This study presents and develops test methods for assessing sensitivity to conflict of interest (COIsen). We are aware of no study assessing COIsen, but note that some popular methods for assessing ethical sensitivity and related constructs (which include COIsen) are flawed in that their presentation of stimulus material to subjects actually guides subjects to attend to ethical (or related) issues. The method tested here was designed to avoid this flaw. Using adaptations of two existing cases, a quota sample (...) of 12 students was interviewed. Our method used funnel-sequenced, open-ended interviews that were audiotaped and transcribed, then subjected to a form of cognitive mapping. These maps revealed the presence of “indicators” of COIsen. We found that COIsen can be measured and that the global COIsen score generated by our method is able to reveal much variation across subjects, making it a worthwhile candidate for further consideration. (shrink)

The Community of Inquiry is a unique discourse model that brings adults and children together in collaborative discussions of philosophical and ethical topics. This paper examines the potential for COI to deepen children’s moral and intellectual understanding through recursive discourse that encourages them to transcend cultural limitations, confront their own moral predispositions, and increase inter-cultural understanding. As children become familiar with normative values couched in ethical dialogue, they are immersed in ideals of reciprocity and empathy. Such dialogues can become effective (...) vehicles for introducing children to discussions of human dignity and rights that also challenge traditional power relationships between adults and children. The uncritical assumption underlying such power differentials often contests the de facto rights and dignity of children. COI is a valuable tool for human rights education as it encourages children’s sensitivity to the rights and dignities of others and, simultaneously, honors children’s own rights and dignities as participating citizens in the global community. (shrink)

In the recent debate on the semantic/pragmatic divide, Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore (2005) on the one hand, and Fran¸cois Recanati (2004) on the other, occupy almost diametrically opposed positions as regards the role of semantics for communication, while largely agreeing on important features of pragmatics. According to Cappelen and Lepore (CL), semantic context sensitivity of natural language sentences is restricted to what is determined by a particular minimal set of canonically context sensitive expressions. If you try to go (...) beyond that set, as has often been done in recent semantic theories, to reach a position of moderate contextualism, your reasons will force you to the much more extreme position of radical contextualism. That is CL’s instability thesis. They argue for it by means of a number of examples intended to illustrate how you are off on a slippery slope if you admit any context sensitivity beyond the basic one. If radical contextualism is true, systematic semantics is not possible, since, according to CL, there cannot be any systematic theory of speech act content. The one exception is that whatever is said by the utterance of a sentence, its minimally context dependent content is part of it. Precisely this is denied by Recanati. Not only is this “minimal proposition” not part of speech act content. The minimal proposition plays no.. (shrink)

Bioethics journals have lagged behind medical and science journals in exploring the threat of conflict of interest (COI) to the integrity of publications. Some recent discussions of COI that have occurred in the bioethics literature are reviewed. Discussions of what has been termed the ?Healy affair? unintentionally demonstrate that the direct and indirect influence of undisclosed COI may come from those who call for protection from the undue influence of industry. Paradoxically, the nature and tone of current discussions may serve (...) to dull sensitivities to what is indeed a serious set of issues facing bioethics. Some proposals are presented to address COI and other challenges to the integrity of bioethics and its journals. COI is too important a topic to be left to ideologues, and there is no substitute for readers' caution and skepticism as tools in dealing with the full range of biases that exist in published papers. (shrink)

This paper reports on collaborative research undertaken with the African Australian Christian Impact Centre (CIC) in Perth, Western Australia. It is part of a larger university philosophy outreach program in which the researchers seek to create opportunities for those on the educational and social margins, and young people, to engage in ‘doing philosophy’, and to learn from them about their experiences. We were interested to evaluate whether the collaborative philosophical inquiry methods we use in our university teaching could be beneficial (...) outside of a formal educational setting, for members of the culturally diverse, faith-based community of CIC. In this multi-method evaluative study, we examined the extent to which participation in a series of Community of Inquiry (CoI) sessions improved or did not improve participants’ self-assessment of: (1) their competence and confidence in communicating with others in different contexts; (2) their competence and confidence as a ‘thinker’; and (3) their social competence and confidence. Our findings on ‘communication’ are discussed in this paper. The facilitated philosophical discussions led to insights about ‘speaking out’ and ‘listening’, particularly with respect to participants’ experiences of cultural and generational differences. We suggest that participation in CoI in a faith-based community setting has the potential to significantly increase confidence in communication skills, and lead to greater intergenerational, intercultural, and intercommunity sensitivity. (shrink)

