Open Humanities Press, Living Books About Life Series.

Las edificaciones con valor patrimonial son un testimonio excepcional del progreso de una comunidad y representan ejemplos innegables de la transferencia de conocimientos a lo largo de las generaciones. Es inevitable caminar por centro consolidado de Pasaje y no reconocer el legado cultural de muchas edificaciones. Sin embargo, también resulta fácil observar las alteraciones erróneas que sea han realizado a estas edificaciones con el objetivo de responder a las “nuevas exigencias” de la actualidad. La conservación de los bienes patrimoniales resulta (...) necesaria para la preservación de la integridad e identidad de la ciudad. La presente investigación posibilita entender el nivel de susceptibilidad que presentan las edificaciones consideradas como bienes patrimoniales, debido a que estás viviendas poseen un valor cultural. El objetivo de la investigación es el de identificar la susceptibilidad sísmica a las que están expuestas, para esto se utilizaron métodos de matrices de evaluación sísmica para medir el nivel de susceptibilidad en las edificaciones patrimoniales. (shrink)

While the human papillomavirus vaccine is medically indicated to reduce the risk of genital warts and certain types of cancer, rates of HPV vaccination repeatedly fall short of public health goals. Individual-level factors contributing to low vaccination rates are well documented. However, system-level barriers, particularly the need for parental consent, have been less explored. To date, there is no legal or ethical consensus in the USA regarding whether adolescents might permissibly self-consent to the HPV vaccine. Consequently, there is considerable variability (...) in medical practice at the provider and state level. In this essay, we explore the ethical acceptability of vaccinating adolescents for HPV without parental consent. We argue that the same ethical considerations that justify permitting minors to consent to treatment for sexual and reproductive health care—namely, public health benefit and adolescents’ developing autonomy—similarly justify permitting minors to consent to HPV vaccination. Based on this analysis, we conclude that allowing adolescents to self-consent to the HPV vaccine is ethically justifiable and should be reflected in US state policies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 23-42 [Access article in PDF] Overcoming the Grip of Consumerism Stephanie KazaUniversity of VermontFor fifteen years the Worldwatch Institute of Washington, D. C. has been publishing a review of the declining condition of the global environment (Brown et al. 1998). For the most part, the picture is not good. Much of the deterioration can be traced directly to human activities--urban expansion equates to species (...) loss, industrial manufacturing to air pollution, factory farming to water pollution, chemical agriculture to poisoned soil. Accelerating these environmental impacts are rapidly rising population numbers, increasingly efficient technologies, and consumption rates beyond the planet's capacity. These three have been linked by the equation I=PAT, or environmental impact=population size multiplied by affluence (or degree of consumption) multiplied by technology. Reduce any one of these and the impact drops; increase one or all three, and the impact rises, in some cases dramatically.Much of the conversation among scientists and technologists has focused on the P (population) and T (technology) parts of the equation, with grave concerns that rising population numbers are swamping earth systems, yet often with buoyant optimism that technological breakthroughs will solve everything. These two perspectives dominated political discussion for much of the 1960s and 1970s (Ehrlich et al. 1977 and Lovins 1977, among others). But by the 1980s the facts were incontrovertible: high rates of consumption were driving environmental destruction just as fast if not faster than rising population. At the 1992 Rio Summit in Brazil, representatives of southern countries demanded that high-consuming northern countries examine their own contribution to the environmental crisis rather than placing blame elsewhere. It is our obligation in the North to respond to these serious requests.How much do people in northern industrialized countries consume? Here are some indicator figures: Americans consume their average body weight (120 pounds) every day in materials extracted and processed from farms, mines, range lands, and forests (Ryan and Durning 1997, 5). In the United States, the number of shopping malls (close to 35,000) eclipsed the number of high schools in 1987 (Dunning 1992, 130). Since 1950 the per capita consumption of energy, meat, and lumber has doubled, use of plastic has increased five times, use of aluminum seven times, and average airplane miles per person has soared 33-fold (Durning 1992, 29). As products have proliferated, we see the swelling ecological footprint behind each new thing: clear-cut forests replacing paper plantations in Thailand, toxic oil polluting native lands of Ecuador, women earning poverty wages assembling computer chips in [End Page 23] Malaysia--the stories are not as pretty as the products. Materials extraction, production, distribution, use, and waste disposal--all of these have ecological costs, many of which are life threatening.Why should Buddhists and Christians address consumption? For starters, it is a nonsectarian issue; responsibility cuts across denominations and religious belief systems. Collaboration of all kinds is needed to take apart this juggernaut of complex causes and conditions. I believe the Buddhist tradition has powerful analytical tools and spiritual practices which may be helpful in this undertaking. These may aid or inspire similar efforts explored through the Christian heritage. A survey of the landscape and the literature shows it is shockingly clear: the challenge here is enormous. It will require all the spiritual insight, dedication, and sheer stamina we can bring to it. This work cannot be done alone; we need each other's help to keep going through the many obstacles.To date, Buddhist initiatives in this conversation have been modest. Several popular books have brought Buddhist perspectives to bear on consumption issues, most notably E. F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful (1975) and Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild (1990). Both works popularize practices of simplicity and restraint, flavored by the exotic Western fascination with Eastern thought. Several Buddhist teachers in the U.S. have taken up particular sub-themes addressing over-consumption. Philip Kapleau has sounded an ethical call for vegetarianism based on the first precept, "no killing" (1982). Robert Aitken has taken a stand for reducing wants and needs to simplify... (shrink)

In this essay, I will show one way in which Ricoeur utilizes Aristotle’s discussions in Rhetoric and Poetics; I will take my point of departure from his hermeneutic theory of metaphor. Here, he reverses the Aristotelian intention by blending the domains of discourse we call mythos and logos in a way which suggests that the latter is subsumed by the former. While one can argue that the two are co-emergent processes, Ricoeur’s formulation undermines one side of the dialectic between them.

