I argue for a conception of health as a person's ability to achieve or exercise a cluster of basic human activities. These basic activities are in turn specified through free-standing ethical reasoning about what constitutes a minimal conception of a human life with equal human dignity in the modern world. I arrive at this conception of health by closely following and modifying Lennart Nordenfelt's theory of health which presents health as the ability to achieve vital goals. Despite its (...) strengths I transform Nordenfelt's argument in order to overcome three significant drawbacks. Nordenfelt makes vital goals relative to each community or context and significantly reflective of personal preferences. By doing so, Nordenfelt's conception of health faces problems with both socially relative concepts of health and subjectively defined wellbeing. Moreover, Nordenfelt does not ever explicitly specify a set of vital goals. The theory of health advanced here replaces Nordenfelt's (seemingly) empty set of preferences and society-relative vital goals with a human species-wide conception of basic vital goals, or ‘central human capabilities and functionings’. These central human capabilities come out of the capabilities approach (CA) now familiar in political philosophy and economics, and particularly reflect the work of Martha Nussbaum. As a result, the health of an individual should be understood as the ability to achieve a basic cluster of beings and doings—or having the overarching capability, a meta-capability, to achieve a set of central or vital inter-related capabilities and functionings. (shrink)

This article is a reply to Venkatapuram's critique in his article Health, Vital Goals, Capabilities, this volume. I take issue mainly with three critical points put forward by Venkatapuram with regard to my theory of health. (1) I deny that the contents of my vital goals are relative to each community or context, as Venkatapuram claims. There is no conceptual connection at all between standard circumstances and vital goals, as I understand these concepts. (2) (...) Venkatapuram notes that I stop short of filling the framework of vital goals with any content and thereby make my concept of health less concrete. I reply that some vital goals are indeed universal, viz. the ones which are necessary conditions for survival. Many other vital goals are individual and cannot therefore be included in a universal list. (3) Venkatapuram claims that my definition of vital goals is too broad, since it entails that some persons without any disease can be regarded as ill. However, in my understanding health is a relational concept from a state of complete health to a state of maximal illness. In this framework, a minor reduction of a state of complete health does not entail illness. This article also contains a comparison between my theory of health and Martha Nussbaum's theory of capabilities for dignity. (shrink)

The patient’s home is a common setting for palliative care. This means that we need to understand current palliative care philosophy and how its goals can be realized in home‐care nursing encounters (HCNEs) between the nurse, patient and patient’s relatives. The existing research on this topic describes both a negative and a positive perspective. There has, however, been a reliance on interview and descriptive methods in this context. The aim of this study was to explore planned HCNEs in palliative (...) care. The design was a multiple case study based on observations. The analysis includes a descriptive and an explanation building phase. The results show that planned palliative HCNEs can be described as a process of co‐creating possibilities for the patient to reach vital goals through shared knowledge in a warm and caring atmosphere, based on good caring relations. However, in some HCNEs, co‐creation did not occur: Wishes and needs were discouraged or made impossible and vital goals were not reached for the patients or their relatives. Further research is needed to understand why. The co‐creative process presented in this article can be seen as a concretization of the palliative care ideal of working with a person‐centered approach. (shrink)

Motto-goals describe a desired mind-set and provide a person with a guiding principle of how to approach a personal goal or obligation. We propose that motto-goals can be conceptionalized as individually created metaphors and that the figurative, metaphorical language and the characteristics of the formation process make them effective in changing the perception of unpleasant personal obligations as more inherently enjoyable and raise vitality levels. To test whether a newly devised minimalistic motto-goal intervention can make goal striving more (...) attractive and energize goal-oriented action in relation to an unpleasant obligation, two experimental studies were conducted. In Study 1 the motto-goal condition led to stronger anticipation of activity related incentives and vitality compared to a distraction task. The effect on vitality was partially mediated by a change in feelings of autonomy. Study 2 replicated the effects compared to a placebo intervention and further found motto-goals to be specifically effective in increasing the anticipation of activity related incentives as opposed to outcome related incentives. The results support that applying motto-goals built with a newly developed minimalist motto-goal intervention can influence the subjective experience of individuals faced with a previously unpleasant obligation. (shrink)

The lockdown resulting from coronavirus disease 2019 has had a huge impact on peoples’ health. In sport specifically, athletes have had to deal with frustration of their objectives and changes in their usual training routines. The challenging and disruptive situation could hold implications for their well-being. This study examined the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown on changes in athletes’ reported eudaimonic well-being and goal motives over time. The relationship of resilience to changes in subjective vitality was also determined, and changes (...) in athletes’ goal motives were examined as potential mediators. Participants were 127 Spanish university athletes aged between 18 and 34 years. Approximately 4 months before the start of the lockdown in Spain, athletes responded to a questionnaire assessing their resilience, goal motives, and subjective vitality. Around 6 months later into the lockdown period, athletes’ goal motives and subjective vitality were assessed again. Growth modeling using hierarchical linear models revealed a significant decrease of autonomous goal motives and subjective vitality during the lockdown, but athletes did not show change over time in controlled goal motives. Path analysis, adjusting T2 measures for their corresponding T1 measures, showed that resilience significantly predicted changes in athletes’ autonomous goal motives, which then accounted for changes in subjective vitality. The indirect effect was significant. Resilience did not predict changes in athletes’ controlled goal motives. However, changes in controlled goal motives negatively predicted changes in subjective vitality during lockdown. The findings suggest negative impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on athletes’ goal motives and eudaimonic well-being. Results also support the hypothesized mediational role of autonomous goal motives in the relationship between resilience and subjective vitality during the lockdown. As such, findings confirm the relevance of resilience to a key feature of athletes’ eudaimonic well-being and the importance of enhancing their autonomous goal striving. (shrink)

Sustainable Development Goals, which serve as the primary feature of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and Nationally Determined Contributions, which serve as a vital instrumental of the UNFCCC’s Paris Agreement, have clear synergies. Both are focused, in part, on responding to challenges presented to human well-being. There are good practical reasons to integrate development efforts with a comprehensive response to climate change. However, at least in their current form, these two policy instruments are ill-suited to this task. (...) Where SDGs are focused on supporting considerations of human flourishing to which policy needs to respond, NDCs, in their current form, are dependent on the determinations of the nations that generate them. I conclude that the best means of integrating these two policy initiatives require moving past the subjective foundations of NDCs. (shrink)

