Constitutivists about moral norms are often suspected of providing an overly “self-centered” account of morality which does not take seriously enough morality’s interpersonal nature. This worry see...

Reflecting on the debts collected by Shoshana Felman's work, within the theoretical contexts of the time in which the 1977 Yale French Studies issue of ‘Psychoanalysis and Literature’ first appeared, this article takes as its point of departure Lacan's analysis of Hamlet's father as the barred Other, focusing on Hamlet's ‘complaint’. The nature of the complaint is then explored in relation to various writers and thinkers — Rilke, Benjamin, Nietzsche, Heidegger, among others — and more specifically via a (...) reading of François Roustang's La Fin de la plainte, and his own interpretations of Freudian narcissism. Scanning the wreckage for which the little narcissists are responsible, the article aims to give more insight into the structuring principles of those who whine incessantly. (shrink)

Indirect complaint sequences are examined in a corpus of everyday domestic telephone conversations. The analysis focuses on how a speaker/complainer displays and manages their subjective investment in the complaint. Four features are picked out: announcements, in which an upcoming complaint is projected in ways that signal the complainer’s stance or attitude; laughter accompanying the complaint announcement, and its delivery and receipt; displacement, where the speaker complains about something incidental to what would be expected to be the (...) main offence; and uses of lexical descriptions such as ‘moan’ and ‘whinge’ that formulate subjectivity, investment, and a disposition to complain, and are generally used to counter a complaint’s evidential basis or objectivity. Laughter and irony provide complaint recipients with response cues, and are used in ways that can strengthen as well as undermine a complaint’s factual basis and seriousness. (shrink)

This study provides a critical discourse analysis of letters of complaint by Jordanian university students. It aims to investigate the rhetorical pattern in these letters and explore the main strategies students use to express their dissatisfaction about certain issues and persuade the addressee to take action. To this end, permissions were obtained to collect data from two universities in Jordan: Jordan University of Science and Technology and World University of Islamic Studies and Education. The data were analyzed both qualitatively (...) and quantitatively through two analytic frameworks within critical discourse analysis : genre analysis to investigate the rhetorical pattern of complaint letters, and discursive analysis to investigate the main strategies of persuasion. These strategies were then categorized according to Aristotle’s means of persuasion: ‘ethos’, ‘logos’ and ‘pathos’. The analysis showed that written complaint was a distinctive genre with distinctive moves. It also revealed that persuasion by means of pathos was more prevalent than the other two types. Socio-cultural values have been shown to be so powerful in Jordanian society even in neutral situations such as academic context. This study will hopefully contribute to the fields of genre analysis and CDA in cross-cultural communication. (shrink)

The effectiveness of complaint handling and service recovery policies in customer retention has been the focus of both scholars and service organizations. In the past decade, Justice Theory has provided the basis of the dominant theoretical framework for complaint management and service recovery. However, it does not explicitly address unfair trade practices, which constitute an ethical issue. Favorable outcomes in complaint handling may not be able to restore the reputation of a company and the potential harm perceived (...) by consumers. Using face-to-face interviews, this study applies Fairness Theory to explore the psychological responses of consumers in the post-complaint phase, particularly in ethical judgment. The findings suggest that an unfavorable outcome in the post-complaint stage leads to counterfactual thinking by the consumer about the consumer's state of well-being. The complaint must be due to the discretionary actions of the service provider whose accountability is assessed. Those harmful actions are then judged against an ethical standard. Explanations can reduce blame, and their effectiveness is moderated by outcome favorability but not ethical judgment. Favorable outcome, captured by "Would Perception," has only limited influence on Perceived Potential Harm (PPH), which is an important determinant of ethical judgment. This study makes both theoretical and practical contributions. It is the first study to validate Fairness Theory empirically and apply it to complaint handling as a complement of Justice Theory in the information and communication technology (ICT) service context. The study indicates that customers may condemn a service provider because of PPH even though the outcome is favorable. Unfair trade practices are what make customers hate ICT service providers. (shrink)

Oppression and Salvation: Annotated Legal Documents from the Ottoman Book of Complaints of 1675. By Haim Gerber. Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur der Turkvölker, vol. 27. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2018. Pp. 188. €68.

This is a letter written in reply to some criticisms of object theory's analysis of mathematics. The criticisms were offered by Philip Ebert and Marcus Rossberg, in connection with my talk at the 31st International Wittgenstein Symposium, in Kirchberg, 2008. The exchange was published in the volume of proceedings.

