Innovation has been widely regarded as a powerful tool for stimulating economic growth and changing the quality of human life since the beginning of time. Innovation will continue to remain a key driving force for sustainability and growth in the current economic global slowdown. At present there are hardly any studies that show why innovation is successful at some organizations, and yet fails to achieve the desired results at others. The authors investigate the role of “core values and (...) beliefs” of leading innovative companies in India and abroad on how they go about building a unique innovation culture which ensures their continuous growth even in troubled times. (shrink)

Abstract:The mission and value statements of healthcare organizations serve as the foundational philosophy that informs all aspects of the organization. The ultimate goal is seamless alignment of values to mission in a way that colors the overall life and culture of the organization. However, full alignment between healthcare organizational values and mission in a fashion that influences the daily life and culture of healthcare organizations does not always occur. Grounded in the belief that a lack of organizational alignment (...) to explicit organizational mission and value statements often stems from the failure to develop processes that enable realization of the leadership’s good intentions, the authors propose an organizational ethics dashboard to empower leaders of healthcare organizations to assess the adequacy of systems in place to support alignment with the stated ethical mission. (shrink)

“Values and Cultures” argues against cultural relativism (which denies objective values and holds that good and bad are relative to culture) and argues for cultural objectivism (which holds that cultures tend to share a common core of objective values). I begin by trying to make a plausible case for cultural relativism; then I point out problems with this view. I argue for three objective values that are widely shared across cultures. Consistency claims that we ought (...) to be consistent in thought and action; this includes things like consistency in beliefs, ends and means, living in harmony with our moral beliefs, evaluating similar cases similarly, and treating others only as we’re willing to be treated in the same situation (the golden rule). Knowledge claims that we need to be informed and that false beliefs are to be avoided. Imagination claims that we need a vivid and accurate awareness of what it would be like to be in the place of those affected by our actions. Further sections deal with our evolutionary origins, various metaethical justifications, religion and ethics, and my experience of teaching ethics in the United States and China. (shrink)

Every year, the Vietnamese people reportedly burned about 50,000 tons of joss papers, which took the form of not only bank notes, but iPhones, cars, clothes, even housekeepers, in hope of pleasing the dead. The practice was mistakenly attributed to traditional Buddhist teachings but originated in fact from China, which most Vietnamese were not aware of. In other aspects of life, there were many similar examples of Vietnamese so ready and comfortable with adding new norms, values, and beliefs, (...) even contradictory ones, to their culture. This phenomenon, dubbed “cultural additivity”, prompted us to study the co-existence, interaction, and influences among core values and norms of the Three Teachings –Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism–as shown through Vietnamese folktales. By applying Bayesian logistic regression, we evaluated the possibility of whether the key message of a story was dominated by a religion (dependent variables), as affected by the appearance of values and anti-values pertaining to the Three Teachings in the story (independent variables). Our main findings included the existence of the cultural additivity of Confucian and Taoist values. More specifically, empirical results showed that the interaction or addition of the values of Taoism and Confucianism in folktales together helped predict whether the key message of a story was about Confucianism, β{VT ⋅ VC} = 0.86. Meanwhile, there was no such statistical tendency for Buddhism. The results lead to a number of important implications. First, this showed the dominance of Confucianism because the fact that Confucian and Taoist values appeared together in a story led to the story’s key message dominated by Confucianism. Thus, it presented the evidence of Confucian dominance and against liberal interpretations of the concept of the Common Roots of Three Religions (“tam giáo đồng nguyên”) as religious unification or unicity. Second, the concept of “cultural additivity” could help explain many interesting socio-cultural phenomena, namely the absence of religious intolerance and extremism in the Vietnamese society, outrageous cases of sophistry in education, the low productivity in creative endeavors like science and technology, the misleading branding strategy in business. We are aware that our results are only preliminary and more studies, both theoretical and empirical, must be carried out to give a full account of the explanatory reach of “cultural additivity”. (shrink)

