I examine Kant’s claim in part one ofReligion within the Boundaries of Mere Reasonthat moral reform requires both a ‘change of heart’ and gradual reformation of one’s sense (R,6: 47). I argue that Kant’s conception of moral reform is neither fundamentally obscure nor is it as vulnerable to serious objections as several commentators have suggested. I defend Kant by explaining how he can maintain both that we can choose our moral disposition via an intelligible choice and that we become good (...) through a continuous struggle. I then provide an interpretation of how moral reform occurs in the phenomenal realm. (shrink)

This thesis asks a simple question. Why is it that communication between two people succeeds? In other words, what makes it so that one person can signify whatever thought they are entertaining to another person, and that person will understand what the first wanted to say? Consequently, what are the conditions for success, and when does communication fail? This thesis takes a stance on these questions, and develops a framework for systematically explaining communicative success. I discuss relevant accounts of communication (...) in the history of philosophy and contemporary accounts, and their contribution to what amounts to the Classical Model. The Classical Model answers the central questions of the thesis convincingly for many cases. But it faces serious challenges from a range of cases in which it seems difficult to impossible to determine a single proposition communicated. I look at, and critically discuss, a variety of current accounts intended to determine the content of such utterances, all of which give up some aspect of the Classical Model. This discussion calls for a solution, and I develop such a solution in detail. The model developed extends the Classical Model and makes it possible to determine a single proposition for the utterance's content in all problematic cases. The thesis is maximally conservative w.r.t. the Classical Model. It explains communication with an explicit articulation of the Classical Model extended with a pragmatic way of determining truth conditions for utterances. (shrink)

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

In "Nostromo," Conrad is proffering an ontological comment on the universe's structural economy involving the motions and counter-motions of the human and natural orders of creation.

Despite all its merits, the vast majority of critical attention devoted to colonialist literature restricts itself by severely bracketing the political context of culture and history. This typical facet of humanistic closure requires the critic systematically to avoid an analysis of the domination, manipulation, exploitation, and disfranchisement that are inevitably involved in the construction of any cultural artifact or relationship. I can best illustrate such closures in the field of colonialist discourse with two brief examples. In her book The Colonial (...) Encounter, which contrasts the colonial representations of three European and three non-European writers, M. M. Mahood skirts the political issue quite explicitly by arguing that she chose those authors precisely because they are “innocent of emotional exploitation of the colonial scene” and are “distanced” from the politics of domination.`1We find a more interesting example of this closure in Homi Bhabha’s criticism. While otherwise provocative and illuminating, his work rests on two assumptions—the unity of the “colonial subject” and the “ambivalence” of colonial discourse—that are inadequately problematized and, I feel, finally unwarranted and unacceptable. In rejecting Edward Said’s “suggestion that colonial power and discourse is possessed entirely by the colonizer,” Bhabha asserts, without providing any explanation, the unity of the “colonial subject .”2 I do not wish to rule out, a priori, the possibility that at some rarefied theoretical level the varied material and discursive antagonisms between conquerors and natives can be reduced to the workings of a single “subject”; but such a unity, let alone its value, must be demonstrated, not assumed. Though he cites Frantz Fanon, Bhabha completely ignored Fanon’s definition of the conqueror/native relation as a “Manichean” struggle—a definition that is not a fanciful metaphoric caricature but an accurate representation of a profound conflict.3 1. M. M. Mahood, The Colonial Encounter: A Reading of Six Novels , pp. 170, 171; and see p. 3. As many other studies demonstrate, the emotional innocence and the distance of the six writers whom Mahood has chosen—Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, Graham Greene, Chinua Achebe, R. K. Narayan, and V. S. Naipaul—are, at best, highly debatable.2. Homi K. Bhabha, “The Other Question—The Stereotype and Colonial Discourse,” Screen 24 : 25, 19.3. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington , p. 41. Abdul R. JanMohamed, assistant professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Manichean Aesthetics: The Politics of Literature in Colonial Africa. He is a founding member and associate editor of Cultural Critique and is currently working on a study of Richard Wright. (shrink)