Complaining about humanitarian refugees is rarely an unequivocal activity for society members. Their talk appears dilemmatic: ‘sympathy talk’, comprising rhetorical displays of ‘care’, tolerance and aesthetic evaluations, is woven together with more pejorative messages. In this article we investigate how ‘sympathy talk’ functions as a discursive resource in talk-in-interaction when people give accounts of minority group individuals. A ‘synthetic’ discursive psychological approach was employed to analyse a corpus of 12 talkback radio calls to an evening ‘shock jock’ radio personality in (...) Adelaide, Australia, after the stabbing death of a Sudanese-Australian refugee. Analysis shows how host and callers dialogically negotiate and orientate to various sympathetic and humanitarian descriptions/evaluations. We contend that sympathetic talk advances the activity of conversation, softening complaints that could be made accountable as prejudiced. Sympathy talk also functions as a counter-argument to perceived punitive or ‘racist’ complaints. Moreover, this article proposes that such rhetoric shares an ideological thread that potentially undermines Sudanese refugees’ social positioning. Dialogue that deploys sympathetic formulations may be an element in the increasingly varied and subtle activity of ‘new racism’. We discuss how sympathetic accounts contain, within their semantic structure, their own antithesis for their deployment in anti-racist practice; for the development of counter discourses fundamental to the disruption of pervasive ideological representations and the construction of alternative refugee identities. (shrink)

Several initiatives recognize the importance of transforming institutions, not just changing individuals, to diversify STEM fields. Universities and colleges are distinctive gendered work organizations because workers are highly educated and have authority in hiring, evaluation, and policy. This article explores whether feminist sociologists are particularly well suited to guide institutional change to diversify the academy. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews with 24 feminist academic sociologists at the rank of associate or full professor, I analyze how their feminist and sociological (...) identities intersect with institutional locations to create opportunities to transform the academy. Outsiders within, feminist sociologists revise and use the master’s tools to produce knowledge that improves recognition of, and ability to reduce, structural inequalities. Proficiency with these tools confers insider legitimacy and access to a “seat at the table” where disciplinary expertise and political commitments contribute to institutional change. Inevitably, these professors confront resistance, and in response develop strategies to advance their goals. Insights from feminist sociologists suggest that to transform universities to reflect the diversity of institutions and lived reality of contemporary faculty, it may be more useful to identify a set of commitments and principles that inform policies and practices, rather than specifying actions to support culture change. (shrink)

In 2009, an influential and remarkable report to the French highest health authorities written by Claire Compagnon, a patients' advocate, and Véronique Ghadi, a legal scholar, has brought to public attention a phenomenon that had gone unnoticed in medical ethics: the report's authors called it "ordinary abuse".1 They argue that the term describes a widespread and invisible form of mistreatment in the hospital setting, which they distinguish from abuse proper, a phenomenon, they argue, which is far less common and controversial. (...) "Ordinary abuse," they write, occurs for example when patients have to accept "interminable and inexplicable... (shrink)

Eloquence in Trouble captures the articulation of several troubled lives in Bangladesh as well as the threats to the very genres of their expression, lament in particular. The first ethnography of one of the most spoken mother tongues on earth, Bangla, this study represents a new approach to troubles talk, combining the rigor of discourse analysis with the interpretive depth of psychological anthropology. Its careful transcriptions of Bangladeshi troubles talk will disturb some readers and move others--beyond past academic discussion of (...) personhood in South Asia. (shrink)

Québec's complaint examination system has devoted considerable effort to supporting dissatisfied users who may wish to register complaints. It is open to question, however, whether this level of effort has, in fact, aided users in filing their complaints, and whether, once filed, the intake and processing of complaints has been rigorous and fair. Has the intake and handling of complaints at least improved? This is the question we shall attempt to answer here by presenting the results of our study (...) concerning the impact of the Complaint Assistance and Support Centers (CAAPs) on the intake of complaints. The results show that the Québec complaint examination system and its Complaint Assistance and Support Centers help make complaints more admissible and ensure that each complaint is examined. However, the system is also hindered by differences and conflicting interpretations among the various stakeholders regarding the legitimacy of complaints, respect for users’ rights, and the mission of the system. Although complaint examination systems seek to encourage users to express their points of view, users’ voices are still only partly audible. (shrink)

This essay focuses on how we embody the language we speak: how an audience "reads" the body of a speaker as it both constructs the positionality of that speaking subject and construes that subject's discursive authority. Building on the work of Linda Brodkey and Michelle Fine, I explore what is at stake when university students harass a faculty member by accusing that teacher of not embodying authority in the proper form (body).

