Modesty is omnipresent in health care, particularly in the care of highly dependent persons and which involves a significant intrusion into their intimacy. However, it is still little discussed in health care ethics. This article presents a conceptual exploration of the notion of modesty and its manifestations in healthcare, more specifically their moral dimension and the challenges they pose for health care institutions. Since modesty calls for the protection of the integrity, dignity and vulnerability of the person being cared for, (...) it seems to us to have a moral purpose, and therefore deserves not only more attention from the ethics of care, but perhaps even to be introduced as a virtue. (shrink)

Residents’ councils in Quebec’s residential and long-term care centres have the mandate to promote the improvement of living conditions for residents, to assess their level of satisfaction, and to defend their rights. Based on two studies on the autonomy of councils, we examined how committees can express themselves on topics other than those the management is already aware of, to reveal various previously unknown aspects of the services, and to voice unexpressed concerns. We are especially interested in what makes management (...) receptive, or not, to what the committee members say. The councils’ ability to express them selves is, in fact, inseparable from its capacity to listen to the management teams, and we seek to determine the conditions required to perform this dual capacity. (shrink)

Le respect de la vie privée et de l’intimité est un droit reconnu aux usagers des services de santé et des services sociaux par différents codes d’éthique, par la Charte des droits et libertés de la personne du Québec et par la Loi sur les services de santé et les services sociaux. Pour autant, la signification que prend ce droit demeure incertaine. Il n’y a pas une signification, mais bien des significations. S’appuyant sur un important travail d’observation dans deux comités (...) d’éthique clinique situés dans des établissements de santé et de services sociaux, les auteurs présentent et analysent ici un certain nombre de situations litigieuses dans lesquelles une interprétation du droit à la vie privée et à l’intimité a été faite. Au terme de l’exercice, il ressort entre autres que, selon les situations analysées, les discussions qui se font dans les CÉC conduisent à des modalités différentes (« déplacement et hiérarchisation », « opposition et évitement », « ouverture et compromis », « élargissement et remise en question ») qui ont pour effet de changer le regard porté sur l’usager et plus spécifiquement de faire comprendre son point de vue. En outre, si le droit à la vie privée et à l’intimité contribue à modifier l’interprétation que l’on se fait d’une situation ou des usagers, il est lui-même objet d’interprétation. C’est la diversité de sens qu’il peut prendre qui lui préserve son pouvoir d’interroger. (shrink)

Québec's complaint examination system has devoted considerable effort to supporting dissatisfied users who may wish to register complaints. It is open to question, however, whether this level of effort has, in fact, aided users in filing their complaints, and whether, once filed, the intake and processing of complaints has been rigorous and fair. Has the intake and handling of complaints at least improved? This is the question we shall attempt to answer here by presenting the results of our study concerning (...) the impact of the Complaint Assistance and Support Centers (CAAPs) on the intake of complaints. The results show that the Québec complaint examination system and its Complaint Assistance and Support Centers help make complaints more admissible and ensure that each complaint is examined. However, the system is also hindered by differences and conflicting interpretations among the various stakeholders regarding the legitimacy of complaints, respect for users’ rights, and the mission of the system. Although complaint examination systems seek to encourage users to express their points of view, users’ voices are still only partly audible. (shrink)

Qui, de nos jours, veut encore " faire son âge "? Les enfants sont adolescents de plus en plus tôt, les jeunes le restent de plus en plus tard, les adultes rechignent à quitter leur jeunesse, et les vieux n'aspirent qu'à en connaître une seconde... Alors que la vie est plus longue et plus sûre que jamais, les étapes qui en rythmaient autrefois le cours semblent aujourd'hui confuses. Pourquoi grandir? Pourquoi vieillir? De telles questions sont désormais ouvertes. Incertitudes dans l'éducation, (...) crise de l'âge adulte, problème des retraites, drame de la grande vieillesse : autant de signes d'un désarroi inédit, reflétant l'ébranlement profond de l'idée même de maturité. L'examen des grandes philosophies du passé permet de mettre en lumière les nombreuses métamorphoses de l'idéal de la maturité adulte. Il se pourrait qu'une ultime recomposition s'opère sous nos yeux : la maturité, devenue " maturescence ", ne désigne plus un état stable, mais un processus indéfini par lequel nous gagnons en expérience, responsabilité et authenticité. Bref, l'adulte n'est pas mort, et sa cause mérite d'être défendue. En dépit des tentations " jeunistes ", l'idéal demeure, plus exigeant que jamais, invitant chacun d'entre nous à ce que la philosophie antique réservait aux plus sages des sages : devenir toujours plus grand. (shrink)

