In their recent book, Is Inequality Bad for Our Health?, Daniels, Kennedy, and Kawachi claim that to “act justly in health policy, we must have knowledge about the causal pathways through which socioeconomic (and other) inequalities work to produce differential health outcomes.” One of the central problems with this approach is its dependency on “knowledge about the causal pathways.” A widely held belief is that the randomized clinical trial (RCT) is, and ought to be the “gold standard” of evaluating the (...) causal efficacy of interventions. However, often the only data available are non-experimental, observational data. For such data, the necessary randomization is missing. Because the randomization is missing, it seems to follow that it is not possible to make epistemically warranted claims about the causal pathways. Although we are not sanguine about the difficulty in using observational data to make warranted causal claims, we are not as pessimistic as those who believe that the only warranted causal claims are claims based on data from (idealized) RCTs. We argue that careful, thoughtful study design, informed by expert knowledge, that incorporates propensity score matching methods in conjunction with instrumental variable analyses, provides the possibility of warranted causal claims using observational data. (shrink)

According to HealthCare.gov, by improving access to quality health for all Americans, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will reduce disparities in health insurance coverage. One way this will happen under the provisions of the ACA is by creating a new health insurance marketplace (a health insurance exchange) by 2014 in which “all people will have a choice for quality, affordable health insurance even if a job loss, job switch, move or illness occurs”. This does not mean that everyone will have (...) whatever insurance coverage he or she wants. The provisions of the ACA require that each of the four benefit categories of plans (known as bronze, silver, gold and platinum) provides no less than the benefits available in an “essential health benefits package”. However, without a clear understanding of what criteria must be satisfied for health care to be essential, the ACA’s requirement is much too vague and open to multiple, potentially conflicting interpretations. Indeed, without such understanding, in the rush to provide health insurance coverage to as many people as is economically feasible, we may replace one kind of disparity (lack of health insurance) with another kind of disparity (lack of adequate health insurance). Thus, this paper explores the concept of “essential benefits”, arguing that the “essential health benefits package” in the ACA should be one that optimally satisfies the basic needs of the people covered. (shrink)

This book updates and adds to the classic Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies, showing how social movement theory has grown and changed.

This volume contains an array of essays that reflect, and reflect upon, the recent revival of scholarly interest in the self and consciousness. Various relevant issues are addressed in conceptually challenging ways, such as how consciousness and different forms of self-relevant experience develop in infancy and childhood and are related to the acquisition of skill; the role of the self in social development; the phenomenology of being conscious and its metapsychological implications; and the cultural foundations of conceptualizations of consciousness. Written (...) by notable scholars in several areas of psychology, philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, and anthropology, the essays are of interest to readers from a variety of disciplines concerned with central, substantive questions in contemporary social science, and the humanities. (shrink)

Conscientious objections (CO) can be disruptive in a variety of ways and may disadvantage patients and colleagues who must step-in to assume care. Nevertheless, nurses have a right and responsibility to object to participation in interventions that would seriously harm their sense of integrity. This is an ethical problem of balancing risks and responsibilities related to patient care. Here we explore the problem and propose a nonlinear framework for exploring the authenticity of a claim of CO from the perspective of (...) the nurse and of those who must evaluate such claims. We synthesized the framework using Rest’s Four Component Model of moral reasoning along with tenets of the International Council of Nursing’s (ICN) Code of Ethics for Nurses and insights from relevant ethics and nursing ethics literature. The resulting framework facilitates evaluating potential consequences of a given CO for all involved. We propose that the framework can also serve as an aid for nurse educators as they prepare students for practice. Gaining clarity about the sense in which the concept of conscience provides a defensible foundation for objecting to legally, or otherwise ethically, permissible actions, in any given case is critical to arriving at an ethical and reasonable plan of action. (shrink)

African women farmers have an urgent need for adequate agricultural extension information. Training extension agents in gender related issues should have high priority, considering that the majority of farmers are women and have different roles, resources, constraints, and responsibilities from men. This paper examines the extent to which these issues are incorporated into the curriculum of the two Malawian institutions of agricultural education that train extensionists. It also considers the degree to which they are recruiting women officers into fields other (...) than home economics. Administrators and lecturers at both institutions express a desire to integrate gender matters into the curriculum and to recruit more females into agricultural extension; yet both fall far short in meeting these goals. The conclusion provides recommendations on how African institutions of higher learning that train extension personnel might better accomplish these goals and suggests that African MOAs need to employ more women in agricultural research, extension, training, and policy-making positions. (shrink)

