Background: An understanding of the ethical concerns encountered by visiting nurses in the community is needed. Yet, there is a lack of research on this topic. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to explore the ethical concerns that visiting nurses experience when caring for vulnerable older people living in a community. Design and sample: A qualitative thematic analysis was used to explore the nature of the ethical issues experienced by visiting nurses (N = 13) who care for vulnerable older (...) people, over 65 years of age, in a South Korean community. Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with visiting nurses. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to explore the main themes of the phenomenon. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Chung-Ang University Bioethics Committee in South Korea. Results: Four ethical themes emerged from the qualitative data: (a) quantitative performance rather than quality care, (b) clients being invisible, (c) tuning the level of the relationship with clients, and (d) facing the visiting nurses’ own limitations. Conclusion: This study provides a theoretical basis to understand the ethical aspects of visiting nurses’ interactions with clients, which should facilitate the development of ethical guidelines for visiting nurses to use in making ethical decisions in their practice. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to identify how older Korean people seek information and their desire to participate in decision making about their health care. A total of 165 elderly people living in Seoul, South Korea, participated in the study. Data were collected during individual interviews using the Autonomy Preference Index. The mean information-seeking score was high. The mean score for their desire to participate with a physician in decision making was lower, but this was higher when family members (...) were involved. The study indicates that many older people want to receive information about their health care. Families (or guardians), as well as older people themselves, should be included in the decision-making process. Nurses can encourage older people to express their wishes, while treating each individual with respect. (shrink)

Background Nurses providing care to patients with end-of-life or terminal illnesses often encounter ethically challenging situations leading to moral distress. However, existing quantitative studies have examined moral distress using instruments that address general clinical situations rather than those specific to end-of-life care. Furthermore, qualitative studies have often been limited to participants from a single unit or those experiencing moral distress-induced circumstances. A comprehensive and integrated understanding of the overarching process of moral distress is vital to discern the unique circumstances surrounding (...) end-of-life care and its consequential impacts. Research objectives To explore the moral distress experiences of nurses who are frequently involved in caring for patients with end-of-life or terminal illnesses and apply it to two existing theories: the model of moral distress and the ecological model. Research design A qualitative descriptive approach was employed. Participants and research context Seven focus group interviews involving 30 nurses were performed. The subsequent transcriptions underwent rigorous content analysis. Ethical considerations We obtained Institutional Review Board approval from a university. Focus group interviews were conducted with nurses who agreed to participate and signed the consent form. Findings The moral distress-inducing factors and nurses’ perceived impact of moral distress were identified and categorized based on moral distress theories and ecological models. A total of 15 categories and 30 subcategories across the following 4 domains were derived: (1) intrapersonal, (2) interpersonal, (3) organizational, and (4) structural factors. Conclusions End-of-life-specific circumstances induced moral distress among nurses, with both negative and positive impacts identified. Effective organizational and policy support is essential to manage conflicts, form a healthy organizational culture, provide training, and prevent unnecessary expenses due to the negative consequences of moral distress. (shrink)

Relativism, the position that things are for each as they seem to each, was first formulated in Western philosophy by Protagoras, the 5th century BC Greek orator and teacher. This book focuses on the challenge to the possibility of expert knowledge posed by Protagoras, together with responses by the three most important philosophers of the next generation, Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus. In his book Truth, Protagoras made vivid use of two provocative but imperfectly spelled out ideas. First, that everyone is (...) a ‘measure’ of the truth, and that everyone is already capable of determining how things are, since the senses are the best and most credible guides to the truth. Second, given that things appear differently to different people, there is no basis on which to decide that one appearance is true rather than the other. Plato developed these ideas into a more fully worked-out theory, which he then subjected to refutation in the Theaetetus. Aristotle argued that Protagoras’ ideas lead to skepticism in Metaphysics Book G, a chapter which reflects awareness of Plato’s reaction in the Theaetetus. Finally, Democritus incorporated modified Protagorean ideas and arguments into his theory of knowledge and perception. There have been many important recent studies of these thinkers in isolation. However, there has been no attempt to tell a single, coherent story about how Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle responded to Protagoras’ striking claim, and to its perceived implications about knowledge, perception, and truth. This book offers a new account of this important chapter in the development of Greek epistemology. (shrink)

For both Spinoza and Zhuang-zi, the goal of life is attaining freedom, namely, human freedom. What do they mean by “human freedom”? What are the necessary conditions for humans to attain freedom? Seeking for answers to these questions, I’ve noted that Spinoza and Zhuang-zi suggest remarkably similar answers to these questions. First, both Spinoza and Zhuang-zi understand human freedom as a form of complete independence from externals: self-determination in Spinoza and union with the Dao in Zhuang-zi. Second, both Spinoza and (...) Zhuang-zi assert that human freedom is attainable when one sees things truly or adequately: in Spinoza, when one sees things from the viewpoint of eternity, and in Zhuang-zi, when one sees things from the viewpoint of the Dao. (shrink)

This book makes the argument that since Asian American women live in the periphery of the multicultural West, they need to strengthen the psychological process of self integration, assimilating neither to traditional cultural demands or those of the larger society.

