In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXIII, Number 2, November 1997, pp. 195-212 The Moral Self and the Indirect Passions SUSAN M. PURVIANCE David Hume1 and Immanuel Kant are celebrated for their clear-headed rejection of dogmatic metaphysics, Hume for rejecting traditional metaphysical positions on cause and effect, substance, and personal identity, Kant for rejecting all judgments of experience regarding the ultimate ground of objects and their relations, not just judgments (...) of cause and substantiality. Nevertheless, each argues that practical activity is not compromised by the rejection of metaphysical claims that others had taken to be crucial. Kant and Hume thought that political and moral life did not depend upon theoretical knowlege of the nature of the self, free will, or knowledge of the true motives of actions or the character of the agent. Because the grounds of morality and politics were too important to leave to the mercies of speculative metaphysics, each moved their foundations to higher ground, insulating the grounds of practical activity from the threat of metaphysical turmoil and skepticism. Contemporary philosophers have generally followed Hume and Kant in this regard, but often select very different strategies. Some think that the best way to avoid the problems associated with contemporary scientific ontologies is to separate ethics from the factual domain entirely. Some give moral and political language a noncognitivist interpretation, and others have interpreted values as a projection of the passions and affections of the subject or as the constructions of suitably situated practical reasoners.2 At the same time there has been a resurgence of interest in moral realism. Moral realists think that the objectivity of moral discourse, and hence the Susan M. Purviance is at the Department of Philosophy, The University of Toledo, Toledo OH 43606-3390 USA. 196 Susan M. Purviance possibility of moral truth, depend upon the existence of moral facts.3 Moral realists have tended to concentrate on the role of facts in establishing the truth of general moral principles, or the Tightness or moral value of particular individual actions. For moral realists, moral facts are the states of affairs that make general moral principles or particular moral judgments true. Whether these facts are of a naturalistic sort or not, whether they are literally on a par with natural facts, or whether they simply play the same role in practical knowledge that natural facts play in theoretical knowledge, is an open question. Moral realists often are naturalists, like David O. Brink and Jonathan Dancy, but they may be nonnaturalists, like G. E. Moore.4 Ethical naturalism accounts for moral motivation and the cultivation of good character in terms of moral qualities, and many hope to ground it in (or at least show that it is compatible with) the scientific understanding of objects and their relations and qualities. Naturalism is only one option, but realism has received support because it is not clear that antirealists have developed a convincing alternative to the grounding of concepts of moral agency and moral judgment in some sort of moral facts. Questions abound about what it means to ascribe responsibility to a moral self and how we can defend a notion of enduring character. Although moral realists have paid less attention to the ontological status of virtues and character traits than to moral principles, their status is equally important. Here the concern is with the sort of metaphysics of the self thought to be necessary to account for moral agency, responsibility, praise, and blame. I shall argue that there is a class of moral facts that justify or perhaps merely vindicate the ascription of moral powers to agents, and that these are the sorts of facts another sort of theorist is interested in, whereas the states of affairs that make moral judgments true are the sorts of facts that moral realists have been interested in. In order to distinguish this use of moral facts I shall call this sort of theory a Fact of Agency Theory, and it is a version of this theory that can be found in Hume's discussion of the problem of the self and the indirect passions. A realist metaphysics of morals needs to address two questions, the question of the reality of the... (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to show that Callahan's reasons for withholding life extending care cannot be made out exclusively in terms of contemporary notions of distributive justice and fair allocation. I argue that by relying on a notion of justice which links the merit of the individual with the fairness of a social pattern of shares, Callahan imputes vice to the elderly as he denies them eligibility for life-prolonging care. Aristotle's doctrine of the mean is a useful tool (...) for character evaluation. One can speak meaningfully of a proper disposition of a person of a certain type (an elderly person) with respect to the good of continued life. I claim that the mean of one's disposition with respect to the good of continued life would be relative to one's age group, and would be determined by that principle by which an elderly person of practical wisdom would determine it. This leads to very different conclusions than those drawn by Callahan. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the particularist attack on deductive uses of moral principles, reviewing the critiques of the uniformity of moral reasons and impartiality in ethics, looking principally at arguments from Larry Blum, Jonathan Dancy, and Margaret Walker. I defend the action-guiding-ness of moral principles themselves, but consider various ways to accommodate the objections coming fromparticularism. I conclude that one objection to the impartialist theory of value must be conceded without qualification: generalism is unable to account for the unique (...) and irreplaceable value of individual persons. I present an example which supports my view andshows that, in the context of lived experience, replaceability is contradicted. Indeed there may be few constants of value in the narrative of one’s life, as experiences overlay supposed constants with continual new shading, and create even deeper sorts of transformation in valuing. In the end, both particularized moral judgment and the articulation of fact with principle contribute to moral discernment. (shrink)

