There is increasing attention given to academic integrity across university education and dental schools are not immune to this problem (Andrews et al. J Dent Educ 71; 1027–1039, 2007; Ford & Hughes Eur J Dent Educ 16(1):e180–e186, 2012). While there has been an increasing concern about academic dishonesty in written exams and assignments, there appears to be a false sense of security in the integrity of practical assessments, involving dental procedures on simulated patients.This paper will present a situational analysis of (...) two unusual cases of academic dishonesty in preclinical dental practical assessments. The first case involved a student bringing a previously prepared plastic tooth into the examination room and substituting it for the assessment tooth. The second case involved a student removing key teeth during the exam to enable them to have better access and advantage over others to complete the assessment task. These two cases resulted in a complete review of practical assessment procedures and the application of new processes to maintain academic integrity. (shrink)

This text offers a reflection on the nature and significance of narrative in human communication.

This is a book about the nature of film: about the nature of moving images, about the viewer's relation to film, and about the kinds of narrative that film is capable of presenting. It represents a very decisive break with the semiotic and psychoanalytic theories of film which have dominated discussion. The central thesis is that film is essentially a pictorial medium and that the movement of film images is real rather than illusory. A general theory of pictorial representation is (...) presented, which insists on the realism of pictures and the impossibility of assimilating them to language. It criticizes attempts to explain the psychology of film viewing in terms of the viewer's imaginary occupation of a position within the world of film. On the contrary, film viewing is nearly always impersonal. (shrink)

I develop an account of productive surprise as an epistemic virtue of scientific investigations which does not turn on psychology alone. On my account, a scientific investigation is potentially productively surprising when results can conflict with epistemic expectations, those expectations pertain to a wide set of subjects. I argue that there are two sources of such surprise in science. One source, often identified with experiments, involves bringing our theoretical ideas in contact with new empirical observations. Another, often identified with simulations, (...) involves articulating and bringing together different parts of our knowledge. Both experiments and simulations, then, can surprise. (shrink)

This article explores some of the roles of computer simulation in measurement. A model-based view of measurement is adopted and three types of measurement—direct, derived, and complex—are distinguished. It is argued that while computer simulations on their own are not measurement processes, in principle they can be embedded in direct, derived, and complex measurement practices in such a way that simulation results constitute measurement outcomes. Atmospheric data assimilation is then considered as a case study. This practice, which involves combining information (...) from conventional observations and simulation-based forecasts, is characterized as a complex measuring practice that is still under development. The case study reveals challenges that are likely to resurface in other measuring practices that embed computer simulation. It is also noted that some practices that embed simulation are difficult to classify; they suggest a fuzzy boundary between measurement and non-measurement. 1 Introduction2 A Contemporary View of Measurement3 Three Types of Measurement4 Can Computer Simulations Measure Real-World Target Systems?5 Case Study: Atmospheric Data Assimilation5.1 Why data assimilation?5.2 A complex measuring practice under development5.3 Epistemic iteration6 The Boundaries of Measurement7 Epistemology, Not Terminology. (shrink)

Our epistemic access to the past is infamously patchy: historical information degrades and disappears and bygone eras are often beyond the reach of repeatable experiments. However, historical scientists have been remarkably successful at uncovering and explaining the past. I argue that part of this success is explained by the exploitation of dependencies between historical events, entities, and processes. For instance, if sauropod dinosaurs were hot blooded, they must have been gluttons; the high-energy demands of endothermy restrict sauropod grazing strategies. Understanding (...) such dependencies extends our reach into the past in spite of incomplete data. In addition, this serves as a counterexample to two accounts of method in the historical sciences. By one, historical science proceeds by identifying ‘smoking guns’: traces that discriminate between live hypotheses. By the other, historical hypotheses are supported by consilience: the convergence of independent lines of evidence. However, testing for ‘coherency’ between past hypotheses also plays a critical role in historical confirmation. Just as historical scientists exploit dependencies between past entities and present entities to infer what the past was like, they also exploit dependencies between past entities themselves. I do not suggest that archetypical historical science proceeds in this manner. Rather, the lesson I draw is that historical methodology cannot be characterized as archetypically relying on one method or another. Historical science is at base opportunistic, and is resistant to unitary analyses. 1 Introduction2 Snowballs and Explosions: The Basic Idea3 Were Sauropods Endothermic?4 Dependent Entities and Interdependent Explanations5 Smoking Guns and Consilience. (shrink)

