This article proposes a retrospective analysis of a compassionate use, using a case study of request for Avelumab for a patient suffering from Merkel Cell Carcinoma. The study is the result of a discussion within a Provincial Ethics Committee following the finding of a high number of requests for CU program. The primary objective of the study is to illustrate the specific ethical and clinical profiles that emerge from the compassionate use program issue. The secondary goals are: a) (...) to promote a moral reflection among physicians who require approval for the CUP and b) provide the basis for recommendations on how to request CUP. The instruments for carrying out the analysis of the case study and the discussion are as follows: Analysis of the audio-recording of the EC meeting regarding the selected Case study. In-depth discussion of topics that emerged during the meeting by means of administration of 5 semi-structured interviews with 2 doctors involved in the case and with 3 components of the EC who played a major role in the EC internal discussion. In an exploration of emerging clinical and ethical issues, four primary themes arise: 1. efficacy, safety of the treatment and patient’s quality of life; 2. clear, realistic, adequate communication; 3. right to hope; 4. simultaneous Palliative Care approach. The results of ethical analysis carried out concern two areas: 1) ethical profiles relating to the use of CUP; 2) the role of the EC concerning the compassionate use of drugs and the need to provide recommendations on how to request CUP. With the aim of implementing these conclusions, the provincial EC of Reggio Emilia chose to steer the request for drugs for compassionate use through recommendations for good clinical and ethical practice based on the following assumptions: 1) the “simultaneous care” approach must be preferred. Secondly, 2) the EC’s assessment must be part of the decision-making process that the care team conducts before proposing compassionate use to the patient. (shrink)

Compassionate care: a moral dimension of nursingThis paper focuses on the concept of compassion and its meaning for nursing practice. Compassion is often considered to be an essential component of nursing care; however, it is difficult to identify what exactly comprises compassionate care. To begin with, there is a general discussion of the meaning of compassion and an examination of its common usage. An argument then is presented that compassion is more than just a natural response to suffering, (...) rather that it is a moral choice. The paper outlines the extent to which this concept has implications for nursing care, highlighting some of the obstacles that nurses need to overcome in order to maintain this essential moral value of the caring role. (shrink)

In the present paper, we discuss the ethics of compassionate psychedelic psychotherapy and argue that it can be morally permissible. When talking about psychedelics, we mean specifically two substances: psilocybin and MDMA. When administered under supportive conditions and in conjunction with psychotherapy, therapies assisted by these substances show promising results. However, given the publicly controversial nature of psychedelics, compassionate psychedelic psychotherapy calls for ethical justification. We thus review the safety and efficacy of psilocybin- and MDMA-assisted therapies and claim (...) that it can be rational for some patients to try psychedelic therapy. We think it can be rational despite the uncertainty of outcomes associated with compassionate use as an unproven treatment regime, as the expected value of psychedelic psychotherapy can be assessed and can outweigh the expected value of routine care, palliative care, or no care at all. Furthermore, we respond to the objection that psychedelic psychotherapy is morally impermissible because it is epistemically harmful. We argue that given the current level of understanding of psychedelics, this objection is unsubstantiated for a number of reasons, but mainly because there is no experimental evidence to suggest that epistemic harm actually takes place. (shrink)

Compassion, as an indicator for quality care, is highly valued by patients and healthcare professionals. Compassionate care is considered a moral dimension of nursing practice and an essential component of high quality care. This study aimed to answer these questions: (1) What are the facilitators and barriers of providing compassionate nursing care in the clinical setting? (2) Which strategies do nurses use to provide compassionate care? (3) What is the specific model of compassionate care for the (...) nursing context? A grounded theory approach was used in this study. A total of 21 nurses working in diverse clinical settings participated in the study. Purposive and theoretical sampling was used to select the participants. Data were collected by in-depth face to face interviews and analyzed by the constant comparative method. Ethical approval was gained from the Ethical Review Board of Tabriz University of Medical sciences. The analysis resulted in the development of three main themes: (a) contextual factors affecting compassionate care, (b) the compassionate care actions, and (c) the consequences of compassionate care. The main dimensions of compassionate care are demonstrated in a Compassionate Nursing Care Model. Nurses’ ability on providing compassionate care is influenced by individual and organizational factors that may facilitate or inhibit this type of care. Leadership and nurse managers should remove the barriers which diminish the nurses’ ability to provide compassionate care and support them to engage in compassionate care programs. Identifying and recruiting compassionate nurses, developing their compassionate capacity, and providing role models of compassion could improve the flourishing of person-centered and compassionate care in clinical settings. The Compassionate Nursing Care Model (CNCM) provides a model to guide nursing care and research. (shrink)

(1997). Compassionate postmodernism: An introduction to postmodern Jewish philosophy. The European Legacy: Vol. 2, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas, pp. 74-79.