This paper explores two ideas in Aristotle: the idea that a just person is necessarily a lawful and law-abiding citizen, and second, the idea that the virtuous person necessarily cares about the common good. In this paper, I show that justice and its concern for the common good is central to Aristotle’s conception of the virtuous agent, and that justice, in turn, cannot be understood apart from the various laws that states devise for the common benefit.

This article illuminates the open ending of Christopher Nolan's film Inception (2010) in light of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. Drawing particularly on Nietzsche's notions of ascetic ideals and honest illusions, the article contends that Cobb's refusal to look at the spinning top can be seen not necessarily as his renunciation of autonomy but as his new attempt to affirm his existence and create meanings. Mal's tragic death has turned Cobb into an ascetic idealist who paradoxically resorts to self-torture to alleviate his (...) pain and suffering. Only when he sees the destructive power of his sense of guilt about Mal does he come to realize that what he really needs is not exactly the ability to distinguish the dream world from reality per se but the ability to make things seem and feel real – that is, in Nietzsche's words, honest illusions. Faced with the challenge to regain the capability to see and appreciate illusions as illusions without deceiving himself into believing that they are real, Cobb takes “a leap of faith” with Saito into the world to which he wishes to belong and finally embraces the moment of seeing his children's faces, which, fortunately for him, seem real – that is, “good” – enough. (shrink)

In this paper I consider Aristotle’s solutions to two questions about justice and the laws: why think that obeying the law is just? And why think that doing what is just will promote one’s happiness? I analyze Aristotle’s solutions to these two problems in terms of four claims concerning the laws that come from Plato and underwrite Aristotle’s optimism about the potential for politikê epistêmê to issue in laws which are objectively correct.

This study argues that it is more important to enlighten human mind than to develop key competencies in terms of human development. For this, the current study addresses the limitations of OECD's functional approach to competency development, by exploring the conceptual framework of key competencies identified by OECD researchers. Then, it explores the structure of human mind, drawn from the perspective of the Doctrine of the Mean (中庸) which is one of the important East Asian philosophical traditions that has studied (...) the theme of human being or mind. When based on the analysis of the structure of human mind which uses the perspective of the Doctrine of the Mean, this study found that key competencies that a human being should have are basically produced through the operation of human mind. Also, human mind in the Doctrine of the Mean is 'transformed being' from ego-centered to virtue centered. The findings of this study provide some useful implications for the human development. First, given the nature of the human mind and the important role it plays in human life, the primary focus of education should be placed on enlightening the mind of human beings. Second, this study suggests that school education and extra-curricular activities should not only provide knowledge and techniques that are needed in a modern society, but also make an effort to enlighten human mind. (shrink)

In this thesis, I present an account of the development of early Greek epistemology, according to which Protagoras' measure doctrine, and his argument from conflicting appearances, was the starting point for work on perception and knowledge by Plato in the Theaetetus, Aristotle in Metaphysics IV and Democritus. In Chapter One, I argue against the assumption that Protagoras' Aletheia contained a philosophical theory. It was probably not a treatise, but a virtuoso show-piece, with the aim of "knocking down" views according to (...) which truth is only known by gods, and, with difficulty, by privileged humans--namely, philosophers. For this, it need not have contained more than some well-chosen examples of perceptual and value beliefs, and arguments that one cannot decide which are true. In Chapter Two, I argue that Democritus should be seen as Protagoras' heir. Democritus argued Protagoras' general claim is self-refuting, but thought he was right about perceptual appearances. In Confirmations, he defended the senses, attributing to them knowledge and "power of proof." However, his theory led to an ancestor of the primary/secondary quality distinction, and this threatened to undermine the theory itself because of implications--that one can only know how things appear and not how things are by nature--which were later taken up in Pyrrhonist skepticism. In Chapter Three, I present a reading of the Secret Doctrine in Plato's Theaetetus as a defense and diagnosis of Protagoras' claim, in particular, an explanation of the global relativization which Protagoras' claim seems to recommend. This reading is meant to avoid the well-known difficulties concerning the prevailing interpretation of Protagoras' "Secret Doctrine" as a flux doctrine. I also argue that Plato developed the Secret Doctrine with Democritus in mind. In Chapter Four, I argue that Plato's "self-refutation argument" is aimed at relativism, but not relativism about truth. The latter, which Aristotle dismisses as eristical, is a position Protagoras can take, but Plato's argument works against it as well. In Chapter Five, I examine why Aristotle seems to treat Protagoras in Metaphysics IV as being committed to a denial of the principle of non-contradiction. (shrink)

The study hypothesizes that the environmental, social, and governance of the host country have a significant effect on clean development mechanism implementation. As CDM incorporates sustainable development as one of the objectives for the green transition, many countries endeavor to adopt and implement CDM as their cleaner production method. Based on the institutional theory, the study aims to investigate the mechanism by which the institutional process of each ESG pillar makes an opportunity for a host country and to see how (...) such country-specific factors influence the implementation of CDM projects. A county-year unbalanced sample drawn from World Bank and multinational CDM project data was analyzed using panel logistic and Poisson regression. Panel regression results show that high-energy intensity and low renewable electricity output as an environmental pillar positively affect CDM implementation. Unemployment and undernourishment as a social pillar positively affect CDM whereas low government effectiveness and the high rule of law positively affect CDM. In the results of zero-inflated Poisson regression, the direction of government effectiveness was upturned. The findings have broadened and deepened the ESG pillar based on the institutional theory and emphasized sustainable development rather than economic outputs. (shrink)

This volume features new papers by an international group of scholars in ancient philosophy, with a particular focus on new work in ancient Greek and Roman ethics, epistemology, logic, and science.

