Background: Confidentiality lies at the core of medical ethics and is the cornerstone for developing and keeping a trusting relationship between nurses and patients. In the wake of the HIV epidemic, there has been a heightened focus on confidentiality in healthcare contexts. Nurses’ follow-up of HIV-positive women and their susceptible HIV-exposed children has proved to be challenging in this regard, but the ethical dilemmas concerning confidentiality that emerge in the process of ensuring HIV-free survival of the third party – the (...) child – have attracted limited attention. Objective: The study explores challenges of confidentiality linked to a third party in nurse–patient relationships in a rural Tanzanian HIV/AIDS context. Study context: The study was carried out in rural and semi-urban settings of Tanzania where the population is largely agro-pastoral, the formal educational level is low and poverty is rife. The HIV prevalence of 1.5% is low compared to the national prevalence of 5.1%. Methods: Data were collected during 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork and consisted of participant observation in clinical settings and during home visits combined with in-depth interviews. The main categories of informants were nurses employed in prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV programmes and HIV-positive women enrolled in these programmes. Ethical considerations: Based on information about the study aims, all informants consented to participate. Ethical approval was granted by ethics review boards in Tanzania and Norway. Findings and discussion: The material indicates a delicate balance between the nurses’ attempt to secure the HIV-free survival of the babies and the mothers’ desire to preserve confidentiality. Profound confidentiality-related dilemmas emerged in actual practice, and indications of a lack of thorough consideration of the implication of a patient’s restricted disclosure came to light during follow-up of the HIV-positive women and the third party – the child who is at risk of HIV infection through mother’s milk. World Health Organization’s substantial focus on infant survival (Millennium Development Goal-4) and the strong calls for disclosure among the HIV-positive are reflected on in the discussion. (shrink)

There is a need for empirically based research on social and ethical challenges related to informed consent processes, particularly in studies focusing on adolescent sexual and reproductive health. In a pilot study of a school-based pregnancy prevention intervention in rural Zambia, the majority of the guardians who were asked to consent to their daughters’ participation, refused. In this paper we explore the reasons behind the low participation in the pilot with particular attention to challenges related to the community engagement and (...) informed consent process. The pilot was implemented in two schools and examined the acceptability of a package of interventions including economic support to families to keep their girls in school, pocket money for girls, youth club meetings on reproductive health, and community meetings to sensitize the community. Focus group discussions were conducted with girls who participated in the pilot, boys in their class and with parents. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers, peer educators and community health workers involved in the coordination of the intervention as well as with religious and traditional leaders. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings indicate that inadequate use of recognized community communication channels during the community engagement process and dissemination of information about the pilot resulted in limited understanding of the pilot concept by the community. This surfaced through uncertainty and fear that the intervention may result in loss of control over daughters, worries about why money was provided unconditionally to girls, and suspicion of links to satanism. The sense of insecurity appeared to be exacerbated by low literacy levels, poverty, fear of loss of bride wealth, perceived disregard for local perceptions of social status, and scanty trust in the actors implementing the pilot. Inadequate use of locally appropriate channels in the dissemination of information created room for interpretation and facilitated development of mistrust, undermining the conditions for community engagement and actual informed consent. A key lesson learnt is the importance of taking seriously the complexity of local values and structures that may impact people’s capability to consent or not consent to a study in an informed manner. (shrink)

There are questions about how ethics is best taught to undergraduate business students. There has been a proliferation in the number of stand-alone ethics courses for undergraduate students but research on the effectiveness of integrated versus stand-alone mode of delivery is inconclusive. Christensen et al. :347–368, 2007), in a comprehensive review of ethics, corporate social responsibility and sustainability education, investigated how ethics education has changed over the last 20 years, including the issue of integration of these topics into the core (...) course offerings. We use Brenner and Molander’s :57–71, 1977) situational ethics survey instrument to examine the effect of the mode of delivery of business ethics education on undergraduate student responses. We found a significant difference on mode of delivery. Studies have also found interesting results in respect of the effect of cultural differences and gender on the effectiveness of business ethics instruction. While not the primary focus of this study, we also looked at the influence of gender and culture on students’ responses. Our results indicate significant differences in respect of mode of delivery and culture. In contrast to other studies, we found that gender was not significant. We did test for any interactive effects of gender, culture and mode of delivery. However, no significant differences were found. (shrink)

