I elucidate a frame of mind that David Wiggins callsrespect for nature, which he understands as a special attitude toward asui generisobject, Natureas such. A person with this frame of mind takes nature to impose defeasible limits on her action, so that there are some courses of action that she will refuse even to entertain, except in circumstances of dire exigency. I defend the reasonableness of respect for nature, drawing upon considerations in Wiggins's work. But I argue that the (...) natural systems that comprise the proper object of respect for nature are notsui generis; they are kindred, for practical reason, to complex social, political, and economic systems that we inhabit. I argue that it is reasonable to treat all such valuable systems with a similar respect, and that this respect is continuous with the respect we owe to persons and to valuable objects more generally. In all of these cases, respect consists, in part, in a disposition to defeasible constraints on practical deliberation. (shrink)

There is surprisingly little attention in Information Technology ethics to respect for persons, either as an ethical issue or as a core value of IT ethics or as a conceptual tool for discussing ethical issues of IT. In this, IT ethics is very different from another field of applied ethics, bioethics, where respect is a core value and conceptual tool. This paper argues that there is value in thinking about ethical issues related to information (...) technologies, especially, though not exclusively, issues concerning identity and identity management, explicitly in terms of respect for persons understood as a core value of IT ethics. After explicating respect for persons, the paper identifies a number of ways in which putting the concept of respect for persons explicitly at the center of both IT practice and IT ethics could be valuable, then examines some of the implicit and problematic assumptions about persons, their identities, and respect that are built into the design, implementation, and use of information technologies and are taken for granted in discussions in IT ethics. The discussion concludes by asking how better conceptions of respect for persons might be better employed in IT contexts or brought better to bear on specific issues concerning identity in IT contexts. (shrink)

It is argued that the so-called fitting attitude- or buck-passing pattern of analysis may be applied to personal values too if the analysans is fine-tuned in the following way: An object has personal value for a person a, if and only if there is reason to favour it for a’s sake. One benefit with it is its wide range: different kinds of values are analysable by the same general formula. Moreover, by situating the distinguishing quality in the attitude rather (...) than the reason part, the analysis admits that personal value is recognizable as a value not only by the person for whom it has personal value, but for everyone else too. We thereby avoid facing two completely different notions of value, viz., one pertaining to impersonal value, and another to personal value. The analysis also elucidates why we are justified in our concern for objects that are valuable for us; if value just is, as it is suggested, the existence of reasons for such a concern, the justification is immediately forthcoming. (shrink)

My discussion of this theme falls into two parts. In the first part, starting from the assumption that we do in fact tend to respond favourably to the idea, vague though it may be, that “persons are to be respected, simply as persons”, I endeavour to clear my mind a little about our warrant for speaking in this way; and to do this is at the same time to clarify in some measure our understanding of what such language (...) means. But of course, since it is the language of practical principle, or precept, there can be no full understanding of its meaning without a grasp of its “working value”, of its significance as a clue to the proper directing and assessing of conduct. The second, and briefer, part of the discussion, accordingly, which is reserved for a subsequent article, is devoted to the question of the practical import of the principle of respect, the sort of guidance that it may provide in the actual business of life. (shrink)

This paper explores some of the values that underpin health care and how these relate more specifically to the values and ethics of palliative care. The paper focuses on the concept of autonomy because autonomy has emerged as a foundational concept in contemporary health care ethics and because this is an opportunity to scratch the surface of this concept in order to reveal something of its complexity, a necessary precaution when applying the concept to the context of palliative care. The (...) paper begins with a theoretical discussion of autonomy exploring an aspect of its contemporary meaning and relevance to health care. The second part of the paper focuses more closely on how the principle of respect for autonomy can be applied in the context of palliative care. In this section an ethical framework is employed to explore a practical application of this principle within a broader context of respect for persons. (shrink)

