The need for greater privacy protections in the United States has never been greater. In their work, “Ethical Responsibilities for Companies That Process Personal Data”, McCoy et al. (2023) correct...

Solid organ transplant has revolutionized the treatment of certain diseases, providing hope where there were once only terminal diagnoses. Yet transplantation is ethically fraught, chiefly because...

In his recent article “Ethical Criteria for Health-Promoting Nudges: A Case-by-Case Analysis,” Bart Engelen (2019) develops a useful framework for evaluating health-related nudges in an attempt to...

This study investigated the multidimensional structure of judgements of emotional appropriateness, the degree to which an observer judges a target's emotion to conform to observer-valued expectations for emotion in that context. Participants (N=169) were shown one of two brief video clips of an actor either showing anger or neutral expressions in an anger-evoking situation of either low, medium, or high severity. Participants rated the target's emotion on the Perception of Emotion Appropriateness Rating Scale (PEARS), which taps observers’ perceptions of a (...) target's emotional appropriateness for a specific situation. We found that appropriateness ratings are comprised of three factors, assessment of Type Present (type of emotion in expression); Type Absent (missing key emotions); and Intensity (intensity with which the emotion is felt or expressed). Results are discussed in terms of the usefulness of a multidimensional conceptualisation of emotional appropriateness. (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 2, February 2025, Page 138-139.

Clinical ethicists are frequently called upon to provide guidance about who can make medical decisions for an incapacitated patient, what decisions the surrogate can make, and how they ought to mak...

In popular culture, death is typically presented as clear and binary- someone is either walking and talking and alive, or very obviously still and dead. Reality is more complicated than the movies,...

The work of a clinical ethicist often focuses on identifying what goals an autonomous patient has for themselves, or on helping identify a surrogate when a patient lacks autonomy for a specific dec...

Adolescence is a liminal space, with teens teetering between being big kids and young adults, sometimes on an hourly basis. In a few short years, they go from having few, if any, rights to make dec...

Misinformation is a serious concern for societies across the globe. To design effective interventions to combat the belief in and spread of misinformation, we must understand which psychological processes influence susceptibility to misinformation. This paper tests the widely assumed – but largely untested – claim that emotionally provocative headlines are associated with worse ability to identify true versus false headlines. Consistent with this proposal, we found correlational evidence that overall emotional response at the headline level is associated with diminished truth (...) discernment, except for experienced anger which was associated with increased truth discernment. The second set of studies tested a popular emotion regulation intervention where people were asked to apply either emotional suppression or emotion reappraisal techniques when considering the veracity of several headlines. In contrast to the correlation results, we found no evidence that emotion regulation helped people distinguish false from true news headlines. (shrink)

The Dobbs opinion emphasizes that the state’s interest in the fetus extends to “all stages of development.” This essay briefly explores whether state legislators, agencies, and courts could use the “all stages of development” language to expand reproductive surveillance by using novel developments in consumer health technologies to augment those efforts.

BackgroundThe Pacific Islander population is the second fasting growing population in the United States and Arkansas is home to the largest Marshallese population in the continental US. The Marshal...

What does it look like when an organization tentatively steps away from an exclusively rules-based regime and begins to attend to both rules and principles? What insights and guidance can ethicists and ethical theory offer? This paper is a case study of an organization that has initiated such a transition. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has begun a turn toward the promotion of ethical principles and best practices by adding a “conceptual framework” to its existing Code of Professional (...) Conduct. This conceptual framework calls upon its members to intentionally increase their awareness of significant threats to their compliance with its rules of conduct and to establish safeguards to offset or eliminate those threats. To this end, each member is required to regard every questionable situation, circumstance, transaction or relationship by attempting to view it through the eyes of an imagined reasonable third party. This paper examines this protocol theoretically and practically. First, we frame this analysis within the principles and ethical concepts that inform the professional ethics of accountants. Second, we critique the AICPA’s long-standing rules-based approach to its Code. Third, we examine the new conceptual framework with a view toward its potential for the promotion of a more principles-based approach to the professional ethics of the accounting profession. Fourth, we give attention to the notion of the “reasonable and informed third party,” which has been embedded in the new conceptual framework, and consider how two schools of thought—Adam Smith’s modernist “impartial spectator” concept and Emmanuel Lévinas’ postmodern phenomenology in regard to “the Other”—may offer theoretical support and clarity for this epistemic exercise. Finally, we point out several ways in which the AICPA’s commitment to its new conceptual framework could be strengthened and enhanced. (shrink)

