The aim of this thematic literature review is to explore nurses' perceptions of ethical issues in the care of older people. Electronic databases were searched from September 1997 to September 2007 using specific key words with tight inclusion criteria, which revealed 17 primary research reports. The data analysis involved repeated reading of the findings and sorting of those findings into four themes. These themes are: sources of ethical issues for nurses; differences in perceptions between nurses and patients/relatives; nurses' personal responses (...) to ethical issues; and the patient—nurse relationship. The findings reveal that ageism is one of the major sources of the ethical issues that arise for nurses caring for older people. Education and organizational change can combat ageist attitudes. Wider training is required in the care of older people, workplace skills, palliative care and pain management for older people. The demands of a changing global demography will necessitate further research in this field. (shrink)

ABSTRACTInitial evaluations generalise to new contexts, whereas counter-attitudinal evaluations are context-specific. Counter-attitudinal information may not change evaluations in new contexts beca...

Small businesses in developing countries, as part of global supply chains, are sometimes assumed to respond in a straightforward manner to institutional demands for improved working conditions. This article problematizes this perspective. Drawing upon extensive qualitative data from Tirupur’s knitwear export industry in India, we highlight owner-managers’ agency in avoiding or circumventing these demands. The small businesses here actively engage in irresponsible business practices and “evasion” institutional work to disrupt institutional demands in three ways: undermining assumptions and values, dissociating consequences, (...) and accumulating autonomy and political strength. This “evasion” work is supported by three conditions: void, distance, and contradictions. Through detailed empirical findings, the article contributes to research on both small business social responsibility and institutional work. (shrink)

This article discusses the key existential stakes of implementing biometrics in human lifeworlds. In this pursuit, we offer a problematization and reinvention of central values often taken for granted within the “ethical turn” of AI development and discourse, such as autonomy, agency, privacy and integrity, as we revisit basic questions about what it means to be human and embodied. Within a framework of existential media studies, we introduce an existential ethics of care—through a conversation between existentialism, virtue ethics, a feminist (...) ethics of care and post-humanist ethics—aiming to deepen and nuance our understanding of the human behind “human-centered” AI directives. The key argument is that biometrics implicates humans through unprecedented forms of objectification, through which the existential body—the relational, intimate and frail human being—is at risk. We interrogate these risks as they become visible at three sites where embodied humans are challenged by biometrics, and thus where the existential body is challenged by the biometric body. This occurs through reductionism (biometric passports nailing bodies to identities, removing human judgment and compromising agency at the AI border), enforced transparency (smart home assistants surveying human intimacies and invading intimate spaces in the bedroom) and the breaching of bodily integrity (chipping bodies to capture sensory data, challenging the very concept of bodily integrity through self-invasive biohacking). Our existential ethics of care is importantly not a solutionist list of principles or suggestions, but a manifesto for a way of thinking about the ethical challenges of living with biometrics in today’s world, by raising the right questions. We argue that a revitalized discussion of the basic existential stakes within human lived experience is needed and should serve as the foundation on which comprehensive frameworks can be built to address the complexities and prospects for ethical machines, responsible biometrics and AI. (shrink)

Medical humanities purchases its presence on the medical side of university campuses by adopting as its own the ends of medicine and medical ethics. It even justifies its presence by asserting promotion of those ends as an ethical imperative, most of all to improve the caring in medical care. As unobjectionable, even praiseworthy, as this imperative appears, it actually constrains the possibilities for interpersonal relationship in the context of medical practice. Development of those possibilities requires openness of self to the (...) existentially challenging ethical imperative to care also literally for nothing at all. (shrink)

The ideals and realities of field research have shaped the development of behavioural primatology over the latter half of the twentieth century. This paper draws on interviews with primatologists as well as a survey of the scientific literature to examine the idealized notion of the field site as a natural place and the physical environment of the field as a research space. It shows that what became standard field practice emerged in the course of wide ranging debate about the techniques, (...) personal qualities and site conditions best suited to the scientific study of the natural behaviour of apes and monkeys. Although the laboratory was a constant presence in this debate, the export of techniques from the laboratory to the field was limited, due to concerns that experimental manipulation would destroy the naturalness of the behaviour. The paper goes on to demonstrate the central significance given by primatologists to the unique social, historical and ecological circumstances of particular field sites, and to sketch some of the complexities that fieldworkers contend with in trying to realize their ideals. Primatologists seek field sites that answer their questions; but once their studies become long term, they also need to find questions that answer to ever changing conditions at those sites. (shrink)