Intellectual history still quite commonly distinguishes between the episode we know as the Scientific Revolution, and its successor era, the Enlightenment, in terms of the calculatory and quantifying zeal of the former—the age of mechanics—and the rather scientifically lackadaisical mood of the latter, more concerned with freedom, public space and aesthetics. It is possible to challenge this distinction in a variety of ways, but the approach I examine here, in which the focus on an emerging scientific field or cluster of (...) disciplines—the ‘life sciences’, particularly natural history, medicine, and physiology —is, not Romantically anti-scientific, but resolutely anti-mathematical. Diderot bluntly states, in his Thoughts on the interpretation of nature, that “We are on the verge of a great revolution in the sciences. Given the taste people seem to have for morals, belles-lettres, the history of nature and experimental physics, I dare say that before a hundred years, there will not be more than three great geometricians remaining in Europe. The science will stop short where the Bernoullis, the Eulers, the Maupertuis, the Clairauts, the Fontaines and the D’Alemberts will have left it.... We will not go beyond.” Similarly, Buffon in the first discourse of his Histoire naturelle speaks of the “over-reliance on mathematical sciences,” given that mathematical truths are merely “definitional” and “demonstrative,” and thereby “abstract, intellectual and arbitrary.” Earlier in the Thoughts, Diderot judges “the thing of the mathematician” to have “as little existence in nature as that of the gambler.” Significantly, this attitude—taken by great scientists who also translated Newton or wrote careful papers on probability theory, as well as by others such as Mandeville—participates in the effort to conceptualize what we might call a new ontology for the emerging life sciences, very different from both the ‘iatromechanism’ and the ‘animism’ of earlier generations, which either failed to account for specifically living, goal-directed features of organisms, or accounted for them in supernaturalistic terms by appealing to an ‘anima’ as explanatory principle. Anti-mathematicism here is then a key component of a naturalistic, open-ended project to give a successful reductionist model of explanation in ‘natural history’, a model which is no more vitalist than it is materialist—but which is fairly far removed from early modern mechanism. (shrink)

The article examines the problem of ensuring the political stability of a democratic social system with a shortage of a vital commodity (like vaccine against COVID-19). In such a system, members of society citizens assess the authorities. Thus, actions by the authorities to increase the supply of this commodity can contribute to citizens' approval and hence political stability. However, this supply is influenced by random factors, the actions of competitors, etc. Therefore, citizens do not have sufficient information about all (...) the possibilities of supplying, and it is difficult for them to make the right decisions. Such citizen unawareness can be exploited by unscrupulous politicians to achieve personal targets. Therefore, it is necessary to organize public control to motivate politicians to use all available opportunities in supplying. The goal of the paper is to build such a digital mechanism of public control of the politicians by citizens, which would best assess and stimulate the activities of the authorities to improve the supply of a vital commodity. In the age of artificial intelligence, such digital public control in the face of uncertainty can be based on digital machine learning. In addition, it is necessary to take into account and model the activities of politicians associated with the presence of their own targets that do not coincide with public ones. Such politicians can use the learning of citizens for their own targets. The objective of the article is to build an optimal digital mechanism of public control in a two-level model of a democratic social system—a digital society. At its top level, there is the Citizen, who gives an assessment for the Politico located at the lower level. In turn, the Politico can influence the supplying of a vital commodity. Political stability is guaranteed if the Citizen regularly approves of the Politico’s actions to increase this supply. However, the Politico may not use the opportunities available to him to offer a commodity to achieve a personal target. To avoid this, the Politico’s control mechanism is proposed. It includes the procedure for digital learning of the Citizen, as well as a procedure for assessing the Politico activity. Sufficient conditions have been found for the synthesis of such the Politico’s control mechanism, at which stochastic possibilities of increasing the supply of a vital commodity are used. The example of such the Politico’s control mechanism is considered on the case of supply of the COVID-19 vaccine in England. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Exploring "The Vital Depths of Experience":A Reader's Response to HenningJim Garrisonbethany henning's dewey and the aesthetic unconscious is a much-needed and marvelous book. It explores the pragmatic unconscious as it reveals itself in the qualitative unity of artistic expression integrated with aesthetic appreciation and response. By illuminating the role of often unconscious impulses, feelings, desires, memories, imaginaries, habits, meanings, and more, that goes into creating or appreciating a (...) work of art, she exposes the role of the unconscious in our daily lives. In this regard, she may wish to look at Hans Joas's theory of creative action. Relying largely on Dewey, Joas argues that we should regard "creativity as an analytical dimension of all human action" (Joas 116). We transform the world in even our most mundane actions and in doing so, we may draw on the depths of our unconscious.Henning writes with sincerity, clarity, and force. Recognizing that ultimately she is striving to articulate something that is often ineffable, she is not afraid of vagueness, the indeterminate, or the incomplete, and is content to live with mysteries. Henning shows unusual vulnerability in exposing some of her own aesthetic unconscious and the ways culture has inscribed itself upon her, when she responds to art works. She does so without assuming she has plumbed the vital depths of herself much less the artists and art works she explores.I found Henning's responses to be an invitation to explore my own aesthetic unconscious, and I believe others will as well. Her book is subtitled The Vital Depths of Experience. I will strive to demonstrate that depth by summoning the courage to share some of my own aesthetic responses to her textual creation. My goal is to express some of the power in a text that dares to explore the pragmatic unconscious.In writing book reviews, I often rely on Louise Rosenblatt's reader response theory. On this occasion, Rosenblatt is especially apropos since her [End Page 90] work exemplifies the kind of transactionalism that integrates the artistic artifact with those who do the work of art in experiencing it. This emphasis becomes especially obvious in Henning's chapter 5, where she defends Dewey's qualitative "unity thesis" against such critics as Richard Shusterman, John Lysaker, and Noël Carroll. My response concentrates on this remarkable chapter.Carroll argues that works like John Cage's 4'33" and the paintings of Mark Rothko lack qualitative unity that unfolds temporally because they fail to provide closure. Henning replies that "Carroll has forgotten that the art product does not need to have any particular duration for the art work to unfold temporally" (128). As Dewey states it, "[t]he work of art is complete only as it works in the experience of others than the one who created it" (LW 10:111). Those experiencing an artistic product collaborate with the initial creator to complete the meaning. Henning goes on to say that "the encounter between perceiver and product culminate in a transaction: a dynamic exchange between the organism and environment" (128). The idea is correct, but for Dewey and Bentley, however, "exchange between" suggests interaction not transaction; a mutual or reciprocal transaction or an integration would be better descriptions.Although specifically concerned with literary works of art and the experience of reading, Rosenblatt helps illuminate any aesthetic event. In her "The Poem as Event," Rosenblatt remarks:A poem, then, must be thought of as an event in time. It is not an object or an ideal entity. It is an occurrence, a coming-together, a compenetration, of a reader and a text. The reader brings to the text his past experience; the encounter gives rise to a new experience, a poem.(126)Compenetration is a nice synonym for transaction. Rosenblatt's book on transactional reading is titled The Reader, the Text, the Poem. There, she defines "poem" as "the whole category of aesthetic transactions between readers and texts without implying the greater or less 'poeticity' of any specific genre" (12). It is an event of conjoint meaning-making where meaning is felt and acted upon as well as cognized. Dewey himself states: "A new poem is... (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)