Although ethics is an essential component of undergraduate medical education, research suggests current medical ethics curricula face considerable challenges in improving students’ ethical reasoning. This paper discusses these challenges and introduces a promising new mode of graduate and professional ethics instruction for overcoming them. We begin by describing common ethics curricula, focusing in particular on established problems with current approaches. Next, we describe a novel method of ethics education and assessment for medical students that we have devised, the Medical Ethics (...) Bowl. Finally, we suggest pedagogical advantages to MEBs when compared to other ethics curricula. (shrink)

Hand motor impairment persists after stroke. Sensory inputs may facilitate recovery of motor function. This pilot study tested the effectiveness of tactile sensory noise in improving hand motor function in chronic stroke survivors with tactile sensory deficits, using a repeated measures design. Sensory noise in the form of subthreshold, white noise, mechanical vibration was applied to the wrist skin during motor tasks. Hand dexterity assessed by the Nine Hole Peg Test and the Box and Block Test and pinch strength significantly (...) improved when the sensory noise was turned on compared with when it was turned off in chronic stroke survivors. The subthreshold sensory noise to the wrist appears to induce improvements in hand motor function possibly via neuronal connections in the sensoriomotor cortex. The approach of applying concomitant, unperceivable mechanical vibration to the wrist during hand motor tasks is easily adoptable for clinic use as well as unsupervised home use. This pilot study suggests a potential for a wristband-type assistive device to complement hand rehabilitation for stroke survivors with sensorimotor deficit. (shrink)

Efforts to recruit and retain farmers have traditionally supported the farm business through a focus on access to land, capital, and business skills. While these efforts are critical, a small body of work indicates that these may be insufficient because they rarely account for the social and economic needs of farm households and how the (in)ability to meet these needs interacts with the development and economic viability of the farm enterprise. Social and economic needs include, but are not limited to (...) access to health insurance and health care, childcare, adequate household and retirement income, affordable housing, and food security. This article introduces a symposium intended to shed light on these underappreciated needs and how they connect to the farm enterprise. We contend that a greater understanding of farm households’ lived realities meeting their social and economic needs could lead to a paradigm shift in how we understand and support farm families’ resilience. We set the stage for the eight articles in this symposium in two ways. First, we present the theoretical and empirical reasons why considering household-level needs is crucial when working towards supporting the agricultural sector. Second, we review the literature on farm households’ social and economic needs. We then thematically summarize the key insights from the eight articles. Despite variations in topics studied, research designs, and geographical contexts, we note a clear pattern in what the authors see as the implications of their findings. Namely, they reaffirm the need to challenge the traditional view that separates household needs from farm enterprise activities and outcomes. Their collective call for stronger social and agricultural programs and policies is noteworthy and may in part be connected to the structural underpinnings of the challenges meeting social and economic needs highlighted across the articles. (shrink)

This volume explores the role of some of the most prominent twentieth-century philosophers and political thinkers as teachers. It examines what obstacles they confronted as teachers and how they overcame them in conveying truth to their students in an age dominated by ideological thinking.