Plausibly, only moral agents can bear action-demanding duties. Not all groups are moral agents. This places constraints on which groups can bear action-demanding duties. Moreover, if such duties imply ability then moral agents – of both the individual and group varieties – can only bear duties over actions they are able to perform. I tease out the implications of this for duties over group actions, and argue that groups in many instances cannot bear these duties. This is because only groups (...) with the right kind of structure – groups I call ‘collectives’ – have the agency to bear action-demanding duties. Yet neither can individuals bear these duties, assuming that individuals cannot perform group actions and that duty implies ability. This appears to leave us at a loss when assigning duties to perform some group actions. I argue we can solve this problem by assigning collectivization duties to individuals – duties to form a collective that then incurs a duty over the action. I give criteria for when individuals have collectivization duties and discuss the demands these duties place on their bearers. (shrink)

Philosophers increasingly argue that collective agents can be blameworthy for wrongdoing. Advocates tend to endorse functionalism, on which collectives are analogous to complicated robots. This is puzzling: we don’t hold robots blameworthy. I argue we don’t hold robots blameworthy because blameworthiness presupposes the capacity for a mental state I call ‘moral self-awareness’. This raises a new problem for collective blameworthiness: collectives seem to lack the capacity for moral self-awareness. I solve the problem by giving an account of how collectives have (...) this capacity. The trick is to take seriously individuals’ status as flesh-and-blood material constituents of collectives. The idea will be: under certain conditions that I specify, an individual can be the locus of a collective's moral self-awareness. The account provides general insights concerning collectives’ dependence on members, the boundaries of membership, and the locus of collectives’ phenomenology. (shrink)

Unconsented pelvic exams under anesthesia are assaults cloaked in defense of healthcare education. Preemptive linguistic qualifiers “presumed” or “implied” attempt to justify such violations with flippancy toward their oxymoronic implications: to suggest a priori that consent can be assumed undermines its otherwise standalone social, ethical, and medico-legal reverence. In this paper I conceptualize “medical sexual assault” and argue that presumed consent for intimate exams exemplifies its definition. By bluntly describing pelvic exams as “penetration,” this work aims to reify the intimate (...) reality of the clinical label “pelvic exam” and to call attention to cisheteronormative and androcentric assumptions involved in its practice. Additionally, this scholarship seeks to create a foundation toward broader work in conceptualizing clinical rape culture. Given recent national survey data indicating a surprising frequency of unconsented intimate exams, detailed language as to their problematics is necessary for ongoing legal and ethical efforts. Explicit consent for intimate exams must be the standard of care for conscious and unconscious patients. (shrink)

In this paper, I invoke various matterings of felt in order to generate a practice of writing that engenders bodily difference that is affective, moving, and wooly. In attending to ‘how to write as felt,’ as a touching encounter, I consider how human and nonhuman matter composes. This co-mingling that felt performs enacts what Alaimo calls transcorporeality. Connecting felt with theories of touch and transcorporeality becomes a way to open up and re-configure different bodily imaginaries, both human and nonhuman, that (...) are radically immanent and intensive; as an assemblage of forces and flows that open bodies to helices and trans connections :27–58, 2017b). My contribution to this collection on ‘humanity in a posthuman age’ is experimental and performative. Felt is activated not as a metaphor but rather poses questions about what writing does at the interstices between research and creation. (shrink)

Some scholars working on the ethics of belief argue that we can wrong each other in virtue of what we believe. This thesis is known as doxastic wronging. Proponents of doxastic wronging have different views about when our beliefs wrong. A prominent view is that our beliefs wrong when they falsely diminish. I call this the false diminishment account of doxastic wronging. In this paper, I argue against this account on the grounds that it is morally overdemanding. Nevertheless, I agree (...) with proponents that our beliefs are sometimes morally objectionable. I offer an account of disrespectful belief which holds that our beliefs are disrespectful when they falsely deflate, i.e., incorrectly underestimate, and thereby lead us to undervalue morally significant features of each other’s personhood. My view implies that we can form disrespectful beliefs about each other even if we do not wrong each other by forming them. (shrink)

This paper is a response to scholars who have called for exploring and interrogating new strategies of data collection and new approaches to more traditional methods, such as interviewing in the context of the internet. Drawing on feminist standpoint theory, ‘reflexive email interviewing’ is proposed as a method for feminist research. The method is illustrated using a recent case study of email interviews with self-identified women who are members of World Pulse, an online community that aims to unite and amplify (...) women's voices worldwide. Through this case study, issues of power and resistance in the researcher/researched relationship and of participant reflexivity are interrogated. Lastly, criteria for reflexive email interviewing are proposed, including 1) strategies to interrogate and disrupt power hierarchies within the research process, 2) researcher reflexivity as a continuous part of the research process, and 3) continued invitations for participants to directly reflect on and respond to the research process. Reflexive questions are offered for researchers to use during research design and in each phase of their research process to ensure reflexivity is achieved. (shrink)

How can we explain change and the occurrence of novelty? Are changes governed by natural laws or do they happen by chance? In this book, the author analyses explanatory models of the so-called new mechanists in terms of the occurrence of new entities and their epistemological and metaphysical background assumptions. At the same time, her investigation is a methodological attempt to readdress questions at the boundary between scientific explanation and metaphysics, such as in the debate about free will.

Some scholars working on the ethics of paternalism are interested in whether there is a systematic normative connection between hard paternalism and people’s moral rights. One affirmative view is that hard paternalism is pro tanto wrong inasmuch as it always involves a rights infringement. Daniel Groll defends this view on the grounds that hard paternalism always infringes a competent adult’s right to be the only one to act only for his own good. I call this right the right to self-beneficence. (...) In this note, I argue that Groll misidentifies a right that competent adults have. Rather than the right to self-beneficence, I argue that if hard paternalism infringes any particular right, it is a right that a competent adult has against others “taking over” matters that fall within his sphere of legitimate agency or, by extension, the legitimate exercise of his agency. I call this right the right against legitimate agency interference. (shrink)