In everyday conversations, professional codes, policy debates, and academic literature, the concept of respect is referred to frequently. Bioethical arguments in recent decades equate the idea of respect for persons with individuals who are capable of autonomous decision-making, with the focus being explicitly on ‘autonomy,’ ‘capacity,’ or ‘capability.’ In much of bioethics literature, respect for persons is replaced by respect for autonomy. Though the unconditional respect for persons and their autonomy (irrespective of (...) actual decision-making capacity) is established in Kantian bioethics, current argument and debates often revolve around a thin concept of autonomy, focusing on capacity and capability: persons are owed respect because they are ‘rational beings’ or with a focus on ‘agency’ and ‘decision-making abilities.’ However, these aspects alone are insufficient while engaging the concept of respect for persons, particularly in healthcare settings. This paper sets out to explore if the concept of respect for persons—as opposed to a thin concept of autonomy—could help us engage better in healthcare practices. We shall probe the practical value of the experiential aspect of respect—understood as the recognition of persons as respect-worthy through certain dispositions and deliberative acts—by reflecting on instances in clinical practice that tend to be dismissed as negligible or even unavoidable in a stressful environment such as a busy hospital. We shall argue that these instances are far from trivial but carry moral significance and express an unacceptable—disrespectful—attitude that can compromise the moral habitus in hospital settings. In our conclusion, we call for practicing recognition respect in the health professional–patient encounter by focussing on manners, attitudes, and behaviors. Furthermore, we call for continuous medical ethics education programs to address the moral significance of disrespectful behaviors and their manifestations in particular socio-cultural contexts. (shrink)

Derek Parfit has argued that (Teleological) Egalitarianism is objectionable by breaking a person-affecting claim to the effect that an outcome cannot be better in any respect - such as that of equality - if it is better for nobody. So, he presents the Priorty View, i.e., the policy of giving priority to benefiting the worse-off, which avoids this objection. But it is here argued, first, that there is another person-affecting claim that this view violates. Secondly, Egalitarianism can be construed (...) as person-affecting in a weaker sense. Thirdly, it is possible to construct a Relational version of the Priority View which incorporates the Egalitarian value of just equality in this sense. Two reasons are given for why this Relational View and Egalitarianism are superior to the Parfitian Absolute Priority View. However, no attempt is made to abjudicate between the first two views, the main point being that they both accept the value of just equality in the same sense. (shrink)

Millennials are a powerful workforce group and are quickly becoming established business leaders, consumers, and investors. Yet, millennials are often described as a uniformly homogeneous generation, despite mounting evidence of variances across their private and workplace behaviors, attitudes and preferences, and personal values. This article examines the personal value orientations of millennials in the Unites States, reporting consistencies, variations, and contrasts based on a large sample drawn from seven diverse universities. Results of this article suggest more similarities across a (...) national population of millennials than differences, suggesting a national identity among American millennials. Practical implications of our findings and future research are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to measure professional and personal values among nurses, and to identify the factors affecting these values. The participants were 323 Israeli nurses, who were asked about 36 personal values and 20 professional values. The three fundamental professional nursing values of human dignity, equality among patients, and prevention of suffering, were rated first. The top 10 rated values all concerned nurses' responsibility towards patients. Altruism and confidentiality were not highly rated, and health promotion and nursing (...) research were rated among the last three professional values. For personal (instrumental) values, honesty, responsibility and intelligence were rated first, while ambition and imagination were rated 14th and 16th respectively out of 18. Significant differences (P < 0.05) were found among some personal and professional values rated as functions of culture, education, professional seniority, position and field of expertise. The results may assist in understanding the motives of nurses with different characteristics and help to promote their work according to professional ethical values. (shrink)

In “Rescuing Conservatism: A Defense of Existing Value,” G. A. Cohen offers an anticapitalist philosophy of valuing that takes as given the existence itself of particular valuable and valued things, and commitment through time to cherishing relationships to them. In this article, I argue that “being placed,” in precolonial senses, and decolonial “being in” and “seeking place,” are the givens of being valuing, living creatures among valuing, living creatures. Valuing as placed and valuing being placed are intrinsic to decolonial (...) feminist resistance to the gendered, racialized, and denatured ideological warfare on the terms of life. Place is not one among other values; place and placed temporality must be accepted as given. In place, the past is living in the present. Placed decolonial valuing is the only resistance to solipsistic destruction of all that has value, to a coloniality that would fragment the past to destroy the life force of the capacity to value present existing and living. Thus I bring Cohen's rescuing valuable things, and the capacity to value them, to intergenerational, interspecies, temporally located placedness shared across diverse peoples prior to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century conquests and nineteenth-century imperialism, and in perpetual resistance to contemporary settler societies and coloniality. (shrink)

This chapter explores the foundation and content of the duty to respect persons. The authors argue that it is best understood as a duty to recognize people’s rights. Respect for persons therefore has specific implications for how competent and non-competent persons ought to be treated in research. For competent persons it underlies the obligation to obtain consent to many research procedures. The chapter gives an analysis of the requirements for obtaining valid consent. It then (...) considers respect for persons as it relates to four common topics: the therapeutic misconception, research with children and adolescents, the use of deception in research, and research on competent adults without their consent. (shrink)

The person-organization fit (P-O fit) literature suggests that job seekers are attracted to organizations that match their personal values; but, to date, little is known about how individuals’ personal values might affect their preferences for particular job attributes when seeking a job. In this paper, using data from 351 job seekers at several employment agencies in Haute-Normandie, France, we examine possible connections between certain personal values and job attribute preferences among job seekers.