In the diverse but related essays collected in Values and Evaluations, Julius Kovesi's central concerns are the nature of ideological thinking and the rational core of morality. «It is characteristic of ideological beliefs that their truth is upheld independent of the arguments for them,» he contends. He examines ideological tendencies in the Marxist tradition, in attempts to demythologize Christianity, and in modern British ethical theory. In ethics, he continues the attack on the fact/value dichotomy he began in (...) Moral Notions, a dichotomy he thinks has ideological sources. In theology, he argues that demythologizing is really a form of «remythologizing.» A long study of Moses Hess's essay On the Essence of Money is used to illuminate the early thought of Marx. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Meno’s Thesis—the idea that knowing something is better than merely having a true belief about it—is incompatible with the joint claims that believing the truth is the sole source of the value of knowledge and true belief and knowledge are equally successful in believing the truth. Recent answers to that so-called “swamping” problem reject either or. This paper rejects Meno’s Thesis instead, as relying on a confusion between expected value and value proper. The proposed solution relies on an externalist (...) view of rationality, which is presented. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.The Value and Expected Value of KnowledgeVolume 51, Issue 1Julien Dutant DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000285Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. The Value and Expected Value of KnowledgeVolume 51, Issue 1Julien Dutant DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000285Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. The Value and Expected Value of KnowledgeVolume 51, Issue 1Julien Dutant DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000285Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

This book looks at the core life concepts and shared values that historically and culturally define the quality of "being Japanese." Among these are reverence, love of nature, group loyalty, hierarchical respect, passion for detail, belief in learning, formality, and acceptance of change. How can Western analogues of these Japanese virtues help us improve our own societies and cultivate inner strength, mindfulness, and long-lasting relationships at home and the workplace? This stimulating exploration of an alternative ethics and humanism (...) is a provocative workbook for "decluttering the spirit. (shrink)

In March 1994, a health care conference was held in Edmonton, Alberta, at which the values of conference participants towards health care were systematically recorded and analysed. This exploration is significant because the values that underpin the structure of the current publicly-funded and administered Canadian health care system rarely enter current discussions regarding health care system reform. Rather, economic and other sociopolitical forces now seem to be having a major impact on plans and actual changes within the health (...) care system. Thus, the underlying attitudes and beliefs of Canadians towards health care have not been articulated or given due credence. The conference par ticipants identified three dominant values: (1) the dignity of the human person as an indi vidual and social being; (2) respect for pluralism and difference; and (3) accountability These values were found to be robust, in that they sustain a focus on the 'common good'. The common good is the core of the Canadian health care system, and is enshrined in the 1984 Canada Health Act. Conceptually, these values could also lead to significant changes in health care, in keeping with the common good, particularly those changes focusing on the current deficiencies of the Canadian health care system. (shrink)

Difference, diversity and disagreement are inevitable features of our ethical, social and political landscape. This collection of new essays investigates the ways that various ethical and religious traditions have dealt with intramural dissent; the volume covers nine separate traditions: Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, liberalism, Marxism, South Asian religions and natural law. Each chapter lays out the distinctive features, history and challenges of intramural dissent within each tradition, enabling readers to identify similarities and differences between traditions. The book concludes with (...) an Afterword by Michael Walzer, offering a synoptic overview of the challenge of intramural dissent and the responses to that challenge. Committed to dialogue across cultures and traditions, the collection begins that dialogue with the common challenges facing all traditions: how to maintain cohesion and core values in the face of pluralism, and how to do this in a way that is consistent with the internal ethical principles of the traditions. (shrink)

Jesus taught we always live out what is in our heart. Our life is primarily directed by the deeply submerged core beliefs, which may often be very different from what we say we value or believe. One key component of inner formation is changing our core beliefs, with God's grace, and thus reducing the willing-doing gap. In the article, after identifying the problem, and highlighting Jesus’ focus on inner or heart formation, a basic overview of the (...) concept of a belief is presented. Then ten principles or features about core beliefs and formation are proposed and clarified, followed by some implications for practice. (shrink)

This study explored the influence of personal values on destructive leader behavior. Student participants completed a managerial assessment center that presented them with ambiguous leadership decisions and problems. Destructive behavior was defined as harming organizational members or striving for short-term gains over long-term organizational goals. Results revealed that individuals with self-enhancement values were more destructive than individuals with self-transcendence values were, with the core values of power (self-enhancement) and universalism (self-transcendence) being most influential. Results also (...) showed that individuals defined and structured leadership problems in a manner that reflected their value systems, which in turn affected the problem solutions they generated. (shrink)

