This article investigates the embodied identities of Hong Kong gay men in two different `sites of desire', namely London and Hong Kong. In London, Hong Kong gay men have constantly encountered the intertwining relationships between race and sexuality in the constellation of the Western construction of body/desire/masculinity. By contrast, Hong Kong gay men in Hong Kong tend to place more emphasis on issues of family and culture. The main site of struggle for Hong Kong (...) gay men in Hong Kong is the family-oriented and community-based environment. They adopt not a confrontational politics in a constitutional sense but rather derive tactics of microscopic resistance against societal and familial domination. By comparing 34 Hong Kong gay men living in London and Hong Kong, I argue the divergent constructions of being gay in these two contexts. Through the `voices' of these gay men, I criticize the `Western' construction of identity/the body and offer new insights into the discussion of gay identities. (shrink)

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

Background The use of lengthy, detailed, and complex informed consent forms is of paramount concern in biomedical research as it may not truly promote the rights and interests of research participants. The extent of information in ICFs has been the subject of debates for decades; however, no clear guidance is given. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the perspectives of research participants about the type and extent of information they need when they are invited to participate in (...) biomedical research. Methods This multi-center, cross-sectional, descriptive survey was conducted at 54 study sites in seven Asia-Pacific countries. A modified Likert-scale questionnaire was used to determine the importance of each element in the ICF among research participants of a biomedical study, with an anchored rating scale from 1 to 5. Results Of the 2484 questionnaires distributed, 2113 were returned. The majority of respondents considered most elements required in the ICF to be ‘moderately important’ to ‘very important’ for their decision making. Major foreseeable risk, direct benefit, and common adverse effects of the intervention were considered to be of most concerned elements in the ICF. Conclusions Research participants would like to be informed of the ICF elements required by ethical guidelines and regulations; however, the importance of each element varied, e.g., risk and benefit associated with research participants were considered to be more important than the general nature or technical details of research. Using a participant-oriented approach by providing more details of the participant-interested elements while avoiding unnecessarily lengthy details of other less important elements would enhance the quality of the ICF. (shrink)

American society has a history of turning to physicians during times of extreme need, from plagues in the past to recent outbreaks of communicable diseases. This public instinct comes from a deep seated trust in physician duty that has been earned over the centuries through dedicated and selfless care, often in the face of personal risks. As dangers facing our communities include terroristic events physicians must be adequately prepared to respond, both medically and ethically. While the ethical principles that govern (...) physician behavior—beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and social justice—are unchanging, fundamental doctrines must change with the new risks inherent to terroristic events. Responding to mass casualty disasters caused by terrorists, natural calamities, and combat continue to be challenging frontiers in medicine. Preparing physicians to deal with the consequences of a terroristic disease must include understanding the ethical challenges that can occur. (shrink)

One of Chicago's great cultural achievements, the Institute of Design was among the most important schools of photography in twentieth-century America. It began as an outpost of experimental Bauhaus education and was home to an astonishing group of influential teachers and students, including Lázló Moholy-Nagy, Harry Callahan, and Aaron Siskind. To date, however, the ID's enormous contributions to the art and practice of photography have gone largely unexplored. Taken by Design is the first publication to examine thoroughly this remarkable institution (...) and its lasting impact. With nearly 300 illustrations, including many never-before published photographs, Taken by Design examines the changing nature of photography over this critical period in America's midcentury. It starts by documenting the experimental nature of Moholy's Bauhaus approach and photography's new and enhanced role in training the "complete designer." Next it traces the formal and abstract camera experiments under Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, which aimed at achieving a new kind of photographic subjectivity. Finally, it highlights the ID's focus on conscious references to the processes of the photographic medium itself. In addition to photographs by Moholy, Callahan, and Siskind, the book showcases works by Barbara Crane, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Joseph Jachna, Kenneth Josephson, Gyorgy Kepes, Nathan Lerner, Ray K. Metzker, Richard Nickel, Arthur Siegel, Art Sinsabaugh, and many others. Major essays from experts in the field, biographies, a chronology, and reprints of critical essays are also included, making Taken by Design an essential work for anyone interested in the history of American photography. Contributors include: Keith Davis, Lloyd Engelbrecht, John Grimes, Nathan Lyons, Hattula Moholy-Nagy, Elizabeth Siegel, David Travis, Larry Viskochil, James N. Wood. (shrink)

The Research Excellence Framework of the Higher Education Funding Council for England is taking place in 2013, its three key elements being outputs, impact, and “quality of the research environment”. Impact will be assessed using case studies that “may include any social, economic or cultural impact or benefit beyond academia that has taken place during the assessment period.”1 Medical ethics in the UK still does not have its own cognate assessment panel—for example, bioethics or applied ethics—unlike in, for example, Australia. (...) Several researchers in medical ethics have reported to the Institute of Medical Ethics that during the internal preliminary stage of the Research Excellence Framework several medical schools have decided to include only research that entails empirical data gathering. Thus, conceptual papers and ethical analysis will be excluded. The arbitrary exclusion of reasoned discussion of medical ethics issues as a proper subject for medical research unless it is based on empirical data gathering is conceptually mistaken. “Empirical ethics” is, of course, a legitimate component of medical ethics research, but to act as though it is the only legitimate component suggests, at best, a partial understanding of the nature of ethics in general and medical ethics in particular. It also mistakenly places medicine firmly on only one side of the science/humanities “two cultures” divide instead of in its rightful place bridging the divide. Given the emphasis by the General Medical Council on medical ethics in properly preparing “tomorrow’s doctors,” we urge medical schools to find a way of using the upcoming Research Excellence Framework to highlight the expertise residing in their ethicist colleagues. We are confident that appropriate assessment will reveal work of high quality that can be shown to have social and cultural impact and benefit beyond academia, as required by the framework. (shrink)

