Since 1992, institutions accredited by The Joint Commission have been required to have a process in place that allows staff members, patients, and families to address ethical issues or issues prone to conflict. While the commission's expectations clearly have made ethics committees more common, simply having a committee in no way demonstrates its effectiveness in terms of the availability of the service to key constituents, the quality of the processes used, or the outcomes achieved. Beyond meeting baseline accreditation standards, effective (...) ethics resources are requisite for quality care for another reason. The provision of care to the sick is a practice with profound moral dimensions. Clinicians need what Margaret Urban Walker has called “moral spaces,” reflective spaces within institutions in which to explore and communicate values and ethical obligations as they undergird goals of care. Walker proposed that ethicists needed to be concerned with the design and maintenance of these moral spaces. Clearly, that concern needs to extend beyond ethicists to institutional leaders. This essay uses Walker's idea of moral space to describe individuals and groups who are actual and potential ethics resources in health care institutions. We focus on four requisite characteristics of effective resources and the challenges to achieving them, and we identify strategies to build them. In our view, such moral spaces are particularly important for nurses and their colleagues on interprofessional teams and need to be expanded and strengthened in most settings. (shrink)

We distinguish two pathways people may follow when they join violent groups: compliance and internalization. Compliance occurs when individuals are coerced to join by powerful influence agents. Internalization occurs when individuals join due to a perceived convergence between the self and the group. We searched for evidence of each of these pathways in field investigations of former members of two renowned terrorist organizations: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and Islamist radical groups. Results indicated that ex-fighters joined LTTE for reasons (...) associated with both compliance and internalization but that ex-fighters joined Islamist radical groups primarily for reasons associated with internalization. When compliance occurred, it often took the form of coercion within LTTE but involved charismatic persuasion agents within Islamist groups. This evidence of systematic differences in the reasons why fighters enter violent groups suggests that strategies for preventing radicalization and fostering de-radicalization should be tailored to particular groups. (shrink)

A presente coletânea é resultado de cooperação de pesquisadores brasileiros e portugueses, envolvidos com a docência no ensino superior e a consequente formação continuada dos professores universitários. A frequência no ensino superior é vista como uma conquista social dos ideais democráticos modernos e teria trazido novos públicos aos bancos escolares, o que tornaria esse ensino uma realidade de maneira qualitativa distinta com a qual decisores políticos, gestores, professores e estudantes devem aprender a lidar. Essas preocupações pretenderam motivar e nortear os (...) temas abordados nesta obra. (shrink)

Se analizará la manera en que la influencia teórica de las ciencias biológicas y médicas sobre la noción de “vida” imponen una transformación de las construcciones políticas, ideológicas y legales de un Estado que puede ser descrito como biopolítico. Para esto, se acudirá al análisis de la transformación de la idea operativa de “vida” desde la perspectiva agambiana de la politización de la muerte y la pretensión de disolver el umbral de decidibilidad entre vida y muerte para tomar, luego, tres (...) ejemplos de instancias legales en las que puede terminarse con la vida sin contradecir el propósito biopolítico de protegerla; esto es, instancias en las cuales no existe penalización ante la finalización de la vida. Estos tres ejemplos, que se presentarán de manera progresiva son: a) la eutanasia, b) el aborto y c) la contracepción. Es importante aclarar que no se pretende defender ni condenar en un plano moral las instancias de decisión sobre la disposición de una vida distinta de la propia, ni tampoco dar argumentos para que algo así se haga. Por el contrario, lo que aquí se pretende es aportar una dimensión explicativa –y analítica– desde el marco de la biopolítica, siguiendo, quizá, la sugerencia agambiana respecto de la necesidad de adoptar una perspectiva de este tipo para poder tener una comprensión adecuada de ciertos fenómenos políticos. (shrink)

The articles in this special edition exemplify three major issues in current debates on Sacred Plants: a) the wisdom of Indigenous understandings of sacred plants, b) beneficial emerging uses of sacred plants by non‐Indigenous people, c) the position of Indigenous wisdom for emerging uses of sacred plants.