This up-to-date and comprehensive handbook guides the reader, step-by-step, through all aspects of complaints and grievance management. It includes useful addresses, current codes of ethics from the major organizations, protocols and sample letters.

Malpractice issues in psychotherapy and psychological treatments refer to the unethical behavior of a psychologist or psychotherapist toward the patient. The current study reviewed complaints directed at psychologists and psychotherapists in Sweden with regard to possible incidents of malpractice. Eligible cases were retrieved from a database managed by the Health and Social Care Inspectorate [Inspektionen för vård och omsorg (IVO)], an administrative authority responsible for the safety and quality of healthcare and social services delivery. These cases were analyzed using thematic (...) analysis. In total, 33 complaints matched the keywords proposed by IVO, and were scrutinized in detail. The cases primarily involved psychiatric care by a psychologist in outpatient settings, although many cases comprised multiple healthcare providers responsible for the patient’s care, or targeted the healthcare unit as a whole. The results demonstrated that different forms of malpractice occur, and can be classified in two general themes, Incorrect administration and implementation and Attitude and behavior, which involve organizational aspects as well as examples of malpractice and unethical behavior. Implications for clinical practice and future research include further training in ethics and malpractice, video recording or auditing sessions, routine outcome monitoring, and providing patients with information on how to file complaints. (shrink)

Helmut Plesner’s philosophical anthropology introduces not only the division of the world of the living being into self and environment, but also a superstructure over the zip distribution: eccentric positionality. This reflexive ability of the self to relate to itself allows the formation of personal-relative, i.e., social life. The aim of the article is: to trace the possibilities of methodological renewal of sociotheoretical discourse, which opens for him the principle of eccentric positionality.The study uses historical-comparative and logical-analytical methods. (...) Research results. H. Plesner in the idea of eccentric positionality unfolds the perspective and possible practical consequences of the establishment of human openness in the world, not stopping at the danger of finally breaking the anthropological framework of his philosophy, dissolving it in the concept of personal socialization.Conclusion. Plesner’s «social» is presented as a life phenomenon – it is the highest manifestation of life, and the process of personalization of life manifestations is a process of socialization. Taking the self beyond oneself in eccentric positionality is something more than separating oneself from the environment, opposing oneself to it and establishing an attitude towards it. In the course of establishing the relation to oneself, the self does not form it automatically – the positioning of eccentricity cannot be carried out directly – which enables a special space favorable for the «inter-self» existence of living beings, a specific sphere of «inter-self» relations – the sphere of social existence. (shrink)

Much has been written in recent years over the need to disclose the 'positionality' of geographical researchers. At the same time, there is a growing awareness that such positionality, however much disclosed, can never fully express the complexities underpinning a research relationship. This essay explores these issues through a retrospective review of research carried out into the economic geographies of the Economy of Sharing. It argues that the issues surrounding positionality can be much more than a question (...) of hidden agendas, power relations and conflicts of interests. In some cases, confronting positionality means negotiation of conflicting worldviews-different understandings of reality rooted in philosophical principles distant from the dominant orthodoxies. Such conflicts, if engaged in creatively, have the capacity to challenge beliefs, values and thought patterns. (shrink)

The present study investigates linguistic choices and strategy selection of American speakers of English, Russian native speakers, and American L2 learners of Russian in their complaints by exploring the interaction of social factors and gender. The data was elicited through an open-ended discourse completion questionnaire and an assessment questionnaire. The qualitative analysis shows significant differences between genders in the group of Russian speakers. The major finding was that Russian males were more judgmental and direct in their complaints, but they were (...) also more humorous and ironic than Russian females. Fewer differences were observed in the group of American speakers and American L2 learners of Russian. The findings indicate similar gender differences within each group and across groups in terms of strategy selection and the number of words. Some of the differences were statistically significant.The findings of the interlanguage analysis open areas for pedagogical intervention so that L2 learners better understand how to address males and females, as well as which linguistic strategies to use to minimize offense while negotiating a problem in Russian culture. (shrink)