While Philosophy for/with Children (P4wC) provides a better alternative to the usual ‘banking’ model of education, questions have been raised regarding its applicability in non-western contexts. Despite its adherence to the ideals of democratic dialogue, not all members of a Community of Inquiry (COI) will be disposed to participate in the inquiry, not because they are incapable of doing so, but because they are positioned inferiorly within the group thereby affecting their efforts to speak out on topics that are meaningful (...) to them. In this article, I claim that it is essential to integrate positionality in P4wC research/practice. Aside from its role in helping a practitioner/researcher choose the appropriate method and materials that match the unique contexts of children, it also increases one’s awareness of the subtle forms of epistemic injustice that could leak in the COI, as well as the other subtle ways in which children are marginalized. In this regard, a P4wC researcher/practitioner must have a higher degree of sensitivity towards her positionality as this inevitably gets entangled with the positionality of children. I present some ‘areas’ in which the importance of positionality in the COI manifests, namely, restructuring classroom power relations, navigating a multi-ethnic classroom, facilitating meaning-making, and modeling reflective thinking. (shrink)

Bien loin de ne poser que des problèmes spécifiques dont aurait à s'occuper une éthique particulière réservée à des experts, la médecine confrontée à l'appareil technoscientifique moderne nous oblige à reprendre à la base les questions les plus générales et les plus radicales concernant l'homme et sa conduite. C'est pourquoi cet ouvrage questionne la philosophie, le droit et l'éthique jusque dans leurs fondements avant d'aborder les problèmes les plus brûlants de notre actualité médicale. Dans une perspective à la fois interdisciplinaire (...) et fondamentale, nous présentons ici trois approches - philosophique, juridique et médicale qui constituent autant d'entrées possibles. Ainsi regroupées et articulées, les différences qui existent entre les rationalités, les pratiques et les discours peuvent devenir des facteurs d'enrichissement réciproque au lieu de constituer des obstacles. (shrink)

La philosophie élaborée à Florence par Marsile Ficin dans la seconde moitié du XVe siècle s'est répandue dans les principales cours princières d'Italie, en particulier celle d'Urbin. Etude de l'influence qu'elle exerça sur les lettres, l'architecture, la peinture et les autres arts (la marqueterie notamment) à la cour du duc Frédéric de Montefeltre et de ses successeurs immédiats.

Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs, evolution’s creativity is not limited to nature. Indeed, many researchers in the field of digital evolution have observed their evolving algorithms and organisms subverting their intentions, exposing unrecognized bugs in their code, producing unexpected adaptations, or exhibiting outcomes uncannily convergent with ones in nature. Such stories routinely reveal (...) creativity by evolution in these digital worlds, but they rarely fit into the standard scientific narrative. Instead they are often treated as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than results that warrant study in their own right. The stories themselves are traded among researchers through oral tradition, but that mode of information transmission is inefficient and prone to error and outright loss. Moreover, the fact that these stories tend to be shared only among practitioners means that many natural scientists do not realize how interesting and lifelike digital organisms are and how natural their evolution can be. To our knowledge, no collection of such anecdotes has been published before. This paper is the crowd-sourced product of researchers in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation who have provided first-hand accounts of such cases. It thus serves as a written, fact-checked collection of scientifically important and even entertaining stories. In doing so we also present here substantial evidence that the existence and importance of evolutionary surprises extends beyond the natural world, and may indeed be a universal property of all complex evolving systems. (shrink)

Janicaud clarifies the project of “overcoming” metaphysics, a project that Heidegger himself recognized as open to innumerable misunderstandings, and Mattei inquires into the major Heideggerian texts produced between 1935 and 1969 to detect the cosmic figure of the Geviert, the initial Fourfold where “earth and sky, the divine ones and the mortals” gather.