Every year, the Vietnamese people reportedly burned about 50,000 tons of joss papers, which took the form of not only bank notes, but iPhones, cars, clothes, even housekeepers, in hope of pleasing the dead. The practice was mistakenly attributed to traditional Buddhist teachings but originated in fact from China, which most Vietnamese were not aware of. In other aspects of life, there were many similar examples of Vietnamese so ready and comfortable with adding new norms, values, and beliefs, even contradictory (...) ones, to their culture. This phenomenon, dubbed “cultural additivity”, prompted us to study the co-existence, interaction, and influences among core values and norms of the Three Teachings –Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism–as shown through Vietnamese folktales. By applying Bayesian logistic regression, we evaluated the possibility of whether the key message of a story was dominated by a religion (dependent variables), as affected by the appearance of values and anti-values pertaining to the Three Teachings in the story (independent variables). Our main findings included the existence of the cultural additivity of Confucian and Taoist values. More specifically, empirical results showed that the interaction or addition of the values of Taoism and Confucianism in folktales together helped predict whether the key message of a story was about Confucianism, β{VT ⋅ VC} = 0.86. Meanwhile, there was no such statistical tendency for Buddhism. The results lead to a number of important implications. First, this showed the dominance of Confucianism because the fact that Confucian and Taoist values appeared together in a story led to the story’s key message dominated by Confucianism. Thus, it presented the evidence of Confucian dominance and against liberal interpretations of the concept of the Common Roots of Three Religions (“tam giáo đồng nguyên”) as religious unification or unicity. Second, the concept of “cultural additivity” could help explain many interesting socio-cultural phenomena, namely the absence of religious intolerance and extremism in the Vietnamese society, outrageous cases of sophistry in education, the low productivity in creative endeavors like science and technology, the misleading branding strategy in business. We are aware that our results are only preliminary and more studies, both theoretical and empirical, must be carried out to give a full account of the explanatory reach of “cultural additivity”. (shrink)

This book is a collection of articles on different aspects of university education in China since the late nineteenth century, addressing how far the ideal of modern university education, which has gradually been developed in the West since the age of European Enlightenment, was adopted or transformed by Chinese universities.

Guanxi is perceived as a major determinant for successful business in China. This research paper investigates the importance of Guanxi from the Hong Kong Businessmen's viewpoint. It confirms previous findings in this area and adds on new dimensions. Therefore, practitioners and academics may further refine their knowledge in this subject.

This paper critically evaluates the Hong Kong government's recent attempt to introduce cross-curricular themes into the school curriculum. It is agued that the policy failed to have a significant impact because many of its key elements defined the themes as marginal and dispensable. Moreover, the policy embodied a discourse which portrayed teachers as empowered and, consequently, as the primary source of problems of its implementation.

Using professional accountants as respondents in Hong Kong, this study strives to develop a model to depict the effect of ethical reasoning on the relationships between guanxi and auditors; behaviour in an audit conflict situation. The results of the study found that (1) there is a significant relationship between an auditor's ethical judgement and one's moral cognitive development; (2) there is a relationship between an auditor's ethical judgement and the existence of guanxi; and (3) the impact of guanxi on (...) an auditor's judgement is depending on the level of ethical reasoning. (shrink)

Out of 288 Hong Kong cancer patients, 92.3% include themselves in decision-making, 71% prefer joint decision-making: with family, with doctor, with doctor plus family, with family minus doctor, and with doctor minus family. <5% want decision-making by “doctor-alone” and <1% desire decision-making by “family-alone”. Harmony, communication and responsibility are reasons for family participation. Most patients prefer “specialist” for information, followed by “family”, “friends”, and “GP”. Trust in doctors and prospects for controlling/curing disease are important factors in decision-making. Patients want (...) to participate and be listened to rather than make decisions. Doctors should not disclose information to family without patients’ permission, nor withhold information from patient [End Page 109] on family’s request. Only 25% of patients have discussed post-competent treatment with others and 7% have heard of Advance Directive ; 24% refuse to discuss it. After AD has been explained to them, 66% remain reluctant to sign one, preferring to leave oral instructions or appoint family as proxy decision-makers. The family’s decision-making role increases when patients become incompetent. The top reason for signing AD is to receive preferred post-competent treatments, and for not signing it, difficulty with making a prospective decision. The implications of these findings will be discussed. (shrink)

This research examines the extent to which similarities and differences exist in the codes of professional conduct of certified (chartered) accountants across the following countries: the United States, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Ontario (Canada), Australia, India, and Hong Kong. These eight countries exemplify some of the diversity in economic, political, legal, and cultural environments in which public accountants practice. The professional codes of ethics establish the ethical boundary parameters within which professional accountants must operate and they are a function (...) of these environments.The results of the study reveal that commonalities exist on some ethical rules indicating that some rules are indeed "culture free". Cross-country variations, however, exist as to the specificity and elaborateness of the rules. Such variations can be attributed to cultural and legal differences, as well as the length of time each professional organization has been in existence. An understanding of the similarities and differences in the codes is important to individuals who may work in these countries. Professional accountants involved in international business must understand the implications of the decisions they make in light of the ethical codes and moral values of their counterparts in foreign countries. After a discussion of the similarities and differences in the codes, the implications of these comparisons for accounting practice are discussed. (shrink)