Matthew Kieran has recently argued that those he calls ‘appreciative snobs’ go wrong by valuing appreciative objects primarily because of their ability to raise the snob’s social status, what I call social contagion snobbery. In this paper, I argue that there are at least two other ways that snobbery commonly manifests itself in appreciative contexts, what I call attitudinal snobbery and contextual snobbery. As it turns out, all three snobs—Kieran’s social-contagion snob, the attitudinal snob, and the contextual snob—represent distinct ways (...) that appreciative judgments can go wrong because of how socio-hierarchical elements figure into the snob’s appreciative judgments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“We Need to Cut the Neck!”Confronting Psychological and Moral Distress during Emergency Cricothyrotomy1Stephanie CooperEnoughYou didn’t die in the ER, but rather, began your inexorable demise. The last, first, and only words I ever heard you utter was the weak mewl “tight, tight” as the blood pressure cuff constricted your left arm. You were 98–years–old, bed–bound, at the end. Your world was already partitioning itself from us, your brain tunneling (...) down the uneven corridors of consciousness. A concretion of otoliths muffled your hearing, and fatigue burdened your ancient heart.Your name–band encircled your skinny ankle like a bird. Deformed by arthritis, you were caged within yourself, imprisoned by senescence. You could not declare yourself to us. Words disintegrated into moans and your grimace became animal.When you came back from x–ray—hypotensive with multiple neck fractures confirmed—you could speak no more. Your pulse slowed, your blood pressure plummeted. I jammed a gloved finger against your femoral pulse, faint and tired. [End Page E5]“What’s her DNR status?” I gravely asked your nurse.The DNR paperwork for once had arrived with the patient. “No CPR” she said with relief. But then the paperwork went on, forcing me—the waitress of tragedy—to serve up the hash of an impossible menu.As health care providers, we are all often tasked with performing contradictory actions: the pain of IV insertion followed by the morphine push, drilling deeper into broken bone in order to plate it, the inadvertent cracking of ribs during chest compressions. We sometimes must perform violent action in the hope of sustaining and resurrecting life. We are asked to perform the impossible, the contradictory, the painful. And sometimes the actions we must take catalyze an inexorable chain reaction of actions, which can end in death–prolonging and painful interventions that we did not intend.Although our culture may imagine that one can choose one’s meal at the end–of–life fast–food franchise of death, such is not the case. You can’t suddenly decide you’re a vegetarian. You can’t order the cheeseburger without the cheese—and we all are getting the burger, in the end. Ordering the heart–squeezing drugs without the CPR to circulate them, or the antibiotics without the fluid to counter dehydration, is like ordering the burger without the bun. Sometimes the possible choices are not necessarily realistic choices. You get served what you get served, and perhaps we should question the assumption that we have the ability to choose at all.Your DNR form proclaimed no CPR but then said that antibiotics and intubation were okay—the cheeseburger without the cheese. An unfortunate choice for you, me, and the rest of us, as your death menu led to a very unhappy meal.You were comatose. I stuck a tongue blade deep into your desiccated throat. You did not gag. This means I should have intubated you, but morally, I couldn’t. To what end? You were 98 years old, broken, moribund. If you hadn’t suffered multiple neck fractures, or if you were a vibrant elder who had just walked off Mt. Rainier, maybe the story would have been different. But you? I doubted that you truly had a chance of ever feeling joy again. You were somebody’s wife, somebody’s mother. I knew this step would lead to the domino of unstoppable steps. I refused to flog your corpse.I called your daughter Kay on her cell phone, told her that you were in critical condition and that she should come to the ER immediately. But how to begin to tell a daughter her mother is dying, let alone over a cell phone? Gentle but surreal and impersonal, my voice tried to tell your daughter that the interventions you needed would likely kill you. I have seen enough human suffering to know. To me, the choices were clear: death by nature’s irrefutable course, versus a more painful, protracted, and violent death by what we’d do to you.Kay arrived in a wheelchair and scooted up to your bedside. Like all daughters, she wasn’t ready for you... (shrink)

The urgency of the problem of climate change calls upon us to investigate the climate duties of agents beyond the state. Individuals are the most salient candidate in this respect. In section I, I argue that the idea that individuals might have duties to reduce their emissions raises difficult issues about individual difference-making. The rest of the chapter, then, focuses on what I take to be the third most-salient duty-bearer: large for-profit corporations. These entities have largely been overlooked in philosophical (...) discussions of climate-related duties. In Section II, I consider two possible reasons for this neglect, and argue that neither are good reasons. In Section III, I give a positive case for weighty and demanding duties for corporations, to cut back their present and planned emissions and to offset their past emissions. In Section IV, I bring the discussion full circle: corporations’ duties always imply duties for corporations’ members, that is, for the individuals who constitute the corporation. Drawing on earlier work, I give an account of who corporations’ members are and how their duties are structured. In heavily-emitting corporations, members prominently include managers, shareholders, and rank-and-file employees. So a range of individuals are on the hook after all, because the corporations that they constitute bear duties. Additionally, even non-members may have duties to act upon corporations, from the outside, with a view to inducing corporate duty-fulfillment. (shrink)

Cultural history's recent treatments of Sieyès’ political theory have understood his political writings in their convergences with and divergences from Rousseau's political theory. By sketching a thoroughgoing analogy between the ecclesiological arguments in Malebranche's Entretiens sur la Métaphysique et sur la Religion (1688) and the arguments that Sieyès offers on the floor of the National Assembly concerning the nature of representation, I suggest that we should recontextualize Sieyès’ speeches vis-à-vis the broader discourse of the ‘general will,’ which was theological at (...) its root. That is, the arguments Sieyès offers for the sovereignty of the National Assembly, separately and in combination, appear to have been shaped by a malebranchiste ecclesiology that grew out of the particular context of the Jansenist challenge to the Church. This argument has ramifications not just for our understanding of Sieyès and revolutionary political theory but also for what have been called the “religious origins of the French Revolution.” ☆ I am grateful to Bill Sewell, Dale Van Kley, Michael Sonenscher, Chris Brooke, and Sam James, for their careful readings and insightful comments at various stages of this project. More generally, I am thankful for the thoughts of the participants of the Cambridge conference in Political Thought and Intellectual History (March 2010). Finally, I thank the anonymous reviewers of History of European Ideas for their comments. (shrink)

We use model theoretic forcing to study and generalize the construction of ()-generic models introduced by Kueker and Laskowski. We characterize the ()-generic models in terms of forcing and introduce a more general class of models, called essential forcing generics, which have many of the same properties.

The philosophical debate over psychopaths’ moral and criminal responsibility is increasingly evidence based. However, as we noted, such arguments are misleading if philosophers only consider evidence that supports their own positions. In his response, Glannon counters our argument by introducing new evidence—neuroimaging data—and so demonstrates the exact problem we outlined; Strijbos, in contrast, offers a workable solution.Glannon’s response is a succinct summation of the strengths and weaknesses that philosophers bring to the debate. Although Glannon accurately portrays the potential role of (...) neuroimaging data in determining responsibility as merely supplementary to behavior, he simultaneously mistakes the... (shrink)