Unlike the compassionate conservatism of George Bush, Compassionate Utilitarianism is not a confusing concept. Nor is it a newly minted version of Utilitarianism given that it is embedded in the writings of Jeremy Bentham, writings that have come to light only with the Oxford University Press publication of his Deontology in 1983 as edited by me. Bentham's An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation expresses the standard interpretation of Hedonistic Utilitarianism. What he said in Deontology serves (...) as the basis of Compassionate Utilitarianism. (shrink)

Background: Compassion has long been advocated as a fundamental element in nursing practice and education. However, defining and translating compassion into caring practice by nursing students who are new to the clinical practice environment as part of their educational journey remain unclear. Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore how Chinese baccalaureate nursing students define and characterize compassionate care as they participate in their clinical practice. Methods: A descriptive qualitative study design was used involving a semi-structured in-depth (...) interview method and qualitative content analysis. Twenty senior year baccalaureate nursing students were interviewed during their clinical practicum experience at four teaching hospitals. Ethical considerations: Permission to conduct the study was received from the Institutional Review Boards and the participating hospitals. Results: Baccalaureate nursing students defined and characterized compassionate care as a union of “empathy” related to a nurse’s desire to “alleviate patients’ suffering,” “address individualized care needs,” “use therapeutic communication,” and “promote mutual benefits with patients.” Students recognized that the “practice environment” was characterized by nurse leaders’ interpersonal relations, role modeling by nurses and workloads which influenced the practice of compassionate care by nursing personnel. Conclusion: Compassionate care is crucial for patients, nurses, and students in their professional development as well as the development of the nursing profession. In order to provide compassionate care, a positive practice environment promoted by hospital administrators is needed. This also includes having an adequate workforce of nurses who can role model compassionate care to students in their preceptor role while meeting the needs of their patients. (shrink)

The compassionate treatment of animals has been the focal point of speeches and writings by one of the most influential Buddhist cleric-scholars on the Tibetan plateau today, Khenpo Tsultrim Lodrö of Larung Buddhist Academy. This essay surveys the Khenpo's broad-based advocacy for animal welfare and details his discrete appeals to nomads in eastern Tibet to forgo selling livestock for slaughter, to eat a vegetarian diet on religious holidays, to relinquish wearing animal fur, to protect wildlife habitat, and to liberate (...) the lives of animals. I focus on the modernist “this worldly” dimension of his advocacy, calling attention to how Tsultrim Lodrö goes beyond traditional scare tactics that emphasize the karmic effects of negative deeds in future lives and instead invokes compassion by attending to the lived experience and suffering of animals. In doing so, the Khenpo positions Buddhism as a civilizing force in order to reform certain Tibetan customs and mitigate the influence of Chinese modernity and state marketization policies. I argue that his strategy of “reverse orientalism” appropriates state civilizational discourse and reverses its terms. (shrink)

Compassionate Moral Realism, by MarshallColin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 265 + xi.

Public health strategies recommend isolating patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. But compassionate care in the intensive care unit (ICU) is an ethical obligation of modern medicine that cannot be justified by the risk of infection or the lack of personal protective equipment. This article describes the experiences of clinicians in ICUs in the south of Spain promoted by the Andalusian Society of Intensive Care SAMIUC, in the hope it will serve to improve the conditions in which these patients die, and (...) to help their families who suffer when they cannot say good-bye to their loved ones.In the south of Spain, healthcare professionals use daily videoconferencing to improve communication between clinicians, patients, and their relatives who cannot visit them in the ICU. This close communication allows families to see their loved ones and extends communication between healthcare professionals, patients, and their relatives. To allow family members to accompany patients at the end of life, it is possible to adapt public health rules to the epidemic situation. (shrink)

I defend the principle of Phenomenal Conservatism, on which appearances of all kinds generate at least some justification for belief. I argue that there is no reason for privileging introspection or intuition over perceptual experience as a source of justified belief; that those who deny Phenomenal Conservatism are in a self-defeating position, in that their view cannot be both true and justified; and that thedemand for a metajustification for Phenomenal Conservatism either is an easily met demand, or is an unfair (...) or question-begging one. (shrink)