Rumination is an involuntary cognitive process theorized to prolong arousal and inhibit proper emotion regulation. Most available research has examined individual differences in cognitive dispositi...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 b.c. to a.d. 700Leah JohnsonKenneth W. Harl. Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 b.c. to a.d. 700. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. x 1 533 pp. 31 plates. Cloth, $49.95.In Coinage in the Roman Economy Kenneth Harl proposes to examine “how the Romans minted and used coined money—its role in payrolls, tax collection, trade and daily transactions—over the course of (...) a millennium, 300 b.c. to a.d. 700” (1). Most previous works on Roman coins have tended to treat them as objects worthy of study in and of themselves and not as evidence for understanding the social and economic policies of the Roman world. (R. Duncan-Jones’s Money and Government in the Roman Empire [Oxford 1994], a survey of the use of coins in the first three centuries of the Roman empire, is a notable exception to this rule.) The expansiveness of Harl’s welcome new treatment allows the reader access to virtually all of the significant stages and changes in the development of Roman coinage and their effects on the economy of the ancient Roman world and supplies knowledge crucial to a comprehensive understanding of how the Roman economy functioned, and, ultimately, why the empire was successful.Surprisingly enough, it was necessary for Harl to address many long-standing objections to the significance of coinage in the Roman economy before engaging in his survey. The significance of coins in Roman fiscal policy has been discounted on the basis of their limited numbers and availability by M. I. Finley (The Ancient Economy 166). According to Finley, since the Romans struck coinage only intermittently, coins could not have played a major role in determining Roman fiscal policy. Others who now acknowledge that a great number of Roman coins were put into circulation, object that coinage could not have played an important role in the “underdeveloped” agrarian-based society of Rome. Still others, admitting the significance of coins in commerce in the Roman world, have argued that their use in trade was only incidental. In other words, the Roman government did not mint coins to stimulate trade, but simply to pay for expenses such as military and administrative payrolls or building contracts.In chapter 1, “Coins, the Money of the Roman Economy,” Harl counters Finley’s objections by arguing that since Finley’s work, many statistical studies have estimated the enormous outputs of coins that the Romans could mint on short notice if necessary. So in periods when there was a shortage of coins, the Romans could in fact very quickly pump more money into the economy. Harl argues that the supposed absence of coins in rural areas of the Roman world is simply due to the limitations of archaeology in that not all of the town centers and marketplaces in rural areas of the Roman world have been excavated. Furthermore, although he acknowledges the centrality of land in the Roman economy, he also points out the importance of seaborne trade to it. He next admits that coins were primarily issued by the state for government payrolls or payments [End Page 139] to contractors, but nonetheless he stresses that the degree of importance which Roman coinage had in commerce was equal to that which it possessed in government fiscal policies. Thus, although the use of coinage was fiscal in origin, its contribution to commercial growth was increasingly important as the empire expanded.Harl then provides a summary of the methods by which the Roman government manipulated the coinage in periods of inflation or emergency, or when the currency simply needed to be replenished due to deterioration of the metal content. In such instances, the Romans generally didn’t melt down and restrike worn coins but instead either lowered the tariff of the old coins against new coins which were issued or simply minted debased new coins with a precious metal content equal to that of the old coins in circulation. Harl concludes his first chapter with a survey of the various types of numismatic research currently being employed in the area of Roman coinage—metrological analyses, die and hoard studies... (shrink)

Rumination is a maladaptive form of emotion regulation associated with psychopathology. Research with adults suggests that rumination covaries with diurnal cortisol rhythms, yet this has not been examined among adolescents. Here, we examine the day-to-day covariation between rumination and cortisol, and explore whether trait rumination is associated with alterations in diurnal cortisol rhythms among adolescent girls. Participants provided saliva samples 3 times per day over 3 days, along with daily reports of stress and rumination, questionnaires assessing trait rumination related to (...) peer stress, and diagnostic interviews assessing depression and anxiety. Greater rumination than usual during the day was associated with lower cortisol awakening responses the following morning, but this effect was not significant after accounting for wake time and an objective measure of adherence to the saliva sampling protocol. Trait rumination was associated with lower average cortisol levels at waking and flatter diurnal slopes, accounting for wake time, protocol compliance, and other factors. These patterns may help to explain why rumination is related to the development of psychopathology. (shrink)

Matter and Form explores the relationship between natural science and political philosophy from the classical to contemporary eras, taking an interdisciplinary approach to the philosophic understanding of the structure and process of the natural world and its impact on the history of political philosophy. It illuminates the importance of philosophic reflection on material nature to moral and political theorizing, mediating between the sciences and humanities and making a contribution to ending the isolation between them.