This article examines two questions pertaining to the extension of infertility treatment to postmenopausal women. First, what concepts and principles of infertility practice apply to assisted reproduction for the postmenopausal patient? Second, what role should these concepts play in the development of an ethical justification for extending women's reproductive lives past the menopausal boundary? The argument offered here supports their claim to infertility services on the basis of the formal principle of justice, which requires that similar cases be treated similarly. (...) The cases of many postmenopausal patients are argued to be relevantly similar to classes of patients who already receive assistance in reproduction. (shrink)

Genomic research results and incidental findings with health implications for a research participant are of potential interest not only to the participant, but also to the participant's family. Yet investigators lack guidance on return of results to relatives, including after the participant's death. In this paper, a national working group offers consensus analysis and recommendations, including an ethical framework to guide investigators in managing this challenging issue, before and after the participant's death.

Is the lower rate of kidney transplantation into African Americans medically and ethically justifiable? Or is it a form of racial discrimi nation comparable to if not worse than denial of employment opportunities, housing, and educational opportunities? This essay focusses on the medical problems associated with matching antigens in donors and recipients, and the implications of those problems for social justice.1 Racially discriminatory practices in bank lending, education, and hiring provide a context for understanding how medical criteria treat black recipients (...) unfairly. Although antigen matching is only one aspect of the general problem of finding medically suitable black recipients, it presents an especially interesting challenge for theories of justice, as well as for medical research. (shrink)

Kant objects on principle to any duty of moral self-perfection that would aim at the moral self-perfection of another person. Yet, despite the apparent barrier posed by the introspective technique of self-perfecting effort, I argue that such a duty is both possible and desirable as a part of moral friendship. Through mutual sincere efforts at self-disclosure, we escape the prison of mutual distrust which otherwise characterizes social life and consolidate the very sincerity necessary for moral improvement.

It is argued that the key to understanding the Doctrine of the Fact of reason lies in clarifying what Kant meant by a fact for moral practice. It is suggested that the facticity of the Fact of Reason must be understood in both a noetic and a performative aspect. Dietrich Henrich's interpretation is discussed, and it is argued that it risks reducing the Fact of Reason exclusively to its noetic function in moral ontology, and that it ignores the fact that (...) this is a doctrine of self-discovery, not of self-constitution. (shrink)

This paper examines Hutcheson’s moral sense theory’s attack on internalism and his defense of an innovative version of externalism. I show that Hutcheson’s distinction between exciting and justifying reasons supports a type of externalist theory not anticipated by Brink, Smith, or McDowell. In Moral Sense Externalism, moral judgment relies upon the perceptions of a moral sense, and the felt quality of these perceptions introduces to judgment an affective dimension. Thus feeling is a constituitive part of what it is to have (...) a justifying reason for a moral act even when it is not the direct motive to action. (shrink)

Hutchesonʹs theories offer an objective referent for beauty linked with a subjective determination to be pleased. As Kenneth Winkler’s terminology suggests, Hutcheson is an eighteenth‐century aesthetic realist, a beauty realist, because the aesthetic object need not be identified with the natural object. I argue that this aesthetic realism helps to settle key disputes concerning moral qualities in the moral sense theory. The natural and automatic operation of the aesthetic and moral senses allows a role for new experiences of beauty and (...) virtue beyond their root forms, and permits a cultural refinement that remains true to a widely held, even if not universal, set of moral parameters for virtuous motivation. (shrink)

The British Moralists of the Eighteenth Century have been divided into rationalists and empiricists on the question of how moral judgments are formed. But this is too simple: there are various sorts of rationalism proposed, as well as Moral Sentimentalists, who believe in some kind of moral sense of approval, and welfarist empiricists, who focus on happiness promotion. None thought that the views of another cast into doubt the existence of moral truth. Their disputes about moral principles evidenced an ability (...) to conduct debates across large divides, their dialoguing with those in the opposite camp a good indication of their hope of convergence on truth. (shrink)