Back cover: This book develops a philosophical account that reveals the major characteristics that make an explanation in the life sciences reductive and distinguish them from non-reductive explanations. Understanding what reductive explanations are enables one to assess the conditions under which reductive explanations are adequate and thus enhances debates about explanatory reductionism. The account of reductive explanation presented in this book has three major characteristics. First, it emerges from a critical reconstruction of the explanatory practice of the life sciences itself. (...) Second, the account is monistic since it specifies one set of criteria that apply to explanations in the life sciences in general. Finally, the account is ontic in that it traces the reductivity of an explanation back to certain relations that exist between objects in the world (such as part-whole relations and level relations), rather than to the logical relations between sentences. Beginning with a disclosure of the meta-philosophical assumptions that underlie the author’s analysis of reductive explanation, the book leads into the debate about reduction(ism) in the philosophy of biology and continues with a discussion on the two perspectives on explanatory reduction that have been proposed in the philosophy of biology so far. The author scrutinizes how the issue of reduction becomes entangled with explanation and analyzes two concepts, the concept of a biological part and the concept of a level of organization. The results of these five chapters constitute the ground on which the author bases her final chapter, developing her ontic account of reductive explanation. (shrink)

La renommée nationale et internationale de Pierre Bourdieu lui est venue de la sociologie, une sociologie un peu particulière, dite " des élites ", ou plus communément, " de la domination ", au fil de laquelle il ne se fit pas faute de fustiger les représentants de celle qu'il appelait " La discipline du couronnement ", la philosophie. C'était là pourtant son terroir d'origine, sa formation première, et la seule dans laquelle il possédât un diplôme. Mais il ne voyait dans (...) ses anciens " collègues " que des lectors figés dans une position scolastique qui les éloignait des urgences du monde et du " sens pratique ". Pourtant, c'est à l'aide de La philosophie qu'il critique la philosophie, et vise à l'éduquer, qu'il forge les concepts majeurs de sa sociologie, comme l'habitus, la violence symbolique. Et l'enjeu de ses recherches est encore un enjeu philosophique, qui le rapproche de ceux qui ont voulu transformer le monde, au lieu de se borner à le penser. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Nancy is one of the leading contemporary thinkers in France today. Through an inventive reappropriation of the major figures in the continental tradition, Nancy has developed an original ontology that impacts the way we think about religion, politics, community, embodiment, and art. Drawing from a wide range of his writing, Marie-Eve Morin provides the first comprehensive and systematic account of Nancy’s thinking, all the way up to his most recent work on the deconstruction of Christianity. Without losing sight (...) of the heterogeneity of Nancy’s work, Morin presents a concise articulation of the organizing concepts, which structure Nancy’s body of work. The guiding thread is that of an essential rift at the heart of any “self” by which this self is exposed and relates to itself and other selves. Nancy’s ontology undercuts dichotomies between individual and community, interior and exterior, matter and spirit, thing and thought, not in the name of mere deconstruction, but in seeking to open a thinking of the “limit” or the “edge” as the locus of sense. While Nancy’s work has often been presented in relation to Heidegger or Derrida, Morin demonstrates the originality of Nancy’s work and argues that, despite the variety of its preoccupations and topics, it possesses its own rigorous internal logic. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of philosophy and related fields who seek a systematic and critical understanding of one of the most original contemporary thinkers. (shrink)

Si l’histoire des sages-femmes est relativement bien connue pour les XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, grâce aux ouvrages de Mireille Laget et Jacques Gélis, en revanche, pour le XIXe siècle, elle reste en grande partie à écrire. La situation parisienne a fait l’objet du livre de Scarlett Beauvalet-Boutouyrie sur la Maternité de Port-Royal et aussi de la thèse de IIIe cycle sur les sages-femmes parisiennes de Danielle Tucat, malheureusement non publiée. Pour la France profonde, on dispose d’un article...

Originally presented as the author's thesis, Paris-Sorbonne, 1974.

Introduction -- From natural philosophy to theories of method -- Explanations, laws, and theories -- Change and the effect on scientific realism -- Science, society, and values -- Conclusion -- Glossary.