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented (...) care and conflict were higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

The central issue of this essay is whether contextualism in epistemology is genuinely in conflict with recent claims that ‘know’ is not in fact a contextsensitive word. To address this question, I will first rehearse three key aims of contextualists and the broad strategy they adopt for achieving them. I then introduce two linguistic arguments to the effect that the lexical item ‘know’ is not context sensitive, one from Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore, one from Jason Stanley. I find these (...) and related arguments quite compelling. In particular, I think Cappelen and Lepore (2003, 2005a) show pretty definitively that ‘know’ is not like ‘I’/‘here’/‘now’, and Stanley (2004) shows that ‘know’ is not like ‘tall’/‘rich’.1 One could try to find another model for ‘know’. Instead, I consider whether one can rescue ‘‘the spirit of contextualism in epistemology’’—that is, achieve its aims by deploying a strategy of appealing to speaker context—even while granting that ‘know’ isn’t a context-sensitive word at all. My conclusion, in a nutshell, is this: If there are pragmatic determinants of what is asserted/stated, and contextualism can overcome independent problems not having to do specifically with the context-sensitivity of the word ‘know’, then the spirit of contextualism can be salvaged. Even though, for reasons sketched by the aforementioned authors, ‘know’ doesn’t actually belong in the class of context-sensitive words. (shrink)

Keith DeRose’s solution to the skeptical problem is based on his indirect sensitivity account. Sensitivity is not a necessary condition for any kind of knowledge, as direct sensitivity accounts claim, but the insensitivity of our beliefs that the skeptical hypotheses are false explains why we tend to judge that we do not know them. The orthodox objection line against any kind of sensitivity account of knowledge is to present instances of insensitive beliefs that we still judge (...) to constitute knowledge. This objection line offers counter-examples against the claim of direct sensitivity accounts that sensitivity is necessary for any kind of knowledge. These examples raise an easy problem for indirect sensitivity accounts that claim that there is only a tendency to judge that insensitive beliefs do not constitute knowledge, which still applies to our beliefs that the skeptical hypotheses are false. However, a careful analysis reveals that some of our beliefs that the skeptical hypotheses are false are sensitive; nevertheless, we still judge that we do not know them. Therefore, the fact that some of our beliefs that the skeptical hypotheses are false are insensitive cannot explain why we tend to judge that we do not know them. Hence, indirect sensitivity accounts cannot fulfill their purpose of explaining our intuitions about skepticism. This is the hard problem for indirect sensitivity accounts. (shrink)

This study describes the level of moral sensitivity among nursing students enrolled in a traditional baccalaureate nursing program and a master’s nursing program. Survey responses to the Modified Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire for Student Nurses from 250 junior, senior, and graduate students from one nursing school were analyzed. It was not possible to draw conclusions based on the tool. Moral category analysis showed students ranked the category structuring moral meaning highest and interpersonal orientation second. The moral issue ranking highest (...) was honesty, respect for the patient second, and third was responsibility to know the patient’s situation. Seniors agreed more often about the need to focus on patient safety. As students progress through the baccalaureate program and into the graduate program, their perspectives increasingly recognize the contextuality of moral issues. The results show a need to further develop a tool to measure moral sensitivity, using student understanding and perceptions of moral issues. (shrink)

When are the meanings of two utterances the same? And how, if at all, could we determine this sameness? In this paper I take a look at the contextualist answer of Hilary Putnam and Charles Travis. One characteristic trait of Hilary Putnam's conception of meaning is what he calls 'semantic externalism' and what I shall label 'public semantics' to avoid confusion with the topological or what I call 'locational' connotation of externalism in other contexts:1 the meaning of a word and (...) the full meaning/sense of a sentence or utterance are not determined by some private mental state(s) of the speaker but are determined by the use of words on an occasion or in a saying. According to Hilary Putnam and Charles Travis (both elaborating on Wittgenstein's discussions in his Philosophical Investigations), the varieties of such situational uses or occasions, the varieties of public semantics, can themselves not be described or determined once and for all. It is therefore not possible to reduce or absorb each and every pragmatic aspect into semantics. That means that semantics is essentially open and questions as to the sameness of meaning or sense of utterances cannot be answered independently of a pragmatic approach. Travis extends this diagnosis in his most recent book {Unshadowed Thought) to thought, beliefs and attitudes: no one thought, attitude or belief can be individuated independently of relevant situational aspects, these including, among others, acts in accord with, say, an attitude on some occasion or other. The approach pursued here claims that pragmatics is in either of these areas unavoidable and genuine. It cannot be explained away or be re-absorbed into semantics or epistemology.2 This has important consequences for what it means to do philosophy, as can be seen in Putnam's arguments as to the unintelligibility of various philosophical positions. (shrink)