Interpersonal sensitivity, particularly threat of potential exclusion, is a critical condition in borderline personality disorder (BPD) which impairs patients’ social adjustment. Current evidence-based treatments include group components, such as mentalization-based group therapy (MBT-G), in order to improve interpersonal functioning. These treatments additionally focus on the therapeutic alliance since it was discovered to be a robust predictor of treatment outcome. However, alliance is a multidimensional factor of group therapy, which includes the fellow patients, and may thus be negatively affected by the (...) exclusion-proneness of BPD patients. The aim of this pilot study was to examine the predictive value of threat of social exclusion for the therapeutic alliance in MBT-G. In the first part of the study, social exclusion was experimentally induced in 23 BPD inpatients and 28 healthy subjects using the Cyberball paradigm, a virtual ball tossing game. The evoked level of threat was measured with the Need-Threat Scale (NTS) which captures four dimensions of fundamental human needs, i. e. the need for belongingness, for self-esteem, for control, and for a meaningful existence. In the second part of the study, therapeutic alliance was measured on three dimensions, the therapists, the fellow patients and the group as a whole, using the Group-Questionnaire (GQ-D). BPD patients scored higher in their level of threat according to the NTS in both, the inclusion and the exclusion condition. The level of threat after exclusion predicted impairments of the therapeutic alliance in MBT-G. It was associated with more negative relationships, lower positive bonding and a lower positive working alliance with the fellow patients and lower positive bonding to the group as a whole whilst no negative prediction of the alliance to the therapists was found. Consequently, our translational study design has shown that Cyberball is an appropriate tool to use as an approach for clinical questions. We further conclude that exclusion-proneness in BPD is a critical feature with respect to alliance in group treatments. In order to neutralize BPD patients’ exclusion bias, therapists may be advised to provide an “inclusive stance”, especially in initial sessions. It is also recommendable to strengthen patient to patient relations. (shrink)

In this exploratory study, we look at the professed values that people have, and their performance in a negotiation. We found relations between Schwartz values and conflict handling behaviors, and distributive, integrative, and compatible negotiation outcomes in a controlled environment using Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) analysis.

I defend a certain claim about rationing in the context of HIV/AIDS, namely, the 'priority thesis' that the state of a developing country with a high rate of HIV should provide highly active anti-retroviral treatment (HAART) to those who would die without it, even if doing so would require not treating most other life-threatening diseases. More specifically, I defend the priority thesis in a negative way, by refuting two influential and important arguments against it inspired by the Kantian principle of (...) respect for persons. The 'equality argument' more or less maintains that prioritizing treatment for HIV/AIDS would objectionably treat those who suffer from it as more important than those who do not. The 'responsibility argument' says, roughly, that to ration life-saving treatment by prioritizing those with HIV would wrongly fail to hold people responsible for their actions, since most people infected with HIV could have avoided the foreseeable harm of infection. While it appears that a Kantian must think that one of these two arguments is sound, I maintain that, in fact, respect for persons grounds neither the equality nor responsibility argument against prioritizing HAART and hence at least permits doing so. If this negative defence of the priority thesis succeeds, then conceptual space is opened up for the possibility that respect for persons requires prioritizing HAART, which argument I sketch in the conclusion as something to articulate and defend in future work. (shrink)

We believe we owe one another respect. We believe we ought to pay what we owe by treating one another ‘with respect.’ If we could understand these beliefs we would be well on the way to understanding morality itself. If we could justify these beliefs we could vindicate a central part of our moral experience.Respect comes in many varieties. We respect some people for their upright character, others for their exceptional achievements. There are people we (...) class='Hi'>respect as forces of nature: we go to great lengths to accommodate their moods, wiles, and demands. Finally, most of us seem to respect people simply because they are people. This is the sort of respect of special interest to moral theory.In order to be worthy of this last sort of respect, it is not only sufficient but necessary that one be a person. We can, of course, take a similar attitude towardnonpersons. (shrink)