A number of recent environmental philosophers (Vogel, Morton, Latour) have proclaimed the end of nature. They oppose what they consider to be an outdated view of nature as a basis for environmental philosophy and political ecology. Instead of “thinking like a mountain” (Leopold), we should begin “thinking like a mall” (Vogel). These end-of-nature thinkers claim that the concept of nature in environmental discourses is bound to be something that is outside of us because man is understood as doing something to (...) nature. Without putting forth a clearly defined concept of “nature,” we argue that proclaiming the end of nature is misguided. This proclamation means forgetting the body. If we really want to get beyond understanding nature as something outside of us, and truly sense and understand ourselves as natural or environmental beings who are a part of the earth’s ecosystem, we should direct our attention to how nature as the biotic, inner/outer environment is experienced and sensed in and through our bodies. We thus suggest that environmental philosophy should encourage sensing like embodied beings before introducing notions like thinking like a mountain, mall, water, or a plant for that matter. This approach is among other things based on the phenomemology of the body (Merleau-Ponty) and phenomenology of the real (Conrad-Martius).”. (shrink)

Public attitudes concerning cognitive enhancements are significant for a number of reasons. They tell us about how socially acceptable these emerging technologies are considered to be, but they also provide a window into the ethical reasons that are likely to get traction in the ongoing debates about them. We thus see Conrad et al’s project of empirically investigating the effect of metaphors and context in shaping attitudes about cognitive enhancements as both interesting and important. We sketch what we suspect (...) is a central theme that runs through these public attitudes, but that Conrad el al’s paper elides. We were disappointed that they did not more directly explore the efficacy of frames and metaphors associated with the values of authenticity and self-expression. This seems like a missed opportunity. Based on the premise that individualistic values enjoy centrality in Western and especially North American culture (e.g. Taylor 1989), we hypothesize that metaphors and frames informed by those values will be especially effective in shaping public attitudes. That is, when various kinds of novel enhancement are described as allowing people to more fully express themselves, or as helping people overcome obstacles to being authentic and true to their inner sense of themselves, those enhancements will be considered justified, and their use more likely to be viewed as socially acceptable by the public. We support our contention by drawing on work by Elliott (2004, 2011, c.f. Kadlac 2018), and discuss how this study, and others modeled on it, might shed light on our hypothesis. (shrink)

The text of Quintus Curtius benefited greatly from Conrad Müller's edition of 1954 . In particular, his thorough investigation of Curtius' rhythms enabled him to settle many hitherto doubtful points. Problems remain, unsolved or undetected. In Curtius, as in other prose texts, scribal omissions are a prolific source of corruption, sometimes productive of interpolation. Most of the following notes postulate corruptions of this type.

This is the thirty-first volume in Religion and Public Life, formerly This World, a series on religion and public affairs. This ongoing series seeks to provide a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical considerations. The essays grouped together in Culture and Consumption discuss the phenomenon of consumption, an identifiable and pervasive feature of American culture that distinguishes it from other national cultures. The lead article provides an insight into the long-standing pattern of consumption that has been progressively (...) elevated into social policy in America. This is a balanced analysis of the history of the consumption cultural ethos beginning with the undermining of the Native American Culture and ending with Wilsonian Liberal-Internationalism and the demise of the moral authority of organized labor. This commercialization of culture has always competed with the funding vision of a dispassionate social order in which custom, deferential politics, and continuation of traditional hierarchal values would be the constitutional agenda. Another contributor argues that the emergence of the democratic-consumer state in America was anticipated in de Tocqueville's observation that "in democracies nothing has brighter luster than commercea." Other contributor essays treat issues such as the New Class and the consumer state; technology's triumph at the expense of the social and natural worlds; and argue against the materialist perspective in addiction. Culture and Consumption includes the following major contributions: "The Dialectic of Consumption: Materialism and Social Control" by David Brown; "Religion, Social Science and the Ironies of Parasitic Modernity" by Guy Alchon; The Dilemma of Hypermodernity" by Mark Wegierski; "Toward an Epistemology of Addiction" by Leonard Kaplan and Vince Rinella. Also included are book reviews by Martha Davis and Conrad Kanagy. In a concluding essay, Gabriel Ricci reviews Jerome Bruner's The Culture of Education. Culture and Consumption is part of an annual survey of religion and public life that provides relevant information and ideas about significant issues of the day. (shrink)