Background: In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare workers increasingly encounter serious ethical issues that negatively affect their professionalism. Purpose: The study aims to examine the ethical sensitivity levels of physicians and nurses working in surgical units during the Covid-19 pandemic and the associating factors. Method: The sample of this cross-sectional online questionnaire–based study consists of 161 healthcare workers working at the surgical units in Turkish hospitals. The data were collected using the “Nurse Descriptive Information Form” developed by (...) the researchers and the “Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire.” Ethical considerations: Approval was granted by the ethics committee. Verbal and written consent was received from the healthcare workers. Results: Ethical sensitivity in the dimension of conflict was found to be higher in healthcare workers who had ethical issues during the Covid-19 pandemic, who were married, who were nurses, who worked more than 45 h, and who had a work experience of 7–10 years (p < 0.05). Healthcare workers with a family member diagnosed with Covid-19 had high ethical sensitivity in the dimension of conflict (p = 0.008), while those who reported being fully competent and ready (p = 0.038) about Covid-19 were found to have low ethical sensitivity. Besides, those who experienced inadequate supplies (p = 0.045), long working hours (p = 0.038), and problems in asepsis–sterilization (p = 0.046) during the Covid-19 pandemic were found to have low sensitivity in the holistic approach dimension. Conclusion: The study revealed that ethical issues during the Covid-19 pandemic, sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge-skills about Covid-19, and the problems encountered in the work environment during the pandemic affect the ethical sensitivity of healthcare workers in the dimensions of conflict and holistic approach. Therefore, it is recommended that governments and all healthcare workers, and stakeholders in the health system in our country and other countries take action to promote ethical sensitivity in response to the rapidly increasing epidemic by considering the factors that adversely affect ethical sensitivity. (shrink)

A philosophy with children community of inquiry encourage children to develop a philosophical sensitivity that entails awareness of abstract questions related to human existence. When it operates, it can allow insight into significant philosophical aspects of various situations and their analysis. This article seeks to contribute to the discussion of philosophical sensitivity by adducing an additional dimension—namely, the development of a socio-philosophical sensitivity by means of a philosophical community of inquiry focused on texts linked to these themes (...) and an analysis of them with the help of narratival tools that explain the children’s philosophical moves. (shrink)

An important aspect of moral expertise is moral sensitivity, which is the ability to be sensitive to the presence of morally salient features in a context. This requires being able to see and acquire the morally relevant information, as well as organise and interpret it, so that you can undertake the related work of moral judgement, focus (or motivation) and action. As a distinct but interrelated component of ethical expertise, moral sensitivity can and must be trained and educated. (...) However, despite its importance to moral education, there has been comparatively little discussion about the role of ethical sensitivity and the ways that it can be trained within the context of Kant’s, and Kantian, ethics. This paper seeks to address this gap. While Kant does not explicitly focus in detail on moral sensitivity, by breaking sensitivity down into seven distinct aspects through drawing on the Four Component Model, we are able to identify a wealth of resources in Kant’s work from which we can con- struct an account of moral sensitivity education that draws on his underlying moral theory. (shrink)

Reasoning about ulterior motives was investigated among children ages 6–10 years (total N = 119). In each of two studies, participants were told about children who offered gifts to peers who needed help. Each giver chose to present a gift in either a public setting, which is consistent with having an ulterior motive to enhance one's reputation, or in a private setting, which is not consistent with having an ulterior motive. In each study, the 6- to 7-year olds showed no (...) evidence of understanding that the public givers might have ulterior motives, but the 8- to 10-year olds rated the private givers more favorably. In , the older children were more likely than the younger children to refer to impression management when explaining their judgments of the givers. The younger children who mentioned impression management did so to justify a preference for public givers (e.g., by explaining that public givers are nicer because more of their peers will know that they are nice). Results from suggest that developmental change in children's reasoning about intentions and social outcomes contributes to their understanding of ulterior motives. (shrink)

According to the sensitivity account of knowledge, S knows that p only if S’s belief in p is sensitive in the sense that S would not believe that p if p were false. The sensitivity condition is usually relativized to belief-formation methods to avoid putative counterexamples. A remaining issue for the account is where methods should be mentioned in sensitivity subjunctives. In this paper, I argue that if methods are mentioned in the antecedent, then the account is (...) too strong to accommodate inductive knowledge; if methods are mentioned in the consequent, then the account is too weak to eliminate some luckily true beliefs from the realm of knowledge. Therefore, the strategy to relativize the sensitivity condition is undermined by inductive knowledge and some luckily true beliefs. (shrink)

