Do political concerns belong in psychodynamic treatment? How do class and politics shape the unconscious? The effects of an increasingly polarized, insecure and threatening world mean that the ideologically enforced split between the political order and personal life is becoming difficult to sustain. This book explores the impact of the social and political domains at the individual level. The contributions included in this volume describe how issues of class and politics, and the intense emotions they engender, emerge in the clinical (...) setting and how psychotherapists can respectfully address them rather than deny their significance. They demonstrate how clinicians need to take into account the complex convergences between psychic and social reality in the clinical setting in order to help their patients understand the anxiety, fear, insecurity and anger caused by the complex relations of class and power. This examination of the psychodynamics of terror and aggression and the unconscious defences employed to deny reality offers powerful insights into the microscopic unconscious ways that ideology is enacted and lived. _Psychoanalysis, Class and Politics_ will be of interest to all mental health professionals interested in improving their understanding of the ideological factors that impede or facilitate critical and engaged citizenship. It has a valuable contribution to make to the psychoanalytic enterprise, as well as to related scholarly and professional disciplines. (shrink)

This book collects some of the most exciting pioneering work in perceptual and cognitive psychology. The authors' quantitative approach to the study of mental images and their representation is clearly depicted in this invaluable volume of research which presents, interprets, evaluates, and extends their work. The selections are preceded by a thorough review of the history of their experiments, and all of the articles have been updated with reviews of the current literature. The book's first part focuses on mental rotation; (...) the second includes other, more complex transformations and sequences of transformations. A third part describes work on rotational transformations in the context of the perceptual illusion of &"apparent motion.&" Roger N. Shepard is Professor of Psychology, Stanford University. Lynn A. Cooper is Professor of Psychology, University of Arizona. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

Imprecise definition of key terms in the “public participation” domain have hindered the conduct of good research and militated against the development and implementation of effective participation practices. In this article, we define key concepts in the domain: public communication, public consultation, and public participation. These concepts are differentiated according to the nature and flow of information between exercise sponsors and participants. According to such an information flow perspective, an exercise’s effectiveness may be ascertained by the efficiency with which full, (...) relevant information is elicited from all appropriate sources, transferred to all appropriate recipients, and combined to give an aggregate/consensual response. Key variables that may theoretically affect effectiveness—and on which engagement mechanisms differ—are identified and used to develop a typology of mechanisms. The resultant typology reveals four communication, six consultation, and four participation mechanism classes. Limitations to the typology are discussed, and future research needs identified. (shrink)

According to a widespread view, a complete explanatory reduction of all aspects of the human mind to the electro-chemical functioning of the brain is at hand and will certainly produce vast and positive cultural, political and social consequences. However, notwithstanding the astonishing advances generated by the neurosciences in recent years for our understanding of the mechanisms and functions of the brain, the application of these findings to the specific but crucial issue of human agency can be considered a “pre-paradigmatic science” (...) (in Thomas Kuhn’s sense). This implies that the situation is, at the same time, intellectually stimulating and methodologically confused. More specifically—because of the lack of a solid, unitary and coherent methodological framework as to how to connect neurophysiology and agency—it frequently happens that tentative approaches, bold but very preliminary claims and even clearly flawed interpretations of experimental data are taken for granted. In this article some examples of such conceptual confusions and intellectual hubris will be presented, which derive from the most recent literature at the intersection between neurosciences, on the one hand, and philosophy, politics and social sciences, on the other hand. It will also be argued that, in some of these cases, hasty and over-ambitious conclusions may produce negative social and political consequences. The general upshot will be that very much has still to be clarified as to what and how neurosciences can tell us about human agency and that, in the meantime, intellectual and methodological caution is to be recommended. (shrink)