Growing nursing workforce maldistributions impede rural healthcare access globally. In‐depth exploration of underlying philosophical ideas about rural health in nursing curricular could support recruitment and retention of nurses who are well positioned to support and advocated for health care and services relevant to their communities. Through a lens of positionality, the purpose of this paper is to explore rural health and nursing within the United States and Australia from the perspective of undergraduate students. Recognizing that both countries have ‘first (...) world’ health services, issues of access to services associated with systemic and structural biases were significant features identified by participants. Their perceptions were supported by discussion with attendees of the 26th International Nursing Philosophy Conference from several countries, during a presentation titled ‘What is different about rural health nursing: A philosophical exploration.’ This international consistency suggests that systemic and structural biases are global phenomena. While exposure to rural health and rural nursing may be beneficial for recruitment, preparing nurses for rural practice requires more than educating students to complete clinical tasks. Uncovering collaboration, advocacy and policy development opportunities for nurses in rural communities could move the dial from recruiting rural nurses to fulfill immediate needs to retention of well‐educated and highly skilled nurses. Building a stronger philosophical base for rural healthcare inclusive of all people, honouring their distinguishing characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, is long overdue. Positionality can inform how nurses across the globe relate to other countries' governments, cultures, norms, values, expectations, etc., which can influence the advancement of the profession and address social inequities among rural populations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Health practitioners run the risk of ethical board complaints or legal action against them in their professional careers. This experience can have a detrimental impact on personal wellness and professional practice. This study reports on the subjective experience of ten South African psychologists who received complaints. Semi structured interviews were conducted, and the transcripts analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The data indicates that the participants experienced the effects of a complaint on an intensely personal level and the experience (...) of a complaint highlighted the challenging nature of working in the modern health care arena. The researchers hope to inform the psychological community of the emotional challenges experienced during a complaint process, to encourage a transparent discourse about the subject and muster support for practitioners during an often-isolating professional incident. (shrink)

Jasna Russo argues powerfully for survivor-controlled narrative research as a counterpoint to ‘conventional narrative research,’ in which a clear dichotomy obtains between the researcher who interprets and the participant whose narrative is interpreted. Russo calls us to an ethic of engagement and a focus on dialogic relationships within the research process as a way to disrupt the potential for ‘epistemic violence’ in conventional narrative research, and toward the development of a survivor owned ‘model of madness.’ Herein I extend the discussion (...) of intersectionality that Russo opened. In particular, I ask: What theoretical resources and scholarship can we draw upon to support the kind of critical... (shrink)

OUR UNDERSTANDING OF OURSELVES and our place in nature constitutes, if not the central, at least a central problem of metaphysics. Yet, faced with this question, modern philosophical thought has for the most part swung helplessly between an empty idealism and an absurd reductivism. It is time we overcame our narrow factionalism and learned not only to think more independently ourselves about persons, minds, and living nature, but to profit from the efforts of those who have already given us concepts (...) and arguments which could help us along this road. Among such writings, Helmuth Plessner's major work, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch, seems to me outstanding, in that it provides both a firm rational basis for the biological sciences, in their many-levelled structure, and for the sciences of man. (shrink)

Water values serve as an entry point into the intricacies of public policies and management approaches. Values are contingent assessments that emerge out of socio-ecological relations and reflect particular demands, legacies and opportunities. The concept of value positionality is introduced as the synthesis of multiple expressions of worthiness cherished by a social group. Positionality is a metaphor that connects the phenomenological understanding of water value with the politics of everyday life and the broader politico-institutional framework. It entails a (...) cluster of meanings expressed through territorialised interactions across time, locations and scales. Positionalities converge or depart according to value praxis, that is, the clash of competing valuation approaches seeking legitimisation. (shrink)

The Analects appears to offer two bodies of testimony regarding the felt, experiential qualities of leading a life of virtue. In its ostensible record of Confucius’ more abstract and reflective claims, the text appears to suggest that virtue has considerable power to afford joy and insulate from sorrow. In the text’s inclusion of Confucius’ less studied and apparently more spontaneous remarks, however, he appears sometimes to complain of the life he leads, to feel its sorrows, and to possess some despair. (...) Where we attend to both of these elements of the text, a tension emerges. In this essay, I consider how Confucius’ complaints appear to complicate any clean conclusion that Confucius wins a good life, particularly where we attend to important pre-theoretical sensibilities regarding what a “good life” ought to include and how it ought to feel for the one who leads it. (shrink)