AimThis study aims to translate the Compassionate Engagement and Action Scales into Turkish and to test their subsequent validity, reliability, and psychometric properties. Turkey is one of the blended cultures with eastern and western elements under the influence of traditional religion. This cultural diversity brings about a rich context to study compassion and its relationship to mental health. The scales assess the ability to be sensitive to suffering and engage and then take helpful actions in compassion. The motivation for (...) compassionate engagement and action is measured at three ‘flows’ as follows: compassion for others; compassion from others; and compassion for self.MethodsThe sample consists of 525 college students aged 18 years or older. The participants completed the CEAS Turkish Form for Others, Self and from Others, Self-Compassion Scale Short Form, Compassionate Love Scale, and Self-Criticism Scale.ResultsThe confirmatory factor analyses were conducted using AMOS version 27 to examine the validity of the three scales with two different factor structures each. All the three models show good fits to the data. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the CEAS for Others and for Self and from Others are good to excellent. Compassion for self, compassion for others, and compassion from others correlated modestly.ConclusionIt can be concluded that the Turkish version of the Compassionate Engagement and Action Scales for Others and Self and from Others has sufficient psychometric properties and can be used as a reliable and valid measure to assess compassionate engagement and action. (shrink)

The view that charity consists in an expansion of existing interpersonal relations is rather misleading. We need to see it as a radical transformation, of existing relations, even if this suspension is only temporary. In charity we see a person as someone who is no longer capable of reacting appropriately. Someone who is no longer capable of behaving as a „person‟ nevertheless continues to be a person. She does not lose her personal sanctity or dignity even if she has lost (...) a practical grasp on controlling and guiding the course of her life. Today we often tend to reduce charity to a compassionate form of helping, or aid-giving, such as when materials, doctors and psychologists are sent to regions that are torn apart by war or famine. It is much easier to understand charity when it can be measured against the reduction of physical and emotional distress. It is much more difficult to understand charity in cases where aid proves to be powerless, when there is no measurable return or change that is brought about. While ethics cannot teach us what to do once compassion, benevolence and forgiveness fail to make any difference, prayer can help us to move forward. Praying for others, more specifically, the long-suffering involved in prayer, is a particularly important form of charity. It has the power to lift us above our inability to do anything helpful. We pray at the very moment when we experience our powerlessness to help. (shrink)

Servant leadership is increasingly gaining interest inside and outside academia. This article builds and extends current theorizing by describing the process that introduces compassionate love as a practical translation for the need to serve, which was positioned by Greenleaf as the core of servant leadership. This article takes a virtues perspective and shows how servant leadership may encourage a more meaningful and optimal human functioning with a strong sense of community to current-day organizations. In essence, we propose that a (...) leader’s propensity for compassionate love will encourage a virtuous attitude in terms of humility, gratitude, forgiveness and altruism. This virtuous attitude will give rise to servant leadership behavior in terms of empowerment, authenticity, stewardship and providing direction. (shrink)

Background eHealth was widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic. Much attention was given to the technical aspects of eHealth, such as infrastructure and cost, while the soft skill of compassion remained underexplored. The wide belief in compassionate care is more compatible with in-person interactions but difficult to deliver via e-platforms where personal and environmental clues were lacking urges studying this topic. Purpose to explore the experience of delivering compassionate care via an eHealth platform among healthcare professionals working to (...) contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods A qualitative study design with an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach was used. Twenty healthcare professionals (fifteen nurses and five physicians) who provided care using technology platforms, such as telephone hotlines, mobile apps, and social media, were interviewed individually. Ethical considerations Permission to conduct the study was obtained from the Institutional Review Board. Results Participants stated that “eHealth enabled compassionate care during the pandemic” by ensuring patient care availability and accessibility. They shared experiences of “communicating compassionate care via eHealth” with suggestions of addressing patients’ needs with empathy, adopting a structured protocol to guide eHealth communication, and using more advanced visual-media methods to promote human-to-human interaction. They recommended “setting realistic mutual expectations” considering the limitations of eHealth in handling complex health situations and staffing shortages. Participants considered “low eHealth literacy hinders compassion.” Additionally, they recommended the need for “institutional/system-level support to foster compassionate care.” Conclusion Participants recognized the importance of integrating compassion into eHealth services. Promotion of compassionate care requires standardization of eHealth services with institutional and system-level support. This also includes preparing adequate staffing who can communicate compassionate care via eHealth, set realistic expectation, and adjust communication to eHealth literacy level while meeting the needs of their patients. (shrink)

