Self-development of individuals and societies is an epochal challenge now but surprisingly very little has been written about this in the vast field of development studies and social sciences. The present book is one of the first efforts in this field and explores in detail the dynamics of pursuits of self-development and the accompanying contradictions in the self-study mobilization called Swadhyaya. Giri is one of the pioneers in bringing self-development to the core (...) of theory and ethnographic multiverse of humanities and development studies. (shrink)

'You ought to make something of yourself.' That certainly has the ring of truth about it. But is there really any obligation to develop yourself? Those who let abilities lie idle are shortsighted, of course. But are they guilty of anything more than imprudence? It is easy to think that there could be a moral fault in failing to help others such as your children to develop their talents and abilities. But what about not developing your own? And if this (...) is a moral failing, is the fault solely in your having let others down in some way? Or is there fault in having let yourself down as well? (shrink)

In the wake of a pilot study that indicated that the experience of medical education appears to Inhibit moral development In medical students, increased attention needs to be given to the structure of medical education and the Influence it has on medical students. Interest in ethics and moral reasoning has become widespread in many aspects of professional and public life. Society has exhibited great interest in the ethical issues confronting physicians today. Considerable effort has been undertaken to train medical (...) students, interns, and residents In how to reason through medical-ethical dilemmas. Media attention has focused on Issues such as abortion, euthanasia, care of severely handicapped infants, organ transplantation, and so forth, producing heated debates in both the professional and lay literature over the morality of the various positions. The curriculum of medical education has paralleled and reflected this general Interest in medical ethics. Most medical schools now offer, and frequently require, course work in ethics. However, further research Is needed to better characterize and understand the relationship of medical education to moral development. (shrink)

J. S. Mill regards individuality as the most fundamental of human interests–theprincipal condition of and main ingredient in self-development. But in addition tothe individualist-functionalist element in Mill’s thought there is also a strongelement of fallibilism derived from an empiricist view of the nature and possibilities of human knowledge. A corollary of Mill’s fallibilism is his conception of human nature as essentially open and incomplete. His doctrine of individuality and self-development, on the other hand, implies that the (...) individual is definable by certain necessary and permanent characteristics. Following a discussion of the empiricist and fallibilist strain in Mill’s liberalism, the present paper offers an interpretation of Mill’s view that reconciles these two seemingly discordant elements in his understanding of man. (shrink)

International debates surrounding the management of universities in Western states have focused heavily upon the implications of neo-liberalism and the economisation of knowledge at national and international levels. However, investigations at the institutional level reveal that programmes for the development of human capital, organisational reputation and service quality in education and research are encouraged through regimes of self-development, directed towards organisational objectives. This article utilises governmentality theory to explore the relationship between governance and subjectivity within the Australian (...) higher education system. The governance of higher education, it will be argued, is enabled by mentalities of government which are dependent upon contemporary technologies, techniques for self-evaluation and career-planning, expertise about university labour, and—importantly—practices which engender an enterprising academic identity. To explore the utility of this analysis in contemporary Western liberal states, this study explores the construction of subjectivity implicit within Monash University’s Performance Development Online technology. Embedded with “technologies of the self,” this performance management platform is positioned within Monash as a gateway which requires academics to reflect upon their careers and selves, encouraging the genesis of marketable identities. This article points to the utility of further research into the development of career in a changing academic environment. (shrink)

The argument that individual liberty is valuable as a means to self-development is examined in five sections. First, what is self-development? Second, why is self-development valuable? Third, is it always valuable and is it of pre-eminent value? Fourth, does it require individual liberty? Finally, two interpretations of self-development are distinguished which show that the argument for freedom is either qualified or question-begging.

Doppelt criticizes my theory of freedom as self?development and the related model of workers? self?management which I propose. I argue that Doppelt ignores or misconstrues three major features of my view: (1) the systematic grounding of the conception of freedom in the nature of agency and the distinction I draw between abstract and concrete freedom; (2) my derivation of rights of self?management from the concept of freedom; (3) my argument for a universal right of employment. In (...) general, Doppelt's criticism ignores the systematic conception I have offered of equal rights of access to the social and economic conditions of self?development, a conception which he himself seems to be getting at in his proposed paradigm. I go on to criticize two major features of Doppelt's own view, namely, his historical relativism and his interpretation of meaningful work. (shrink)

