The branch of evolutionary theory known as signaling theory attempts to explain various forms of communication. Social scientists have explained many traditional rituals as forms of communication that promote cooperative social relationships among participants. Both evolutionists and social scientists have realized the importance of trust for the formation and maintenance of cooperative social relationships. These factors have led to attempts to apply signaling theory to traditional cultural rituals in various ways. This paper uses the traditional ritual of mumming in small (...) Newfoundland fishing villages to evaluate alternative hypotheses about the connection between rituals, communication, trust, and cooperation. Mumming is found to be most consistent with the hypothesis that it is a ritual of trust wherein participants take a specific type of risk: the risk of harm at the hands of other participants. Individuals who take this risk actively signal their trust. Conversely, individuals who restrain themselves from inflicting harm on other participants actively signal their trustworthiness. (shrink)

We examined the management of completed advance directives including why participants completed a document, what procedures and values they chose, with whom they held end-of-life conversations, and where they stored their document. Participants elected to complete a SurveyMonkey survey that was made available to individuals who wrote an advance directive through Texas-LivingWill.org; 491 individuals elected to fill out the survey, aged 19 to 94 years. The survey asked multiple questions about why participants completed an advance directive, where they would store (...) it, and with whom they had conversations about their end-oflife wishes. A list of procedures and values allowed participants to indicate what they refused or requested in their advance directive. Advance directives are most often completed to allow patients to prepare and control the healthcare they wish to receive when dying. One-half to two-thirds of individuals refuse common end-of-life medical procedures, and the rest request the procedures. We found a correlation between the choice to refuse or request a procedure and the age of the participant. Participants reported that their end-of-life conversations most often occurred with their spouse. Respondents often reported that their advance directive was stored with their physician and power of attorney for healthcare, conversations with those individuals rarely happened. Advance directives document patients’ requests for and refusals of end-of-life care. Physicians and surrogates need to be better educated so that the documents are part of a meaningful conversation with the patient. Because patients’ choices change over their lifespan, these documents need to be revisited regularly and not completed as a onetime event. (shrink)

Research has consistently shown ‘ability’ grouping (tracking) to be prey to poor practice, and to perpetuate inequity. A feature of these problems is inequitable and inaccurate practice in allocation to groups or ‘tracks’. Yet little research has examined whether such practices might be improved. Here, we examine survey and interview findings from a large-scale intervention study of grouping practices in 126 English secondary schools. We find that when schools are encouraged to allocate students and move them between groups according to (...) equitable principles by participation in a ‘best practice’ intervention, there is some increased equity of practice (i.e. a reduction in non-attainment factors used in allocation). However, the majority of schools continue to use subjective and potentially biased information to group students. Furthermore, some schools that claim to be using attainment setting appear to be using the inequitable practice of streaming. Our findings show that improvements in equity are constrained by operational and strategic factors, including timetabling, finance, and teachers’ values and beliefs relating to student ability and progression. We suggest strategies for encouraging schools to change their grouping practices, drawing on approaches for working with complex organisations. (shrink)

The role of research ethics committees, and research ethics issues more broadly are often not viewed in the context of the development of scientific methods and the academic community. This topic piece seeks to redress this gap. I begin with a brief outline of the changes we experience within the social sciences before exploring in more detail their impact on research ethics and the practices of research ethics committees. I conclude with recommendations for how the existing research ethics processes may (...) be made more future-proof. (shrink)

Nicole Hassoun here makes a philosophical argument for health, and access to essential medicines, as essential human rights, and she proposes the Global Health Impact system as a way to ensure those rights. She reports how life-saving medicines are inaccessible and costly for the global poor, and that rather than focusing on treatments for critical, deadly global health problems, pharmaceutical companies instead invest in more profitable drugs. To address this problem, Hassoun's proposal will rate pharmaceutical companies based on their (...) medicines' impact on the improvement of global health, and will reward highly-rated medicines with a Global Health Impact label. (shrink)

This paper aims to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of Adorno’s thought for business ethicists working in the critical tradition by showing how his critique of modern social life anticipated, and offers continuing illumination of, recent technological transformations of capitalism. It develops and extrapolates Adorno’s thought regarding three central spheres of modern society, which have seen radical changes in light of recent technological developments: work, in which employee monitoring has become ever more sophisticated and intrusive; leisure consumption, in which the algorithmic (...) developments of the culture industry have paved the way for entertainment products to dominate us; and political discourse, in which social media has exacerbated the anti-democratic tendencies Adorno warned of in the mid-twentieth century. We conclude by presenting, as a rejoinder to these developments, the contours of an Adornian ethics of resistance to the reification and dehumanisation of such developments. (shrink)

