Background Healthcare workers (HCWs) can face situations that conflict with their moral beliefs, leading to moral injury, an adverse psychological consequence that was more frequent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Self-compassion is a potential coping mechanism for moral injury by encouraging acceptance of human limitations and suffering. Objectives This study aimed to examine the associations between self-compassion components and moral injury prevalence among HCWs in Quebec, Canada, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research design A cross-sectional study design was employed. Participants: and research (...) context: The sample of this study consisted of HCWs and leaders from the Quebec province. Participants completed validated self-administered questionnaires assessing both positive and negative self-compassion components (self-kindness vs self-judgment; common humanity vs isolation; and mindfulness vs overidentification) and moral injury dimensions (self-oriented and other-oriented). Prevalence ratios (PRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the associations between self-compassion components and moral injury dimensions were modeled using Poison robust regressions. The models were adjusted for various covariates, including sex, age, gender, and socio-demographic and lifestyle factors. Ethical considerations Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the ethics committee of the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux de la Capitale-Nationale in Quebec, Canada. All participants provided written informed consent prior to participating in the study. Additionally, permission was sought and obtained from the original authors of the tools used in this study, including the self-compassion and moral injury scales. Results The study involved 572 HCWs (60.5% nurses) and leaders. Around half of the participants (50.70%) exhibited moderate levels of self-compassion, while the prevalence of low levels of self-compassion ranged from 21.68% to 48.08% for the positive subscales and from 23.78% to 44.41% for the negative subscales. Regarding moral injury, 10.14% of participants reported moderate to high self-oriented moral injury, 29.19% reported moderate to high other-oriented moral injury, and 13.81% demonstrated moderate to high total moral injury. Higher self-compassion levels were associated with lower moral injury prevalence. HCWs with high self-compassion had a 93% lower likelihood of experiencing moral injury (PR: 0.07, 95% CI: 0.03–0.19). Self-kindness demonstrated the strongest association with reduced moral injury (PR: 0.24, 95% CI: 0.11–0.52), followed by mindfulness (PR: 0.37, 95% CI: 0.18–0.75). However, common humanity did not show a statistically significant association with moral injury prevalence. Conclusion These findings suggest a potential association between self-compassion and reduced prevalence of moral injury among HCWs, highlighting promising interventions to manage moral injury during crises. Such initiatives could promote the mental wellbeing of HCWs and preventing the negative consequences of moral injury, including anxiety, depression, and burnout. (shrink)

Lenman 's cluelessness objection against consequentialism states that we are almost entirely clueless to the actual consequences of our action. In ‘Cluelessness,’ Hilary Greaves distinguishes between ‘simple’ and ‘complex’ cases of cluelessness and argues that the principle of indifference applies to ‘simple’ cases, thereby rescuing the ‘simple’ cases from the cluelessness objection. In this discussion note, I argue that Greaves's distinction between ‘simple’ and ‘complex’ cases fails and cluelessness is more problematic than Greaves believes.

Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 52, Issue 3, Page 344-361, Fall 2021.

The belief that all human beings are ‘moral equals’ is widespread within the canon of Western liberal philosophy. However, it is unclear precisely what ‘moral equality’ or its associate terms mean, what grounds our ‘moral equality’ and what the implications of being ‘moral equals’ are. In this paper, I distinguish between three ways of understanding ‘moral equality’: the ‘buck-passing’, ‘explanatory’ and ‘reverse-explanatory’ accounts. The buck-passing account of moral equality is in parallel with Scanlon’s buck-passing account of value. It holds that (...) ‘moral equality’ is not a metaphysically fundamental concept and simply amounts to having other properties shared equally by all human beings that constitute the reasons for why we ought to treat all human beings equally in certain respects. The explanatory account understands the concept of ‘moral equality’ as metaphysically fundamental and explanatory of why human beings who are the same in certain respects have the same entitlement to x. The reverse-explanatory account also sees ‘moral equality’ as metaphysically fundamental but holds that the explanatory relationship goes the other way round: moral equality is explained by how we ought to act. I argue that the buck-passing account is a more accurate way of understanding moral equality. (shrink)