My basic supposition is that the destruction of the little Jew's face and hands in Vandover and the Brute images the irruption of mere materiality within the scene of writing-that instead of Crane's double process of eliciting and repressing that materiality, what is figured in the shipwreck scene is a single, unstoppable process of materialization, involving both the act of representation and the marking tool and actual page , the result of which can only be the defeat of the very (...) possibility of writing .Here it might be objected that such a reading derives whatever plausibility it has from the comparison with Crane, and in a sense this is true: my claim is precisely that it's only against the background of Crane's seemingly bizarre but, in this regard, normative or centric enterprise that the wider problematic of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literary "impressionism" can be made out. In another sense, however, the comparison with Crane involves an appeal to issues—notably that of materialism—which have long been basic to Norris criticism and which the recent work of Walter Benn Michaels has brought to a new level of conceptual sophistication and historical refinement. Specifically, the title essay in Michaels's book, The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism, interprets both McTeague and Vandover and the Brute in terms of a conflict between materiality and representation that found contemporary expression both in the debates over the gold and silver standards versus paper money and in the vogue for trompe l'oeil painting ." In this regard a crucial moment in Vandover's regression from man to beast is his discovery that, as a painter, he has lost the ability to represent nature three-dimensionally; Michaels treats this development as equivalent to "replac[ing] the painting with nature itself" , and goes on to remark: "But this ... is ultimately a distinction without a difference. Vandover the artist can so easily devolve into Vandover the brute precisely because both artist and brute are already committed to a naturalist ontology—in money, to precious metals; in art, to three-dimensionality. The moral of Vandover's regression, from this standpoint, is that it can only take place because . . . it has already taken place. Discovering that man is a brute, Norris repeats the discovery that paper money is just paper and that a painting of paper money is just paint" . My reading of the shipwreck passage would thus be consistent with what Michaels calls Norris's "trompe l'oeil materialism" , though the nearly sadomasochistic violence of that passage may be taken to imply that materialism's consequences for writing threaten to be even more disastrous than they are for painting. But rather than analyze the role of writing as such in Vandover, which would involve an intricate discussion not just of that novel and McTeague but also of Michaels's essay, I want to turn to another, lesser-known book by Norris, in which a thematic of writing plays a conspicuous and more nearly univocal role: A Man's Woman . Michael Fried is J. R. Herbert Boone Professor of Humanities and director of the Humanities Center at the Johns Hopkins University. His most recent book is Courbet's Realism . He is currently at work on a book to be titled Manet's Modernism. (shrink)

The contributors to The Moral of the Story, all preeminent political theorists, are unified by their concern with the instructive power of great literature. This thought-provoking combination of essays explores the polyvalent moral and political impact of classic world literatures on public ethics through the study of some of its major figures-including Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Jane Austen, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Robert Penn Warren, and Dostoevsky. Positing the uniqueness of literature's ability to promote dialogue on salient moral and intellectual (...) virtues, editor Henry T. Edmonson III has culled together a wide-ranging exploration of such fundamental concerns as the abuse of authority, the nature of good leadership, the significance of "middle class virtues" and the needs of adolescents. This collection reinvigorates the study of classic literature as an endeavor that is not only personally intellectually satisfying, but also an inimitable and unique way to enrich public discourse. (shrink)

An analysis of student learning with the LISP tutor indicates that while LISP is complex, learning it is simple. The key to factoring out the complexity of LISP is to monitor the learning of the 500 productions in the LISP tutor which describe the programming skill. The learning of these productions follows the power‐law learning curve typical of skill acquisition. There is transfer from other programming experience to the extent that this programming experience involves the same productions. Subjects appear to (...) differ only on the general dimensions of how well they acquire the productions and how well they retain the productions. Instructional manipulations such as remediation, content of feedback, and timing of feedback are effective to the extent they give students more practice programming, and explain to students why correct solutions work. (shrink)

This is the first translation into English of early phenomenologist Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ Metaphysical Conversations, originally published in 1921. Conrad-Martius was one of Husserl’s first students, an important part of the Göttingen Phenomenology Circle and mentor to Edith Stein, Jean Héring, and other early phenomenologists. The present volume provides the full German and English texts of the conversations, a phenomenological discussion of the nature of the human, examining the nature of body, soul, and spirit, and drawing distinctions between plants, (...) animals, humans, and various other beings. The volume also includes two important essays on phenomenology, in which Conrad-Martius distinguishes between the phenomenological approaches of Husserl, Heidegger, and the more ontological approach of the Göttingen school of phenomenology. She is critical of Husserl’s "transcendental" and Heidegger’s "existential" approach. The conversations illustrate her use of the phenomenological method for fundamental investigations into the nature (or Wesen) of things. (shrink)

