SummaryIntense, sustained nursing lengthens inter-birth intervals and is causally linked with low natural fertility. However, in traditional settings, the effects of such nursing on fertility are difficult to disentangle from those of nutrition. Results from an prospective, direct observational study of reproductive function in well-nourished Amele women who nurse intensively and persistently but who also have high fertility are here presented. Endocrine measures show that ovarian activity resumes by median 11·0 months postpartum. Median duration of postpartum amenorrhoea is 11·3 months, (...) time to next conception is 19·0 months, and the inter-birth interval is 28·0 months. Average life time fertility is 6·8. High fertility in Amele women is due both to refractoriness of reproductive function to suckling stimuli, and to maintenance of equivalent age-specific fertility rates across the reproductive life span. (shrink)

Explores the relation between religion, philosophy and literature.

As professionals, nurses are engaged in a moral endeavour, and thus confront many challenges in making the right decision and taking the right action. When nurses cannot do what they think is right, they experience moral distress that leaves a moral residue. This article proposes a theory of moral distress and a research agenda to develop a better understanding of moral distress, how to prevent it, and, when it cannot be prevented, how to manage it.

This paper examines the effects of employees’ sense that they work for a purpose-driven company on their workplace sustainability behaviors. Conceptualizing corporate purpose as an overarching, relevant, shared ethical vision of why a company exists and where it needs to go, we argue that it is particularly suited for driving employee sustainability behaviors, which are more ethically complex than the types of employee ethical behaviors typically examined by prior research. Through four studies, two involving the actual employees of construction companies, (...) we demonstrate that purpose drives the sustainability behaviors of employees by causing them to take psychological ownership of sustainability. In addition, we show that the sustainability-enhancing effect of purpose is stronger when employees perceive that they have higher autonomy in enacting their sustainability actions and for those employees for whom being moral is more central to their sense of self. (shrink)

This article discusses two complementary themes that play an important role in contemporary South African political philosophy: (1) the racist tradition in Western philosophy; and (2) the role of ubuntu in regaining an authentic African identity, which was systematically suppressed during the colonial past and apartheid. These are also leading themes in Mogobe Ramose’s African Philosophy Through Ubuntu. The first part concentrates on John Locke. It discusses the thesis that the reprehensible racism of many founders of liberal political philosophy has (...) lethally infected liberal theory. This view neglects the distinction between genesis and justification. Political liberalism has since cleansed itself of the prejudices of its spiritual ancestors. Liberal human rights exclude racism as a matter of principle. The second part discusses the claim that the ubuntu philosophy provides a better basis for a constitution in a modern society than political liberalism. A major problem is that ubuntu is an essentially contested concept. Some philosophers consider ubuntu to be a moribund notion (Matolino); others see it as a vital concept par excellence. In the latter case, it is elaborated from sundry incompatible political views, ranging from African nationalism (Ramose) via humanist communitarianism (Metz) to liberalism (Mboti). Conclusion: as an essentially contested ideological concept, ubuntu should not be a decisive constitutional standard for the application of state force. In contrast, the constitutional model of political liberalism provides a reasonable alternative, as it is designed precisely to solve the problem of social plurality and ideological contest. (shrink)

