Objective: The objectives of this study are to understand the current functions, structure and operation of hospital ethics committees (HECs) in Shanghai and to facilitate their improvement. Methods: (1) A questionnaire survey, (2) interviews with secretaries and (3) on-site document reviews of HECs in Shanghai were used in the study, which surveyed 33 hospitals. Results: In Shanghai, 57.56% of the surveyed hospitals established HECs from 1998 to 2005. Most HECs used bioethical review of research involving human subjects as well as (...) bioethical review or consultation regarding medical care services and administrative decision- making. Of the surveyed HECs, 14.3% did not provide any formal bioethical training to the HECs’ members and many HECs had no standard operating procedures. Some HECs had no clear definition of what was “conflict of interest” that should be considered by the HECs, while 44.4% of the HECs did not perform continuing review. Discussion: After the issues of related national regulations, more and more hospitals established HECs in Shanghai, but the functions of HECs need to be further developed and formal training on bioethics should be provided to HEC members. To assure the independence and good performance of HECs, the conflict of interest procedure, the standard operating procedures and bioethical review should be improved. Conclusion: HECs in Shanghai had developed in the preceding 10 years and they played great roles in protecting the rights and welfare of human subjects and patients; some areas need improvement. (shrink)

(2007). More Power to the Consumer? Problems and Possibilities in Improving the Price-Quality Ratio of Legal Services by the Dutch Bar. Legal Ethics: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 51-71.

Автором рассматриваются различны типы правовой рефлексии в свете смены основных исследовательских парадигм. Для специалистов в области гуманитарного знания и читателей, интересующихся вопросами философии права и теоретического правоведения.

Though emotional faces preferentially reach awareness, the present study utilised both objective and subjective indices of awareness to determine whether they enhance subjective awareness and “blindsight”. Under continuous flash suppression, participants localised a disgusted, fearful or neutral face (objective index), and rated their confidence (subjective index). Psychopathic traits were also measured to investigate their influence on emotion perception. As predicted, fear increased localisation accuracy, subjective awareness and “blindsight” of upright faces. Coldhearted traits were inversely related to subjective awareness, but not (...) “blindsight”, of upright fearful faces. In a follow-up experiment using inverted faces, increased localisation accuracy and awareness, but not “blindsight”, were observed for fear. Surprisingly, awareness of inverted fearful faces was positively correlated with coldheartedness. These results suggest that emotion enhances both pre-conscious processing and the qualitative experience of awareness, but that pre-conscious and conscious processing of emotional faces rely on at least partially dissociable cognitive mechanisms. (shrink)

Background and objective: Code status discussions may fail to address patients’ treatment-related goals and their knowledge of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). This study aimed to investigate patients’ resuscitation preferences, knowledge of CPR and goals of care. Design, setting, patients and measurements: 135 adults were interviewed within 48 h of admission to a general medical service in an academic medical centre, querying code status preferences, knowledge about CPR and its outcome probabilities and goals of care. Medical records were reviewed for clinical information (...) and code status documentation. Results: 41 (30.4%) patients had discussed CPR with their doctor, 116 (85.9%) patients preferred full code status and 11 (8.1%) patients expressed code status preferences different from the code status documented in their medical record. When queried about seven possible goals of care, patients affirmed an average of 4.9 goals; their single most important goals were broadly distributed, ranging from being cured (n = 36; 26.7%) to being comfortable (n = 8; 5.9%). Patients’ mean estimate of survival to discharge after CPR was 60.4%. Most patients believed it was helpful to discuss goals of care (n = 95; 70.4%) and the chances of surviving inhospital CPR (n = 112; 83.0%). Some patients expressed a desire to change their code status after receiving information about survival following inhospital CPR (n = 11; 8.1%) or after discussing goals of care (n = 2; 1.5%). Conclusions: Doctors need to address patients’ knowledge about CPR and take steps to avoid discrepancies between treatment orders and patients’ preferences. Addressing CPR outcome probabilities and goals of care during code status discussions may improve patients’ knowledge and influence their preferences. (shrink)

Many scholars have sought to understand renaissance culture in terms of self-fashioning, a concept that sees the sixteenth-century preoccupation with imitation and performance as symptoms of a desire to conform outwardly to social expectations. Historians of Tudor England and biographers of Thomas More, influenced by this concept, have despaired of discovering the “true” Thomas More behind a bewildering array of self-fashioned masks that More “wore” as both an author and public figure. Recent scholarship seeks to show the coherence of More's (...) character, despite the fact that his life and writings do not fit neatly into contemporary scholarly categories. Understanding More as a “Christian Humanist” and focusing on More's intervention in a controversy between his friends Erasmus and Dorp, this study positions More as engaging in typological emulation, whereby in imitating the correspondence of Jerome and Augustine, he seeks to embody more perfectly the ideal of the Christian orator. (shrink)