The apriority of moral feeling is an indispensable part of Kant's insistence on moral certainty as a foundation for ethics. Even though the moral feeling of respect cannot be the source of our knowledge of the authority of the moral law, moral feeling is a catalyst to self-criticism and moral self-confidence. It is argued that moral feeling reveals a nonempirical object, one's moral character. In fact, moral feeling plays a representational role that parallels sense experience, but does not derive from (...) sense experience. His general remarks on sensibility and representations and his specific discussion of moral sensibility make it hard to take feeling as central to his ethics, but this paper explains how they in no way preclude a representational function for moral sense. (shrink)

Nursing as a profession has a social mandate to contribute to the good of society through knowledge-based practice. Knowledge is built upon theories, and theories, together with their philosophical bases and disciplinary goals, are the guiding frameworks for practice. This article explores a philosophical perspective of nursing's social mandate, the disciplinary goals for the good of the individual and society, and one approach for translating knowledge into practice through the use of a middle-range theory. It is anticipated that the integration (...) of the philosophical perspective and model into nursing practice will strengthen the philosophy, disciplinary goal, theory, and practice links and expand knowledge within the discipline. With the focus on humanization, we propose that nursing knowledge for social good will embrace a synthesis of the individual and the common good. This approach converges vital and agency needs described by Hamilton and the primacy of maintaining the heritage of the good within the human species as outlined by Maritain. Further, by embedding knowledge development in a changing social and health care context, nursing focuses on the goals of clinical reasoning and action. McCubbin and Patterson's Double ABCX Model of Family Adaptation was used as an example of a theory that can guide practice at the community and global level. Using the theory-practice link as a foundation, the Double ABCX model provides practising nurses with one approach to meet the needs of individuals and society. The integration of theory into nursing practice provides a guide to achieve nursing's disciplinary goals of promoting health and preventing illness across the globe. When nursing goals are directed at the synthesis of the good of the individual and society, nursing's social and moral mandate may be achieved. (shrink)

A. E. Pitson’s Hume’s Philosophy of the Self is an ambitious study of the issues of self-awareness, self-reflection, agency, and the awareness of one’s being one self among others. Although uneven in results, Hume’s Philosophy of the Self offers admirable depth in its analyses. Argumentation is sustained by careful attention to the relevance of the entire philosophical corpus of Hume. Because ethical theory is interrelated with philosophy of mind, we need the sort of work Pitson undertakes.

Returning genomic research results to family members raises complex questions. Genomic research on life-limiting conditions such as cancer, and research involving storage and reanalysis of data and specimens long into the future, makes these questions pressing. This author group, funded by an NIH grant, published consensus recommendations presenting a framework. This follow-up paper offers concrete guidance and tools for implementation. The group collected and analyzed relevant documents and guidance, including tools from the Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium. The authors then (...) negotiated a consensus toolkit of processes and documents. That toolkit offers sample consent and notification documents plus decision flow-charts to address return of results to family of living and deceased participants, in adult and pediatric research. Core concerns are eliciting participant preferences on sharing results with family and on choice of a representative to make decisions about sharing after participant death. (shrink)

Packed with ideas designed to help children learn to sing, this booklet offers criteria for selecting songs, strategies to bring out the best in children's voices, and suggestions for games, ideas, and resources.

The Commission on the Accreditation of Law Enforcement employs rigorous evaluation techniques. Objective accreditation, such as made possible by CALEA, is important from the public’s perspective and in the national community of law enforcement.To counteract a general distrust of law enforcement agencies, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration developed a grant to develop standards by which the quality and performance of law enforcement could be measured. LEAA developed 107 standards and, though well received by the law enforcement community, no single group (...) or agency took the initiative to begin a program to evaluate and implement the standards. In 1979, the Department of Justice established an additional grant that effectively organized the four major law enforcement groups: the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriff’s Association, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and the Police Executive Research Forum. (shrink)