Contemporary Bayesian confirmation theorists measure degree of (incremental) confirmation using a variety of non-equivalent relevance measures. As a result, a great many of the arguments surrounding quantitative Bayesian confirmation theory are implicitly sensitive to choice of measure of confirmation. Such arguments are enthymematic, since they tacitly presuppose that certain relevance measures should be used (for various purposes) rather than other relevance measures that have been proposed and defended in the philosophical literature. I present a survey of this pervasive class of (...) Bayesian confirmation-theoretic enthymemes, and a brief analysis of some recent attempts to resolve the problem of measure sensitivity. (shrink)

Background: The Taiwan Nursing Accreditation Council has proposed eight core professional nursing qualities including ethical literacy. Consequently, nursing ethics education is a required course for student nurses. These courses are intended to improve the ethical literacy. Moral sensitivity is the cornerstone of ethical literacy, and learning moral sensitivity is the initial step towards developing ethical literacy. Objectives: To explore the effect of nursing ethics educational interventions based on multiple teaching strategies on student nurses moral sensitivity. Based on (...) the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic model, three strategies were developed for determining the programme components and corresponding learning styles. Research design: This was a quasi-experimental study. Participants: A total of 234 junior-college student nurses participated in this study. All participants were aged 18–19 years. Ethical considerations: The study protocol was approved by the institutional review boards of Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital. Only the participants who signed an informed consent form took part in the study. The participants were permitted to withdraw from the study at any point if they wished to do so without affecting their academic score. Results: The scores of Modified Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire for Student Nurses were significantly improved after the intervention of integrating multiple teaching strategies ( p =.042). Significant relationships were observed between the satisfaction scores of two teaching strategies and moral sensitivity. The results indicated that using multiple teaching strategies is effective for promoting nursing ethics learning. Conclusion: This strategy was consistent with the student nurses’ preferred learning style and was used to correct their erroneous ethical conceptions, assisting in developing their ethical knowledge. (shrink)

This study provides novel evidence of the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on investment sensitivity to cash flows. We posit that CSR affects investment–cash flow sensitivity (ICFS) through information asymmetry and agency costs, commonly viewed as the two channels through which investment responds to the availability of internal cash flows. We find that CSR performance leads to a decrease in ICFS. We further find that ICFS decreases (increases) when CSR strengths (concerns) increase. Finally, we find that the (...) effect of CSR on ICFS is driven by the areas Community, Diversity, and Human Rights. In sum, the findings of this study stress the relevance of CSR—in particular, of CSR activities that extend beyond compliance behavior and reflect what is desired by society—in reducing market frictions and improving firms’ access to financial capital. (shrink)

One aim of this essay is to contribute to understanding aesthetic communication—the process by which agents aim to convey thoughts and transmit knowledge about aesthetic matters to others. Our focus will be on the use of aesthetic adjectives in aesthetic communication. Although theorists working on the semantics of adjectives have developed sophisticated theories about gradable adjectives, they have tended to avoid studying aesthetic adjectives—the class of adjectives that play a central role in expressing aesthetic evaluations. And despite the wealth of (...) attention paid to aesthetic adjectives by philosophical aestheticians, they have paid little attention to contemporary linguistic theories of adjectives. We take our work to be a first step in remedying these lacunae. In this paper, we present four experiments that examine one aspect of how aesthetic adjectives ordinarily function: the context-sensitivity of their application standards. Our results present a prima facie empirical challenge to a common distinction between relative and absolute gradable adjectives because aesthetic adjectives are found to behave differently from both. Our results thus also constitute a prima facie vindication of some philosophical aestheticians’ contention that aesthetic adjectives constitute a particularly interesting segment of natural language, even if the boundaries of this segment might turn out to be different from what they had in mind. (shrink)

Permissivism about rationality is the view that there is sometimes more than one rational response to a given body of evidence. In this paper I discuss the relationship between permissivism, deference to rationality, and peer disagreement. I begin by arguing that—contrary to popular opinion—permissivism supports at least a moderate version of conciliationism. I then formulate a worry for permissivism. I show that, given a plausible principle of rational deference, permissive rationality seems to become unstable and to collapse into unique rationality. (...) I conclude with a formulation of a way out of this problem on behalf of the permissivist. (shrink)