Background: The law and literature about children’s consent generally assume that patients aged under-18 cannot consent until around 12 years, and cannot refuse recommended surgery. Children deemed pre-competent do not have automatic rights to information or to protection from unwanted interventions. However, the observed practitioners tend to inform young children s, respect their consent or refusal, and help them to “want” to have the surgery. Refusal of heart transplantation by 6-year-olds is accepted. Research question: What are possible reasons to explain (...) the differences between theories and practices about the ages when children begin to be informed about elective heart surgery, and when their consent or refusal begins to be respected? Research design, participants and context: Research methods included reviews of related healthcare, law and ethics literature; observations and conversations with staff and families in two London hospitals; audio-recorded semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 45 healthcare professionals and related experts; interviews and a survey with parents and children aged 6- to 15-years having elective surgery (not reported in this paper); meetings with an interdisciplinary advisory group; thematic analysis of qualitative data and co-authorship of papers with participants. Ethical considerations: Approval was granted by four research ethics committees/authorities. All interviewees gave their informed written consent. Findings: Interviewees explained their views and experiences about children’s ages of competence to understand and consent or refuse, analysed by their differing emphases on informed, signified or voluntary consent. Discussion: Differing views about children’s competence to understand and consent are associated with emphases on consent as an intellectual, practical and/or emotional process. Conclusion: Greater respect for children’s practical signified, emotional voluntary and intellectual informed consent can increase respectful understanding of children’s consent. Nurses play a vital part in children's practitioner-patient relationships and physical care and therefore in all three elements of consent. (shrink)

The role of metaphor in political discourse has received significant attention in recent years. Expanding on the cognitive theory of metaphor developed by Lakoff and Johnson, scholars in the fields of sociolinguistics and discourse analysis have examined politicians' use of metaphorical concepts to justify policies and define events. The metaphors examined in these studies frequently have attained the status of idioms; they consequently pass unnoticed while retaining their ability to frame perspectives. However, political discourse does not limit itself to (...) such lexicalized metaphors, but makes use of new metaphors as well. Such uses are specifically designed to attract attention, which may become problematic if the metaphor is rejected, resulting in a classic `failure to launch'. This article examines such a case. Through an analysis of the metaphors used to describe President Bush's military plan to increase US forces in Iraq, I explore the mechanisms by which the meanings of novel metaphors are negotiated in the political arena, and demonstrate that, although their vivid imagery can generate persuasive force in political language, this effect may backfire when they encounter resistance. (shrink)

A review article of the books "Aristotle: Philosopher, Teacher, and Scientist" by Sharon Katz Cooper; and "Socrates: Ancient Greek in Search of Truth" by Pamela Dell.

This study was conducted to determine how culture influences the ethical perception of managers. Most studies conducted so far have only stated similarities and differences in ethical perception between cultural or ethnic groups and little attention has been paid towards understanding how cultural values influence the ethnic groups' ethical perception. Moreover, most empirical research in this area has focused on moral judgement, moral decision making and action, with limited empirical work in the area of ethical perception. A total of 22 (...) interviews were conducted and the questionnaire survey yielded 272 managerial responses. Three implications were obtained based on the findings of the study. The first implication is that differences in ethical perception can exist when one culture attributes moral significance to something that another culture does not. The results of the study also suggest that similarities in ethical perception can occur when a situation is viewed as an accepted and institutionalised part of doing business. Finally, the findings of the study also show that the influence of culture on ethical perception varied according to the different types of scenarios. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the empirical association between corporate governance (CG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement by investigating their causal effects. Employing a large and extensive US sample, we first find that while the lag of CSR does not affect CG variables, the lag of CG variables positively affects firms’ CSR engagement, after controlling for various firm characteristics. In addition, to examine the relative importance of stakeholder theory and agency theory regarding the associations among CSR, CG, and corporate (...) financial performance (CFP), we also examine the relation between CSR and CFP. After correcting for endogeneity bias, our results show that CSR engagement positively influences CFP, supporting the conflict-resolution hypothesis based on stakeholder theory, but not the CSR overinvestment argument based on agency theory. Furthermore, firms’ CSR engagement with the community, environment, diversity, and employees plays a significantly positive role in enhancing CFP. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the relation between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm risk in controversial industry sectors. We develop and test two competing hypotheses of risk reduction and window dressing. Employing an extensive U.S. sample during the 1991-2010 period from controversial industry firms, such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and others, we find that CSR engagement inversely affects firm risk after controlling for various firm characteristics. To deal with endogeneity issue, we adopt a system equation approach and difference regressions (...) and continue to find that CSR engagement of firms in controversial industry sectors negatively affects firm risk. To examine the premise that firm risk is more of an issue for controversial firms, we further examine the difference between non-controversial and controversial firm samples, and find that the effect of risk reduction through CSR engagement is more economically and statistically significant in controversial industry firms than in non-controversial industry firms. These findings support the risk-reduction hypothesis, but not the window-dressing hypothesis, and the notion that the top management of U.S. firms in controversial industries is, in general, risk averse and that their CSR engagement helps their risk management efforts. (shrink)