We examine and test alternative models for explaining the relationships between resource stress, beliefs that gods and spirits influence weather, and customary beyond-household sharing behavior. Our model, the resource stress model, suggests that resource stress affects both sharing as well as conceptions of gods’ involvement with weather, but these supernatural beliefs play no role in explaining sharing. An alternative model, the moralizing high god model, suggests that the relationship between resource stress and sharing is at least partially mediated by religious (...) beliefs in moralizing high gods. We compared the models using a worldwide sample of 96 cultures from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, newly coded data on supernatural involvement with weather, and previously coded data on food and labor sharing. We conducted three types of analysis: multilevel and society-level regressions, and mediational path modeling using Monte Carlo simulations. Resource stress shows a robust effect on beliefs that high gods are associated with weather, that superior gods help the food supply through weather, and that minor spirits hurt the food supply through weather. Resource stress also predicts greater belief in moralizing high gods. However, no form of high god belief that we test significantly predicts more sharing. Mediational models suggest the religious beliefs do not significantly explain why resource stress is associated with food and labor sharing. Our findings generally accord with the view that resource stress changes religious belief and has a direct effect on sharing behavior, unmediated by high god beliefs. (shrink)

The widespread use of stimulants among healthy individuals to improve cognition has received growing attention; however, public attitudes toward this practice are not well understood. We determined the effect of framing metaphors and context of use on public opinion toward cognitive enhancement. We recruited 3,727 participants from the United States to complete three surveys using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk between April and July 2017. Participants read vignettes describing an individual using cognitive enhancement, varying framing metaphors (fuel versus steroid), and context of (...) use (athletes versus students versus employees). The main outcome measure was the difference in respondent-assigned level of acceptability of the use of cognitive enhancement by others and by themselves between the contrasting vignettes. Participants were more likely to support the use of cognitive enhancement by others than by themselves and more when the use of enhancement by others was framed with a fuel metaphor than with a steroid metaphor. Metaphoric framing did not affect participants’ attitudes toward their own use. Participants supported the use of enhancement by employees more than by students or athletes. These results are discussed in relation to existing ethical and policy literature. (shrink)

We confront the philosophical literature on fair division problems with axiomatic and game-theoretic work in economics. Firstly, we show that the proportionality method advocated in Curtis is not implied by a general principle of fairness, and that the proportional rule cannot be explicated axiomatically from that very principle. Secondly, we suggest that Broome’s notion of claims is too restrictive and that game-theoretic approaches can rectify this shortcoming. More generally, we argue that axiomatic and game-theoretic work in economics is an indispensable (...) ingredient of any theorizing about fair division problems and allocative justice. (shrink)

The thesis that humanity progresses in a lawlike manner from inferior states (of wellbeing, cognitive skills, culture, etc.) to superior ones dominated eighteenth- and nineteenth- century thought, including authors otherwise as diverse as Kant and Ernst Haeckel. Positioning himself against this philosophically and scientifically popular view, Nietzsche suggests that humanity is in a prolonged state of decline. I argue that Nietzsche’s rejection of the thesis that progress is inevitable is a product of his acceptance of Lamarck’s use-and-disuse theory of evolution (...) and his belief that society selects for traits beneficial to society and negatively selects for traits that promote individual flourishing. This explains Nietzsche’s emphasis on self-development as cultivating traits that Nietzsche views as valuable and that would, by Lamarck’s theory of evolution, become heritable and so help steer our evolutionary trajectory, correcting our decline. (shrink)

Kant's view that there is a propensity to evil in human nature has been thought to be both internally inconsistent and in tension with his other philosophical commitments. This essay provides an interpretation of the propensity to evil to defend Kant from these objections. I argue that the propensity to evil is the choice of the evil fundamental maxim. I then assess Kant's claims that the propensity to evil is universal and inextirpable given this interpretation. I conclude by proposing a (...) new interpretation of why Kant deliberately employs religious language in developing his account of the propensity to evil. (shrink)

The important ‘no-envy’ fairness criterion has typically been attributed to Foley and sometimes to Tinbergen. We reveal that Jan Tinbergen introduced ‘no-envy’ as a fairness criterion in his article “Mathematiese Psychologie” published in 1930 in the Dutch journal Mens en Maatschappij and translated as “Mathematical Psychology” in 2021 in the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics. Our article accompanies the translation: we introduce Tinbergen’s 1930 formulation of the ‘no-envy’ criterion, compare it to other formulations, and comment on its significance for (...) the fairness literature in philosophy and economics. (shrink)