ObjectivesWorking-age cancer patients face barriers to resuming work after treatment completion. Those resuming work contend with reduced productivity arising from persisting residual symptoms. Existing studies of return to work after cancer diagnosis were done predominantly in Western countries. Given that employment and RTW in cancer survivors likely vary regionally due to healthcare provision and social security differences, we documented rates and correlates of RTW, work productivity, and activity impairment among Chinese cancer survivors in Hong Kong at one-year post-treatment.MethodsOf 1,106 cancer (...) patients assessed at six-months post-cancer treatment, 593 previously worked; detailed work status, psychological distress, physical symptom distress, supportive care needs, health-related quality of life, and illness perception were assessed. Six months later, work productivity and activity impairment were assessed. Descriptive analyses examined RTW rate. Fully adjusted regressions determined RTW, work productivity, and activity impairment predictors.ResultsAt baseline, 39% were working, 26% on sick leave, and 35% were unemployed. Compared to patients returning to work, unemployed participants were older, likely manual/service-oriented workers, and had lower family income, chemotherapy, fewer unmet health system and information needs, poorer physical functioning, and negative illness perceptions. Sick leave participants were likely service-oriented workers, who had head and neck cancer, chemotherapy, and poor physical functioning. At FU, baseline depressive symptoms, physical symptom distress, and negative illness perceptions predicted presenteeism and work productivity loss; gynecological cancer, fewer unmet health system and information needs, and greater unmet sexuality needs predicted absenteeism; physical symptom distress, negative illness perception, and poor physical functioning predicted activity impairment.ConclusionCancer survivors who had more physically demanding jobs and poorer physical functioning delayed RTW. Unmanaged physical symptom and psychological distress hindered work productivity. (shrink)

In this paper, we describe four broad ‘meta-methods’ employed in scientific and philosophical research of qualia. These are the theory-centred metamethod, the property-centred meta-method, the argument-centred meta-method, and the event-centred meta-method. Broadly speaking, the theory-centred meta-method is interested in the role of qualia as some theoretical entities picked out by our folk psychological theories; the property-centred meta-method is interested in some metaphysical properties of qualia that we immediately observe through introspection ; the argument-centred meta-method is interested in the role of (...) qualia in some arguments for non-physicalism; the event-centred metamethod is interested in the role of qualia as some natural events whose nature is hidden and must be uncovered empirically. We will argue that the event-centred metamethod is the most promising route to a comprehensive scientific conception of qualia because of the flexibility of ontological and methodological assumptions it can provide. We also reveal the hidden influences of the different meta-methods and in doing so show why consideration of meta-methods has value for the study of consciousness. (shrink)

The escalating integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in clinical settings carries profound implications for the doctrine of informed consent, presenting challenges that necessitate immediate attention. China, in its advancement in the deployment of medical AI, is proactively engaging in the formulation of legal and ethical regulations. This paper takes China as an example to undertake a theoretical examination rooted in the principles of medical ethics and legal norms, analyzing informed consent and medical AI through relevant literature data. The study reveals (...) that medical AI poses fundamental challenges to the accuracy, adequacy, and objectivity of information disclosed by doctors, alongside impacting patient competency and willingness to give consent. To enhance adherence to informed consent rules in the context of medical AI, this paper advocates for a shift towards a patient‐centric information disclosure standard, the restructuring of medical liability rules, the augmentation of professional training, and the advancement of public understanding through educational initiatives. (shrink)

This article discusses Aristotle’s notion of character, and how it should be presented in a play, such as a tragic drama. In Poetics 1450a 24, Aristotle entertains the possibility of a tragedy without character, and commentators have argued about whether a tragic drama can really unfold without characters of its agents being manifested; and whether Aristotle really meant a tragic drama that is completely devoid of character, or simply one that contains personalities that are considered to be stereotyped or wooden. (...) I will discuss different opinions of commentators on this issue, and offer my reasons for supporting one of their views. Since this remark on “characterless tragedy” was made in order to show the superiority of plot over character in tragedy, I will need to discuss these two elements in full; and it is in Aristotle’s discussion of the element of character that his view on women and natural slaves was presented. (shrink)

This paper attempts to distinguish the aesthetic approach to environmental protection from the practical approach. The practical approach has a definite goal—the protection of present and future generations of human beings from harm and destruction. Protection of the environment is therefore only a means to an end—this means that if there were alternative and less painful ways to achieve the same goal, then we might opt for those other ways to preserve humankind. The aesthetic approach, on the other hand, treats (...) environmental protection as an end in itself. This is because certain aesthetic moods, feelings, or mental states can only be created by the objects we attend to; these objects are therefore unique, and their destruction must mean that we can no longer enjoy that peculiar feeling which it will evoke. (shrink)