Thomas More’s 281 epigrams form a diverse and seemingly haphazard collection of occasional and programmatic pieces written in a variety of meters on diverse topics. Since most of More’s papers disappeared in the years immediately following his death, it is difficult and perhaps impossible to reconstruct on the basis of external evidence the rationale behind the selection and distribution of his epigrams. Despite this challenge, internal evidence provides some clues. Nearly half of the epigrams are translations of Greek originals. Some (...) of these Greek originals serve as the basis for sequences of epigrams, one of which is the “Lame Beggars Sequence.” Through a process of iterative amplificatio, More progressively cultivates eloquence as he extends the meaning of his original to encompass moral and political themes. In turn, he develops the theme into original compositions before producing a final translation that encompasses both the literal and moral senses of the original Greek. (shrink)

Leading philosopher of religion D. Z. Phillips argues that intellectuals need not see their task as being for or against religion, but as one of understanding it. What stands in the way of this task are certain methodological assumptions about what enquiry into religion must be. Beginning with Bernard Williams on Greek gods, Phillips goes on to examine these assumptions in the work of Hume, Feuerbach, Marx, Frazer, Tylor, Marett, Freud, Durkheim, Le;vy-Bruhl, Berger and Winch. The result exposes confusion, but (...) also gives logical space to religious belief without advocating personal acceptance of that belief, and shows how the academic study of religion may return to the contemplative task of doing conceptual justice to the world. Religion and the Hermeneutics of Contemplation extends in important ways D. Z. Phillips' seminal 1976 book Religion Without Explanation. It will be of interest to scholars and students of philosophy, anthropology, sociology and theology. (shrink)

In locating friendly fire in contemporary philosophy of religion, D.Z. Phillips shows that more harm can be done to religion by its philosophical defenders than by its philosophical despisers. Friendly fire is the result of an uncritical acceptance of empiricism, and Phillips argues that we need to examine critically the claims that individual consciousness is the necessary starting point from which we have to argue: for the existence of an external world and the reality of God; that God is a (...) person without a body, a pure consciousness; and that to assent to a religious belief is essentially to assign a truth value to a proposition independent of any confessional context. When these products of friendly fire are avoided, we arrive at a new understanding of belief, trust and the soul, and refuse to say more or less than we know about the realities of human life in the service of religious apologetics. (shrink)

Many contemporary philosophers assume that, before one can discuss prayer, the question of whether there is a God or not must be settled. In this title, first published in 1965, D. Z. Phillips argues that to understand prayer is to understand what is meant by the reality of God. Beginning by placing the problem of prayer within a philosophical context, Phillips goes on to discuss such topics as prayer and the concept of talking, prayer and dependence, superstition and the concept (...) of community. This is a fascinating reissue that will be of particular value to students with an interest in the philosophy of religion, prayer and religious studies more generally. (shrink)

Five reasons are given for why Wittgensteinianism, though a major movement in philosophy of religion, has never been a dominant one. The remainder of the chapter is divided as follows: - I: The influence of Descartes’ Legacy. - II: Philosophy of Religion’s epistemological inheritance as seen in Reformed epistemology and the influence of Thomas Reid, and in neo-Kantianism. - III: The return from metaphysical reality in Wittgenstein. - IV: Difficulties in the metaphysical notion of God: as being itself or pure (...) consciousness. - V: The importance of ordinary certitudes in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. - VI: The sense of God’s “otherness” from the world. - VII: Religion and contemplative philosophy. (shrink)

This book offers the rare opportunity to assess, within a single volume, the leading schools of thought in the contemporary philosophy of religion. With contributions by well-known exponents of each school, the book is an ideal text for assessing the deep proximities and divisions which characterize contemporary philosophy of religion. The schools of thought represented include philosophical theism, Reformed epistemology, Wittgensteinianism, Postmodernism, Critical Theory, and Process Thought.

D Z Phillips; Not in Front of the Children: children and the heterogeneity of morals, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 14, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages.

Can an empirisist theory of memory be identifi ed in Plato’s dialogues? Research in the dialogues and reconstructing the pertinent references convinced me that- along with the multi-discussed and generally accepted concept of memory within Plato’s metaphysical framework of the theory of knowledge- an empirisist version of memory is utilized by the Athenian philosopher in his argumentations, concerning mainly epistemological issues and problems; in fact, given the republished metaphysical concept of memory, one cannot fi nd, beyond the orthodox, old interpretation (...) related to metempsychosis, ies attributing to Plato such, perhaps heretic, parallel use of sensorymaterial and empiricist structures. Moreover, I contend that the empiricist version of memory is related, or, can be considered, as a precursor, to a great extent, to the so called empirical theory of memory; the theory where memory is a necessary and decsively functioning constituent to the new and modern theory of knowledge. (shrink)