Most of the world's health problems afflict poor countries and their poorest inhabitants. There are many reasons why so many people die of poverty-related causes. One reason is that the poor cannot access many of the existing drugs and technologies they need. Another, is that little of the research and development (R&D) done on new drugs and technologies benefits the poor. There are several proposals on the table that might incentivize pharmaceutical companies to extend access to essential drugs and technologies (...) to the global poor.1 Still, the problem remains – the poor are suffering and dying from lack of access to essential medicines. So, it is worth considering a new alternative. This paper suggests rating pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies based on how some of their policies impact poor people's health. It argues that it might be possible to leverage a rating system to encourage companies to extend access to essential drugs and technologies to the poor. (shrink)

: In The Morality of Freedom, Joseph Raz argues against a right to autonomy. This argument helps to distinguish his theory from his competitors'. For, many liberal theories ground such a right. Some even defend entirely autonomy-based accounts of rights. This paper suggests that Raz's argument against a right to autonomy raises an important dilemma for his larger theory. Unless his account of rights is limited in some way, Raz's argument applies against almost all (purported) rights, not just a right (...) to autonomy. But, on the traditional way of limiting accounts like his, Raz's account actually supports the conclusion that people have a right to autonomy. So, unless there is another way of limiting his account that does not have this consequence, Raz's argument against a right to autonomy does not go through. (shrink)

Drunk drivers and other culpably incapacitated wrongdoers are often taken to pose a problem for reasons-responsiveness accounts of moral responsibility. These accounts predicate moral responsibility upon an agent having the capacities to perceive and act upon moral reasons, and the culpably incapacitated wrongdoers lack exactly those capacities at the time of their wrongdoing. Many reasons-responsiveness advocates thus expand their account of responsibility to include a tracing condition: The culpably incapacitated wrongdoer is blameworthy despite his incapacitation precisely because he is responsible (...) for becoming incapacitated. As some skeptics have suggested, it is not clear that we need tracing. Here, however, I make a stronger case against tracing: I show that tracing gets things wrong. I consider a new sort of case, the case of the Odysseus agent, whose incapacitation is non-culpable (sometimes merely permissible and sometimes praiseworthy). Tracing would have us hold responsible and therefore blame unlucky Odysseus agents, Odysseus agents who commit a wrongdoing in the throes of their non-culpably induced incapacitation. But we should not hold these unlucky Odysseus agents responsible for their incapacitated wrongdoing. Because tracing gets these cases wrong, we should reject tracing. (shrink)

The face of the world is changing. The past century has seen the incredible growth of international institutions. How does the fact that the world is becoming more interconnected change institutions' duties to people beyond borders? Does globalization alone engender any ethical obligations? In Globalization and Global Justice, Nicole Hassoun addresses these questions and advances a new argument for the conclusion that there are significant obligations to the global poor. First, she argues that there are many coercive international institutions (...) and that these institutions must provide the means for their subjects to avoid severe poverty. Hassoun then considers the case for aid and trade, and concludes with a new proposal for fair trade in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Globalization and Global Justice will appeal to readers in philosophy, politics, economics and public policy. (shrink)

The counterfactual mental state of negligent criminal activity invites skepticism from those who see mental states as essential to responsibility. Here, I offer a revision of the mental state of criminal negligence, one where the mental state at issue is actual and not merely counterfactual. This revision dissolves the worry raised by the skeptic and helps to explain negligence’s comparatively reduced culpability.