An ethnographic field study about the informed consent process in investigational drug trials for seriously ill persons with hepatitis C suggests that nurses and physicians referred to these trials as giving treatment, even though they involved placebos. Interview data and informed consent documents contained frequent references to the term `treatment trial' or `treatment'. Although these findings were unexpected and not the original focus of our study, we consider them in the light of an extensive literature on the `therapeutic misconception' that (...) has been described among physicians and patients with AIDS and other serious illnesses. We also suggest that certain organizational and professional characteristics of nursing and medicine reinforce this tendency to refer to the trials as treatment. Implications for further research are provided. (shrink)

While researchers have examined the types of ethical issues that arise in long-term care, few studies have explored long-term care nurses’ experiences of moral distress and fewer still have examined responses to initial moral distress. Using an interpretive description approach, 15 nurses working in long-term care settings within one city in Canada were interviewed about their responses to experiences of initial moral distress, resources or supports they identified as helpful or potentially helpful in dealing with these situations, and factors that (...) hindered nurses in their responses. Using a thematic analysis process, three major themes were identified from the nurses’ experiences: (i) the context of the situation matters; (ii) the value of coming together as a team; and (iii) looking for outside direction. The work of responding to initial moral distress was more fruitful if opportunities existed to discuss conflicts with other team members and if managers supported nurses in moving their concerns forward through meetings or conversations with the team, physician, or family. Access to objective others and opportunities for education about ethics were also identified as important for dealing with value conflicts. (shrink)

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) typically prioritizes community needs in the research process, attempting to link ethical and rigorous investigation with social action. However, balancing community needs and research goals can be challenging when working with marginalized communities in times of crisis. Strategies for engaging immigrant communities in CBPR is also underexplored in academic literature. This paper examines some of these challenges by focusing on a research project with immigrant homecare workers in Manitoba, Canada, who were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, yet (...) largely excluded from government pandemic policy responses. The project aimed to explore these workers’ experiences and to contribute to migrant justice organizing through the research process. In this article, we present three interrelated tensions in our shifting research process: reflexive navigation of our research team members’ lived experiences and positionalities; community versus academic ethics; and timely responsiveness to shifting community priorities. We contribute to literature on CBPR with immigrant communities by articulating a reflexive migrant justice research approach amidst a crisis. This approach is developed through subversive relationship-building and intersectional solidarity with social justice community partners that disrupt dominant academic research processes. (shrink)

Although children learn more when teachers gesture, it is not clear how gesture supports learning. Here, we sought to investigate the nature of the memory processes that underlie the observed benefits of gesture on lasting learning. We hypothesized that instruction with gesture might create memory representations that are particularly resistant to interference. We investigated this possibility in a classroom study with 402 second‐ and third‐grade children. Participants received classroom‐level instruction in mathematical equivalence using videos with or without accompanying gesture. After (...) instruction, children solved problems that were either visually similar to the problems that were taught, and consistent with an operational interpretation of the equal sign (interference), or visually distinct from equivalence problems and without an equal sign (control) in order to assess the role of gesture in resisting interference after learning. Gesture facilitated learning, but the effects of gesture and interference varied depending on type of problem being solved and the strategies that children used to solve problems prior to instruction. Some children benefitted from gesture, while others did not. These findings have implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying the beneficial effect of gesture on mathematical learning, revealing that gesture does not work via a general mechanism like enhancing attention or engagement that would apply to children with all forms of prior knowledge. (shrink)

Delirium, a common syndrome in terminally ill people, presents specific challenges to a good death in end‐of‐life care. This paper examines the relational engagement between hospice nurses and their patients in a context of end‐of‐life delirium. Ethnographic fieldwork spanning 15 months was conducted at a freestanding residential hospice in eastern Canada. A shared value system was apparent within the nursing community of hospice; patients’ comfort and dignity were deemed most at stake and therefore commanded nurses’ primary attention. This overarching commitment (...) to comfort and dignity shaped all of nursing practice in this hospice, including practices related to end‐of‐life delirium. The findings of this study elaborate the ways in which hospice nurses interpreted and responded to the discomfort of their patients in delirium, as well as the efforts they made to understand their patients’ subjective experiences and to connect with them in supportive ways. In addition to what is already known about clinical assessment and treatment of delirium in palliative care settings, the findings of this study offer points of reflection for nurses anywhere who are contending with the relational challenges that delirium presents in end‐of‐life care. (shrink)