H. B. Smith, Professor of Philosophy at the influential 'Pennsylvania School' was (roughly) a contemporary of C. I. Lewis who was similarly interested in a proper account of 'implication'. His research also led him into the study of modal logic but in a different direction than Lewis was led. His account of modal logic does not lend itself as readily as Lewis' to the received 'possible worlds' semantics, so that the Smith approach was a casualty rather than a beneficiary of (...) the renewed interest in modality. In this essay we present some of the main points of the Smith approach, in a new guise. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14.4 (2004) 411-425 [Access article in PDF] Vulnerability, Vulnerable Populations, and Policy Mary C. Ruof "Special justification is required for inviting vulnerable individuals to serve as research subjects and, if they are selected, the means of protecting their rights and welfare must be strictly applied."Guideline 13: Research Involving Vulnerable Persons International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects Council for International Organizations (...) of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) and World Health Organization (WHO) Geneva, Switzerland, 2002 Within medical research and healthcare certain groups are afforded special protections and services because of their designation as vulnerable. The vulnerable require special justification to participate in human subject research in order to eliminate potential human rights abuses. The Nuremberg Code of 1947 was written in response to the extreme human subject abuses that occurred under the Nazi regime, and, although the intent of the 1947 Code was to protect human rights, rigid voluntary consent requirements deprived some individuals of the right to participate in clinical trials. Recent human research guidelines, such as the CIOMS/WHO guidelines referenced above and the guidelines referenced in Section V of this Scope Note, attempt to balance both protection from abuse in research and access to new, experimental treatments for the vulnerable.Although various protective guidelines stipulate special protections for vulnerable populations, the concept of vulnerability and consequently the criteria designating vulnerable populations remain vague. Precisely who are the vulnerable? The word "vulnerability" stems from the Latin vulnerare, "to wound." (Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary 1995). In clinical research, the term [End Page 411] vulnerable generally is applied to individuals who are unable to give informed consent or who are susceptible to coercion. The Common Rule (45 CFR 46, Subpart A) includes as vulnerable research subjects: children, prisoners, pregnant women, and persons who are handicapped, mentally disabled, economically disadvantaged, or educationally disadvantaged. Although the Common Rule specifies certain vulnerable categories, the guidelines were not intended to be exclusive, leaving open the interpretation of vulnerability.In medical research and health policy, vulnerability is an abstract concept that has concrete effects both for those labeled vulnerable and for those not. Clinical researchers, healthcare workers, ethical reviewers, and policymakers must be able to identify vulnerable subjects to establish how healthcare resources will be allocated and who will qualify for special protections and socialized benefits. Attempts to quantify vulnerability in clear, measurable ways have met little if any consensus. As Alexander Morawa (II, 2003, p. 150) states, "There is no single approach to definition of vulnerability. In fact, there is no purposeful categorisation at all."Difficulties in defining vulnerability have prompted discourse surrounding its utility as a qualifying factor in the allocation of health resources and its appropriateness as a guiding principle in bioethics. Some of the authors cited in this Scope Note argue against the labeling and categorization of vulnerable individuals and populations. "Labeling individuals as 'vulnerable' risks viewing vulnerable individuals as 'others' worthy of pity, a view rarely appreciated" (III, Danis and Patrick 2002, p. 320). The categories of vulnerable groups listed under the Common Rule have been the source of controversy, "for example, many find the suggestion that pregnant women are vulnerable to be quite sexist" (IV, DeBruin 2001, p. 7). Instead of creating categories of vulnerable populations, would it not be better to derive an account of just treatment from a just social policy at large that encompasses human vulnerabilities (II, Brock 2002, p. 283).For some of the authors listed here, the concept of vulnerability is essential to bioethics. Robert Goodin (I, 1985, p. 107) writes that the vulnerability of other human beings is the source of our special responsibilities to them. In contrast to the four American principles of biomedical ethics—autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice—the four principles of European bioethics and biolaw include vulnerability along with autonomy, dignity, and integrity. According to, Jacob Dahl Rendtorff and Peter Kemp (I, 2000, p. 274) "the principle of vulnerability is ontologically prior to the other [European] principles, it expresses better than all of the other ethical principles... the finitude of the human condition."Some of the... (shrink)

While the history of philosophy has traditionally given scant attention to food and the ethics of eating, in the last few decades the subject of food ethics has emerged as a major topic, encompassing a wide array of issues, including labor justice, public health, social inequity, animal rights and environmental ethics. This handbook provides a much needed philosophical analysis of the ethical implications of the need to eat and the role that food plays in social, cultural and political life. Unlike (...) other books on the topic, this text integrates traditional approaches to the subject with cutting edge research in order to set a new agenda for philosophical discussions of food ethics. The Routledge Handbook of Food Ethics is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over 35 chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into 7 parts: the phenomenology of food gender and food food and cultural diversity liberty, choice and food policy food and the environment farming and eating other animals food justice Essential reading for students and researchers in food ethics, it is also an invaluable resource for those in related disciplines such as environmental ethics and bioethics. (shrink)

Giving Voice To Values (GVV) serves as a framework to teach individuals methods to speak up when they witness actions that are contrary to their professional and personal values. This essay illustrates how GVV serves as a catalyst to advance both research and teaching activities.

