East Asia and South Asia, and in the Middle East and North Africa, where patriarchal family systems make sons more valuable than daughters to parents in terms of economic, physical, and emotional sustenance. In sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, there is little difference between the levels of support parents can expect (...) from sons and daughters—and little revealed sex preference in the data. (shrink)

In the course of reading David Lapoujade’s Aberrant Movements, readers will undoubtedly encounter its overtly nuanced positioning. In relation to the existent patterns of critical engagement with Deleuze’s works, Lapoujade chooses to make his book seem like an expressive tissue of an expanding poetic universe rather than a measurable extensity from some representational whole. So the potency of his book, as Rajchman makes evident in the ‘Introduction’ to Aberrant Movements, doesn’t lie in unfolding like a teleological mimicry of what stands (...) before us as some kind of palimpsestic accretion of a-categorical Deleuzean readings. Rather his work is a perversely creative exercise in repeating these readings into openings of inassimilable differences. Such an inclusively ‘exclusive positioning’ of his book brings about what we may call a transformative de-familiarization of it, rendering it as indistinct patterns of aberrant movements that continuously and creatively shift us from one kind of complex territorial intensity to another. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas based on things "management" for the existence of God made ​​two different arguments, one found in the philosophy of Guinness, the other found in the Summa Theologica, which is the so-called "fifth way." First, the metaphysics, the fifth way is considered more important, so it is selected into the Summa Theologica. Secondly, I deal with this issue of the validity of the argument, stressing that this argument is based on absolute basis of experience. Thomas Aquinas presents two different (...) argument for the existence of a God based on the "government" of things, one in the Summer contra Gentiles and one in the Summa Theologiae, the latter the so-called "Fifth way". First, I argue that the Fifth way is metaphysically more fundmental, for which reason it is selected for use in the later Summa. Secondly, I address the question of the argument's validity, alling attention to its foundation in absolutely fundamental experience. (shrink)

The motivation of someone who is locked-in, that is, paralyzed and mute, is to find relief for their loss of function. The data presented in this report is part of an attempt to restore one of those lost functions, namely, speech. An essential feature of the development of a speech prosthesis is optimal decoding of patterns of recorded neural signals during silent or covert speech, that is, speaking “inside the head” with output that is inaudible due to the paralysis of (...) the articulators. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the importance of both fast and slow single unit firings recorded from an individual with locked-in syndrome and from an intact participant speaking silently. Long duration electrodes were implanted in the motor speech cortex for up to 13 years in the locked-in participant. The data herein provide evidence that slow firing single units are essential for optimal decoding accuracy. Additional evidence indicates that slow firing single units can be conditioned in the locked-in participant 5 years after implantation, further supporting their role in decoding. (shrink)

The focus of this book is morals--how human beings should live their lives. For Dewan "morals" is "the journey of the rational creature toward God." While philosophical considerations are central here, Christian revelation and its truth constitute an enveloping context. These essays treat the history of philosophy as a development that proceeds by deepening appreciation of basic questions rather than the constant replacement of one worldview by another. Thus, the author finds forebears in Plato and Aristotle, in Augustine and (...) Boethius, and especially in Aquinas. Written over a period of more than thirty years, the essays collected here treat both perennial issues in philosophy and such current questions as suicide as a weapon of war, the death penalty, and lying. Above all, they present the wisdom, the sapiential vision, that makes morals possible. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 4, Page 590-602, May 2022.

As social media becomes increasingly popular, human subjects researchers are able to use these platforms to locate, track, and communicate with study participants, thereby increasing participant retention and the generalizability and validity of research. The use of social media; however, raises novel ethical and regulatory issues that have received limited attention in the literature and federal regulations. We review research ethics and regulations and outline the implications for maintaining participant privacy, respecting participant autonomy, and promoting researcher transparency when using social (...) media to locate and track participants. We offer a rubric that can be used in future studies to determine ethical and regulation-consistent use of social media platforms and illustrate the rubric using our study team’s experience with Facebook. We also offer recommendations for both researchers and institutional review boards that emphasize the importance of well-described procedures for social media use as... (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 4, Page 590-602, May 2022.