Continual pressure on managers, their efficiency, and the need to search for novel solutions to problems can lead to psychologically demanding situations. In efforts to understand the main obstacles to work and to effectively manage work-related processes, and in the need to achieve personal development, new approaches that are based on existential philosophies emerge. The aim of this article is to highlight the ways in which existential approaches have been used or discussed in management and to show that existential (...) themes and their applications in management can also be found in the Eastern tradition of thought. The paper presents six case vignettes from management practice that use Western and Eastern existential insights and offer recommendations for self-development of managers. The paper concludes that although it is difficult or impossible to create a unified framework of existential philosophy of management because of the diversity of existential approaches and because of the problematic nature of comparing Eastern and Western philosophies, it is possible to work towards gathering applicable insights and values. (shrink)

The past two decades have been a time of heightened interest in the moral aspects of the practice of medicine. This interest has been reflected in medical education by the establishment of medical humanities programs in both preclinical and clinical education in many medical schools. It has also been reflected in the literature with a dramatic increase in journal articles on medical ethics as well as the development of medical ethics in textbooks. A number of journals have developed that (...) are specifically devoted to medical ethics, including The Journal of Medical Ethics, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, The Journal of Medical Humanities, Theoretical Medicine, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, just to name a few. The literature includes both theoretical foundations and conceptual analyses of particular issues as well as practical advice and general suggestions for how to implement programs in medical humanities. (shrink)

Part of the _Managing in the Early Years_ series, this book provides practical advice about management theory and practice. Tracking the career development of a nursery nurse into a managerial role, this book: Clearly identifies and explains the managerial roles of team leader, senior supervisor, deputy and manager Focuses on the sudden change that takes place as you transcend from colleague to boss Offers advice on what is expected from you as you move into a managerial role provides case-studies (...) that challenge readers to develop their own views whilst learning about management theory gives Links to relevant Early Years management qualification frameworks and the NVQ and Btec National Diploma in the Early Years. Easy to use and apply, this is a must-have for students, assessors, nursery nurses with an interest in career development into management and anyone working within a early-years environment in a managerial role. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill's commitment to liberty and individual development is one of the most exoteric themes of his moral and political philosophy. But the linkages between this commitment to liberty and development and Mill's conception of utility and principles of the good are not as commonly recognized. As part of a more general transformation of his utilitarianism, Mill repudiated Bentham's principles of the good and instead adopted a more sophisticated form of hedonism. While Bentham admits only the total (...) quantity of pleasure as contributing to value, Mill expands the circle to admit quality or kind of pleasure as well into the value reckoning. I have elsewhere interpreted and defended Mill's qualitative hedonism, and in this paper I can offer only a brief overview of that account and must largely assume its plausibility. Bentham and Mill agree that only pleasurable experiences and the absence of painful experiences have value and so both are called hedonists. But they have very different views about what properties of pleasures makes them valuable, or in other words what are the good-making properties of pleasure. Bentham thinks that only intensity and duration, or quantity, are good-making properties of pleasures, and thus he includes only these properties in measuring value. As a consequence, in the context of value measurement he is not interested in the kinds of things in which people take pleasure. But Mill is a qualitative hedonist, and thinks that the quality or kind of pleasure is also a good-making characteristic and thus should be included in value measurement. The things that are sources of pleasure matter to Mill. (shrink)

This book demonstrates how the indigenous wisdom contained in African proverbs and folktales can be used to enhance modern life. The timeless wisdom enriches the understanding of self-development and positive influence, contributing towards the much-needed, cross-cultural dialogue among individuals, organizations, and societies in this increasingly diversified world.

In recent years, the theoretical work of Gilligan in women's psychological development has led to the development of the concept of moral orientation or moral voice in contrast to the concept of moral reasoning or moral judgment developed by Kohlberg. These concepts have been of particular interest in gender studies, especially as applied to adolescence. These concepts of moral orientation and moral reasoning are being increasingly employed in healthcare ethics studies in a wide variety of settings. The recent (...) work has included studies of physicians, nurses, dentists, veterinarians, social workers, teachers of medical ethics, and hospital ethics committees. However, the study of moral development in healthcare providers has been hampered because collecting the necessary data from healthcare workers has been labor intensive and extremely time consuming. More efficient methods are needed. (shrink)