Human rights have increasingly been put forward as an important framework for bioethics. In this paper, it is argued that human rights offer a potentially fruitful approach to understanding the notion of Respect for Persons in bioethics. The idea that we are owed a certain kind of respect as persons is relatively common, but also quite often understood in terms of respecting people’s autonomous choices. Such accounts do however risk being too narrow, reducing some human beings (...) to a second-class moral status. This paper puts forward a political approach to our standing as persons and a strongly pluralistic account of human rights that lays the ground for a more broadly applicable conception of Respect for Persons. It is further argued that this model also provides an example of a more general approach to philosophical ethics, an approach which is here called taxonomical pluralism. When it comes to Respect for Persons specifically, this principle is developed in terms of five distinct core concerns. (shrink)

It is argued that dignity can be considered both subjectively, taking into account individual differences and idiosyncrasies, and objectively, as the foundation of human rights. Dignity can and should also be explored as both an other-regarding and a self-regarding value: respect for the dignity of others and respect for one’s own personal and professional dignity. These two values appear to be inextricably linked. Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean enables nurses to reflect on the appropriate degree of (...) class='Hi'>respect for the dignity of others and of respect for themselves. To develop an understanding of the rationale for and the significance and implications of dignity in health care practice, a view of human nature is proposed that implies vulnerability and fallibility, and that urges that an ethic of aspiration is embraced. Anonymized vignettes are included to illustrate points about the everyday nature of dignity. (shrink)

Scanlon's distinction between well-being and other personal values cannot be made out clearly if well-being is understood, as it commonly is, to consist in whatever is intrinsically good for a person. Two other accounts of well-being, however, might be able to explain this distinction. One is a version of the rational care view proposed by Stephen Darwall; another is a rational sympathy view suggested by some of Brad Hooker's work.

For Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences Theory (MI) constitutes “a new understanding of human nature,” on a par with those proffered by Socrates and Freud. While the educational community in general has responded enthusiastically to MI, because it enables them to deal with students more holistically, MI embeds a significant dualism that is detrimental to truly holistic education. I will argue that: values are pervasive; intelligence requires the exercise of judgment, which no computational system can emulate; domains in which intelligence functions (...) are contested, as much as in the realm of “values,” judgments about “values” are “intelligent” in seeking to determine what conditions will promote flourishing, and the more appropriate distinction to draw is not between two structural domains of “empirical fact” and “subjective value,” but between structural conditions and directional responses to these conditions. (shrink)

Can a state seek to promote a thick conception of the good (such as fostering a kind of meaning or excellence in people's lives) without treating its citizens disrespectfully? The predominant answer among friends of the principle of respect for persons is "no." The most powerful Kantian objection to non-liberalism or perfectionism is the claim that citizens who do not share the state's conception of the good would be wronged in that the state would treat a certain way (...) of life as more important than its citizens' capacities to choose their own ways of life. I sketch a new non-liberal principle for political decision-making and show that, unlike other forms of non-liberalism, it is not vulnerable to this major respect-based objection. 'Open perfectionism' is the view that state enforcement of a conception of the good favoured by the majority is permissible if and only if the minority has the substantial ability to avoid the territory in which the conception of the good is enforced. I argue that it is a realistic possibility for some non-liberal states to provide a fair opportunity to their dissenters to avoid the imposition of non-liberal policies and that the Kantian liberal's central complaint would not apply to non-liberal states if they were to provide such an opportunity. The principle of respect for persons grounds the most influential argument for liberalism, and so showing that open perfectionism is consistent with liberal intuitions about free choice promises to help to transcend the long-standing conflict between non-liberalism and Kantian liberalism. (shrink)

In Part I of this discussion I considered the nature and validity of the principle of respect for persons as distinguished from its practical import and application. Before I proceed to that second topic let me draw together in summary fashion the main points of the view I have put forward.

in UndeterminedSo-called fitting-attitude analyses or buck-passing accounts of value have lately received much attention among philosophers of value. These analyses set out from the idea that values must be understood in terms of attitudinal responses that we have reason to or that it is fitting or that we ought to have regarding the valuable object. This work examines to what extent this kind of analysis also can be applied to so-called personal values - value-for, rather than to (...) the impersonal value period which has been the standard analysandum. The shift from impersonal to personal values can, it is argued, be taken without any major change to the pattern. It is not the normative element that needs to be changed in the analysis but rather the kind of attitude - what is required is that the attitudes all have to be so called 'for someone's sake' attitudes. (shrink)

In Part I of this discussion I considered the nature and validity of the principle of respect for persons as distinguished from its practical import and application. Before I proceed to that second topic let me draw together in summary fashion the main points of the view I have put forward.