Synthetic biology, as an engineering approach to biological systems, has the potential to disruptively innovate the development of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Data accessibility and differences in data-usage capabilities are important factors in shaping this innovation landscape. In this paper, the data that underpin synthetic biology responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are analyzed as positional information goods—goods whose value depends on exclusivity. The positionality of biological data impacts the ability to guide innovations toward societally preferred goals. From both an (...) ethical and economic point of view, positionality can lead to suboptimal as well as beneficial situations. When aiming for responsible innovation (i.e. embedding societal deliberation in the innovation process), it is important to consider hurdles and facilitators in data access and use. Central governance and knowledge commons provide routes to mitigate the negative effects of data positionality. (shrink)

Tziporah Kasachkoff received her doctorate in philosophy from New York University, teaches at The City University of New York, and has been a visiting professor at Ben Gurion University in the Negev, in Israel. Dr. Kasachkoff has published widely in applied philosophy and, since 1986, has been the editor of the American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy.

(2005). A Question of Representation in Educational Discourse: Multiplicities and Intersections of Identities and Positionalities. Educational Studies: Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 23-41.

One of the divine quotations narrated from the timeline of Qur’ānic revelation is seen as a word of Prophet Mohammad in the 30th verse of the surah of al-Furqān. It’s observed that the speaker of this verse is Prophet Mohammad and he complains to God about his tribe which neglects the Qur’ān. In the present study, semantic structure and the meaning area of the phrase “mahjūr”, which is the key word in this verse, the meaning of it in the timeline (...) of Qur’ānic revelation and the interpretations attributed to it in the following centuries are traced. Likewise by examining Qur’ānic exegesis chronologically and investigating the interpretations of the exegetes on the relevant verse, it’s tried to see the semantic breaking points, changes and transformations regarding this verse in the historical process. Finally, the approaches of the exegetes who interpreted this verse in terms of the method of maqāsidī tafsir or the principle of teleological interpretation are determined. The approaches detected in this respect are first explained in a descriptive style, and then they’re evaluated in an analytical point of view. The findings and conclusions we reached in this study are as follows: As stated by the majority of exegetes, especially Qatāda, al-Zamakhsharī, Ibn Atiyya, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and al-Sa‘ālibī, the aforementioned verse belongs to the Prophet Mohammed in terms of both wording and meaning. It hasn’t been determined that there’s a conflict about the pertaining of this word to him. According to this hadith quoted in surah al-Furqān, the Qurayshi polytheists made unwarranted objections to the Prophet and the divine instructions that he brought, his heart was narrowed in the face of their attitude towards the Qur’ān, and for these reasons he complained about his tribe to God. It can be said that this meaning seen in Mecca in the tenth year of his prophethood, namely, insulting the Qur’ān, abandoning it, and denying the themes in it, also includes Muslims after the revelation period. Accordingly, it can be thought that the aspect and situation of not acting on the provisions of the Qur’ān and not thinking about its verses are also valid for the interlocutors of the next period. In this direction, when we look at the history of tafsir, it has been determined that the exegetes who interpreted this verse in terms of teleological interpretation asserted different approaches. It was seen that al-Zamakhsharī, al-Rāzī, Abū al-Barakāt al-Nasafī, al-Bikā‘ī, Kamālpasazāde, Sayhzāda and Ibn ʻĀshūr interpreted this complaint of the Prophet by associating it with the coming of punishment. Therefore, in compliance with them, this verse aimed to threaten all the interlocutors, especially the Quraysh. On the other hand, it has recognized that Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyah, Ibn Kathir, Bursavī and Sayyid Qutb evaluated this verse in the context of the types and ways to abandon the Qur’ān. Thus, they interpreted the relevant verse in terms of maqāsidī tafsir in a way that would cover both the first addressees of Qur’ānic revelation and other interlocutors in the following periods. In a nutshell, it can be considered that not endeavoring to understand and interpret the Qur’ān, or keeping it away from family and social life, law, understanding of earning and spending, not referring to it in such matters, or giving up living a life pursuant to it, are some of the routes and sorts of abandonment of it for Muslims. (shrink)

This article considers how two different question designs as positive polar questions and wh-questions occurring in different interactional contexts set up a sequence in which a direct complaint is produced in third position as the result of an interactional achievement. Positive polar questions are employed to establish immediately a common ground of understandability between caller and call-taker. Wh-questions are used as challenges and speakers subsequently provide explicit grounds for the challenges in third turns, due to the interpretation of the (...) question given by their recipients. (shrink)