Background: Paediatric nurses often face complex situations requiring decisions that sometimes clash with their own values and beliefs, or with the needs of the children they care for and their families. Paediatric nurses often use new technology that changes the way they provide care, but also reduces their direct interaction with the child. This may generate ethical issues, which nurses should be able to address in the full respect of the child. Research question and objectives: The purpose of this review (...) is to describe the main ethical dimensions of paediatric nursing. Our research question was, ‘What are the most common ethical dimensions and competences related to paediatric nursing?’ Research design: A rapid evidence assessment. Method: According to the principles of the rapid evidence assessment, we searched the PubMed, SCOPUS and CINAHL databases for papers published between January 2001 and March 2015. These papers were then independently read by two researchers and analysed according to the inclusion criteria. Ethical considerations: Since this was a rapid evidence assessment, no approval from the ethics committee was required. Findings: Ten papers met our inclusion criteria. Ethical issues in paediatric nursing were grouped into three areas: (a) ethical issues in paediatric care, (b) social responsibility and (c) decision-making process. Conclusion: Few studies investigate the ethical dimensions and aspects of paediatric nursing, and they are mainly qualitative studies conducted in critical care settings based on nurses’ perceptions and experiences. Paediatric nurses require specific educational interventions to help them resolve ethical issues, contribute to the decision-making process and fulfil their role as advocates of a vulnerable population (i.e. sick children and their families). Further research is needed to investigate how paediatric nurses can improve the involvement of children and their families in decision-making processes related to their care plan. (shrink)

Over recent years, the research community has been increasingly using preprint servers to share manuscripts that are not yet peer-reviewed. Even if it enables quick dissemination of research findings, this practice raises several challenges in publication ethics and integrity. In particular, preprints have become an important source of information for stakeholders interested in COVID19 research developments, including traditional media, social media, and policy makers. Despite caveats about their nature, many users can still confuse pre-prints with peer-reviewed manuscripts. If unconfirmed but (...) already widely shared first-draft results later prove wrong or misinterpreted, it can be very difficult to “unlearn” what we thought was true. Complexity further increases if unconfirmed findings have been used to inform guidelines. To help achieve a balance between early access to research findings and its negative consequences, we formulated five recommendations: (a) consensus should be sought on a term clearer than ‘pre-print’, such as ‘Unrefereed manuscript’, “Manuscript awaiting peer review” or ‘’Non-reviewed manuscript”; (b) Caveats about unrefereed manuscripts should be prominent on their first page, and each page should include a red watermark stating ‘Caution—Not Peer Reviewed’; (c) pre-print authors should certify that their manuscript will be submitted to a peer-review journal, and should regularly update the manuscript status; (d) high level consultations should be convened, to formulate clear principles and policies for the publication and dissemination of non-peer reviewed research results; (e) in the longer term, an international initiative to certify servers that comply with good practices could be envisaged. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that a large part of human behavior cannot be understood in terms of natural kinds but by appealing to normative kinds. In the first section we explain the distinction between natural kinds and normative kinds. In the second section we focus on the notion of “human behavior”, proposing a distinction between type A and type B behaviors and pointing out that psychology deals with type B behaviors, which are also included as diagnostic criteria (...) for mental disorders. In the third section we analyze the strategies used in biomedical research to find specific etiologies (“essences”) in order to explain such disorders. We argue that their results are inconsistent and that the lack of biomarkers that are clinically useful to refine the diagnoses is due to the fact that, unlike certain neuropathologies, there are no physiological essences behind such disorders. On the other hand, we argue that, as we are dealing with type B behaviors, we must interpret mental disorders as normative kinds. Keywords: human behavior, natural kinds, normative kinds. (shrink)