The purpose of this article was to validate the published artificial intelligence facilities management outsourcing relationships system by real business cases in the working environment. The research aims to inspire the modern FM professionals in different industries with some challenging and innovative concepts about FM outsourcing relationships between facilities owners and service providers. First, it will briefly introduce the theory of the FM outsourcing relationships system on how it can help the FM seniors and strategists to design their FM daily (...) strategies wisely and make their business more effective and productive. Second, it will also introduce what the research is practically doing in the stage of case study for test and verification. It is concluded that FM outsourcing categorization may help to define the appropriate relationships. This further detailed outcome generated from the AI can be considered a solid reference to define and explain the existing outsourcing relationships between the stakeholders and the service providers to assign an outsourcing category to the FM relationship between the client and service provider based on the learnt rules. (shrink)

This study investigates the associations among member ability, member relationships, knowledge sharing, and innovation performance in eSports industry knowledge alliance. A survey strategy and purposive sampling were applied, and the analysis was conducted on a sample of 311 senior managers from the China eSports Association. The hypotheses were tested using SPSS 24.0 software and AMOS 24.0 software. This study shows that member ability and member relationships have both a direct and indirect effect on innovation performance. Firstly, member ability, member relationships, (...) and member knowledge sharing significantly impact the innovation performance of eSports industry knowledge alliances. Secondly, member knowledge sharing plays a mediating role in the effect of member ability and membership relationship on innovation performance. This pioneering article explores the interaction mechanisms between member ability, member relationships, and innovation performance in eSports industry knowledge alliance. The research results are conducive to the development of the eSports industry toward deep integration and sustainable development and provide a reference for similar knowledge-intensive enterprise alliance behaviors. (shrink)

Short-term traffic flow prediction is an effective means for intelligent transportation system to mitigate traffic congestion. However, traffic flow data with temporal features and periodic characteristics are vulnerable to weather effects, making short-term traffic flow prediction a challenging issue. However, the existing models do not consider the influence of weather changes on traffic flow, leading to poor performance under some extreme conditions. In view of the rich features of traffic data and the characteristic of being vulnerable to external weather conditions, (...) the prediction model based on traffic data has certain limitations, so it is necessary to conduct research studies on traffic flow prediction driven by both the traffic data and weather data. This paper proposes a combined framework of stacked autoencoder and radial basis function neural network to predict traffic flow, which can effectively capture the temporal correlation and periodicity of traffic flow data and disturbance of weather factors. Firstly, SAE is used to process the traffic flow data in multiple time slices to acquire a preliminary prediction. Then, RBF is used to capture the relation between weather disturbance and periodicity of traffic flow so as to gain another prediction. Finally, another RBF is used for the fusion of the above two predictions on decision level, obtaining a reconstructed prediction with higher accuracy. The effectiveness and robustness of the proposed model are verified by experiments. (shrink)

Union security has long been an industrial relations controversy. While compulsory unionism supporters say it benefits the working class, right-to-work advocates denounce it as an unethical infringement of individual rights and freedom. Unfortunately, neither side has adequately addressed the shortcomings of their viewpoint, nor the broader worker concerns about effective representation beyond just "unionism". In this paper, we examine the ethical and practical problems of compulsory and voluntary unionism and propose a new resolution, compulsory proportional representation, that has the advantages (...) of: ensuring workers' freedom to associate or not associate, promoting freedom to contract, allowing free competition in representation in line with anti-trust principles, improving industrial peace and efficiency, enhancing fairness and social justice, and addressing the employer-employee power imbalance. It is superior to either voluntary unionism, which often lead to management unilateralism, or compulsory unionism, where workers are compelled to join unions against their will. (shrink)

The Humility Thesis is a persistent thesis in contemporary metaphysics. It is known by a variety of names, including, but not limited to, Humility, Intrinsic Humility, Kantian Humility, Kantian Physicalism, Intrinsic Ignorance, Categorical Ignorance, Irremediable Ignorance, and Noumenalism. According to the thesis, we human beings, and any knowers that share our general ways of knowing, are irremediably ignorant of a certain class of properties that are intrinsic to material entities … Continue reading Humility Regarding Intrinsic Properties →.

