Background: This study is the result of findings from a previous dissertation conducted by this author on Student Nurses’ Unethical Behavior, Boundaries, and Social Media. The use of social media can be detrimental to the nurse–patient relationship if used in an unethical manner. Method: A mixed method, using a quantitative approach based on research questions that explored differences in student nurses’ unethical behavior by age (millennial vs nonmillennial) and clinical cohort, the relationship of unethical behavior to the utilization of social (...) media, and analysis on year of birth and unethical behavior. A qualitative approach was used based on a guided faculty interview and common themes of student nurses’ unethical behavior. Participants and Research Context: In total, 55 Associate Degree nursing students participated in the study; the research was conducted at Central Texas College. There were eight faculty-guided interviews. Ethical considerations: The main research instrument was an anonymous survey. All participants were assured of their right to an informed consent. All participants were informed of the right to withdraw from the study at any time. Findings: Findings indicate a significant correlation between student nurses’ unethical behavior and use of social media (p = 0.036) and a significant difference between student unethical conduct by generation (millennials vs nonmillennials (p = 0.033)) and by clinical cohort (p = 0.045). Further findings from the follow-up study on year of birth and student unethical behavior reveal a correlation coefficient of 0.384 with a significance level of 0.003. Discussion: Surprisingly, the study found that second-semester students had less unethical behavior than first-, third-, and fourth-semester students. The follow-up study found that this is because second-semester students were the oldest cohort. Conclusion: Implications for positive social change for nursing students include improved ethics education that may motivate ethical conduct throughout students’ careers nationally and globally for better understanding and promotion of ethics and behavior. (shrink)

"Dying in the City of Blues: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race and Health" by Keith Wailoo is reviewed.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 124.2 (2003) 317-320 [Access article in PDF] Julia T. Dyson. King of the Wood: The Sacrificial Victor in Virgil's Aeneid. Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 27. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. xii + 264 pp. Paper, $19.95. In this interesting study, Julia Dyson argues that the cult of Diana Nemorensis constitutes a crucial intertext for the interpretation of Aeneas' killing of Turnus at the (...) end of Virgil's Aeneidand the politico-religious order his action founds, namely, the Roman Empire. The project takes its bearings from the current renewal of scholarly interest in religion and sacrifice in Roman literature (e.g., Denis Feeney, Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs [Cambridge, 1998] and Philip Hardie, The Epic Successors of Virgil[Cambridge, 1993]). In the first part of the book, "Sacrificial Victory," Dyson revisits the much-discussed scenes in which sacrifice, both literal (Laocoön's rites in Troy, Aeneas' in Thrace) and symbolic (the deaths of Laocoön, Palinurus, Misenus, etc.), are described. In the second part, "The Ghastly Priest," Dyson breaks new ground by focusing on specific details of the ritual in Diana's Arician grove and their evocation in the Aeneid, rather than appealing to an abstract concept of "sacrifice," to document a systematic pattern of allusion to the cult throughout the poem. The resulting work advances our understanding of Virgil's use of an important cult in Roman religion to give thematic coherence to his poem.Each part comprises six chapters. Part 1 examines the poem's various sacrifice-scenes, which have received considerable attention in the scholarly literature—e.g., C. Bandera, "Sacrificial Levels in Virgil's Aeneid" (Arethusa14, 1981, 217-39) and J. J. O'Hara, Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergil's Aeneid(Princeton, 1990). Dyson is particularly concerned, however, to demonstrate that sacrifice fails consistently in the poem in order to develop the argument that Aeneas' death is demanded as the final sacrifice in the sequence. In her first chapter, "The Piaculaof Aeneas," she shows that Aeneas repeatedly fails to conduct sacrificial rites correctly, a failure that necessarily entails the gods' unceasing demand for further sacrifices. Chapter 2, "Tiber and Numicus," explores Virgil's allusions to the sacrificial fate of Aeneas—implied in the two divergent traditions of his end (either drowned or translated to heaven and deified while offering sacrifice on the banks of the river Numicus)—through the association, on the one hand, of Tiber with Numicus and, on the other, of Aeneas with Palinurus and other "sacrificial" victims.In chapter 3, "The Unburied Dead," Dyson develops her thesis further by demonstrating that such sacrificial deaths—often at sea and involving lack of burial—proliferate in the poem (Palinurus, Orontes, Leucaspis, Misenus, Caieta, Priam, Tarquitus) and thereby, she argues, prefigure the ultimate fate of Aeneas. Chapter 4, "Victor and Victim," examines instances of role-reversal in which sacrificer is transformed into sacrificial victim, not only in overtly religious contexts (as, e.g., Laocoön) but also, indeed primarily, on the battlefield in combat scenes which Virgil frequently invests with sacrificial detail. The diverse themes of rivers, sacrifice, and victory come together [End Page 317] in chapter 5, "Aeneas and Turnus," where Dyson analyses Aeneas' killing of Turnus (who is characterized, she argues, by association with the Tiber) in the final duel as a sacrifice that "both foreshadows and necessitates the sacrifice of Aeneas" (112). The last chapter in Part 1, "Juno's Honores," argues that Jupiter's promise to his consort that the Romans will outdo other nations in honoring her (Aen. 12.838-40) must be interpreted against Juno's demand for proper honors (i.e., sacrifices) at the poem's outset (1.46-49), a demand that can only be satisfied by further sacrifices—including that of Aeneas himself.Part 1 contains much interesting and innovative discussion of sacrifice along with some inevitable rehearsal of well-trodden ground, but it certainly establishes Dyson's thesis that Virgil alludes throughout the Aeneidto Aeneas' sacrificial... (shrink)

