The use of voluntary assisted dying as an end‐of‐life option has stimulated concerns and debates over the past decades. Although public attitudes towards voluntary assisted dying (including euthanasia and physician‐assisted suicide) are well researched, there has been relatively little study of the different reasons, normative reasoning and rhetorical strategies that people invoke in supporting or contesting voluntary assisted dying in everyday life. Using a mix of computational textual mining techniques, keyword study and qualitative thematic coding to analyse (...) public submissions to a parliamentary inquiry into voluntary assisted dying in Australia, this study critically examines the different reasons, normative reasoning and rhetorical strategies that people invoke in supporting or contesting voluntary assisted dying in everyday life. The analysis identified complex and potentially contradictory ethical principles being invoked on both sides of the debate. These findings deepen our understanding of the moral basis of public reasoning about end‐of‐life matters and will help to inform future discussions on policy and law reform. The findings underscore the importance of sound normative reasoning and the use of caution when interpreting opinion polls to inform policy. (shrink)

What role do women play in the perpetuation of patriarchy? On the one hand, popular media urges women to be independent, outspoken, and career-minded. Yet, this same media glorifies a specific, sometimes voluntary, female submissiveness as a source of satisfaction. In philosophy, even less has been said on why women submit to men and the discussion has been equally contradictory—submission has traditionally been considered a vice or pathology, but female submission has been valorized as innate to women’s (...) nature. Is there a way to explore female submission in all of its complexity—not denying its appeal in certain instances, and not buying into an antifeminist, sexist, or misogynistic perspective? -/- We Are Not Born Submissive offers the first in-depth philosophical exploration of female submission, focusing on the thinking of Simone de Beauvoir, and more recent work in feminist philosophy, epistemology, and political theory. Manon Garcia argues that to comprehend female submission, we must invert how we examine power and see it from the woman’s point of view. Historically, philosophers, psychoanalysts, and even some radical feminists have conflated femininity and submission. Garcia demonstrates that only through the lens of women’s lived experiences—their economic, social, and political situations—and how women adapt their preferences to maintain their own well-being, can we understand the ways in which gender hierarchies in society shape women’s experiences. Ultimately, she asserts that women do not actively choose submission. Rather, they consent to—and sometimes take pleasure in—what is prescribed to them through social norms within a patriarchy. -/- Moving beyond the simplistic binary of natural destiny or moral vice, We Are Not Born Submissive takes a sophisticated look at how female submissiveness can be explained. (shrink)

The permissibility of actions depends upon facts about the flourishing and separateness of persons. Persons differ from other creatures in having the task of discovering for themselves, by conjecture and refutation, what sort of life will fulfil them. Compulsory slavery impermissibly prevents some persons from pursuing this task. However, many people may conjecture that they are natural slaves. Some of these conjectures may turn out to be correct. In consequence, voluntary slavery, in which one person welcomes the duty to (...) fulfil all the commands of another, is permissible. Life-long voluntary slavery contracts are impermissible because of human fallibility; but fixed-term slavery contracts should be legally enforceable. Each person has the temporarily alienable moral right to direct her own life. (shrink)

In Leviathan chapter 31 Hobbes refers to atheists and deists as "God's enemies." The contrast class is God's subjects in what he calls the Kingdom of God by Nature. This chapter offers an account of how one submits to God to become God's natural subject. The explanation reinforces the distinction between a primary and secondary state of nature. Submission to God obligates natural subjects to obey the laws of nature because the precepts of those laws acquire thereby the normative (...) force of law. The view further explains why submission to God differs from submission to a civil sovereign, despite the fact that both are voluntary. (shrink)

In 2002, I wrote an editorial in this Journal arguing that it was time to review the structure and function of ethics committees in the USA, Australia and the UK.1 This followed the deaths of Ellen Roche and Jesse Gelsinger, which were at least in significant part due to the poor functioning of research ethics committees in the USA.2 In the case of Ellen Roche, it was the failure to require a systematic review of the existing literature which led to (...) her death. Iain Chalmers and I had previously documented in 1996 the failure of ethics committees to require systematic review.3 In 1998, at the time of revising the previous guidelines and forming the first Australian National Statement on Research Ethics, I made a public submission to the Australian Health Ethics Committee arguing that the new guidelines for RECs should include a person with skills in conducting systematic reviews of the literature and that the requirement to have a religious representative on the committee be replaced with the requirement to have an ethicist. Neither of these changes was made. I argued, ‘It is time to ask whether institutional RECs should be abandoned in favour of expert committees that cover many institutions—suprainstitutional specialist committees. Supraregional specialist ethics committees could specialise—for example, in genetic research, cancer clinical trials, dermatology, respiratory physiology and each of the specialist areas of medical research. An example of such a committee is provided by the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand research ethics committee, which reviews multicentre trials of respiratory drugs’.4 Around that time, I was involved ‘at the coal face’ as Chair of the Department of Human Services Ethics Committee in Victoria. In a public presentation, I arguedThere are two philosophical views of what ethics review is. On the …. (shrink)