Confucianism supports partiality because of its heavy emphasis on filial piety, but this may not always be true. Some assertions in the Analects appear to support comprehensive cosmopolitanism . Filial piety can simply be a requirement for moral training, and once this virtue is cultivated, the individual should extend the same love to all human beings. Impartiality as a requirement of morality is clearly exhibited in Mencius. If it is human nature to feel fear and pity for a child on (...) the verge of falling into a well, and if the right thing to do is to save this child, then one must do so even if she were the child of one’s enemy. However, this attempt to show that Confucianism exhibits a degree of impartiality is challenged by other compiled works on Confucian thought which consider filial piety as the most important virtue. Can we really reconcile the pivotal position of filial piety with aspects of impartiality in Confucian ethics? (shrink)

Russellian monism – an influential doctrine proposed by Russell (1927/1992) – is roughly the view that the natural sciences can only ever tell us about the causal, dispositional, and structural properties of physical entities and not about their categorical properties, and, moreover, that our qualia are constituted by categorical properties. Recently, Stoljar (2001a, 2001b), Strawson (2008), Montero (2010, 2015), Alter and Nagasawa (2012), and Chalmers (2015) have attempted to develop this doctrine into a version of physicalism. Russellian monism faces the (...) so-called combination problem, according to which it is difficult to see how categorical properties could collectively constitute qualia. In this paper, I suggest that there is an insufficiently discussed aspect of the combination problem which I call the difference-maker problem. Taking the difference-maker problem into account, I argue that the combination problem – whether or not it can be solved – results in a dilemma for the project of developing Russellian physicalism. That is, Russellian monism is either physicalistically unacceptable or it is implausible; hence, Russellian monism and physicalism are incompatible. (shrink)

Russellian monism—an influential doctrine proposed by Russell (The analysis of matter, Routledge, London, 1927/1992)—is roughly the view that physics can only ever tell us about the causal, dispositional, and structural properties of physical entities and not their categorical (or intrinsic) properties, whereas our qualia are constituted by those categorical properties. In this paper, I will discuss the relation between Russellian monism and a seminal paradox facing epiphenomenalism, the paradox of phenomenal judgment: if epiphenomenalism is true—qualia are causally inefficacious—then any judgment (...) concerning qualia, including epiphenomenalism itself, cannot be caused by qualia. For many writers, including Hawthorne (Philos Perspect 15:361–378, 2001), Smart (J Conscious Stud 11(2):41–50, 2004), and Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson (The philosophy of mind and cognition, Blackwell, Malden, 2007), Russellian monism faces the same paradox as epiphenomenalism does. I will assess Chalmers’s (The conscious mind: in search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press, New York, 1996) and Seager’s (in: Beckermann A, McLaughlin BP (eds) The Oxford handbook of philosophy of mind. Oxford University Press, New York, 2009) defences of Russellian monism against the paradox, and will put forward a novel argument against those defences. (shrink)

When two people need a kidney transplant, but only one kidney is available, we need to decide who gets it. If one of the potential recipients needs the kidney because of their own voluntary behavior, but the other is not at all responsible for needing a kidney, then we need to decide whether this fault should be a consideration in favor of the other patient getting the kidney. While there has been considerable philosophical debate on this issue, there is far (...) less research into the views of the public. To explore opinions on these issues, we first asked survey participants to ascribe or deny responsibility for the risky behavior for kidney disease, and for being deprived of a kidney in cases of drinking alcohol, drug abuse, smoking and unhealthy eating when the patient did or did not stop the risky behavior after being diagnosed with kidney disease. Next, we asked participants who should get the kidney when the patient who engaged in risky behavior did or did not know, or have easy access to, the information that the behavior was risky. We found that participants generally ascribed responsibility on the basis of knowledge but allocated the kidney on the basis of access to information. These findings have important implications for moral theories as well as medical policies. (shrink)

