Suicide is considered a global public health issue and compulsory admission is a commonly used measure to prevent suicide. However, the practice has been criticised since several studies indicate that the measure lacks empirical support and may even increase suicide risk. This paper investigates whether the practice has enough empirical support to be considered proportionate. To that end, arguments supporting compulsory admission as a suicide-preventive measure for most suicidal patients are scrutinized. The ethical point of departure is that the expected (...) benefits of compulsory admission should outweigh the potential harms of the measure to be proportionate and defensible. It is concluded that, for most suicidal patients, suicide-preventive compulsory admission cannot be presumed to be a proportionate measure. To be so, the expected medical benefits of the measure should be greater than the potential increase in suicide risk and other harms that compulsory admission could entail. Instead of using compulsory admission as a suicide-preventive measure, extra safety measures may be needed during and after compulsory admission to prevent the risk of hospitalisation-induced suicide. (shrink)

Two related aspects of the present ‘knowledge capitalism’ stage of globalisation are discussed in this article: the transformation of education to make it more directly supportive of educational growth and competition, and the growing demands on educational research to provide scientific evidence for education policy and practice, using narrowly defined methods and techniques. It is argued that both developments have profound consequences for the construction and use of educational theory, and the vital need for critical discussion and communication in this (...) respect is emphasised. (shrink)

The contribution of this work is a classification of corporate social action underlying the Social Ratings Data compiled by Kinder Lydenburg Domini Analytics, Inc. We compare extant typologies of corporate social action to the results of our exploratory factor analysis. Our findings indicate four distinct latent constructs that bear resemblance to concepts discussed in prior literature. Akey finding of our research is that positive and negative social action are both empirically and conceptually distinct constructs and should not be combined in (...) future research. Additionally, we recommend that some prior research results be reconsidered to determine whether these newly derived measures might clarify some previous findings. (shrink)

Epigrams of Lingayat saints of the 16th century espousing the Advaita school in Hindu philosophy; transcribed from a palm-leaf manuscript preserved in the Karnatak University.

This panel discussion took place on June 26, 2021, as part of the programming for an exhibition by critical art collaborative Cesar & Lois at experimental art and research project space Yes We Cannibal (Baton Rouge, LA). The exhibition was entitled Eat the Anthropocene with Cesar & Lois, mycelia and friend entities and ran for six weeks. The panel discussion collected scholars from art, anthropology, literature, landscape architecture, and amateur Mycology to elucidate themes relevant to the artwork, which features a (...) variety of experimental collaborations between codices and fungal life. (shrink)

Reflexive Methodology established itself as a groundbreaking success, providing researchers with an invaluable guide to a central problem in research methodology – how to put field research and interpretations in perspective, paying attention to the interpretive, political, and rhetorical nature of empirical research. Now thoroughly updated, the Second Edition includes a new chapter on positivism, social constructionism, and critical realism, and offers new conclusions on the applications of methodology. It provides further illustrations and updates that build on the acclaimed and (...) successful First Edition. (shrink)

This article is a detailed discourse analytic study about the transformation of three social research reports into television news, above all through the reporter–source interview. The focus is on how questions are used to probe responses and explanations and how these are either omitted from or incorporated into the final news stories. By this unique research design the interactional conduct of the reporter–source interview as well as some aspects of question design applied in the interview are described. It is argued (...) that both the interviews as well as the editing of the news stories are guided by ‘narrative relevance’, i.e. the reporter’s preliminary idea of what the emerging story should/could look like, rather than by the actual outcome of the interviews. (shrink)

According to the alternative semantics for focus, the semantic reflec of intonational focus is a second semantic value, which in the case of a sentence is a set of propositions. We examine a range of semantic and pragmatic applications of the theory, and extract a unitary principle specifying how the focus semantic value interacts with semantic and pragmatic processes. A strong version of the theory has the effect of making lexical or construction-specific stipulation of a focus-related effect in association-with-focus constructions (...) impossible. Furthermore, while focus has a uniform import, the sources of meaning differences in association with focus are various. (shrink)

Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) sometimes request to be admitted to hospital under compulsory care, often under the argument that they cannot trust their suicidal impulses if treated voluntarily. Thus, compulsory care is practised as a form of Ulysses contract in such situations. In this normative study we scrutinize the arguments commonly used in favour of such Ulysses contracts: (1) the patient lacking free will, (2) Ulysses contracts as self-paternalism, (3) the patient lacking decision competence, (4) Ulysses contracts as (...) a defence of the authentic self, and (5) Ulysses contracts as a practical solution in emergency situations. In our study, we have accepted consequentialist considerations as well as considerations of autonomy. We conclude that compulsory care is not justified when there is a significant uncertainty of beneficial effects or uncertainty regarding the patient’s decision-making capacity. We have argued that such uncertainty is present regarding BPD patients. Hence, Ulysses contracts including compulsory care should not be used for this group of patients. (shrink)

In population ethics, some appeal to certain lexical and critical level total views to avoid the repugnant conclusion. Since the very repugnant conclusion is a weaker adequacy condition, we may think that these views will also allow us to avoid this conclusion. In this paper I argue that this is not the case. First, I show that the idea that some popular lexical total views could allow us to avoid the very repugnant conclusion is mistaken. Then I demonstrate that the (...) same is true of critical range total views. Finally, I clarify which views allow us to avoid this conclusion. (shrink)

Introduction Compulsory care is controversial, since respect for the patient’s autonomy is a standard requirement in health care. Many psychiatrists have experienced that patients with borderline personality syndrome sometimes demand compulsory care for themselves in order not to exert self-harm—like Ulysses contracts. The aim of this study was to examine the possible existence and extent of borderline personality syndrome-patient demands for Ulysses contracts regarding compulsory care in acute psychiatry, and how external influences and demands could affect the caregivers’ decisions about (...) compulsory care. Method An anonymous questionnaire, with three questions with fixed answers, was distributed to 42 licensed medical doctors on call at the psychiatric emergency unit in the city of Stockholm. Thirty-three questionnaires were answered, giving a response rate of 79%. Results Ninety-four percent of the respondents recognized the phenomenon of borderline personality syndrome patients requesting compulsory care, 21% stated that this request had affected their clinical decision, and 55% had used compulsory care for other reasons than the patient’s best interest. Discussion The results indicate that compulsory care is sometimes given in the form of Ulysses contracts for borderline personality syndrome patients. Also, compulsory care is sometimes used for other reasons than the borderline personality syndrome patient’s best interest. Psychological mechanisms affect the decisions of both patients and caregivers. More research should be done concerning to whom, why, and with what consequences compulsory care is prescribed. (shrink)

IntroductionBorderline personality disorder patients are often subjected to inpatient compulsory care due to suicidal behaviour. However, inpatient care is usually advised against as it can have detrimental effects, including increased suicidality.AimTo investigate what motives psychiatrists have for treating borderline personality disorder patients under compulsory care.Materials and MethodsA questionnaire survey was distributed to all psychiatrists and registrars in psychiatry working at mental health emergency units or inpatient wards in Sweden. The questionnaire contained questions with fixed response alternatives, with room for comments, (...) about the respondents’ motives for practising compulsory care of borderline personality disorder patients. The responses were analysed quantitatively with descriptive statistics, and comments were analysed with qualitative descriptive content analysis.ResultsThe psychiatrists’ views were divided on when it was justified to treat borderline personality disorder patients under compulsory care, as were their views on borderline personality disorder patients’ decision competence. When there was an assessed risk of harm, 53% were positive to compulsory care of decision-competent borderline personality disorder patients and another 31% because they considered the patients to be decision incompetent in such situations. Adding the risk of harm caused many respondents to alter their assessment of the patient from decision competent to decision incompetent.ConclusionThe large variations in doctors’ opinions indicate that the care of borderline personality disorder patients is arbitrary. Further, the assessed risk of harm increases the use of compulsory care, even though such care is advised against in clinical guidelines, has questionable legal support, and could lead to an increased suicide risk over time. (shrink)