This article argues that the ‘Third Way’ philosophy that has been adopted by centre-left parties throughout Europe and the United States provides the conceptual framework to analyse contemporary postfeminism and its contentious micro-politics that emerges out of personal and daily gender-based struggles. The notion of a postfeminist micro-politics complicates the critical perception of postfeminism as a depoliticized and anti-feminist backlash and offers a dynamic model of political action that takes into account the multiple agency positions of individuals today. Postfeminism and (...) the politics it endorses differ from emergent political movements such as third wave feminism in that they are not founded on second wave feminist theory and activism. Instead, postfeminist politics adopts a Third Way perspective to reconcile a number of conflicting concerns, from feminist calls for female equality and theoretical debates on anti-essentialism to the consumerist demands of capitalist society. These controversial new junctures are examined by paying particular attention to postfeminism’s female sexual agent who becomes the ‘entrepreneur’ of her own image, buying into standardized femininities while also seeking to resignify their meanings. In particular, the article discusses the paradoxical possibilities of ‘active consumption’ and ‘fashion feminism’ whereby women endeavour to achieve empowerment by exerting their consumer agency and using their bodies as political tools within the parameters of a capitalist economy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 23-42 [Access article in PDF] Overcoming the Grip of Consumerism Stephanie KazaUniversity of VermontFor fifteen years the Worldwatch Institute of Washington, D. C. has been publishing a review of the declining condition of the global environment (Brown et al. 1998). For the most part, the picture is not good. Much of the deterioration can be traced directly to human activities--urban expansion equates to species (...) loss, industrial manufacturing to air pollution, factory farming to water pollution, chemical agriculture to poisoned soil. Accelerating these environmental impacts are rapidly rising population numbers, increasingly efficient technologies, and consumption rates beyond the planet's capacity. These three have been linked by the equation I=PAT, or environmental impact=population size multiplied by affluence (or degree of consumption) multiplied by technology. Reduce any one of these and the impact drops; increase one or all three, and the impact rises, in some cases dramatically.Much of the conversation among scientists and technologists has focused on the P (population) and T (technology) parts of the equation, with grave concerns that rising population numbers are swamping earth systems, yet often with buoyant optimism that technological breakthroughs will solve everything. These two perspectives dominated political discussion for much of the 1960s and 1970s (Ehrlich et al. 1977 and Lovins 1977, among others). But by the 1980s the facts were incontrovertible: high rates of consumption were driving environmental destruction just as fast if not faster than rising population. At the 1992 Rio Summit in Brazil, representatives of southern countries demanded that high-consuming northern countries examine their own contribution to the environmental crisis rather than placing blame elsewhere. It is our obligation in the North to respond to these serious requests.How much do people in northern industrialized countries consume? Here are some indicator figures: Americans consume their average body weight (120 pounds) every day in materials extracted and processed from farms, mines, range lands, and forests (Ryan and Durning 1997, 5). In the United States, the number of shopping malls (close to 35,000) eclipsed the number of high schools in 1987 (Dunning 1992, 130). Since 1950 the per capita consumption of energy, meat, and lumber has doubled, use of plastic has increased five times, use of aluminum seven times, and average airplane miles per person has soared 33-fold (Durning 1992, 29). As products have proliferated, we see the swelling ecological footprint behind each new thing: clear-cut forests replacing paper plantations in Thailand, toxic oil polluting native lands of Ecuador, women earning poverty wages assembling computer chips in [End Page 23] Malaysia--the stories are not as pretty as the products. Materials extraction, production, distribution, use, and waste disposal--all of these have ecological costs, many of which are life threatening.Why should Buddhists and Christians address consumption? For starters, it is a nonsectarian issue; responsibility cuts across denominations and religious belief systems. Collaboration of all kinds is needed to take apart this juggernaut of complex causes and conditions. I believe the Buddhist tradition has powerful analytical tools and spiritual practices which may be helpful in this undertaking. These may aid or inspire similar efforts explored through the Christian heritage. A survey of the landscape and the literature shows it is shockingly clear: the challenge here is enormous. It will require all the spiritual insight, dedication, and sheer stamina we can bring to it. This work cannot be done alone; we need each other's help to keep going through the many obstacles.To date, Buddhist initiatives in this conversation have been modest. Several popular books have brought Buddhist perspectives to bear on consumption issues, most notably E. F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful (1975) and Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild (1990). Both works popularize practices of simplicity and restraint, flavored by the exotic Western fascination with Eastern thought. Several Buddhist teachers in the U.S. have taken up particular sub-themes addressing over-consumption. Philip Kapleau has sounded an ethical call for vegetarianism based on the first precept, "no killing" (1982). Robert Aitken has taken a stand for reducing wants and needs to simplify... (shrink)

In the research integrity literature, funding plays two different roles: it is thought to elevate questionable research practices (QRPs) due to perverse incentives, and it is a potential actor to incentivize research integrity standards. Recent studies, asking funders, have emphasized the importance of the latter. However, the perspective of active researchers on the impact of competitive research funding on science has not been explored yet. Here, I address this issue by conducting a series of group sessions with researchers in two (...) different countries with different degrees of competition for funding, from three scientific fields (medical sciences, natural sciences, humanities), and in two different career stages (permanent versus temporary employment). Researchers across all groups experienced that competition for funding shapes science, with many unintended negative consequences. Intriguingly, these consequences had little to do with the type of QRPs typically being presented in the research integrity literature. Instead, the researchers pointed out that funding could result in predictable, fashionable, short-sighted, and overpromising science. This was seen as highly problematic: scientists experienced that the ‘projectification’ of science makes it more and more difficult to do any science of real importance: plunging into the unknown or addressing big issues that need a long-term horizon to mature. They also problematized unintended negative effects from collaboration and strategizing. I suggest it may be time to move away from a focus on QRPs in connection with funding, and rather address the real problems. Such a shift may then call for entirely different types of policy actions. (shrink)

Neuroscience research, like all science, is vulnerable to the influence of extraneous values in the practice of research, whether in research design or the selection, analysis and interpretation of data. This is particularly problematic for research into the biological mechanisms that underlie behavior, and especially the neurobiological underpinnings of moral development and ethical reasoning, decision-making and behavior, and the other elements of what is often called the neuroscience of ethics. The problem arises because neuroscientists, like most everyone, bring to their (...) work assumptions, preconceptions and values and other sources of potentially inappropriate bias of which they may be unaware. It is important that the training of neuroscientists, and research practice itself, include open and in-depth discussion and examination of the assumptions that underlie research. Further, policy makers, journalists, and the general public, that is, the consumers of neuroscience research findings (and by extension, neurotechnologies) should be made aware of the limitations as well as the strengths of the science, the evolving nature of scientific understanding, and the often invisible values inherent in science. (shrink)

"For never are the ways of music moved without the greatest political laws being moved."Whitman's "Song of Myself" and Ginsberg's "Howl" both contain the description of a voluntary self-sacrifice, symbolically committed by the poets themselves. In this article, we propose to study these sacrificial representations, and the mechanism underlying them, in the light of René Girard's scapegoat theory, in order to show the function that these sacrifices play in society. The analysis is also based on formal considerations, especially the use (...) these two poets make of the long free verse, also called "verset."1The theme of sacrifice and the identification of the poets with Christ have already been analyzed, but never... (shrink)