The Harvard Report, published in April 1999 for public consultation in Hong Kong, proposed a fundamental restructuring in its health care delivery and financing systems. The Report claims to be evidence-based in its approach (Hsiao et al., 1999a). While 'evidence' has been widely collected by the consultancy team through surveys, consultations and focus groups, the recommendations put forth are not value-free. They carry clear ideological preferences. The value assumptions and ethical presuppositions underlying the report are discussed in this paper. (...) The Harvard consultancy study is in favor of a positive government role in regulation and control, a single central body to administer compulsory health insurance for all citizens, and a purchaser-provider split to induce competition. Such preference is based on pre-existing ideology and generic health care management concepts, which are still in the experimental phase internationally. While value and ideology are inevitable factors in any policy choice, the challenge is to lay these values open for reflection and public debate. For Hong Kong, the challenge is also to take on local substantive issues in health care and deal with them head-on, rather than putting hope in a universal, generic solution. (shrink)

Introduction: Probationers, offenders with less serious and non-violent offences, and under statutory supervision, have low levels of self-esteem and physical health, and high level of family conflict, and poorer quality of family relationships. This study examined the effectiveness of the existing probation service and the additional use of a positive family holistic health intervention to enhance physical, psychological, and family well-being in probationers and relationships with probation officers.Methods: Probationers under the care of the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department were (...) randomized into a care-as-usual control group, a brief intervention group receiving two 1-h individual sessions [of a brief theory-based positive family holistic health intervention integrating Zero-time Exercise and positive psychology themes of “Praise and Gratitude” in the existing probation service], or a combined intervention group receiving BI and a 1-day group activity with family members. The outcomes were physical activity, fitness performance, self-esteem, happiness, anxiety and depression symptoms, life satisfaction, quality of life, family communication and well-being, and relationships with probation officers. Self-administered questionnaires and simple fitness tests were used at baseline, 1-month and 3-month follow-up. Linear mixed model analysis was used to compare difference in the changes of outcome variables among groups, adjusted of sex, age, and baseline values. Focus group interviews were conducted. Thematic content analysis was used.Results: 318 probationers were randomized into CAU, BI, or CI group. CAU showed enhanced physical activity, fitness performance and psychological health, and family communication with small effect sizes. BI and CI showed further improved physical activity, family communication and family well-being. Additionally, CI reported greater improvements in the relationships with probation officers than CAU with a small effect size. CI also reported greater increases in physical activity and family communication than BI with small to moderate effect sizes. Qualitative feedbacks corroborated the quantitative findings.Conclusion: Our trial provided the first evidence of the effectiveness of probation service and the additional use of an innovative, relatively low-cost, theory-based brief positive family holistic health intervention. This intervention may offer a new model for enhancing probation service.Trial Registration: The research protocol was registered at the National Institutes of Health. (shrink)

Following a government campaign run by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1994, many Hong Kong companies and trade associations adopted written codes of conduct. The research study reported here examines how and why companies responded, and assesses the impact of code adoption on the moral climate of code adopters. The research involved (a) initial questionnaire surveys to which 184 organisations replied, (b) longitudinal questionnaire-based assessments of moral ethos and conduct in a focal sample of 17 code adopting (...) companies, (c) interviews with 33 managers in the focal companies examining the adoption and impact of the codes, and (d) content analysis of 41 company codes of conduct, including those of most focal companies, plus the ICAC model code.While a mixture of prudential and altruistic reasons were given for code adoption, content analysis suggested that the prime motive was corporate self-defence. The prevailing themes were bribery, conflict of interest, insider information, gambling, moonlighting, accuracy of records and misuse of corporate assets. Wider social responsibility tended to be neglected. Companies appeared to have imposed their codes top-down, emphasising disciplinary procedures rather than ethics training, and appointing neither ethics counsellors nor ombuds-people. The longitudinal study over a seven month period suggested that while moral ethos may have declined, overall standards of perceived conduct had not changed. (shrink)

Cultural competence, a clinical skill to recognise patients' cultural and religious beliefs, is an integral element in patient‐centred medical practice. In the area of death and dying, physicians' understanding of patients' and families' values is essential for the delivery of culturally appropriate care. Dementia is a neurodegenerative condition marked by the decline of cognitive functions. When the condition progresses and deteriorates, patients with advanced dementia often have eating and swallowing problems and are at high risk of developing malnutrition. Enteral tube (...) feeding is a conventional means of providing artificial nutrition and hydration to meet nutritional needs, but its benefits to the frail population are limitedly shown in the clinical evidence. Forgoing tube feeding is ethically challenging when patients are mentally incompetent and in the absence of an advance directive. Unlike some developed countries, like the United States of America, death and dying is a sensitive issue or even a taboo in some cultures in developing countries that forgoing enteral tube feeding is clinically and ethically challenging, such as China and Malaysia. This article in three parts 1) discusses the clinical and ethical issues related to forgoing tube feeding among patients with advanced dementia, 2) describes how Hong Kong Chinese, North American, and Malaysian Islamic cultures respond differently in the decision‐making patterns of forgoing tube feeding for patients with advanced dementia, and 3) reiterates the clinical implications of cultural competence in end‐of‐life care. (shrink)