This book offers a philosophical approach to tourism as a permanent factor in the lifestyle, economy, and culture of the contemporary global community. Travel to well-known destinations and pursuit of an ever-increasing range of leisure activities are an aspiration of most humans today. Those not themselves engaged in tourist activities are quite often involved in providing the goods and services which make tourism possible. Yet the ill effects of mass tourism and overtourism on sensitive ecosystems, resources, and community life have (...) begun to outweigh economic gains, threatening to destroy destinations, cultural heritage, and livelihoods. The editors and contributors of this collection reflect on the nature and meaning of tourism, its history, elements, and forms, the roles of tourist and host, the limits of hospitality, tendencies to excess and the reasons why we engage in such forms of behaviour, and the place of tourism in human culture as a whole. By shedding light on these questions, more efficacious solutions to the urgent problems raised by the practice of tourism can be found. This work is a must-read for scholars, teachers, and students engaged in study and research on philosophy of culture, philosophical anthropology, tourist and destination management, human factors engineering, and sustainability. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to construct a non-dogmatic defence of common sense. It tries to show why the absence of justification for the judgements of common sense, which the sceptic reveals, does not invalidate them.

Cet entretien revient sur l’histoire des oppositions de gauche en URSS (notamment trotskystes, mais pas uniquement) et sur l’évolution actuelle de la Russie post-soviétique. Il critique les approches considérant l’URSS comme un « capitalisme d’État » et analyse les transformations à l’œuvre de la Russie contemporaine, notamment en terme de rapports de propriété. La nomenklatura joue un rôle contradictoire, tenant à conserver le contrôle de l’État tout en impulsant une vague de privatisations sous pression internationale.

Wittgenstein is one of the most important and influential twentieth-century philosophers in the western tradition. In his Philosophical Investigations he undertakes a radical critique of analytical philosophy's approach to both the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. _The Routledge Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations_ introduces and assesses: Wittgenstein's life The principal ideas of the Philosophical Investigations Some of the principal disputes concerning the interpretation of his work Wittgenstein's philosophical method and its connection with the form of the text. (...) With further reading included throughout, this guidebook is essential reading for all students of philosophy, and all those wishing to get to grips with this masterpiece. (shrink)

Dans la philosophie de Schopenhauer, le concept de coeur revêt plusieurs sens. Si le coeur est compris comme symbole et comme synonyme de la volonté, il renvoie aussi toujours au coeur organique. Point central d’où partent et où aboutissent les affects, le coeur se révèle ainsi comme l’élément premier de notre être par rapport à la tête qui reste seconde. Parce qu’il est en partie inconscient, le coeur « a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point ». Cet article (...) propose d’étudier les différentes perspectives selon lesquelles Schopenhauer utilise le concept de coeur pour en dégager une signification première. (shrink)

This year the European Business Ethics Network celebrates the tenth anniversary of its founding by holding its Annual Conference in Prague. We are happy to print this announcement from the Organizing Secretary of the Conference Planning Committee.

À voir la détermination avec laquelle Berthe Morisot nous regarde, nous pourrions penser qu’elle a trouvé facilement sa place d’artiste. Une palette est esquissée sur la gauche de trois mouvements tournants. Elle porte une fleur bleue à la boutonnière, « comme une décoration », dira Mallarmé, elle se tient droite, la tête tournée vers le spectateur, et elle nous regarde de ses célèbres yeux noirs qui ont tant fasciné Manet. Paul Valéry écrira d’ailleurs au sujet de ses yeux : « (...) Berthe Mo... (shrink)

La gnose est selon Pierre Hadot un courant de spiritualité et de représentation du réel qui excède largement le gnosticisme religieux des sectes et écoles des premiers siècles de notre ère et que combattaient Plotin et les Pères de l’Église chrétienne. Ce gnosticisme historique a cependant eu le mérite de théoriser clairement les éléments les plus importants de cette tendance existant dans la plupart des religions, comme dans une bonne partie de la philosophie, et qui consiste à voir, dans le...