On a Humean account, a person's reasons for action are determined by her desires---in the broadest sense of 'desires', that is, noncognitive pro-attitudes. In four essays, I defend this account against several prominent objections. The first essay addresses the concern that the Humean cannot account for rationalizing reasons . The next three essays concern justifying reasons : reasons for action that are more fully normative than those that merely make action intelligible. Instrumental reasons, prudential reasons, and intrinsic reasons are three (...) different sorts of reasons to which an agent can appeal in justifying her action. ;Each essay focuses on a specific attack against the Humean account. In the second essay I argue that the normatively of instrumental reasons is brute ; and that, contrary to the received view, this is compatible with Humeanism. In the third essay I consider prudential reasons and defend the Humean claim that all and only present concerns provide normative reasons for action. In the final essay I address the fundamental question considerations of deliberative relevance: what makes certain desires and considerations relevant to a specific decision-making context, that is, what puts them among a person's present active reasons. ;In addition to defending a broadly Humean account of practical reasons, I am concerned to expand the components of a plausible form of Humeanism. Specifically, I argue that desires alone are not always sufficient to ground an agent's reasons, and that affective states are sometimes also necessary. I call this view "thick Humeanism". In essays one and four especially, I urge that a central place be given to affective states in determining practical reasons. I also invoke recent studies in cognitive psychology to support my claims about the role of the emotions in practical deliberation. (shrink)

Many roles are situated within organizations. The occupants of these roles often confront a dilemma between (i) the occupancy conditions, performance conditions, and functions of the role, as bestowed upon the role by the organization’s decision-making procedures, and (ii) the occupancy conditions, performance conditions, and function that the role should ideally have. This chapter argues that this dilemma should be resolved in favour of (ii). Yet this does not require forgoing role-based considerations in favour of extra-role considerations. Instead, we should (...) conceptualize organizationally specified roles as being one token of an underlying role-type. The underlying role-type provides the organizational role-token with its fundamental occupancy conditions, performance conditions, and function. When the token is a poor instance of its type, organizational role-occupants have obligations—grounded in the fundamental aspects of the role—to challenge this. These are role obligations that call upon one to alter one’s role obligations. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of altruism that purport to explain helping behavior are vulnerable to empirical falsification. John Campbell argues that the Good Samaritan study adds to a growing body of evidence that helping behavior is not best explained by appeal to altruism, thus jeopardizing those accounts. I propose that philosophical accounts of altruism can be empirically challenged only if it is shown that altruistic motivations are undermined by normative conflict in the agent, and that the relevant studies do not provide this (...) sort of evidence. Non-normative, purely causal, psychological factors would be empirically relevant only if the notion of altruism is broadened to include the requirement that one recognize certain situations as calling for altruism. But even in that case, the relevant studies are not designed in such a way that could threaten philosophical theories of altruism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Still I RiseLynnell Stephani LongYears ago I would not have had the courage to write my story. I was too ashamed to tell anyone my “secret.”I was born June 11, 1963 in Chicago. I found out thirty–seven years after my birth that I was born with severe hypospadias and a bifid scrotum. Surgery was performed at birth, leaving me with a micropenis. My labia were fused to form a (...) scrotum. After a couple of days in the hospital, my parents were able to take home their baby “boy.”Throughout my childhood I had urinary tract infections because of the surgery to move my [End Page 100] urethra from the base of the penis to the tip. For years I would get a burning sensation in the middle of the penis after urination. My endocrinologist at the time concluded that I had an infection of some type, but it was never explained to me where it originated.My mother raised me with my seven siblings on the south side of Chicago. Aside from me jumping rope with the girls, playing with dolls, and sitting when I peed, I had a pretty normal childhood. From an early age, I knew I was different. I was effeminate, and was often called “faggot” by everyone in the neighborhood, including my own brothers. I always liked hanging out with girls. In fact, I believed that I was a girl until my mother, a minister, beat it out of me. Literally.At the age of nine, I was first admitted to a teaching hospital. It was there that I was treated for growth hormone deficiency, hypothyroidism, panhypopituitarism, hypoadrenalism, and hypogonadism. At age 14, while other boys in high school were beginning to become young men, my voice got higher and I started growing breasts. My endocrinologist diagnosed me with gynecomastia and started me on testosterone injections to stop the breast growth, and to help with the masculinization process. To me these changes confirmed what I believed all along: I was indeed female.I took male hormone injections for five years. My endocrinologist convinced me that I could be a “normal” male if I took male hormones; I didn’t want to be male, I wanted to be female. But no one asked me what I wanted. Besides, the testosterone was making me sick. I wouldn’t be diagnosed with PAIS (Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome) until a number of years later. I still remember trips to the hospital like they happened yesterday. There were multiple IVs, MRI’s, CAT scans, and photos taken of me. I still have flashbacks of standing in front of the graph board, naked, while strangers walked in and out of the room.There was no one I could talk to about this. I was never allowed to tell my friends why I was hospitalized numerous times a year. In the black community you don’t talk about family secrets. And that’s what I was, a secret. I would go to school between the hospitalizations and pretend everything was okay. I hated my life. I hated being different. I would get teased in school, but I managed to survive it.One day on a routine office visit—I had to be around 16 at that time—my endocrinologist told me that I was infertile, and could never have kids. He didn’t offer any psychotherapy, just smiled and said “I’ll see you in three months”. I went home that afternoon and attempted suicide for the first time.I was hospitalized every summer, for weeks at a time, for testing. My endocrinologist and his parade of residents awakened me every morning in the hospital. They stood by my bed, peeking under my gown, and talking about me like I was not present. I discontinued my visits to the hospital, and all medications, at the age of twenty–four. I just wanted to be normal, but I knew I wasn’t.The next ten years of my life were full of drinking and getting high, trying to forget that I was different. I did have girlfriends in that time, and I even got married. I was convinced that a... (shrink)

The book considers the relationship between governance and participation, and the ways participation has been understood, framed and applied in the context of synthetic biology (SB) governance approaches. Based on fundamental questions about the scope, purpose, and responsibilities assigned to public participation activities, the authors conducted an literature review of policy reports and articles on SB governance. The authors identify key characteristics of synthetic biology, such as the complex interplay of research, engineering and IT expertise in the field, as well (...) as the challenges these characteristics pose in designing governance frameworks. Drawing on insights from a literature review, the authors contest calls for “earlier” and “more” participation on the basis that such calls fail to consider the necessary structural adjustments and resources needed for such endeavors. The brief addresses ethical questions arising in synthetic biology that could be used for developing frameworks of governance in the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and the consequent innovations in vaccine research. (shrink)

Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road confronts readers with a question: what is there to live towards after apocalypse? McCarthy locates his protagonists in the aftermath of the world’s fiery destruction, dramatizing a relationship between a father and a son, who are, as McCarthy puts it, “carrying the fire.” This essay asserts that the body carrying the fire is a sacred, incandescent body that connects to and with the world and the other, unifying the human and the divine. This essay will (...) consider the body as a sacred connection in The Road. Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics and Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic approach will help to explore what is sacred. In addition, their works elucidate the body as a present site of human connection and sacredness while calling attention to what is glaringly absent yet hauntingly present in McCarthy’s text: the mother. In the aftermath of destruction, primitive, sacred connections become available through the sensual body, highlighting what is at stake in the novel: the connection of body and spirit. The essay will attempt to show that McCarthy’s rejection of a redemptive framework, or hope in an otherworldly reality, shrouds spirit in physicality symbolized by the fire carried by the body. This spirit offers another kind of hope, one based on the body’s potential to feel and connect to the other. The thought and works of Ricoeur and Kristeva will broaden a reading of McCarthy’s novel, especially as a statement about the unification of body and spirit, contributing a multidimensional view of a contemporary problem regarding what sustains life after a cataclysmic event. (shrink)

Introduction -- Get political -- The animals need you -- Animal advocacy 101 -- Share the love -- The political beast -- Money talks -- Compassion in the classroom -- The power of words -- Find your pack -- Get wild -- Green is the new black -- Chaper 10: conservation uncaged -- Neighborhood bird watch -- Unplug climate change -- Plastic detox -- Down the drain -- Take extinction off your plate -- Let's talk about sex -- The call (...) of the wild -- Get personal -- The animals aren't amused -- Clean conscience -- What not to wear -- Old MacDonald lost his farm -- Holiday hangover -- Don't get catfished -- If you see something, say something -- The ambassador of dogville -- Unconditional love -- Be the change -- Appendix: additional resources -- Notes. (shrink)

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) was the first publicly funded body created to investigate claims of wrongful conviction, with the power to refer cases to the Court of Appeal. In other countries, such as Australia, Canada and the United States, many regard the CCRC as the optimal solution to wrongful conviction and, for years, Innocence Projects in these countries have called for the establishment of a CCRC-style body in their own jurisdictions. However, it is now Innocence Projects which are (...) being introduced in England and Wales to try to assist applicants who are innocent but convicted. This article reviews why the CCRC was created, discusses the role of factual innocence within this body and within the criminal justice system generally and explores why Innocence Projects are being created in England and Wales, despite the presence of the CCRC. It explains how these different organizations may work together to assist factually innocent people who have been wrongly convicted, and the role Innocence Projects may play generally in criminal justice reform and legal education. (shrink)

Contributing to the emerging religion and development literature, this study sets out to analyse the role of faith in the context of a particular development approach, 'Use Your Talents' at the Malagasy Lutheran Church in Madagascar. By analysing the views of lay Christian informants with regard to their involvement in the UYT project, the study asked what is the role of faith as an intangible asset in an asset-based community development project? The qualitative data were collected through participant observations and (...) interviews conducted in four congregations across Madagascar in 2018. The results showed that church teachings and biblical stories created a normativity of good and desirable behaviour in the context of the asset-based community development project. Faith may constitute an asset when it promoted the individual's capacity to achieve positive economic and social change.CONTRIBUTION: This research broadened the understanding of religion in the context of asset-based community development projects. The results showed that the participants attributed their engagement in community development to their religious calling. The belief in the existence of a higher power not only seemed to influence individuals to act but also enabled them to feel empowered and have something to contribute. As a contribution to sociology of religion, this study showed that community development can be part of Christians' and congregational holistic activities that depended on local knowledge and resources. Faith not only motivated individuals to engage in community development, but also it seemed to represent the essence of their engagement. (shrink)

In these essays, we are concerned with virtue in journalism and the media but are mindful of the tension between the commercial foundations of publishing and broadcasting, on the one hand, and journalism's democratic obligations on the other. Adam outlines, first, a moral vision of journalism focusing on individualistic concepts of authorship and craft. Next, Craft attempts to bridge individual and organizational concerns by examining the obligations of organizations to the individuals working within them. Finally, Cohen discusses the importance of (...) resisting the powerful corporate logic that pervades the news media in the United States and calls on journalists to be courageous. (shrink)

When engaging in community-based research, it is important to consider ethical research practices throughout the project. While current research practices require many investigators to obtain approval from an ethics review board before starting a project, more is required to ensure that ethical principles are applied once the investigations begin and after the investigations are complete. In response to this concern, as expressed by workers at a feminist non-profit during a community placement, we developed a tool to foster both greater ethical (...) and feminist research practice in community-based research. Using feminist theories, methodologies, and concepts such as epistemic justice, epistemic trust, and coauthorship, a tool was developed to support researchers and other collaborators in building relationships of reciprocity. This tool, called the Research Responsibility Agreement (RRA) invites all members of a research project to explicitly reflect on their role in the research, their relationships with other collaborators, their responsibility to contributing meaningfully in the project, and their plans to remain accountable to one another. In doing so, the RRA adds to existing tools that support ethical research by sharing explicit reflections from all collaborators on how to prevent harm and by asking them to reflect on ethical practices beyond the initial stages of the project. The RRA also encourages greater engagement from researchers and collaborators toward building meaningful relationships with each other, and with participants, to work together in advancing social change. As a practical tool that promotes reflection, that builds relationships, and that holds all parties accountable to ethical and feminist research practices, the RRA has the potential to generate impactful change in community-based research projects and beyond. While the RRA is tailored to community-based research, it can be applied widely to any research project and has the potential to revolutionize how research relationships are built across disciplines. (shrink)

In a series of important papers, Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson argue that all extant neo-sentimentalists are guilty of a conflation error that they call the moralistic fallacy. One commits the moralistic fallacy when one infers from the fact that it would be morally wrong to experience an affective attitude—e.g., it would be wrong to be amused—that the attitude does not fit its object—e.g., that it is not funny. Such inferences, they argue, conflate the appropriateness conditions of attitudinal responses with (...) the fittingness conditions of the associated evaluative properties. Further, they argue that moral considerations are irrelevant for determining if amusement fits its object. We agree that a strong moralizing of humor is wrongheaded and that jokes can be quite funny even in cases where we have a compelling moral reason to not be amused. However, we argue that pace D’Arms and Jacobson moral considerations can be relevant for property ascription. On our view, in order for a joke to be funny, a properly sensitive agent must take herself to have a contributory reason to be amused, and in some cases that she lacks such a reason is best explained by appeal to moral considerations. We use this constraint as the basis of what we call our modest proposal for a modest sentimentalism. (shrink)