Hedwig Conrad-Martius was honoured with the Bundesverdienstkreuz, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, on March 1st, 1958. What follows is her acceptance speech on that occasion. In this speech, Conrad-Martius not only gives an account of her biography as a phenomenologist who studied directly with Husserl, but also demonstrates that Husserl’s work is open to a peculiar form of subjective materialist interpretation that can explain his transcendental turn. The speech is an important document for (...) those who support the possibility of a Husserlian transcendental materialism. (shrink)

Ever since the publication of Singer’s (1972) article on ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’ have debates about duties to the distant needy been marked by a high degree of controversy. Most contributors discuss how duties are established or influenced by the fact that those in need of help can be geographically close or distant. In other words, they debate the problem of duty and distance from the perspective of duties. Here, we change tack and put the concept of distance at the (...) centre of the analysis. We ask: what precisely is the definition and role of geographical distance in the different contributions? We argue that a distinction between empirical and moral disagreement over geographical distance clarifies several important aspects of the debate. The analysis also sheds new light on duties in the current European refugee crisis. (shrink)

The charge of treason and the judgment of insanity have left questions that invariably intrude on an assessment of Pound’s life and work. Critics frequently adopt a strategy of separating the life and the work, but tactical review is often necessary. There is a lightness in Pound’s writing that speaks of a being detached from the concerns of the world. Yet with his economic theory of social credit, his political and racial views, as well as his concern for other writers, (...) he is of the world—in the world and part of it. He was decidedly not tied to geography. He had no region or period, and he was as comfortable in Confucian China as in Dante’s Florence or twentieth-century Rome. He could work anywhere. He wrote The Pisan Cantos while jailed in Italy. The Cantos were published while he was in a mental wart at St. Elizabeths, yet a court found that he could not understand the charges against him. Can such an impairment and such achievement occur at the same time? If you say no, then what of the treason? Did he feign madness to escape punishment? Could Pound have been convicted of treason?In this paper, I intend to examine what has been loosely referred to as “the trial of Ezra Pound” and to show that Pound’s case should have been brought to trial within one or two years after his commitment to St. Elizabeths because he had a reasonable chance of being found not guilty of treason; even if found guilty, the circumstances in mitigation of a long prison term would have been so evident that he would have likely spent considerably less time in prison than he spent locked up at the mental institution. I will do this, in part, by reviewing the similarities and differences between Pound’s case and three other treason cases that came to trial within the first years after World War II. The English case, Rex v. Joyce, was tried shortly after the close of the war and well before Pound’s competency hearing on 13 February 1945.3 The law applied in Joyce would have led Pound’s lawyer to seek some postponement of trial until the American courts decided whether to follow the English lead. The other two cases involve the Americans, Douglas Chandler and Robert Best, employees of German radio, who were indicted with Pound in 1943. 3. William Joyce was an American who came to be known as “Lord Haw Haw.” He was hanged at Wandsworth, England, 3 Jan. 1946. He was the best known of the “radio traitors.” He began his programs, “This is Jairmany calling,” and would then prophesy the destruction of English towns and cities. The name “Lord Haw Haw” was created by the English journalist, Jonah Barrington, to ridicule Joyce and to make him appear idiotic. Conrad L. Rushing is a Superior Court Judge in California and an occasional lecturer in law at the University of California, Berkeley. He teaches a course in law and literature at the California Judges College and is a founder of the Sane Jose Poetry Center. (shrink)

Kurzdarstellung: Der Beitrag untersucht Wolfgang Cramers Argument für die transzendentale Realität der Zeit. In seiner Grundlegung einer Theorie des Geistes von 1957 beansprucht der Post-Neukantianer, Kants Theorie der Zeit zu revidieren, um das angebliche Grundproblem der Transzendentalphilosophie zu lösen: wie „das Bewusstsein in seiner Konstitution des Gegenstandes den Gegenstand als Nicht-Gegen­ stand […] wissen“ könne. Indem das Kernargument von Cramers transzendentaler Ontologie rekonstruiert wird, soll (gegen Cramer) dargelegt werden, dass schon der kritische Idealismus Kants eine Lösung auf das besagte Grundproblem (...) darstellt. Sie besteht darin, den Zusammenhang von Zeit und Denken zu entontologisieren. Gleichwohl bringt Cramers transzendentale Ontologie (wohl unfreiwillig) einen zentralen, aber immer noch weitgehend vernachlässigten Aspekt der kantischen Theorie der Zeit zur Geltung – deren spekulative Bedeutung. -/- Abstract: The article explores Wolfgang Cramer’s argument for the transcendental reality of time. In his 1957 Grundlegung einer Theorie des Geistes, the Post-Neokantian claims to revise Kant’s theory of time in order to resolve the alleged key problem of transcendental philosophy: How consciousness is able to relate to the constituted object (Gegenstand) of our representations as a non-object (Nicht-Gegenstand). While reconstructing the core argument of Cramer’s transcendental ontology, I will argue (pace Cramer) that Kantian critical idealism already presents a solution to said problem: de-ontologizing the nexus between time and thinking. Nevertheless, Cramer’s transcendental ontology manages (perhaps involuntarily) to highlight a central, yet still widely neglected aspect of Kant’s theory of time—its speculative relevance. (shrink)