We describe the results and implications of a literature review that identifies the number of normative and empirical articles, respectively, that have appeared in Nursing Ethics in each year from 1994 to 2017. The results of our analysis suggest a powerful trend away from normative scholarship and toward empirical investigation within the field of nursing ethics, both overall and comparatively. We argue that there are several important negative consequences of this trend, and we propose some potential solutions to address them.

I apply some of the lessons from quantum theory, in particular from Bell’s theorem, to a debate on the foundations of decision theory and causation. By tracing a formal analogy between the basic assumptions of causal decision theory (CDT)—which was developed partly in response to Newcomb’s problem— and those of a local hidden variable theory in the context of quantum mechanics, I show that an agent who acts according to CDT and gives any nonzero credence to some possible causal interpretations (...) underlying quantum phenomena should bet against quantum mechanics in some feasible game scenarios involving entangled systems, no matter what evidence they acquire. As a consequence, either the most accepted version of decision theory is wrong, or it provides a practical distinction, in terms of the prescribed behaviour of rational agents, between some metaphysical hypotheses regarding the causal structure underlying quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This book uncovers a logical structure that is common to many, if not all, of the kinds posited by scientific taxonomies. Specification relations, such as those holding between determinates and determinables (determination), are central to this logical investigation of kinds. The species–genus relation is a familiar specification relation for substantival kinds, but this book focuses on adjectival kinds—whose instances are properties—instead. Determination relations are then used to structure kinds at the same level of abstraction into property spaces, which in turn (...) leads to a theory for individuating properties (tropes). These determination relations are contrasted with realization relations, the latter being the favored way of understanding the connection between the mental and the physical. Particular attention is given to the distinction between multiple realizability and multiple determination, and it is argued that determination and realization are mutually exclusive. The claim that multiple realizability entails various senses of autonomy is defended from various reductionist challenges. These theories of determination and realization then provide general standards for establishing the autonomy of the special sciences or, conversely, their reduction. (shrink)

Governments have been slow to address climate change. If non-governmental agents share a responsibility in light of the slow pace of government action then it is a collective responsibility. I examine three models of collective responsibility, especially Iris Young's social connection model, and assess their value for identifying a collective, among all emitters, that can share responsibility. These models can help us better understand both the growth of the movement to divest from fossil fuels and the nature of responsibility for (...) collective action problems. Universities and colleges share a responsibility because they occupy similar positions of, among other things, power and privilege. (shrink)

Rosenberg's The Thinking Self also takes Husserl to task. Without going into the details here, Rosenberg finds Husserl's reliance on retentions to be inadequate. Instead, Rosenberg proposes that previous representations enter into our unified, instantaneous awareness of a succession as ones of which we are aware that we are, or were, aware of; as items of so-called meta-awareness. But this account falls prey to the same worries as Husserl's. For again, it is by no means clear what a series of (...) awarenesses, meta-awarenesses, meta-meta-awarenesses, etc. have to do with the representation of a temporal series. (shrink)