Taking care of a hyperactive child at school gives 2 meanings to the word ‘care’: worrying about a vulnerable person and health care with the recognition of his behaviour disorder, the unruly pupil becomes a disabled pupil. But how does an undisciplined pupil become a psychiatric case? How do you recognise a hyperactive child at school, that is, from a medical point of view, a child with ADD/ADHD (Attention Deficient Disorder with or without Hyperactivity)? Teachers contribute to the medical diagnosis (...) by filling in behavioural tests. Then, in order to be taken care of, the child will need to have his hyperactivity recognised as a disability. To help the teacher, the doctor will give them advice on how to teach the child. Nevertheless, this desirable partnership raises difficulties. Between a paramedical support teacher and an educationalist doctor isn’t there a risk of witnessing a dilution of roles? The lifting of doctor-patient confidentiality called for by some teachers is emblematic of this confusion. Canguilhem’s distinction between normal and pathological will guide our reflection on the medical care of the hyperactive child at school. This case arouses an ethical issue about the medicalisation of our society. (shrink)

The building of a global model of carcinogenesis is one of modern biology’s greatest challenges. The traditional somatic mutation theory is now supplemented by a new approach, called the Tissue Organization Field Theory. According to TOFT, the original source of cancer is loss of tissue organization rather than genetic mutations. In this paper, we study the argumentative strategy used by the advocates of TOFT to impose their view. In particular, we criticize their claim of incompatibility used to justify the necessity (...) to definitively reject SMT. First, we note that since it is difficult to build a non-ambiguous experimental demonstration of the superiority of TOFT, its partisans add epistemological and metaphysical arguments to the debate. This argumentative strategy allows them to defend the necessity of a paradigm shift, with TOFT superseding SMT. To do so, they introduce a notion of incompatibility, which they actually use as the Kuhnian notion of incommensurability. To justify this so-called incompatibility between the two theories of cancer, they move the debate to a metaphysical ground by assimilating the controversy to a fundamental opposition between reductionism and organicism. We show here that this argumentative strategy is specious, because it does not demonstrate clearly that TOFT is an organicist theory. Since it shares with SMT its vocabulary, its ontology and its methodology, it appears that a claim of incompatibility based on this metaphysical plan is not fully justified in the present state of the debate. We conclude that it is more cogent to argue that the two theories are compatible, both biologically and metaphysically. We propose to consider that TOFT and SMT describe two distinct and compatible causal pathways to carcinogenesis. This view is coherent with the existence of integrative approaches, and suggests that they have a higher epistemic value than the two theories taken separately. (shrink)

In April 2020, close to the start of the first U.K. COVID-19 lockdown, the U.K. government announced the development of a COVID-19 contact tracing app, which was later trialled on the U.K. island, the Isle of Wight, in May/June 2020. United Kingdom surveys found general support for the development of such an app, which seemed strongly influenced by public trust. Institutions developing the app were called upon to fulfil the commitment to public trust by acting with trustworthiness. Such calls presuppose (...) that public trust associated with the app can emerge if the conditions for trustworthiness are met and that public trust is simplistic, i.e., linearly the sum of each member of the publics’ individual – U.K. government trust relationship. Drawing on a synthesis of the trust literature and fifteen interviews with members of the public trialling the app on the Isle of Wight, this paper aims to explore what trust mechanisms and relationships are at play when thinking about public trust in the context of the U.K. COVID-19 app. We argue that public trust is a complex social phenomenon and not linearly correlated with institutional trustworthiness. As such, attention needs to widen from calls for trustworthy infrastructures as a way to build public trust, to a deeper understanding of those doing the trusting; in particular, what or whom do people place their trust in when considering whether using the app and why. An understanding of this will help when trying to secure public trust during the implementation of necessary public health measures. (shrink)

Firms are increasingly personalising their offers and services, leading to an ever finer-grained segmentation of consumers online. Targeted online advertising and online price discrimination are salient examples of this development. While personalisation's overall effects on consumer welfare are expectably ambiguous, it can lead to concentration in the distribution of advertising and commercial offers. Constellations are possible in which a market is generally open to competition, but the targeted consumer is only made aware of one possible seller. For the consumer, such (...) a market could effectively resemble a monopoly. We call such extreme cases ‘targeting pockets’. Competition-law metrics such as the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index and traditional means of public oversight of adverts would not detect this concentration. We, therefore, suggest a novel metric, the Concentration-after-Personalisation Index (CAPI). The CAPI treats every consumer as a separate ‘market’, computes a measure of concentration for personalised adverts and offers for each individual consumer separately, and then averages the result to measure the exposure experienced by an average consumer. We demonstrate how the CAPI can serve as a monitoring tool for regulators and auditors and thus help to enforce existing consumer law as well as proposed new regulations such as the European Union's Digital Services Act and its Artificial Intelligence Act. We further show how adding noise via randomly distributed non-personalised adverts can dilute the potential harm of overly concentrated personalisation. We demonstrate how the CAPI can identify the optimal degree of added noise, balancing the protection of consumer choice with the economic interests of advertisers. (shrink)

Prior research on engineering students’ understandings of ethics and social responsibility has produced mixed and sometimes conflicting results. Seeking greater clarity in this area of investigation, we conducted an exploratory, longitudinal study at four universities in the United States to better understand how engineering undergraduate students perceive ethics and social responsibility and how those perceptions change over time. Undergraduate engineering students at four U.S. universities were surveyed three times: during their 1st (Fall 2015), 5th (Fall 2017), and 8th semesters (Spring (...) 2019). The students who completed all three surveys (_n_ = 226) comprise the sample that was analyzed in this paper for changes in their scores on five instruments: Fundamentals of Engineering/Situational Judgment, Moral Disengagement, ABET Engineering Work and Practice Considerations, Macroethics, and Political and Social Involvement Scale. We found that students modestly increased their knowledge of ethics and ability to apply that knowledge in situations calling for them to exercise judgment. In addition, they consistently indicated that health and safety considerations in engineering were of highest importance. They also showed steady levels of social consciousness over time, in contrast to other studies which detected a culture of increasing disengagement in engineering students throughout the four years of their undergraduate studies. (shrink)