This book offers a ground-up defense of objective morality, drawing inspiration from a wide range of philosophers, including John Locke, Arthur Schopenhauer, Iris Murdoch, Nel Noddings, and David Lewis. The core claim is compassion is our capacity to perceive other creatures' pains, pleasures, and desires. Non-compassionate people are therefore perceptually lacking, regardless of how much factual knowledge they might have. Marshall argues that people who do have this form of compassion thereby fit a familiar paradigm of moral goodness. His (...) argument involves the identification of an epistemic good which Marshall dubs "being in touch". To be in touch with some property of a thing requires experiencing it in a way that reveals that property - that is, experiencing it as it is in itself. Only compassion, Marshall argues, lets us be in touch with others' motivational mental properties. -/- This conclusion about compassion has two important metaethical consequences. First, it generates an answer to the question ";Why be moral?", which has been a central philosophical concern since Plato. Second, it provides the keystone for a novel form of moral realism. This form of moral realism has a distinctive set of virtues: it is anti-relativist, naturalist, and able to identify a necessary connection between moral representation and motivation. The view also implies that there is an epistemic asymmetry between virtuous and vicious agents, according to which only morally good people can fully face reality. (shrink)

This book presents the case for Compassionate Reasoning as a moral and psychosocial skill for the positive transformation of individuals and societies. It has been developed from a reservoir of moral philosophical, cultural, and religious wisdom traditions over the centuries. These have been derived from a careful combination of classical schools of ethical thought that are artfully combined with compassion neuroscience, contemporary approaches to conflict resolution, public health methodologies, and positive psychological approaches to social change. There is an urgent (...) need for human civilization to invest in the broad-based cultivation of compassionate thoughts, feelings, and especially habits. This skill is then combined with moral reasoning to move the self and others toward less anger and fear, more joy and care in the pursuit of reasonable policies that build peaceful families, communities, and societies. There are many people across the planet who work every day for the sake of others but who are ensconced in exhausting work with dangerous and difficult situations of conflict. These people are often heroic bridge-builders and creators of peaceful societies, and they have a common set of cultivated moral character traits and psychosocial skills. They tend to be kinder, more reasonable, more self-controlled, and more goal-oriented to peace. They are united by a particular set of moral values and the emotional skills to put those values into practice. The aim of this book is to articulate the best combination of those values and skills that lead to personal and communal sustainability, not burnout and self-destruction. The book pivots on the observable difference in the mind-and proven in neuroscience imaging experiments-between destructive empathic distress, on the one hand, and, on the other, joyful, constructive, compassionate care. Facing existential threats to life on the planet, humans can and must make such skills universally sustainable and ingrained. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre described the late modern West as driven by two moral values: efficiency and effectiveness. Regardless of whether you accept MacIntyre's overarching story, it seems clear that efficiency and effectiveness have achieved a zenith in institutional health care structures, such that these two aspects of care become the final arbiters of what counts as “good” care. At the very least, they are dominant in many clinical contexts and act as the interpretative lens for the judgments of successful health care (...) managers. The drive of efficiency can also be seen in “lean” management methods (originally imported from the automotive manufacturing industry) increasingly deployed in the intensive care unit. This drive gives us pause. The high stress of the ICU is exacerbated by the enormous complexity of technological interventions designed to maintain physiological functioning as the body heals, as well as the ever‐present concerns related to cost, effectiveness, and efficiency. The ICU, therefore, provides an illustrative view of the challenges facing clinicians, as well as resource managers, in terms of delivering care. In short, the goal of technocratic efficiency often ends up at odds with humane purposes. To better understand these contemporary health care dynamics, we conducted a limited series of focus group discussions and interviews with residents experienced in the challenges of delivering care in the ICU environment. In what follows, we highlight some narrative observations drawn from these focus groups. We found a recurrent and disconcerting refrain among our informants that has not been adequately described or addressed in the literature: technocratic management techniques have crept into and bifurcated clinical care strategies in the ICU. Specifically, we highlight the influence of concerns around efficiency and effectiveness and the ways in which these foci have contributed to a bifurcation in care in the ICU along two trajectories: either compassionate care or curative care. (shrink)

In the book, The Compassionate Court? Support, Surveillance, and Survival in Prostitution Diversion Programs, the authors, Drs. Corey S. Shdaimah, Chrysanthi S. Leon, and Shelly A. Wiechelt (2023)...

