In matters of discontinuation of life-sustaining treatment, traditional role of the family to speak on behalf of the incompetent patient is questionable. We explore the reasons why physicians perceive patient autonomy to be transferrable to family members. Principle of patient autonomy may not suffice when futile treatment is demanded and may serve to erode the ethical integrity of medical profession. An enhanced role for bioethics committees is proposed when physicians propose to discontinue life-sustaining treatment against the wishes of the patient (...) or their families. (shrink)

Increasing university students’ engagement with ethics is becoming a prominent call to action for higher education institutions, particularly professional schools like business and engineering. This paper provides an examination of student attitudes regarding ethics and their perceptions of ethics coverage in the curriculum at one institution. A particular focus is the comparison between results in the business college, which has incorporated ethics in the curriculum and has been involved in ethics education for a longer period, with the engineering college, which (...) is in the nascent stages of developing ethics education in its courses. Results show that student attitudes and perceptions are related to the curriculum. In addition, results indicate that it might be useful for engineering faculty to use business faculty as resources in the development of their ethics curricula. (shrink)

Background This study assessed patient perceptions of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act and opinions toward physicians who receive gifts and/or payments from pharmaceutical or medical device companies. Methods During their office visit, patients attending different specialty clinics volunteered to complete our survey. The survey asks if the patient knows what the Sunshine Act is, then asks questions on 5-point response scales to assess the patient's opinions toward physicians who receive compensation from companies, their self-rated knowledge of physician compensation, and how (...) they believe this compensation affects the cost of care. Results Over 13 months, 523 responses were collected: 8.6% of patients reported having knowledge of the Sunshine Act, 56.8% rated their knowledge of physician compensations as “poor,” and 67.1% agreed with the statement that patients should be aware of the compensation physicians receive. When asked how their opinion toward their physician would change if they learned the physician received free meals or gifts from companies, 58.9% replied “not at all,” and 36.11% of patients did not believe their cost of care would increase if their physician received compensation from companies. Conclusions Most patients were unfamiliar with the Sunshine Act, and believe their knowledge of physician compensation is poor. Over half of the respondents would not change their opinion of their physician based on knowledge of their physician receiving payments/gifts from companies, and over one-third of respondents did not believe such compensation increased the cost of care. The majority of respondents agreed that patients should be aware of payments/gifts to physicians. (shrink)

Liberal theory and practice rests upon, and constantly re-affirms, a division between the secular/rational and the religious/faithful aspects of individual life. This paper will explore the philosophical implications of an alternative Gandhian understanding of the role of faith and reason in individual life. The paper will argue that M K Gandhi thought of moral life differently from both the religious traditionalist and the liberal. The distinctiveness of Gandhi’s vision came from the manner in which he could reconcile two very different (...) ways of thinking about the good human life. These could be simply put as the religious insight into the good life as an essentially integrated life and the alternative liberal insight that morality was better connected with the idea of universalizability/reciprocity. The first section of this paper entitled “An alternative Gandhian understanding of faith, reason, and the integrity of the good life” philosophically unpacks Gandhi’s arguments about the integrity between faith and reason in reading religious texts with a view to living a good life. The second section is entitled “On religious belief: Gandhi and liberalism”. It brings out the differences between Gandhi and liberals on faith, reason, and the truth of religious belief. Both Gandhi and the liberals agree that religious beliefs should be held with modesty. However, the liberal argument for modesty comes from an avowed skepticism about the truth of religious belief. It is such skepticism that philosophically grounds the liberal division between faith and reason. In this section, there will be an attempt to bring out Gandhi’s reasons for being modest about religious beliefs held with certitude. The paper ends with the thought that though one cannot say which of these positions on faith and reason—Gandhian or liberal—is more coherent, there is some reason for exploring the Gandhian position if only because religious persons can act on Gandhi’s arguments quite consistently with their faith. (shrink)

What is Brahman? What is its relationship to Atman? What is an individual's place in the cosmos? Is a personalised god and ritualistic worship the only path to attain moksha? Does caste matter when a human is engaging with the metaphysical world? The answers to these perennial questions sparkle with clarity in this seminal account of a man, and a saint, who revived Hinduism and gave to Upanishadic insights a rigorously structured and sublimely appealing philosophy. Jagad Guru Adi Shankaracharya (788-820 (...) CE) was born in Kerala and died in Kedarnath, traversing the length of India in his search for the ultimate truth. In a short life of thirty-two years, Shankaracharya not only revived Hinduism, but also created the organisational structure for its perpetuation through the mathas he established in Sringeri, Dwaraka, Puri, and Joshimatha. Adi Shankaracharaya: Hinduism's Greatest Thinker is a meticulously researched and comprehensive account of his life and philosophy. Highly readable, and including a select anthology of Shankaracharya's seminal writing, the book also examines the startling endorsement that contemporary science is giving to his ideas today. A must-read for people across the ideological spectrum, this book reminds readers about the remarkable philosophical underpinning of Hinduism, making it one of the most vibrant religions in the world. (shrink)

[1] Elul. Yamim Noraʼim. Sukot -- [2] Pesaḥ. Shevuʻot. Galut u-geʼulot. Ḥanukah. Purim.

Because the evolution of speech production is beyond our expertise (and perhaps beyond everyone's expertise) we restrict our comments to areas in which data actually exist. We provide articulatory evidence consistent with the claims made about syllable structure in adult speech and infant babbling, but we also voice some disagreement about speech errors and the typing data.

Level statistics and nodal point distribution in a rectangular semiconductor quantum dot are studied for different degrees of spin-orbit coupling. The chaotic features occurring from the spin-orbit coupling have no classical counterpart. Using experimental values for GaSb/InAs/GaSb semiconductor quantum wells we find that level repulsion can lead to the semi-Poisson distribution for nearest level separations. Nodal lines and nodal points are also investigated. Comparison is made with nodal point distributions for fully chaotic states.

Based on the writings of D.S. Kothari; includes his brief biographical sketch and review of his four books.

Dieses Werk ist ein Reproduktion des Originals, das vor 1903 veröffentlicht wurde. Rabbi Nathan war ein wichtiger jüdischer Gelehrter und Schriftsteller. In 'Rabbi Nathans System der Ethik und Moral' beschreibt er seine Ansichten und Lehren über Ethik und Moral. Das Werk ist ein wichtiger Beitrag zur Entwicklung der jüdischen Moraltheologie und bietet einen Einblick in die vielfältigen und tiefgründigen Debatten, die in der jüdischen Welt seit Jahrhunderten geführt werden. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and (...) is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Contributed articles presented in a conference and a workshop, organized by the Institute for Human Science and Service, at Andhra University, during January 3-23, 2006.