In this article, I first interpret and evaluate the main argument of E. V. R. Kojonen's book, The Compatibility of Evolution and Design. I then address a challenge against this argument (as well as against design arguments in general), namely, the problem of seemingly malevolent and bad designs in nature. Evolutionary theodicists commonly deal with this problem by assuming that the evolutionary process is not fully under God's control. This solution, however, is deeply problematic from the perspective of classical theism. (...) I therefore suggest another approach to the problem, inspired by the thought of Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

A social conception of science -- The pursuit of forms -- Beyond the doctrine of signs -- Structures of mediation -- Signs in action -- Prospects of communication -- From a rhetorical point of view.

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 685, August 2012.

This article analyses the orientation of gaze as a significant communicative resource in televised political interviews. The study explores how interviewees use their gaze, in coordination with talk, in receiving and answering adversarial questions. It is guided by conversation analysis, Goffman’s work on gaze in interaction, and the approach on embodied actions developed primarily by Goodwin. Gaze is described as a flexible recipient and speaker resource available for stance-taking, the downgrading and upgrading of actions, and the claiming of the floor. (...) The study is based on taped and transcribed data from two formats of election campaign interviews on Swedish television, including 350 question and response sequences. (shrink)

Previous studies of corporate environmental and social action identify exactly three similar patterns of activity. They provide divergent structural explanations for these patterns, as networks of institutional constraint, and networks of local inter-dependence, respectively. A theory of sociocultural viability, known in anthropology and policy science as Cultural Theory, explains that social systems consist of four patterns of social interaction, shaped by two distinct structural factors. Our own analysis of 45 items of environmental, social, and governance factors reconcile extant studies’ findings (...) with Cultural Theory’s expectations. Although earlier studies of corporate social action observed only three patterns of activity, our analysis uncovered the fourth, and that diverging structural explanations of earlier studies are partial and complementary, clarified by Cultural Theory. Our call for further study leverages the normative dimension of Cultural Theory, which specifies policy processes that privilege human decency over parochial preference functions. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche, focusing centrally on his understanding of the Nietzschean “body.” Nietzsche’s status as the culminating figure of Western metaphysics depends on the notion that the body, in Nietzsche’s thought, is the last Western subject. I confirm Heidegger’s sense of the importance of the Nietzschean body, and, in particular, the centrality of the word “incorporation”, to a proper understanding of Nietzsche. I argue, however, through a critique of Heidegger’s own understanding of “incorporation” in (...) Nietzsche’s work, that an investigation of the body in Nietzsche does not reveal him to be an unwilling participant in the metaphysical tradition beyond which Heidegger seeks to move; rather, we should see in the Nietzschean body a human finitude that has more resonances in Heidegger’s own thought than Heidegger would care to admit. Ultimately, I show, an investigation of the actual dynamics of the Nietzschean body, as read through the careful tracing of the word “incorporation” to which Heidegger invites us, yields a fundamentally delimited body that operates according to what we might call a kind of physiological asceticism. (shrink)

**A newly revised edition of two seminal works on Imperial Rome** Undeniably one of Rome’s most important historians, Tacitus was also one of its most gifted. *The Agricola* is both a portrait of Julius Agricola-the most famous governor of Roman Britain and Tacitus’s respected father-in-law-and the first known detailed portrayal of the British Isles. In the *Germania*, Tacitus focuses on the warlike German tribes beyond the Rhine, often comparing the behavior of "barbarian" peoples favorably with the decadence and corruption of (...) Imperial Rome. (shrink)

Research on incompetent humans raises ethical challenges, especially when there is no direct benefit to these research subjects. Contemporary codes of research ethics typically require that such research must specifically serve to benefit the population to which the research subjects belong. The article critically examines this “same-population condition”, raising issues of both interpretation and moral justification. Of particular concern is the risk that the way in which the condition is articulated and rationalized in effect disguises or downplays the instrumentalization of (...) incompetent individuals. (shrink)

Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are overrepresented in compulsory inpatient care for suicide-protective reasons. Still, much evidence indicates negative effects of such care, including increased suicide risk. Clinical guidelines are contradictory, leaving clinicians with difficult ethical dilemmas when deciding on compulsory care. In this study, we analyse the arguments most commonly used in favour of compulsory care of BPD patients, to find out in what situations such care is ethically justified. The aim is to guide clinicians when deciding on (...) compulsory care for BPD patients and reduce the use of potentially harmful care. The arguments analysed are (a) the patients lack decision competence, (b) the patients lack authenticity, (c) compulsory care saves the patient from suicide, (d) compulsory care safeguards against litigation, complaints, or doctor's anxiety, (e) compulsory care is a practical solution in emergencies, and (f) it is better for the caregiver to ‘err on the safe side’. We conclude that compulsory care is not ethically justified in most cases unless the clinician has probable reason to believe that the patient lacks decision capacity by suffering from a severe mental co-morbidity and stands to benefit from such care. (shrink)

Measures of happiness are increasingly being used throughout the social sciences. While these measures have attracted numerous types of criticisms, a crucial aspect of these measures has been left largely unexplored—their calibration. Using Eran Tal’s recently developed notion of calibration we argue first that the prospect of continued calibration of happiness measures is crucial for the science of happiness, and second, that continued calibration of happiness measures faces a particular problem—The Two Unknowns Problem. The Two Unknowns Problem relies on the (...) claim that individuals are necessarily a part of the measurement apparatus in first person measures of happiness, and the claim that we have no reason to believe that the evaluation standards people employ are invariant across individuals and time. We argue that calibrating happiness measures therefore involves solving an equation with two unknowns—an individual’s degree of happiness, and their evaluation standards—which is, generally, not possible. Third, we consider two possible escape routes from this problem and we suggest that the most promising route requires yet unexplored empirical and theoretical work on linking happiness to behavioral or neural evidence. (shrink)

This paper examines how different forms of performance evaluation relate to aspects of the creative climate in a major pharmaceutical company. The study was based on a large employee-attitude survey that was distributed to all company employees. The study analyses survey results from 5,333 employees at five R&D sites. The results indicate that management’s evaluation of employees (either dialogue-based or control-based) relates to the type of motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic) that drives employees, to their style of thinking (value-focused thinking) and (...) on their attitudes to organizational creativity. The paper then discusses implications of these findings for HRM. (shrink)

It is often claimed that our knowledge of the evolutionary process adds an extra dimension to the classical problem of natural evil and makes this problem worse. Especially the principle of natural selection is often portrayed as morally inappropriate or “unfitting” for a perfectly good God to use as a means for creating biological complexity. In this article, I argue that this common view is misconceived, and that natural selection is a wholly innocuous principle. The real source of evolutionary evils (...) is the fact that resources in nature are scarce – a fact that was known long before Darwin. The problem of natural and evolutionary evil, therefore, is best construed as a question about why God permits scarcity in nature. I argue that recent research about the interrelation between competition and cooperation in the evolutionary process provides resources for answering this perennial question in a more satisfactory way than could be done before the advent of evolutionary theory. (shrink)

This study attempts to establish the importance of firm-level interactions with sociopolitical stakeholders in explaining firms prospects for survival. Institutional arguments are proposed to explain the effects of internal structures-both organizational and phenomenological-on firms sociopolitical relational strategies, whereas arguments grounded in the stakeholder view of the firm are advanced to explain effects of sociopolitical stakeholder relations on firm performance. Findings indicate that firms tended to adopt cooptative relationships with sociopolitical stakeholders. Furthermore, firms cooperativeness toward sociopolitical stakeholders had little effect on (...) financial performance but, under some conditions, had positive effects on social performance. Implied is that markets may not be an effective governance mechanism to ensure firms alignment with democratic institutions in a plural society and that public policies may be needed to address these failures. (shrink)