Framed in psychological terms, the basic question of linguistic theory is what is stored in memory, and in what form. Traditionally, what is stored is divided into grammar and lexicon, where grammar contains the rules and the lexicon is an unstructured list of exceptions. We develop an alternative view in which rules of grammar are simply lexical items that contain variables, and in which rules have two functions. In their generative function, they are used to build novel structures, just as (...) in traditional generative linguistics. In their relational function, they capture generalizations over stored items in the lexicon, a role not seriously explored in traditional linguistic theory. The result is a highly structured lexicon with rich patterns among stored items. We further explore the possibility that this sort of structuring is not specific to language, but appears in other cognitive domains as well, such as the structure of physical objects, of music, and of geographical and social knowledge. The differences among cognitive domains do not lie in this overall texture, but in the materials over which stored relations are defined. The challenge is to develop theories of representation in these other domains comparable to that for language. (shrink)

This article critically examines the ways in which primatologists account for their research. Based on a series of unstructured interviews, it argues that the location of primates at the boundary between Western conceptions of nature and culture or human and animal has materially affected how primatologists talk about their research, what they find possible to write about in their research, and where they choose to publish their research. Through the discussion of a number of related topics, it outlines the reflexive (...) nature of primatologists’ response to the cultural positioning of their research subjects. (shrink)

Jürgen Habermas’ discourse theory of morality should be understood, in metaethical terms, as a constructivist theory. All constructivist theories face a Euthyphro-like dilemma arising from how they classify the constraints on their metaethical construction procedures: are they moral or non-moral? Many varieties of Kantian constructivism, such as Christine Korsgaard’s, classify the constraints as moral, albeit constitutive of human reason and agency in general. However, this constitutivist strategy is vulnerable to David Enoch’s ‘shmagency’ objection. The discourse theory of morality, by classifying (...) the constraints on the metaethical construction procedure (principles (D) and (U)) as non-moral, can avoid this problem. (shrink)

This article argues that current programmes in the human sciences which adopt a multi-disciplinary approach to history need to be wary of treating the knowledge of the natural sciences as being independent of social influence. Such efforts to do ‘Big History’, ‘Deep History’ or co-evolutionary history themselves have a past, and this article suggests that potential practitioners could benefit from considering that historical context. To that end, it explores the career of Herbert John Fleure, a scholar whose career defied disciplinary (...) classification, but who was concerned to understand how the human past and present could be understood as they combined in the physical and social context of their production, and what they implied for the possibility of a human future. It concludes by arguing that Fleure’s major lesson for modern researchers is his confrontation of the contingent nature and political consequences of his conclusions. (shrink)

In this article, the conceptual instrument that pragma-dialectical argumentation theory offers is elaborated for the analysis and evaluation of problem-solving discussions. The elaboration is aimed expressly at taking into account the discussion character of the discourse, in order to show how the developing process evolves and what the obstacles are therein. In addition, it focuses expressly on the verbal behaviour of the participants and on showing how this behaviour controls the evolving process. The analysis and evaluation is based on insights (...) and methods of conversational analysis and discourse analysis. One fragment of a problem-solving discussion is analysed and evaluated. (shrink)

Motorcycle helmet laws are perceived to infringe upon individual rights even though they reduce mortality and health care costs. We describe proposed helmet legislation that protects individual rights and provides incentives for helmet use through a differential motorcycle registration fee that requires higher fees for those who wish to ride without a helmet.