This study investigates the characteristics of posttraumatic growth (PTG) and academic burnout among adolescents in an ethnic minority area in China during the COVID-19 pandemic, and examines the moderating role of core belief challenge on the association between PTG and academic burnout. This study surveyed 941 secondary school students in Wenchuan using the posttraumatic growth inventory, adolescent academic burnout inventory, core beliefs inventory, and a self-designed demographic questionnaire. The results showed that: (1) Five months after the COVID-19 (...) outbreak in China, the level of PTG among adolescents in the Wenchuan area was high and its prevalence was 32.3%. Among them, the dimension of perceived changes in self was the highest, and the PTG level of junior high school students was higher than that of high school students. The academic burnout level of adolescents, particularly emotional exhaustion, was also high. The academic burnout level of the high school students was higher than that of junior high school students. (2) There was a significant negative correlation between PTG and academic burnout among adolescents. (3) Core belief challenge moderated the relationship between PTG and academic burnout. PTG had a significant negative predictive effect on adolescents’ academic burnout only when the core belief challenge was above a moderate level. These results showed the uniqueness of PTG and psychological behavioral problems of adolescents in ethnic minority areas during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also emphasized the key role of core belief challenge in the process of PTG in reducing adolescents’ academic burnout. Based on these results, recommendations are provided to alleviate academic burnout among adolescents in Wenchuan against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic. While providing full play to ethnic minority cultural characteristics to promote posttraumatic growth, guiding adolescents’ value reflection and cognitive reconstruction should be focused on. (shrink)

This practical and accessible guide tackles the challenges that busy childcare educators face with their mental health in what is a wonderful, rewarding, but often exhausting role. Drawing from 'day-in-the-life' experiences and case studies, this book sets out high-quality staff wellbeing practices that can revolutionise the way childcare practitioners approach their job and their own health. Chapters guide the reader through a process of reflection and development, encouraging and empowering them to create a workplace culture that positively contributes to their (...) personal wellbeing. This book: Focuses on the realities of early years education, combining the authors' lived experience with examples of real-life practice; Encourages educators to think and feel positively about themselves; to identify the individual skills, strengths and talents they bring to their work; Can be used individually or collaboratively by team members, with guidance on creating a positive workplace culture with a shared vision, core values and beliefs. Essential reading for anybody who finds that the job they love can sometimes leave them feeling worn out, stressed and depleted, this book has been written to enrich the lives of all training and practising early years educators. (shrink)

Background: Values are ideals and beliefs that individuals and groups uphold and lie at the core of the diverse world of human behaviour and are expressed in every human decision and action, both consciously and unconsciously. They represent basic beliefs of what is right, good or desirable and motivate both personal and professional behaviour. In the context of nursing profession, values are essential in order to maintain high standards of the nursing care. Objectives: This study (...) was planned to examine changes in nursing students’ personal and professional values between entering and graduating from an undergraduate nursing programme. Ethical considerations: Measures to protect participants included obtaining Deaconship of Nursing Faculty approval, obtaining signed informed consent and maintaining confidentiality. Methods: This study was designed as longitudinal quality. The research population included 143 students registered at a first grade of a nursing faculty for the 2009–2010 academic year. Data were collected with a Questionnaire Form, the Value Preferences Scale, the Professional Values Precedence Scale and the Nursing Professional Values Scale. Findings: According to the results, social values have statistical differences in 4-year nursing education. Nursing students in second class have higher score in terms of social values than those in third class. Also, majority of students ranked human dignity as first and justice as second and third from first to fourth classes, and they have very high scores on Nursing Professional Values Scale and its subscales and stated that all items of Nursing Professional Values Scale are very important. Conclusion: As a result, nursing education has vital role in acquiring and maintaining professional values. (shrink)

Religious pluralism in healthcare means that conflicts regarding appropriate treatment can occur because of convictions of patients and healthcare workers alike. This contribution argues for a presumption in favour of respect for religious belief on the basis that such convictions are judgements of conscience, and respect for conscience is core to what it means to respect human dignity. The human person is a subject in relation to all that is. Human dignity refers to the worth of human persons as (...) members of the species with capacities of reason and free choice that enable the realisation of dignity as self-worth through morally good behaviour. Conscience is both a feature of inherent dignity and necessary for acquiring dignity as self-worth. Conscience enables a person to identify objective values and disvalues for human flourishing, the rational capacity to reason about the relative importance of these values and the right way to achieve them and the judgement of the good end and the right means. Human persons are bound to follow their conscience because this is their subjective relationship to objective truth. Religious convictions are decisions of conscience because they are subjective judgements about objective truth. The presumption of respect for religious belief is limited by the normative dimension of human dignity such that a person's beliefs may be overridden if they objectively violate inherent dignity or morally legitimate acquired dignity. (shrink)

Introduction -- The values surveys -- How to read the tables -- Changing beliefs and values -- Cross-national variation and trajectories of changing beliefs and values -- Economic development interacts with a society's cultural heritage -- Technical notes -- Questionnaire development -- Sampling procedures -- Fieldwork -- Principal investigators -- 1981-1984 wave -- 1989-1993 wave -- 1995-1997 wave -- 1999-2004 wave -- Creating the integrated dataset.

