Different opinions are expressed in the literature regarding when children and adolescents can start to make decisions to participate in research and give informed consent. Nurses are frequently involved in research, either as investigators or caregivers, and must therefore have a thorough understanding of consent and related issues. In this article the issues are explored from a Canadian perspective. The argument is put forward that adolescents may be capable of a greater involvement in the research consent process than is the (...) norm. Increasing adolescents’ involvement in research has the potential to enhance their growing autonomy and capabilities. Adolescents appreciate being treated with respect and dignity by adults. This can be achieved in an environment in which protection from harm does not also mean prevention from decision making. The use of empowering processes by nurses to enhance adolescent involvement will provide benefit to adolescents in their transition to adult levels of responsibility. (shrink)

Gender differences in aggression are highly variable; there is significant evidence that this variability is as much a function of social and cultural conditions as evolutionary processes. While some of these conditions may reflect resource scarcities as Campbell proposes, others are inconsistent with her perspective or are explained equally well by other perspectives.

Theories of grounded and embodied cognition offer a range of accounts of how reasoning and body‐based processes are related to each other. To advance theories of grounded and embodied cognition, we explore the cognitive relevance of particular body states to associated math concepts. We test competing models of action‐cognition transduction to investigate the cognitive relevance of directed actions to students’ mathematical reasoning in the area of geometry. The hypotheses we test include (1) that cognitively relevant directed actions have a direct (...) effect on performance (direct cognitive relevance hypothesis), (2) that cognitively relevant directed actions lead to more frequent production of gestures during explanations, which leads to improved performance (mediated cognitive relevance hypothesis), and (3) that performance effects of directed actions are influenced by the presence or absence of gesture production during mathematical explanations (moderated cognitive relevance hypothesis). We explore these hypotheses in an experiment where high school students (N = 85) evaluated the truth of geometry conjectures after performing cognitively relevant or cognitively irrelevant directed actions while playing a movement‐based video game. Contrary to the direct and mediated cognitive relevance hypotheses, we found no overall differences in performance or gesture production between relevant and irrelevant conditions. Consistent with the moderated cognitive relevance hypothesis, cognitive relevance influenced mathematical performance, as measured by the accuracy of students’ intuitions, insights, and the validity of their proofs, provided that students produced certain kinds of gestures during mathematical explanations (i.e., with explanatory gestures as the moderator). Implications for theories of grounded and embodied cognition and the design of embodied forms of educational interventions are discussed. (shrink)

This paper considers religion in relation to four recurrent traits: belief systems incorporating supernatural agents and counterintuitive concepts, communal ritual, separation of the sacred and the profane, and adolescence as a preferred developmental period for religious transmission. These co-occurring traits are viewed as an adaptive complex that offers clues to the evolution of religion from its nonhuman ritual roots. We consider the critical element differentiating religious from non-human ritual to be the conditioned association of emotion and abstract symbols. We propose (...) neurophysiological mechanisms underlying such associations and argue that the brain plasticity of human adolescence constitutes an “experience expectant” developmental period for ritual conditioning of sacred symbols. We suggest that such symbols evolved to solve an ecological problem by extending communication and coordination of social relations across time and space. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to advance a new understanding of gender as a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction. To do so entails a critical assessment of existing perspectives on sex and gender and the introduction of important distinctions among sex, sex category, and gender. We argue that recognition of the analytical independence of these concepts is essential for understanding the interactional work involved in being a gendered person in society. The thrust of our remarks is toward theoretical (...) reconceptualization, but we consider fruitful directions for empirical research that are indicated by our formulation. (shrink)

One prevailing objection to consequentialism holds that the consequentialist cannot promote both agent-neutral value and her own personal friendships: the consequentialist cannot be a genuine friend. Several versions of this objection have been advanced, but an even more sophisticated version of the charge is available. However, even this more sophisticated version fails, as it assumes a traditional, context-insensitive, account of character traits. In this article, I develop and defend a novel account of character traits that is context-sensitive and also supports (...) a novel account of what friendship consists in. Application of the more plausible, contextual, account of character traits resolves the debate in favor of the friendly consequentialist. (shrink)

This paper examines the ethical implications of the Clean Development Mechanism, the United Nation’s climate change initiative that provides incentives to countries and firms in developed countries to motivate investments in greenhouse gas reduction projects in developing countries. Using the tenets of agency theory, we present a solid waste management project in El Salvador as an illustrative example of how the CDM can produce a disproportionately high social cost for the most marginalized populations in the developing world. We suggest that (...) the UN needs to reformulate the CDM so that it more effectively aligns the divergent goals of multiple actors and upholds the UN’s principles for sustainable development, including ethical firm-level behavior. By providing incentives for environmental, economic, and social value creation, the CDM would not only promote ethical norms for profit-seeking firms that participate in the program but also reinforce the UN’s twin pro-poor and environmental objectives. (shrink)