From a medical perspective, patients who do not comply with the doctor's orders are usually seen as deviant and deviance requires correction. But many chronically ill people view their behavior differently, as a matter of self‐regulation. In this light noncompliance supports people's desires for independence and autonomy, desires that align closely with the therapeutic goals of caregivers.

BACKGROUND: The offer of return of research results to study participants has many potential benefits. The current study examined the offer of return of research results by analyzing consent forms from 2 acute lymphoblastic leukemia studies of the 235 institutional members of the Children's Oncology Group. METHODS: Institutional review board (IRB)-approved consent forms from 2 standard-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia studies (Children's Cancer Group [CCG] 1991 and Pediatric Oncology Group [POG] 9407) were analyzed independently by 2 reviewers. RESULTS: The authors received (...) replies from 202 of the 235 institutions that were contacted (85%). One hundred eighty-one institutions had CCG 1991 (n = 96) or POG 9905 (n = 85) protocols that were approved by an IRB. Most institutions provided contact information for the principal investigator (n = 175; 97%) and a member of the institution's research services office (n = 154; 85%). Only 5 (2.8%) institutions provided an indication of a participant's right to receive a summary of research results; most of these institutions provided details on how (n = 5) or when (n = 5) this was to occur. All of these institutions (n = 162; 89.5%) provided a specific statement offering new information that might affect a participant's decision to continue to participate in a study. Only 2 institutional consent forms offered participants the option to receive research results, and only 10 (5.5%) consent forms contained an unambiguous, specific statement offering to provide new information after the study was closed. CONCLUSIONS: Few institutional review board-approved consent forms explicitly indicate the right of research recipients to receive a summary of the results of the research in which they have participated. (shrink)

PURPOSE: The offer to return a summary of results to participants after the conclusion of clinical research has many potential benefits. The authors determined current practice and attitudes and needs of researchers in establishing programs to return results to research participants. METHODS: An Internet survey of all 236 principal investigators (PIs) of the Children's Oncology Group in May 2002 recorded PI and institutional demographics, current practice, and perceived barriers to and needs of PIs for the creation of research results programs. (...) RESULTS: One hundred fifty (63.8%) PIs responded. Few institutions (n = 5) had established, comprehensive programs to offer the return of results. PIs indicated that major impediments to the implementation of such programs are the preparation of lay summaries, time constraints, the task of contacting participants, and potential distress for the participants. PIs identified the following facilitators to the establishment of a program in their own institution: lay summaries, web site, preparation of an oncologist's summary, and financial credits. There was no clear consensus as to when the results should be shared: 30% indicated after the study was closed and 24% indicated at the time of publication of results. A substantial proportion of respondents opposed or strongly opposed the implementation of a universal offering of results to research participants. CONCLUSIONS: Few Children's Oncology Group institutions have programs that offer the return of results to research participants. Significant barriers and facilitators to this process have been identified. (shrink)