We can distinguish two concepts of respect for persons: appraisal respect , an attitude based on a positive appraisal of a person's moral character, and recognition respect , the practice of treating persons with consideration based on the belief that they deserve such treatment. After engaging in an extended analysis of these concepts, I examine two "truisms" about them. We justifiably believe of some persons that they have good character and thus deserve our esteem (...) . Frequently it pays to be disrespectful; e.g., insulting those who insult us may put them in their place. By using empirical results from social and personality psychology and techniques from decision theory in addition to conceptual considerations, I argue that, surprisingly, the above two "truisms" are false. Extensive psychological evidence indicates that most persons are indeterminate---overall neither good nor bad nor intermediate---and that our information about specific persons almost never distinguishes those who are indeterminate from those who are not. The strategy of habitually avoiding disrespectful behavior maximizes long-term expected utility. In sum, we have good pragmatic reason to treat persons respectfully, but we have good epistemic reason to avoid esteeming or despising them. (shrink)

Marketing scholars have extensively examined the role of altruistic and ecological personal values and pro-environmental identity in ethical consumption decisions. Conversely, the role of egoistic personal values and other identities has received scant attention from researchers. This research examines the role of altruistic, egoistic, and ecological personal values in triggering two types of identities: pro-environmental and car-authority. The effects of values and identities on personal norms and attitudes toward electric cars were also examined. A sample of Egyptian consumers responded to (...) an electronic survey, and collected data were analyzed using SEM. The findings generally support the VIP framework, where biospheric values significantly affect pro-environmental identity, and pro-environmental identity affects personal norms. Furthermore, personal norms affected attitudes positively. A different path was obtained which starts with biospheric and altruistic values affecting car authority positively and negatively, respectively. Car authority identity was found to affect attitudes directly, although this is accepted at lower confidence levels. A discussion of research findings, implications, and research limitations were also presented. (shrink)

We all could have had better lives, yet often do not wish that our lives had gone differently, especially when we contemplate alternatives that vastly diverge from our actual life course. What, if anything, accounts for such conservative retrospective attitudes? I argue that the right answer involves the significance of our personal attachments and our biographical identity. I also examine other options, such as the absence of self-to-self connections across possible worlds and a general conservatism about value.

Contemporary clinical ethics was founded on principlism, and the four principles: respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence and justice, remain dominant in medical ethics discourse and practice. These principles are held to be expansive enough to provide the basis for the ethical practice of medicine across cultures. Although principlism remains subject to critique and revision, the four-principle model continues to be taught and applied across the world. As the practice of medicine globalizes, it remains critical to examine the extent to (...) which both the four-principle framework, and individual principles among the four, suffice patients and practitioners in different social and cultural contexts. Using the four-principle model we analyze two accounts of surrogate decision making – one from the developed and one from the developing world – in which the clinician undertakes medical decision-making with apparently little input from the patient and/or family. The purpose of this analysis is to highlight challenges in assessing ethical behaviour according to the principlist model. We next describe cultural expectations and mores that inform both patient and clinician behaviors in these scenarios in order to argue that the principle of respect for persons informed by culture-specific ideas of personhood may offer an improved ethical construct for analyzing and guiding medical practice in a globalized and plural world. (shrink)

Background:Personal values influence nursing students’ development of professional values, which affect professional outcomes, and how nursing students react to different situations. Personal values can be shaped by different factors, including culture, gender, and age.Aims:To explore personal values held by nursing students, and to verify if and how gender and year of study affect nursing students’ personal values.Research design:A multicenter, cross-sectional study was used.Participants and research context:The whole population of nursing undergraduate students available at the time was recruited from eight centers (...) of two Universities, composing a sample of 947 students. Demographic data were collected and it was administered the Portrait Values Questionnaire.Ethical considerations:Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Boards of the University of the participating centers.Findings:The study sample was mainly composed of young (92.6%, n = 877), female (77.3%, n = 732), Italian (95.8%, n = 907), and unmarried (98.6%, n = 934) nursing students. The most important value for nursing students, consistently through the years of nursing school, was Self-transcendence, which has the motivational emphasis on helping others and selflessness. Then, we found that male students had higher levels of Power (p < 0.001) and Achievement (p = 0.031), while female students outscored male students in Benevolence (p = 0.005) and Security (p = 0.006). Year of study showed no statistically significant difference.Discussion:Nursing students express high levels in hetero-directed values. Male nursing students, although they choose a stereotypically feminine profession, outscored females in stereotypical masculine values such as dominance and success. This is the first study that describes the personal value profile of undergraduate nursing students, according to the Theory of Basic Human Values, and it is a starting point for future research.Conclusion:Nursing educators might want to consider the findings from this study while guiding students in developing awareness for their personal values. (shrink)