In early 1984, the AIDS epidemic was less than four years old. Chemists at the pharmaceutical company Syntex, situated in the rolling green hills near Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, had recently synthesized a new antiviral drug (Martin et al. 1983). The drug, at first given the awkward chemical abbreviation DHPG, later came to be known by the generic name ganciclovir. Ganciclovir was a potent drug for the treatment of herpes virus infection (such as genital herpes or chickenpox), but (...) the unique characteristic of ganciclovir was that it worked against cytomegalovirus (CMV), a heretofore untreatable virus infection. Although relatively harmless in healthy individuals, CMV caused .. (shrink)

This commentary explores the background to, and implications of, the recently published Director of Public Prosecutions guidelines for prosecutors in respect of cases of encouraging or assisting suicide. It considers the extent of the provisions and questions the legitimacy of their focus on the compassionate motivation of the assistant, and the apparent prohibition on healthcare professionals providing such help. It concludes by suggesting that a permissive change in the law would provide better safeguards for those who seek assisted dying.

It is inevitable that some inmates in large state prison systems will suffer from terminal conditions and die while incarcerated. But how those inmates experience that event is primarily controlled by correctional policies and by the prison medical and correctional staff assigned to their care. Compassion for inmates who are dying cannot be legislated or mandated, but humane and compassionate care for the dying can be facilitated or thwarted by legislative and correctional policies, and by the manner in which (...) correctional personnel interpret those policies.Death in New York State prisons is a frequent event, occurring at a rate substantially higher than that in most other states. With a prison population that has risen to 70,000 inmates and with the nation’s highest rate of human immunodeficiency virus infection, more than 2,817 inmates died in New York prisons during the period 1990-1998. In April 1992, in the face of an ever-increasing death rate in its prisons, the New York State legislature passed the Medical Parole Law, a measure designed to permit dying inmates to be released on parole prior to their normal release eligibility date. (shrink)

Since his rising interest in Christianity, Slavoj Žižek has discussed many other religions. This article examines his engagement with Buddhism, which he often uses as a stand in for “Oriental spirituality.” For Žižek, Buddhist traditions lack several key features that make Christianity the best prospect for religious political organization. By examining the reasons behind his rejection of Buddhism through his defence of the Subject and the state of Fallenness, the argument will be presented that Žižek's at times negative position on (...) Buddhism can be explained through his commitment to a Lacanian reading of the Cartesian subject. This allegiance means that for Žižek there can never be a harmonious state for the subject, and accepting this provides the subject with a “divine” freedom. This article will also discuss ways in which Žižek's particularism can be overcome without losing the “apocalyptic fervor” of Christian Communist politics. (shrink)

This study tested whether compassionate goals to support others and self-image goals to maintain and defend desired self-images: 1) are equivalent constructs across three cultures ; 2) overlap with interdependent self-construal; and 3) predict relationships and growth measures similarly in each country. We re-analyzed data from American and Japanese students, reported in Niiya et al., along with new data from Poland. Single and multiple group confirmatory analyses showed that the two-factor structure holds across the three cultures. Interdependence correlated with (...) compassionate and self-image goals only in Japan. In all three samples, compassionate goals correlated with non-zero-sum belief, feeling close, growth-seeking, self-compassion, and learning from failures, whereas self-image goals correlated with defensive responses to conflicts and validation-seeking. Our results suggest that compassionate and self-image goals may serve similar functions in relationships and growth across cultures. (shrink)

A common question in moral philosophy concerns how we should regard traumatic histories that have influenced wrongdoing. In this paper, I argue that one standard line of response—survivors are exempt from blame for a given wrongdoing because of a traumatic history that influenced this wrongdoing—is problematic. Instead of trying to determine how trauma categorically exempts survivors from blame, I argue that we should start from the fact that survivors are members of the moral community who can be as blameworthy as (...) anyone, and then ask how considerations of trauma might impact a moral response to their wrongdoing. I consider and reject three attempts to exempt survivors on the grounds of traumatic histories, arguing that each risks divesting survivors of moral agency. I then develop an account of compassionate blame, a unique attitude in which we can blame the survivor for their wrong while also taking compassion towards the survivor in light of their traumatic history, and argue that this is the appropriate moral attitude to cultivate in these cases. (shrink)