Zimbabwe's unending socioeconomic crisis has led to the flooding of informal street vendors in its urban areas, a development that has led to incessant clashes between the street vendors and the local authorities. Literature has shown that street vending is a global phenomenon and its problems could be addressed through best practices of inclusivity. This study examined the situation of informal street vendors in Harare in the light of social inclusion. It also made use of insights from Pope Francis regarding (...) World Popular Movements. Data were collected through focus group discussions comprising six informal street vendors operating in Harare as its participants. Findings revealed that informal street vendors in Harare faced many structural challenges, one of which included operating in contested spaces characterised by violent evictions from vending sites, bribery and power struggles. Results also showed that street vendors lacked access to bank loans, information, and even the power to influence policies which directly affected them. Based on these findings, it was argued that the informal street vendors were socially excluded and needed to be integrated into the economic fabric of the urban society. This social inclusion process was considered as only possible if local authorities adopted an inclusive approach to policymaking. This would entail involving the street vendors when crafting policies that directly affect them. It was recommended that Harare City Council regularises street vending, aligns its by-laws to the National Constitution, and that it also formulates inclusive policies. CONTRIBUTION: The article makes a contribution towards the promotion of an inclusive society whereby everyone has equal access to social and economic opportunities. (shrink)

This paper examines two commonly held and conflicting cognitions in the modern world, each based on a belief vital to the individual's sense of self, both maintained in what is here considered as a chronic state of dissonance. This psychological inconsistency consists of an inherent practical belief in the goodness of empirical knowledge and a culturally-developed transcendent belief denying, or at least mitigating, empirical evidence about the finite nature of individual life and affirming a counter-empirical belief in supernatural: supra-cause-and-effect forces (...) that influence life. I argue that since both beliefs are highly resistant to change, they lead to an impasse that individuals in diverse cultures have borne and been motivated to maintain. They have borne it, as I hope to show, because the consonant “cure” has proved to be more discomforting than the dissonant condition. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Appropriation and the Distortion of Cultures Appropriation as Theft Offensive Appropriation of Religion Summary References.

The under-reporting of sexual abuse reduces the chances of winning the battle against sexual abuse of women and children in Zimbabwe. It leaves girl children powerless and vulnerable, despite the country’s determination to put an end to injustice and gender discrimination in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular, SDG 5, which focuses on gender and equality, and SDG 16, which is concerned with justice and peace. The aim of this study was to explore the barriers to reporting (...) sexual abuse in Ruwa. Informed by the human rights-based approach, the study adopted a quantitative research design. Survey data were solicited from 51 randomly selected female respondents. Results revealed that 69% of the respondents were abused, yet only 2% of the total respondents reported the abuse to authorities, while 67% did not report incidences of abuse. About 98% of respondents believed that most sexual abuse cases in Ruwa went unreported. Results also showed that barriers to reporting sexual abuses comprised cultural and economic factors, most of which were characterised by shame, embarrassment, and fear, as well as the desire to protect male breadwinners. The results are consistent with existing literature generalisations on sexual abuse, particularly in terms of the prevalence of sexual abuse and under-reporting. It is also argued that culture is the determinant factor for most of the barriers to reporting sexual abuse, as well as the effects of reporting.Based on the results and in view of promoting and protecting human rights associated with sexuality, the study recommends that local authorities and social institutions implement awareness programmes and campaigns on reporting sexual abuse in the community.Contribution: This study is the first of its kind in Ruwa. Its significance is embedded in how it reflects on the role played by culture, religion and societal views on matters of sexual abuse. (shrink)

Patients with psychiatric illness feel the brunt of the intersection of many of our society's and our health care system's disparities, and the vulnerability of this population during the Covid‐19 pandemic cannot be overstated. Patients with psychiatric illness often suffer from the stigma of mental illness and receive poor medical care. Many patients with severe and persistent mental illness face additional barriers, including poverty, marginal housing, and food insecurity. Patients who require psychiatric hospitalization now face the risk of transmission of (...) Covid‐19 due to the inherent difficulties of social distancing within a psychiatric hospital. Patients whose freedom and self‐determination have been temporarily overruled as they receive involuntary psychiatric treatment deserve a setting that maintains their health and safety. While tele‐mental health has been rapidly expanded to provide new ways to access psychiatric treatment, some patients may have limitations in technological literacy or access to devices. The social isolation, economic fallout, and potential traumatization related to the current pandemic will disproportionately affect this vulnerable population, and society's duties to them must be considered. (shrink)

It is well known that John Henry Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine contains strong autobiographical elements. Equally, the essay is an important 19th century contribution to the development of the history of theology. Another fact is lesswell known: in the case of Newman, biography and the history of ideas go hand in hand. This article aims to explain how Newman’s personal search for a spiritual home influenced his conception of the development of Christian thought. This is done (...) by analysing Newman’s own writing as well as looking at the critical appraisal of Newman’s thought by Rowan Williams. Both authors share an interest in the development of theological ideas but differ in their opinion on the necessity of continuity in this development. (shrink)