Informal political representation can be a political lifeline, particularly for oppressed and marginalized groups. Such representation can give these groups some say, however mediate, partial, and imperfect, in how things go for them. Coeval with the political goods such representation offers these groups are its particular dangers to them. Mindful of these dangers, skeptics challenge the practice for being, inter alia, unaccountable, unauthorized, inegalitarian, and oppressive. These challenges provide strong pro tanto reasons to think the practice morally impermissible. This paper (...) considers the question: On what conditions is the informal political representation of oppressed and marginalized groups permissible? By responding to skeptics’ challenges, I develop a systematic account of moral constraints that, if adopted, would make such representation permissible. The account that emerges shows that informal political representatives (IPRs) must aim to fulfill two sets of sometimes conflicting duties to the represented: democracy within duties, which concern how the representative treats and relates to the represented, and justice without duties, which concern how the representative’s actions advance the aims of the representation. (shrink)

Unable to answer the call of our patients: mental health nurses’ experience of moral distress When health practitioners’ moral choices and actions are thwarted by constraints, they may respond with feelings of moral distress. In a Canadian hermeneutic phenomenological study, physicians, nurses, psychologists and non‐professional aides were asked to identify care situations that they found morally distressing, and to elaborate on how moral concerns regarding the care of patients were raised and resolved. In this paper, we describe the experience of (...) moral distress related by nurses working in mental healthcare settings who believed that lack of resources (such as time and staff) leads to dispiritedness, lack of respect, and absence of recognition (for both patients and staff) which severely diminished their ability to provide quality care. The metaphors of flashlight and hammer are used to elaborate nurses’ possible responses to intolerable situations. (shrink)

ABSTRACTExperimentation is traditionally considered a privileged means of confirmation. However, why and how experiments form a better confirmatory source relative to other strategies is unclear, and recent discussions have identified experiments with various modeling strategies on the one hand, and with ‘natural’ experiments on the other hand. We argue that experiments aiming to test theories are best understood as controlled investigations of specimens. ‘Control’ involves repeated, fine-grained causal manipulation of focal properties. This capacity generates rich knowledge of the object investigated. (...) ‘Specimenhood’ involves possessing relevant properties given the investigative target and the hypothesis in question. Specimens are thus representative members of a class of systems, to which a hypothesis refers. It is in virtue of both control and specimenhood that experiments provide powerful confirmatory evidence. This explains the distinctive power of experiments: although modelers exert extensive control, they do not exert this control over specimens; although natural experiments utilize specimens, control is diminished. (shrink)

Biologists often study living systems in light of their having evolved, of their being the products of various processes of heredity, adaptation, ancestry, and so on. In their investigations, then, biologists think comparatively: they situate lineages into models of those evolutionary processes, comparing their targets with ancestral relatives and with analogous evolutionary outcomes. This element characterizes this mode of investigation - 'comparative thinking' - and puts it to work in understanding why biological science takes the shape it does. Importantly, comparative (...) thinking is local: what we can do with knowledge of a lineage is limited by the evolutionary processes into which it fits. In light of this analysis, the Element examines the experimental study of animal cognition, and macroevolutionary investigation of the 'shape of life', demonstrating the importance of comparative thinking in understanding both the power and limitations of biological knowledge. (shrink)