Nursing, a scientific and practical discipline, faces continuing challenges of finding new direction in order to decipher its core values and develop current ethical codes for nursing practice. In 2009–10, 28 nurses were purposely selected and interviewed using a semi-structured format in focus groups and individually. Thematic Content Analysis helped explore the perception of Iranian nurses on ethical values in patient care. Seven major themes emerged: respect for dignity, professional integrity, professional commitment, developing human relationships, justice, honesty, (...) and promoting individuals and the nursing profession. Iranian nurses revealed a unique and culture-based set of ethical values. This study found that Iranian nurses place a greater emphasis on preserving the dignity of those accompanying the patient and in showing regard for patients' religious beliefs in a gender appropriate environment. (shrink)

We may think of the core of Cartesian dualism as being the thesis that each of us is essentially a non-material mind or soul: ‘non-material’ in the sense that it has no weight, cannot be seen or touched, and could in principle continue to exist independently of the existence of any material thing. That idea was, of course, of enormous importance to Descartes himself, and we may feel that having rejected it, as most philosophers now have, we have rejected (...) what is of greatest philosophical significance in Descartes' conception of the self. That would, I believe, be a mistake. Something akin to the Cartesian mind-body contrast still has a pervasive grip on philosophical thought across a whole range of issues. The contrast is, I believe, reflected in common philosophical versions of the contrasts between mind and body, fact and value, reason and emotion, word and deed, reason and persuasion, and no doubt others. My central concern in this paper is, however, a familiar philosophical understanding of the relation between, on the one hand, belief and its articulation in words and, on the other, action or feeling. (shrink)

This study explores the pathways from the aspiration to make a difference in the world to vision and action of social entrepreneurs. Based on the qualitative analysis of interviews with 23 individuals who have pioneered institutions and initiatives around corporate responsibility, we find two predominant pathways to vision. The deliberate path starts with aspiration and moves through purpose toward a relatively intentional vision that ultimately leads to, and is subsequently informed by, action. The emergent path also begins with aspiration then (...) moves directly to action and only retrospectively to a sense of a vision behind the actions taken. The emergent path, in which action precedes vision, is contrary to the dominant assumption that vision leads to action in an entrepreneurial context and may be further characterized as either inadvertent or developmental. In advancing a conceptual model of the vision–action or action–vision trajectories of social entrepreneurs, this study highlights the iterative nature of vision. This study also demonstrates the importance of considering formative experiences that contribute to the aspiration to make some kind of a difference in the world, a sense of purpose or intentions, and core values and beliefs in examining the ethicality of social entrepreneurship. (shrink)

Introduction -- Wittgenstein's early conception of value -- An outline of tractarian ontology -- Value, the self, and the mystical -- The lecture on ethics -- Language-games, the private language argument and aspect psychology -- Language-games -- The private language argument -- Aspect psychology -- The soul and attitudes towards the living -- Wittgenstein's general conception of the soul -- Ilham Dilman on the soul and seeing-as -- Religious contexts -- J.B. Watson and the denial of the soul -- Attitudes (...) towards other minds and forms of life -- The soul and the face -- Aspect blindness and dawning -- Particularism, rule-following, and evaluations -- David McNaughton on the property of humanity and particularism -- John McDowell on rule-following and values -- Peter Winch on moral particularism -- The meaning and value of the religious point of view -- Wittgenstein on Frazer's golden bough -- Truth in religion -- Wittgenstein on art : reactions and causes -- Aesthetics, causes, and natural history -- A contemporary evolutionary account of aesthetic value -- Neuro-scientific accounts -- Aesthetic realism and the definition of art -- Aesthetic historicism and relativism -- Institutional and historical theories of art -- Forms of life, moral truth, and justification -- Cora Diamond on forms on seeing-as theory and imagination -- Paul Johnston on moral justification and truth -- D.Z. Phillips and H.O. Mounce on the justification of morality -- Doubt and certainty : framework beliefs and core values -- An overview of certainty -- Avrum Stroll, Anthony O'Hear , and Cyril Barrett on certainty and value -- Cultural relativism and institutional embodiment -- Peter Winch on cultural relativism -- Sabina Lovibond on moral facts and institutional embodiment -- Cyril Barrett on cultural relativism -- Conclusion: How to do things with Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Despite recognition as an important, potentially unifying construct within the social sciences and humanities, value lacks an overarching theoretical framework. One theory within the social sciences, personal construct theory, is suggested as a theoretical foundation for human values, and an attempt to situate values within this theory is presented. It is argued that human values are core constructs in the language of personal construct theory, while ordinary beliefs are peripheral constructs. Various implications and applications of (...) this formulation are discussed. (shrink)