Recent research into the nature of self in artificial and biological systems raises interest in a uniquely determining immutable sense of self, a “metaphysical ‘I’” associated with inviolable personal values and moral convictions that remain constant in the face of environmental change, distinguished from an object “me” that changes with its environment. Complementary research portrays processes associated with self as multimodal routines selectively enacted on the basis of contextual cues informing predictive self or world models, with (...) the notion of the constant, per-vasive and invariant sense of self associated with a multistable attractor set aiming to ensure personal integrity against threat of disintegrative change. This paper proposes that an immutable sense of self emerges as a global attractor which can be described as a project ideal self-situation embodied in frontal medial processes during more or less normal adolescent development, and that thereafter serves to orient agency in the more or less free development of embodied potentials over the life course in effort to realize project conditions, phenomenally identified with the felt pull towards this end as purpose of and source of meaning in life. So oriented, life-long self-development aims to embody solutions to problems at different timescales depending on this embodied purpose, ultimately in the service of evolutionary processes securing organism populations against threats of disintegrative change over timespans far beyond that of the individual. After characterizing the target sense of self, research circling this target is briefly surveyed. Self as global project and developmental neural correlates are proposed. Then, the paper discusses some implications for research in biological and artificial systems. Building from earlier work in cognitive neurorobotics, discussion affirms the value of reinforcement rituals including prayer in metaphysical self-development, considers implications for value alignment and rights associated with free will in the context of artificial intelligence and robot religion, and concludes by emphasizing the importance of self-development toward project ideals as source of meaning in life in the current social-political environment. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception (1945), written after his extensive research in psychology, anthropology, and the other social sciences and also after his intensive encounter with the thought of Husserl and Heidegger, is an attempt to leave those malevolent dualisms behind and replace them with a phenomenology that engages with beings as befits their essence and the conditions of their being: a phenomenology that no longer imposes on our experience a morally irresponsible and offensive ontology; a phenomenology that, instead, reminds us (...) of our responsibility as guardians of nature and life and brings to light very new possibilities for ethical life, community, and dwelling on the earth of this planet. (shrink)

The origin of languages was a hotly debated topic in the eighteenth century. This paper reconstructs a distinctively Kantian account according to which the origination, progression, and diversification of languages is at bottom reason’s self-development under certain a priori constraints and external environments. The reconstruction builds on three sets of materials. The first is Herder’s famous prize essay on the origin of languages. The second includes Kant’s explicit remarks about language – especially his notion of “transcendental grammar,” his (...) argument that language cannot be innate, his contrast of “Oriental” symbolic (intuitive) and “Occidental” discursive languages, and his treatment of the latter as a sine qua non of humanity’s cultural and moral progress. The third includes the concepts that we need to make sense of those remarks, such as Kant’s epigenetic theory of biological formation and his account of categories as originally acquired. (shrink)

Following a brief consideration of two contrasting purposes for teaching the medical humanities, a description is given of a film discussion elective course. In contrast to the usual teaching of medical ethics which is primarily a cognitive activity emphasizing the development of a code of principles such as justice, autonomy, and beneficence, the film discussion elective was primarily an affective activity emphasizing the development of an ethical ideal of caring, relatedness, and sensitivity to others. The pass/fail elective, offered (...) for one credit each quarter for two quarters, met once a week for one hour for twenty-four weeks. Each week a film was shown followed by a group discussion. A wide variety of social issues were covered. The objective of the course was to increase the ethical sensitivity of the medical students through promotion of introspection and reflection on social issues. A brief discussion is given of the importance and appropriateness of using film to promote the affective focus of medicine on the relief of suffering. Examples are given of how the course achieved its objective. A detailed description of the resource materials is provided. (shrink)

A subject’s relationship with work is by no means “neutral” as regards selfdevelopment. What becomes of the psychical relationship with work does not depend solely on the individual’s particular characteristics as a person, in particular their gender; it depends also on the nature and organization of work. In order to analyse the importance of work in the development of the psychic erotic economics, I refer to the psychotherapy of a young woman that took place towards the end of her (...) adolescence. This will enable me to show how work can have a positive impact on mental development. Then, in order to illustrate how work may destroy mental functioning, I briefly analyse examples taken from investigations I undertook in France in companies where several workplace suicides had taken place. (shrink)

The author has enjoyed successive careers as a union leader and business executive. The book is a clumsily expressed chronicle of the author's prejudices and opinions. --J. D. T. Jr.