This paper presents an ‘over-representational’ account of blurred visual experiences. The basic idea is that blurred experiences provide too much, inconsistent, information about objects’ spatial boundaries, by representing them as simultaneously located at multiple locations. This account attempts to avoid problems with alternative accounts of blurred experience, according to which blur is a property of a visual field, a way of perceiving, a form of mis-representation, and a form of under-representation.

Colours appear to instantiate a number of structural properties: for instance, they stand in distinctive relations of similarity and difference, and admit of a fundamental distinction into unique and binary. Accounting for these structural properties is often taken to present a serious problem for physicalist theories of colour. This paper argues that a prominent attempt by Byrne and Hilbert to account for the structural properties of the colours, consistent with the claim that colours are types of surface spectral reflectance, is (...) unsuccessful. Instead, it is suggested that a better account of the structural properties of the colours is provided by a form of non-reductive physicalism about colour: a naïve realist theory of colour, according to which colours are superficial mind-independent properties. (shrink)

The eminent philosopher Keith Lehrer offers an original and distinctively personal view of central aspects of the human condition, such as reason, knowledge, wisdom, autonomy, love, consensus, and consciousness. He argues that what is uniquely human is our capacity for evaluating our own mental states (such as beliefs and desires), and suggests that we have a system for such evaluation which allows the resolution of personal and interpersonal conflict. The keystone in this system is self-trust, on which reason, knowledge, (...) and wisdom are grounded. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. The first is to use contemporary discussions of naïve realist theories of perception to offer an interpretation of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception. The second is to use consideration of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception to outline a distinctive version of a naïve realist theory of perception. In a Merleau-Pontian spirit, these two aims are inter-dependent.

Margaret Cavendish was a contemporary critic of the mechanistic theories of matter that came to dominate seventeenth-century thought and the proponent of a distinctive form of non-mechanistic materialism. Colour was a central issue both to the mechanistic theories of matter that Cavendish opposed and to the non-mechanistic alternative that she defended. This chapter considers the form of colour realism that Cavendish developed to complement her non-mechanistic materialism, and uses her criticisms of contemporary views of colour to try to better understand (...) the experimental approach to natural philosophy associated with writers like Hooke and Boyle. Allen argues that Cavendish’s discussion of colour in Observations upon Experimental Philosophy helps to show that there was a close connection between experimental philosophy and mechanistic theories of matter, and that, at least in the middle of the seventeenth century, experimental and speculative forms of mechanism were not mutually exclusive. (shrink)