The main goal of publicly funded biomedical research is to generate social value through the creation and application of knowledge that can improve the well-being of current and future people. Prioritising research with the greatest potential social value is crucial for good stewardship of limited public resources and ensuring ethical involvement of research participants. At the National Institutes of Health (NIH), peer reviewers hold the expertise and responsibility for social value assessment and resulting prioritisation at the project level. However, previous (...) research has shown that peer reviewers place more emphasis on a study’s methods (‘Approach’) than on its potential social value (best approximated by the criterion of ‘Significance’). Lower weighting of Significance may be due to reviewers’ views on the relative importance of social value, their belief that social value is evaluated at other stages of the research priority-setting process or the lack of guidance on how to approach the challenging task of assessing expected social value. The NIH is currently revising its review criteria and how these criteria contribute to overall scores. To elevate the role of social value in priority setting, the agency should support empirical research on how peer reviewers approach the assessment of social value, provide more specific guidance for reviewing social value and experiment with alternative reviewer assignment strategies. These recommendations would help ensure that funding priorities align with the NIH’s mission and the obligation of taxpayer-funded research to contribute to the public good. (shrink)

The article is an attempt to analyze the current trends of the development of Polish philosophy. It does not give a detailed description or systematization of Polish philosophy. The attention is focused on some vital issues: individuals, groupings, topics that determine its character and contribute to its native character and universal dimension. Polish culture follows an alternate pattern of development. Periods of idealistic vows, heroic deeds and great literature were followed by the time of “minimalism” restricted to the world (...) of facts and practicalities. At the times of cultural maximalism, philosophy accompanied literature (art) and tended to take the form of a world outlook, while in minimalistic phase it searched for connections with science and transformed into meta-science.The author believes that the period of scientific philosophy (the Lvov—Warsaw School of Philosophy) is over so it can be presumed that the future will belong to world outlook philosophy. (shrink)

In this essay, I use the theological anthropology of the apostle Paul as a diagnostic lens in order to bring into focus some implicit assumptions about human personhood in the goals and methods of treatment with psychotropic medications. I argue that Paul views the body as a mode of participation in larger relational matrices in both vulnerable and vital ways. He thus sees the self as constituted relationally rather than as fundamentally isolated and self-determining. Such an understanding of (...) personhood yields an account of human agency as co-constituted and freedom as interpersonally mediated and sustained. From this perspective, the proper goal for psychiatric medication is the removal of barriers to life-giving human connections; methods of care for persons in psychological distress may include medication, but they also require embodied personal encounter. (shrink)

Copernican questions, 2006 ; It started with Copernicus, 2014 -- Copernican questions. What was Copernicus's revolution? ; What happens when your world changes? ; Copernican questions : rationality and realism ; The plan of the book -- Is science really rational? : the problem of incommensurability. Incommensurability of standards ; Incommensurability of values ; Incommensurability of meaning ; Evaluating meaning incommensurability ; Conversion : a concluding case study -- A walk on the wild side : social constructivism, postmodernism, feminism, and (...) that old-time religion. The constructivist challenge ; Postmodernism attacks! ; Is "objectivity" what a man calls his subjectivity? ; Is science godless? -- Ascending the slippery slope : scientific progress and truth. The evils of Whig history ; Social-constructivist history ; Does science converge toward truth? ; Assessing Laudan's Critique of Convergent Realism ; Scientists' own realism ; Could we be wrong about everything? -- Truth of consequences? Electrons : real particles or convenient fictions? ; Van Fraassen's constrictive empiricism ; Do we observe through microscopes? ; But what about things that are really unobservable? ; So what really is the goal of science? -- Mysteries of methods. Induction and deduction ; Aristotle : the first methodologist ; Bacon : scientific method renovated? ; The hypothetico-deductive method ; Hume on induction ; Popper and the rejection of induction ; Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) to the rescue? -- If you have science, who needs philosophy? The limits of science? ; The breakdown of philosophy ; Naturalizing epistemology ; Naturalizing ethics ; Philosophy in an age of science -- Science, scientism, and being human. Mind : physical or spiritual? ; Science and the human image ; Ape, angel, or neither? (shrink)

This article examines how therapists and patients start building and managing relationships and pursue institutional goals at the same time. Based on a corpus of 6 audio-recorded therapies (client-centered therapy and psychodynamic therapy), I investigate first encounters between therapists and patients as the starting points of any therapeutical process and the place where a relationship between the interactants is established for the first time. Following a microlinguistic qualitative approach and applying methods from conversation analysis and discourse analysis, I show (...) how therapists, on the one hand, try to align with patients to build a positive working alliance and, on the other hand, work to fulfill specific interactive tasks of therapeutic discourse which demand disaligning with the patients’ communicative activity and their interactive expectations. Specific interactive “jobs” that need to be fulfilled in psychotherapy are identified, namely the performance of institutional roles by the interactants, the establishment of an interaction structure and the pursuit of helpful change in the patient. I show at which places in the interaction therapists (dis-)align with the patients’ projected communicative activity and how aligning and disaligning are related to the interactive process and the establishment and performance of these interactive jobs. The analysis shows that, at the beginning of therapy, alignment and disalignment are both important processes for the following reasons: Aligning with the patient contributes to a positive relationship, which has been shown to be vital for successful psychotherapy, while disaligning introduces the patient to the specific discursive mechanisms that characterize therapeutic discourse and constitute the basis for its effectiveness. Overall, the paper argues that reducing therapy to a dichotomy between relationship and “technique” seems overly simplistic, as both aspects need to be handled and managed at the same time. (shrink)

United Nations (UN) leaders suggest that the world is not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the SDGs provide a valuable platform to call for a basic income (BI) globally. Adopting a critical historical studies approach, the article traces the evolution of ‘development’, including the UN decades of development, the Millennium Development Goals, and the SDGs. It subsequently describes the structural adjustment and poverty reduction (...) efforts by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and then outlines why the SDG framework may be helpful in advancing a BI. We argue that as climate-related disasters increase, a BI will be vital in providing a modicum of security in an increasingly unstable world. Calls for BI must be anchored to a broader change agenda that recognizes the causes of poverty and income inequality, and seeks their dismantling and redress. (shrink)