John Dewey's classical pragmatism, Daniel M. Savage asserts, can be used to provide a self-development-based justification of liberal democracy that shows the current debate between liberal individualism and republican communitarianism to ...

Both of these fine volumes are concerned with Emmanuel Levinas. The 1986 volume is a quite complete bibliography of Levinas, including not only his writings, but books and articles about him, and even including references to him in other books and articles. It is the most complete bibliography of Levinas available.

So Michael Slote argues. There is and can be no obligation to foster one's own wellbeing for Kantians, only an obligation to foster the wellbeing of others. And any distinctively Kantian position both denies that our own wellbeing is the source of our moral duties and denies that a concern for wellbeing can be a morally worthy motive. So not only is the agent's own good not foundational to morality; it is of no moral importance. Hence, Slote concludes, the devaluation (...) of the moral agent. (shrink)

This book traces the development of the notion of self throughout the Western intellectual and religious tradition. While using the historical thread as its guiding norm, it presents a dynamic model of selfhood.

This book brings the idea of a public—defined in part as the quality of communication among strangers—back into focus. The benefits of doing this are many, but perhaps the most important are to adjust our understanding of what is good teaching and to widen our understanding of what counts as central to the educational process.

BackgroundBoosting the individual learning passion of medical students is a novel approach to improve their academic performance. It facilitates the medical education reform, motivating both policymakers and educators to focus on the function of positive psychology in the career development of medical students. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the status of two types of learning passion; to clarify the relationship between self-esteem and two types of learning passion among Chinese medical students; to examine the mediating role of (...) psychological capital in the relationship between self-esteem and two types of learning passion, respectively; and to identify the moderating role of professional identity in the relationship between PsyCap and two types of learning passion, respectively.MethodsA cross-sectional online survey was conducted from April to June 2016 in China. A total of 1,218 valid questionnaires were collected from four medical schools.ResultsSelf-esteem significantly and positively influenced medical students’ PsyCap.ConclusionTwo types of learning passion of medical students are positively influenced by self-esteem and PsyCap. Medical students with high-level self-esteem should possess strong PsyCap, which augments their harmonious as well as obsessive learning passion. Moreover, the positive effect of medical students’ PsyCap on harmonious learning passion is more notable among those with a lower professional identity. Finally, this study argues that strengths-based interventions of self-esteem and PsyCap are a beneficial approach for future enhancing learning passion in the domain of medical education. (shrink)

Socialism grew up in opposition to capitalism, just as liberalism developed in reaction to feudalism. Both liberalism and socialism combined potent critiques of the existing socio‐economic order with blueprints for a desirable future society. However, liberalism provides a rather more coherent body of thought than does socialism, and its theories are linked with the emergence of a dominant system combining capitalism and liberal democracy. By contrast, no widespread socio‐economic order has as yet emerged which can be confidently or closely associated (...) with the ideas of socialism. In both cases the relationship between theories and actual systems is a contestable one, but it has been particularly problematic in the history of socialism. (shrink)

Histories of the Self The self is a historical phenomenon. As Nietzsche pointed out, the forms of self now taken for granted are the product of an arduous and often violent development whose beginnings, in Nietzsche's accounts at least, predate Cesare Borgia.1 Nietzsche is not the only figure to have attempted to write the history of the self. Max Weber and Norbert Elias immediately come to mind.2 More recently, Charles Taylor has historicized modern Western identity (...) (calling it “a function of a historically limited mode of self-interpretation … which had a beginning in time and space and may have an…. (shrink)

In this text, the history of phenomenological research on learning is synthesized and brought forward into the areas of existential learning, the development of enthusiasm about learning (from childhood through adulthood), and paradigmatic creative experience. Original research findings are derived using the Giorgi method of descriptive phenomenological analysis in psychology. The results, structural and eidetic in nature, are then integrated from a holistic developmental viewpoint: that of Existential-Humanistic Self-Development Theory (EHSDT). An evolving developmental partnership between learning and (...) creativity emerges as the proper conceptual frame for considering optimal growth and the relative maturity of situated becoming oneself (i.e., the process of self-cultivation). The resulting perspective is supported by cutting edge trends in neuroscience and related to pedagogy and education. (shrink)