1 Timothy and the Pastoral Letters appear to be efforts to codify structure and roles in the early church. These efforts largely reflected the patriarchal social structures of the time and as such are not relevant to the twenty-first-century church. But some of the concerns identified herein, for example expectations of church leaders, are useful for a current discussion. What is missing is any acknowledgement of the potential for identified church leaders to take advantage of vulnerable congregants, particularly women and (...) children. How might the writer of 1 Timothy have addressed this serious problem in the churches? (shrink)

Liana Badr's The Eye of the Mirror explores the historical trauma of the 1975–6 siege of the Palestinian refugee camp Tal el–Zaatar in Beirut and the massacre of thousands of its inhabitants by Christian militias. Analogous to Holocaust writing, Badr's fictionalized history, grounded in actual survivor testimonies, enacts a complex politics of cultural memory, but does so from a specifically female perspective. Collapsing the personal and political, private and public, inside and outside through figured violations of bodies and psyches, Badr (...) repositions women at the centre of the Palestinians’ struggle for and story of survival. Badr's novel traces the annihilation of the possibility of address, accompanied by self–loss and the ability to witness, and the laborious recreation of address. Claiming authority on the basis of the emotional, visceral truth of suffering, she seeks to break the endless cycle of an oppressive and impotent masculine history, constructing an alternative history which at least attempts to address the voice of cultural, national, and gender difference. (shrink)

Que se passe-t-il lorsqu’un risque menace une activité sociale encadrée par une institution réputée protectrice ? La question est ici posée au sujet d’activités relatives à la propriété immobilière : l’achat et la propriété d’un logement ; la gestion de copropriété. Face aux risques que représente aujourd’hui l’acquisition d’un logement, les acteurs du marché adoptent des comportements préventifs qui consistent surtout à ne pas porter atteinte aux valeurs attachées à la propriété. Quant aux spécialistes de la copropriété, ils entretiennent la (...) confiance dans des règles juridiques qui excluent la notion de risque, en se référant à une représentation fixiste de la propriété. Dans les deux cas, les comportements qui concourent à la méconnaissance des risques sont rationnels : ils visent à entretenir la confiance nécessaire aux activités sociales considérées.What happens when a risk threatens a social activity which is ruled by an apparently protective institution ? We are questioning here the activities that have to do with property : home ownership and management of joint ownership buildings. Actors of the housing market face home ownership’s risks by defending property’s conservative values and meanings. As for experts in joint ownership, they try to maintain trust in legal rules that exclude the notion of risk. In both cases, it is more rational to ignore risks than endanger trust in property. (shrink)

The Textual Criticism of Sumerian Literature. By Paul Delnero. The Journal of Cuneiform Studies Supplemental Series, vol. 3. Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2012. Pp. viii + 230. $89.95. [Distributed by ISD, Bristol, Conn.].

This article engages with Goldenberg's desire to abandon transcendence since it is the enemy of autonomy and to once more encounter corporeality as the site of immanence. The author is in agreement with Goldenberg but attempts to show that the negative outcomes associated with a reliance on transcendence are not necessary and have been produced by a false understanding on the part of Christianity.

L'objectif de cet article est de montrer, contre toute attente peut-être, que le thème du nouveau est au centre du projet proustien d'une « recherche du temps perdu ». autrement dit de sa conception de l'art comme une réminiscence. Compris dans un sens anti-platonicien, le nouveau correspond ultimement chez Proust à notre besoin d'être.

Aspirational talk has gained increasing research attention as a compelling concept theoretically explaining the potential of talk-action discrepancies in corporate responsibility communication to instigate organizational change. Under certain conditions, aspirational talk can facilitate discourse, agreement, reframing, and corporate reflexivity. However, perceived talk-action discrepancies can negatively affect organizational members, leading to disengagement, and demotivation, causing emotional exhaustion, exposing employees to vulnerabilities, and even catalyzing unethical or illicit behaviors. Thus, this book focuses on how aspirational talk becomes irresponsible in an organizational context, (...) and how it can be avoided. The author proposes that aspirational talk becomes irresponsible if it creates expectations that lead to illegitimate harm to employees or involved stakeholders. A framework is derived, constituting the finding that it takes two types of investments into performativity and responsibility conditions, to avoid the irresponsible use of aspirational talk – and thus, to inspire responsibly. (shrink)

Disons le tout de suite, le livre de l’historienne allemande Monika Siedentopf, Parachutées en terre ennemie, et le film Femmes de l’ombre, tiré de ses recherches n’ont pas grand-chose à voir ensemble. Autant le livre ouvre une nouvelle page de l’histoire de la participation des femmes à la Résistance contre l’occupant nazi, autant le film tire les ficelles d’un pseudo-héroïsme féminin qui conforte les mythes au détriment de la réalité historique. Ce qui est un comble quand on découvre la r...