Faithful persons tend to relate to their religious beliefs as truth claims, particularly inasmuch as their beliefs have soteriological implications for those of different religions. For Christians the particular claims which matter most in this regard are those made by Jesus of Nazareth and his claims are primarily relational in nature. I propose a model in which we understand divine grace from Jesus as being mediated through relational knowledge of him on a compassionately exclusivist basis, including post-mortem. Supporting this model, (...) I draw from Eleonore Stump’s hypothesis in her 2018 Atonement that the crucifixion of Jesus opens the divine psyche to all human psyches sufficiently for salvific mutual indwelling to occur, and from Gavin D’Costa’s conception of the descensus Christi ad inferos as the mechanism for grace’s accessibility post-mortem presented in his 2009 Christianity and World Religions. This model seeks to address ongoing, justified pastoral concern for the soteriological status of non-Christians while still treating Christianity as objectively true. (shrink)

Principlism appears to be the prevailing applied ethical framework in bioethics. Despite the view’s various strengths, critics point out that since the principles are ad hoc, conflicts indubitably emerge leading to inconsistency. There is debate around whether principlism can provide definitive action-guiding moral prescriptions or only help structure intelligent analyses and justifications of moral choices. In this paper, I contend that applying concepts of moral symmetry and moral asymmetry allows us to modify one of principlism’s principles—the principle of beneficence—into what (...) I will call the principle of compassion. I argue that the principle of compassion can function as an arbitrating or primary principle within the principlist framework. The result is a view we might call compassionate principlism. Arguably, compassionate principlism leads to fewer inconsistencies and provides more acceptable action-guiding moral prescriptions than traditional principlism. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 185-187.

The article proposes that the modern notion of the spiritual in art, which was theorized at the beginning of the twentieth century, although remains pivotal to the discourse of art and the spiritual, has radically shifted as a result of changing attitudes to the body–mind relations instigated by popular trends of contemporary spiritualities. This cultural tendency is demonstrated by the analysis of the networked art form of Moon Ribas, e.g., dance with earthquakes. Ribas performs a cyborg body and consciousness that, (...) as contended, could be holistically enhanced and develop a unique compassionate awareness. In addition, I reflect on two examples from my performative practice of Networked Rites that interplay with speculative metaphors, spiritual and shamanic techniques, networked aesthetic forms and technologies. The first invokes communitas as a collective, non-local, networked noetic field. The second utilizes a decision-making app as a mediating device between the body and mind for the making of a prototype cyborg noetic field instilled with auspicious resonance. The article mainly implies that spiritual art continues to evolve through technoetic aesthetics fusing emerging technologies, science and shamanic, spiritual insight. Current trends may develop into benevolent and experiential applications based on the interrelations of human and cyborg body and consciousness. (shrink)