Medical practice is animated by the intention to cure; it aims to relieve the immense variety of sufferings to which human beings are subject in virtue of the conditions of their embodied existence. My purpose here is to demonstrate how a philosophical analysis of the formal structures and kinds of human suffering provides an essential foundation for determining certain ethical dimensions of the physician's relation to his suffering patient. Can paternalism in medical practice be justified by the aim of relieving (...) suffering? What are the scope and limits of the patient's responsibility for his suffering, and what difference does this make in the physician's response to it? How is the suffering that medical treatment itself exacts in the name of cure to be justified? Such questions can be answered only by an analysis of the sense or value of suffering in human life. Keywords: suffering, sin, autonomy, paternalism, patient values CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Retaliation against whistleblowers is a well-recognized problem, yet there is little explanation for why uninvolved peers choose to retaliate through ostracism. We conduct two experiments in which participants take the role of a peer third-party observer of theft and subsequent whistleblowing. We manipulate injunctive norms and descriptive norms. Both experiments support the core of our theoretical model, based on social intuitionist theory, such that moral judgments of the acts of wrongdoing and whistleblowing influence the perceived likeability of each actor and (...) ultimately influence intention to ostracize each actor and indicate more willingness to ostracize the whistleblower than the wrongdoer. When we vary norms for the wrongdoing in Experiment 1, we find that descriptive and injunctive norms indirectly influence intentions to ostracize both the wrongdoer and whistleblower. These relationships are serially mediated by the observers’ moral judgments of the act and likeability of the actor. When we vary norms for whistleblowing in Experiment 2, the injunctive norm manipulation affected moral judgment of the action of whistleblowing, and we do not observe any other significant effects of the norm manipulations on moral judgments of the actions of wrongdoing or whistleblowing. (shrink)

This study examined the relationship between moral distress intensity, moral distress frequency and the ethical work environment, and explored the relationship of demographic characteristics to moral distress intensity and frequency. A group of 106 nurses from two large medical centers reported moderate levels of moral distress intensity, low levels of moral distress frequency, and a moderately positive ethical work environment. Moral distress intensity and ethical work environment were correlated with moral distress frequency. Age was negatively correlated with moral distress intensity, (...) whereas being African American was related to higher levels of moral distress intensity. The ethical work environment predicted moral distress intensity. These results reveal a difference between moral distress intensity and frequency and the importance of the environment to moral distress intensity. (shrink)

We present a new method for characterizing the interpretive possibilities generated by elliptical constructions in natural language. Unlike previous analyses, which postulate ambiguity of interpretation or derivation in the full clause source of the ellipsis, our analysis requires no such hidden ambiguity. Further, the analysis follows relatively directly from an abstract statement of the ellipsis interpretation problem. It predicts correctly a wide range of interactions between ellipsis and other semantic phenomena such as quantifier scope and bound anaphora. Finally, although the (...) analysis itself is stated nonprocedurally, it admits of a direct computational method for generating interpretations. (shrink)

This study explores the impact of participation in a series of moral case deliberations (MCD) on the moral craftsmanship (MCS) of Dutch prison staff. Between 2017–2020, ten MCDs per team were implemented in three prisons (i.e., intervention group). In three other prisons (i.e., control group) no MCDs were implemented. We compared the intervention and control group using a self-developed questionnaire, administered before (pre-measurement) and after the series of MCDs (post-measurement). Results After the MCDs, participants scored significantly higher on 7 of (...) the 70 items related to MCS. On some items there were significant impact differences between the various professional disciplines. Discussion Possible explanations for a relatively low impact are discussed. A shorter and validated questionnaire is needed in order to further study the MCS of professionals and the impact of Ethics Support Services (ESS). Conclusions There was a positive development on some elements of MCS after participation in a series of MCDs. (shrink)

After we die, our persona may live on in the minds of the people we know well. Two essential elements of this process are mourning and acts of commemoration. These behaviors extend well beyond grief and must be cultivated deliberately by the survivors of the deceased individual. Those who are left behind have many ways of maintaining connections with their deceased, such as burials in places where the living are likely to return and visit. In this way, culturally defined places (...) often serve as metaphors of social association and shared experience. Humans are the only kind of animal that buries their dead, and this gesture is preserved in Paleolithic sites as early as 120,000 years ago. Though not the only method of honoring the dead in human cultures, the emergence of burial traditions in the Middle Paleolithic implies that both Neandertals and early anatomically modern humans had already begun to conceive of the individual as unique and irreplaceable. Claims of primitive mortuary behavior in earlier periods than the Middle Paleolithic fall short in that they lack any signs of positive social-spatial associations between the deceased and survivors. The archaeological evidence for burial behavior in the Middle Paleolithic provides the first clear translation of mourning into a stereotypical action. These burials therefore may represent the first ritualized bridge between the living and the deceased in human evolutionary history. (shrink)