In this paper I call attention to Adam Smith’s “Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages” in order to facilitate understanding Adam Smith from a Darwinian perspective. By ‘Darwinian’ I mean a position that explains differential selection over time through natural mechanisms. First, I argue that right near the start of Wealth of Nations Smith signals that human nature has probably evolved over a very long amount of time. Second, I connect this evidence with an infamous passage on infanticide in (...) The Theory of Moral Sentiments in order to argue that Smith is committed to group selection. Third, I argue that in Dissertation on Languages one can find building blocks for the claim that mind and language co-develop over time. More controversially I claim that in TMS there is a distinction between natural sentiments and moral sentiments. Natural sentiments are evolved (presumably through cultural selection) and moral sentiments are developed (through acculturation within society). Along the way, I argue that this distinction would have improved Darwin’s Descent of Man by blocking a move toward eugenics. (shrink)

This article deals with the concept of infinity in classical American philosophy. It focuses on the philosophical and technical developments of infinity in the 19th Century American thinkers Royce and Peirce.

The view that belief is a dyadic relation between a believer and some other object, e.g., a proposition, appears to receive support from the fact that we can infer ‘There is something that Jones believes' from ordinary belief ascriptions such as ‘Jones believes that the tallest man is wise’. On consideration, however, it turns out that even a crude nonrelational view of belief can accommodate this inference. In order to permit the inference the nonrelationalist must read‘ There is something that (...) Jones believes' as equivalent to‘ Jones has a belief. (shrink)

Armed reprisals are the limited use of military force in response to unlawful actions perpetrated against states. Historically, reprisals provided a military remedy for states that had been wronged by another state without having to resort to all-out war in order to counter or deter such wrongful actions. While reprisals are broadly believed to have been outlawed by the UN Charter, states continue to routinely undertake such self-help measures. As part of the roundtable, “The Ethics of Limited Strikes,” this essay (...) examines the doctrine of armed reprisals in light of recent instances of states using force “short of war” in this manner. We argue that the ban on reprisals has been largely ignored by states, and that recent attempts to apply the laws of armed conflict to the cyber domain are further weakening this prohibition. We conclude that this is a potentially dangerous development that lowers the bar for resorting to military force, risking escalation and thereby further destabilizing the international system. (shrink)

Many expressions intuitively have different epistemic and modal profiles. For example, co-referring proper names are substitutable salva veritate in modal contexts but not in belief-contexts. Two-dimensional semantics, according to which terms have both a so-called primary and a secondary intension, is a framework that promises to accommodate and explain these diverging intuitions. The framework can be applied to indexicals, proper names or predicates. Graeme Forbes argues that the two-dimensional semantics of David Chalmers fails to account for so-called nested contexts. These (...) are linguistic contexts where a sentence is embedded under both epistemic and modal operators. Chalmers and Rabern suggest a two-dimensional solution to the problem. Their semantics solves the nesting-problem, but at the cost of invalidating certain plausible principles. We suggest a solution that is both simpler and avoids this cost. (shrink)

There has recently been a revival of interest in ‘naturalizing’ ethics. A naturalization seeks to vindicate ethical realism — the idea that ethical judgments can be true reflections of a moral reality — without violating the naturalist constraint that science sets the limits of ontology. The recent revival has been prompted by examples of successful scientific reduction (e.g. temperature, water), and by the emergence of new, nonreductive naturalist strategies (e.g. for biological and mental properties). In this paper, I argue against (...) such naturalist approaches to ethics. My argument builds on the traditional one offered by G.E. Moore, namely that a naturalization would fail to respect an existing difference between the meanings of moral and naturalistic terms. I defend this line of argument against the common claim that it cannot block ‘synthetic’ property identities, ones grounded not in meaning equivalences but in empirical discoveries (as in the cases of temperature and water). I then go on to show that the Moorean argument can make trouble even for recent revisionist and nonreductive naturalist approaches. (shrink)

Robin Hendry has recently argued that although the term ‘element’ has traditionally been used in two different senses, there has nonetheless been a continuity of reference. The present article examines this author’s historical and philosophical claims and suggests that he has misdiagnosed the situation in several respects. In particular it is claimed that Hendry’s arguments for the nature of one particular element, oxygen, do not generalize to all elements as he implies. The second main objection is to Hendry’s view that (...) the qua problem can be illuminated by appeal to the intention of scientists.Keywords: Element; Simple substance; Basic substance; Antoine Lavoisier; Dmitri Mendeleev; Reference; Qua problem. (shrink)