RESUMEN ¿Cómo se resuelven las crisis políticas que se originan a partir del conflicto entre sociedades? ¿Qué acciones es necesario emprender? En este artículo abordaremos las respuestas que Jenofonte plantea a estas preguntas en la Ciropedia a partir de los casos de Armenia y Caldea. Para ello estudiaremos cada una de las situaciones, así como los modos de resolución que utiliza Ciro para afrontarlas. En este sentido, concluiremos que Jenofonte presenta a Ciro como un líder excepcional, que hace uso de (...) una doble estrategia: generosidad y coacción, conceptos en apariencia contradictorios, deberán ser administrados conjuntamente para lograr el sometimiento voluntario de un pueblo. ABSTRACT How to solve political crisis arising from the conflict between different societies? What actions ought to be undertaken? In this article we will address the answers that Xenophon gives to these questions in Cyropaedia having in mind the Armenian and Chaldean affairs. For doing this, we will study the situations, as well as the ways of resolution Cyrus used to deal with them. We will conclude that Xenophon presents Cyrus as an exceptional leader who makes use of a double strategy: generosity and coercion. Apparently contradictory concepts, they must be administered together in order to reach the voluntary submission of a foreign society. (shrink)

The figure of the Palmyrean queen Zenobia plays an important part in three vitae of the Historia Augusta. The discrepancy in her representation was attributed to different sources or different authors. Since the representation of Zenobia even changes within one vita, there is no need to assume different authors. Being a counterpart to Gallienus, Odaenathus and Aurelianus, the figure of Zenobia changes correspondingly to these male figures. Her voluntary submission to the real – male – emperor finds an (...) equivalent in the nation's voluntary submission to the real – male – ruler. The category of gender proves valuable in the analysis of characterisation and text intention. The vita Aureliani is interpreted as deconstructing the panegyric tones of the vitae Gallieni and triginta tyrannorum. (shrink)

Seven COVID-19 vaccines are now being distributed and administered around the world (figure correct at the time of submission), with more on the horizon. It is widely accepted that healthcare workers should have high priority. However, questions have been raised about what we ought to do if members of priority groups refuse vaccination. Using the case of influenza vaccination as a comparison, we know that coercive approaches to vaccination uptake effectively increase vaccination rates among healthcare workers and reduce patient (...) morbidity if properly implemented. Using the principle of least restrictive alternative, we have developed an intervention ladder for COVID-19 vaccination policies among healthcare workers. We argue that healthcare workers refusing vaccination without a medical reason should be temporarily redeployed and, if their refusal persists after the redeployment period, eventually suspended, in order to reduce the risk to their colleagues and patients. This ‘conditional’ policy is a compromise between entirely voluntary or entirely mandatory policies for healthcare workers, and is consistent with healthcare workers’ established professional, legal and ethical obligations to their patients and to society at large. (shrink)

This book reviews Foucault's philosophy on power and ethics to investigate the possibility of restructuring freedom available to the subject. Foucault's Kantian inspired view of critique as an art of voluntary inservitude, of reflective indocility is applied to biopolitics, bioethics, artificial intelligence, and bureaucracy. This work of freedom is a process of self-creation where the subject seeks to rearrange power relations and open possibilities for autonomy and agency. This book shows how the critical attitude identifies limitations of power to (...) open the possibility for transgression as an escape from normalized submission. This involves revealing and exposing unrecognised forms of power influencing the subject to enable new ways to think differently. Psychoanalysis combined with Foucault is also shown to enhance an understanding of power relations and the task of an ethics of freedom. This is then integrated with a philosophy of place to better understand the relationship between home, self-creation, ethics, and freedom. The book outlines that Foucault's philosophy has important relevance to the writings of Heidegger, Lacan, Aristotle, Jung and Arendt which is essential reading for students and professionals of politics, ethics, phenomenology and psychoanalysis. (shrink)