Introduction The influence of family factors on the academic performance of nursing students in group B of the University Foundation of the Andean Area 2022 was characterized. Methodology: This is a descriptive, quantitative and cross-sectional study. Non-random sample of 50 students. Results: The results of this research show that there is a significant relationship between the Family Social Climate and the School Performance of fourth-semester students, group B, of the Nursing program of the University Foundation of the Andean Area Pereira (...) Sectional in the second semester of 2022. It is concluded that the Low Academic Performance demonstrated by the students of the Institution in the year 2022 is related to the inadequate Family Social Climate in which the students live. Conclusion: Families do not identify high family risk even with adverse conditions such as weakness with the social support network. It is necessary to intensify actions that involve the health of the family. (shrink)

The aim is to present a discussion on the origins of the German Enlightenment, comparing the advances made by Leibniz, Crusius and Wolff. The particular element of seventeenth and eighteenth century German society is highlighted, in order to understand the specificities of the Kantian proposal, which is shown to be a process in development and not finished of freedom and autonomy.

On Islamic standards of basic needs of human beings.

This essay explains the inescapability of moral demands. I deny that the individual has genuine reason to comply with these demands only if she has desires that would be served by doing so. Rather, the learning of moral reasons helps to shape and channel self- and other-interested motivations so as to facilitate and promote social cooperation. This shaping happens through the “embedding” of reasons in the intentional objects of motivational propensities. The dominance of the instrumental conception of reason, according to (...) which reasons must be based in desires of the individual, has made it harder to recognize that reasons shape desires. I attempt to undermine this dominance by arguing that the concept of a self that extends over time is constructed to meet the demands of social cooperation. Prudential reasons to act on behalf of the persisting self's desires are often taken to constitute the paradigm of reasons based on desires of the individual. But such reasons, along with the very concept of the persisting self, are constructed to promote human cooperation and to shape the individual's desires. (shrink)

In this collection, Stations on the Journey of Inquiry, David Burrell launches a revolutionary reinterpretation of how any inquiry proceeds, boldly critiquing presumptuous theories of knowledge, language, and ethics. While his later publications, Analogy and Philosophical Language (1973) and Aquinas: God and Action (1979), elucidate Aquinas's linguistic theology, these early writings show what often escapes articulation: how one comes to understanding and "takes" a judgment. Although Aquinas serves as an axial figure for Burrell's expansive corpus of scholarship spanning more than (...) fifty years, this selection of essays presents other positions and counterpositions to whom his own philosophical theology is beholden: Plato, Aristotle, Cajetan, Kant, Peirce, Moore, Wittgenstein, Sellars, Weiss, Ross, McInerny, and Lonergan. With renewed interest in philosophy of language by postmodern thinkers as well as in the wake of Mulhall's Stanton Lectures on Wittgenstein and "Grammatical Thomism," the publication of these formative writings proves timely for the academy at large. Burrell invites us to reconsider not only the way in which we conduct an inquiry, but what it is we take language to be and how we take responsibility for what we say. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the problematic of selfinterpretation and the correspondence between selfimage and the reality. Its presupposition is, that a human being is not committed to a single way of life, fully determined by his/her biological characteristics or by the dictate of his/her social background; first of all, he/she is not dependent on single ways of the interpretation of the world or of his/her selfinterpretation. It is his/her ability to accept certain characteristics as his/her own that makes him/her a (...) human being. There is usually a distinction between his/her own seeing himself/herself, which does not necessarily, leads to a failure. The strategies of survival are various and they need not to be rooted in true interpretations in all their aspects. In conclusion the author argues, that the critical thinking making its way into everyday life as well as into the public sphere offers the possibility of the variability of the ways of life and of a consensual coexistence on the basis of manifold interpretative structures and models. Enforcing a uniform view as a presupposition of human cooperation is replaced by an approach, respecting the legitimacy of the pluralistic image of the world and of the humans, for which this approach makes no obstacle in cooperative working of society. (shrink)