During the 1980s many communities turned to grassroots activities to promote economic development, rather than relying on industrial recruitment strategies. We evaluate the characteristics of these projects, their benefits and costs, and obstacles they face in the development process. The data are drawn from a survey of more than one hundred communities in the United States. Self-development efforts do not appear to replace traditional rural economic development activities, but may complement them. Self-development activities (...) produce a wide variety of jobs that are taken primarily by local residents. The cost and availability of credit are major obstacles for self-development projects. Although self-development strategies should not be considered the primary economic development strategy for most rural communities, they do enable communities to build a more viable local economy. (shrink)

Background: Moral courage is required at all levels of nursing. However, there is a need for development of instruments to measure nurses’ moral courage. Objectives: The objective of this study is to develop a scale to measure nurses’ self-assessed moral courage, to evaluate the scale’s psychometric properties, and to briefly describe the current level of nurses’ self-assessed moral courage and associated socio-demographic factors. Research design: In this methodological study, non-experimental, cross-sectional exploratory design was applied. The data were (...) collected using Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale and analysed statistically. Participants and research context: The data were collected from a convenience sample of 482 nurses from four different clinical fields in a major university hospital in Finland for the final testing of the scale. The pilot comprised a convenience sample of 129 nurses. Ethical considerations: The study followed good scientific inquiry guidelines. Ethical approval was obtained from the university ethics committee and permission to conduct the study from the participating hospital. Findings: Psychometric evaluation showed that the 4-sub-scale, 21-item Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale demonstrates good reliability and validity at its current state of development showing a good level of internal consistency for a new scale, the internal consistency values ranging from 0.73 to 0.82 for sub-scales and 0.93 for the total scale, thus well exceeding the recommended Cronbach’s alpha value of >0.7. Principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis supported the theoretical construct of Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale. Face validity and expert panel assessments markedly contributed to the relevance of items in establishing content validity. Discussion and conclusion: Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale provides a new generic instrument intended for measuring nurses’ self-assessed moral courage. Recognizing the importance of moral courage as a part of nurses’ moral competence and its assessment offers possibilities to develop interventions and educational programs for enhancement of moral courage. Research should focus on further validation measures of Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale in international contexts. (shrink)

This paper presents five studies on the development and validation of a scale of intellectual humility. This scale captures cognitive, affective, behavioral, and motivational components of the construct that have been identified by various philosophers in their conceptual analyses of intellectual humility. We find that intellectual humility has four core dimensions: Open-mindedness (versus Arrogance), Intellectual Modesty (versus Vanity), Corrigibility (versus Fragility), and Engagement (versus Boredom). These dimensions display adequate self-informant agreement, and adequate convergent, divergent, and discriminant validity. In (...) particular, Open-mindedness adds predictive power beyond the Big Six for an objective behavioral measure of intellectual humility, and Intellectual Modesty is uniquely related to Narcissism. We find that a similar factor structure emerges in Germanophone participants, giving initial evidence for the model’s cross-cultural generalizability. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper pointed out that Hegel's philosophy, which several important methodological principle, and self-described conduct in the spirit of the dialectical movement in the main content and rhythm patterns. The first part I will point out that "the specific dialectical thinking" and "organic whole concept of self-development" is the main features of Hegel's thought. And in the second part of the argument: to show itself as a spiritual movement accreditation, which consists of the same (...) state of self out of the original, self-denial, to return to their own, including poor and reach their own community and the higher of the same stand, and towards the infinite intrinsic activities of self-purpose. (shrink)

The idea behind this book is that developing a conception of the physical world and a conception of mind is impossible without the exercise of agency, meaning "the power to alter at will one's perceptual inputs". The thesis is derived from a philosophical account of the role of agency in knowledge - the first time this has been attempted in the context of developmental psychology. The book is divided into three parts. In Part One, Russell argues that purely "representational" theories (...) of mind and of mental development have been overvalued, thereby clearing the ground for the book's central thesis. In Part Two, he proposes that, because objective experience depends upon the experience of agency, the development of the "object concept" in human infants is grounded in the development of executive-attentional capacities. In Part Three, an analysis of the links between agency and self-awareness generates an original theory of the nature of certain stage-like transitions in mental functioning and of the relationship between executive and mentalising deficits in autism. The book will be of particular interest to students and researchers in cognitive-developmental psychology, to philosophers of mind, and to anybody with an interest in cognitive science. (shrink)