The coaxiality and unbalance are the two important indexes to evaluate the assembly quality of an aeroengine. It often needs to be tested and disassembled repeatedly to meet the double-objective requirements at the same time. Therefore, an intelligent assembly method is urgently needed to directly predict the optimal assembly orientations of the rotors at each stage to meet the double-objective requirements simultaneously. In this study, an assembly optimization method for the multistage rotor of an aeroengine is proposed based on the (...) genetic algorithm. Firstly, a spatial location propagation model is developed to accurately predict the spatial position of each rotor after assembly. The alignment process of the assembly screw holes of the adjacent rotors is considered for the first time. Secondly, a new assembly optimization strategy is proposed to select different assembly data for the specific values of the coaxiality and unbalance, respectively. Finally, a double-objective fitness function is constructed based on the coaxiality and unbalance. The simulation and experimental results show that the assembly optimization method proposed in this study can be utilized to achieve synchronous optimization of the coaxiality and unbalance of an aeroengine during preassembly. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on features of Aristotle's work (discussed in the Poetics) that can enhance our appreciation of Classical Greek tragedies and some of Shakespeare's works. Most important of these features is the production of the tragic effect, which consists of two parts: (1) the arousal of pity and fear to their maximum and (2) the katharsis or purgation of these emotions. The concept of katharsis has been interpreted in many ways and I will seek the most appropriate (...) interpretation. I argue that the maximisation of fear and pity that leads to the katharsis of these emotions can only be achieved by the unfolding of a well structured tragic plot and the revelation of character qualities in the tragic play. The successful tragedies from Classical Greece and the Shakespearean era possess the plots that were structured in a manner so as to produce the tragic effect to its maximum. I pay particular attention to Oedipus Rex of Sophocles and King Lear of Shakespeare to illustrate my point. (shrink)

A conference held in Manchester University in 2007 and a subsequent book containing papers presented therein (entitled Aesthetics and radical politics) attempt to legitimize certain radical political activities as art, that is, by confercing the status of art onthese protest activities. Inarguing that these works would probably fail to be accepted by the artworld, I have resorted to some form of essentialism, i.e., they will likely fail because they were never intended (by their organizers) as ant activities, and the activities (...) themselves do not appear to have an aesthetic function, and the spectators do not expect to see an art performnnce when they encounter one of these protests. But the failure (or potentinlfoilure) of these activities to be accepted as art has broader implications, for it reveals that one of the most influential versions of the institutional theory of art ( George Dickie's ) has failed to describe the sufficient conditions of art. (shrink)

Some philosophers claim that Aristotle never had a theory of art—the Poetics deals essentially with tragic and epic dramas only. It contains a full definition of only one art form, i.e., tragedy. Even Aristotle’s discussion on artistic evaluation focuses chiefly on tragedy, such as how a tragic plot should be constructed, how characters in tragedy should be presented, etc. The other forms of art were treated simply as different forms of mimesis, with skeletal discussion of them at best. Nevertheless, it (...) can be argued that Aristotle offers enough guidelines and information to build a complete theory of art. In order to do this, one has to focus on his definition of tragedy, especially the six essential elements of tragic drama. By closely examining the roles these elements perform in tragedy, one can extend their characteristics into the other art forms, and construct a more complete theory of art from Aristotle’s Poetics. This paper has attempted to do this task. (shrink)

This paper examines the construction of the poet Du Mu’s libertine image to illustrate how Chinese writers and readers of the ninth and tenth centuries validated the search for sensual pleasure by associating it with literary talent, unconventional character, and political disengagement. In doing so, they added indulgence in sensual pleasures to the repertoire of fengliu cultural ideals, a repertoire previously associated with reclusion and drinking. Because sensual pleasure was traditionally viewed as trivial and/or disruptive to social order, ninth-century writers (...) approached the new ideal with considerable ambivalence. Although Du Mu had fashioned a libertine poetic self-image as a young man, he attempted to shed this image later in life. I argue that it was Du Mu’s readers who, by creatively reading his poems and writing anecdotes about his sexual adventures, re-imagined the poet as a figure of fascination and thus created one of the most enduring fengliu characters in Chinese history. (shrink)

One of the fundamental properties inclassical equational reasoning isLeibniz's principle of substitution. Unfortunately, this propertydoes not hold instandard epistemic logic. Furthermore,Herbrand's lifting theorem which isessential to thecompleteness ofresolution andParamodulation in theclassical first order logic (FOL), turns out to be invalid in standard epistemic logic. In particular, unlike classical logic, there is no skolemization normal form for standard epistemic logic. To solve these problems, we introduce anintensional epistemic logic, based on avariation of Kripke's possible-worlds semantics that need not have a constant (...) domain. We show how a weaker notion of substitution through indexed terms can retain the Herbrand theorem. We prove how the logic can yield a satisfibility preserving skolemization form. In particular, we present an intensional principle for unifing indexed terms. Finally, we describe asound andcomplete inference system for a Horn subset of the logic withequality, based onepistemic SLD-resolution. (shrink)

