Background: Nursing students on clinical placements as part of their professional training are routinely faced with situations involving ethical conflicts. The initial act of perceiving a situation as causing an ethical dilemma is the result of both the students’ personal values, drawn from their culture and families, and of the professional knowledge and values that they have acquired through training and experience. Objectives: Nursing students’ experiences on clinical placements in primary care settings were investigated in order to identify situations that (...) they perceived as involving ethical conflict and describe the elements they took into consideration during their decision-making processes in these situations. Methods: The research design was qualitative descriptive case study. Around 50 students from three different intakes to a nursing degree answered a questionnaire and discussed it in focus groups. Ethical considerations: The study was designed in accordance with the principles guiding research with human beings and was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee. Results: Synthesised into two principal axes: (a) ethical conflicts in primary care, linked with the domains of working processes, professional nursing ethics and human and social rights and (b) students’ decision-making processes – realisation, reflection and intervention. Conclusion: The student nurses saw themselves both as actors and spectators in situations involving ethical problems and demanding moral deliberation, demonstrating the ability to base their arguments soundly. They tended to emphasise the possibilities offered by dialogue and that different ethical values must be respected to find fair solutions to ethical problems. (shrink)

There is a Mexican, as well as a Canadian version of the American Dream. What drives political idealism in Mexico is less the idea of individual right, or respect for the rights of communities, than it is the 'indigenous' right of an historically oppressed people to a political culture and life wholly their own.

The heart of this book is an extended account of Whitehead's philosophical development, in which Lowe argues persuasively that many of the ideas which appear in Whitehead's metaphysical writings are prefigured in the work of Whitehead the mathematician and philosopher of science. The discussion of the way in which a peculiarly mathematical insight into the structure of the universe can be traced even in the late metaphysical works is especially illuminating. Also included is a brief summary of Whitehead's developed philosophy (...) and a critical discussion of "empirical method" in Whitehead.--P. F. L. (shrink)

Why did Hume drop sympathy as a key concept of his moral philosophy, and why—on the other hand—did Smith make it into the ‘didactic principle’ of his Theory of Moral Sentiments? These questions confront us with the basic issue of ethical theory concerning human nature. My point in dealing with these questions is to show what views of human nature their respective choices involved. And my procedure will be to take a close look at the revisions they made to their (...) ethical theories to bring out the contrasting aspects of their views of human nature. (shrink)

Paperback reprint of a classic study first published forty years ago. Allen examines the practical dimensions of Paul's missionary activity and urges the contemporary relevance of these same methods.--L. S. F.

In this volume six Catholic social scientists and philosophers explore the relevance of value to the study of society. While granting the validity of its methodology for restricted scientific purposes, they perceive from their Thomistic standpoint the inadequacies of a purely positivistic approach which rejects all intelligible studies of value.--L. S. F.

Through a series of brief but specific internal critiques of Spinoza's system, Sullivan seeks to show that Spinoza tried to be both a supernaturalist and a naturalist, an idealist and a realist.--L. S. F.

In an attempt to render the philosophical enterprise scientific by making it fully systematic, Lazowick elaborates seven exhaustive dimensions or categories which are applicable in every instance to each of the three dominant wholes: the personal self, cultural institutions, and God. The attempt is not enhanced by Lazowick's singularly barbarous style.--L. S. F.

Johnstone is concerned with the problem of genuine disagreement among opposing philosophical positions. He examines the role of philosophical argument as the only final basis for communication between opposing positions. Philosophical statements by themselves are radically ambiguous, and only take on definite meaning within the context of the arguments adduced both for and against them. Johnstone supports his general theory of philosophic argument by an examination of Hume's argument against causality and by an elaboration of the concept of personality implied (...) by this theory. A well-argued study.--L. S. F. (shrink)