Dealing with situations where parents’ views about treatment for their child are strongly opposed to doctors’ views is one major area of ethical challenge in paediatric health care. The traditional approach focuses on the child’s best interests, but this is problematic for a number of reasons. The Harm Principle test is regarded by many ethicists as more appropriate than the best interests test. Despite this, use of the best interests test for intervening in parental decisions is still very common in (...) clinical settings and can lead to confusion. In this paper, I propose the Zone of Parental Discretion as a means of putting into practice the key ideas of the Harm Principle, in a clear, step-by-step process. The Zone of Parental Discretion provides a tool for ethical deliberation by clinicians and ethicists about all situations in which parents and doctors disagree about treatment of a child, whether parents are refusing medically recommended treatment, or requesting non-recommended treatment. (shrink)

In this article, we critique two theoretical positions that analyze the place of emotions in education: the psychological strand and the cultural feminist strand. First of all, it is shown how a social control of emotions in education is reflected in the combination of psychological and cultural feminist discourses that function to govern one’s self effectively and efficiently. These discourses perpetuate an assumed divide between the rational and the emotional, and reinforce the existing power hierarchies and the status quo of (...) stereotypes about the role of emotion in education. Then we use the Foucauldian notions of parrhesia and care of the self to suggest alternative ways of thinking about emotions in education. Instead of campaigning for one side or the other of the rational/emotional divide, we suggest that it may be more interesting and fruitful to examine the particular ways discourses of emotion in education construct their own brand of parrhesia. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2022.

A benchmark volume for an emerging field where mental disorders serve as the springboard for philosophical insights.

Professor Copi provides us with the following example:Remove all cards except aces and kings from a deck, so that only eight cards remain, of which four are aces and four are kings. From this abbreviated deck, deal two cards to a friend. If he looks at his cards and announces that his hand contains an ace, what is the probability that both his cards are aces? If he announces instead that one of his cards is the ace of spades, what (...) is the probability then that both his cards are aces? (shrink)

Transcending the various formal concepts of life, this captivating book offers a unique overview of life's history, essences, and future. "A masterpiece of scientific writing. You will cherish "What Is Life?" because it is so rich in poetry and science in the service of profound philosophical questions".--Mitchell Thomashow, "Orion". 9 photos. 11 line illustrations.

Ethical decision making measures are widely applied as the principal dependent variable used in studies of research integrity. However, evidence bearing on the internal and external validity of these measures is not available. In this study, ethical decision making measures were administered to 102 graduate students in the biological, health, and social sciences, along with measures examining exposure to ethical breaches and the severity of punishments recommended. The ethical decision making measure was found to be related to exposure to ethical (...) events and the severity of punishments awarded. The implications of these findings for the application of ethical decision making measures are discussed. (shrink)

Recognizing gaps in our present understanding of leader apologies, this investigation examines how followers appraise leader apologies and how these perceptions impact work-related outcomes. Results indicate that followers who viewed their leader as trustworthy or caring before a leader wrongdoing were more likely to perceive their leader’s apology to be sincere, as compared to followers who previously doubted their leader’s trustworthiness and caring. Attributions of apology sincerity affected follower reactions, with followers perceiving sincere apologies reporting greater trust in leadership, satisfaction (...) with supervision, leader–member exchange quality, affective organizational commitment, and forgiveness than those reporting insincere or no apologies. A mediation model was supported, showing that attributions of apology sincerity fostered perceptions of humility, which enhanced perceptions of transformational leadership, and consequently garnered more positive follower reactions. (shrink)

If people sometimes participate in research because of altruism—because they want to help in the search for treatments—should we revise our views about what kinds of experiments are ethical? If participants act out of altruism, we might let them accept greater risks than we would if they are motivated only by a desire for personal gain. But how can we know when participants are genuinely altruistic?

