The global #MeToo movement has precipitated a reckoning with gendered, sexual, and other forms of harassment and bullying in higher education. In academia, harassment is rooted in the history of re...

Ethical climate (EC) has been broadly described as how well institutions respond to ethical issues. Developing a tool to study and evaluate EC that aims to achieve sustained improvements requires a contemporary framework with identified relevant drivers. An extensive literature review was performed, reviewing existing EC definitions, tools and areas where EC has been studied; ethical challenges and relevance of EC in contemporary paediatric intensive care (PIC); and relevant ethical theories. We surmised that existing EC definitions and tools designed to (...) measure it fail to capture nuances of the PIC environment, and sought to address existing gaps by developing an EC framework for PIC founded on ethical theory. In this article, we propose a Paediatric Intensive Care Ethical Climate (PICEC) conceptual framework and four measurable domains to be captured by an assessment tool. We define PICEC as the collective felt experience of interdisciplinary team members arising from those factors that enable or constrain their ability to navigate ethical aspects of their work. PICEC both results from and is influenced by how well ethical issues are understood, identified, explored, reflected on, responded to and addressed in the workplace. PICEC encompasses four, core inter-related domains representing drivers of EC including: (1) organisational culture and leadership; (2) interdisciplinary team relationships and dynamics; (3) integrated child and family-centred care; and (4) ethics literacy. Future directions involve developing a PICEC measurement tool, with implications for benchmarking as well as guidance for, and evaluation of, targeted interventions to foster a healthy EC. (shrink)

Though numerous disciplines are cultivating pedagogical relationships with the emerging field of digital humanities, philosophy appears to be among the least interested in what digital humanities has to offer. This is a missed opportunity. Through a proper pedagogical framing of both fields, I argue that philosophy educators would benefit from building a pedagogical relationship with digital humanities. First, I outline digital humanities methods and teaching practices, then I identify several core educational aims and teaching methods in philosophy, which I conceptualize (...) in terms of a creative art. Ultimately, I argue that digital humanities practices would enhance philosophy’s education aims by making philosophy more relevant and accessible to students’ needs, by fostering active learning, by establishing more equitable, collaborative participation, and by balancing skill-development with philosophical creation. The goal of this essay is not to replace traditional philosophy pedagogy, but rather to supplement it to better support modern students’ needs. (shrink)

_ Exemplarist Moral Theory _ By ZagzebskiLinda TrinkausOxford University Press, 2017. xiv + 274 pp. £41.99.

In Australia, since 2004, there has been a move to expand the range of models for legal practice. Lawyers may now incorporate a legal practice, which may have non-legal directors and shareholders. They may also enter into a partnership with a range of non-legal professional partners. This change is happening at the same time that legal practice culture is moving from a professional service model to a business-oriented model. Increased pressures have been thrown into the mix by the global financial (...) crisis and the downturn in the legal market. Inevitably, these changes have created new conflict problems. When a lawyer is responsible to both clients and shareholders, how can that conflict be resolved? What are the roles of non-legal directors or partners? What if they have ethical or legal duties which conflict with a lawyer?s duty to a client? When a corporate legal business is listed on the stock exchange, what pressure may that bring to bear on the business model of the legal practice? How can all of these issues be resolved in grim financial times? The author will examine all of these issues in light of Australian and international experiences with new lawyering patterns and the global financial crisis. (shrink)

A growing number of studies show that a significant proportion of patients, who meet the clinical criteria for the diagnosis of the vegetative state (VS), demonstrate evidence of covert awareness through successful performance of neuroimaging tasks. Despite these important advances, the day-to-day life experiences of any such patient remain unknown. This presents a major challenge for optimizing the patient’s standard of care and quality of life (QoL). We describe a patient who, following emergence from a state of complete behavioral unresponsiveness (...) and a clinical diagnosis of VS, reported rich memories of his experience during this time. This case demonstrates the potential for a sophisticated mental life enabled by preserved memory in a proportion of patients who, similarly, are thought to be unconscious. Therefore, it presents an important opportunity to examine the implications for patient QoL and standard of care, both during the period of presumed unconsciousness and after recovery. (shrink)

Key ethical issues arise in association with the conduct of stem cell research by research institutions in the United States. These ethical issues, summarized in detail, receive no adequate translation into federal laws or regulations, also described in this article. U.S. Federal policy takes a passive approach to these ethical issues, translating them simply into limitations on taxpayer funding, and foregoes scientific and ethical leadership while protecting intellectual property interests through a laissez faire approach to stem cell patents and licenses. (...) Those patents and licenses, far from being scientifically and ethically neutral in effect, virtually prohibit commercially sponsored research that could otherwise be a realistic alternative to the federal funding gap. The lack of federal funding and related data-sharing principles, combined with the effect of U.S. patent policy, the lack of key agency guidance, and the proliferation of divergent state laws arising from the lack of Federal leadership, significantly impede ethical stem cell research in the United States, without coherently supporting any consensus ethical vision. Research institutions must themselves implement steps, described in the article, to integrate addressing ethical review with the many legal compliance issues U.S. federal and state laws create. (shrink)

The characterization of the vices as ‘deadly’ has been explained in terms of the fatal harm they bring to those who possess them. Little has as yet been said about their effect on others, though there have been indications that at least potentially, they are likely to be harmful to others as well. A question is raised on whether the disposition of the vicious is such that by possessing a particular vice, they have further vicious tendencies as well.

This chapter, which concentrates on the violent imaginaries that informed the reports and deeds of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, reviews the perseverance of pre-colonial notions of a sacred king whose “wild sovereignty” and inability to promote the flow of imaana earns him fateful sacrifice. The term imaana denotes a supreme being and, in a more generalized way, a “diffuse, fecundating fluid” of celestial origin whose activity upon livestock, land, and people brought fertility and abundance. As imaana's earthly representative, the king (...) channeled fertility to the rest of humanity. The chapter also discusses symbolism of the sovereign's body and its implicit link with the process of liquid flow. Habyarimana is an inadequate conduit of imaana and thus not a worthy king. He is the antithesis of Ruganzu Ndori. -/- . (shrink)

Strating out with simple studies of leaves, fruit and flowers, the author looks at the materials and basic techniques needed for natural watercolour painting, and suggests some simple exercises for creating realistic form and effective composition. He moves on to demonstrate how to paint a wide range of natural subjects by cleverly breaking them down into their substructures, then illustrating the gradual development of the image so you both understand and see exactly how the finished watercolour has been built up. (...) With fully annotated sketches, working illustrations and step-by-step demonstrations he explores all kinds of indoor and outdoor subjects. Detailed information on special techniques and suitable palettes is also provided throughout. (shrink)