The orthodox presentation of quantum theory often includes statements on state preparation and measurements without mentioning how these processes can be achieved. The often quoted projection postulate is regarded by many as problematical. This paper presents a systematic framework for state preparation and measurement. Within the existing Hilbert space formulation of quantum mechanics for spinless particles we show that it is possible (1)to prepare an arbitrary state and (2)to reduce all quantum measurements to local position measurements in an asymptotic way (...) by unitary evolution processes without recourse to the projection postulate. A generalization to spin-1/2particles is also given. The theory presented provides a general mathematical and theoretical foundation for many practical schemes for state preparation and measurement. (shrink)

Traditionally, there has been a clear distinction between classical systems and quantum systems, particularly in the mathematical theories used to describe them. In our recent work on macroscopic quantum systems, this distinction has become blurred, making a unified mathematical formulation desirable, so as to show up both the similarities and the fundamental differences between quantum and classical systems. This paper serves this purpose, with explicit formulations and a number of examples in the form of superconducting circuit systems. We introduce three (...) classes of physical systems with finite degrees of freedom: classical, standard quantum, and mixed quantum, and present a unified Hilbert space treatment of all three types of system. We consider the classical/quantum divide and the relationship between standard quantum and mixed quantum systems, illustrating the latter with a derivation of a superselection rule in superconducting systems. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics is troubled by the problem of nonlocality inherent in the theory. In a series of papers we explore the possibility of an algebraic formulation of quantum mechanics based on local observables which would incorporate nonlocality when small distances are involved but would be separable at large distances. This paper reviews some of the basic ideas and theories developed recently. These include a unified localization scheme, the introduction of local comoving evolution, local comoving observables, and related conservation laws. Technical (...) considerations and mathematical jargon are kept to a minimum to avoid obscuring physical reasoning. (shrink)

Traditionally spatial transformations such as translations and rotations are formulated in terms of transformations of the entire spatial space. In other words, transformations are taken automatically to be of a global nature. This paper investigates a local approach to spatial transformations; local transformations lead naturally to local observables in quantum mechanics.

There has been a lot of interest in generalizing orthodox quantum mechanics to include POV measures as observables, namely as unsharp obserrables. Such POV measures are related to symmetric operators. We have argued recently that only maximal symmetric operators should describe observables.1 This generalization to maximal symmetric operators has many physical applications. One application is in the area of quantization. We shall discuss a scheme, to he called quantization by parts,which can systematically deal with what may be called quantum circuits. (...) As a specific application we shall present a novel derivation of the famous Josephson equation for the supercurrent through a Josephson junction in a superconducting circuit. An interesting effect emerges from our quantization scheme when applied to a superconducting Y-shape circuit configuration. We also propose an experimental test for this effect which is expected to shed light on some conceptual problems on the quantum nature of the condensate. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is regarded as the key in search of moral excellence among corporations. Yet, there are limited works to empirically investigate what virtuous character morally good corporations is expected to exhibit in the course of business from the perspective of customers. To fill this gap, we argue that customers are to evaluate firm’s virtuous character using Confucian cardinal virtues (ren, yi, and li) and perceived virtuousness determines customer loyalty. We test this argument using a sample of 276 Hong (...) class='Hi'>Kong Chinese. The result suggests that a corporation not only has to offer a good value and high quality to customers but also needs to develop and acquire virtuous character in retaining customer loyalty. Firm has to embrace ren, yi, and li as the primary business goal. In fact, they are not the means but the end in themselves. The continuous pursuit of these cardinal virtues at the firm level not only establishes proper corporate values but also enables a firm to act morally in the course of business. Such kind of firm is known as junzi corporation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionGerhold K. BeckerThe concept of personhood has been a prime focus in contemporary bioethics. Three areas of ethical decision making in particular have been addressed through explorations into the conditions and criteria of personhood: the beginning and the end of human life and the morally relevant boundaries that separate human beings from nonhuman animals. Blending theology with science fiction, the scope of the latter area has been expanded further (...) to include entities ranging from gods, angels, and extraterrestrials all the way down to machines. Although the recognition of personhood traditionally has been based on metaphysical and ontological considerations about sets of (psychological and cognitive) person-making properties, the emphasis is now squarely placed on moral concerns. Simply put, from a moral perspective a person is someone morally considerable who is the subject of moral rights and merits moral protection. The implications of the conferral of person status for moral decision making in medicine, health care, and research are, however, less clear. Problems arise from the fact that the traditional concept of personhood is constituted by three rather different ideas. As David Wiggins has pointed out, the concept of personhood combines in a single focus the ideas of the person as object of science (biological, neurophysiological, and so forth), as subject of consciousness and experience, and as locus of value and moral attributes. It is therefore extremely difficult to neatly separate metaphysical personhood from moral personhood, and vice versa, and to draw morally relevant conclusions without continuously moving back and forth between the different constitutive factors. Thus, moral rights seem to presuppose moral agency, and moral agency is contingent on personal identity, which in turn presupposes some form of physical (including psychological) existence. It is obvious, that differences in the analysis of any one of these constituents of personhood will result in different conceptions of personhood with different implications for ethical decision making. Bioethical disputes about the moral status of human fetuses or of irreversibly comatose patients, as well as of the great apes [End Page 289] and other animals, are notoriously complex because they involve fundamental disagreements about personhood and the most promising strategies for their resolution. Although this has led some to question the usefulness of the concept of personhood for bioethics altogether, others seek remedy through the analysis of moral agency within the context of particular bioethical issues.The essays in this volume clearly reflect the current state of the bioethical debate on personhood and are representative of its major strands. They evolved from discussions at an international symposium on Bioethics and the Concept of Personhood at the Centre for Applied Ethics, Hong Kong Baptist University, May 1998, that explored the bioethical implications of the concept of personhood in a historical and cross-cultural perspective.In the opening essay, John Harris gives Locke’s concept of person a new twist by reading his list of criteria of personhood as preconditions of a being’s capability to value his or her own existence. The status of person is contingent upon the possession of the capacity to value one’s own existence; whoever is capable of such valuation is a person (as long such capacity actually exists) and makes moral claims on other persons. On this account, personhood is not co-extensive with human life or the human species, and even transcends other forms of organic life. Harris allows for the possibility that some machines in effect might qualify for person status. Although human life develops gradually and with it the capacity to value existence, Harris rejects both the potentiality argument and gradualism on the grounds that personhood is a “threshold” concept. Accordingly, proximity to the threshold is morally insignificant, and everything depends on actually crossing the threshold.Tom Beauchamp takes issue with what he sees as the dominant trend in contemporary bioethics to derive moral conclusions from metaphysical accounts of personhood. On his reading, metaphysical theories of personhood are abused in normative analysis by employing certain sets of psychological or cognitive properties to identify persons as bearers of moral rights. He argues that by themselves, without the incorporation of independent moral principles, such properties have no moral implications and cannot confer moral standing. Thus, a being may... (shrink)