Background: Ethical issues pose challenges for nurses who are increasingly caring for patients in complicated situations. Ethical sensitivity is a prerequisite for nurses to make decisions in the best interest of their patients in daily practice. Currently, there is no tool for assessing ethical sensitivity in Chinese language, and no empirical studies of ethical sensitivity among Chinese nurses. Research objectives: The study was conducted to translate the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–Revised Version (MSQ-R) into Chinese and establish the (...) psychometric properties of the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–Revised Version into Chinese (MSQ-R-CV). Research design: This research was a methodological and descriptive study. Participants and research context: MSQ-R was translated into Chinese using Brislin’s model, and the Translation Validity Index was evaluated. MSQ-R-CV was then distributed along with a demographic questionnaire to 360 nurses working at tertiary and municipal hospitals in Changsha, China. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Yale University and Central South University. Findings: MSQ-R-CV achieved Cronbach’s alpha 0.82, Spearman-Brown coefficient 0.75, significant item discrimination (p < 0.001), and item-total correlation values ranging from 0.524 to 0.717. A two-factor structure was illustrated by exploratory factor analysis, and further confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Chinese nurses had a mean total score of 40.22 ± 7.08 on the MSQ-R-CV, and sub-scores of 23.85 ± 4.4 for moral responsibility and strength and 16.37 ± 3.75 for sense of moral burden. Discussion: The findings of this study were compared with studies from other countries to examine the structure and meaningful implications of ethical sensitivity in Chinese nurses. Conclusion: The two-factor MSQ-R-CV (moral responsibility and strength, and sense of moral burden) is a linguistically and culturally appropriate instrument for assessing ethical sensitivity among Chinese nurses. (shrink)

Background: Moral sensitivity is the first step towards ethical decision-making. This sensitivity should form a basic attitude in healthcare team members, particularly nurses, toward providing effective and ethical care. This is highlighted in intensive care units (ICUs) where close attention should be paid to patient rights and moral or ethical decision-making. Objective: The present study aimed at determining and comparing the effect of written simulation and computer simulation of a virtual patient on the development of moral sensitivity (...) of ICU nurses. Research design: Randomized controlled trial with one control arm and two experimental arms. Participants and content: This study involved 204 ICU nurses working in hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, from 2019 to 2021 using a random allocation method. The participants were allocated to three groups comprising virtual patient computer simulation, written simulation, and the no simulation control group. After training based on a Patient Rights Charter, five scenarios, with themes reflecting the clauses of the Patient’s Rights Charter, were written as a computer program and text for the computer simulation and written simulation groups, respectively. Finally, nurses' moral sensitivity was assessed using the Lützén moral sensitivity questionnaire as pre- and post-tests (immediately and 2 months after the intervention). Ethical considerations: Ethical permission was obtained for the study. All the participants signed the informed consent before the study onset. Results: The study results showed a significant difference in moral sensitivity among the three groups before the intervention ( p = 0.003). Immediately after the intervention compared to pre-intervention, the three groups showed no significant differences in this regard ( p = 0.056), however a significant difference among the three groups was found 2 months post-intervention ( p < 0.001). (shrink)

This study examined the correlation between depressive symptoms, interpersonal sensitivity, and social support before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and verified causal relationships among them. The study used Social Support Scale and Symptom Self-Rating Scale to investigate relevant variables. A total of 1,414 employees from company were recruited for this longitudinal study, which a follow up study was conducted on the same group of participants 1 year later. Paired sample t-test results showed that significant differences were only found in (...) social support, not in depressive symptoms or interpersonal sensitivity. The results of correlation analysis showed that social support, depressive symptoms, and interpersonal sensitivity were significantly correlated between wave 1 and wave 2. The cross-lag autoregressive pathway showed that employees’ social support level, depressive symptoms, and interpersonal sensitivity all showed moderate stability. Crossing paths showed that wave 1 social support could significantly predict wave 2 depressive symptoms and wave 2 interpersonal sensitivity. Wave 1 depressive symptoms could significantly predict wave 2 social support, while wave 1 interpersonal sensitivity could not predict wave 2 social support. Social support can be considered as a protective factor against mental health problems. (shrink)