A trenchant and wide-ranging look at this alarming national trend, _Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline_ is unsparing in its account of the problem while pointing in the direction of meaningful and much-needed reforms. The “school-to-prison pipeline” has received much attention in the education world over the past few years. A fast-growing and disturbing development, it describes a range of circumstances whereby “children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.” Scholars, educators, parents, students, and organizers (...) across the country have pointed to this shocking trend, insisting that it be identified and understood—and that it be addressed as an urgent matter by the larger community. This new volume from the _Harvard Educational Review _features essays from scholars, educators, students, and community activists who are working to disrupt, reverse, and redirect the pipeline. Alongside these authors are contributions from the people most affected: youth and adults who have been incarcerated, or whose lives have been shaped by the school-to-prison pipeline. Through stories, essays, and poems, these individuals add to the book’s comprehensive portrait of how our education and justice systems function—and how they fail to serve the interests of many young people.". (shrink)

On the twelfth anniversary of the name of Mexican Gastronomy as intangible cultural heritage of humanity, its safeguarding continues in different contexts. Nayarit stands out for its natural and cultural wealth which is reflected in the local gastronomy, whose recognition attracts locals and foreigners to taste the delicious dishes. This text contains research results whose purpose is to document the cultural and natural elements that make up the gastronomic heritage of Nayarit with potential for the development of tourism products. Through (...) a qualitative, applied, descriptive research, historical sources were consulted and contrasted with the information collected through interviews, for the integration of a non-exhaustive inventory of the north coast region of Nayarit, which serves as a basis for the tourist product design. (shrink)

Corporate and commercial values are inducing some healthcare organizations to prescribe a customer service model that reframes the provision of nursing care. In this paper it is argued that such a model is incommensurable with nursing conceived as a moral practice and ultimately places nurses at risk. Based upon understanding from ongoing research on compassion fatigue, it is proposed that compassion fatigue as currently experienced by nurses may not arise predominantly from too great a demand for compassion, but rather from (...) barriers to enacting compassionate care. These barriers are often systemic. The paradigm shift in which healthcare environments are viewed as marketplaces rather than moral communities has the potential to radically affect the evolution of nursing as a discipline. (shrink)

The moral distress of psychologists working in psychiatric and mental health care settings was explored in an interdisciplinary, hermeneutic phenomenological study situated at the University of Alberta, Canada. Moral distress is the state experienced when moral choices and actions are thwarted by constraints. Psychologists described specific incidents in which they felt their integrity had been compromised by such factors as institutional and interinstitutional demands, team conflicts, and interdisciplinary disputes. They described dealing with the resulting moral distress by such means as (...) silence, taking a stance, acting secretively, sustaining themselves through work with clients, seeking support from colleagues, and exiting. Recognizing moral distress can lead to a significant shift in the way we perceive moral choices and understand the moral context of practice. (shrink)

T. G. Masaryk’s thought is famous for his concept of the Czech nation as well as his ideals of humanity. As a philosopher, sociologist, and politician, he was confronted with Czech anti-Semitism, and after Czechoslovakia was founded, with issues of the Jewish national minority. He tried to solve all the questions with respect to his ethical conviction and the ideals of democracy and equality. The most difficult personal situation for Masaryk emerged with the ‘Hilsner affair’, when his brave stance against (...) anti-Semitism caused animosity and even hatred from the public. As a consequence of that Masaryk had to abandon his public activities including lecturing at university for some time. The philosopher Jan Patočka analysed Masaryk’s involvement in this case and the following events in his study Masaryk’s struggle against anti-Semitism. Patočka pointed out that there is an interconnection between Masaryk’s involvement in this affair and his engagement in the question of Czech nationality, as Masaryk intended to improve the ethical level of the nation by disposing of bias and namely the ritual murder myth. The second part of the present contribution is focused on Masaryk’s views on Zionism and the assimilation movement and his ambiguity in relation to the issue. It seems that Masaryk’s concept of the Czech nation, formed for the struggle against the Habsburg monarchy, became inadequate in the new republic, as it was not inclusive of the many minorities, the Jewish one included. On the other hand, Masaryk’s ideals of humanity provide a certain solution on the level of ethics. (shrink)