Many segments of society have systems of values arising from collective beliefs and motivations. For agriculture, and our food system, increasing production to feed the growing human population clearly is a core value. However, a survey we conducted, together with a previously reported survey, showed that the curricula of most U.S. colleges of agriculture do not offer ethics courses that examine the basis of this core value or include discussion of agriculture’s ethical dilemmas such as misuse (...) of pesticides, not progressing rapidly enough toward sustainability goals, relative lack of involvement in addressing diet-related health issues, and lack of commitment to reducing agriculture’s role as a contributor to global climate change. These surveys provide strong evidence that few students have an opportunity to learn ethical concepts and apply them to issues of importance to the agriculture/food system. We suggest that such issues are both growing societal concerns and serious ethical problems that demand attention if our agricultural/food system is not see its relationship with the public further imperiled. Further, we suggest that there is a need for, indeed an obligation of, the faculty of colleges of agriculture to embrace a thorough analysis and discussion of agriculture’s values and their ethical foundation. We offer our thoughts on why curricula of colleges of agriculture do not provide such opportunities and on the importance of agricultural faculties providing leadership in ethical analysis and discussion. (shrink)

A review of the stakeholder literature reveals that the concept of "normative core" can be applied in three main ways: philosophical justification of stakeholder theory, theoretical governing principles of a firm, and managerial beliefs/values influencing the underlying narrative of business. When considering the case of Wall Street, we argue that the managerial application of normative core reveals the imbedded nature of the fact/value dichotomy. Problems arise when the work of the fact/value dichotomy contributes to a closed- (...) class='Hi'>core institution. We make the distinction between open- and closed-core institutions to show how in the case of the closed-core, ethical decision-making is viewed by the institution as a separate domain from the core business of the institution. The resulting blind spot stifles meaningful exchanges with stakeholders attempting to address the need for reform. We suggest in conclusion that ethical considerations are less about casting a value judgment and more about creating a process for meaningful conversation throughout an institution and its stakeholders. (shrink)

In this contribution, an overview of the distinct ways in which the interplay between knowledge, values, and beliefs took shape in the South African context since 1948 is offered. This is framed against the background of the paleontological significance of South Africa and an appreciation of indigenous knowledge systems, but also of the ideological distortion of knowledge and education during the apartheid era through the legacy of neo-Calvinism. The overview includes references to discourse on human rationality, on the (...) use of social sciences in theological reflection, on the teaching of evolution in public schools, on science and religion, and on religion and ecology. The essay concludes with a survey of some of the major voices regarding the interface between religion and science in South Africa. (shrink)

The genesis of values occurred in the Garden of Eden when God created man. He instilled in man the value of knowledge, which Satan used as part of his deception. God created man with a core intellect capable of external influence. Our modern culture interprets the world through its values and beliefs, both of which are codified and forged into a worldview. The Christian worldview is predicated upon biblical teaching and interpretation. It is the foundation for (...) family values. These values are prevalent in the Book of Genesis1 and are what comprise the family unit, the decline of which is eroding the values given by God. (shrink)

Although clinical criteria ultimately determine the pathological diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, ‘Alzheimer’s’ is also an ordinary sign, falling within a range of other possible signs, values and beliefs that define and are used to interpret dementia and mental diseases. While looking at talk-in-interaction in which two people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s interact with other people, this article tries to show that the way in which both lay and professional people interpret Alzheimer’s signs allows us to shed some light upon (...) the core of the traditional and controversial dichotomy between normal and pathological. The interactions analyzed in this paper show how people oppose biomedical discourse, suggesting that other forms of interpreting aging and forgetfulness are possible. It has opened multiple cartographies or varied spheres of communicability influenced by the signs of Alzheimer’s. (shrink)