Background Protecting a person’s right to privacy and confidentiality is important in healthcare services. As future health professionals, nursing students should bear the same responsibility as qualified health professionals in protecting patient privacy. Objectives To investigate nursing students’ practices of patient privacy protection and to identify factors associated with their practices. Research design A cross-sectional study design was adopted. A two-part survey was used to collect two types of data on nursing students: (1) personal characteristics, including demographics, clinical experience and (...) use of information and communication technology and social media and (2) practice of patient privacy protection, collected using the Patient Privacy Scale. Participants and research context: A total of 319 nursing students aged 18 or above, studying pre-registration nursing programmes and who had attended at least one block of clinical placement, were recruited from a university in Hong Kong. Ethical considerations The study received ethical approval from the Survey and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The participants were informed of the study aim and written consent was obtained before completing the survey. Findings: The mean total score on the Patient Privacy Scale was 119.7 out of 135. Nursing students who were regular users of Instagram and those who had never taken photographs with patients and hence did not need to obtain patient consent were associated with better practices of patient privacy protection (higher total scores on the Patient Privacy Scale). Conclusions The findings improve our understanding of nursing students’ practice of patient privacy protection and the associated factors. This will inform the development and revision of current strategies to enhance nursing students’ practice of patient privacy protection, especially their use of social media. (shrink)

This paper takes the position that interpretations of legal discourse are invariably taken in the context of socio-pragmatic realities to which a particular instance of discourse applies. What makes this process even more complicated is the fact that social realities themselves are often negotiated within the mould of one’s subjective conceptualisations of reality. Institutions and organisations, including people in power, often represent socio-political realities from an ideologically fuelled perspective, engendering many ‘illusory’ categories often a result of contested versions of reality. (...) To substantiate this view, we discuss interpretations of a number of interesting contemporary and controversial laws, including America’s Patriot Act and Hong Kong’s proposed Article 23 of the Basic Law. Both laws can be seen as illustrative of the definitional conflict that abstract concepts such as democracy and human rights are subjected to in their own specific socio-political contexts. While America crowns itself with democracy and Hong Kong struggles to achieve it in effective synthesis with its unique political arrangement, the laws produced by both contrasting political systems are unexpectedly similar, aiming for the moderation of basic rights. The actions of both governments set against their beliefs and discourses, and furthermore set against one another and other media voices, particularly those of non-governmental organisations, political activists, and other socio-political groups, demonstrate contestation of realities, giving rise to ‘discursive illusions’, which seem to be interpreted not so much on the basis of their linguistic construction but more on the basis of socio-pragmatic factors, such as trust, belief, transparency, control and power. (shrink)

A growing interest has been observed among K-12 school educators to incorporate maker pedagogy into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education to engage students in the design and making process. Both cognitive engagement and emotional engagement of students can be promoted through satisfying the psychological need of relatedness that concerns a sense of connection and belonging. How to support relatedness would influence the effective development of students’ cognitive competencies, namely creativity and critical thinking, and non-cognitive characteristics, namely interest and identity. (...) Therefore, the present study investigated how two relatedness support strategies—real-world problems and mentoring influence the development of student’s STEM-related cognitive competencies and non-cognitive characteristics in STEM marker activities. We implemented a 7-week intervention study with three classes of Grade 9 students in Hong Kong. Three intervention conditions were designed in the experiment, comprising textbook problem, RWP, and RWP with mentoring. Our analysis showed that the differences in creativity among the three groups were non-significant, the RWP and RWPM groups showed stronger critical thinking than the TBP group, and the RWPM group exhibited stronger STEM interest and identity than the other two groups. This study revealed the effectiveness of adopting RWP strategy in developing secondary students’ perceived cognitive competencies and the feasibility of employing a mentoring mechanism for cultivating learners’ perceived non-cognitive characteristics. Hence, we also offered practical suggestions for teachers. (shrink)