Though most neomaterialists share a commitment to the Copernican decentring of humans from the world stage, there is disagreement on the purposes of such an endeavour. The polemic stems from a fundamental discrepancy about what the return to materiality entails: is matter the principle of the non-thinking as such, or is it always already imbued with some sort of subjectivity? Is the new materialism’s goal to come to terms with the non-living origin of life? Or is it rather to recognize (...) that seemingly dead materials are always in some sense incipiently alive? For convenience, we can think of two neomaterialist perspectives: the rationalist or eliminative neomaterialism, and the vitalist or panpsychist neomaterialism. I explore some of the conceptual problems faced by both camps and, drawing from the recently developed theory of consciousness as integrated information (Tononi), as well as its quantum physical construal by Max Tegmark, I suggest some provisional ways to address those issues. (shrink)

La renovación metodológica que impulsa el EEES implica un nuevo enfoque didáctico, dándole mayor importancia al aprendizaje motivacional que a la enseñanza. En este contexto, las metas vitales del alumnado y su actitud ante el aprendizaje son determinantes clave en su motivación. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las orientaciones motivacionales y de aprendizaje de los estudiantes de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas de la Universidad de Jaén para proponer al profesorado actuaciones, procedimientos, tácticas, y recursos que (...) influyan favorablemente en la motivación del alumnado, impulsen la participación y asistencia a clase y contribuyan a un aprendizaje activo. (shrink)

In this article I respond to Björn Hofmann’s criticism of some elements in my theory of health. Hofmann’s main objective is to question “Nordenfelt’s basic premise that you can be ill without having negative first-person experiences, and to investigate the consequences of abandoning the premise.” One of Hofmann’s critical points is that my theory of health does not lend voice to the individual. My response is essentially conducted in four steps: (1) I question the aim of conceptual analysis that Hofmann (...) proposes for the analysis of the notion of health. (2) I maintain that my analysis, in spite of Hofmann’s contention, lends voice to the individual. It does so via my notion of subjective illness but also via my notion of vital goal. (3) I argue that conditions, such as coma, paralysis and mania are salient instances of ill health and that these may become neglected if the use of the terms “ill” and “illness” is restricted to instances where negative subjective experiences are present. (4) I rehearse my main arguments for selecting disability as the core element of ill health and respond to Hofmann’s contention that persons who are in great pain can sometimes nevertheless perform perfectly. (shrink)

Increasing interest has been paid to applications of fluorescence measurements to analyze physiological mechanisms in living cells. However, few studies have taken advantage of DNA quantification by fluorometry for dynamic assessment of chromatin organization as well as cell motion during the cell cycle. This approach involves both optimal conditions for DNA staining and cell tracking methods. In this context, this report describes a stoichiometric method for nuclear DNA specific staining, using the bisbenzimidazole dye Hoechst 33342 associated with verapamil, a calcium (...) membrane channel blocker. This method makes it possible to correlate variations of nuclear DNA content with cell motion in cells that are maintained alive. Motion measurement is the second goal of this paper and it explains the snake-spline method, and the associated cell following method. (shrink)

Background: In research on co-creation in nursing, a caring manner can be used to create opportunities whereby the patient’s quality of life can be increased in palliative home care. This can be described as an ethical cornerstone and the goal of palliative care. To promote quality of life, nurses must be sensitive to patients’ and their relatives’ needs in care encounters. Co-creation can be defined as the joint creation of vital goals for patients through the process of shared (...) knowledge between nurses, patients and their relatives. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore nurses’ experiences of caring encounters and co-creation in palliative home care from an ethical perspective. Research design, participants, and research context: A hermeneutical approach was used. The material consisted of texts from interviews with 12 nurses in a home care context. The method was inspired by thematic analysis. Ethical considerations: Informed consent was sought from the participants regarding study participation and the storage and handling of data for research purposes. Findings: An overall theme, a main theme and four sub-themes emerged. Through ethical sensitivity and perceptivity, nurses can balance their actions in the moment and change their nursing care actions according to the patient’s wishes through co-creation in encounters. Here the time is crucial, as the time needed is unique to each patient. Discussion: The themes together can be considered prerequisites for good palliative home care. If nurses fail to be sensitive and perceptive in encounters with dying patients, good palliative home care cannot be achieved. Ethical sensitivity and perceptiveness can also be considered a part of nurses’ ethical competence. Conclusion: Patients’ dignity can be preserved through ethical sensitivity and perceptiveness, which is fundamental for good palliative care. Co-creation from patients’ perspectives should be the focus of future research. (shrink)

This book is a scholarly treatise on the nature of health presented in the form of a dialogue between an inquirer and a philosopher. It elaborates a holistic theory of health, according to which people are completely healthy if, and only if, they are able to realize all their vital goals, given reasonable circumstances. health is applied t practices, on particular areas of interest.

This paper continues a discussion concerning the distinction between disability and handicap initiated in this volume by Steven D. Edwards. Edwards argues that the reasons advanced by the WHO for this distinction in its International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps (ICIDH) are not valid. Edwards also criticizes my own quite different grounds for distinguishing between the two concepts. His general conclusion is that the distinction is superfluous. In this paper I claim that Edwards's reasoning is invalid. I present five (...) arguments for my case, viz., the arguments from: a) practical necessity, b) cost-effectiveness, c) clinical practice, d) the subject's vital goals, and e) the universal presence of some basic action. My own conclusion thus is that there is a need within health care for a distinction between disabilities and handicaps. I also indicate that there may be a need for further distinctions along the dimension of action-generation which is presented in the paper. (shrink)

Background In research on co-creation in nursing, a caring manner can be used to create opportunities for the patient to reach vital goals and thereby increase the patient’s quality of life in palliative home care. This can be described as an ethical cornerstone and the goal of palliative care. Nurses must be extra sensitive to patients’ and their relatives’ needs with regard to ethical and existential issues and situations in home care encounters, especially at the end of life. (...) Aim The aim of this study was to explore nurses’ experiences of dealing with ethical and existential issues through co-creation at the end of life in palliative home care. Research design, participants, and research context The material consisted of texts from interviews with 12 nurses in a home care context. A hermeneutical approach was used, and the method was inspired by a thematic analysis. Ethical considerations Informed consent was sought from the participants regarding study participation and the storage and handling of data for research purposes. Ethical permission to conduct the study was given from organizations that participated in this study. Findings A main theme and four subthemes emerged. The main theme was “Deep co-creative relationships are needed to manage ethical and existential issues at the end of life.” A model was created to display the findings and relations between ethical issues and situations and the need for a deep trustful caring relationship to solve problems in palliative home care. Discussion Together, the themes can be considered as a tool for learning and dealing with ethical and existential issues at the end of life in home care. The themes can also be seen as a part of nurses’ ethical competence within this context. Conclusion The quality of life at the end of life can be improved through co-creation, despite difficult ethical and existential issues. Future research should focus on co-creation from the patients’ perspective. (shrink)

