Background Nursing is regulated by a set of professional standards. Whilst many forms of ethics apply to nursing, the biomedical ethical framework is common, involving autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. In healthcare, nurses often encounter ethical dilemmas that require them to navigate conflicting ethical principles. However, how nurses adhere to these principles in such situations is unclear. Research Aim To explore how registered nurses adhere to ethical principles when dealing with ethical dilemmas at work. Research Design A qualitative descriptive study (...) design. Participants and Research Context Between August and December 2023, 21 registered nurses were recruited from a teaching hospital through purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured in-person interviews or online video conferencing. Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis approach was employed to analyse the data. Ethical Considerations Interview participation was voluntary. Written consent was obtained before participation. Participants’ real identities were replaced with pseudonyms. This study was approved by the SingHealth Centralised Institutional Review Board. Findings The data analysis developed four major themes and 15 subthemes. The four major themes are “Addressing the dilemma,” “Contemplating the principles and consequences,” “Coordinating for well-informed, ethical decision,” and “Self-reflecting and finding consolation.” Conclusion This study explains how nurses navigate and uphold ethical principles when caring for patients to the best of their ability. Fully adhering to ethical principles can be challenging for caring for actively dying patients. Further research can expound on nurses’ experiences and adherence to ethical principles in complex clinical cases. (shrink)

What should we do about “tainted” public commemorations? Recent events have highlighted the urgency of reaching a consensus on this question. However, existing discussions appear to be dominated by two naïve opposing views – to remove or preserve them. My aims in this essay are two-fold. First, I argue that the two views are not naïve, but undergirded by concerns with securing self-respect and with the character of our engagement with the past. Second, I offer a qualified defence of vandalising (...) tainted commemorations. The defence comprises two parts. I consider two prominent suggestions – to install counter-commemorations and to add contextualising plaques – and argue that they are typically beset with difficulties. I then argue that in some circumstances, constrained vandalism is a response to tainted commemorations which effectively adjudicates the demands of the two opposing views. (shrink)

One of the central claims of the neurodiversity movement is that society should accommodate the needs of autistics, rather than try to treat autism. People have variously tried to reject this accommodation thesis as applicable to all autistics. One instance is Pier Jaarsma and Stellan Welin, who argue that the thesis should apply to some but not all autistics. They do so via separating autistics into high- and low-functioning, on the basis of IQ and social effectiveness or functionings. I reject (...) their grounds for separating autistics. IQ is an irrelevant basis for separating autistics. Charitably rendering it as referring to more general capacities still leaves us mistaken about the roles they play in supporting the accommodation thesis. The appeal to social effectiveness or functionings relies on standards that are inapplicable to autistics, and which risks being deaf to the point of their claims. I then consider if their remaining argument concerning autistic culture may succeed independently of the line they draw. I argue that construing autistics' claims as beginning from culture mistakes their status, and may even detract from their aims. Via my discussion of Jaarsma and Welin, I hope to point to why the more general strategy of separating autistics, in response to the accommodation thesis, does not fully succeed. Finally, I sketch some directions for future discussions, arguing that we should instead shift our attention to consider another set of questions concerning the costs and extent of change required to accommodate all autistics. (shrink)

This paper proposes that Levinas's philosophy of alterity and infinitude based upon the ethical relation between Self and Other - is both profound and limited in its ability to account for social practice. Instead of simply accepting the common criticism of Levinas, however, that he places an intolerable ethical burden of infinitude upon human relations, this paper aims to move beyond this impasse by placing Levinas's metaphysics within a frame that privileges the dynamic between the Self and the Other as (...) a socially oriented, participative practice of teaching and learning. It is suggested that Etienne Wenger's work on the emergence of identity as a constant negotiation between the Others and the Self provides a conceptual framework for how business ethics may be owned, negotiated and learned within organizational communities without sacrificing the horizon of infinitude bestowed upon us by Levinas's ethical philosophy. Finally, the practical implications of such a comparative approach for the teaching of alterity in business ethics are discussed. (shrink)

Ryan Darby, Judith Edersheim, and Bruce Price (DEP) argue that patients with Behavioral-Variant Frontotemporal Dementia have intact moral knowledge. In effect, they assume a motivational externalist understanding of moral knowledge. We question this by probing the cases they present as evidence for their position.