Let G be a definable group in a p-adically closed field M. We show that G has finitely satisfiable generics ( fsg $\text{fsg}$ ) if and only if G is definably compact. The case M = Q p $M = \mathbb {Q}_p$ was previously proved by Onshuus and Pillay.

This edited volume examines the role of personal epistemology in teaching across early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary contexts, and the implications for teacher education, incorporating the most up-to-date research and ...

Technology is often touted as a means for providing new opportunities for learning, economic development, and participation in digital-age citizenry—especially for those who have limited access to high-quality learning environments and who have historically been marginalized in decision-making processes. Unfortunately, these opportunities for advancement are inextricably linked to the possibility of continued disenfranchisement and oppression. Lack of access to technology—or an absence of informed guidance regarding its use—can actually magnify the inequities in students’ education and further limit their opportunities. For (...) these reasons, two of the most fundamental issues of cyber ethics in education are eliminating digital divides and promoting digital equity. In order to review the most recent trends in digital equity for elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education, this article analyzes 42 peer reviewed journal articles published in 2009-10 for trends in research and scholarly thought. (shrink)

This book offers translations of early critical reactions to Kant’s account of free will. Spanning the years 1784–1800, the translations make available, for the first time in English, works by little-known thinkers including Pistorius, Ulrich, Heydenreich, Creuzer and others, as well as familiar figures including Reinhold, Fichte and Schelling. Together they are a testimony to the intense debates surrounding the reception of Kant’s account of free will in the 1780s and 1790s, and throw into relief the controversies concerning the coherence (...) of Kant’s concept of transcendental freedom, the possibility of reconciling freedom with determinism, the relation between free will and moral imputation, and other arguments central to Kant’s view. The volume also includes a helpful introduction, a glossary of key terms and biographical details of the critics, and will provide a valuable foundation for further research on free will in post-Kantian philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I explain and defend a version of illocutionary pluralism called illocutionary relativism. I use this position to explain Rae Langton’s now-famous example of a woman who is illocutionarily disabled in her attempt to refuse sex. Illocutionary relativism gives us the tools to explain both why the woman refused and why she is illocutionarily disabled. I base my explanation of illocutionary relativism in background literature in speech act theory from Austin and Sbisa. Finally, I close by pointing out (...) some implications for how we should understand consent. (shrink)

Bridging the traditionally separate domains of analytic and Continental philosophies, Pamela Sue Anderson presents for the first time, a feminist framework for studying the philosophy of religion.

Background: Nurses are confronted daily with ethical issues while providing patient care. Hospital ethical climates can affect nurses’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment, retention, and physician collaboration. Purpose: At a metropolitan academic medical center, we examined nurses’ perceptions of the ethical climate and relationships among ethical climate factors and nurse characteristics. Design/participants: We used a descriptive correlational design and nurses ( N = 475) completed Olson’s Hospital Ethical Climate Survey. Data were analyzed using STATA. Ethical considerations: Approvals by the Nursing Research (...) Council and Institutional Review Board were obtained; participants’ rights were protected. Results: Nurses reported an ethical climate total mean score of 3.22 ± 0.65 that varied across factors; significant differences were found for ethical climate scores by nurses’ age, race, and specialty area. Conclusion: These findings contribute to what is known about ethical climate and nurses’ characteristics and provides the foundation to develop strategies to improve the ethical climate in work settings. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the association between ethics and disclosure and the impact of this association on the long-term, post-issue performance of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). We argue that firms with extensive disclosure are less likely to face information problems, and more likely to lead to an active shareholder monitoring, and therefore, engage in fewer unethical activities, such as aggressive earnings manipulation, and have better long-term, post-issue performance. Consistent with these predictions, this study presents evidence that disclosure is negatively (...) related to unethical earnings manipulation and positively associated with long-term, post-issue performance. In particular, we find that long-term, post-issue SEO underperformance is significantly less for firms with extensive disclosure and conservative earnings management than firms with less disclosure and aggressive earnings management. We interpret this evidence to mean that over the long run, the capital market values ethical financial reporting and corporate efforts to incorporate social responsibility into their decision-making processes, for example, by enhancing information transparency through voluntary disclosure. (shrink)