Blaming (construed broadly to include both blaming-attitudes and blaming-actions) is a puzzling phenomenon. Even when we grant that someone is blameworthy, we can still sensibly wonder whether we ought to blame him. We sometimes choose to forgive and show mercy, even when it is not asked for. We are naturally led to wonder why we shouldn’t always do this. Wouldn’t it be a better to wholly reject the punitive practices of blame, especially in light of their often undesirable effects, and (...) embrace an ethic of unrelenting forgiveness and mercy? In this paper I seek to address these questions by offering an account of blame that provides a rationale for thinking that to wholly forswear blaming blameworthy agents would be deeply mistaken. This is because, as I will argue, blaming is a way of valuing, it is “a mode of valuation.” I will argue that among the minimal standards of respect generated by valuable objects, notably persons, is the requirement to redress disvalue with blame. It is not just that blame is something additional we are required to do in properly valuing, but rather blame is part of what that it is to properly value. Blaming, given the existence of blameworthy agents, is mode of valuation required by the standards of minimal respect. To forswear blame would be to fail value what we ought to value. (shrink)

The ethical principle of ‘respect for persons’ in clinical research has traditionally focused on protecting individuals’ autonomy rights, but respect for participants also includes broader, although less well understood, ethical obligations to regard individuals’ rights, needs, interests and feelings. However, there is little empirical evidence about how to effectively convey respect to potential and current participants. To fill this gap, we conducted exploratory, qualitative interviews with participants in a clinical genomics implementation study. We interviewed 40 participants (...) in English or Spanish about their experiences with respect in the study and perceptions of how researchers in a hypothetical observational study could convey respect or a lack thereof. Most interviewees were female, identified as Hispanic/Latino or non-Hispanic white, reported annual household income under US$60 000 and did not have a Bachelor’s degree ; 30% had limited health literacy. We identified four key domains for demonstrating respect: personal study team interactions, with an emphasis on empathy, appreciation and non-judgment; study communication processes, including following up and sharing results with participants; inclusion, particularly ensuring materials are understandable and procedures are accessible; and consent and authorisation, including providing a neutral informed consent and keeping promises regarding privacy protections. While the experience of respect is inherently subjective, these findings highlight four key domains that may meaningfully demonstrate respect to potential and current research participants. Further empirical and normative work is needed to substantiate these domains and evaluate how best to incorporate them into the practice of research. (shrink)

Background: Values are ideals and beliefs that individuals and groups uphold and lie at the core of the diverse world of human behaviour and are expressed in every human decision and action, both consciously and unconsciously. They represent basic beliefs of what is right, good or desirable and motivate both personal and professional behaviour. In the context of nursing profession, values are essential in order to maintain high standards of the nursing care. Objectives: This study was planned to examine changes (...) in nursing students’ personal and professional values between entering and graduating from an undergraduate nursing programme. Ethical considerations: Measures to protect participants included obtaining Deaconship of Nursing Faculty approval, obtaining signed informed consent and maintaining confidentiality. Methods: This study was designed as longitudinal quality. The research population included 143 students registered at a first grade of a nursing faculty for the 2009–2010 academic year. Data were collected with a Questionnaire Form, the Value Preferences Scale, the Professional Values Precedence Scale and the Nursing Professional Values Scale. Findings: According to the results, social values have statistical differences in 4-year nursing education. Nursing students in second class have higher score in terms of social values than those in third class. Also, majority of students ranked human dignity as first and justice as second and third from first to fourth classes, and they have very high scores on Nursing Professional Values Scale and its subscales and stated that all items of Nursing Professional Values Scale are very important. Conclusion: As a result, nursing education has vital role in acquiring and maintaining professional values. (shrink)

A paper of Roger Crisp’s four years ago contained arguments that seemed to imply that having deep personal relationships does not constitute an element of well‐being. The lesson to draw from that paper of Crisp’s, according to a recent journal article of mine, is that one’s having a deep personal relationship does constitute an element of one’s well‐being on condition that one’s affection for the other person is merited. Crisp’s paper earlier in this issue of Ratio responds to my arguments. (...) Here I reply to new questions that Crisp poses or provokes. (shrink)