Introduction: Midwives play an important role in maintaining and increasing women’s health and well-being. Training professional midwives is one of the main policies of any healthcare system. Since the number of complaints against midwives has increased recently, this study was conducted to explore the perspectives of midwives regarding patients’ complaint to authorities and their impacts on the profession of midwifery. Methods: Being conducted in 2013, this qualitative study was the first of its type in Iran. Data were collected through (...) in-depth semi-structured interviews with 14 midwives working in different cities across the country. The participants were selected using a purposive sampling method. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed following a qualitative content analysis approach. Written text was then coded, and themes were extracted from the data. Ethical considerations: The study was conducted with midwives’ free informed consent and was approved by Ethics Committee of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Findings: By analyzing the data, four main themes regarding the impact of complaint on midwifery profession were developed. These included the following: “dissatisfied of midwifery, professional deviation, obsession with work, and weakening of the professional status.” Conclusion: The experience of patients’ complaint to legal authorities against midwives was described, by participants, as a painful experience. Lack of midwives’ knowledge about professional rules and litigation process created many problems for them and could negatively affect their practice and the society’s attitude toward midwifery. Thus, we suggest that in order to prevent such problems, midwives and midwifery students should be educated regarding factors that have the potential to create such problems and also prevention strategies. (shrink)

In her final fragmentary novel Sanditon, Jane Austen develops a theme that pervades her work from her juvenilia onward: illness, and in particular, illness imagined, invented, or self-inflicted. While the “invention of odd complaints” is characteristically a token of folly or weakness throughout her writing, in this last work imagined illness is also both a symbol and a cause of how selves and societies degenerate. In the shifting world of Sanditon, hypochondria is the lubricant for a society bent on turning (...) health into a commodity. As a result, people’s rationality and their moral character come under attack. Catherine Belling’s recent subtle study, A Condition of Doubt: The Meanings of Hypochondria, unveils hypochondria’s discursive and cultural character. Running sharply against the tenor of Austen’s treatment, however, she argues in defense of the rationality of hypochondriacs; the notion that the condition may involve morally significant defects is not entertained; any connection to the commercialization of health care is muted. Here, I contrast Austen’s morally and epistemically negative rendering of her hypochondriacal characters in Sanditon with Belling’s efforts to create a sympathetic understanding of people with hypochondria. I will argue that, despite time gaps and genre differences, joint consideration of these texts can help bioethicists better appreciate how medicine can intensify, pathologize, and exploit anxieties about illness and death, thus adding to the challenges of living well in the face of mortality and morbidity. (shrink)

Today, monitoring of patient complaints in healthcare services is being used as a tool for quality assurance systems and in the future development of services. This nationwide register study describes the number of all complaints processed, number of complaints between different state provinces, healthcare services and healthcare professionals, and outcomes of complaints in Finland during the period 2000–2004. All complaints processed at the State Provincial Offices and the National Authority for Medicolegal Affairs were analysed by statistical methods. Complaints about mental (...) healthcare were explored in greater detail. The analysis showed that the number of patient complaints increased considerably during the study period. There were changes in the number of complaints between study years in different provinces. Out of different healthcare services, an especially marked increase was seen in private healthcare. Nearly all complaints were lodged against physicians, and over half of the complaints were made because of medical error. In mental health care, patients more often complained about unsatisfactory certificates and statements and the use of compulsory hospital care. An analysis of the outcomes revealed that in mental health care complaints more seldom led to consequences. The results need to be utilised when planning interventions for advanced supervision, prevention of adverse events and patient safety in healthcare, and especially in mental health care. From the patients’ perspective, it is important to create a culture where most problem situations are handled where the treatment was provided, thus avoiding a complex complaints process. (shrink)

The contemporary discussion of terrorism has been dominated by deontological and consequentialist arguments. Building upon my previous work on a paradox concerning moral complaint, I try to broaden the perspectives through which we view the issues. The direction that seems to me as most promising is a self-reflexive, conditional, and, to some extent, relational emphasis. What one is permitted to do to others would depend not so much on some absolute code constraning actions or on the estimate of what (...) would optimize overall the resulting well-being but on the precedents that the past actions of those others provided, on the relationships among the participants, on tacit or explicit offers and possible agreements among them, and on the reciprocity (or lack thereof) that ensues. (shrink)