The way information and communication technology (ICT) develops can promote or hinder the democratic potential of this critical societal infrastructure. Concerns about the role standards development organizations (SDOs) play in this context predate the “digital age” but are reemerging amid substantial changes in the institutional landscape of standardization. This article explores the increasingly critical link between the institutional design of SDOs and the democratic design of ICT. We review some principles of democracy in terms of the design of technology, apply (...) these to standardization, and discuss the role public policy may play here, while distinguishing between input and output legitimacy. (shrink)

This paper proposes and employs a framework for determining whether life-saving treatment at birth is in the best interests of extremely preterm infants, given uncertainty about the outcome of such a choice. It argues that given relevant data and plausible assumptions about the well-being of babies with various outcomes, it is typically in the best interests of even the youngest preterm infants—those born at 22 weeks gestational age—to receive life-saving treatment at birth.

Robert Trivers has proposed perhaps the only serious adaptationist account of self-deception—that the primary function of self-deception is to better deceive others. But this account covers only a subset of cases and needs further refinement. A better evolutionary account of self-deception and cognitive biases more generally will more rigorously recognize the various ways in which false beliefs affect both the self and others. This article offers formulas for determining the optimal doxastic orientation, giving special consideration to conflicted self-deception as an (...) alternative to outright self-delusion. A novel taxonomy of self-deception, as it relates to the beliefs held by others, is also presented. While Trivers makes a plausible case for the adaptive value of certain cognitive biases, a more fragmented and nuanced account of the social forces impacting the evolution of self-deception is needed. (shrink)

I endeavor to explore Farber’s work leading into the Foundation in order to construct an understanding both of his idiosyncratic interpretation of Husserl, and of what lead to Farber’s break with phenomenology. A great irony of Farber’s career may turn out to be that a scholar so deeply bothered by presuppositions and so committed a methodological pluralist may have discarded phenomenology because of his own philosophical commitments, a fact noted by Farber’s former student, Sang-Ki Kim. In an essay in Farber’s (...) memory, Kim questions whether Farber himself was subject to the limitations and prejudices inherent in his commitments to scientific Marxism and naturalism. Farber’s pervasive interests in naturalism are likely influenced, in part, by consideration for the cancer research of his brother, Sidney. This work will first examine Farber’s attitudes towards metaphysics and naturalism. Second, it will turn to an examination of his interests in logic – which largely prompted his interests in phenomenology. Farber’s methodological pluralism is driven in part by his understanding of logic and in part his other interests. Further disagreements with Husserl will be reappraised in the concluding section of the essay. (shrink)

Trois objections au moins peuvent remettre en question la vocation de l’homme à la liberté. En premier lieu, l’indépendance à l’égard des déterminations extérieures, que suppose la liberté, ne semble-t-elle pas conduire à l’indifférence et à l’incapacité de choisir? En outre à supposer même que l’autodétermination soit possible dans la ressaisie pure de soi, comment, en second lieu, comprendre l’effectivité de ma résolution? Son inscription dans l’extériorité risque en effet d’en condamner la pureté. Enfin, la pensée de la liberté ne (...) repose-t-elle pas sur une expérience nécessairement pré-compréhensive et donc potentiellement illusoire? Or, c’est précisément parce qu’elle surmonte cette triple difficulté que la philosophie bergsonienne peut apparaître, par le renouvellement du sens qu’elle accorde à la liberté, comme une authentique doctrine de la libération. (shrink)

The many kinds of naturalism fall into two main types. Dogmatic naturalists define naturalness using some rule. Progressive naturalists define naturalness in terms of a research program. This research program, illustrated by the sciences, progressively defines things ever more precisely using mathematics. Most traditional religious concepts fail to be natural on any type of naturalism. But progressive naturalists are open to naturalistic revisions of traditional concepts. They do not tie religion to the past, but welcome novel religious and spiritual naturalisms.