The present research was designed to investigate the absolute and relative levels of ethical convictions of executive search consultants, or "headhunters", in regard of their search practices. Executive search consultants were defined as trained specialists who helped client organizations identify and evaluate the suitability of job candidates for top, senior, and middle-level management and executive positions. Despite frequent reports of unethical search practices in the media, results based on a sample of 184 headhunters and non-headhunter executives showed that headhunters were (...) inclined to adhere stringently to a selected set of ethical values, both in absolute terms and in comparison with the expectations of non-headhunter executives. The differences had implications not only for the integrity and continued existence of the headhunting profession, but also for the ethical development of new executive search consultants. Future research directions were suggested. (shrink)

For the most part, the primary driver for international businesses in establishing operations in other countries is the reduction of overall operating costs. Host countries, especially developing nations, welcome multinational corporations (MNCs) because of the perceived economic benefits that international businesses can bring to their local communities. Surprisingly, one of the most understudied, under-analyzed, and sometimes even completely neglected factors when international businesses consider setting up shop in other countries is the local culture of their chosen destination country. This paper (...) substantiates the thesis that international businesses should adapt their corporate practices to the local cultures in which they operate to achieve effective and superior businessperformance. The paper goes further in identifying corporate practices that were adapted or revised by international businesses to respond to the culture of local communities in the Philippines. (shrink)

I have developed transcendental arguments to refute several versions of Nick Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis. I called some of these arguments the SIM-style argument. In this paper, I have four main aims. First, I employ the SIM-style argument to remedy a defect in Hilary Putnam’s Brain-in-vat argument. Second, I show that the most radical skepticism, which Tim Button called the nightmarish Cartesian skepticism, can be refuted by the SIM-style argument or by another transcendental argument I develop here. Third, I compare my (...) approach to radical skepticisms with Donald Davidson’s, as it is often regarded as an exemplar of transcendental arguments. Fourth, I explain how the prominent objections, mainly developed by Barry Stroud, to transcendental arguments can incur two undesirable results: psychologism and Kantian skepticism. (shrink)

One recurring criticism of the best interests standard concerns its vagueness, and thus the inadequate guidance it offers to care providers. The lack of an agreed definition of ‘best interests’, together with the fact that several suggested considerations adopted in legislation or professional guidelines for doctors do not obviously apply across different groups of persons, result in decisions being made in murky waters. In response, bioethicists have attempted to specify the best interests standard, to reduce the indeterminacy surrounding medical decisions. (...) In this paper, we discuss the bioethicists’ response in relation to the state's possible role in clarifying the best interests standard. We identify and characterise two clarificatory strategies employed by bioethicists —elaborative and enumerative—and argue that the state should adopt the latter. Beyond the practical difficulties of the former strategy, a state adoption of it would inevitably be prejudicial in a pluralistic society. Given the gravity of best interests decisions, and the delicate task of respecting citizens with different understandings of best interests, only the enumerative strategy is viable. We argue that this does not commit the state to silence in providing guidance to and supporting healthcare providers, nor does it facilitate the abuse of the vulnerable. Finally, we address two methodological worries about adopting this approach at the state level. The adoption of the enumerative strategy is not defeatist in attitude, nor does it eventually collapse into (a form of) the elaborative strategy. (shrink)

A central idea of public reason liberalism is that the exercise of political power is legitimate when supported only by reasons which all citizens accept. Public reason serves as a necessary standard for evaluating the legitimacy of political decisions. In this paper, I examine the directive to employ public reason from the citizens’ perspective. I suggest that employing public reason potentially involves them engaging in different types of compromise. I consider how acknowledging these compromises sheds light on public reason liberalism. (...) Public reason may not offer a necessary standard for evaluating the legitimacy of decisions, and the evaluation it offers may not have great weight relative to other moral and political considerations. (shrink)

