Discusses the relationship between commitment (pledging or binding oneself to certain acts), hope (anticipating that positive events will occur), despondency (anticipating negative events), and fatalism (believing that there is nothing one can do to affect the future). Factors contributing to despondency in the US include an emphasis on self and emotionality that gives the illusion of increased intimacy but avoids real caring and commitment toward others; experiences of alienation and aloneness; the high crime rate; and a loss of trust in (...) leaders. Diminished privacy and a dehumanizing bureaucracy can lead to fatalism. Research is reviewed on factors enhancing commitment and on the enhancement of beliefs after overt actions. It is concluded that changing despondency and fatalism into constructive hope requires prior active behavior or involvement, which raises the probability of further action. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

The practice of paying research subjects for participating inclinical trials has yet to receive an adequate moral analysis.Dickert and Grady argue for a wage payment model in whichresearch subjects are paid an hourly wage based on that ofunskilled laborers. If we accept this approach, what follows?Norms for just working conditions emerge from workplacelegislation and political theory. All workers, includingpaid research subjects under Dickert and Grady''s analysis,have a right to at least minimum wage, a standard work week,extra pay for overtime hours, (...) a safe workplace, no faultcompensation for work-related injury, and union organization.If we accept that paid research subjects are wage earners likeany other, then the implications for changes to current practiceare substantial. (shrink)

Intercultural Digital Ethics faces the central challenge of how to develop a global IDE that can endorse and defend some set of universal ethical norms, principles, frameworks, etc. alongside sustaining local, culturally variable identities, traditions, practices, norms, and so on. I explicate interpretive pros hen ethical pluralism ) emerging in the late 1990s and into the twenty-first century in response to this general problem and its correlates, including conflicts generated by “computer-mediated colonization” that imposed homogenous values, communication styles, and so (...) on upon “target” peoples and cultures via ICTs as embedding these values in their very design. I contrast different kinds of ethical pluralisms as structural apparatus for understanding what differences may mean and allow for, as these emerged in the 1990s forwards with EP. As interwoven with phronēsis, a form of reflective judgment and virtue, EP more radically preserves irreducible differences and so fosters positive engagements across deep cultural differences. I show how EP emerged in the context of empirical research on “Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication” beginning in 1998, and then in specific applications within Internet Research Ethics beginning in 2000. I summarize its main characteristics and trace how it has further been taken up in ICE, IRE, Intercultural Information Ethics, and virtue ethics more broadly. I respond to important criticisms and objections, arguing that EP thus stands as an important component for a contemporary IDE that seeks an ethical cosmopolitanism in place of computer-mediated colonization. (shrink)

Philosophy confronts two existential crises: the threats to its existence from scientists like Stephen Hawking who claim that philosophy is dead; and the threat to life itself from catastrophic climate change. The essay’s first theoretical part critiques Nietzsche’s claim that philosophy’s primary function is to guarantee the future of life. The essay’s second practical part claims that philosophy must meet the challenge of life’s extinction through a revised model for ethics in education. Taking its start from recent conceptualizations of philosophy (...) as a ‘field discipline,’ this part considers African American models for delivering ethics in education to under-resourced communities. The third part shows how these theoretical models may be actualized in the practice of an African field philosopher. (shrink)

Reprint, in paper covers, of the Columbia U. Press edition of 1990. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

In A Companion to Giles of Rome, Charles Briggs, Peter Eardley, and seven other leading specialists provide an indispensable guide to the thought, works, life, and legacy of one of the later Middle Ages most important scholastic philosophers and theologians.

This three-volume history of England from before the Roman conquest through to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was originally serialised in Charles Dickens' magazine Household Words between 1851 and 1853. The text was published in book form in the same period, although each volume was post-dated to the following year. Dickens dedicated the work to his own children, intending it to be a stepping stone to more substantial histories. The volumes were popular with readers for decades, and were used (...) in British schools well into the twentieth century. Dickens employs his signature style to bring events and personalities to life, making use of vivid similes, unabashedly partisan language and direct speech, as well as the occasional moral lesson. Volume 1 covers the period from the campaigns of Julius Caesar up to the close of the reign of the 'miserable brute' King John. (shrink)

Why is female violence a taboo? We suggest that both men and women actively contribute to the creation of this stigma. Men may benefit because nonaggressive women may make better mothers and be more faithful and fertile. Females may benefit by downplaying their aggressive nature because they will be perceived as more valuable mates and because they will be more accepted within female social groups.