The great challenge of rhetorical argument is to make discourse ethical without making it less logical. This challenge is of central importance throughout the full range of practical argument, and understanding the relation of the ethical to the logical is one of the principal contributions the humanities, in this case the study of rhetoric, can make to legal scholarship. Aristotle’s Rhetoric shows how arguments can be ethical and can create ethical relations between speaker and hearer. I intend to apply Aristotle’s (...) analysis to a phenomenon that did not yet exist for him, that of authority, by asking how the acts of asserting and accepting authority can be ethical acts. I take as a test case a peculiarly unfortunate and inept appeal to authority, that offered by the counsel for the District of Columbia in arguing Bolling v Sharp who cited Taney’s opinion in Dred Scott to clinch his point. By seeing just what goes wrong in such a maladroit appeal, I explore the rational, voluntary and ethical dimensions of a decision to accept a given commitment to authority. I use Joseph Raz’s analysis of authority and the relation of reason to authority, yet think I go beyond Raz by exploring the deliberate and voluntary nature of submission to authority. Choosing to be bound by an authority is an ethical act. As such it is always rational and yet never purely rational. The Supreme Court’s choice of authorities is part of its making itself into an authority, and is a paradigm of the ethical act of choosing to be obligated. Choosing to be committed or obligated is a central paradox of political theory and considerations of authority and obligation, at least since early social contract theorists. However, its importance for judicial reasoning, which at the same time chooses to submit to authority and itself becomes an authority, has not been noted. Consideration of the relations between the ethical and the logical can help us better to articulate the constitution of ethical authority. (shrink)

As a narrative-imaginary dispositive, the miracle creates a new configuration of power by restoring a polarization between sovereign desire to dominate and a certain voluntary desire for submission. The critique of miracles, on the theoretical level, does not prevent Spinozism from developing, on the practical level, an imaginary reconstruction of power based on the analogy between theology and politics, as can be seen in Spinoza’s analysis of the Hebrew State. Based on the two explanations Spinoza gives regarding the (...) formation of the Hebrew State, this article sets out to show how the effectiveness of the miracle, disjointed on the theoretical level, is maintained on the practical level, along with the validity of a theological imaginary whose political dimension remains active. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plato’s Second Republic: An Essay on the Laws by André LaksSusan Sauvé MeyerLAKS, André. Plato’s Second Republic: An Essay on the Laws. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2022. x + 278 pp. Cloth, $35.00When the unnamed Athenian of Plato’s Laws specifies the constitution and law code for the (fictional) city of Magnesia, he retreats from some of the more notorious principles that structure the ideal city in the (...) Republic, most notably the prohibition against private property and private families for the city’s rulers and the explicit mandate that the rulers be philosophers. Magnesia will be governed by its property-owning citizens in a constitutional regime where law is the supreme political authority. Both [End Page 355] retreats are marked by the Athenian as making Magnesia “second best” in relation to the ideal.One of Laks’s striking theses is that the ideal from which the Laws’s second-best city falls short is not simply that of the Republic. Within the Laws itself, he argues, the Athenian articulates a “legislative utopia” and a constitutional ideal that are only imperfectly realized in the city identified as “second.” The constitutional ideal is articulated in book 3 in the mandate that a constitution achieve a mean (meson) between democracy and monarchy, while the legislative ideal underwrites the mandate in book 4 that laws should have persuasive preludes.While the constitutional “mean” mandated in book 3 is often characterized as “the mixed constitution,” Laks argues that what is mandated is not a mixture of monarchical and democratic institutions, but rather a synthesis of democracy and monarchy, with each institution implementing both democratic and monarchical principles. Laks calls such a mean a “middle.” If the mandated constitutional “middle” were fully achieved, he claims, democratic equality would be synthesized with the inequality of monarchy and thereby transformed from arithmetical into proportional equality. Similarly, democratic freedom would be synthesized with submission to authority, and transformed from negative freedom from authority into the positive freedom of rationality. Laks proposes that the freedom to emerge from this “metamorphosis” is the “voluntary servitude to the laws” lauded in book 3. While he acknowledges that Plato nowhere identifies such servitude to law as freedom, Laks locates that conception on the horizon of the conceptual metamorphosis of freedom that he finds in the Laws.Neither synthesis—of equality or of freedom—is perfectly achieved in the city whose constitution and law code are specified in the Laws, according to Laks; this is the burden of his remark that the constitution of Magnesia is “a mixture (sit venia verbo) of a mix and a middle.” A residue of unmitigated arithmetical equality remains in the constitution specified in book 6 to the extent that it includes a paradigmatically democratic procedure, the lottery, among the otherwise meritocratic procedures for appointing citizens to public office. A residue of despotism remains in the law code of Magnesia to the extent that the persuasive preludes to its statutes employ the manipulative rhetoric of praise and blame rather than philosophical arguments that display the rational grounding of the law in divine reason.Both retreats from the ideal are necessitated, on Laks’s interpretation, by the imperfect rationality of human beings. Not every person can learn to appreciate the superiority of proportional to arithmetical equality, or the perfect rationality of the laws’ prescriptions. In a “legislative utopia” citizens will obey the law because they appreciate its rational grounding, but that ideal is not fully achievable in a community of human beings. However rational the laws’ prescriptions may be, citizens’ obedience must be secured by nonrational means as well—hence the Athenian’s characterization of the politeia of the Laws as a “tragedy” (817b). [End Page 356]Laks’s exposition of these (and other) themes over the course of the volume is cumulative rather than sequential, diffuse rather than regimented, and deliberately sensitive to the literary features of Plato’s text and the ways in which its message may be allusive, indirect, or equivocal. What emerges from Laks’s learned engagement with the text is an interpretation that is “suggested” (an oft used phrase in the volume) rather than mandated by... (shrink)