This essay discusses Hegel’s theory of “abstract” respect for “abstract” personhood and its relation to the fuller, concrete account of human personhood. Hegel defines (abstract) personhood as an abstract, formal category with the help of his account of free will. For Hegel, personhood is defined in terms of powers, relations to self and to others. After analyzing what according to the first part of Philosophy of Right it is to (abstractly) respect someone as a person, the essay discusses (...) the implications for private property and market. Then the paper turns to discuss pathologies of ideologies that stress these aspects only. Finally, the essay discusses the way inwhich Hegel’s full social theory aims to overcome such pathological tendencies; most notably in his theory of Family and the State. (shrink)

Algorithmic systems and predictive analytics play an increasingly important role in various aspects of modern life. Scholarship on the moral ramifications of such systems is in its early stages, and much of it focuses on bias and harm. This paper argues that in understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems it is essential to understand the relation between algorithms, autonomy, and agency. We draw on several recent cases in criminal sentencing and K–12 teacher evaluation to outline four key ways in (...) which issues of agency, autonomy, and respect for persons can conflict with algorithmic decision-making. Three of these involve failures to treat individual agents with the respect they deserve. The fourth involves distancing oneself from a morally suspect action by attributing one’s decision to take that action to an algorithm, thereby laundering one’s agency. (shrink)

It is arguable that beneath the fast and loose surface of recent official and/or semi-official documentation devoted to advice and guidance on moral education, there lurks systematic error about the bases of moral authority - turning upon a distinction between common and personal values. In what follows, it is claimed that the heart of this error lies in mistaking a logical distinction between different levels of moral evaluation for a statistical distinction concerned more with the distribution of moral values. To (...) the extent that common value is identified with ideas of consensus or agreement, and personal value with values clarification and personal search, it seems that no coherent or viable conception of moral reason could possibly be constructed on the basis of currently available official guidance. (shrink)

My project is to reconsider the Kantian conception of practical reason. Some Kantians think that practical reasoning must be more active than theoretical reasoning, on the putative grounds that such reasoning need not contend with what is there anyway, independently of its exercise. Behind that claim stands the thesis that practical reason is essentially efficacious. I accept the efficacy principle, but deny that it underwrites this inference about practical reason. My inquiry takes place against the background of recent Kantian metaethical (...) debate — each side of which, I argue, correctly points to issues that need to be jointly accommodated in the Kantian account of practical reason. The constructivist points to the essential efficacy of practical reason, while the realist claims that any genuinely cognitive exercise of practical reason owes allegiance to what is there anyway, independently of its exercise. I argue that a Kantian account of respect for persons (“recognition respect”) suggests how the two claims might be jointly accommodated. The result is an empirical moral realism that is itself neutral on the received Kantian metaethical debate. (shrink)

While respect for persons is fundamental to many moral and political theories, its nature and ground remain controversial. According to the standard model of respect, respect is primarily a response to certain inherent features of a person or an object. Importantly, it is in virtue of the value, status or authority of those features that respect is justified or owed. This model, however, faces many serious challenges. Drawing on the classical Confucian notion of jing, (...) I develop an alternative model of respect, which construes respect as an expression of agent’s sense of the self and its place in the world. The emphasis is thus on the agent’s own self-conception and the corresponding attitudes and dispositions, as opposed to on inherent features of the objects of respect. To further illustrate this distinction, I contrast the traditional Kantian conception of respect for persons with the Confucian, jing-based, conception along three dimensions: the normative ground, the content, and the distribution of respect. The Kantian respect certainly has its merits, and perhaps is indispensable in some contexts, but there is much more to respect than what Kantians can offer. The Confucian conception of respect, on the other hand, has important theoretical and practical values such that it is essential to an adequate understanding of the role of respect in our moral and political life. (shrink)

Despite recognition as an important, potentially unifying construct within the social sciences and humanities, value lacks an overarching theoretical framework. One theory within the social sciences, personal construct theory, is suggested as a theoretical foundation for human values, and an attempt to situate values within this theory is presented. It is argued that human values are core constructs in the language of personal construct theory, while ordinary beliefs are peripheral constructs. Various implications and applications of this formulation are discussed.