Feminist bioethics poses a challenge to bioethics by exposing the masculine marking of its supposedly generic human subject, as well as the fact that the tradition does not view womens rights as human rights. This essay traces the way in which this invisible gendering of the universal renders the other gender invisible and silent. It shows how this attenuation of the human in man is a source of sickness, both cultural and individual. Finally, it suggests several ways in which images (...) drawn from womens experience and womens bodies might contribute to a constructive rethinking of basic ethical concepts. (shrink)

The territorial contraction and speaker-reduction undergone by the Welsh language during the past few centuries has resulted in its categorization by many linguists as an obsolescent language. This study illustrates that, although it is undeniably showing some signs of decline, Welsh stands in marked contrast to many previously documented cases of language death. Against this backdrop of contraction a steady revitalization is taking place. Based upon extensive fieldwork in two sociolinguistically contrasting communities, this book is the first to examine the (...) position and nature of contemporary Welsh with reference to both obsolescence-related developments and changes under way in the dialects. Jones focuses on immersion education, long heralded as the saviour of the language and, by examining the variety of Welsh being produced by immersion pupils, seeks to determine whether this claim is justified, or whether such pupils are in fact 'speaking immersion'. As well as discussing the recent linguistic change shown by contemporary Welsh within the language death framework, the author examines the ways in which the language has been standardized and their repercussions for language maintenance. By way of comparison these tensions and implications are also explored with reference to the other varieties of P-Celtic, namely Breton and Cornish. Series Information: Oxford Studies in Language Contact Series Editor: Professor Suzanne Romaine, Merton College, Oxford Series ISBN: 0-19-961466-0 Series Description: Most of the world's speech communities are multilingual, and contact between languages is thus an important force in the everyday lives of most people. Studies of language contact should therefore form an integral part of work in theoretical, social, and historical linguistics. This series makes available a collection of research monographs which present case studies of language contact around the world. As well as providing an indispensable source of data for the serious researcher, it contributes significantly to theoretical developments in the field. (shrink)

Motorheadbangers, the official fan club for rock giants, Motorhead, has never stopped. Like the band on tour, in the studio and playing live to audiences across the world, Motorheadbangers, through its stalwart fan base, has matched the band's enthusiasm to keep going against all the odds. Since the first fanzine the fan club membership has written of their experiences at seeing and meeting one of the greatest rock n roll bands in the world. In this way, Motorhead's history has been (...) catalogued. However, the majority of those fanzines have long been out of print. (shrink)

Labor and Global Justice combines conceptual and theoretical perspectives across a multiplicity of relevant differences, both geographical and disciplinary, to develop a transnational perspective on labor and justice and to make clear how justice requires a rethinking of the relation between labor and global capital.

Universals are a class of mind independent entities, usually contrasted with individuals, postulated to ground and explain relations of qualitative identity and resemblance among individuals. Individuals are said to be similar in virtue of sharing universals. An apple and a ruby are both red, for example, and their common redness results from sharing a universal. If they are both red at the same time, the universal, red, must be in two places at once. This makes universals quite different from individuals, (...) and controversial. (shrink)

Zyxin is a low abundance phosphoprotein that is localized at sites of cell‐substratum adhesion in fibroblasts. Zyxin displays the architectural features of an intracellular signal transducer. The protein exhibits an extensive proline‐rich domain, a nuclear export signal and three copies of the LIM motif, a double zinc‐finger domain found in many proteins that play central roles in regulation of cell differentiation. Zyxin interacts with α‐actinin, members of the cysteine‐rich protein (CRP) family, proteins that display Src homology 3 (SH3) domains and (...) Ena/VASP family members. Zyxin and its partners have been implicated in the spatial control of actin filament assembly as well as in pathways important for cell differentiation. Based on its repertoire of binding partners and its behavior, zyxin may serve as a scaffold for the assembly of multimeric protein machines that function in the nucleus and at sites of cell adhesion. (shrink)