This article explores two key facets of institutionalized ethical review processes in Germany: (1) their importance in shaping ethical research and (2) their associated challenges, with a specific focus on their implications within the social sciences. Ethical considerations play a pivotal role in (social science) research, safeguarding, amongst others, the rights and well-being of participants and ensuring research integrity. Despite notable progress in promoting research ethics, German research institutions still need to significantly improve their ethics review processes. To address these (...) challenges, this article emphasizes the need for expanding the current management of research ethics and implementing what we call “Institutionalized Research Ethics Practices’’ (IREPs), which include but go beyond the scope of common Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). Drawing on two workshops with researchers and IRB members, and a systematic review of existing IRBs in the German social sciences, we propose concrete recommendations for developing and enhancing IREPs, including a conducive environment, accessibility, fairness, and fostering expertise (CAFE). These enhancements aim to strengthen Germany’s research ethics infrastructure and promote responsible and ethical research practices in the social sciences. (shrink)

Background Over the last decade, the return of results (ROR) in precision medicine research (PMR) has become increasingly routine. Calls for individual rights to research results have extended the “duty to report” from clinically useful genetic information to traits and ancestry results. ROR has thus been reframed as inherently beneficial to research participants, without a needed focus on who benefits and how. This paper addresses this gap, particularly in the context of PMR aimed at increasing participant diversity, by providing investigator (...) and researcher perspectives on and questions about the assumed value of ROR in PMR.Methods Semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of investigators and researchers across federally funded PMR studies in three national consortia, as well as observations of study activities, focused on how PM researchers conceptualize diversity and implement inclusive practices across research stages, including navigating ROR.Results Interviewees (1) validated the value of ROR as a benefit of PMR, while others (2) questioned the benefit of clinically actionable results to individuals in the absence of sufficient resources for translating findings into health care for diverse and disadvantaged populations; (3) expressed uncertainties in applying the presumed value of ROR as a benefit for non-clinical results; and (4) and debated when the promise of the value of ROR may undermine trust in PMR, and divert efforts to return value beyond ROR.Conclusions Conceptualizations of diversity and inclusion among PM researchers and investigators raise unique ethical questions where unexamined assumptions of the value of ROR inform study recruitment efforts to enroll minoritized and under-represented populations. A lack of consideration for resources and infrastructure necessary to translate ROR into actionable information may hinder trustworthy community-research relationships. Thus, we argue for a more intentional interrogation of ROR practices as an offer of benefit and for whom. (shrink)

There is a paucity of research into the prevalence of academic dishonesty within Canada compared to other countries. Recently, there has been a call for a better understanding of the particular characteristics of educational integrity in Canada so that Canada can more meaningfully contribute to current discussions surrounding academic integrity. Here, we present findings from student and faculty surveys conducted within a medium-sized Canadian university. These surveys probed perceptions towards, and experiences with, academic dishonesty, in which we aimed to understand (...) how students and faculty regarded academically dishonest practices during their postsecondary careers. We also aimed to understand how often students engaged in, and faculty had witnessed, academic dishonesty, whether or not witnessing incidents of academic dishonesty corresponded with gender, year of experience, highest level of educational attainment, discipline, or their personal perceptions towards the importance of academic honesty, and whether students had been adequately taught what constitutes academic dishonesty. We found that an overwhelming majority of students viewed academic honesty as important, and that most students reported not engaging in academic dishonesty themselves despite 45.8% reporting that they had witnessed others engage in academic dishonesty. We also found that students were more likely to witness cheating as their postsecondary experience increased, that witnessing varied across disciplines and educational attainment, and that witnessing varied with student perceptions. However, we found no such patterns in faculty responses, but found that faculty are split on whether or not they believe incidents of academic honesty are increasing. (shrink)

Adults’ intentionality judgments regarding an action are influenced by their moral evaluation of this action. This is clearly indicated in the so-called side-effect effect: when told about an action (e.g. implementing a business plan) with an intended primary effect (e.g. raise profits) and a foreseen side effect (e.g. harming/helping the environment), subjects tend to interpret the bringing about of the side effect more often as intentional when it is negative (harming the environment) than when it is positive (helping the environment). (...) From a cognitive point of view, it is unclear whether the side-effect effect is driven by the moral status of the side effects specifically, or rather more generally by its normative status. And from a developmental point of view, little is known about the ontogenetic origins of the effect. The present study therefore explored the cognitive foundations and the ontogenetic origins of the side-effect effect by testing 4-to 5-year-old children with scenarios in which a side effect was in accordance with/violated a norm. Crucially, the status of the norm was varied to be conventional or moral. Children rated the bringing about of side-effects as more intentional when it broke a norm than when it accorded with a norm irrespective of the type of norm. The side-effect effect is thus an early-developing, more general and pervasive phenomenon, not restricted to morally relevant side effects. (shrink)

Background: The experience of racism in healthcare is particularly challenging to address due to misunderstandings of the definition, the complex interplay of other potential discriminations and, at some level, the denial that it occurs. Limited studies have reported racism as an aspect of workplace violence toward nurses and nursing students from both patients and staff. Research aims: To understand nursing students’ experience of unethical behaviour, including racism during clinical placement, the perpetrators, impacts, advocating and reporting. Research design: An interpretive, qualitative (...) design was used, and 15 nursing students were interviewed using semi-structured interview guides. The interview recordings were transcribed and thematically analysed. Participants and research context: Nursing students voluntarily participated and completed the interviews for this study from one undergraduate nursing student cohort in metropolitan South Australia. Ethical considerations: This study received ethical approval from the University Social and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee. Findings/results: The two major themes with subthemes of the findings include (1) The multi-faceted student nurse experience of racism: sub themes – racism from patients to nurses, from nurses to nursing students’ and racism towards patients. (2) The pervasive influence and limited reporting of racism by nursing students: sub themes-feeling disempowered, and barriers to reporting racism. Conclusions: The findings of this study highlight the registered nurse students’ experience of racism in various forms within the clinical environment and the significant negative impact it has on RNS during placements. This evidence calls for systemic changes to create a more inclusive and supportive environment for all RNS. (shrink)

The number of older adults incarcerated in prisons is growing significantly, and there is a great need for legal authority, processes, and resources to mitigate individual and social burdens of elder neglect and abuse within these settings. Older adults in prison may be particularly vulnerable to abuse, neglect, or exploitation. They are dependent on the carceral system for basic resources, are at risk for retaliatory actions for reporting mistreatment, and bear disproportionately high health burdens. This essay first considers standards and (...) resources for mitigating elder mistreatment in the community and residential‐care settings in contrast to the available resources in prisons. Arguing that a conceptual model of elder abuse tailored to the prison population is needed, the essay proposes a research agenda through which such a model could be developed. The model could then be used in the creation of policy for detecting and mitigating elder mistreatment of incarcerated people. The essay concludes with a call to action to address the rift in legal protections and processes that leave older adults in prison at increased risk of abuse and neglect without a clear pathway for recourse. (shrink)