Digital humanities research has developed haphazardly, with substantive contributions in some disciplines and only superficial uses in others. It has made almost no inroads in philosophy; for example, of the nearly two million articles, chapters, and books housed at philpapers.org, only sixteen pop up when one searches for ‘digital humanities’. In order to make progress in this field, we demonstrate that a hypothesis-driven method, applied by experts in data-collection, -aggregation, -analysis, and -visualization, yields philosophical fruits. “Call no one happy until (...) they are dead.” “De mortuis nil nisi bonum.” These ancient norms still inform how we speak of the dead. From their beginnings in the nineteenth century, modern obituaries have been both practical and honorary. They are written with two aims: to pay respect to the deceased and to inspire the living to follow in their footsteps. The obituary of William Custis of Virginia exemplifies these aims, say that “it is due to his memory publicly to record his virtues,” and that “There is in the life a noble, independent and honest man, something so worthy of imitation, something that so strongly commends itself to the approbation of the virtuous mind, that his name should not be left to oblivion” (Daily National Intelligencer, 18 November 1838). Likewise, philosophers have emphasized that we can determine what counts as a virtue for a given type of person in a given community by analyzing what people say about the dead (Zagzebski, L. Virtues of the Mind. Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 135). By adhering to norms of praise, admiration, and respect, obituaries reveal what counts as a virtue, value, or constituent of wellbeing (VVC) for a particular type of person in a particular community. -/- One way to explore this insight would be to close-read a small number of obituaries of people from intersecting demographics, crossing dimensions such as gender, age, race, class, educational attainment, veteran status, religion, and location. Another, which we demonstrate in this chapter, is to harness digital humanities resources to distance-read a much larger number of obituaries, extracting both demographic meta-data and first-order content expressive of VVC. We then analyze and visualize this information to establish the structures of VVC associated with different types of people in different communities, arguing that data-science measures such as eigenvector centrality can be used to identify cardinal virtues. We also explain the rudiments of our text- and meta-data mining, our method of aggregating and comparing texts, and our visualization techniques. In so doing, we pave the way for researchers in philosophy and related fields to generate similar analyses and visualizations. (shrink)

Personal Values is a delightful and enlightening read. It is teeming with novel insights, ground-breaking distinctions, rich examples, new delineations of the field, refreshing historical reminders, inventive arguments, unprecedented connections, identifications of neglected difficulties, and pioneering proposals. I shall focus here on three of these insights, which are illustrative of the pervasive scrupulousness and inventiveness of the book. The first is that there is a distinction between the supervenience base of values and their constitutive grounds. The second is that FA (...) is admittedly circular (because pro-attitudes have values as formal objects), but that this circularity is benign. The third proposal is that one important kind of for- someome-sake’s attitude⎯prototypically, love⎯is such that it is not justified by the properties it represents its object as exemplifying. This is a small sample of claims not meant to be representative of the book. The reason I have chosen to discuss these in particular is that, while finding them plausible and significant, I believe that each raises a worry that Rønnow-Rasmussen fails to address properly. I shall tentatively suggest a possible solution in each case. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false ES-CO X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} This paper focuses on Max Scheler`s idea of person and its meaning in terms of values organized according categories. The work of Scheler on ethics expands the solidarity of the person as cordis ordo by the construction (...) of a hierarchical system of values. Therefore, the recognition of the realm of universal values, a sector of which forms the ethos of a given age, has to be supplemented by that of the order of the time with its individual values and claims. There are many lectures of values in axiological philosophy, as we explain in this paper according to material-values ethics, and they are very important in the revelation of the Other. (shrink)

A person possesses value from various components of wellbeing, but they also have overall wellbeing from various instances of value taken together. Most ethicists assume that there is an objectively unique way that wellbeing from components aggregates into overall wellbeing. However, I argue that aggregation is subjective and varies depending on what sort of aggregation a person values. I end with some implications for the significance of death.

Objectivity in evaluation can be understood either in terms of satisfaction of certain formal criteria or in terms of correspondence to facts of a certain kind. Morality includes metaphysical claims which distinguish arbitrary wants from rational ends, but the weakness of the interpretation of such claims within formalist liberal views results in the collapse of that distinction and in mistaking moral ignorance for moral freedom. Only by showing that respect for persons is justified by the metaphysics of human (...) nature - by the fact of human equality - can claims of moral objectivity be defended. For that defense one must look to the socialist tradition. (shrink)

_341_ _Objectives: _In patients with multivessel disease both the detection of the culprit lesion and the exact allocation are important preconditions for sufficient treatment and improved outcome. In a vessel based approach the combination of quantitative coronary angiography and fractional flow reserve measured by a pressure wire should be advantageous compared to myocardial SPECT, as morphological and functional information is delivered simultaneously. Therefore our aim was to evaluate MS in the detection and allocation of hemodynamically significant stenoses obtained by the (...) combined gold standard QCA plus FFR in patients with multivessel disease. _Methods: _FFR and QCA of 95 vessels in 80 patients have been evaluated. Hemodynamically significant target lesions were defined as intermediate stenoses between 50 and 75% with an FFR. (shrink)