There are several primary questions which can lead to asking about the religious urgency related to the mankind’s life. “Is it available for a man to escape from the existence of religion?” “Why does a man need a religion? Why should Islam be born as a religion?” These questions are answered by M. Quraish Shihab based on his commentary. He stated that to have a belief for a man is a nature. While the reason that brings Islam as a fitrah (...) religion is, it is a belief which was brought by the last prophet: Muhammad. The focus of this research is ‘how is the authenticity of the Islamic concept as the fitrah religion according to M. Quraish Shihab?’ This study aimed to analyze the perspective of M. Quraish Shihab as a fitrah religion based on the Qur’an, which points out to take any information about the authenticity of the concept of Islam as a fitrah religion. This research implements library research which applied hermeneutics method. The theory of Fazlur Rahman is used here, which strengthens to the double movement theory on tracking either the authenticity of the message or moral ideal as what outlined in Tafsir Al-Mishbah. Based on the research, it is concluded that the authentic meaning of the concept of Islam as a fitrah religion according to the Quraish Shihab is an exclusive belief and a positive behavior. All prophets are Muslims, but all humans alive after Prophet Muhammad should embrace Islam as part of their submission form to Allah by voluntary and peaceful ways. Non-Muslims should be persuasively introduced to Islam. Because do not embrace Islam not only ignoring fitrah but also denying Muhammad as the last prophet. Nevertheless, M. Quraish Shihab considers it’s important for Muslims to respect other religions in order to maintain social justice by living in peace, mutual understanding and cooperation without sacrificing their faith. (shrink)

Classical Christology provides reason to reject the principle of alternative possibilities [PAP]. The Gethsemane prayer highlights an instance in which Jesus Christ performs a voluntary and morally significant action which he could not have done otherwise, namely, Christ’s submission to God’s will. Two classical Christological doctrines undermine PAP: impeccability, and volitional non-contrariety. Classical Christology teaches that Christ could not sin, and that Christ’s human will could not be contrary to his divine will. Yet, classical Christology also teaches that (...) Christ’s death is voluntary and morally praiseworthy. First, I present the relevant elements of classical Christology: dyothelitism, impeccability, and volitional non-contrariety. Second, I define and disambiguate varieties of PAP. Third, I show that Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane disproves PAP. I respond to several objections along the way. Finally, I reflect on the implications of denying PAP. (shrink)

While recent years have seen a substantial increase in research on clientelism, nearly all of it pertains to clientelism as an electoral strategy. This paper offers a general stocktaking of our understanding of the key issues in how clientelism arises, performs and (perhaps) diminishes, drawing on electoral studies while recognizing that findings in this realm do not always generalize to others. The specific questions addressed are: (1) What are the commonalities between electoral and non-electoral clientelism, and in what respects is (...) the former distinctive? (2) What is the salience of the “commitment problem”—uncertainty over the future performance of clientelist offers—in both electoral clientelism and clientelism in general? (3) Given that clientelism entails exchanges over status inequalities, what is its relevance for studies of prosocial and dominant/submissive behaviors, and vice versa? (4) How should we view the relationship between the extent of clientelist practices in a given society and its degree of social, political and economic development or institutionalization? (5) Does clientelism require voluntary participation, or can it accommodate aspects of coercion? (6) How should clientelism be viewed normatively according to commonly applied criteria? The paper concludes with a few issues that deserve greater attention in future research. (shrink)