The question, “Why has Harriet Taylor MM appeared in the history of philosophy as she has?” has several answers. The answers intertwine the personality and polities of Harriet, the sexism of those who wrote of her, misunderstandings of the means and meaning of her collaboration with John Stuart Mill, and the disturbing challenge of her questioning.

While the origin and development of the just war tradition until the early modern period blended concerns, ideas, and practices from the moral, legal, political, and military spheres, from the mid-seventeenth century until the mid-twentieth it largely disappeared as a conscious source of moral reflection about war and its restraint. Beginning in the 1960s, however, American theologian Paul Ramsey initiated a recovery of just war thinking in a series of writings applying the principles of discrimination and proportionality, ideas he traced (...) both to Augustinian theology and to natural law, to the debate over nuclear weapons and later to the Vietnam War. Ramsey's work directly engaged both theological and policy debate over military force, initiating lines of reflection that have since developed further and become increasingly institutionalized. This brief essay examines the nature of Ramsey's just war thought and its influence over the last 40 years. (shrink)

This paper defends Gadamer’s conception of dialogical truth against the objection that it amounts to no more than the achievement of dialogical consensus. It shows that there is a more radical conception of truth at stake in Gadamer’s analysis of dialogical rationality, one which is grounded in the ontological continuity of subject and object. Such a conception of truth only becomes visible if we hew closely to Gadamer’s account of dialogue as a process in which the individual actions and intentions (...) of the participants are taken up into a movement that has its own dynamic, such that the truth is something that acts on our understanding in an event that happens to us. (shrink)

Die Beitrage des Sammelbandes beleuchten die begriffliche Komplexitat der Geist-Konzeptionen in klassischen Bereichen idealistischen und nachidealistischen Philosophierens von Kant bis Adorno. Dabei wird auf die Dimensionen von Theorie und Praxis, Subjektivitat und Intersubjektivitat, Epistemologie, Asthetik, Metaphysik und Theologie naher eingegangen. Auch wird dabei untersucht, welche systematische Relevanz diesen Konzeptionen angesichts der Moderne noch innewohnt.

Les enfants polyhandicapés ont des besoins de soutien intenses et complexes. Souvent, ils sont dans des établissements spécialisés, avec peu d’opportunités d’apprentissage, menant une vie passive et isolée. Pour améliorer leur qualité de vie, leurs activités et leur inclusion, en particulier l’éducation inclusive, nous avons développé et expérimenté, dans le cadre du projet Européen Enablin+, une formation continue interprofessionnelle. En 2015-2017, nous avons organisé 64 cours pilotes et ateliers de formation sur 41 sujets dans huit pays européens, suivis d’un cours (...) de formation des formateurs. Sur la base d’une évaluation qualitative par les participants, nous pouvons faire les recommandations suivantes: à côté de la formation de compétences spécifiques à la profession, une formation continue devrait en premier lieu travailler à sensibiliser à la faisabilité et à la nécessité de l’inclusion aussi pour les enfants de grande dépendance. Tous les niveaux hiérarchiques du personnel, ainsi que les familles devraient être impliqués. Bien qu’enracinée dans les cadres conceptuels modernes du handicap (inclusion, qualité de vie, droits, capacités), cette formation devrait offrir un véritable apprentissage interprofessionnel basé sur des cas, une “gestion de cas” centrée sur la personne et la famille, un apprentissage réflexif sur les systèmes de croyances et les pratiques concernant activités inclusives et participation. Les formats de cours doivent être adaptés aux circonstances locales afin de permettre la participation de l’ensemble du personnel. (shrink)