Science has become a central political concern with massive increases in public investment, but resources are embedded in a complex web of expectations that vary between countries and regions. This book outlines an insightful understanding of science policy as both concerning the governance of science itself through priority-setting, funding, organization and articulation with polity, society and economy, and its extra-organizational connections in terms of higher education, innovation and national policy concerns. The New Global Politics of Science examines how science and (...) innovation have become truly global, and the consequences of this for scientists, policymakers and citizens. This book provides an overview of how research policies have evolved in different countries and contexts. It also examines how science research has been aligned with nation-building and state-formation, enmeshed in meta-governance, and how this relates to economic growth. Analysing how knowledge policies have been forged in their specific historical and geographical settings, this book will be an invaluable tool for scholars and policymakers in the fields of science, innovation and public policy. (shrink)

It is not contoversial to state that acts of fraud do not belong in the academic world. What is debated is the best way to minimise the risk of fraudulent behaviour. Broadly speaking there are two different approaches to this problem. They differ with regard to whether the main focus is on internal or external control. In this article I argue that the main emphasis should be on internal structures in order to achieve the desired end. Only when the internal (...) structures are in place is it meaningful to adopt external, supportive means to the same end. Invitation to the academic project as such, education and training in research ethics and good research practice, the implementation of good documentation procedures and the implementation of a procedure for investigation of suspicions of fraud which is characterised by efficiency, impartiality and competence are the four primary ingredients in the cure. The first three are suggested to build up the necessary foundation before a structure of investigation procedures are established. (shrink)

, Uppsala, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1991; 158 pp., price not indicated, ISBN 91-554-2807-X.

Together with large biobanks of human samples, medical registries with aggregated data from many clinical centers are vital parts of an infrastructure for maintaining high standards of quality with regard to medical diagnosis and treatment. The rapid development in personalized medicine and pharmaco-genomics only underscores the future need for these infrastructures. However, registries and biobanks have been criticized as constituting great risks to individual privacy. In this article, I suggest that quality with regard to diagnosis and treatment is an inherent, (...) morally normative requirement of health care, and argue that quality concerns in this sense may be balanced with privacy concerns. (shrink)

This focused review is based on earlier studies which have shown that both children and adults diagnosed as having developmental coordination disorder (DCD), benefited from sensorimotor therapy according to the method Retraining for Balance (RB). Different approaches and assessments for children and adults in regard to DCD are scrutinized and discussed in comparison to RB which mainly includes (a) vestibular assessment and stimulation (b) assessment and integration of aberrant primary reflexes and (c) assessment and stimulation of auditory and visual perception. (...) Earlier results indicate that the process of sensorimotor therapy using RB techniques could be described according to a conceptual Kinesthetic-Vestibular Developmental Model (KVDM) whereby the training elicited temporary physical and psychological regressions followed by transformations i.e. positive physical and psychological development. We have also seen that this recurring pattern is similar for children and adults. In our conceptual model vestibular stimulation (perceptual priming) stimulates the nervous system, which might enhance object-related priming. This perceptual priming will also assist the suppression of persistent aberrant primary reflexes. In order to develop effective methods for assessment and intervention of DCD over the life span the importance of primary reflex inhibition and vestibular stimulation as well as a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches have to be considered. (shrink)

Between the 1870s and the 1920s, the dye industry was at the center of claims about the productivity of organic chemistry. Dyestuffs were widely represented as the most complex molecules to find commercial application, and positioned at the center of nationalist projects to establish chemical industry, especially in Britain and the United States. By the later twentieth century, the complex of scientific hopes which surrounded dyestuffs had largely disappeared. In Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s terms, they had changed from “epistemic things” to, at (...) best, “technical objects,” and lost their future-bearing status as the lynchpin of organic chemistry. Although developments in dyeing continue, dyestuffs have vacated the scientifically and culturally dynamic position that they once occupied; any restoration of this status would require a radical change in economic and material conditions. This paper considers the senses in which this change of status should be considered as the death of dyestuffs as a scientific object. (shrink)