Our paper contributes to Science, Technology and Society scholarship on the practices and technologies of containment. We build on existing work in STS that has analyzed containment as a performative sociotechnical system that generates and sustains new realities, new systems, and new relationships. Our contribution draws from the problem of containment in salmon aquaculture. The stakes for containing salmon are very high. Farmed salmon escapes are environmentally damaging to ecosystems and wild salmon populations, and they put additional pressure on an (...) industry that has a very poor environmental record. We consider in detail Newfoundland and Labrador’s “Code of Containment” that works to keep farmed salmon in cages and prevent them from escaping into the wild. Through our analysis of the Code, we argue that containment is not only about holding inside. It is also about holding together, an obsolete meaning of the term “to contain.” We add to STS scholarship by arguing that containment and its associated Code in Newfoundland holds together a large scale, industrial aquaculture sector that tolerates persistent farmed salmon escapes into the wild from ocean-based cages. We conclude by examining the broader implications of our analysis for STS scholarship on the practices and technologies of containment. (shrink)

This essay argues that Knafo and Teschke fundamentally misread Brenner’s original contribution to the transition debate. They equate his rejection of trans-historical or trans-modal laws of motion with the notion that social-property relations do not have strong rules of reproduction that structure the actions of agents and give rise to ‘developmental patterns’ specific to each form of social labour. Knafo and Teschke’s critique of Brenner’s analysis of capitalist expansion and crisis is also theoretically and empirically questionable.

The notions of individual and collective ethics were first explicitly defined in the biostatistical literature in 1971 to motivate a mathematical solution to a posed ethical dilemma. This paper reviews key antecedents to these concepts and traces explicit references to them over time, primarily in the biostatistical literature. Following a historical exposition of these texts, a critical thematic analysis shows the following: the normative force of these concepts has not been adequately argued. Individual and collective ethics do not solve the (...) problem of how to use accumulating data to inform ethical action. The notions of the "individual" and the "collective" are too vague to prompt clear moral imperatives, especially in difficult cases. These concepts have not been successfully linked to a standard ethical framework. Finally, the paper concludes with the observation that a systematic, comprehensive ethical framework must be identified to fulfill the intuitions behind individual and collective ethics. (shrink)

Academic medical ethics must be a bulwark against a disturbing trend toward post-truth cultures. Activism of course has its place in massive cultural debates like abortion. The fact that so many people care so deeply about these debates is part of what makes them so important. But especially when coming from clinicians, academics, and others to whom we entrust the care of our public discourse, interventions into the debates must be disciplined by a thoroughgoing commitment to engage with the available (...) data to back up the central claims even when those claims seem like common sense—perhaps especially when they seem like common sense. (shrink)

For more than twenty years, Opinion 6.01 of the American Medical Association's Code of Medical Ethics has specified that “a physician's fee for medical services should be based on the value of the service provided by the physician to the patient.” In 1994, the AMA amended Opinion 6.01, adding a new statement that “a physician's fee should not be made contingent on the successful outcome of medical treatment.”We believe that the amendment is wholly indefensible. Therefore, in this essay, we argue (...) that the AMA should lift this prohibition and encourage the use of result-based compensation for medical services in appropriate circumstances.The 1994 amendment dramatically changed the significance and scope of Opinion 6.01. Result-based compensation arrangements clearly satisfy the original version of Opinion 6.01 because they base compensation on the “value of the services provided … to the patient.” Yet, it is equally clear that result-based compensation arrangements violate the amended version of Opinion 6.01 because they necessarily make compensation “contingent on the successful outcome of medical treatment.”. (shrink)

Can Christians affirm their belief uneqivocally without denying the beliefs of others? They can, this book holds, by claiming that Christian revelation is both reasonable and faithful to tradition, but not necessarily infallible or exclusively definitive. To the Christian, in Dr. Ketcham's words: "It is in the life, death, and Resurrection of Christ that God presently reveals Himself; this is what is meant by the term Christ-event.... The Church is therefore the community of those whose identity has been and is (...) being influenced by their encounter with God in this event." Thus the Christian "must participate in the suffering and conflict of this world, not out of superiority of insight but because of an integrity of dedication." Dr. Ketcham believes that current changes in the thinking and expression of the 19th and early 20th centuries are not matters of style or vogue. Rather, they are changes having to do with our understanding of the very nature of reality. No aspect or expression of life is left unaffected—least of all our understanding of the person and work of Jesus the Christ. Therefore "the purpose of this book is to provide an alternative to the traditional doctrine of the incarnation, an alternative which will do justice to the witness of Scripture, to the history of faith, and to the insights of a phenomenological ontology. "Beginning with the ontology implicit in Buber's _I and Thou_ and Heidegger's _Being and Time_ and responsive to the insights of Husserl's phenomenology and Kierkagaard's existentialism, Dr. Ketcham takes a more radical position than most contemporary theologians. His purpose is to make a contribution toward the revitalization and unification of the Church: "The mission of the Church is to achieve community, a oneness through the Christ-event, so that every man may affirm with freedom his authentic being with God and with his fellow man.". (shrink)