A number of authors have noted that vagueness engenders degrees of belief, but that these degrees of belief do not behave like subjective probabilities. So should we countenance two different kinds of degree of belief: the kind arising from vagueness, and the familiar kind arising from uncertainty, which obey the laws of probability? I argue that we cannot coherently countenance two different kinds of degree of belief. Instead, I present a framework in which there is a single notion of degree (...) of belief, which in certain circumstances behaves like a subjective probability assignment and in other circumstances does not. The core idea is that one’s degree of belief in a proposition P is one’s expectation of P’s degree of truth. (shrink)

Consent remains a crucial, yet challenging, cornerstone of clinical practice. The ethical, legal and professional understandings of this construct have evolved away from a doctor-centred act to a patient-centred process that encompasses the patient’s values, beliefs and goals. This alignment of consent with the philosophy of shared decision-making was affirmed in a recent high-profile Supreme Court ruling in England. The communication of information is central to this model of health care delivery but it can be difficult for doctors (...) to gauge the information needs of the individual patient. The aim of this paper is to describe ‘core information sets’ which are defined as a minimum set of consensus-derived information about a given procedure to be discussed with all patients. Importantly, they are intended to catalyse discussion of subjective importance to individuals. The model described in this paper applies health services research and Delphi consensus-building methods to an idea orginally proposed 30 years ago. The hypothesis is that, first, large amounts of potentially-important information are distilled down to discrete information domains. These are then, secondly, rated by key stakeholders in multiple iterations, so that core information of agreed importance can be defined. We argue that this scientific approach is key to identifying information important to all stakeholders, which may otherwise be communicated poorly or omitted from discussions entirely. Our methods apply systematic review, qualitative, survey and consensus-building techniques to define this ‘core information’. We propose that such information addresses the ‘reasonable patient’ standard for information disclosure but, more importantly, can serve as a spring board for high-value discussion of importance to the individual patient. The application of established research methods can define information of core importance to informed consent. Further work will establish how best to incorporate this model in routine practice. (shrink)

An extremely profound knower of the history of the Romanian people and of humankind as a whole, Vasile Goldiş brought an original contribution to the development of philosophy of history. In this respect, without having attempted to write a treatise or to work out a systematic body of work in the field, he discovered objective grounds or “natural laws” determining the evolution lines for historical events, analyzed the relation between trends in lawmaking and the unifying force of spiritual values, (...) expressed his persuasion regarding historical progress, the need for solidarity among people and peoples until humanity would reach a planetary organization of society, a world state capable of securing universal peace, based on the precept of Christian love and succeeding in bringing the human soul and the divine absoluteness together. (shrink)

We challenge a line of thinking at the fore of recent work on epistemic value: the line (suggested by Kvanvig in The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding, 2003 and others) that if the value of knowledge is “swamped” by the value of mere true belief, then we have good reason to doubt its theoretical importance in epistemology. We offer a value-driven argument for the theoretical importance of knowledge—one that stands even if the value of knowledge is “swamped” (...) by the value of true belief. Specifically, we contend that even if knowledge itself has no special epistemic value, its relationship to other items of value—cognitive abilities—gives ample reason to locate the concept at the very core of epistemology. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Western-European concept of libertarian rights-based autonomy, which advocates respect for individual rights, may conflict with African cultural values and norms. African communitarian ethics focuses on the interests of the collective whole or community, rather than rugged individualism. Hence collective decision-making processes take precedence over individual autonomy or consent. This apparent conflict may impact informed consent practice during biomedical research in African communities and may hinder ethical principlism in African bioethics. This study explored African biomedical researchers' perspectives regarding informed (...) consent and potential limitations to the principle of respect for autonomy in African communities.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with 12 biomedical researchers, five females and seven males aged 34 to 74 years, currently working at an African university. Interviews lasted 35–40 min each and involved semi-structured open-ended interviews, which allowed participants to offer information about their perceptions and feelings regarding respect for autonomy and informed consent as practised in Africa. Empirical data from the interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using thematic content analysis, together with an interrogation of relevant scientific literature about African communitarian ethics, making evaluations and drawing inferences consistent with the empirical bioethics approach.ResultsBased on these interviews and analysis of relevant literature, we found that informed consent is difficult to apply in an African context because it derives from a Western conception of libertarian rights-based autonomy. Most respondents pointed out that it was challenging to implement informed consent in the African setting. Furthermore, communalism, customary beliefs, spirituality, and relational autonomy are predominant in most African communities, as exemplified by the African moral philosophies of Ubuntu/botho and Ukama, which emphasize communitarianism over individual rights. We also found that language, education, poverty, and cultural beliefs are barriers to obtaining proper informed consent in African communities.ConclusionsWe conclude that there are limitations to applying the principle of respect for autonomy and informed consent in African communities, especially in the context of human biomedical research. We recommend using a more relational approach, such as Ross’s prima facie duties, to implement informed consent in African communities. (shrink)