This paper concerns the problem of how to give historical explanations of scientist's decisions to prefer one theory over another. It is argued that such explanations ought to contain only statements about the beliefs and preferences of the agents involved, and, in particular, ought not to include evaluative premises about the theories themselves. It is argued that Lakatos's attempt to build into such historical explanations premises of an evaluative kind is deficient. The arguments of Laudan to the effect that such (...) explanations depend crucially upon evaluative assumptions about the rationality or irrationality of decisions are examined. It is argued that they do not establish the need for such assumptions. Similar criticisms are then shown to be applicable to a version of the 'hermeneutical' model of explanation for human actions. (shrink)

We place agency front-and-centre in the aesthetics of science via an analysis of experimental design and performance. This first involves developing an account of scientific agency relevant to experiment. We do this via an analogy between experiments and games (as understood by Suits and Nguyen): both involve artificial practical environments designed to enable participants to exercise particular forms of agency. Second, we consider how this account of agency might underwrite an aesthetics of experiment. Experiments are well-designed not only when they (...) generate clear, elegant results, but also when they actively confront the experimenter with experimental phenomena, afford the exercise of agency throughout experimental runs and in iterative design and tweaking, and underlie stable, intersubjective experiences across agents. We apply the account to Newton’s optical work, and contrast this with contemporary experimental practices, where significantly more ‘experimental distance’ holds between the experimenter and the result. Taking the agency of experimental practice seriously enables a richer account of the role of aesthetic values, sensibilities, and judgments in science. (shrink)

If something is to stay in the memory, it must be burned in: only that which never ceases to hurt stays in the memory. Friedrich Nietzsche ( from On the Genealogy of Morals).

The past can be a stubborn subject: it is complex, heterogeneous and opaque. To understand it, one must decide which aspects of the past to emphasise and which to minimise. Enter frameworks. Frameworks foreground certain aspects of the historical record while backgrounding others. As such, they are both necessary for, and conducive to, good history as well as good philosophy. We examine the role of frameworks in the history and philosophy of science and argue that they are necessary for both (...) forms of enquiry. We then suggest that the right attitude towards frameworks is pluralism rather than monism: there is no single correct framework to be applied to a given scientific episode. Rather, a multitude of different frameworks are more or less appropriate given various contexts and aims. From this perspective, good frameworks generate and further, rather than frustrate, historical and philosophical enquiry. Our view sheds light on historical disagreement, and on the relationship between philosophy and history of science. (shrink)

Despite popular representations to the contrary, creative people are rarely insane. But creativity and madness may be connected in other ways; we find suggestions of schizotypy in the biographies of many artists, and schizophrenia and related conditions seem to be disproportionately represented in talented and creative families. There are attractions, therefore, in the idea that creativity depends on the controlled deployment of capacities that are uncontrolled in psychosis: an idea explored by psychoanalytically inclined writers such as Ernst Kris and Hanna (...) Segal. (shrink)

The evidence compiled in the target article demonstrates that the assumptions of cultural group selection theory are often met, and it is therefore a useful framework for generating plausible hypotheses. However, more can be said about how we can test the predictions of CGS hypotheses against competing explanations using historical, archaeological, and anthropological data.

I offer four ways of distinguishing paleobiology from neontology, and from this develop a sketch of the philosophy of paleobiology. I then situate and describe the papers in the special issue Paleobiology and Philosophy, and reflect on the value and prospects of paleontology-focused philosophy.

