Pleidooi vooor eerherstel van de politiek, door de PvdA-fractieleider.

Is het niet vreemd om te zeggen dat een verhaal uit de achtste eeuw voor Christus ons iets kan vertellen over onze hedendaagse westerse cultuur? Hoe kan de beschrijving van een wereld die geregeerd wordt door goden, heksen, nimfen en allerlei mythische gedrochten bijdragen aan ons zelfbegrip? Dat is minder vreemd dan het lijkt. Juist omdat Homeros helemaal aan het begin van onze beschaving stond, kunnen wij in retrospectief herkennen wat de nieuwe wereld scheidde van de oude. De homerische (...) epen vormen een eerste definitie van de westerse cultuur, zij geven de contouren aan van een manier van denken en handelen die de wereld tot op de dag van vandaag beheerst. (shrink)

The expression that professionals should be led by their moral or ethical compass is increasingly used by academics, policy makers, professionals, and educational institutes. Dutch universities of applied sciences (UAS), for example, explicitly aim to educate their students to become professionals equipped with a moral compass. This moral or ethical compass is a metaphor of which people intuitively grasp its meaning, but our literature review also shows that various interpretations are possible. We found three clusters of proposed ethical compasses expressing (...) its a) content, b) form, or c) use, which we present in this article. Thereafter, we evaluate which compass can meaningfully assist (young) professionals and, therefore, should be part of the aims and content of education provided by UAS. Based on this evaluation, we describe the possibilities and boundaries of UAS’ contribution to the development of their students’ ethical compass. (shrink)

The aim of this empirical study is to understand how bachelor students at universities of applied sciences (UAS) use their ethical compasses during internships. Semi-structured interviews were held with 36 fourth-year bachelor students across four UAS and three different programs in the Netherlands: Initial Teacher Education, Business Services, and Information and Communication Technology. To our knowledge, no studies appear to have investigated and compared students from multiple professional fields, nor identified the dynamics and the sequence of the strategies in the (...) decision-making process that students use when faced with ethical dilemmas during internships. We found that students’ ethical dilemmas stemmed from: mentors’ or managers’ behaviours/requests, colleagues’ behaviours, organisations’ morally questionable incentives, pupils’ home situations, and pupils’ behaviours/personal stories. The majority of students used multiple strategies and first investigated the ethical dilemmas they encountered and then avoided, intervened, delegated responsibilities, or adjusted to their environments. Students’ values played an important role in experiencing an ethical dilemma, however, these values were not always acted upon. We identified that rather students’ beliefs about having influence and/or ownership (or not), personal interest(s) and power relations influenced the way how they used their ethical compasses. Thus, instead of navigating on moral standards (of their profession), students reacted on beliefs which reflected the ways in which they constructed their internship contexts, social relationships and their own (and others) needs. As a result, half of the mentioned dilemmas were resolved in a prudent-strategic manner (e.g., by prioritising personal interests), instead of morally. This indicates that students did not always convert (moral) values into moral action and did not use their ethical compasses in the way UAS aspires. Finally, this study found that the ways in which students used their ethical compasses were strongly influenced by their environments. (shrink)

We study original position arguments in the context of social choice under ignorance. First, we present a general formal framework for such arguments. Next, we provide an axiomatic characterization of social choice rules that can be supported by original position arguments. We illustrate this characterization in terms of various well-known social choice rules, some of which do and some of which do not satisfy the axioms in question. Depending on the perspective one takes, our results can be used to argue (...) against certain rules, against Rawlsian theories of procedural fairness, or in support of richer, multidimensional models of individual choice. (shrink)

In this empirical study, we investigate _what_ and _how_ teachers in Dutch universities of applied sciences (UAS) think they contribute to the development of students’ ethical compasses. Six focus groups were conducted with teachers across three programmes: Initial Teaching Education, Business Services, and Information and Communication Technology. This study revealed that teachers across the three different professional disciplines shared similar ideas about what should be addressed in the development of students’ ethical compasses. Their contributions were grouped into three core themes: (...) creating students’ moral awareness, developing students’ moral skills and promoting students’ moral professional behaviour. The majority of the teachers used a wide range of planned and unplanned pedagogic–didactic actions (reflecting individual learning and cooperative and group learning) to enhance the development of students’ ethical compasses. However, teachers’ strategies were mostly unstructured and unreflective and depended on the individual teacher’s ability and knowledge to address moral themes. Furthermore, the study revealed two incompatible ideals: as role models, the teachers aimed to exemplify explicitly how to be a professional with an ethical compass. However, they also wanted to adopt a neutral stance because they were afraid to manipulate the students’ ethical compasses. Therefore, they avoided promoting _the_ ethical compass that they believed to be the best. (shrink)

In this empirical study, we investigate what and how teachers in Dutch universities of applied sciences (UAS) think they contribute to the development of students’ ethical compasses. Six focus groups were conducted with teachers across three programmes: Initial Teaching Education, Business Services, and Information and Communication Technology. This study revealed that teachers across the three different professional disciplines shared similar ideas about what should be addressed in the development of students’ ethical compasses. Their contributions were grouped into three core themes: (...) creating students’ moral awareness, developing students’ moral skills and promoting students’ moral professional behaviour. The majority of the teachers used a wide range of planned and unplanned pedagogic–didactic actions (reflecting individual learning and cooperative and group learning) to enhance the development of students’ ethical compasses. However, teachers’ strategies were mostly unstructured and unreflective and depended on the individual teacher’s ability and knowledge to address moral themes. Furthermore, the study revealed two incompatible ideals: as role models, the teachers aimed to exemplify explicitly how to be a professional with an ethical compass. However, they also wanted to adopt a neutral stance because they were afraid to manipulate the students’ ethical compasses. Therefore, they avoided promoting the ethical compass that they believed to be the best. (shrink)

Artikelen over de professionele idealen van o.a. verpleegkundigen, artsen, maatschappelijkwerkers en leraren.