According to the standard view of informed consent, a prospective subject's consent to participate in a research study is invalid if the individual fails to comprehend the information about the study standardly disclosed to him. I argue that this involves three mistakes. First, the standard view confuses an ethical aspiration with a minimum ethical standard. Second, it assigns the entire responsibility for producing comprehension in study participants to the investigators. Most importantly, the standard view requires the termination of many otherwise (...) perfectly ethical research studies. This last conclusion follows from appreciating a pervasive phenomenon that is known as the "therapeutic misconception." I argue that a prospective subject's consent to participate in research can be perfectly valid even if he or she does not comprehend the information that investigators are required to disclose. Furthermore, I explain that this alternative view does not in the least compromise the vital goal of ensuring the protection of subjects in research. (shrink)

In his article Banicki proposes a universal model for all forms of philosophical therapy. He is guided by works of Martha Nussbaum, who in turn makes recourse to Aristotle. As compared to Nussbaum’s approach, Banicki’s model is more medical and less based on ethical argument. He mentions Foucault’s vision to apply the same theoretical analysis for the ailments of the body and the soul and to use the same kind of approach in treating and curing them. In his interpretation of (...) philosophical therapy, there are, however, some controversial issues, to which we would like to call attention: -/- Is restoring health by a philosophical method of treatment – health understood as a person’s ability to reach his/her vital goals – a convincing explication of philosophical therapy in general? In order to answer this question, it may be useful to look at Plato. It is not only Platonism (and especially Neo-platonism since Plotinus) that questions the idea that therapy is necessarily connected with „vital goals“. Buddhist and Gnostic philosophies are questioning „the vital“ in general. The immense effort in the history of philosophy to liberate the mind from the body casts doubt on the project to explain philosophical therapy solely in analogy to medical therapy. -/- According to Banicki a therapeutic philosophy has to identify the diseases it attempts at curing. There are, however, reasons for associating the term therapy with suffering/risk rather than disease. If a therapy aims at reducing the fear of death, as for example many classical philosophical therapies do, then there is no disease to be cured. A model based on chances and risks also has the advantage that the Buddhist and Stoic reinterpretation of desires/emotions as “diseases” can be dropped in contemporary philosophical therapy. -/- Banicki mentions the comparison of therapies as one of the primary goals of modelling. Methods should be verified by a statistical correlation between method and therapeutic success and/or by a theory which justifies the method. Some forms of therapies, however, avoid theory-specific terms and concepts in favor of an unprejudiced interpretation of the patient’s statements. Others share the (Nietzschean) aspiration to explore and change measures of value. If the therapeutic process is seen as a unique phenomenon, then there can be no theory and no statistics with co-occurrences. -/- According to Banicki philosophical therapy has to describe techniques which qualify as genuinely philosophical. Techniques like maieutics and hermeneutics, however, are antique philosophical “inventions”, which were later adopted by psychotherapy. If meditation is accepted as a therapeutic tool – as it was in ancient times – then there is not only a methodical but also an emotional relation to religion. If finally, the Socratic search for a good life is seen as one of the characteristics of philosophical therapy, then delimitation even turns into a criterion for non-philosophical therapies. The search for a good life requires an interdisciplinary approach. -/- For the concretization of the formal structure, we suggest a typology of therapies, which is based on chances and risks. Such a typology has the advantage, that it can model conflicting (and even opposing) forms of therapies. The variety of therapeutic goals and methods is a consequence of the historical development towards conceptual freedom. (shrink)

The One Health approach is a prominent paradigm for research and healthcare practice and increasingly applied in various fields. Theoretical and normative implications of the approach, however, remain underexposed so far, leading to conceptual incoherencies and uncertainties in the application of the concept. This article sheds light on two particularly influential theoretical flaws inherent to the One Health approach. The first difficulty relates to the question of whose health is considered in the One Health paradigm: humans and animals are obviously (...) situated on a different level than the environment, so that the individual, population, and ecosystem dimensions need to be considered. The second theoretical flaw is related to the question of which concept of health can be meaningfully referred to when speaking of One Health. This problem is addressed by analyzing four key theoretical conceptions of health from the philosophy of medicine (well‐being, natural functioning, capacity of achieving vital goals, and homeostasis and resilience) regarding their suitability for the aims of One Health initiatives. It appears that none of the concepts analyzed fully meets the demands of an equitable consideration of human, animal, and environmental health. Potential solutions lie in accepting that one concept of health is more appropriate for some entities than for others and/or forgoing the idea of a uniform conception of health. As a result of the analysis, the authors conclude that theoretical and normative assumptions underlying concrete One Health initiatives should be made more explicit. (shrink)

My goals in this paper are twofold: to outline the refashioning of amateur and professional roles in life science in late Victorian Yorkshire, and to provide a revised historiography of the relationship between amateurs and professionals in this era. Some historical treatments of this relationship assume that amateurs were demoralized by the advances of laboratory science, and so ceased to contribute and were left behind by the autonomous "new biology." Despite this view, I show that many amateurs played a (...) vital part in the construction of a professional academic community in urban Yorkshire, and then continued to collaborate with the laboratory-based biologists. The key to any analysis of the relationship between amateurs and professionals is the great variety of amateur identities and practices in Victorian Yorkshire. The amateur-professional rift fallacy arose because laboratory biologists fashioned an identity in conscious opposition to a particular type of amateur: an ideal that belied an array of cooperative relationships. As naturalists refashioned their roles and identities in light of the changes within academe and without, debates about the practice and place of life science took place as often among amateurs as between professionals and amateurs. (shrink)

A vital point of dispute within both classical Indian thought and contemporary analytic ontology is the following: which facts are brute so that they are, so to speak, beyond any need of civilizing through logical transformations, conceptual revisions, or linguistic reformulations? In this article, we discuss certain strands of the debate in these fields with two central purposes in mind. Firstly, we shall argue that metaphysical debates are seemingly interminable partly because disputing parties carve up the ontological landscape in (...) such a manner that what one party views as primitive, basic, or fundamental is regarded by an opponent as derivative, imagined, or constructed and vice versa. Second, unlike debates over these themes in contemporary analytic ontology, the classical Indian counterparts were usually located within a soteriological context, where it was claimed that an individual should develop meditative praxis on the way towards the goal of ultimate liberation. While it might seem that one could appeal to “experience” in this manner to settle the debate over whether universals were fundamental ingredients of the fabric of reality or merely conceptual artefacts, we shall argue that this approach is complicated by the fact that aspirants in these traditions would interpret their experiences in accordance with their doctrinal schemes. Therefore, the question of whether or not this appeal succeeds leads us to an ongoing dispute in religious epistemology over whether experiences are completely “constructed” by doctrinal context. (shrink)

-Vitality and mechanism. -The cosmic motor power. -Atom and spirit. -Purpose in nature. -Law and Providence. -Good the final goal. -Fate or choice. -Our self-made world. -Partners in world-making. -Search the deep things.