Many transnational corporations and international organizations have embraced corporate social responsibility to address criticisms of working and environmental conditions at subcontractors' factories. While CSR 'codes of conduct' are easy to draft, supplier compliance has been elusive. Even third-party monitoring has proven an incomplete solution. This article proposes that an alteration in the supply chain's governance, from an arms-length market model to a collaborative partnership, often will be necessary to effectuate CSR. The market model forces contractors to focus on price and (...) delivery as they compete for the lead firm's business, rendering CSR observance secondary, at best. A collaborative partnership where the lead firm gives select suppliers secure product orders and other benefits removes disincentives and adds incentives for CSR compliance. In time, the suppliers' CSR habit should shift their business philosophy toward pursuing CSR as an end in itself, regardless of buyer incentives and monitoring. This article examines these hypotheses in the context of the athletic footwear sector with Nike, Inc. and its suppliers as the specific case study. The data collected and conclusions reached offer strategies for advancing CSR beyond the superficial and often ineffectual 'code of conduct' stage. (shrink)

Malebranche’s so-called conservation is continuous creation (CCC) argument has been celebrated as a powerful and persuasive argument for Occasionalism—the claim that only God has and exercises causal powers. In this paper I want to examine the CCC argument for Occasionalism by comparing it to Jaegwon Kim’s so-called Supervenience argument against non-reductive physicalism. Because the arguments have deep similarities it is interesting and fruitful to consider them in tandem. First I argue that both the CCC argument and the Supervenience argument turn (...) on the same general principle, what Kim calls Edward’s Dictum. It is doubtful that Malebranche or Kim succeed in grounding Edward’s Dictum, though Malebranche, I think, has more resources at his disposal to make his case. Even if this worry is waived, however, I argue that the completion of Stage 1 of the Supervenience argument can be used to raise a further worry for the CCC argument that cannot easily be resolved. (shrink)

In his so-called argument from consciousness (AC), J. P. Moreland argues that the phenomenon of consciousness furnishes us with evidence for the existence of God. In defending AC, however, Moreland makes claims that generate an undesirable tension. This tension can be posed as a dilemma based on the contingency of the correlation between mental and physical states. The correlation of mental and physical states is either contingent or necessary. If the correlation is contingent then epiphenomenalism is true. If the correlation (...) is necessary then a theistic explanation for the correlation is forfeit. Both are unwelcome results for AC. (shrink)

Introduction to a special issue on the Philosophy and Science of Mind.