Evidence does not support the claim that observers universally recognize basic emotions from signals on the face. The percentage of observers who matched the face with the predicted emotion (matching score) is not universal, but varies with culture and language. Matching scores are also inflated by the commonly used methods: within-subject design; posed, exaggerated facial expressions (devoid of context); multiple examples of each type of expression; and a response format that funnels a variety of interpretations into one word specified by (...) the experimenter. Without these methodological aids, matching scores are modest and subject to various explanations. (shrink)

The_ Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ is the most ambitious international philosophy project in many years. Edited by Edward Craig and assisted by thirty specialist subject editors, the REP consists of ten volumes of the world's most eminent philosophers writing for the needs of students and teachers of philosophy internationally. The REP is a project on an unparalleled scale: Over 2000 entries ranging from 500 to 15,000 words in length - thematic, biographical and national 10 volumes consisting of over 5 (...) million words of text plus considerable bibliographic material A Chief Editor and thirty specialist Subject Editors from across the world Over 1200 authors from all over the world. The importance of the REP is not to be found just in the sheer size of the project but also in its breadth of subject matter. It covers: The core of most Anglo-American philosophy - the metaphysical, epistemological and logical questions The usual menu of ethics, political philosophy and the history of philosophy The philosophy of other cultures - from Chinese, Arabic and Jewish philosophy to the philosophy of Africa and Latin America The most impressive range of authors have been gathered together on this unique project: William Alston, Roderick Chisolm, Fred Dretske, Joel Feinberg, Sandra Harding, Larry Laudan, Martha Nussbaum, Richard Popkin, Richard Rorty, Alan Ryan, Gyatri Chakravorty Spivak, Stephen Stich, Patrick Suppes and Bernard Williams, to name just a few. Also available online: www.rep.routledge.com. (shrink)

The way in which we characterize the structural and functional differences between psychopath and normal brains – either as biological disorders or as mere biological differences – can influence our judgments about psychopaths’ responsibility for criminal misconduct. However, Marga Reimer (Neuroethics 1(2):14, 2008) points out that whether our characterization of these differences should be allowed to affect our judgments in this manner “is a difficult and important question that really needs to be addressed before policies regarding responsibility... can be implemented (...) with any confidence”. This paper is an attempt to address Reimer’s difficult and important question; I argue that irrespective of which of these two characterizations is chosen, our judgments about psychopaths’ responsibility should not be affected, because responsibility hinges not on whether a particular difference is (referred to as) a disorder or not, but on how that difference affects the mental capacities required for moral agency. (shrink)

For many philosophers, bad-history wrongdoers are primarily interesting because of what their cases might tell us about the interaction of moral responsibility and history. However, philosophers focusing on blameworthiness have overlooked important questions about blame itself. These bad-history cases are complicated because blame and sympathy are both fitting. When we are careful to consider the rich natures of those two reactions, we see that they conflict in several important ways. We should see bad-history cases as cases about whether and how (...) we should blame, rather than as cases giving us ready insight into the nature of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Fred Adams and collaborators advocate a view on which empty-name sentences semantically encode incomplete propositions, but which can be used to conversationally implicate descriptive propositions. This account has come under criticism recently from Marga Reimer and Anthony Everett. Reimer correctly observes that their account does not pass a natural test for conversational implicatures, namely, that an explanation of our intuitions in terms of implicature should be such that we upon hearing it recognize it to be roughly correct. Everett argues that (...) the implicature view provides an explanation of only some of our intuitions, and is in fact incompatible with others, especially those concerning the modal profile of sentences containing empty names. I offer a pragmatist treatment of empty names based upon the recognition that the Gricean distinction between what is said and what is implicated is not exhaustive, and argue that such a solution avoids both Everett's and Reimer's criticisms. (shrink)

With advances in assisted reproductive technologies, globalization, and the ease of contact via the internet, the use of gestational surrogates as a family building option has grown significantly over the past decade. In a gestational surrogacy arrangement, unlike a traditional surrogacy arrangement, the surrogate is not the genetic mother of the child she carries; the genetic mother is either an egg donor or the commissioning parent. There are only a handful of countries in which commercial surrogacy is permitted, with the (...) United States and India prominent among them. More surrogacy arrangements are carried out in the United States than in any other nation, and the number of gestational.. (shrink)

Duress is a defense in both law and morality. The bank teller who provides an armed robber with the bank vault combination, the innocent suspect who fabricates a story after hours of interrogation, the Good Samaritan who breaks into a private cabin in the woods to save a stranded hiker, and the father who drives at high speed to rush his injured child to the hospital—in deciding how to respond to agents like these, we should take into account that they (...) have acted under duress. In this paper, I offer a new duress defense, which I call “distinctive duress.” The distinctive-duress defense is neither ordinary justification nor ordinary excuse. Rather, it is a defense available to agents who act wrongly because they are appropriately insensitive to certain reasons. In the distinctive-duress cases, an agent’s normative sensitivities are rightly directed elsewhere, leading them awry. (shrink)