How do engineers respond to ethical dilemmas that occur in practice? How do they view their individual and collective responsibilities? How do they make decisions before all the facts are in? Using the space shuttle programme as the framework, this book examines the role of ethical decision making in the practice of engineering. In particular, the book considers the design and development of the main engines of the space shuttle as a paradigm for how individual engineers perceive, articulate, and resolve (...) ethical dilemmas in a large, complex organisation. A series of in-depth case studies show engineers at work on various stages of the project as they balance budgets, deadlines and risks. By documenting the historical development of a single system, the book provides a unique opportunity to explore the complex interactions between political, organisational and technical pressures and engineering and management decisions. (shrink)

We all seem to think that we do the acts we do because we consciously choose to do them. This commonsense view is thrown into dispute by Benjamin Libet's eyebrow-raising experiments, which seem to suggest that conscious will occurs not before but after the start of brain activity that produces physical action.

In theory, HREC members should use the ethical guidelines in the National Statement on the Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans as the basis for their decisions, and researchers should design their research in accordance with these guidelines However, very little is known about what researchers and HREC members actually do in practice. In this paper, we report some of the key findings of the study “Human Research Ethics in Practice”, a qualitative interview-based study of health researchers and HREC members (...) in Victoria. The findings shed light on how researchers and HREC members conceptualise ethics, how they use the National Statement, and what deliberative strategies they employ to assess the ethical appropriateness of research studies. The findings also reveal differences and similarities between health researchers’ and HREC members’ perceptions of the roles of HRECs, and point to some sources of misunderstanding and tension. We examine the implications of some of these findings for the ways in which HRECs carry out their task, and research institutions support and promote ethical conduct in research amongst their staff and students. The focus of this study is on health research, but we suggest that the findings are highly relevant to all other research areas where human participants are involved. (shrink)

This essay critiques feminist treatments of maternal-fetal "relationality" that unwittingly replicate features of Western individualism (for example, the Cartesian division between the asocial body and the social-cognitive person, or the conflation of social and biological birth). I argue for a more reflexive perspective on relationality that would acknowledge how we produce persons through our actions and rhetoric. Personhood and relationality can be better analyzed as dynamic, negotiated qualities realized through social practice.

SummaryA sample of 104 British parents with criminal convictions had an average fertility of 3·91 children as compared with 2·21 for the general population. The result suggests that fertility for criminal behaviour is dysgenic involving an increase in the genes underlying criminal behaviour in the population.

Competitor intelligence, information that helps managers understand their competitors, is highly valued in today's marketplace. Firms, large and small, are taking a more systematic approach to competitor intelligence collection. At the same time, information crimes and litigation over information disputes appear to be on the rise, and survey data show widespread approval of unethical and questionable intelligence-gathering methods. Despite these developments, few corporations address the ethics of intelligence gathering in their corporate codes of conduct. Neither managers nor management educators have (...) paid sufficient attention to this topic. From a review of questionable intelligence-gathering practices reported in various literatures, the author identifies some important ethical principles to help managers draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate methods of information acquisition. The paper also discusses the costs of failure to heed these principles and suggests steps managers can take to provide ethical leadership in this area. (shrink)

BackgroundFor children with life-limiting conditions who are unable to participate in decision-making, decisions are made for them by their parents and paediatricians. Shared decision-making is widely recommended in paediatric clinical care, with parents preferring a collaborative approach in the care of their child. Despite the increasing emphasis to adopt this approach, little is known about the roles and responsibilities taken by parents and paediatricians in this process. In this study, we describe how paediatricians approach decision-making for a child with a (...) life-limiting condition who is unable to participate in decision-making for his/herself.MethodsThis qualitative phenomenological study involved 25 purposively sampled paediatricians. Verbatim transcripts from individual semi-structured interviews, conducted between mid-2019 and mid-2020, underwent thematic analysis. Interviews were based around a case vignette matched to the clinical experience of each paediatrician.ResultsTwo key themes were identified in the exploration of paediatricians' approach to decision-making for children with life-limiting conditions: there is a spectrum of paediatricians’ roles and responsibilities in decision-making, and the specific influences on paediatricians’ choice of approach for end-of-life decisions. In relation to, analysis showed four distinct approaches: non-directed, joint, interpretative, and directed. In relation to, the common factors were: harm to the child, possible psychological harm to parents, parental preferences in decision-making, and resource allocation.ConclusionsDespite self-reporting shared decision-making practices, what paediatricians often described were physician-led decision-making approaches. Adopting these approaches was predominantly justified by paediatricians’ considerations of harm to the child and parents. Further research is needed to elucidate the issues identified in this study, particularly the communication within and parental responses to physician-led approaches. We also need to further study how parental needs are identified in family-led decision-making approaches. These nuances and complexities are needed for future practice guidance and training around paediatric decision-making.Trial registration: Not applicable. (shrink)