While interest in doing business continues to rise steadily, information concerning the evolving social ethics of Chinese managers is sparse. This study reports the findings obtained from intensive interviews with thirty-nine Chinese advertising executives. In general, there appears to be developing a cautious optimism about the role of advertising in the Chinese economy. Findings are compared with earlier studies of American and Hong Kong managers and it is suggested that further research and observation is needed to track the development (...) of business ethics in this largest of the world's developing nations. (shrink)

本文旨在初步探索「限肉令」作為應對傳染病大流行和由工廠化畜牧業帶來的其他威脅的預防措施的正當性。「限肉令」並非指全面禁肉，而是以法律限制市民的人均肉品消耗量在滿足基本營養需求的範圍內。本文採用的進路是 緩解一些可能阻礙對此提案進行更宏觀、理性的思考的潛在心理拘繫。此進路參考了傅柯「日常經驗」(everyday experience) 的分析，和佛家倫理學回應全球環境倫理問題的策略。我們先以香港社會為主要案例研究，檢視形成「肉是必需的」一想法和嗜肉情結的社會模式。接著我們引入葷食心理學研究，討論嗜肉情結如何成為正面考慮「限肉令」的障 礙。我們也嘗試回應一些反對此提案的理由，包括來自自由主義 (Liberalism)的批評。 -/- This article explores the preliminary justifiability of meat restriction order as a preventive measure to the risks of pandemic and other forms of harm posed by factory farming. A meat restriction order seeks to limit citizens’ meat consumption at the level of meeting individuals’ basic nutrient needs. This article aims to loosen some potential psychological hooks that prevent a more expansive, rational deliberation of the proposal. Inspired by Michel Foucault’s analysis of “everyday experience” and the (...) Buddhist responses to global environmental issues, we investigate the social patterns that account for the formation of people’s meat commitment, using Hong Kong society as a major case study. With reference to scientific studies of meat-eaters’ psychology, we discuss how the meat commitment becomes a barrier for society to positively consider the justifiability of the proposal. We will also address a number of objections to our proposal, including those from liberalism. (shrink)

Peter Singer argues that we’re obligated to donate our entire expendable income to aid organizations. One premiss of his argument is "If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so." Singer defends this by noting that commonsense morality requires us to save a child we find drowning in a shallow pond. I argue that Singer’s Drowning Child thought experiment doesn’t justify this premiss. I offer (...) my own Drowning Children thought experiment, which should reveal that commonsense morality entails that premiss two is actually false. (shrink)

We examine the prevalent use of the phrase “local realism” in the context of Bell’s Theorem and associated experiments, with a focus on the question: what exactly is the ‘realism’ in ‘local realism’ supposed to mean? Carefully surveying several possible meanings, we argue that all of them are flawed in one way or another as attempts to point out a second premise (in addition to locality) on which the Bell inequalities rest, and (hence) which might be rejected in the face (...) of empirical data violating the inequalities. We thus suggest that the phrase ‘local realism’ should be banned from future discussions of these issues, and urge physicists to revisit the foundational questions behind Bell’s Theorem. (shrink)

In support of logical nihilism, according to which there are no logical laws, Gillian Russell offers purported counterexamples to two laws of logic. Russell’s examples rely on cleverly constructed predicates not found in ordinary English. I show that similar apparent counterexamples to the same logical laws can be constructed without exotic predicates but using only what ordinary language provides. We correctly analyze such arguments so that they do not actually constitute counterexamples to any logic laws. I claim that we can (...) and should do the same for Russell’s arguments. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 3, Page 274-282, March 2022.

Recent work on Mary Shepherd has largely focused on her metaphysics, especially as a response to Berkeley and Hume. However, relatively little attention has thus far been paid to the epistemological aspects of Shepherd’s program. What little attention Shepherd’s epistemology has received has tended to cast her as providing an unsatisfactory response to the skeptical challenge issued by Hume. For example, Walter Ott and Jeremy Fantl have each suggested that Shepherd cannot avoid Hume’s inductive skepticism even if she is granted (...) her metaphysics. In this paper, I examine Shepherd’s epistemology and argue that her response to Hume is more successful than the current literature suggests. In particular, I argue that, if Shepherd is granted her metaphysics, she can answer Hume’s demand for a rational justification of ordinary inductive inferences via a deductively justified uniformity principle and an appeal to parsimony. (shrink)

Aristotle is sometimes committed to a pattern of inference that moves from complexity offunctioning to complexity in the entity's metaphysical structure. This article argues that Aristotle rejects this inference in the case of the basic essence, the ultimate differentia that determines the kind to which the entity belongs. Specifically, the functional difference between active and passive reasoning in humans is not matched in the structure of the basic human essence. The basic essence is an immediate unity in the strong sense (...) that it is wholly without structural parts. Complex rational functioning emerges from a metaphysically simple basic essence. (shrink)