We demonstrate in two experiments that real and imagined body movements appropriate to metaphorical phrases facilitate people's immediate comprehension of these phrases. Participants first learned to make different body movements given specific cues. In two reading time studies, people were faster to understand a metaphorical phrase, such as push the argument, when they had previously just made an appropriate body action (e.g., a push movement) (Experiment 1), or imagined making a specific body movement (Experiment 2), than when they first made (...) a mismatching body action (e.g., a chewing movement) or no movement. These findings support the idea that appropriate body action, or even imagined action, enhances people's embodied, metaphorical construal of abstract concepts that are referred to in metaphorical phrases. (shrink)

I analyse Drenthen's article ‘Ecological restoration and place attachment: emplacing non-places?’ ( Environmental Values 18(3): 285-312), focusing in particular on his use of the notions of ‘appropriation’ and ‘estrangement’ from the perspective of meaningfulness. I show that, for deeper meaningfulness as place attachment, within the appropriable there is always a tension with the non-appropriable; there is a successful connection between both. Estrangement and loss of meaning occur the moment the non-appropriable resides outside the familiar. Drenthen unintentionally causes confusion by failing (...) to take this subtlety into account systematically. (shrink)

In the field of ?neurolaw?, reformists claim that recent scientific discoveries from the mind sciences have serious ramifications for how legal responsibility should be adjudicated, but conservatives deny that this is so. In contrast, I criticise both of these polar opposite positions by arguing that although scientific findings can have often-weighty normative significance, they lack the normative authority with which reformists often imbue them. After explaining why conservatives and reformists are both wrong, I then offer my own moderate suggestions about (...) what views we have reason to endorse. My moderate position reflects the familiar capacitarian idea which underlies much lay, legal, and philosophical thinking about responsibility ? namely, that responsibility tracks mental capacity. (shrink)

In deciding whether to forgive, we often focus on the wrongdoer, looking for an apology or a change of ways. However, to fully consider whether to forgive, we need to expand our focus from the wrongdoer and their wrongdoing, and we need to consider who we are, what we care about, and what we want to care about. The difference between blame and forgiveness is, at bottom, a difference in priorities. When we blame, we prioritize the wrong, and when we (...) forgive, we shift our priorities away from the wrong. Recognizing this essential role for priorities in forgiveness allows us to address a thorny puzzle in thinking about forgiveness: how is it that forgiveness can be both principled and elective? If there is sufficient reason to forgive, as will sometimes be the case because forgiveness is principled, how can it be reasonable to withhold forgiveness? Recognizing that forgiveness is a shift in our priorities dissolves this apparent tension between forgiveness being principled and forgiveness being elective. (shrink)

This book'¬"s chapters deal with a range of theoretical problems discussed in classic compatibilist literature '¬ ; e.g. the relationship between ...

Patientenselbstbestimmung und Patientenverfügungen (PV) haben zunehmende Bedeutung und Beachtung erfahren. In der vorliegenden qualitativen Studie wurden 15 Patientinnen und Patienten mit amyotropher Lateralsklerose (ALS)—einer unheilbaren, chronisch-degenerativen Erkrankung mit vorhersehbarer Symptomatik—interviewt, um zu erfahren, welche Werte und Kriterien sie bei prospektiven Entscheidungen am Lebensende und bei der Abfassung von PV zugrunde legen. Die Auswertung erfolgte nach der Methode der „grounded theory“. Die befragten Patientinnen und Patienten befürworteten einen Verzicht auf lebenserhaltende Behandlungen, wenn sie keine hinreichenden Lebensmöglichkeiten (LM) mehr sahen, d. h. (...) wenn sie die aktuelle Lebensqualität für unzureichend erachteten und die Chance auf Besserung als gering einschätzten. Dem Patientenwillen sprachen sie bei der Entscheidungsfindung ein Vetorecht zu. Patientenverfügungen fassten sie erst ab, als sie keine Hoffnung mehr auf Besserung ihrer Erkrankung hatten. Sie verstanden diese als Instrumente zur vorsorglichen Erklärung ihres Wunsches, auf lebensverlängernde Maßnahmen zu verzichten, wenn die LM inakzeptabel geworden sind. Damit wollten sie sich gegenüber dem Arzt absichern, den sie in der Rolle eines Anwalts des Lebens sahen und mit dem sie daher ihre Behandlungswünsche nicht besprochen haben. Trotz vorhersehbarer Symptomatik legten sie in ihren PV keine spezifischen Behandlungswünsche nieder, sondern verwendeten allgemeine Formularmuster ohne konkreten Bezug zu ihrer Erkrankung. Daher bestehen auch bei dieser Patientengruppe Zweifel, ob die PV in einer konkreten Behandlungssituation hilfreich sind. (shrink)