Moral distress is indeed distressing for those who experience it and whose sense of integrity can be shaken by exposure to events or situations that test their core values and ethical belief system...

In a spontaneously wide-ranging conversation one winter evening in Japan, sociologist of religion Bryan Wilson and Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda recognized the importance of explaining and learning about their respective worldviews. Human Values in a Changing World is the record of their further exchanges on how they see the religious response to the human condition. Their contrasting approaches - one, as an academic, and the other, as a lay Buddhist - allow for a constructive critique of preconceptions otherwise unexamined (...) in their own cultural contexts. "There is an intimate connection between faith and the fruits of commitment," Wilson says at one point. To which Ikeda responds that while the benefits of faith to momentary happiness are perhaps not the core value of a religion, they can inspire and lead people to become aware of that core value or fundamental truth. The two men's observations on the origins of religious sensibilities move from the spiritual and the moral to the politics of private and public life. Although published some years ago, Human Values in a Changing World addresses topics and issues which are of perennial importance to human flourishing, including: sexual morality, the limits of tolerance and religious freedom, the future of the family, the belief in an afterlife, and the idea of sin. (shrink)

Sacred values differ from material or instrumental values in that they incorporate moral beliefs that drive action in ways dissociated from prospects for success. Across the world, people believe that devotion to essential or core values – such as the welfare of their family and country, or their commitment to religion, honor, and justice – are, or ought to be, absolute and inviolable. Counterintuitively, understanding an opponent's sacred values, we believe, offers surprising opportunities for (...) breakthroughs to peace. Because of the emotional unwillingness of those in conflict situations to negotiate sacred values, conventional wisdom suggests that negotiators should either leave sacred values for last in political negotiations or try to bypass them with sufficient material incentives. Our empirical findings and historical analysis suggest that conventional wisdom is wrong. In fact, offering to provide material benefits in exchange for giving up a sacred value actually makes settlement more difficult because people see the offering as an insult rather than a compromise. But we also found that making symbolic concessions of no apparent material benefit might open the way to resolving seemingly irresolvable conflicts. We offer suggestions for how negotiators can reframe their position by demonstrating respect, and/or by apologizing for what they sincerely regret. We also offer suggestions for how to overcome sacred barriers by refining sacred values to exclude outmoded claims, exploiting the inevitable ambiguity of sacred values, shifting the context, provisionally prioritizing values, and reframing responsibility. (shrink)

Andreas Christiansen,Bjørn Hallsson | : In many cases, the public want to restrict an activity or technology that they believe to be dangerous, but that scientific experts believe to be safe. There is thus a tension between respecting the preferences of the people and making policy based on our best scientific knowledge. Deciding how to make policy in the light of this tension requires an understanding of why citizens sometimes disagree with the experts on what is risky and what is (...) safe. In this paper, we examine two highly influential theories of how people form beliefs about risks: the theory that risk beliefs are errors caused by bounded rationality and the theory that such beliefs are part and parcel of people’s core value systems. We then discuss the implications of the psychological theories for questions regarding liberal-democratic decision making: Should policy be responsive to the preferences of citizens in the domain of risk regulation? What risk-regulation policies are legitimate? How should liberal-democratic deliberation be structured? | : Dans de nombreux cas, le public veut restreindre une activité ou une technologie qu’il croit être dangereuse, mais que les experts scientifiques considèrent être sécuritaire. Il y a alors une tension entre le respect des préférences des gens et des politiques fondées sur nos meilleures connaissances scientifiques. Décider comment élaborer une politique à la lumière de cette tension nécessite de comprendre pourquoi les citoyens sont parfois en désaccord avec les experts à propos de ce qui est risqué et ce qui est sûr. Dans cet article, nous examinons deux théories très influentes sur la façon dont les gens forment des croyances sur les risques : la théorie selon laquelle les croyances liées au risque sont des erreurs causées par la rationalité limitée et la théorie selon laquelle ces croyances font partie intégrante des systèmes de valeurs fonda-mentales des personnes. Nous discutons ensuite les implications des théories psychologiques pour les questions touchant la prise de décision libérale-démocratique : Les politiques devraient-elles être sensibles aux préférences des citoyens dans le domaine de la régulation des risques? Quelles politiques de régulation des risques sont légitimes? Comment la délibération libérale-démocratique devrait-elle être structurée? (shrink)