The tension between organizational values and the operation of aged care as a business is often characterized as the “mission versus margin” dilemma. It is common across the industry in both not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. However, in for-profit aged care facilities, there is no question about the intention to make a profit or the purpose of the profits. This is not so clear in not-for-profit aged care organizations. This article explores the tension through the examination of a detailed case study (...) of one of the larger not-for-profit social service organizations—All Saints Christian Care. It analyses the culture and managerial decisions though the lens of the political philosophy value pluralism. Finally, based on the value-plural theory, recommendations are made that would create greater operational transparency in not-for-profit aged care service. (shrink)

In How We Get Along, J. David Velleman argues for two related theses: first, that ‘making sense’ of oneself to oneself and others is a constitutive aim of action; second, that this fact about action grounds normativity. Examining each thesis in turn, I argue against the first that an agent may deliberately act in ways which make sense in terms of neither her self-conception nor others' conceptions of her. Against the second thesis, I argue that some vices are such that (...) the agents concerned would make more sense to neither themselves nor others if they were to reform, and, furthermore, that an agent may make more sense to herself and others by becoming more, rather than less, vicious. I conclude that both theses should be rejected. (shrink)

The first book in English to explore the relationship between Stalin's ideas and methods and the practices advocated by Machiavelli and the practices associated with "Machiavellian" politics. It advances the concept of "revolutionary Machiavellism" as a way of understanding a particular strand of revolutionary thought from the Jacobins to Leninism and Stalinism. It provides a wide-ranging survey of European political thought in the nineteenth and early twentieth century and locates the Bolshevik tradition within the wider European tradition.

This paper deals with the explanation the maxim of relevance provides for the way utterances in argumentative discourse follow each other in an orderly and coherent fashion. Several senses are distinguished in which utterances can be considered relevant. It is argued that an utterance can be considered relevant as an interactional act, as an illocutionary act, as a propositional act, and as an elocutionary act. These four kinds of relevance manifest the rational organization of discourse, which is aimed at bringing (...) about mutual alignment between the participants, enabling them jointly to work out certain interactional outcomes that are acceptable to both of them. (shrink)

In Class. Quart. XV. 193 Dr. Mountford discussed a quotation from the Grammarian Caper in the Liber Glossarum, and referred it to an item culled from Vergil Scholia by the Abstrusa Glossary. Since Keil in his edition of this grammarian did not know of this glossary evidence to Caper's text, it may be worth mention that another Caper quotation appears in Lib. Gloss., s.v. Kaluus. It is taken from the first sentence of p. 100 of Keil's edition, and shows that (...) the words caluaria singulare have dropped out of the three Caper MSS. used by Keil, after plurale est, though they have left a trace in a variant in two of the trio. And it testifies to the name of the historian who used caluaria ‘a skull.’ Here is the gloss as it stands in the two chief MSS. of the Liber Glossarum:Kaluus:кραѵоѵ uocatur, licet Celio et Varro kaluariam dicant; nam caluariae plurale est, kaluaria singulare. (shrink)

This paper surveys recent case study evidence addressing the implications of task-based teamworking for front-line employees. It refers primarily to three manufacturing companies in Britain. All three companies faced significant external challenges deriving from increased competition, and in each case teamworking was perceived as a key aspect of organisational restructuring. The paper illustrates the complexity of employee responses, arguing that there is no ‘one best way’ to implement teamworking, but at the same time suggesting what some of the necessary conditions (...) might be for teamworking to be ‘successful’. (shrink)

For the few scientists that earn a Nobel prize, the im-, D.J. Scalapino, G. Parisi, pact and relevance of their research work is unquestion- S.G. Louie, R. Jackiw, F. Wilczek able. Among the rest of us, how does one quantify the, C. Vafa, M.B. Maple, D.J. cumulative impact and relevance of an individual’s sci- Gross, M.S. Dresselhaus, S.W. Hawkentific research output? In a world of not unlimited reing. sources such quantification (even if potentially distaste- I argue that h is preferable (...) to other single-number cri-. (shrink)

This study examines the way that consent is reported for participation in school-based research involving children or young people aged from 5 to 16 years. Databases containing descriptions of research identified during systematic reviews were surveyed to determine to what extent consent is sought, and from whom, and to see whether reporting varied by study characteristics such as the age of participants, the country in which the research was carried out, research design and substantive area of study. Of a total (...) of 489 studies in school settings involving children or young people, less than a third (n=145:30%) reported seeking consent. Only one in seven (n=66:13%) sought consent from children or young people themselves. Consent was reported significantly more frequently in studies sourced from health promotion reviews, when compared to those sourced from education reviews. Codes of practice indicate that researchers should seek consent from research participants. This study demonstrates that these principles are often not reflected in practice. (shrink)