Autonomy is a vital concept in much of modern theory, defining the Subject as capable of self-governance. Democratic theory relies on the concept of autonomy to provide justification for participatory government and the normative goal of democratic governance, which is to protect the ability of the individual to self-govern. Offering the first examination of the concept of autonomy from a postfoundationalist perspective, _The Autonomous Animal _analyzes how the ideal of self-governance has shaped everyday life. Claire E. Rasmussen begins by (...) considering the academic terrain of autonomy, then focusing on specific examples of political behavior that allow her to interrogate these theories. She demonstrates how the adolescent—a not-yet-autonomous subject—highlights how the ideal of self-governance generates practices intended to cultivate autonomy by forming the individual’s relationship to his or her body. She points up how the war on drugs rests on the perception that drug addicts are the antithesis of autonomy and thus must be regulated for their own good. Showing that the animal rights movement may challenge the distinction between human and animal, Rasmussen also examines the place of the endurance athlete in fitness culture, where self-management of the body is the exemplar of autonomous subjectivity. (shrink)

Religion (dharma) plays a vital role in the Hindu (Sanatana) quest for understanding and practicing harmony between nature and humanity that result into the formation of a cosmological awakening, i.e. 'transcending the universe.' The importance and applicability of such new consciousness is a sign in promoting global humanism in the 21st century, where environmental ethics and sustainability are the wheels of making the future more humane and peaceful. Arne Naess, who coined the term 'deep ecology' conceiving humankind as an (...) integral part of its environment, gives credit to Gandhi. Gandhi’s contributions help to re-awaken the human spirit to self-realisation, finally leading to revelation promoting human coexistence with nature sustainably, mostly through re-interpretation of Vedantic thought. Under the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) the ideas of Gandhi are recognised as a path that makes human coexistence stronger, feasible and co-sharedness, sustainable in peace and harmony with nature. This essay presents ecospiritual contextuality and its vitality concerning a sustainable perspective in line with Gandhi's vision and way of life. (shrink)

Environmental activism plays a vital role in raising awareness of environmental degradation and halting environmentally destructive activities, which is expected to contribute to safeguarding the Earth’s system against climate and biodiversity loss crises. Although the passion and commitment of environmental activists should be acknowledged, several groups of environmental activists are embracing the radical environmentalist movement. They support using illegal actions to achieve their primary goal of environmental protection. The actions perpetrated by radical environmentalist groups are not impulsive but rather (...) part of a deliberately planned and organized following a long-term strategy. (shrink)

We applaud the goals and execution of the target article, but note that individual differences do not receive much attention. This is a shortcoming because individual differences can play a vital role in theory testing. In our commentary, we describe programs of research of this type and also apply similar thinking to the mechanisms proposed in the target article.

The ocean is central to our lives, but many of our impacts on the ocean are highly unsustainable, and patterns of resource exploitation at sea are deeply inequitable. This article assesses whether the objectives encapsulated in the UN's Sustainable Development Goal for the ocean are well equipped to respond to these challenges. It will argue that the approach underpinned by the SDG 14 is largely compatible, unfortunately, with ‘business as usual’. SDG 14 is undoubtedly intended as a starting point rather (...) than a final destination; but it is nevertheless important to be clear about how far we still need to travel on the road to oceanic justice. Most significantly, SDG 14 leaves several key challenges inadequately addressed or simply unaddressed. It fails to specify adequate principles for the fair sharing of benefits and burdens flowing from the ocean, including the burdens of tackling pressing environmental problems. Neither does it address the underlying causes of inequality in the ocean economy. It neglects to properly address, furthermore, the fragmented institutional context which significantly impedes effective action to advance the goals of justice and sustainability at sea. Finally, whereas SDG 14 correctly identifies a series of necessary reforms to the ocean economy, it fails to engage with important issues of transitional justice which will arise if these policies are implemented. Vital first step though it is, promoting a just and sustainable ocean will require us to set our sights considerably higher than the targets endorsed as part of SDG 14. (shrink)

There is a gap in studies focussing on Ndau traditional religion and water. Most research addresses nature conservation rather than examining how water is perceived by the Ndau people. This study aims to explore the relationship between the Ndau and water, filling the gap in understanding the significance of water in the Ndau traditional religion of Zimbabwe. The study was based on a literature review focussing on published works, available as open access on the Internet regarding the Ndau people and (...) their relationship with nature. It was presented from an emic perspective by the author, who was born and bred among the Ndau people of Zimbabwe. The author was conscious of the need not to impose his own views. Triangulation of information from other sources was utilised to ensure the integrity of the data presented in this article. The main findings indicate that the Ndau people of Zimbabwe have a complex relationship with water, which they regard as sacred. They believe that water is protected by spirits. Taboos assist the Ndau in safeguarding water resources for both present and future generations. The study concluded that Ndau traditional leadership, along with the broader Ndau community, should take further action to preserve wetlands and water resources. The sacredness of water among the Ndau must be upheld to ensure the sustainability of these vital resources.Contribution: The article contributes to the discourse on water and spiritualities, focussing on the Ndau people of Zimbabwe. The place of water among the Ndau had not been explored before. The article contributes to the Journal’s focus on sustainable development goals, specifically number 6: Clean water and sanitation. (shrink)

In early writings, stakeholder theorists supported giving all stakeholders formal, binding control over the corporation, in particular, over its board of directors. In recent writings, however, they claim that stakeholder theory does not require changing the current structure of corporate governance and further claim to be “agnostic” about the value of doing so. This article’s purpose is to highlight this shift and to argue that it is a mistake. It argues that, for instrumental reasons, stakeholder theorists should support giving all (...) stakeholders control over the corporation, in the form of control over its board. That is, stakeholder theorists should support stakeholder democracy over the status quo. A larger goal of this article is to steer the conversation about stakeholder theory toward questions of governance and control. Stakeholder theorists tend to sidestep these questions, but it is vital that they be addressed. (shrink)