Free will, which is dealt with under the title of "acts of the servants" in the Kalām literature, is one of the fundamental issues of the science of Kalām. Benjamin Libet's famous experiment, which he conducted in order to seek an answer to the question of free will, caused the free will debates to move to the field of neuroscience. The logic of Libet's experiment is to compare the neural activity in the brain with the moment when a person is (...) conscious while performing a voluntary act. In Libet's subjects, it was observed that brain activity in the decision-making process started at the moment of unconsciousness. The results of this experiment have long been interpreted in neuroscience as showing that free will is an illusion. Although Libet claimed that conscious intention creates a veto effect by stopping the action at the last moment, recent studies have shown that Libet's veto solution for free will does not work. The most vocal critics of the implications of the Libet experiment from the beginning have generally been philosophers. In this article, the criticisms of the Libet experiments by names such as Marcel Brass, Alfred Mele, and Peter Ulric Tse are presented. However, especially in recent years, neuroscientist Aaron Schurger's experimental and mathematical reinterpretation of the concept of readiness potential, which is key for Libet, and his proposal of an alternative model are mentioned. The article discusses Schurger's claim that the readiness potential may not actually reflect a brain that is ready. According to Schurger, the readiness potential is just random fluctuations that already exist in the brain and is not the sole cause of decisions. In fact, it has been argued that the readiness potential is related to neural noise in the brain rather than to the decision-making process. Thanks to Schurger's critique and the new model, it became clear that the Libet experiment did not rule out free will. But it does not constitute a proof of free will either. While the subject remains a mystery, it is unthinkable for Kalām to remain aloof from these debates. The article also touches upon the views of the Jabriyya, Ash'ariyya, Maturidiyya and Mu'tazilah in Kalām regarding the acts of the servants and questions what the Libet experiment can mean for these schools. Accordingly, while Jabriyya, with its deterministic view, may correspond to an erroneous interpretation of the Libet experiment, Mutazila may be the school that will have the most difficulty in explaining the Libet experiment. As a result, it seems that the views that consider both human agency and God's creation in voluntary acts are the most accurate. Moreover, despite the lack of a clear explanation of the theory of kasb in the Ash'ariyya, the Maturidiyya's assertion that the juz'i will is uncreated and that two influences affect voluntary acts suggests that this school provides the most solid foundation for free will. In order for such discussions to proceed on a healthy basis, it is very important to follow multidisciplinary methods. In addition, as much as Kalāmists should approach scientific studies seriously, it is important that they do not adopt a completely submissive attitude in the face of scientific claims, and that they learn the relevant critiques from experts in the field. Only in this way, we believe that the scientific inferences to be made will be based on a solid ground and that Kalāmists can make serious contributions to the solution. (shrink)

On March 12, 2009, a Sikorsky S-92A helicopter travelling to two offshore oil installations crashed into the sea about 55 km away from the coastal city of St. John’s in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It sank quickly with the loss of 17 lives. There was one survivor. The article examines the circumstances of the crash to assess the effectiveness of an instrumental, business case for safety and, by extension, for corporate social responsibility. The article fills a gap in the business (...) and the management literature by adopting a qualitative, case study methodology to complement earlier, predominantly quantitative research. The study analyzes a comprehensive set of documentary data available from the offshore regulator’s public inquiry website, including many days of verbatim testimony from the industry, the union, regulators, investigators, the lone survivor and families of the deceased, in addition to written submissions and expert reports. Investigatory reports from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada and the NL Inquiry were analyzed, as were regulatory documents and media coverage. Although offshore safety has improved since the Ocean Ranger disaster in 1982, the empirical evidence in this case study adds to our understanding of how reliance on a voluntary, instrumental business case for CSR in the absence of a normative concept of CSR is likely to fail, largely because of the existence of a powerful tension between oil exploration and production and investment in safety. (shrink)

The Voluntary Simplicity Movement can be understood broadly as a diverse social movement made up of people who are resisting high consumption lifestyles and who are seeking, in various ways, a lower consumption but higher quality of life alternative. The central argument of this paper is that the Voluntary Simplicity Movement or something like it will almost certainly need to expand, organise, radicalise and politicise, if anything resembling a degrowth society is to emerge in law through democratic processes. (...) In a sentence, that is the ‘grass-roots’ or ‘bottom up’ theory of legal and political transformation that will be expounded and defended in this paper. The essential reasoning here is that legal, political and economic structures will never reflect a post-growth ethics of macro-economic sufficiency until a post-consumerist ethics of micro-economic sufficiency is embraced and mainstreamed at the cultural level. (shrink)

Margaret Otlowski investigates the complex and controversial issue of active voluntary euthanasia. She critically examines the criminal law prohibition of medically administered active voluntary euthanasia in common law jurisdictions, and carefully looks at the situation as handled in practice. The evidence of patient demands for active euthanasia and the willingness of some doctors to respond to patients' requests is explored, and an argument for reform of the law is made with reference to the position in the Netherlands (where (...) active voluntary euthanasia is now openly practiced). (shrink)