Descartes is often identified as having fired one of the opening shots of the scientific revolution: rejecting the four Aristotelian causes in favor of the efficient causes characteristic of mechanistic science. Scholars often write as if Cartesian science and corporeal metaphysics is best understood as a rejection of all causal notions other than the efficient. I argue that this is a mistake. On the contrary, Descartes endorses an avowedly Aristotelian notion of formal causality, inherited from Suárez, and this notion is (...) central to his physics and corporeal metaphysics. -/- I begin by tracing the history of the formal cause from Aristotle to Aquinas and Suárez. My main thesis here is that the Aristotelian notion of formal causation picks out two distinct explanatory modes. The first is linked to hylomorphic ontology, and so by rejecting hylomorphism Descartes rejects one sort of formal causation. Crucially, however, the Aristotelians also identify explanations from essence as a species of formal causality. Now, Descartes’s entire philosophical project is built upon the intellectual perception of the essences of God, mind, and matter; the uncovering and exercise of this broadly Platonic intellectual capacity is, as Descartes explained to Hobbes, a key raison d’être for project of the Meditations. So we might expect Descartes to embrace formal causal explanations from essence, which harmonize so thoroughly with his philosophical project. And indeed, this is what we find. This is most obvious in the case of the ontological argument. In the course of defending the claim that God is causa sui, Descartes explicitly appeals to formal causation and claims to be only be “following in the footsteps” of Aristotle. Thus, there is a Cartesian notion of formal causation that is both continuous with and distinct from its Aristotelian predecessors. -/- Other cases are less obvious, but no less important. For example, one of the most strikingly “modern” aspects of Cartesian physics is its emphasis on quantitative laws. Yet Descartes’s official account of how these laws explain particular phenomena is puzzling: He claims that the laws are causes. This, however, is prima facie absurd; Descartes seems to claim that the law of inertia is literally pushing the moon forward along its orbital path. I argue that this is not and cannot be what Descartes means. On the contrary, he clearly takes the laws of physics to follow from the divine essence, especially immutability and simplicity. The laws are true and epistemically accessible to us because they follow from the divine essence. In other words, Descartes thinks nomological explanation in physics is formal causal explanation from (the divine) essence. -/- Another central issue is the impenetrability, or solidity, of matter. I offer a close reading and reconstruction of Descartes’s argument that matter is necessarily but not essentially impenetrable, and I show how Descartes accounts for impenetrability without compromising his mathematical conception of the corporeal. Descartes argues that impenetrability follows from the nature of matter as geometrical extension, thereby reducing a paradigmatic quality of matter (its solidity) to quantity (extension). Note that the explanatory bite throughout is from essence. Thus, while solidity is not a genuine corporeal causal power, it does give bodies an ineliminable causal role in Cartesian physics and corporeal metaphysics. This role is as a formal cause, since every explanation from impenetrability is ipso facto an explanation from the corporeal essence, geometrical extension. This, in turn, shows that Descartes has a principled response to idealists, like Berkeley, who claim that matter’s lack of efficient causal power implies idealism; Berkeley’s mistake, Descartes would argue, lies in equating efficient causality with causality simpliciter. -/- Thus, I argue that formal causal explanation from essence is both well-attested textually in Descartes and is consonant with some of his deepest projects and commitments, including his Platonic intellectualism and mathematization of the corporeal. All this in mind, it is shocking how little attention has been paid to formal causation in Descartes’s metaphysics. If I am right, a thorough re-thinking of Descartes’s physics and metaphysics is long overdue. (shrink)

Most discussions of John Doris’s situationism center on what can be called descriptive situationism, the claim that our folk usage of global personality and character traits in describing and predicting human behavior is empirically unsupported. Philosophers have not yet paid much attention to another central claim of situationism, which says that given that local traits are empirically supported, we can more successfully act in line with our moral values if, in our deliberation about what to do, we focus on our (...) situation instead of on our moral character. Call this prescriptive situationism. In this paper, we will point toward a previously unrecognized tension between these two situationist theses and explore some ways for the situationist to address it. (shrink)

Perhaps death’s badness is an illusion. Epicureans think so and argue that agents cannot be harmed by death when they’re alive nor when they’re dead. I argue that each version of Epicureanism faces a fatal dilemma: it is either committed to a demonstrably false view about the relationship between self-regarding reasons and well-being or it is involved in a merely verbal dispute with deprivationism. I first provide principled reason to think that any viable view about the badness of death must (...) allow that agents have self-regarding reason to avoid death if doing so would increase their total well-being. I then show that Epicurean views which do not preserve this link are subject to reductio arguments and so should be rejected. After that, I show that the Epicurean views which accommodate this desideratum are involved in a merely verbal dispute with deprivationism. (shrink)

It is shown how, starting with the de Broglie–Bohm pilot-wave theory, one can construct a new theory of the sort envisioned by several of QM’s founders: a Theory of Exclusively Local Beables (TELB). In particular, the usual quantum mechanical wave function (a function on a high-dimensional configuration space) is not among the beables posited by the new theory. Instead, each particle has an associated “pilot-wave” field (living in physical space). A number of additional fields (also fields on physical space) maintain (...) what is described, in ordinary quantum theory, as “entanglement.” The theory allows some interesting new perspective on the kind of causation involved in pilot-wave theories in general. And it provides also a concrete example of an empirically viable quantum theory in whose formulation the wave function (on configuration space) does not appear—i.e., it is a theory according to which nothing corresponding to the configuration space wave function need actually exist. That is the theory’s raison d’etre and perhaps its only virtue. Its vices include the fact that it only reproduces the empirical predictions of the ordinary pilot-wave theory (equivalent, of course, to the predictions of ordinary quantum theory) for spinless non-relativistic particles, and only then for wave functions that are everywhere analytic. The goal is thus not to recommend the TELB proposed here as a replacement for ordinary pilot-wave theory (or ordinary quantum theory), but is rather to illustrate (with a crude first stab) that it might be possible to construct a plausible, empirically viable TELB, and to recommend this as an interesting and perhaps-fruitful program for future research. (shrink)