There have been major developments in the understanding of children’s nonhuman concepts, particularly God concepts, within the past two decades, with a body of cross-cultural studies accumulating. Relatively less research has studied those of non-Christian faiths or children’s concepts of popular occult characters. This paper describes two studies, one in Spain and one in England, examining 5- to 10-year-olds’ human and nonhuman agent beliefs. Both settings were secular, but the latter comprised a Muslim majority. Children were given a false-belief task (...) in which they were asked to infer about three humans, three animals and three supernatural beings. Similar false beliefs about humans, with subtle differences in inferences about animals and supernatural beings, were found between the two locations. In London different patterns for God between participants with a family religion, in particular Muslims, and non-affiliates, were identified as well as an association between religious beliefs and practice and inferences about God. Findings are discussed in the light of theory and research on the role of sociocultural inputs in children’s theory of mind development and understanding of agency. (shrink)

The study is designed to examine the perceptions of Chinese executives of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and to explore possible strategies by which well-established foreign multinational enterprises can carry out their CSR in China. The interviewees’ interpretation of CSR is found to be oriented toward internal operations of the Chinese subsidiaries and economic responsibility. Many interviewees have the classical view of CSR, while headquarters has the modern view. The main problems of implementing CSR are: specific Chinese business culture, intellectual property (...) rights, internal due process, and insufficient Chinese government support. It is recommended that socialization of Chinese executives about CSR be accomplished through personnel transfer among various functional areas in the corporate system, the development of a just organizational culture in the Chinese subsidiaries, and collaboration with external partnersthat advocate CSR. (shrink)

Neospora caninum infection, one of the major causes of abortions in dairy cattle, has brought a huge loss to farmers worldwide. In this study, we develop a six-compartment susceptible-infected model of N. caninum transmission which is later reduced to a two-equation system. Potential controls including medication, test-and-cull, and vaccination are proposed and analyzed, and the corresponding reproduction numbers are derived. The conditions for the global stabilities of disease-free and endemic equilibria are investigated with analytical solutions and geometric approach. Furthermore, uncertainty (...) and sensitivity analysis shows that three control strategies are effective towards the varied environment, whereas the effectiveness of each measure highly depends on parameters related to control actions. Dynamics of reproduction numbers illustrate that disease elimination can be achieved by three types of controls: adopting medication with medicine efficacy higher than 0.4 to prevent vertical transmission, implementing test-and-cull with culling coverage larger than 0.3, and taking vaccine with coverage larger than 0.1. Numerical results suggest that preventive measures should at least include the prevention of access of other hosts, such as dogs, to cattle; otherwise, these control measures will lose effectiveness. Our presented study provides guidance for decision-making on N. caninum infected farm management. (shrink)

Background The enhancement of nursing care quality is closely related to the clinical competence of nurses, making it a crucial component within health systems. Objective The present study investigated the relationship between nurses’ clinical competence, moral identity, and moral injury during the COVID-19 outbreak. Research design This cross-sectional study was carried out among frontline nurses, using the Moral Identity Questionnaire (MIQ), the Moral Injury Symptom Scale-Healthcare Professionals version (MISS-HP), and the Competency Inventory for Registered Nurse (CIRN) as data collection tools. (...) Participants and research context: The research population for this study consisted of all frontline nurses ( n = 251) employed in a hospital in southern Iran. Sampling was conducted between May 1, 2021 and September 30, 2021, during the COVID-19 outbreak. Ethical considerations The present study received approval from the research ethics committee of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, with project No. 99267 and code of ethics ID No. IR. RUMS.REC.1399.262, dated 15.02.2021. Results According to the study findings, 42.2% of the nurses demonstrated high clinical competence, while 51.4% exhibited moderate clinical competence. The results indicated a positive correlation between moral identity and clinical competence but a negative correlation between moral injury and clinical competence. Furthermore, the variables of moral identity and moral injury were found to predict 10% of the variance in clinical competence. Conclusion According to the results, moral identity and moral injury had an impact on the clinical competence of nurses. Therefore, implementing a program aimed at enhancing moral identity and providing training strategies to address moral injury during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic can lead to improvements in nurses’ clinical competence and the overall quality of care they provide. (shrink)