The degree of autonomy present in the choices made by individuals with an addiction, notably in the context of research, is unclear and debated. Some have argued that addiction, as it is commonly understood, prevents people from having sufficient decision-making capacity or self-control to engage in choices involving substances to which they have an addiction. Others have criticized this position for being too radical and have counter-argued in favour of the full autonomy of people with an addiction. Aligning ourselves with (...) middle-ground positions between these two extremes, we flesh out an account of voluntary action that makes room for finer-grained analyses than the proposed all-or-nothing stances, which rely on a rather static metaphysical understanding of the nature of the voluntariness of action. In contrast, a dynamic concept of voluntary action better accounts for varying levels of voluntariness of the person with an addiction which takes into consideration internal and external determinants of choice. Accordingly, like other components of autonomous choices such as level of information, voluntariness can fluctuate. Therefore, there are important implications for research and clinical ethics in matters of consent, recruitment, and therapeutic approaches. Overall, our proposal is inspired by a pragmatist understanding of voluntary action, notably with respect to how voluntariness is both informed by actions and experiences that shape one's view of the world. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of the societal impact of a rising dementia population and examines the legal and ethical implications posed by voluntary registries as a community-oriented solution to improve interactions between law enforcement and individuals with dementia. It provides a survey of active voluntary registries across the United States, with a focus on Arizona, which has the highest projected growth for individuals living with dementia in the country.

Criminal offenders may be offered to participate in voluntary rehabilitation programs aiming at correcting undesirable behaviour, as a condition of early release. Behavioural treatment may include direct intervention into the central nervous system (CNS). This article discusses under which circumstances voluntary rehabilitation by CNS intervention is justified. It is argued that although the context of voluntary rehabilitation is a coercive circumstance, consent may still be effective, in the sense that it can meet formal criteria for informed consent. (...) Further, for a consent to be normatively valid (“take the wronging out of the act”) under a coercive circumstance, the subject to be treated must (1) have the sovereign authority to consent, and (2) the offer-giver must be in the right normative position to make the offer. While I argue that subjects do have the sovereign authority to consent to treatment, I also argue that inappropriate offers yield invalid consents. Considerations on inappropriate offers should therefore inform which kinds of CNS intervention-based rehabilitation schemes the state may propose as part of the criminal justice system. Yet as I conclude in this paper, while there are some intrinsic constraints on voluntary rehabilitation programs, the main constraints on voluntary rehabilitation are likely to be contingent overriders. However, CNS intervention is not ruled out as such in the context of voluntary rehabilitation. (shrink)

Feminists have argued that oppressive socialization undermines the liberal model of autonomy. We contend that this argument can also be employed effectively as a challenge to the standard bioethical model of informed consent. We claim that the standard model is inadequate because it relies on presumptions of procedural autonomy and rational choice that overlook the problem of how agents are often socialized so that they adopt and internalize oppressive norms as part of their motivational structure. The argument that oppressive socialization (...) undermines liberalism’s view of autonomy is most relevant to what Beauchamp and Childress call the threshold elements of informed consent—competence and voluntariness. We show how these elements fail to account for morally relevant factors such as oppressive socialization. (shrink)

A key question in the theory of migration and in public debates on immigration policies is when migration can be said to be voluntary and when, conversely, it should be seen as nonvoluntary. In a previous article, we tried to answer this crucial question by providing a list of conditions we view as sufficient for migration to be considered nonvoluntary. According to our account, one condition that makes migration nonvoluntary is when people migrate because they lack acceptable alternatives to (...) doing so. In this article, we take the opportunity to further explore and clarify this crucial condition. More specifically, we focus on two main sets of questions. First, we ask whether migration is always voluntary when it serves goals that are voluntarily chosen, and whether those who decide to migrate voluntarily but only have the option of choosing among a limited set of dangerous, harmful, or illegal means for doing so, can be said to be forced to choose those means. Second, we ask whether what counts as “nonacceptable” alternatives should also include cases in which people could have their needs and fundamental rights met, but at the cost of betraying their moral principles or conceptions of the good. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 8, Page 27-29, August 2011.