Im Jahre 1762 erschütterte ein Korruptionsskandal über die Machenschaften des Landvogts von Grüningen, den drei junge Theologiestudenten -- Johann Caspar Lavater, Johann Heinrich Füssli und Felix Hess -- aufgedeckt hatten, den gesamten Kanton Zürich. Aufgrund der politischen Brisanz dieses Ereignisses sahen sich die drei jungen, für Gerechtigkeit kämpfenden 'Rebellen' gegen das Ancien régime veranlasst, zeitweise ihre Heimat zu verlassen, um ihre literarischen, theologischen und philosophischen Studien beim Aufklärungstheologen Johann Joachim Spalding in Barth in Schwedisch-Pommern vom Frühjahr 1763 bis Anfang (...) 1764 fortzusetzen. Spalding hatte mit seiner Schrift 'Die Bestimmung des Menschen' ethische Massstäbe gesetzt, die nicht nur die drei Zürcher Theologen faszinierten. Damit ging damals von Barth ein Geist der Aufklärung und Rechtschaffenheit aus, der nicht allein die Entwicklung der Ideale der Aufklärung in Europa vorantrieb, sondern an seiner Aktualität bis heute nichts eingebüsst hat. Die Ausstellung und der Begleitband präsentieren erstmals in diesem Kontext die Werke der Literatur und Malerei, die im Umkreis und Nachwirkung dieses helvetisch-deutschen Dialogs von 1763/64 entstanden sind,und stellen sie in einen zeitgeschichtlichen Kontext."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

T. R. V. Murti is a Tamil Brahmin. He was born at Madras in 1902, and educated at Trichinopoly Christian College, which he left before graduating to commence five years of Congress Party work. He was in jail five months. In 1925 he came to Benares, where he studied the Sanskrit classics with pandits and gurus. He then completed his undergraduate course at Benares Hindu University, receiving his A.B. and M.A. together in 1929. From 1929 to 1936 he was a (...) fellow at the Indian Institute of Philosophy at Amalner. Here he came under the influence of Professor K. C. Bhattacharya, and was considered to be, among the philosophers at Amalner, the one who best understood the Professor's teaching. In 1936 he returned to Benares Hindu University for advanced study, and later was appointed Sayaji Rao Gaekwad Professor of Indian Civilization and Culture. He has been there since, except for three years on leave as professor of philosophy at Colombo and one year as Spalding Professor of Oriental Religions at Oxford. (shrink)

Das geniale Jugendwerk "Die Bestimmung des Menschen", das der Aufklarungstheologe Johann Joachim Spalding 1748 erstmals vorlegte und bis 1794 in insgesamt 11 autorisierten Auflagen ausgehen liess, gab einer "Basisidee der deutschen Aufklarung" (N. Hinske) literarischen Ausdruck und trug zur Karriere der philosophischen Anthropologie im 18. Jahrhundert massgeblich bei. Diese popularphilosophische, auf rationale Evidenz zielende und darum offenbarungstheologisch voraussetzungslose Schrift sollte in der Form eines inneren Dialogs den Prozess existentieller Selbstverstandigung exemplarisch skizzieren. In der religiosen Vertiefung des Moralitatsgedankens erscheinen Gott (...) und Unsterblichkeit fur Spalding, darin auf seinen spateren Briefpartner I. Kant vorausweisend, als regulative Ideen: Erst der Begriff des "ganzen Lebens" gibt zu erkennen, dass der Mensch in "diesem Leben" dazu bestimmt ist, "rechtschaffen und in der Rechtschaffenheit gluckselig zu seyn". Die vorliegende Edition bietet erstmals eine integrative Wiedergabe aller Textstufen sowie vorab den fortlaufenden Text der Erstausgabe. Der Band ist durch eine bundige Einleitung, eingehende Erlauterungen und ausfuhrliche Register erschlossen. Mit ihm wird der theologischen, philosophischen und literaturwissenschaftlichen Aufklarungsforschung ein zentraler Leittext editorisch prazise und leserfreundlich zur Verfugung gestellt. (shrink)

We are defined by our faces. They give identity but, equally importantly, reveal our moods and emotions through facial expression. So what happens when the face cannot move? This book is about people who live with Mbius Syndrome, which has as its main feature an absence of movement of the muscles of facial expression from birth.