Conscious experience of the sensation of smell provides exemplars of the sensation exhibiting to us what it is like. These exemplars of experiences can become vehicles or terms of representation and meaning. I call this exemplar representation and the process exemplarization. The notion of exemplarization is indebted to Hume and Goodman. I modify the notion here to apply to the sensation of smell. Exemplar representation differs from verbal representation because the exemplar, like a sample, exhibits what the represented items smell (...) like, a perfume, a spice, or an animal. The exemplar represents the sensation and, at the same, represents external objects, my example is the spray of a skunk, by exhibiting what a skunk smells like. The exemplar is part of the meaning and conception of the external object. This solves the problem, as Reid insisted, of how experience of smell justifies perceptual belief in the existence of external objects. The meaning of thought and discourse about external objects is not exhausted by the exemplarization of the sensation of smell, but the exemplar becomes evidence of their existence as part of the meaning of what they smell like. The evidence and justification of the exemplar is fallible and defeasible. However, exemplar justification, when undefeated by error in the way it coheres with a background system, becomes knowledge of the external world. (shrink)

In this article we explore and contrast the uses and gratifications of the internet for blind/visually impaired and deaf/hearing impaired individuals. The uses and gratifications approach integrates the different issues that surround disabled persons’ internet use into one rich and coherent framework which allows a better understanding of the relationship between benefits obtained from internet use, underlying needs and the barriers that create gaps between gratifications sought and obtained. Based on 21 in-depth interviews, our study shows that both visually and (...) hearing impaired individuals use the internet mostly for gathering information and for communicating with friends and family; meeting new people online was not a priority need. To a great extent these internet uses are driven by the underlying need for independence and active agency. Although our visually and hearing impaired informants share this need, the two groups differ in the gratifications obtained from the internet due to different barriers that hinder their use. (shrink)

Academic dishonesty among students is not confined to the dynamics of the classrooms in which it occurs. The institution has a major role in fostering academic integrity. Ways that institutions can have a significant impact on attitudes toward and knowledge about academic integrity as well as reducing the incidence of academic dishonesty are described. These include the content of an effective academic honesty policy, campus-wide programs designed to foster integrity, and the development of a campus-wide ethos that encourages integrity.

An explanation of the system of textual references employed in this paper may perhaps be of convenience to the reader. As a rule, references to other works have here been incorporated in the main body of the text, with the aid of abbreviations usually derived from the initial letters of the main words in their titles. Thus "HLL, p. 21." refers to page twenty-one of Thomas Hobbes: Leben and Lehre, by F. Tonnies.

The notion of simulation in dreaming of threat recognition and avoidance faces difficulties deriving from (1) some typical characteristics of dream artifacts (some “surreal,” some not) and (2) metaphysical issues involving the need for some representation in the theory of a perspective subject making use of the artifact. [Hobson et al.; Revonsuo].

This article argues that corrupt practices such as bribery and embezzlement, which scholars have previously assumed to be evidence of the breakdown of the state, may reinforce the state's administrative hierarchies under certain conditions. Drawing on a cross-national analysis of 132 countries and a detailed examination of the informal institutions of official graft in Ukraine, the article finds that where graft is systematically tracked, monitored, and granted by state leaders as an informal payment in exchange for compliance, it provides both (...) an added incentive to obey leaders' directives and the potent sanction of criminal prosecution in the event of disobedience. Where graft is informally institutionalized in this way, it provides the basis for state organizations that are effective at collecting taxes, maintaining public order, and repressing political opposition but that may undermine the development of liberal politics. (shrink)