In everyday medical settings in Japan, physicians occasionally tell an elderly patient that their symptoms are “due to old age,” and there is some concern that patient care might be negatively impacted as a result. That said, as this phrase can have multiple connotations and meanings, there are certain instances in which the use of this phrase may not necessarily be indicative of ageism, or prejudice against the elderly. One of the goals in medical care is to address pain and (...) suffering that develops with age in elderly individuals, and whether or not aging is a disease is inconsequential. However, assuming that an individualized and thorough examination has been performed, there are some conditions that can be attributed only to age. Accordingly, physicians must acknowledge the merits and drawbacks of using the phrase “due to old age,” and exercise caution when using it. Both physicians and their elderly patients must share a common awareness of the incomplete and limited nature of modern medicine and its scope, and physicians must help their elderly patients accept and live with the aging phenomenon. (shrink)

Do victims of moral wrongdoing have moral grounds to complain if they have freely committed a similar wrongdoing in the past? This question explores the connection between the moral standing of complainers and their previous deeds. According to Saul Smilansky two equally justifiable competing views create an antinomy with respect to the said question. In this article I present two arguments that attempt to undermine Smilansky's alleged paradox, presenting it as no more than a resolvable moral conflict. My first argument (...) attempts to resolve the conflict in cases where the complaining wrongdoers have already been sanctioned for their past transgression. My second argument challenges the validity of the alleged paradox, based on an alternative explanation of the seemingly paradoxical moral results. (shrink)

Several philosophers have defended versions of Minimax Complaint, or MC. According to MC, other things equal, we should act in the way that minimises the strongest individual complaint. In this paper, I argue that MC must be rejected because it has implausible implications in certain cases involving risk. In these cases, we can apply MC either ex ante, by focusing on the complaints that could be made based on the prospects that an act gives to people, or ex (...) post, by focusing on the complaints that could be made based on the actual results that an act has for people. I argue that MC has implausible implications either way. I then defend a view on which, other things equal, we should act in the way that minimizes the sum of complaints. (shrink)

BackgroundThe European Charter of Patients' Rights (ECPR) presents basic patients' rights in health care. We analysed the characteristics of patients' complaints about their rights submitted through the official complaints system and to a non-governmental organization in Croatia.MethodsThe official system for patients’complaints in Croatia does not have a common pathway but offers different modes for addressing patient complaints. In this cross-sectional study, we analysed the reports about patients’ complaints from the official regional committees sent to the Ministry of Health. We also (...) analysed the complaints received by the Croatian Association for the Protection of Patient’s Rights (CAPR) and mapped them to the ECPR.ResultsThe aggregated official data from the Ministry of Health in 2017 and 2018 covered only 289 individual complaints from 10 out of 21 counties. Complaints were most frequently related to secondary and tertiary healthcare institutions and details were not provided. CAPR received a total of 440 letters, out of which 207 contained 301 complaints about violations of patients’ rights in 2017–2018. The most common complaint was the Right of Access to health care (35.3%) from the ECPR, followed by the Right to Information (29.9%) and the Right to Safety (21.7%). The fewest complaints were about the Right to Complain (1.9%), Right to Innovation (1.4%), Right to Compensation (1.4%), and Right to Preventive Measures (1.0%).ConclusionsReporting and dealing with patients’ complaints about violations of their patients’ rights does not appear to be effective in a system with parallel but uncoordinated complaints pathways. Mapping patient's complaints to the ECPR is a useful tool to assess the perception of patients’ rights and to plan actions to improve the complaints system for effective health care. (shrink)

In the course of the Complaint, which Thomas Hoccleve composed, probably in 1420, as the first part of his so-called Series, the poet claims to have derived comfort from a certain “lamentacioun of a woful man” which he found in a book. There he read of a dialogue between the woeful man and Reason; and he reports the lamentations of the one and the good advice of the other up to the point at which, he says, the owner of (...) the book asked for it back. This text remained a mystery until, in the 1970 volume of this journal, A. G. Rigg identified it as a work of Isidore of Seville, the Synonyma, commonly subtitled De lamentatione animae peccatricis. This Latin treatise of moral advice and spiritual consolation, though now commonly overshadowed by the same author's Etymologiae, was a work widely read and admired in the Middle Ages. Professor Rigg was assisted in his identification by the fact that five of the six surviving copies of the Complaint accompany the English verse with a series of Latin glosses evidently taken from Hoccleve's source. Consulting the Patrologia Latina text of the Synonyma, Rigg found that these glosses could be matched there more or less exactly, scattered over the first twenty-four paragraphs of that edition. (shrink)