This study examined the validity and reliability of a Turkish version of the Modified Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire for Student Nurses. After obtaining permission to adapt the MMSQSN into Turkish, the translation/back-translation method was used with expert opinions to determine content validity. Factor analysis was conducted to examine the construct validity and test–retest was performed on the questionnaire to determine reliability. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated to assess for internal consistency. Participants included 272 baccalaureate degree student nurses who took ethics (...) lessons prior to their clinical internship. The factor analysis revealed that even though the factor structure in the original scale was the same, relevant items were categorized with similar components, and factor loads were sufficient. The correlation coefficient in the analyses of test–retest scores was.66 for the total scale and the Cronbach’s alpha was.73 for the total scale. The translated MMSQSN is a valid and reliable measure of ethical sensitivity in student nurses in Turkey. (shrink)

This study provides novel evidence of the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on investment sensitivity to cash flows. We posit that CSR affects investment–cash flow sensitivity (ICFS) through information asymmetry and agency costs, commonly viewed as the two channels through which investment responds to the availability of internal cash flows. We find that CSR performance leads to a decrease in ICFS. We further find that ICFS decreases (increases) when CSR strengths (concerns) increase. Finally, we find that the (...) effect of CSR on ICFS is driven by the areas Community, Diversity, and Human Rights. In sum, the findings of this study stress the relevance of CSR—in particular, of CSR activities that extend beyond compliance behavior and reflect what is desired by society—in reducing market frictions and improving firms’ access to financial capital. (shrink)

Attention and adaptation are both mechanisms that optimize visual performance. Attention optimizes performance by increasing contrast sensitivity for and neural response to attended stimuli while decreasing them for unattended stimuli; adaptation optimizes performance by increasing contrast sensitivity for and neural response to changing stimuli while decreasing them for unchanging stimuli. We investigated whether and how the adaptation state and the attentional effect on contrast sensitivity interact. We measured contrast sensitivity with an orientation-discrimination task, in two adaptation (...) conditions—adapt to 0% or 100% contrast—in focused, distributed, and withdrawn attentional conditions. We used threshold and asymptotic performance to index the magnitude of the attentional effect—enhancement or impairment in contrast sensitivity—before and after adapting to high-contrast stimuli. The results show that attention and adaptation affect the contrast psychometric function in a similar but opposite way: Attention increases stimulus salience, whereas adaptation reduces stimulus salience. An interesting finding is that the adaptation state does not modulate the magnitude of the attentional effect. This suggests that attention affects the normalized signal once the effect of contrast adaptation has taken place and that these two mechanisms act separately to change contrast sensitivity. Attention can overcome adaptation to restore contrast sensitivity. (shrink)

I argue that sentence contents should be assigned truth-values relative to parameters other than a possible world only if those parameters are fixed by the context of assessment rather than the context of use. Standard counterexamples, including tense, de se attitudes, and knowledge ascriptions, all admit of alternative analyses which do not make use of such parameters. Moreover, allowing such indices greatly complicates the task of defining disagreement, and forces an odd separation between what is true, and what someone has (...) truthfully said. If non-world indices are always fixed by the context of assessment, a characterization of semantic theories as ?relativist? in terms of assessment-sensitivity converges with a characterization in terms of sensitivity to non-world indices. More tentatively, I suggest that even a possible world index, when used in the assignment of truth-values to sentence contents, should be fixed by the context of assessment, not the context of use. This eliminates MacFarlane's category of ?non-indexical contextualism?, and results in a system in which parameters fixed by the context of use are used only in the assignment of contents to linguistic expressions, and parameters used in the assignment of truth-values to contents are uniformly fixed by the context of assessment. (shrink)

Research on positive psychology demonstrates that specific individual dispositions are associated with more desirable outcomes. The relationship of positive psychological constructs, however, has not been applied to the areas of business ethics and social responsibility. Using four constructs in two independent studies (hope and gratitude in Study 1, spirituality and generativity in Study 2), the relationship of these constructs to sensitivity to corporate social performance (CSCSP) were assessed. Results indicate that all four constructs significantly predicted CSCSP, though only hope (...) and gratitude interacted to impact CSCSP. Discussion focuses upon these findings, limitations of the study, and future avenues for research. (shrink)

Volume 23, Issue 3-4, November - December 2024, Page 219-244.