This volume offers a general introduction to the field of semantics and provides coverage of the main perspectives.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 64.4 (2003) 599-618 [Access article in PDF] The "Herbert Butterfield Problem" and its Resolution Keith C. Sewell Dordt College Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979) 1 published The Whig Interpretation of History in 1931, a year after he became a Lecturer in the University of Cambridge. 2 He became Professor of Modern History in the university in 1944, the same year in which he published (...) The Englishman and His History. 3 This discussion addresses what J.G.A. Pocock referred to as das Herbert Butter-fieldproblem—that is, the problem of ascertaining the precise relationship between the arguments presented in these volumes. 4The Whig Interpretation of History of 1931 (hereafter, The Whig Interpretation) was a sustained critique of the motivation, methods and fallacious conclusions of the "Whig" practice of staging historiographical narratives anachronistically so as to produce a ratification of the present, or justification of a position currently espoused by the author. 5 The term "Whig," as Butterfield used it in 1931, referred to the nineteenth-century school of historiography that praised "progress," "protestantism," and "liberty" and that generally attributed the triumph of such principles to the beliefs and activities of generations of Whig politicians. 6 [End Page 599]The Whig Interpretation argued that the judgments concerning both progressive and reactionary individuals and movements in Whig historiography were anachronistic, in that they were based on general propositions held by the Whig historian in the present. To correct this error Butterfield argued that historiography should not be based upon any general propositions. Basing historiographical narratives on general propositions purporting to be of universal and unchanging validity was seen as inevitably placing them on an anachronistic basis. In The Whig Interpretation Butterfield required the historian to represent past "life itself " but to avoid doing so on the basis of a view or "interpretation" of past human experience and action. Historiographical narration should be free of any interpretative standpoint and equally open to any possible subsequent interpretation. For Butterfield "the historian carries us away from the world of general ideas. It is not for him to give a philosophical explanation of what happens in time and space"; "any history that he writes ought to be as capable of varied philosophical interpretation as life itself seems to be... the historian's explanation... is not a piece of general reasoning," and "if at any point we need further elucidation all that he can do is to take us into greater detail." 7 It seems appropriate to refer to this as Butterfield's "neutrality postulate." Butterfield subsequently used the term "technical history" to denote this methodological concept. 8As might be expected, such a neutrality postulate was replete with problems, however valid Butterfield's strictures towards Whig historiographical anachronism. How is the historian to abridge for the purposes of narration and explanation without interpreting? Butterfield argued that we are right to demand of the historian that "he shall not change the meaning and purport of the historical story in the mere act of abridging it." No theory should intrude. As the detailed complexity is abridged, there should be no loss of "the purport and tenor of the whole." 9 Abridgment was to be accomplished without interpretative perspective, even though sympathy and imagination are indispensable. 10 Such was Butterfield's prescribed antidote. Yet the exercise he recommended requires more than a specific statement of the concrete, the individual, and the particular. It also requires a general idea of the "meaning" of "the whole" that the historian is called upon not to distort. Indeed, Butterfield drew attention to the basis of his historical thinking when he asserted that while historical research does not provide proof of the existence of a providential order, it nevertheless provides evidence of how profound and mysterious are its workings. 11In The Whig Interpretation no attempt was made to reconcile the advocacy of a non-interpretative neutrality dealing exclusively with the individual, the [End Page 600] concrete and the particular, and Butterfield's actual belief in a providential order to which the historical process is subject. After 1931... (shrink)

When distributing an indivisible harm or benefit between multiple individuals, all of whom have an equal claim to avoid the harm or receive the benefit, it is commonly thought that one should hold a lottery in order to give each claimant an equal chance of winning. Moreover, it is often said that, by holding a lottery, one makes the resultant outcome inequality between those who receive the harm or benefit and those who do not less unfair than it would otherwise (...) have been. The stated view – the ‘egalitarian mixed view’ – claims that the unfairness of a brute luck ex post distribution is a function of both the degree of inequality in the ex post distribution itself, and the degree of inequality in the ex ante distribution of chances from which it is derived. Versions of the view have been prominently endorsed by a number of authors, including Arneson, Broome, Diamond, Lang, Otsuka, Parfit, and Temkin. The appeal of the view is linked to its apparent promise to accommodate intuitions that have been thought to threaten views which link the fairness of an outcome either solely to the ex ante distribution or solely to the ex post distribution. I argue, to the contrary, that the egalitarian mixed view is mistaken. In particular, I argue that the distinction at the heart of the view – that between outcomes and changes to probabilities – is morally arbitrary at best and incoherent at worst. I consider possible responses to the charge and find them wanting. I note that the failure of the egalitarian mixed view has significant consequences for policy, including most importantly for how we should interpret the goal of fair equality of opportunity. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the nature of software maintenance in light of software’s ontological status. A realist view of software need not commit us to the otiose position that software maintenance is impossible. Many philosophers and computer scientists have been concerned with drawing attention to software’s dual nature, its being both symbolic and physical, abstract and concrete. There are strong connections to be found between this topic and recent investigations in the philosophy of linguistics, particularly the metaphysics of words. It is (...) shown, contra Irmak, that software can be best understood through a realist type-token distinction employing an ontology of composite objects that was put forward by Katz. This approach employs both non-spatiotemporal abstract types and tokens of those types. Further developing Katz’s realist approach can help to make better sense of the dual nature of computational artefacts and their maintenance than the alternatives outlined. Young claims that a prevalent imbalanced view of maintenance as solely conservative is due to a misunderstanding of the nature of artefacts as being realisations of their producers’ intentions. This is a problem for theories of artefacts that employ intentions, such as the one involved with the realist view of software and software maintenance. Software maintenance on this view is not solely conservative but also adaptive and enhancive, constituting a source of counterexamples to Young’s claim. An alternative explanation of the imbalanced view is provided, based on observations by software engineers, especially Sommerville. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 68-70.