A preliminary study aimed at investigating the potential impact of relationships on decision-making process and autonomy of women was conducted in Harare, Zimbabwe. The majority of women surveyed (87.6%) were prepared to consult their husbands, whereas only 46.6% said they would consult their relatives prior to participation in health research. Only 6.2% and 11.3% were prepared to keep their participation secret from their husbands their relatives, respectively. Overall, 58.6% were rated as autonomous, 22.5% partially autonomous, and 18.9% were rated as (...) not autonomous. Age, educational level, employment status, and marital status of respondents were significantly associated with autonomous decision-making process. (shrink)

Consumer demand for health information and health services has rapidly evolved to capture and even propel the movement to online health information seeking. Seventeen percent of health information internet users will look for information about memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. We examined the content of the 25 most frequently retrieved websites marketing AD dietary supplements. We found that the majority of websites and their products claimed AD-related benefits, including improvement and enhancement of function, treatment for AD, prevention of AD, (...) maintenance of function, delayed progression of AD, and decreased symptoms. Supplements were described as effective, natural, powerful or strong, dependable and pure or of high quality. Peer reviewed references to proper scientific studies were infrequent on websites. Statements highlighting the risks of dietary supplements were as common as statements mitigating or minimizing these risks. Different strategies were used to promote supplements such as popular appeals and testimonials. Further enforcement of relevant policy is needed and preparation of clinicians to deal with requests of patients and caregivers is indicated. (shrink)

Derrida's Specters of Marx asks whether and how we could inherit Marx today: whether we might find, in a certain spirit of Marx, the critical resources to challenge resurgent liberal ideals, without this challenge assuming a dogmatic or totalitarian form. Derrida's own response to this question involves a curious move: a material transformation of Marx's text, in which Derrida first foreshadows, and then carries out, the excision of a single sentence from the pivotal passage in which Marx christens the commodity (...) fetish. The excision subtly transforms the meaning of Marx's text and, in the process, acts out a vision of inheritance as an active, transformative performance, rather than as a passive transmission of inherited content to its heirs. In this paper, I explore the way in which Derrida foreshadows and then effects this curious elision. I highlight the distinctive understanding of transformative inheritance at the heart of Derrida's text, and also pose the question of why Derrida should effect this particular transformation in the search for a certain deconstructive spirit in Marx's work. (shrink)

In 1516, Thomas More, adviser to King Henry VIII, Catholic, martyr, and saint, published his most controversial book, De optimo reipublicae statu deque noval insula Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus. During 2016, special issues of Utopian Studies, edited by Fátima Vieira, have been tracing the translation history of this book that still grips our attention five hundred years later. As in the translation histories in all countries, Utopia’s translation in Germany reflects contemporaneous social and political debates and (...) anxieties. Thus, the... (shrink)

ABSTRACT The golden age has not passed; it lies in the future. —Paul Signac.

Direct brain intervention based mental capacity restoration techniques-for instance, psycho-active drugs-are sometimes used in criminal cases to promote the aims of justice. For instance, they might be used to restore a person's competence to stand trial in order to assess the degree of their responsibility for what they did, or to restore their competence for punishment so that we can hold them responsible for it. Some also suggest that such interventions might be used for therapy or reform in criminal legal (...) contexts-i.e. to make non-responsible and irresponsible people more responsible. However, I argue that such interventions may at least sometimes fail to promote these responsibility-related legal aims. This is because responsibility hinges on other factors than just what mental capacities a person has-in particular, it also hinges on such things as authenticity, personal identity, and mental capacity ownership-and some ways of restoring mental capacity may adversely affect these other factors. Put one way, my claim is that what might suffice for the restoration of competence need not necessarily suffice for the restoration of responsibility, or, put another way, that although responsibility indeed tracks mental capacity it may not always track restored mental capacities. (shrink)

We agree with Chapman et al. (2025) that the Common Rule needs revision, particularly regarding the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in health research with Indig...