Blood service organizations employ various ways to ensure transfusion blood safety, including the testing of all donations for transfusion-transmissible infections (TTI) and the exclusion of donors who are at increased risk of a recent infection. As some TTIs are more common among men who have sex with men (MSM), many jurisdictions (temporarily) defer the donation of blood by sexually active MSM. This boils down to a categorical exclusion of a large group solely on the basis of their sexual orientation, which (...) is seen as unduly discriminatory and stigmatizing. Blood service organizations in the U.K. and the Netherlands have recently changed their deferral policies for MSM. The problem of the MSM deferral involves a conflict between fundamental rights: the right of MSM to equal treatment and the right to health of the recipients of blood and blood products. We distinguish and discuss three broad alternative options to the current categorical deferral of MSM donations: (1) completely abandoning donor selection on the basis of sexual behavior, (2) individual risk assessment of the sexual activities of each potential donor, and (3) individual risk assessment of the sexual activities of MSM only. The new U.K. policy falls within the second category, and the new Dutch policy is in the third category. We argue that each approach comes with moral costs but that the most reasonable option is different from the policies of both the U.K. and the Netherlands. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Greet Van Thienen vraagt zich af hoe we vrijheid kunnen vinden in de voortsnellende tijd. Wat is de alchemie van tijd en mens? Want hoewel tijd niet tastbaar is, drukt hij zich uit in alle levende wezens. Hoe werkt de tijd door ons heen? Wat kunnen wij ermee doen? Van Thienen onderneemt deze tijdreis samen met filosofen, schrijvers en wetenschappers die iets van het fenomeen tijd blootleggen. Denkers die aan bod komen zijn onder meer: Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, Virgina (...) Woolf, Albert Einstein, Blaise Pascal, Jean-Paul Sartre en Byung-Chul Han. Zijn we tovenaarsleerlingen die, gebukt onder het vluchtige en snelle, toch het eeuwige blijven zoeken?"--Publisher information. (shrink)

Vraagt onze samenleving om een nieuwe politieke formule, om met Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) te spreken? Op het eerste gezicht niet. De democratie is stevig verankerd in de Grondwet en verdragen en is ingebed in de rechtsstaat, en zowel democratie als rechtsstaat maken deel uit van ons collectieve bewustzijn. Toch is er wat aan de hand in de verhouding tussen overheid, samenleving en individu, zoals de inmiddels structurele onvrede met het publieke domein laat zien. Dat vraagt om een richtinggevende doordenking (...) van de vooronderstellingen van ons democratisch bestel en de fundamenten waarop het berust. Dat is wat dit boek zich ten doel stelt. Het biedt toekomstgerichte ideeën voor ons publieke domein aan de hand van kernbegrippen als legitimiteit, staat, politiek, instituties, identiteit, burgerschap, kerk en theologie. Het gedachtegoed van Tocqueville, die geldt als een van de grootste en meest interessante denkers over de moderne democratie, de democratische samenleving en de democratische mens, vormt daarvoor de inspiratiebron. (shrink)

Wie ‘Mill’ zegt, zegt in eerste instantie bovenal ‘vrijheid’ en ‘utilisme’. In hun onderling verband vormen deze begrippen nog steeds een sterke verwoording van het zelfbegrip van de moderne mens. In de maakbare, nieuwe wereld van het modernisme ervaart de mens de mogelijkheid en wenselijkheid, de wereld naar eigen inzicht en ontwerp in te richten. Daarbij verlangt hij zo veel mogelijk verschoond blijven van onderdrukkende, traditionele, paternalistische machten, of die nu van de overheid komen of uit de samenleving. Richtsnoer vormt (...) niet meer louter de morele wet die hij zichzelf oplegt, of door anderen opgelegd krijgt, maar het systeem van sociale wetten zoals dat wordt geformuleerd in de positieve wetenschap: de economie en de sociologie. (shrink)

‘Vandaag ga je toch niet hardlopen, met zo'n rotweer?’ Vraag van een collega aan een andere collega. ‘Natuurlijk wel,’ klonk het antwoord. ‘Net met dit regenweer vind ik het heerlijk om er eens tegenaan te gaan.’ Dat antwoord beviel me wel. Vorige winter heb ik het nog zo vaak mogen meemaken tijdens het fietsen. Een geselende wind, ijskoude regendruppels, opspattende modder: bij het begin van een trainingsrit roept dat vraagtekens op naar de zin van dit gedoe. Dat duurt hooguit een (...) uur. Dan worden je twijfels overstemd door wat je lichaam je zeer nadrukkelijk influistert: dit is genieten. Van binnen in je lijf lijken allerlei explosieve stofjes naar buiten te willen. Lijden als springstof. Een klein beetje doodgaan om je springlevend te voelen. Duursporters kennen die wijsheid van het lichaam. (shrink)