Toleration is one of many responses toward diversity and difference. With the growing diversity, the theme of toleration has often taken center stage in discussions of multiculturalism and social pluralism. Nonetheless, it has not received much attention in the social work profession. Social workers often encounter situations in which they face a choice between tolerating and not tolerating. We argue that toleration is a legitimate and relevant topic in social work discourse. To make this point, first, this paper discusses different (...) conceptions of toleration. Then, it demonstrates its relevance to social work and explores a potential benefit of including the idea of toleration in social work discourse. Social work code of ethics implicitly supports toleration, or at least respect-toleration and esteem-toleration. Incorporating toleration in social work discourse may help social workers to better cope with or reduce ethical stress and disjuncture. (shrink)

This chapter explores Rainer Forst’s justification-centric view of nondomination toleration. This view places an idea of equal respect and a corresponding requirement of reciprocal and general justification at the core of non-domination toleration. After reconstructing this view, this chapter addresses two issues. First, even if this idea of equal respect requires the limits of non-domination toleration to be drawn in a manner that is equally justifiable to all affected people, equal justifiability should not be understood in terms of Forst’s requirement (...) of reciprocal and general acceptability. Second, for the equal justifiability of relevant constraints to ensure non-domination outcomes, discursive equality must be understood in substantive, purchase-sensitive terms. This means that a justification-centric view of non-domination toleration stands or falls with the participation value of what it regards as the standards of justification. This places reasonably contested matters of value at the heart of such views. (shrink)

Epicurus is usually credited with being the first to recognize, and disavow, determinism as a threat to freedom of the will . This common assumption has recently come under attack by Susanne Bobzien , and now also by Tim O’Keefe, who, in this rigorously argued but eminently readable book, examines the extant evidence for Epicurus’ views, and concludes that Epicurus was not concerned with the “modern” problem of free will at all.

This study examined influential factors of newspaper corporation social responsibility and evaluated corporate social responsibility using a newspaper corporate social responsibility index. Results of this study, which was conducted by survey, showed that arbitrative, essential, and cultural activities were influential factors comprised of newspaper corporate social responsibility. In addition, the findings indicated that higher corporate social responsibility index was not accompanied by Korean newspaper corporations with larger circulations.

Molodtsov introduced 1999 the concept of soft set as a new mathematical tool for dealing with uncertainties that is free from the difficulties that have troubled the usual theoretical approaches. In this paper we apply the notion of soft sets by Molodtsov to ordered semigroups. The notions of soft ordered semigroup, soft ordered subsemigroup, soft left ideal, and left idealistic soft ordered semigroup are introduced, and various related properties are investigated.

Evidentials and Modals offers an in-depth account of the meaning of grammatical elements representing evidentiality in connection to modality, focusing on theoretical/formal perspectives by eminent pioneers in the field and on recently discovered phenomena in Korean evidential markers by native scholars in particular. Evidentiality became a hot topic in semantics and pragmatics, trying to see what kind of evidential justification is provided by evidentials to support or be related to the 'at-issue' prejacent propositions. This book aims to provide a deeper (...) understanding of such evidentiality in discourse contexts in a broad range of languages such as American Indian, Korean and Japanese, Turkish and African languages over the world. In addition, an introduction to the concept of evidentiality and theoretical perspectives and recent issues is also provided. Contributors are Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Robert Botne, Kyung-Sook Chung, Martina Faller, Ezra Keshet, Iksoo Kwon, Chungmin Lee, Ji-Young Lee, Jungmee Lee, Dongsik Lim, Lisa Matthewson, William McClure, Elin McCready, Sarah E. Murray, Marisa Nagano, Jinho Park, Mary Shin Kim, Jaemog Song, Thomas Willett, and Kei Yoshimoto. (shrink)

Mi-Kyoung Lee has produced an engaging study of the development of skepticism in ancient Greece. Although arguments against the possibility of knowledge — and responses thereto — were common during the Hellenistic period, the great works of the Classical period hardly give skepticism a second thought. Were great minds like Plato and Aristotle blithely unaware of the threat posed by skepticism? Lee’s answer is that the questions and arguments of Hellenistic period skeptics were not unprecedented, for a nascent form (...) of skepticism had already been debated in the Classical period. The relativism of Protagoras’ measure doctrine — “Man is the measure of all things” — was a challenge to Classical epistemologies, for it implied that no one could ever be mistaken about anything. Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus all recognized this challenge, and their responses to it shaped the debate over skepticism in the Hellenistic period. (shrink)