All people have human rights and, intuitively, there is a close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy. The two main theories about the natureand value of human rights often fail to account for this connection. Interest theories, on which rights protect individuals’ important interests, usually fail to capturethe close relationship between human rights and autonomy; autonomy is not constitutive of the interests human rights protect. Will theories, on which human rights protect individuals’ autonomy, cannot explain why the nonautonomous have (...) a human right to meet their needs. This paper argues that it is possible to account for the close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy if human rights at least protect individuals’ ability to live minimally good lives. It argues that people need whatever will enable them to live such lives and autonomy is partly constitutive of such a life. This argument also has importantimplications for some other key debates in the human rights literature. (shrink)

Over 50% of the world population will develop a psychiatric disorder in their lifetime.1 In the realm of psychiatric treatment, two primary modalities have been established: pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. Yet, pharmacological interventions often take precedence as the initial treatment choice despite their comparable outcomes, severe side effects and disputed evidence of their efficacy. This preference for medication foregrounds a vital re-examination of what it means to be invasive in medical treatments, namely in psychiatric care. De Marco et al challenge the (...) standard account of invasiveness, presenting considerations that transcend the traditional criteria of physical intrusion.2 Through case studies centred on treatments for schizophrenia and depression, we aim to (1) reinforce De Marco et al ’s challenge to the standard account of invasiveness and (2) extend the dialogue to the moral imperative of redefining mental invasiveness. Our aims are to broaden the definition of mental invasiveness, aligning with De Marco et al ’s emphasis on context sensitivity, and to include the severity of side effects as a critical factor in this assessment. Redefining what is considered invasive in psychiatric treatment has profound implications for patient care and medical decision-making. Labelling treatments, namely medications, as invasive encourages both patients and healthcare providers to approach these options with a heightened level of scrutiny and care. This is …. (shrink)

L’Association nationale des réseaux de personnel handicapé (NADSN) est un super-réseau qui relie et représente les réseaux de personnel handicapé dans les organisations à travers le Royaume-Uni. Le NADSN a été très préoccupé par le développement de la politique nationale jusqu’à ce jour et par le fait de sortir de la phase de verrouillage COVID-19, car la politique nationale est restée silencieuse en ce qui concerne le personnel handicapé, si ce n'est en présentant un point de vue étroit et médicalisé. (...) Nous avons structuré ce document dans le cadre d’un modèle social du handicap et des sentiments exprimés dans la Convention des Nations unies relative aux droits des personnes handicapées (CDPH) en examinant les problèmes actuels et en formulant nos douze recommandations. Ce document présente les observations du NADSN sur les expériences vécues par les personnes handicapées au cours de la conférence COVID-19. Il décrit ensuite la COVID-19 et l’évolution du lieu de travail. Il aborde ensuite une discussion générale sur les pratiques et les politiques de sécurité au travail, à mesure que nous sortons de l’isolement et au-delà. (shrink)

Leading social innovation is challenging. Creating enduring social innovation requires navigating the tension of simultaneously engaging top-down and shared leadership. We outline the crux of the challenge and provide key takeaways and practical advice for the tandem deployment of top-down and shared leadership for social innovation success.

Evidence suggests that one reason doctors provide certain interventions in assisted reproductive technologies (ART) is because of patient demand. This is particularly the case when it comes to unproven interventions such as ‘add‐ons’ to in vitro fertilisation (IVF) cycles, or providing IVF cycles that are highly unlikely to succeed. Doctors tend to accede to demands for such interventions because patients are willing to do and pay ‘whatever it takes’ to have a baby. However, there is uncertainty as to what moral (...) weight should be placed on patient‐led demands in ART, including whether it is acceptable for such demands to be invoked as a justification for intervention. We address this issue in this paper. We start by elucidating what we mean by ‘patient‐led demand’ and synthesise some of the evidence for this phenomenon. We then argue that a doctor's professional role morality (PRM) yields special responsibilities, particularly in commercialised healthcare settings such as ART, because of the nature of professions as social institutions that are distinct from markets. We argue on this basis that, while there may be reasons (consistent with PRM) for doctors to accede to patient demand, this is not always the case. There is often a gap in justification between acceding to patient‐led demands and providing contested interventions, particularly in commercial settings. As a result, acceding to demand in such settings needs a strong justification to be consistent with PRM. (shrink)