The current article is the first in a series of review articles addressing biosemiotic terminology. The biosemiotic glossary project is inclusive and designed to integrate views of a representative group of members within the biosemiotic community based on a standard survey and related publications. The methodology section describes the format of the survey conducted in November–December 2013 in preparation of the current review and targeted on the terms ‘agent’ and ‘agency’. Next, I summarize denotation, synonyms and antonyms, with special emphasis (...) on the denotation of these terms in current biosemiotic usage. The survey findings include ratings of nine citations defining or making use of the two terms. I provide a summary of respondents’ own definitions and suggested term usage. Further sections address etymology, connotations, and related terms in English and other languages. A section on the notions’ mainstream meaning vs. their meaning in biosemiotics is followed by attempt at synthesis and conclusions. Although there is currently no consensus in the biosemiotic community on what constitutes a semiotic agent, i.e., an agent in the context of semiosis, most respondents agree that core attributes of an agent include goal-directedness, self-governed activity, processing of semiosis and choice of action, with these features being vital for the functioning of the living system in question. I agree that these four features are constitutive of biosemiotic agents, and stipulate that biosemiotic agents fall within three major categories, namely 1) sub-organismic biosemiotic agents, 2) organismic biosemiotic agents and 3) super-organismic biosemiotic agents. (shrink)

We are living in an algorithmic age where mathematics and computer science are coming together in powerful new ways to influence, shape and guide our behaviour and the governance of our societies. As these algorithmic governance structures proliferate, it is vital that we ensure their effectiveness and legitimacy. That is, we need to ensure that they are an effective means for achieving a legitimate policy goal that are also procedurally fair, open and unbiased. But how can we ensure that (...) algorithmic governance structures are both? This article shares the results of a collective intelligence workshop that addressed exactly this question. The workshop brought together a multidisciplinary group of scholars to consider barriers to legitimate and effective algorithmic governance and the research methods needed to address the nature and impact of specific barriers. An interactive management workshop technique was used to harness the collective intelligence of this multidisciplinary group. This method enabled participants to produce a framework and research agenda for those who are concerned about algorithmic governance. We outline this research agenda below, providing a detailed map of key research themes, questions and methods that our workshop felt ought to be pursued. This builds upon existing work on research agendas for critical algorithm studies in a unique way through the method of collective intelligence. (shrink)

Ethical considerations, especially those religiously driven, play a significant role in shaping business conduct and priorities. Profit levels and earnings constitute an integral part of business considerations and are relevant and closely linked to prevailing ethics. In this paper, Islamic prescriptions on profit maximization are introduced. Islamic business ethics are outlined as well. It is suggested that while Islamic teaching treats profits as reward for engaging in vital activities necessary for serving societal interests, profit maximization is not sanctioned and (...) therefore should not be the goal of ethically guided business ventures. (shrink)

Behavioral immune system describes psychological mechanisms that detect cues to infectious pathogens in the immediate environment, trigger disease-relevant responses and facilitate behavioral avoidance/escape. BIS activation elicits a perceived vulnerability to disease which can result in conformity with social norms. However, a response to superficial cues can result in aversive responses to people that pose no actual threat, leading to an aversion to unfamiliar others, and likelihood of prejudice. Pathogen-neutralizing behaviors, therefore, have implications for social interaction as well as illness behaviors (...) and responses to health communications. In this study, we investigate how PVD influences conformity, attitudes to other people and to lockdown regulations through the lens of the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory. RST describes personality in terms of biologically-driven approach and avoidance motivations which support personal goals. Participants from the United Kingdom public completed an RST personality questionnaire and then read either coronavirus morbidity-mortality statistics and current United Kingdom government lifestyle regulations, just the regulations, or no information at all. They all completed the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease scale to assess BIS-relevant Germ Aversion and Perceived Infectability, followed by questions measuring social conformity, warmth toward others and attitudes toward lockdown measures. Significantly lower PVD scores were observed in the no-information condition, with the other conditions showing no difference. In terms of RST, approach behaviors related to goal-drive persistence work alongside fear in explaining conformity to social norms. Reward related approach behaviors partially explained warmth toward others, indicating that social rewards gained through interaction continue to be strong drivers of behavior. We found no role for RST traits in attitudes toward lockdown. Overall, coronavirus-related behavior is not driven purely by fear, but also by social and/or protection goals regulated by approach motivation. This study presents new insights into public perceptions of coronavirus and government regulated lifestyle restrictions, helping to explain social behaviors in terms of biologically driven mechanisms. Such understanding is vital if we are to successfully motivate public behavior to constrain spread of the virus. (shrink)

Cognitive science continues to make a compelling case for having a coherent, unique, and fundamental subject of inquiry: What is the nature of minds, where do they come from, and how do they work? Central to this inquiry is the notion of agents that have goals, one of which is their own persistence, who use dynamically constructed knowledge to act in the world to achieve those goals. An agentive perspective explains why a special class of systems have a (...) cluster of co‐occurring capacities that enable them to exhibit adaptive behavior in a complex environment: perception, attention, memory, representation, planning, and communication. As an intellectual endeavor, cognitive science may not have achieved a hard core of uncontested assumptions that Lakatos (1978) identifies as emblematic of a successful research program, but there are alternative conceptions according to which cognitive science has been successful. First, challenges of the early, core tenet of “Mind as Computation” have helped put cognitive science on a stronger foundation—one that incorporates relations between minds and their environments. Second, even if a full cross‐disciplinary theoretic consensus is elusive, cognitive science can inspire distant, deep, and transformative connections between pairs of fields. To be intellectually vital, cognitive science need not resemble a traditional discipline with its associated insularity and unchallenged assumptions. Instead, there is strength and resilience in the diverse perspectives and methods that cognitive science assembles together. This interdisciplinary enterprise is fragile and perhaps inherently unstable, as the looming absorption of cognitive science into psychology shows. Still, for many researchers, the excitement and benefits of triangulating on the nature of minds by integrating diverse cases cannot be secured by a stable discipline with an uncontested core of assumptions. (shrink)