Having a deaf student in class can pose a tremendous challenge for both the professor and the student, but it can also be an incredibly rewarding experience. To help make it so, this article briefly covers the differences between American Sign Language and English and then identifies aspects of linguistic skills where the deaf student may encounter difficulty in dealing with Philosophy. Those discussed are inadequate vocabulary, problems in reading and writing, insufficient background or “life” information, and difficulty in dealing (...) with abstractions. Since English will most likely be a second language for deaf students, there is also a brief discussion of similarities and differences between them and ESL students. An appendix to the article presents a collection of techniques that I developed to accommodate the needs of a profoundly deaf student who took an introductory Philosophy and an upper level Religion course with me. Among them are suggestions for lectures, class discussions, testing, written assignments, student-teacher conferences, and audio-visual materials. Finally, there are some useful on-line resources together with some tips for working with interpreters. (shrink)

An indispensable and comprehensive resource for students and scholars of philosophy of religion.

The Internet has been used as a place for and site of an array of research activities. From online ethnographies to public data sets and online surveys, researchers and research regulators have struggled with an array of ethical issues around the conduct of online research. This paper presents a discussion and findings from Buchanan and Ess's study on US-based institutional review boards and the state of internet research ethics.

Rue, Charles Review(s) of: Sufficient for the day: Towards a sustainable culture, by Geoff Lacey, (Box Hill: Yarra Institute Press, 2011), pp.101, $20.00.

The United States Supreme Court's decision in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly is creating quite a stir. Suddenly gone is the famous loosey-goosey rule of Conley v. Gibson that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.Now a complaint must provide enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible (...) on its face. Only decided last May, Bell Atlantic has been cited in over 3,700 cases. Already being described as a landmark decision, Bell Atlantic nonetheless has lawyers and judges scratching their heads over the precise pleading standard to apply in its wake. As the Second Circuit (mildly) put it, Considerable uncertainty concerning the standard for assessing the adequacy of pleadings has recently been created by the Supreme Court's decision in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly. Just what is a plausible showing that the pleader is entitled to relief under Rule 8(a)(2)?I believe an answer lies in the 26-year-old decision of the Former Fifth Circuit in In re Plywood Antitrust Litigation. Plywood Antitrust requires, at a minimum, that a complaint . . . contain either direct or inferential allegations respecting all the material elements necessary to sustain a recovery under some viable legal theory. Already used in more than half the circuits, this standard paraphrases advice found in the venerable WRIGHT & MILLER for nearly 40 years.Properly applied, this all . . . material elements standard satisfies Bell Atlantic's plausibility requirement in all respects. The Plywood Antitrust pleading standard works well after Bell Atlantic, first, because the Supreme Court referred to the standard, albeit parenthetically, with approval in Bell Atlantic. Second, it does much to harmonize the Federal Rules' goal of dispensing with pleading technicalities while still requiring enough general factual information about a pleader's claim to make the notice in notice pleading meaningful. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it gives lawyers, litigants, and courts a standard they can actually use when drafting, or assessing the sufficiency of, pleadings. (shrink)

Lehrer's example is not counter to the analysis I set forth. I grant it to be not the case that Makesure is now completely justified in believing that Deadly is a murderer. But why are we to say so? We are told it is because "he has been confused by a lie." It is not because Makesure possesses new information which undermines the evidence he originally had. It is known that the testimony of the friend was a lie. If Lehrer's (...) example defeats my analysis, so would a much simpler one. Suppose that Makesure has not spoken with his friend but has died. In a manner similar to Lehrer's, we should say it is not the case that Makesure is now completely justified in believing that Deadly is guilty. Being dead, he can't believe a thing. Are we to conclude on the basis of my analysis, then, that we cannot say with warrant that Makesure knew, originally, that Deadly was a murderer? No, for immediately following the formulation of my analysis which Lehrer cites, I had said, "Spelled out more carefully, would read 'X would be completely justified now, simply on the basis of the evidence he had then, in believing that p or in claiming to know that p'." Makesure's present confusion, or death, is irrelevant to the satisfaction of this condition. In the example we say that Makesure knew because we realize that were he neither confused nor dead, then he would now be completely justified in his belief. Notice that at the time of the friend's testimony we could not have said then that was satisfied. We say so later only after the lying nature of the testimony has come to light. To repeat, we now say that Makesure knew that Deadly was the murderer because we now realize that Makesure's original evidence was perfectly adequate. Far from being a defeating instance, it seems to me that the example is readily handled by the analysis I have proposed. (shrink)