Recent calls for retraction of a large body of Chinese transplant research and of Dr Jiankui He’s gene editing research has led to renewed interest in the question of publication, retraction and use of unethical biomedical research. In Part 1 of this paper, we briefly review the now well-established consequentialist and deontological arguments for and against the use of unethical research. We argue that, while there are potentially compelling justifications for use under some circumstances, these justifications fail when unethical practices (...) are ongoing—as in the case of research involving transplantations in which organs have been procured unethically from executed prisoners. Use of such research displays a lack of respect and concern for the victims and undermines efforts to deter unethical practices. Such use also creates moral taint and renders those who use the research complicit in continuing harm. In Part 2, we distinguish three dimensions of ‘non-use’ of unethical research: non-use of published unethical research, non-publication, and retraction and argue that all three types of non-use should be upheld in the case of Chinese transplant research. Publishers have responsibilities to not publish contemporary unethical biomedical research, and where this has occurred, to retract publications. Failure to retract the papers implicitly condones the research, while uptake of the research through citations rewards researchers and ongoing circulation of the data in the literature facilitates subsequent use by researchers, policymakers and clinicians. (shrink)

This article examines the role of intermediaries in financial markets in fostering corporate sustainability. Responsible investment indices have been primarily identified as intermediaries that provide information regarding corporate social performance for investors and other stakeholders. The authors argue that the role of these intermediaries is not confined solely to information provision, but they may also incentivize high levels of CSP through mechanisms such as exclusion threats, signaling, and engagement. The authors rely on unique access to the archives of the FTSE4Good (...) Index to examine the effects of these mechanisms on CSP. The study shows that companies facing exclusion threats and signaling are more likely to comply with the intermediary’s criteria, and medium levels of engagement leads to higher levels of CSP. The authors contribute to the study of sustainability in financial markets by explicating the mechanisms that intermediaries and other financial actors could employ to foster greater corporate sustainability. (shrink)

The term compassion fatigue has come to be applied to a disengagement or lack of empathy on the part of care-giving professionals. Empathy and emotional investment have been seen as potentially costing the caregiver and putting them at risk. Compassion fatigue has been equated with burnout, secondary traumatic stress disorder, vicarious traumatization, secondary victimization or co-victimization, compassion stress, emotional contagion, and counter-transference. The results of a Canadian qualitative research project on nurses? experience of compassion fatigue are presented. Nurses, self-identified as (...) having compassion fatigue, described a change in their practice by which they began to shield and distance themselves from the suffering of patients and families. Time to help patients and families cope with suffering seemed unavailable, and many felt they were running on empty and, ultimately, impotent as nurses. Feelings of irritability, anger, and negativity arose, though participants described denying or ignoring these emotions as a way to try to survive their work day. Difficulties with work carried over into the nurses? personal lives, affecting their relationships with family and friends. Such experiences invariably called into question the participants? identity, causing them to reflect on the kind of nurse they were. The participants? compassion fatigue created a sense of hopelessness regarding positive change, although some nurses described strategies that seemed to help alleviate their compassion fatigue. (shrink)

Human rights may be the most globalized political value of our times. The rights paradigm has been criticized, however, for being theoretically unsound, legalistic, individualistic and based on the assumption that there is a given and universal humanness. Its use in the area of health is relatively new. Proponents point to its power to frame health as an entitlement rather than a commodity. The problems and the possibilities of a rights approach in addressing health ethics issues are explored in this (...) article. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the economic, social, environmental and cultural changes taking place in Bolsena, Italy, where agricultural livelihoods have rapidly diminished in the last two decades. I examine how gender dynamics have shifted with the changing values and livelihoods of Bolsena through three women’s narratives detailing their gendered experiences of environment, community and self. I reflect on these changes with Sabrina, who is engaged in a feminist community-based organization; Anna, who is running an alternative wine bar; and Isabella, (...) a jeweler, who is engaged in ecofeminist practices. My analysis is based on concepts developed by feminist political ecology: specifically, the theory of rooted networks from Dianne Rocheleau, Donna Haraway’s concept of naturecultures (and the work of J. K. Gibson-Graham on new economic imaginaries emerging from the politics of place. I aim to think with, reflect upon and provoke from the “otherwise”, taking into account the lived relations entwining nature and gender. My article looks at the interconnections of gender, environment and livelihoods, attentive to the daily needs, embodied interactions and labours of these three women as part of a reappropriation, reconstruction and reinvention of Bolsena’s lifeworld. By listening to the stories of their everyday lives and struggles, I show the dynamic potential of the politics of place and the efforts to build diverse economies and more ethical economic and ecological relationships based on gender-aware subjectivities and values. (shrink)