Academic accounting researchers often offer anecdotal evidence that the publishing process is rife with unfair and unethical practices, and similar contradictory evidence supports accounting journal editors' claims that the process is fair and ethical. This study compares the perceptions of accounting authors and editors on the ethicacy and frequency of specific author, editor and reviewer practices. Both authors and editors are in general agreement about the ethical nature of editors and author practices. However, there are significant differences between the groups (...) regarding reviewer behavior, and regarding the frequency of occurrence of questionable author, editor and reviewer practices. Additionally, the majority of authors believe that codes of publishing ethics are needed, while editors do not. Women authors are significantly more supportive of such ethical codes when compared to their male counterparts. (shrink)

A novel Protocol Ethics Tool Kit (‘Ethics Tool Kit’) has been developed by a multi-stakeholder group of the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women9s Hospital and Harvard. The purpose of the Ethics Tool Kit is to facilitate effective recognition, consideration and deliberation of critical ethical issues in clinical trial protocols. The Ethics Tool Kit may be used by investigators and sponsors to develop a dedicated Ethics Section within a protocol to improve the consistency and transparency between clinical trial (...) protocols and research ethics committee reviews. It may also streamline ethics review and may facilitate and expedite the review process by anticipating the concerns of ethics committee reviewers. Specific attention was given to issues arising in multinational settings. With the use of this Tool Kit, researchers have the opportunity to address critical research ethics issues proactively, potentially speeding the time and easing the process to final protocol approval. (shrink)

Are codes of ethics needed to guide author, reviewer and editor publishing practices in accounting journals? What practices are considered unethical, and to what extend do they occur? A survey of ninety-five journal editors who publish accounting articles rated author, reviewer and editor practices as ethical or unethical, and estimated the frequency with which these practices occur. Respondents also commented on current publishing practices regarding the double-blind review process, payments for reviews, confirmatory bias, and whether codes of ethics are needed (...) for the publication process. More than half the editors supported the status quo, and felt that that codes were not necessary for editors and reviewers. They were evenly split on the question of an author code of ethics. (shrink)

Sign languages modulate the production of signs in space and use this spatial modulation to refer back to entities—to maintain coreference. We ask here whether spatial modulation is so fundamental to language in the manual modality that it will be invented by individuals asked to create gestures on the spot. English speakers were asked to describe vignettes under 2 conditions: using gesture without speech, and using speech with spontaneous gestures. When using gesture alone, adults placed gestures for particular entities in (...) non-neutral locations and then used those locations to refer back to the entities. When using gesture plus speech, adults also produced gestures in non-neutral locations but used the locations coreferentially far less often. When gesture is forced to take on the full burden of communication, it exploits space for coreference. Coreference thus appears to be a resilient property of language, likely to emerge in communication systems no matter how simple. (shrink)

There is growing consensus that teaching computer ethics is important, but there is little consensus on how to do so. One unmet challenge is increasing the capacity of computing students to make decisions about the ethical challenges embedded in their technical work. This paper reports on the design, testing, and evaluation of an educational simulation to meet this challenge. The privacy by design simulation enables more relevant and effective computer ethics education by letting students experience and make decisions about common (...) ethical challenges encountered in real-world work environments. This paper describes the process of incorporating empirical observations of ethical questions in computing into an online simulation and an in-person board game. We employed theValues at Playframework to transform empirical observations of design into a playable educational experience. First, we conducted qualitative research to discover when and how values levers—practices that encourage values discussions during technology development—occur during the design of new mobile applications. We then translated these findings into gameplay elements, including the goals, roles, and elements of surprise incorporated into a simulation. We ran the online simulation in five undergraduate computer and information science classes. Based on this experience, we created a more accessible board game, which we tested in two undergraduate classes and two professional workshops. We evaluated the effectiveness of both the online simulation and the board game using two methods: a pre/post-test of moral sensitivity based on the Defining Issues Test, and a questionnaire evaluating student experience. We found that converting real-world ethical challenges into a playable simulation increased student’s reported interest in ethical issues in technology, and that students identified the role-playing activity as relevant to their technical coursework. This demonstrates that roleplaying can emphasize ethical decision-making as a relevant component of technical work. (shrink)

Michael A. Petersa and Fazal Rizvib aBeijing Normal University, Beijing, PR China; bMelbourne University, Melbourne, Australia Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to ‘no...