This paper considers the nature of a curriculum as presented in formal curriculum documents, and the inherent difficulties of representing formal disciplinary knowledge in a prescription for teaching and learning. The general points are illustrated by examining aspects of a specific example, taken from the chemistry subject content included in the science programmes of study that are part of the National Curriculum in England. In particular, it is suggested that some statements in the official curriculum document are problematic if we (...) expect a curriculum to represent canonical disciplinary knowledge in an unambiguous and authentic manner. The paper examines the example of the requirement for English school children to be taught that chemical reactions take place in only three different ways and considers how this might be interpreted in terms of canonical chemistry and within the wider context of other curriculum statements, in order to make sense of neutralisation and precipitation reactions. It is argued that although target knowledge that is set out as the focus of teaching and learning cannot be identical to disciplinary knowledge, the English National Curriculum offers a representation of chemistry which distorts and confuses canonical ideas. It is suggested that the process of representing the disciplinary knowledge of chemistry as curriculum specifications is worthy of more scholarly attention. (shrink)

In light of the complexity of some important matters, the best epistemic strategy for laypersons is often to rely heavily on the judgments of subject matter experts. However, given the contentiousness of some issues and the existence of fake experts, determining who to trust from the lay perspective is no simple matter. One proposed approach is for laypersons to attend to displays of intellectual virtue as indicators of expertise. I argue that this strategy is likely to fail, as non-experts often (...) display apparent intellectual virtues while legitimate experts often display apparent intellectual vices. Then, I argue that this challenge is difficult to overcome, as experts who attempt to better exhibit apparent intellectual virtues would likely compromise their own reliability in the process. Finally, I discuss two conclusions—one more optimistic and one more pessimistic—that one might draw concerning the role of intellectual virtue in the identification of experts. (shrink)

In this paper, I raise some interconnected concerns for Paul Horwich’s minimal theory of truth, framed by these three questions: How should the minimal theory be formulated? How does the minimal theory address the liar paradox? What is the explanatory role of the concept of truth? I conclude that we cannot be linguistic or conceptual deflationists about truth.

Ecophilosophers have long argued that addressing the environmental crisis not only demands reassessing the ethical aspects of human and nature relations, but also prevailing theories of human nature. Philosophical anthropology has historically taken this as its calling, and its resources may be profitably utilized in the context of ecophilosophy. Distinguishing between conservative and emancipatory naturalism leads to a critical discussion of the Cartesian culture/nature dualism. Marjorie Grene is discussed as a resource in the tradition of philosophical anthropology which enables us (...) to avoid dualistic thinking and espouse an emancipatory naturalism by resisting reductionism and acknowledging the diffuse dependence of human being on natural processes. In order to fully explicate the conditions of human dependence upon nature it becomes necessary to define an appropriate approach to ontology. This critical ontology facilitates a stratified understanding of the place of humans in nature without lapsing into reductivism or post-Kantian constructivism. It provides a sounder basis than either alternative for motivating a many- sided ecophilosophical perspective on human being. (shrink)

This article explores the pros and cons of teaching moral development and moral psychology theories and principles in media ethics courses. Five theorists are introduced: Kohlberg, Gilligan, Rest, Kierkegaard, and Perry. Debates over the descriptive-prescriptive nature of the models are discussed, and a number of suggestions about how to implement the models in the classroom are offered.