continent. 1.4 (2011): 310—311. Writing Death . Jeremy Fernando, foreword by Avital Ronell. Den Haag: Uitgeverij. 2011 ISBN: 978-90-817091-0-1 Rite and ceremony as well as legend bound the living and the dead in a common partnership. They were esthetic but they were more than esthetic. The rites of mourning expressed more than grief; the war and harvest dance were more than a gathering of energy for tasks to be performed; magic was more than a way of commanding forces of nature (...) to do the bidding of man; feasts were more than a satisfaction of hunger. Each of these communal modes of activity united the practical, the social, and the educative in an integrated whole having esthetic form.(1) Jeremy Fernando’s Writing Death is a sensitive attempt at exploring the depths and heights to which the processes of mourning can take us. Death, as an absence, renders all gestures (for what is mourning but a gesture with many faces) surrounding it at once as a possibility and an impossibility. Fernando poses questions that often elude the mourner and the mourned—the same, and different—by raising the specter of subject and object; by compelling the examination of what it actually means to mourn; and most crucially, by considering the very status of possibility itself that the act of mourning foregrounds. Mourning, he reminds us, is premised upon memory (remembrance, recollection), the shadow of forgetting upon which is perpetually cast—the inextricability between memory and forgetting haunts the living more than it does the dead. And if grief has anything to do with it, mourning can quite easily be mistaken for an attempt to remember in order to forget; an attempt, in other words, to deny death, deny the one thing that confirms mortality. As if living has anything to do with it. What, then, of writing death? It becomes an unceasing process of locating—and addressing—possibility itself: the passing as possibility; loss as possibility; impossibility as, and of, naming this possibility. In confronting the passing on, it is possible, nay inevitable, to move on, move away from the site of loss, of grief. All the while, we forget, Fernando reminds us, that mourning has little to do with the dead, and a whole lot to do with the living, the mourning self. Here, he echoes Dewey’s consolidation of rituals and ceremonies, of the dead and of the living, all as parts of a larger unity, of a social, public gesture meant to sate a private need: In trying to “get over it,” are we trying to get over ourselves? Or more than that: are we trying to get over the fact that we can never quite get over ourselves? (Fernando, 77) As if guilt has anything to do with it. And “it” continues to be the point that he is driving at, driving towards. “It” is the possibility and impossibility, death and life, memory and forgetting, lost and cherished. “It” is what eludes mourning, eludes attempts to overcome grief. Nonetheless, move on, he must. And Fernando does this in fewer moves than a 12-step program—hardly therapeutic, but intellectually satisfying. Writing Death attends to some of the pertinent aspects of the act of mourning—both as gesture and as meditation: eulogy, distress (call), tears, and the question of how (beyond ritual, beyond sentimentality) to mourn. And what’s love got to do with it? Everything and nothing. Mourning, after all, is an articulation of love, but it is also one that forces the mourner to be selective, as with myth-making, in the recollection: Remembering only ever occurs in exception to memory—quite possibly in betrayal of a memory. In this way, each remembrance is a naming of that memory, a naming of something as memory, bringing with it an act of violence. (40) Mourning is thus not only an act of fictionalizing, it is also an act of reading, to continually be compelled to respond to another, all the while keeping vigil against a reconceptualization of the dead, without, therefore, misreading the dead. This can only be done, Fernando argues, by all the while “maintaining the otherness of the other. After all, one must try not to forget that one cannot be too close—space is needed—to touch.” (82) There is also tacit acknowledgement that doing so foregrounds the fact that the selectivity of memory becomes exclusive, and concretizes into a singularity, thus negating the multi-dimensionality of a life lived – and thus killing the already dead. Writing Death is framed by two eulogies—or the approximations of eulogies; approximation because both foreground and call into question the eulogy as a genre. The first is Avital Ronell’s foreword to the book, remembering Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe; the second is Fernando’s own response to the passing of a mentor, Jean Baudrillard. Both are not merely attempts to philosophize their way out of the act of mourning. Both are in fact deeply moving pieces that remind us of the emotional possibilities that may reside within any intellectual undertaking, that the latter need not be cold and devoid of feelings. And whereas Writing Death does not attempt to make any philosophical claim for humanism, the underlying wistfulness of both pieces does suggest that there is a proper place for deep-seated human response to death. We can (and the book does) intellectualize and problematize the acts of mourning and grieving, but these do not diminish the fact that we mourn and grieve. And, framing Writing Death as the two eulogies do, Jeremy Fernando perhaps finally, and inadvertently, names “It”—it is, above everything else, Human. August, 2011 Singapore NOTES (1) Dewey, John. Art as Experience . New York: Perigee, 1934. (shrink)

Anthropology has long been interested in human diets. The main objective of this article is to introduce the perspective of cultural anthropology about food in culture, and the way by which food embodies the relevant sociocultural significances. The case studies chosen cover the study of the Chinese in Malaysia, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as studies conducted in the Asia and Pacific Islands. The short review in this article aims to provide some ideas and case studies about the (...) interrelationship between food and culture. The anthropological perspective of food in different cultures may provide an insight into the study of Overseas Chinese and help to expand it to a wider concern on a variety of human activities. In this way, the writer believes t he study of Overseas Chinese can mark its particularity, research value and potential in world academia. (shrink)

The last‐half of seventeenth‐century England witnessed an increasing number of works published questioning the traditional notions of God's work of creation and providence. Ascribing agency to matter, motion, chance, and fortune, thinkers ranging from Hobbes, Spinoza, modern‐Epicureans, and other presented a challenge to the Anglican defenders of social and ecclesiastical order. By examining the genesis of the Boyle Lectures that began in 1692 with a bequest from Robert Boyle, we can see that while the Lecturers—three of whom will be examined (...) in detail (Richard Bentley, John Harris, and William Whiston)—assiduously defended classical notions of the God–world relationship, they did so without a great sense of panic or pessimism. This transitional period in the mode of conflict or concord between religion and science sheds interesting lights on matters such as argument from design, biogenesis without purposive, personal agents, and scriptural exegesis and scientific inquiries. (shrink)

The development of the Islamic world -- The education of Averroes -- Philosophy and Islam -- Law and medicine -- Remembering Averroes.