Teachers can’t add more minutes to a school day, but with mindfulness they can add depth to the moments they do have with students in their classroom. Compassionate Critical Thinking demonstrates how to use mindfulness with instructional effectiveness to increase student participation and decrease classroom stress, and it turns the act of teaching into a transformational practice. Many books teach mindfulness, but few provide a model for teaching critical thinking and integrating it across the curriculum. The purpose of this (...) book is to show teachers how to create a classroom culture of compassionate critical thinking. When students feel a lack of meaning and purpose in their school lives, they resist learning. Using a Socratic style of inquiry, Rabois changes the classroom dynamic to encourage self-reflection, insight, and empathy. Vignettes capture dialogue between teacher and students to illustrate how mindfulness practices elicit essential questions which stimulate inquiry and direct discovery. What bigger mystery is there, what more interesting and relevant story, than the story of one’s own mind and heart and how they relate us to the world? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Compassionate Justice: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue with Two Gospel Parables on Law, Crime, and Restorative Justice by Christopher D. MarshallGlen StassenCompassionate Justice: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue with Two Gospel Parables on Law, Crime, and Restorative Justice CHRISTOPHER D. MARSHALL Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012. 386 pp. $33.60Christopher Marshall is known to Society of Christian Ethics members for his highly acclaimed book on restorative justice, Beyond Retribution, and for his (...) plenary address at the SCE annual meeting published in the JSCE 27, no. 2 (2007). The plenary address forms one chapter of the present Compassionate Justice. Well [End Page 221] informed on ethics, criminal justice, and human rights, Marshall is a New Testament scholar at Victoria University in New Zealand.Marshall points out that the two best-known of Jesus’s parables—the Compassionate Samaritan, and the Prodigal Son—have been the most influential of Jesus’s parables in Western culture and legal theory. The Compassionate Samaritan is Jesus’s response to a lawyer’s question that answers a central legal question of the time: Who is my neighbor, whom I am obligated by Leviticus 19:7 to love as myself? In the Prodigal Son, the three main characters in legal offense are clearly portrayed as the offender, the victim, and the law-abiding community; in turn, as Marshall points out, “the older brother’s reaction centers directly on the justice of his father’s actions” (192–93). Marshall argues that present legal theory can learn from careful dialogue with these two parables. These parables are not only historically influential but also so insightfully and beautifully crafted that dialogue with them can bring incisive insights. In addition, dialogue with them presses Anglo-Saxon liberalism where it is weak and needs to grow.The parable of the Compassionate Samaritan opens up questions about the need for Good Samaritan laws that defend persons who come to the aid of a person in danger of death (e.g., from an accident, fire, or drowning) against liability for inadvertently and unintentionally causing damage. Under present Anglo-Saxon law, such good Samaritans can be sued for damages. This is not the case, however, in most European countries. Similarly, most European and Latin American countries have bad Samaritan laws: Where “victims are in mortal danger and unable to save themselves,” there is a legal duty for “those who are consciously aware of the victim’s predicament, who are close enough to intervene, and who have the effective means of intervention available to them” to come to the aid of the victims. “The most glaring exception to this pattern,” Marshall argues, “occurs in Anglo-American legal systems” because of liberalism’s maximization of individual liberty even against coercion to come to the aid of persons who would die if no help arrives (155). Samaritan laws “give formal expression to the supreme value of human life, to the bonds of solidarity and empathy that comprise human identity and that bind people together in social community, and to ongoing need human beings have to be committed to one another’s rescue and restoration when severe harm befalls them” (174).Responding to the parable of the Prodigal Son, Marshall argues that both compassion and repentance are crucial for understanding the humanity and the sufferings of persons being defended or judged by law. This does not replace the standard tools of legal interpretation; it takes account of the more holistic context (288–90). In fact, “unreflective compassion can be dangerous and distorting” (296). Marshall discusses the complications insightfully and in a balanced [End Page 222] way. He concludes with an extensive discussion and refutation of perhaps the most important book-length criticism of restorative justice.Marshall’s interpretation of these two parables surpasses any other that I have read. His sensitive and thoughtful analysis of the experience of victimization goes beyond any other interpretation of the Compassionate Samaritan that I have seen. In this he resembles Daniel Philpott’s interpretation of victimization in Just and Unjust Peace (Oxford University Press, 2012). His description of the shameful rupture of relationship with father, family, and community by the prodigal son goes well beyond what I have seen previously. I think... (shrink)

Background: Compassionate care is an international priority of healthcare professionals. There is little understanding about how workplace issues impact provision of compassionate care in nursing practice. Therefore, it is important to address the workplace issues and organizational factors which may hinder compassionate care delivery within nursing practice. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore workplace and organizational barriers to compassionate care from the nurses’ perspective. Research design: The study used a qualitative exploratory design, and (...) data were analyzed by conventional content analysis. Participants and research context: A total of 15 nurses working in different fields of nursing were recruited from four hospitals at northwest of Iran. Participants were selected by purposive sampling. Semistructured interviews were conducted for data collection. Ethical consideration: Ethical approval of this study was gained from the Ethical Review Board of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. Findings: The main theme which emerged from data analysis was “unsupportive organizational culture.” This theme had two main categories including “excessive workload alongside inadequate staffing” and “the lack of value on compassionate care.” Discussion: Organizational barriers to development of compassionate in clinical practice were identified in this study. A closer examination of these barriers is required to move compassionate practice from an individual responsibility to a collective responsibility that is owned and shared by organizations. Conclusion: For compassionate care to flourish, policy makers, managers, and healthcare providers must foster an organizational atmosphere conducive to compassionate care. (shrink)

Many people in the animal welfare communityhave argued that the use of nonhuman animals inmedical research is necessarily based onspeciesism, an unjustified prejudice based onspecies membership. As such it is morally akinto racism and sexism. This is misguided. Thecombined capacities for autonomy and sentiencewith the obligations derived from relationssupport a morally justifiable rationale forusing some nonhuman animals in order to limitthe risk of harm to humans. There may be a fewcases where it is morally better to use a neversentient human (...) than a sentient animal, butthese cases are few and would not fulfill thecurrent need for research subjects. The use ofnonautonomous animals instead of humans inrisky research can be based on solid moralground. It is not necessarily speciesism. (shrink)