Pedagogical situations require white lies: in teaching philosophy we make decisions about what to omit, what to emphasise, and what to distort. This article considers when it is permissible to distort the historical record, arguing for a tempered respect for the historical facts. It focuses on the rationalist/empiricist distinction, which still frames most undergraduate early modern courses despite failing to capture the intellectual history of that period. It draws an analogy with Michael Strevens's view on idealisation in causal explanation to (...) distinguish between myths and caricatures. Myths are distortions of the historical record that undermine students' understanding of the past, despite having other pedagogical benefits. Caricatures are distortions that either increase or are indifferent to understanding of the past. Mythmaking, the article argues, is unjustified. (shrink)

At base, cognitive archaeology is in the business of using the archaeological record as an inroad to the abilities and expressions of past human minds. This does important work: explaining assemblages and patterns in the record, reconstructing past societies and people, as well as testing and probing hypotheses about minds and their evolution. However, there is often a long bow to be drawn from material traces to cognition; archaeological interpretation is often underdetermined. Using “Hawkes’ ladder” as a foil and drawing (...) on two cases of Neandertal cognition (mourning and numeracy), this chapter argues that hypotheses concerning cognitive features are not beyond archaeological inference. However, such hypotheses are often “thin”: concerning the capacities of past minds, as opposed to specific meanings or functions. Nonetheless, establishing thin hypotheses is critically important for at least two reasons. First, many productive debates in archaeology are about the cognitive requirements behind specific material traces. Second, establishing thin hypotheses about capacities is often necessary for disambiguating more detailed ideas about meaning and function, or about evolutionary histories, which affords both exploring cognitive possibility and potentially finding ways of testing between these. Inferential strategies in cognitive archaeology then can progressively circumscribe narrower forms of underdetermination, constraining and exploring the space of cognitive possibility. (shrink)

This article explores the question of the efficacy of state-level food sovereignty projects for democratizing local control over food systems by examining the case of Nicaragua, where the Ortega administration adopted food sovereignty into policy. The main task of food sovereignty is to transform the power relations that govern food systems. This article builds on the previous work of food sovereignty scholars by arguing that devolving power to local territories is necessary but insufficient for deepening democracy, and rather must be (...) coupled with broader transformations in state-society relations. In particular, it argues that how power is exercised in different sites and scales of decision-making is critical for gauging the extent to which local democratic control of food systems is realized. This study examines the implementation of two models of food governance that emerged in Nicaragua in the years immediately following Ortega’s election in 2007. It finds that while the two models created opportunities to deepen democracy, the state’s lack of support for autonomous citizen mobilization and their attempts to co-opt spaces for participatory democratic governance have strongly contributed to the failure of these mechanisms to enhance local control over food systems. (shrink)

In this article I construct a feminist notion of social citizenship from early twentieth-century feminism in the United States. Arguing that there are four aspects to the interconnection between women's citizenship and social democracy-new modes of citizenship, a socialized view of rights, new spaces for participation, and a female-privileged definition of gender equality-I suggest that such a concept could help us move from a welfare state to a feminist social democracy.

What is found at the historical beginnings of things is not the inviolable identity of their origin; it is the dissention of other things. It is diaparity. —Michel Foucault.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Qualitative Hedonism Objections to Mill's Qualitative Hedonism: Internal Inconsistency and Value Pluralism The Judgment of Competent Agents: Self‐Development and Value Measurement Self‐Development and Virtue Ethics Further Reading.