The cost of incongruent stimuli is reduced when conflict is expected. This series of experiments tested whether this improved performance is due to repetition priming or to enhanced cognitive control. Using a paradigm in which Word and Number Stroop alternated every trial, Experiment 1 assessed dynamic trial-to-trial changes. Incongruent trials led to task-specific reduction of conflict (trial n ϩ 2) without cross-task modulation (trial n ϩ 1), but this was fully explained by repetition priming. In contrast, an increased ratio of (...) incongruent words did lead to sustained task-specific enhancement, above and beyond.. (shrink)

Read Jus, 17 June 1887): The voluntary taxation proposal really means the dissolution of the State into its constituent atoms, and leaving them to recombine in some way or no way, just as it may happen. There would be nothing to prevent the existence of five or six "States" in England, and members of all these "States" might be living in the same house! The proposal is, it appears to me, the outcome of an idea in the minds of (...) those who propound it that the State is, or ought to be, founded on contract, just as a joint stock company is. ... The explanation of the whole matter, I believe, is that ... the State is a social organism, evolved as every other organism is evolved, and not requiring any more than other organisms to be based upon a contract ... (shrink)

We all know what a voluntary action is - we all think we know when an action is voluntary, and when it is not. Yet, performing and action and defining it are different matters. What counts as an action? When does it begin? Does the conscious desire to perform an action always precede the act? If not, is it really a voluntary action? This is a debate that crosses the boundaries of Philosophy, Neuroscience, Psychology, and Social Science. (...) This book brings together some to the leading thinkers from these disciplines to consider this deep and often puzzling topic. The result is a fascinating and stimulating debate that will challenge our fundamental assumptions about our sense of free-will. (shrink)

Approximately 47 percent of women ages fifteen to forty‐four are currently without children, and slightly more than 20 percent of white women in America will never bear children, the highest percentage in modern history. Many fertile women who are childless are voluntarily so. Although any competent person twenty‐one years or older is legally eligible for voluntary sterilization, many doctors refuse to sterilize childfree women. This essay explores various reasons a woman would want to continue in her childfree lifestyle, evaluates (...) the accessibility of sterilization for women who are childfree by examining the reported reasons for denial of sterilization—both from the woman's and the physician's perspective—and assesses the legal status of voluntary sterilization for nonparous women. The essay also urges physicians to follow recommended guidelines for counseling women who, regardless of parity, desire sterilization and to provide this contraception if, after careful consideration, there are no outstanding health or other reasons that the procedure should not be performed. (shrink)

In “On Avoiding Deep Dementia,” Norman Cantor astutely notes that, for some individuals, the concept of “protracted maintenance during progressive cognitive dysfunction and helplessness is an intolerably degrading prospect.” This cannot be argued with. Cantor's solution, however—that in the wake of a dementia diagnosis, patients should have the option to direct, in advance, instructions for voluntary stopping of eating and drinking should they develop a state of deep dementia—is more ethically challenging than it may first appear.Respect for autonomy is (...) one of the most fundamental principles of bioethics, and it requires that we allow patients with capacity to refuse life‐sustaining treatment, even when that treatment is something as seemingly innocuous as nutrition and hydration. If a capacitated person uses an advance directive to prospectively refuse artificial nutrition or hydration, then that treatment must be withheld if the person develops dementia and loses the ability or willingness to eat. Cantor is incorrect, however, in suggesting that an advance directive can require that nutrition and hydration be withheld from a patient with dementia who actively requests to eat or drink. Regardless of the language in an advance directive, caregivers cannot be compelled to abandon their duty to attend to the person's human dignity, nor can physicians be compelled to sedate a person with moderate or severe dementia because that person continues to be receptive to eating and drinking. (shrink)

This paper discusses physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia, supplies a short history and argues in favour of permitting both once rigid criteria have been set and the cases retro-reviewed. I suggest that among these criteria should be that VAE should only be permitted with one more necessary criterion: that VAE should only be allowed when physician assisted suicide is not a possible option. If the patient is able to ingest and absorb the medication there is no reason why (...) VAE should be permitted. A brief history of VAE and PAS is given and some of the arguments which have been given are analyzed. The Principle of the Double Effect is briefly discussed and why, in my opinion, it is not a valid principle is briefly discussed. (shrink)

This book chapter aims at exploring how intentional a piece of behavior should be to count as an action, and how a minimal view on action, not requiring a richly intentional causation, may still qualify such a behavior as voluntary.