The movement in bioethics toward disclosure of financial conflicts of interest is well and good, most of the time. But in some cases, disclosure is not only unnecessary but destructive. When bioethicists advance arguments whose premises and logical moves are open to scrutiny, disclosure—far from clearing the air of bias—introduces bias.

Perhaps I am wrong to take this article personally, but when the authors refer to Cassandras “voicing concern about a post-Roe degradation of pregnant persons’ right to chart their own medical cour...

In this paper, we put forward the view that emotions have a legitimate and important role in health professional ethics education. This paper draws upon our experience of running a narrative ethics education programme for ethics educators from a range of healthcare disciplines. It describes the way in which emotions may be elicited in narrative ethics teaching and considers the appropriate role of emotions in ethics education for health professionals. We argue there is a need for a pedagogical framework to (...) productively incorporate the role of emotions in health professional ethics teaching. We suggest a theoretical basis for an ethics pedagogy that integrates health professional emotions in both the experience and the analysis of ethical practice, and identify a range of strategies to support the educator to incorporate emotion within their ethics teaching. (shrink)

The author has previously shown that for a certain class of structures $\mathcal {I}$, $\mathcal {I}$-indexed indiscernible sets have the modeling property just in case the age of $\mathcal {I}$ is a Ramsey class. We expand this known class of structures from ordered structures in a finite relational language to ordered, locally finite structures which isolate quantifier-free types by way of quantifier-free formulas. This result is applied to give new proofs that certain classes of trees are Ramsey. To aid this (...) project we develop the logic of EM-types. (shrink)

Brentano's philosophy of art, contained primarily in his book, Grundzuge der Ästhetik, is the result of an original theory of intrinsic value that was derived from Brentano's philosophical psychology. In his aesthetics, Brentano endeavored to find an objective ground for the value of aesthetic contemplation through his theory of the intentional objects of emotions and desires. The lack of attention Brentano's aesthetics has received is surprising, given that two of the many students Brentano influenced, Husserl (through the development of the (...) phenomenological movement) and Ehrenfels (through the development of Gestalt psychology) have had an extraordinary influence on twentieth century perceptions of art. In this paper I will attempt to redress some of this neglect by outlining Brentano's analysis of aesthetic intentions and the relationship his aesthetics bears to his overall philosophical system. (shrink)

Workplace spirituality research has sidestepped religion by focusing on the function of belief rather than its substance. Although establishing a unified foundation for research, the functional approach cannot shed light on issues of workplace pluralism, individual or institutional faith-work integration, or the institutional roles of religion in economic activity. To remedy this, we revisit definitions of spirituality and argue for the place of a belief-based approach to workplace religion. Additionally, we describe the construction of a 15-item measure of workplace religion (...) informed by Judaism and Christianity – the Faith at Work Scale (FWS). A stratified random sample (n = 234) of managers and professionals assisted in refining the FWS which exhibits a single factor structure (Eigenvalue = 8.88; variance accounted for = 59.22%) that is internally consistent (Cronbach’s α = 0.77) and demonstrates convergent validity with the Faith Maturity Scale (r = 0.81, p > 0.0001). The scale shows lower skew and kurtosis with Mainline and Catholic adherents than with Mormons and Evangelicals. Validation of the scale among Jewish and diverse Christian adherants would extend research in workplace religion. (shrink)