Interventions are medically necessary when they are vital in achieving the goal of medicine. However, with varying perspectives comes varying views on what interventions are (un)necessary and, thus, what potential treatment options are available for those suffering from the myriad of conditions, pathologies and disorders afflicting humanity. Medical necessity's teleological nature is perhaps best illustrated in cases where there is debate over using contentious medical interventions as a last resort. For example, whether it is appropriate for those suffering from (...) body integrity dysphoria to receive healthy limb amputations. This paper explores how one's perception of medicine's goal underpins whether interventions are necessary or unnecessary, using the controversial topic of therapeutic amputation as an example. By contrasting ‘classical’ amputations with their more contentious counterparts, it highlights how the idea of medical necessity influences and restrains clinical decision-making. The paper starts by giving an account of body integrity dysphoria, focusing on the debate concerning elective amputation's justifiability. It then introduces Georges Canguilhem's vitalist theory of health, paying particular attention to his emphasis on adaptability. Then, this paper uses his theory as a lens through which to evaluate the appropriateness of therapeutic amputation as a medically necessary procedure. Ultimately, the paper highlights how the label of medical necessity is withheld from potential therapeutic interventions because they fail to conform to pre-established ideas of medicine's purpose and that by doing so, potential harm befalls those who are left with no effective treatments and must look for solutions in the non-clinical world. (shrink)

Mobile health devices pose novel questions at the intersection of philosophy and technology. Many such applications not only collect sensitive data, but also aim at persuading users to change their lifestyle for the better. A major concern is that persuasion is paternalistic as it intentionally aims at changing the agent’s actions, chipping away at their autonomy. This worry roots in the philosophical conviction that perhaps the most salient feature of living autonomous lives is displayed via agency as opposed to patiency—our (...) lives go well in virtue of what we do, rather than what happens to us. Being persuaded by a device telling us how to conduct our lives seemingly renders the agent passive, an inert recipient of technological commands. This agential bias, however, has led to a marginalization of patiential characteristics that are just as much part of our lives as are agential characteristics. To appreciate the inherent interlocking of acting and being acted upon, it is vital to acknowledge that agency and patiency are correlates, not mutually exclusive opposites. Furthermore, it is unclear whether an action can only count as agential so long as its causes are internal. Drawing on the extended mind and extended will framework, I argue that mHealth applications merely serve as volitional aids to the agent’s internal cognition. Autonomously set goals can be achieved more effectively via technology. To be persuaded by an mHealth device does not mainly—let alone exclusively—emphasize patiency; on the contrary, it can be an effective tool for technologically enhancing agency. (shrink)

Employment is critical for refugees’ positive integration into a receiving country. Enabling employment requires cross-sector collaborations, that is, employers collaborating with different stakeholders such as refugees, local employees, other employers, unofficial/official supporters, and authorities. A vital element of cross-sector collaborations is trust, yet the complexity of cross-sector collaborations may challenge the formation and maintenance of trust. Following a theory elaboration approach, this qualitative study with 37 employers and 27 support workers in Germany explores how employers’ experiences in cross-sector collaborations (...) on refugees’ labor market integration affect their trust in other stakeholders in this cross-sector space. Specifically, we explored employers’ perceptions of trust breaches, and how these perceptions affect their further engagement in cross-sector collaborations on refugee integration. Based on our findings, we propose a process model that describes how unmet collaboration expectations and negative assessments of collaborators’ attitudes and behaviors lead to perceived trust breaches which, in turn, lead to employers’ hesitancy to hire refugees and/or to engage in cross-sector collaborations. In doing so, we extend existing theory on trust within organizations to the cross-sector context of refugee integration, uncovering context-specific meanings to trustworthiness dimensions and illustrating how breaches of different trustworthiness dimensions can interact. Moreover, we show how social policies, resources, and trustors’ perceived vulnerability in collaborations shape their risk perceptions. This study highlights the central role of trust for refugee integration and illustrates how missing goals and process clarity endanger sustainable collaborations. (shrink)

This book addresses Muslim business community members who have to deal with ethical situations on a day-to-day basis. It gives key principles of management from an Islamic point of view. Its goal is to help Muslims engaged in business to act in accordance with the Islamic system of ethics. The writer’s experience with different Islamic activities give him a practical background that supports and enlightens his academic knowledge in the vital fields of business management and administration.

Developing critical thinking ability is one of the main goals of medical education, in part because it enhances clinical reasoning, a vital competence in clinical practice. However, there is limited evidence suggesting ways to effectively teach critical thinking in the classroom. Here, we describe the use of a drama-based critical thinking classroom scenario. The study used a mixed-methods approach with both quantitative and qualitative analysis of questionnaire responses. Ninety-one medical students in Colombia were asked to identify and evaluate (...) arguments regarding a dilemma between ethics, social responsibility and scientific work presented in the play Should’ve by the Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann. Chi square analyses of responses to closed-ended questions showed that the drama-based classroom scenario provided learners with opportunities to make decisions, and to identify and evaluate arguments from the play. Qualitative analysis of responses to open-ended questions confirmed these findings and illustrated the processes underlying the decisions. Students were able to evaluate arguments in an impartial way. Our findings support the use of drama-based scenarios in the classroom as an approach to fostering medical students’ critical thinking. This approach could contribute to a classroom pedagogy in which all students have an active role in responding to controversial questions, evaluating arguments and critically responding. This would support the development of critical thinking and promote deeper understanding of the dilemmas involved in scientific work. (shrink)

Humans are unique in the animal world in the extent to which their day-to-day behavior is governed by a complex set of rules and principles commonly called norms. Norms delimit the bounds of proper behavior in a host of domains, providing an invisible web of normative structure embracing virtually all aspects of social life. People also find many norms to be deeply meaningful. Norms give rise to powerful subjective feelings that, in the view of many, are an important part of (...) what it is to be a human agent. Despite the vital role of norms in human lives and human behavior, and the central role they play in explanations in the social sciences, there has been very little systematic attention devoted to norms in cognitive science. Much existing research is partial and piecemeal, making it difficult to know how individual findings cohere into a comprehensive picture. Our goal in this essay is to offer an account of the psychological mechanisms and processes underlying norms that integrates what is known and can serve as a framework for future research. (shrink)

Public health involves the use of power to change institutions and redistribute resources and deliberately to shape individual thought and behavior. This requires normative legitimation and demands ethical critique. This article explores concepts that are vital to public health ethics, but have been relatively neglected. These are membership, solidarity and the concept of place. The article argues that the practice of public health should recognize the equal rights of membership in communities of health justice. Public health should also rely (...) on a sense of obligation and mutual aid in a world of shared vulnerability and reciprocal recognition. Finally, public health achieves its goals not merely—and perhaps not most fundamentally—through information and altering the logical ratiocination of individuals or groups, but rather through the reformation of sense and sensibility. (shrink)