Predictable somatosensory feedback leads to a reduction in tactile sensitivity. This phenomenon, called tactile suppression, relies on a mechanism that uses an efference copy of motor commands to help select relevant aspects of incoming sensory signals. We investigated whether tactile suppression is modulated by the task-relevancy of the predicted consequences of movement and the intensity of related somatosensory feedback signals. Participants reached to a target region in the air in front of a screen; visual or tactile feedback indicated the reach (...) was successful. Furthermore, tactile feedback intensity varied across two groups of participants. We measured tactile suppression by comparing detection thresholds for a probing vibration applied to the finger either early or late during reach and at rest. As expected, we found an overall decrease in late-reach suppression, as no touch was involved at the end of the reach. We observed an increase in the degree of tactile suppression when strong tactile feedback was given at the end of the reach, compared to when weak tactile feedback or visual feedback was given. Our results suggest that the extent of tactile suppression can be adapted to different demands of somatosensory processing. Downregulation of this mechanism is invoked only when the consequences of missing a weak movement sequence are severe for the task. The decisive factor for the presence of tactile suppression seems not to be the predicted action effect as such, but the need to detect and process anticipated feedback signals occurring during movement. (shrink)

a. 'Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within. ' Thus Kant formulates his attitude to morality (Critique of Practical Reason, p. 260). He draws a sharp distinction between these two objects of admiration. The starry sky, he writes, represents my relationship to the natural, empirical world. Moral law, on the other hand, is of a completely (...) different order. It ' . . . begins from my invisible self, my personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity, but which is traceable only by the understanding and with which I discern that I am not in a merely contingent but in a universal and necessary connection (. . . ). ' (p. 260). So Kant sees morality as a separate metaphysical order opposed to the world of empirical phenomena. Human beings belong to both worlds. According to Kant, the personality derives nothing of value from its relationship with the empirical world. His part in the sensuous world of nature places man on a level with any animal which before long must give back to the rest of nature the substances of which it is made. (shrink)

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The development and utility of genetically modified crops for smallholders around the world is controversial. Critical questions include what traits and crops are to be developed; how they can be adapted to smallholders’ ecological, social and economic contexts; which dissemination channels should be used to reach smallholders; and which policy environments will enable the greatest benefits for smallholders and the rural poor. A key question is how the voices of smallholders who have experience with or desire to use GM technologies (...) enter the larger debate. Africa has the greatest number of smallholders and poor with the least exposure to GM crops. Because of the well-established use of GM crops in South Africa by commercial farmers, we formed a community of practice involving smallholders, extension, researchers, non-profits and agribusiness in KwaZulu-Natal to examine the conditions under which GM crops are used by smallholders, how smallholders interact with GM technologies and what insights smallholders and other stakeholders can provide regarding these questions. One of the advantages of the CoP approach is that it brings stakeholders together in a non-hierarchical way that encourages new ways of thinking and new partnerships. Such interaction around a specific project can enhance the voice of smallholders in a variety of ways. In our project, smallholder participants have increased their knowledge and can make better decisions about GM technologies, which had been barriers for them. Notably, they have also improved their knowledge of maize production practices, accessed new practice networks, and met new researchers and resource providers. They are now being integrated into these networks in a way that should improve their livelihoods and make the wants and needs of smallholders better known. Such knowledge and experience has improved their voice in agriculture and rural development discussions. (shrink)

Het antieke sceptische oeuvre van Sextus Empiricus werd in de tijd van het humanisme herontdekt en verder ontwikkeld. De Engelse denken Hume nam de draad op in de achttiende eeuw en sindsdien is het scepticisme in het Europese denken een rol blijven spelen. Wittgenstein heeft dit rationalistisch scepticisme van richting doen veranderen en het de weg van postmoderne pluraliteit opgedreven.

Psychoanalytic theory is considered as the appropriate context in which to make sense of the masculine/feminine difference, insofar as it offers a methodology for "reading the text of the body." The extent to which the idea of "penis envy" distorts the psychoanalytic reading of feminine embodiment is demonstrated. In undoing this distortion, a positive account of feminine life is developed in the idea of "becoming the mother of oneself.".