Voluntariness of consent to research has not been sufficiently explored through empirical research. The aims of this study were to develop a more comprehensive approach to assessing voluntariness and to generate preliminary data on the extent and correlates of limitations on voluntariness. We developed a questionnaire to evaluate subjects’ reported motivations and constraints on voluntariness. 88 subjects in five different areas of clinical research—substance abuse, cancer, HIV, interventional cardiology, and depression—were assessed. Subjects reported a variety of motivations for participation. Offers (...) of financial incentives were common but not influential, pressures from others were rare, and no threats were reported. However, certain financial incentives and—paradoxically—altruistic motivations led some subjects to feel more constrained. Consistent with previous studies, no one pattern of motivation was common to all research subjects. There was little evidence of constrained voluntariness, but some suggestion of areas of concern. Voluntariness appears to be susceptible to systematic empirical investigation. (shrink)

Military activities with the framework of the IDF [Israel Defense Force] is carried out by citizens in a variety of positions. In addition to the ordinary positions of career officers and NCOs, the IDF consists of conscripted men and women as well as reservists. Some of the latter serve under an ordinary command to serve for a certain relatively short period. Other reservists, including pilots and special forces officers have served since they volunteered to serve. Facing the political clash between (...) the government, who have been viewed as trying to change the democratic nature of the state, and the popular opposition, who have tried to protect the judiciary and other elements of democracy, many officers who belong to the latter reservist group have suspended their voluntary service or even retired. Their decision has raised the obvious issue of whether such decisions can be justified, morally, ethically, and democratically. This is the topic of the present paper. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 8, Page 33-35, August 2011.

Based on the institutional theory, this article attempts to examine two consecutive questions regarding the impact of various factors on corporate decision in environmental information disclosure (EID): (1) whether or not to disclose; and (2) the level of disclosure. The relevance of these factors is empirically tested using data collected from publicly listed manufacturing companies from 2006 to 2008 in China. Some interesting findings appear. We find that firms that are state-owned, those that operate in environmentally sensitive industries, those having (...) more industrial peers engaged in EID, and those with better reputation are more likely to disclose environmental information. When it comes to the content of EID, variables that attempt to capture external institutional pressures exhibit either no or weak explanatory power. Only the variable of organizational image and reputation is demonstrated to have a significant impact on both the act and the content of EID. This study provides a snapshot of the dialogues between constituencies in the organizational field and EID development. (shrink)

The Roman Catholic theological approach to euthanasia is radically prohibitive. The main theological argument for this prohibition is the so-called “stewardship argument”: Christians cannot escape accounting to God for stewardship of the bodies given them on earth. This contribution presents an alternative approach based on European existentialist and philosophical traditions. The suggestion is that exploring the fullness of our relational responsibility is more apt for a pluralist – and even secular – debate on the legitimacy of euthanasia.

We study imagination as reality-oriented mental simulation (ROMS): the activity of simulating nonactual scenarios in one’s mind, to investigate what would happen if they were realized. Three connected questions concerning ROMS are: What is the logic, if there is one, of such an activity? How can we gain new knowledge via it? What is voluntary in it and what is not? We address them by building a list of core features of imagination as ROMS, drawing on research in cognitive (...) psychology and the philosophy of mind. We then provide a logic of imagination as ROMS which models such features, combining techniques from epistemic logic, action logic, and subject matter semantics. Our logic comprises a modal propositional language with non-monotonic imagination operators, a formal semantics, and an axiomatization. (shrink)

In 2017, Victoria became the first state in Australia to pass legislation permitting voluntary assisted dying. Under this law, only those people who are near the end of their lives may access voluntary assisted dying, and because many of these people require nursing care to manage the progression of their illness or their symptoms, it will invariably have an impact on nursing practice. The Victorian law includes a series of procedural steps as safeguards to ensure that the law (...) operates as intended. To support people who choose voluntary assisted dying and to practice safely within boundaries of the law, nurses must be aware of these requirements and how they operate. However, there are often gaps in nurses’ legal knowledge. This was demonstrated in an article that aimed to inform nurses about the operation of Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) but contained several errors and misstatements of the law. Our article corrects these errors and discusses how the law is intended to be applied by revisiting the fictional case of Chloe – a woman with a terminal illness who is seeking voluntary assisted dying. As the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) also protects nurses from liability if they act in accordance with its provisions, we conclude that sound knowledge and understanding of its operation support nurses to provide the safe, comprehensive and compassionate care their patients deserve at the end of life. (shrink)

In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes famously characterizes the state of nature as a predicament in which life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The only means of escape from that dire condition is to found the commonwealth, with its notorious sovereign. Hobbes invests the sovereign with virtually absolute power over the poor subjects of the commonwealth, and that vast and unlimited sovereign has drawn the reader’s eye for 350 years. -/- Yet Hobbes has a great deal to say about subjects (...) in a commonwealth as well, and he articulates a normative conception of a good subject. This book develops a novel interpretation of the role of submission in Leviathan, and it introduces the concept of subjection to explain the expectations Hobbes has for good subjects. (shrink)