The purpose of this study was to investigate some factors which may influence moral decision-making in psychiatric nursing practice. The Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire, a 30-item, seven-point Likert scale, measures six dimensions that are assumed to be related to moral sensitivity. In scoring, the test is divided into six categories: interpersonal orientation, structuring moral meaning, expressing benevolence, modifying autonomy, experiencing conflict, and reliance on medical authority. Seventy-nine nurses, employed in the same psychiatric district, were included in the sample. Significant (...) differences were found for some items in five of the six categories regarding gender, post-basic nursing education, experience as a mental care worker and type of clinical setting. Le but de cette étude était d'investiguer quelques éléments qui pourraient influencer les décisions morales dans la pratique infirmière psychiatrique. Le Questionnaire de Sensibilité Morale de 30 questions, sept points échelle Likert, mesure six dimensions qu'on assume d'être lié à la sensibilité morale. En marquant les points, le test est divisé entre les six catégories: orientation interpersonnelle, structurant un sens moral, l'expression de bénévolence, la modification de l'autonomie, l'expérience de conflit et dépendance de l'autorité médicale. Soixante-dix neuf infirmiers/ères, employé(e)s dans le même rayon de psychiatrie, ont participé dans l'étude. On a trouvé des différences considérables pour quelques questions dans cinq des six catégories en ce qui concerne le genre, l'éducation avancée, l'expérience d'infirmier/ère psychiatrique et type de cadre clinique. Das Ziel dieser Studie war die Untersuchung einiger Faktoren, die Einfluss haben auf die moralische Entscheidungsfindung in der psychiatrischen Krankenpflege. Der Fragebogen zur 'Moralischen Einfühlsamkeit' ist eine sieben-Punk Likert Skala für 30 Sachaspekte und misst sechs Dimensionen, von denen man annimmt, daß sie zur moralischer Einfühlsamkeit gehören. Für die Auswertung ist der Test in sechs Kategorien eingeteilt: Orientierung zu andem Personen, das Strukturieren moralischer Bedeutungselemente, Wohlwollen ausdrücken, Modifizierung von Selbstbestimmung. (shrink)

_Background:_ Experimental research exploring the sleep/pain-relationship has typically focused on total or partial sleep deprivation, hereby failing to reproduce the mere fragmented sleep pattern typically observed in patients with chronic pain. Further, little research is done on how affect moderates the sleep–pain relationship after sleep fragmentation. The present study sought to clarify the relationship between pain, sleep and positive and negative affect. _Methods:_ In an experimental counterbalanced crossover design, 35 healthy young adults were subjected to several pain measures after one (...) night of fragmented sleep, compared to one control night of normal sleep, both conducted in their own homes, and respectively, positive and negative affect induction using validated film clips and facial feedback procedures. Sleep was monitored using sleep diaries. _Results:_ Increased pain sensitivity after one night of experimentally induced sleep fragmentation was found, compared to after one control night of undisturbed sleep. No main effects of induced affect on pain were found, and sleep x induced affect interaction was not significant. _Conclusion:_ The present study supports the adverse effect of sleep fragmentation on pain sensitivity, however, affect was not found to be a moderator in the sleep–pain relationship. The results underline the need for further research within this field. (shrink)

Euthanasia is one of the most controversial issues in medical ethics and one of the ten major ethical challenges in medicine and health sciences. The present study was conducted to evaluate the relationship between moral sensitivity and attitudes toward euthanasia among nursing students at Birjand University of Medical Sciences in 2020. Birjand University of Medical Sciences has four nursing schools. Cluster sampling method was used for selection of samples. After sampling Ferdows nursing school was selected. Nursing students of Ferdows (...) School were 156 person which 144 participated in the study based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Students completed demographic information questionnaire, moral sensitivity questionnaire and euthanasia attitude questionnaire. Data were entered into SPSS software version 19 using descriptive and inferential statistical methods. Findings of this study showed that among nursing students, the mean score of moral sensitivity was 59.59 ± 11.21 and was moderate. The mean score of attitudes towards euthanasia was 0.981 ± 0.336. In addition, according to the results, correlation test showed that there is a significant direct but weak relationship between moral sensitivity and attitude to euthanasia in students (P < 0.01, R = 0.219). According to the findings of the present study, moral sensitivity as a scientific concept is one of the determining factors in attitudes toward euthanasia, but other factors can also affect nurses' attitudes toward euthanasia, which should be investigated and determined in future research. (shrink)