The disciplinary characterisation (DC) is the most popular approach to defining metaphysical naturalism and physicalism. It defines metaphysical naturalism with reference to scientific theories and defines physicalism with reference to physical theories, and suggests that every entity that exists is a posited entity of these theories. DC has been criticised for its inability to solve Hempel’s dilemma and a list of problems alike. In this paper, I propose and defend a novel version of DC that can be called a historical (...) paths approach. The idea is (roughly) that metaphysical naturalism can be defined with reference to the historical ideas that current scientific ideas descend from. I argue that it is not rendered implausible by the above problems, and hence that DC is more defensible and attractive than it may first appear. I then argue that the approach also provides a useful framework for the naturalisation of the philosophy of mind and phenomenology. (shrink)

The procedures of canonical quantization of the gravitational field apparently lead to entities for which any interpretation in terms of spatio-temporal localization or spatio-temporal extension seems difficult. This fact is the main ground for the suggestion that can often be found in the physics literature on canonical quantum gravity according to which spacetime may not be fundamental in some sense. This paper aims to investigate this radical suggestion from an ontologically serious point of view in the cases of two standard (...) forms of canonical quantum gravity, quantum geometrodynamics and loop quantum gravity. We start by discussing the physical features of the quantum wave functional of quantum geometrodynamics and of the spin networks of loop quantum gravity that motivate the view according to which spacetime is not fundamental. We then point out that, by contrast, for any known ontologically serious understanding of quantum entanglement, the commitment to spacetime seems indispensable. Against this background, we then critically discuss the idea that spacetime may emerge from more fundamental entities. As a consequence, we finally suggest that the emergence of classical spacetime in canonical quantum gravity faces a dilemma: either spacetime ontologically emerges from more fundamental non-spatio-temporal entities or it already belongs to the fundamental quantum gravitational level and the emergence of the classical picture is merely a matter of levels of description. On the first horn of the dilemma, it is unclear how to make sense of concrete physical entities that are not in spacetime and of the notion of ontological emergence that is involved. The second horn runs into the difficulties raised by the physics of canonical quantum gravity. (shrink)

In an article in Cognition, Machery, Mallon, Nichols, and Stich [Machery et al., 2004] present data which purports to show that “East Asian” native Cantonese speakers tend to have descriptivist intuitions about the referents of proper names, while “Western” native English speakers tend to have causal-historical intuitions about proper names. Machery et al take this finding to support the view that some intuitions, the universality of which they claim is central to philosophical theories, vary according to cultural background. Machery et (...) al hypothesize that the differences in intuitions about reference stem from general psychological differences between Eastern and Western subjects. Machery et al conclude from their findings that the philosophical methodology of consulting intuitions about hypothetical cases is flawed vis ` a vis the goal of determining truths about some philosophical domains. To quote Machery et al, “our data indicate that philosophers must radically revise their methodology” because “the intuitions philosophers pronounce from their armchairs are likely to be a product of their own culture and their academic training” ( [Machery et al., 2004] pp.B9). “The evidence suggests that it is wrong for philosophers to assume a priori the universality of their own semantic intuitions” ( [Machery et al., 2004] pp. B8). In the following study, I present data incompatible with Machery et al’s results. Native Cantonese-speaking immigrants from a Cantonese diaspora 1 in Southern California do not have descriptivist intuitions about the referents of proper names when presented with a Cantonese story and Cantonese questions about reference and truth-value. This data raises questions about the quality of Machery et al’s study and the conclusions they draw from it. (shrink)

Radical ontic structural realism (ROSR) asserts an ontological commitment to ‘free-standing’ physical structures understood solely in terms of fundamental relations, without any recourse to relata that stand in these relations. Bain ([2013], pp.1621–35) has recently defended ROSR against the common charge of incoherence by arguing that a reformulation of fundamental physical theories in category-theoretic terms (rather than the usual set-theoretic ones) offers a coherent and precise articulation of the commitments accepted by ROSR. In this essay, we argue that category theory (...) does not offer a more hospitable environment to ROSR than set theory. We also show that the application of category-theoretic tools to topological quantum field theory and to algebraic generalizations of general relativity do not warrant the claim that these theories describe ‘object-free’ structures. We conclude that category theory offers little if any comfort to ROSR. 1 Introduction: Ridding Structures of Objects2 The Set-theoretic Peril for Radical Ontic Structural Realism3 Bain’s Categorial Strategy to Save Radical Ontic Structural Realism4 Throwing out the Relations with the Relata5 Categorial and Set-theoretical Structures6 Radical Suggestions from Topological Quantum Field Theory?7 Sheaves of Einstein Algebras as Radical Structures?8 Conclusions. (shrink)