Etrange personnage que Pierre Nicole. La postérité l'a rangé parmi les deuxièmes rôles de Port-Royal, une sorte de permanent du parti janséniste. Il a secondé le grand Arnauld, instruit Racine dans les Petites Ecoles, aidé Pascal et traduit en latin ses Provinciales. Fidèle entre les fidèles, et en même temps mal à l'aise dans cette atmosphère de fronde et de résistance que représente le milieu de Port-Royal, au sein de la France du XVII e siècle, ce latiniste timoré ne (...) songeait qu'aux Moyens de conserver la paix avec les hommes - titre de l'un de ses essais les plus célèbres. Dès que les tensions semblent s'apaiser, pendant la trêve appelée "la Paix de l'Eglise", Nicole peut enfin laisser libre cours à sa vocation de moraliste et de psychologue. Il publie, volume après volume ses Essais de morale : le succès sera tel que le libraire, après la mort de Pierre Nicole, s'ingéniera à en augmenter la série jusqu'à atteindre vingt-cinq volumes. Depuis la fin du XVIII e siècle, ce classique de la littérature morale était devenu pour ainsi dire inaccessible. On en publie parfois quelques pages choisies, défigurées par les coupures et les corrections. Il est proposé ici au lecteur moderne de redécouvrir dix essais de Nicole, donnés dans leur intégralité. Certains nous replongent dans les principes moraux d'un autre âge (et tirent de cet exotisme une part de leur valeur). D'autres présentent les qualités de finesse, le piquant, le goût du paradoxe qui ont longtemps fait juger Nicole comme un des grands représentants, à côté de Pascal et de La Rochefoucauld, de la littérature morale classique. L'oeuvre morale de Nicole s'avère ainsi demeurer passionnante pour un lecteur moderne, au moins à trois égards : 1/ ses considérations sur l'amour-propre, qui constituent les premiers jalons d'un utilitarisme économique ; 2/ ses réflexions sur la sociabilité et une approche originale de la civilité ; 3/ ses observations pédagogiques, émanant d'un des principaux maîtres des Petites Ecoles de Port-Royal. (shrink)

Our natural environment is in a lamentable state, notwithstanding today’s increasing ecological awareness. One cause frequently cited is our diminished perception of and relation to nature on ontological grounds. None of the alternative visions offered to date has been considered to really challenge the prevailing detached utilitarian and empirical framework. However, continued attempts on various levels are needed to rearticulate and reinvigorate the currently dormant and neglected plurality of approaches to nature. Although neither Heidegger nor Levinas was primarily concerned with (...) the relation of humans to nature, their works do seem to offer a voice to express our genuine way of being as a “Dasein in the world,” and the depth of its implications, as well as to reveal the “exteriority of nature.” A close examination of their views can show how they may contribute to a broadening of our perception, so that nature may appear to us not primarily as a commodity but foremost as an inspiring source of meaningfulness that at the same time appeals to our ethical ability. (shrink)

This article explores the opportunities and challenges of using journalistic exemplars in the digital network to explicate intellectual virtues necessary for flourishing in that network. It seeks to advance media ethics theorizing by drawing together exemplar-based virtue theory, specifically Zagzebski’s Exemplarist Moral Theory, and work on intellectual virtues, in particular Baehr’s delineation of nine intellectual virtues. After a description of theoretical foundations, this article articulates an approach to identifying and explicating intellectual virtues through journalistic exemplars in the digital network. It (...) then applies this approach to the work of two journalists who have frequently and thoughtfully used social media. This exploratory analysis suggests the proposed approach holds promise for explication of individual virtues and identification of patterns among them. The approach also carries challenges and limitations, partly related to the nature and scope of virtual evidence for enactment of virtues by journalists. The authors suggest future research to minimize these limitations and continue advancing theorizing within this framework. (shrink)

Cet article retrace les changements intervenus au sein du militantisme féministe chinois dans un climat de détérioration politique deux décennies après la Quatrième Conférence mondiale sur les femmes (QCMF) en 1995. Il met en lumière les actions novatrices menées par les jeunes féministes, de même que l’intense surveillance qu’exerce, sur le militantisme organisé, un État totalitaire qui craint de perdre son pouvoir. Bien que la sphère publique et le cyber espace ne laissent guère beaucoup de place à l’activisme, les féministes (...) chinoises se sont mobilisées pour continuer d’expérimenter de nouvelles façons d’exiger l’égalité de genre et de poursuivre des transformations sociales et culturelles. (shrink)