The research presented in this article aims to contribute both quantitatively and qualitatively to the discussion on family versus non-family businesses' differences in ethical core values, culture and ethical climate. The purpose of our article is to better understand the association between the degree of involvement of a family in an enterprise and its influence on the enterprise's core values, culture and ethical climate as the constitutional elements of enterprise ethical behaviour. The research indicates that family (...) as well as non-family enterprises maintain positive attitudes towards the core values with ethical content. Regarding the type and strength of culture as well as the type of ethical climate, our research results indicate significant differences between family and non-family enterprises. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic raised not only overwhelming practical challenges but also deep ethical dilemmas for educators. There have been few efforts to connect these challenges to either ethical dilemmas teachers faced in pre-pandemic times or to philosophical analyses of complex normative terrain of teachers’ work. We facilitated eleven discussion groups with 101 educators from seven countries on the dilemmas they faced due to COVID-19. Analysis of these sessions reveals how the pandemic amplified, exacerbated and augmented pre-pandemic educational dilemmas in ways (...) that recalibrated teachers’ core values and beliefs, and highlights the importance of engaging teachers in ethical dialogue. (shrink)

The market seems to have substituted politics as a coordination model in modern societies. While philosophy's complementarity to politics is well-acknowledged, its importance for economic markets can be questioned. Economics deals with optimization, but as markets are constituted by real persons with individual beliefs and normative values the economic tool box is not sufficient to describe market behavior. This is especially true whenever technologicalinnovations challenge established market rules. Philosophy supplies analytical instruments for a better, more complete description of (...) markets including theirnormative aspects. For this complementary function philosophy should be placed at the core of any theory of markets. (shrink)

This study is an extension of our recent ethics research in direct marketing and information technology. In this study, we investigated the relationships among core organizational values, organizational ethics, corporate social responsibility, and organizational performance outcome. Our analysis of online survey responses from a sample of IT professionals in the United States indicated that managers from organizations with organic core values reported a higher level of social responsibility relative to managers in organizations with mechanistic values; (...) that managers in both mechanistic and organic organizations which were perceived as more socially responsible were also perceived as more ethical; and that perceived ethical attitudes and social responsibility were significantly associated with organizational performance outcome measures. Our article discusses research premises, conceptual framework, hypotheses, research methodology, data analysis, recommendations for further research, and conclusions. (shrink)

There is abundant evidence that most people, often in spite of their conscious beliefs, values and attitudes, have implicit biases. 'Implicit bias' is a term of art referring to evaluations of social groups that are largely outside conscious awareness or control. These evaluations are typically thought to involve associations between social groups and concepts or roles like 'violent,' 'lazy,' 'nurturing,' 'assertive,' 'scientist,' and so on. Such associations result at least in part from common stereotypes found in contemporary liberal (...) societies about members of these groups. Implicit Bias and Philosophy brings the work of leading philosophers and psychologists together to explore core areas of psychological research on implicit bias, as well as the ramifications of implicit bias for core areas of philosophy. Volume 2: Moral Responsibility, Structural Injustice, and Ethics is comprised of three sections. 'Moral Responsibility for Implicit Bias' contains chapters examining the relationship of implicit biases to concepts that are central to moral responsibility, including control, awareness, reasons-responsiveness, and alienation. The chapters in the second section--'Structural Injustice'--explore the connections between the implicit biases held by individuals and the structural injustices of the societies in which they are situated. And finally, the third section--'The Ethics of Implicit Bias: Theory and Practice'--contains chapters examining strategies for implicit attitude change, the ramifications of research on implicit bias for philosophers working in ethics, and suggestions for combatting implicit biases in the fields of philosophy and law. (shrink)