Multiple theories of problem-solving hypothesize that there are distinct qualitative phases exhibited during effective problem-solving. However, limited research has attempted to identify when transitions between phases occur. We integrate theory on collaborative problem-solving with dynamical systems theory suggesting that when a system is undergoing a phase transition it should exhibit a peak in entropy and that entropy levels should also relate to team performance. Communications from 40 teams that collaborated on a complex problem were coded for occurrence of problem-solving processes. (...) We applied a sliding window entropy technique to each team's communications and specified criteria for identifying data points that qualify as peaks and determining which peaks were robust. We used multilevel modeling, and provide a qualitative example, to evaluate whether phases exhibit distinct distributions of communication processes. We also tested whether there was a relationship between entropy values at transition points and CPS performance. We found that a proportion of entropy peaks was robust and that the relative occurrence of communication codes varied significantly across phases. Peaks in entropy thus corresponded to qualitative shifts in teams’ CPS communications, providing empirical evidence that teams exhibit phase transitions during CPS. Also, lower average levels of entropy at the phase transition points predicted better CPS performance. We specify future directions to improve understanding of phase transitions during CPS, and collaborative cognition, more broadly. (shrink)

Joshua Parker’s article on green inhaler prescribing is important and timely. I agree with much of it, specifically regarding the institutional duty to make climate-friendly changes (from environmentally expensive prescriptions to ‘greener,’ similarly effective ones). The challenge, however, comes in determining how that institutional obligation impacts the rights and duties of patients. In this commentary, I want to offer a friendly alternative to Parker’s view of individual patient obligation, which I suggest is important for reasons that go beyond this one (...) case. Parker’s broad view is that, because metered-dose inhalers (MDIs) emit far more greenhouse gases (GHG) than do dry powder inhalers (DPIs), and the two are equally effective for most patients, the healthcare system should switch most patients on MDIs to DPIs, and the patients have a pro tanto duty to accept this change.1 The problem is that no individual inhaler use causes harmful climate change, and so it is difficult to explain a duty not to use MDIs. It seems that my individual behaviour ‘makes no difference’ to climate change, so familiar more principles have a difficult time justifying a prohibition of such behaviour. Parker’s response to this worry fits into the consequentialist tradition,2 3 as he argues that each individual contribution to climate change causes some amount of ‘expected harm,’ because it contributes a little bit to future climate changes which will cause harm. And since we have a duty to minimise expected harm, we have a duty not to make such small contributions to climate change. I think we should be sceptical of this sort of argument. It makes the most sense if we endorse a bathtub metaphor, in which the atmosphere is like a bathtub, and once it is full, every …. (shrink)

Deprivation views of the badness of death are almost universally accepted among those who hold that death can be bad for the person who dies. In their most common form, deprivation views hold that death is bad because (and to the extent that) it deprives people of goods they would have gained had they not died at the time they did. Contrast this with categorical desire views, which hold that death is bad because (and to the extent that) it thwarts (...) people’s categorical desires. Categorical desires are desires that are not conditional upon one being alive; yet provide reason for the agent to continue living to ensure that those very desires are satisfied. I argue that categorical desire views are subject to two serious problems that deprivation views are not. First, categorical desire views entail that it is not bad for someone to not be resuscitated after dying a bad death. Second, categorical desire views cannot account for cases in which it is good to prevent people from coming into existence or cases in which it is good to prevent them from continuing to exist. After considering, and rejecting, various replies on behalf of categorical desire proponents, I conclude that we have good reason to reject categorical desire views in favor of deprivation views. (shrink)

The problem of divine hiddenness has in the recent literature joined the problem of evil as one of the principal positive arguments for atheism. My chief goal here is to mine Aquinas’s metaphysics and natural theology for a distinctively Thomistic response, making particular use of a neglected text in which he considers a similar issue. Towards the end of the paper I also consider some resources provided by Aquinas’s interpretation of revealed theology.

Joseph Raz’s service conception of law remains one of the best known theories of political authority. Setting aside ongoing debates about the nature of authority, I locate a problem in the basic justificatory structure of the service conception. I show that the service justification of the state does not yield the conclusion that the law generates exclusionary reasons, which are meant to be the key hallmark of authority. An automatic but defeasible _habit _of obeying the state is likely to lead (...) to better outcomes than exclusionary deference to the state. Given the instrumental justification of the service conception, this means that exclusionary reasons to defer do not obtain. Habituation and automaticity have been developed in other contexts and are here extended to the context of political authority. The possibility of habitual obedience undercuts Raz's theory while suggesting a new approach to the question of political authority. (shrink)

Most philosophers in the death literature believe that death can be bad for the person who dies. The most popular view of death’s badness—namely, deprivationism—holds that death is bad for the person who dies because, and to the extent that, it deprives them of the net good that they would have accrued, had their actual death not occurred. Deprivationists thus face the challenge of locating the time that death is bad for a person. This is known as the Timing Problem, (...) which is thought to be one of the biggest challenges facing views holding that death can be bad for the person who dies. Every possible answer to this question has been defended in the literature, yet each answer can seemingly be shown to be subject to compelling objections. In this paper, I argue that the force of the Timing Problem is illusory. Specifically, I argue that the problem, as formulated in the literature, is underspecified. Any adequately precise form of the question ‘When is death bad for the person who dies?’ is one to which there is a clear, decisive, and unproblematic answer. (shrink)