Background: Withdrawal of treatment is a common practice in intensive care units when treatment is considered futile. Compassion is an important aspect of care; however, it has not been explored much within the context of treatment withdrawal in intensive care units. Objectives: The aim was to examine how concepts of compassion are framed, utilised and communicated by intensive care nurses in the context of treatment withdrawal. Design: The study employed a qualitative approach conducting secondary analysis of an original data set. (...) In the primary study, 13 nurses were recruited from three intensive care units within a large hospital in United Kingdom. Deductive framework analysis was used to analyse the data in relation to compassionate care. Ethical considerations: The primary study was approved by the local Research Ethics Committee and the hospital’s Research and Development services. Findings: Compassionate care was mostly directed to the patient’s family and was demonstrated through care and emotional support to the family. It was predominantly expressed through attempts to maintain the patient’s dignity by controlling symptoms, maintaining patient cleanliness and removing technical apparatus. Conclusion: This study’s findings provide insight about compassionate care during treatment withdrawal which could help to understand and develop further clinicians’ roles. Prioritising the family over the patient raised concerns among nurses, who motivated by compassion, may feel justified in taking measures that are in the interests of the family rather than the patient. Further work is needed to explore the ethics of this. (shrink)

Our main goal is to describe the structure of engaged acts and compassion and their constitutive interrelation to explicate the key role of engaged and compassionate acts for group constitution. In the first part of the paper, we formulate our guiding idea: the key to understanding compassion lies in understanding engagement and vice versa. We then consider the problematic nature of engaged acts: On the one hand, they do not meet the conditions to be attributed to the plural subject; (...) on the other hand, they cannot be understood without presupposing the plural subject. To understand this, we rely primarily on Helm’s theory of emotions and the classical phenomenological analyses of the constitution of the plural subject, but we also point out the limitations of the latter. In the last two sections, we build on Nussbaum’s theory of compassion to describe the parallelism in the structure of compassion and engagement and to show their constitutive connection. Finally, we examine the specific way in which engaged acts “place burden” and transform a group into an institution. (shrink)

Background Quality nursing care and ethical responses to patient pain and suffering are very important in the preoperative period. However, few studies have addressed these variables. Objective This study aimed to examine the relationship between compassionate care and preoperative anxiety from the perspective of hospitalized patients. Methods The current study was a cross-sectional descriptive one. The participants were selected using convenience sampling. The data were collected using a demographic questionnaire, Burnell Compassionate Care Tool, and Amsterdam Preoperative Anxiety and (...) Information Scale (APAIS). The collected data were analyzed with SPSS software (version 22) through descriptive and inferential statistics at a significance level of 0.05 ( p <.05). Participants and setting This study was conducted on 704 candidates for surgery in the internal and surgical wards of a large teaching hospital located in the south of Iran from December 2022 to March 2023. Ethical considerations The protocol for this study was reviewed and approved by the University Ethics Committee. Findings The patients’ average age was 36.61 ± 13.07. The average preoperative anxiety and need for information scores were 13.80 ± 2.66 and 7.44 ± 1.47, respectively. The average score of importance was 3.03 ± 0.19, and the average score of the extent of compassionate care provision was 1.22 ± 0.15. There was a significant relationship between preoperative anxiety with importance and the extent of compassionate care provision (r = 0.68, p <.001), r = −0.72, p <.001, respectively). A comparison of the demographic characteristics, need for information, importance, and provision of compassionate care showed that the extent of compassionate care provision had the greatest contribution in explaining preoperative anxiety (β = 0.50; p <.001). Conclusion Even though patients’ preoperative anxiety was high and providing compassionate care in the preoperative period had a great role in relieving their anxiety, many participants appear to have received little compassionate care. To this end, nursing managers should pay attention to the quality of compassionate care in the preoperative stage. Besides, healthcare staff should receive the necessary training in compassionate nursing care. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 2, February 2020, Page 55-57.

Philosophers traditionally distinguish between excuses and exemptions. We can excuse someone and still see them as a participant in normal human relationships, but when we exempt someone, we see them as something to be managed and handled: we take an objective attitude to them. Madness is typically assumed to ground exemptions, not excuses. So far, the standard philosophical picture. Seeing other people as objects to be managed and handled rather than as persons with whom one can have relationships is, however, (...) ethically problematic. If I am mad myself, consistently seeing myself this way becomes downright unsustainable. A better option, I will argue, is to fully appreciate my own difficulties and learn to show myself compassion and understanding. I, then, can excuse myself on those grounds. Furthermore, a compassionate self-excusing attitude leaves room for both nuance and improvement in a way that total exemption does not. Finally, I will argue that many mad actions ought to be considered justifiable and justified rather than in need of exemption or excuse. (shrink)