A combination of cytogenetic and molecular analyses has shown that several different transposable elements are involved in the restructuring of Drosophila chromosomes. Two kinds of elements, P and hobo, are especially prone to induce chromosome rearrangements. The mechanistic details of this process are unclear, but, at least some of the time, it seems to involve ectopic recombination between elements inserted at different chromosomal sites; the available data suggest that these ectopic recombination events are much more likely to occure between elements (...) in the same chromosome than between elements in different chromosomes. Other Drosophila transposons also appear to mediate chromosome restructuring by ectopic recombination; these include the retrotransposons BEL, roo, Docand I and the foldback element FB. In addition, two retrotransposons, HeT‐A and TART, have been found to be associated specifically with the ends of Drosophila chromosomes. Very limited data indicate that transposon‐mediated chromosome restructuring is occurring in natural populations of Drosophila. This suggests that transposable elements may help to shape the structure of the Drosophila genome and implies that they may have a similar role in other organisms. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to raise a novel objection to Lewis’s modal realist epistemology. After reformulating his modal epistemology, I shall argue that his view that we have necessary knowledge of the existence of counterparts ends up with an absurdity. Specifically, his analogy between mathematical knowledge and modal knowledge leads to an unpleasant conclusion that one’s counterpart exists in all possible worlds. My argument shows that if Lewis’s modal realism is true, we cannot know what is possible. Conversely, (...) if we can know what is possible, his modal realism is false. In the remainder of the paper, I shall consider and block possible objections to my argument. (shrink)

Effective altruism is purportedly ecumenical towards different moral views, charitable causes, and evidentiary methods. I argue that effective altruists’ criticisms of purportedly less effective charities are inconsistent with their commitment to ecumenicity. Individuals may justifiably support charities other than those recommended by effective altruism. If effective altruists take their commitment to ecumenicity seriously, they will have to revise their criticisms of many of these charities.

Physicalist Christology is the view that God the Son, in the Incarnation, became identical with the body of Jesus. The goal of this paper is to defend PC from two recent objections. One is that if GS is a physical object, then he cannot have properties had by God. Then, by Leibniz’s law, the incarnate GS cannot be identical with the second Person of the Trinity. The other objection is that PC implies that the incarnate GS did not exist in (...) the interim period between his death and resurrection. PC then leads to the theologically absurd consequence that one of the three Persons of the Trinity did not exist during this period. I argue that the first objection fails because the very same argumentative strategy applies to the Incarnation on any view. As for the second objection, I endorse an animalist theory of death and argue that the incarnate GS continues to exist as a dead person from his death to resurrection. This shows that there is still continuing Trinity of GS during this period. (shrink)

What is it for something to be a disability? Elizabeth Barnes, focusing on physical disabilities, argues that disability is a social category. It depends on the rules undergirding the judgements of the disability rights movement. Barnes’ account may strike many as implausible. I articulate the unease, in the form of three worries about Barnes’ account. It does not fully explain why the disability rights movement is constituted in such a way that it only picks out paradigmatic disability traits, nor why (...) only the traits identified by the movement as constituting experiences of social and political constraint count as disability. It also leaves out the contribution of people other than disability activists, to the definition of disability. I develop Barnes’ account. On my account, a person is disabled if she is in some state which is constitutive of some constraint on her legitimate interests. This state must be the subject of legitimate medical interest and be picked out by the disability rights movement as among the traits for which they are seeking to promote progress and change. My account addresses the worries about Barnes’ account. It is also able to include all disabilities, rather than only physical ones. (shrink)

I attempt to adjudicate the disagreement between those who seek to reconceptualize disability as mere difference and their opponents. I do so by reviewing a central conviction motivating the resistance, concerning the relationship between disability and well-being. I argue that the conviction depends on further considerations about the costs and extent of change involved in accommodating individuals with a particular disability trait. I conclude by considering three pay-offs of this clarification.