Parallels between the mathematics of tiling, which describes geometries of visual space, and neo-Riemannian theory, which describes geometries of musical space, make it possible to show that certain paradoxes featured in the visual artworks of M. C. Escher also appear in the pitch space modelled by the neo-Riemannian Tonnetz . This article makes these paradoxes visually apparent by constructing an embodied model of triadic pitch space in accordance with principles drawn from the mathematics of tiling, on the one hand, and (...) from cognitive science, on the other – specifically, the notion that our experience of pitch relationships is governed in part by the metaphorical projection of patterns abstracted from embodied experience known as image schemas. These paradoxes are illustrated with reference to passages drawn from four compositions to whose expressive character such paradoxes contribute: the fifteenth-century motet 'Absalon fili mi'; the finale of Haydn's String Quartet in G major, Op. 76 No. 1; Brahms's Intermezzo in B minor, Op. 119 No. 1; and Wagner's Parsifal. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Negotiating Maternal IdentityAdrienne Rich’s Legacy for Inquiry into the Political-Philosophical Dimensions of Pregnancy and ChildbirthCandace JohnsonGiving birth has been described as the crossing of an imaginary threshold, which separates an independent maternal self from some sort of dual or subordinate existence. The metaphor of a border has also been employed to demonstrate this transformation, which may be liberating, oppressive, or some complex combination thereof (Weir 2006; Martinez 2004). What (...) happens, in psychic and sociopolitical terms, in the journey across this border? Can a woman, as an independent, autonomous being, preserve her identity, her selfhood as a mother? Is the transition to motherhood an expression of culture or nature? The answers to these questions are infinitely complex, yet are at the core of philosophical, political, and personal explorations of the maternal. Central to these explorations are academic critiques and personal responses to the biomedical mediation of the transition to motherhood. For some women, medical intervention in pregnancy and childbirth is inherently oppressive, whereas for other women such intervention is a marker of privilege. In a groundbreaking volume published in 1998, Margaret Lock and Patricia Kaufert argue that women respond to different biomedical interventions in pragmatic ways, which reflect their lived experiences. They claim that “it is more appropriate to understand women’s responses in medical settings as reflecting their daily experiences as part of a domestic group, a community, or a society” (19). [End Page 65]I would like to advance this analysis by suggesting that women respond to biomedical intervention in pregnancy and childbirth in ways that reflect not simply their practical needs and realities, but important details about inequality and identity. Women’s relative degrees of power and agency in society are expressed through their preferences for care during pregnancy and childbirth. In addition, and in connection with the (structural) dynamics of inequality, these preferences reflect the complexities of shifting, negotiated, maternal identities. In order to consider the ways in which women negotiate maternal identity through their preferences concerning care during pregnancy and childbirth, I will examine the contributions of Adrienne Rich, which effectively serve as the foundation for this and countless other areas of women’s and gender studies. In Of Woman Born, Rich dedicates two full chapters to childbirth, and explains in these chapters that the institution of childbirth has come to dominate and eclipse women’s experiences. Moreover, the patriarchal circumscription of childbirth is reinforced by the isolation of childbirth (and motherhood) from other life events. Rich demonstrates these problems through the metaphor of “giving birth to oneself ” (29), which has (at least) two distinct meanings: self actualization and self replacement.My investigation into these meanings will include an examination of Rich’s philosophical treatment of pregnancy and childbirth and an assessment of the sociopolitical implications of both conceptions of “giving birth to oneself.” I will then subject these conceptions to empirical testing, as Rich insists. Such empirical testing is crucial because the social and political dimensions of the institutions of childbirth and motherhood are complex and differ from one context to the next. Rich explains that[t]o hold power over others means that the powerful is permitted a kind of short-cut through the complexity of human personality. He does not have to enter intuitively into the souls of the powerless, or to hear what they are saying in their many languages, including the language of silence. Colonialism exists by virtue of this short-cut—how else could so few live among so many and understand so little?(65)This essay will avoid a similar shortcut often taken by theorists, which builds philosophical arguments without empirical support. The empirical cases to be considered in the context of philosophical debate include Canada, Honduras, and Cuba, and details of each case will be drawn from extensive interview data from a larger empirical study.1 In the Canadian context, resistance to the constraining effects of motherhood as institution is reduced to resistance to medical regulation of pregnancy and childbirth. The benefit indicated by this resistance is that women have found ways to expand their range of options and reinterpret the birthing event, thereby integrating it into other realms [End Page 66... (shrink)

This paper considers religion in relation to four recurrent traits: belief systems incorporating supernatural agents and counterintuitive concepts, communal ritual, separation of the sacred and the profane, and adolescence as a preferred developmental period for religious transmission. These co-occurring traits are viewed as an adaptive complex that offers clues to the evolution of religion from its nonhuman ritual roots. We consider the critical element differentiating religious from non-human ritual to be the conditioned association of emotion and abstract symbols. We propose (...) neurophysiological mechanisms underlying such associations and argue that the brain plasticity of human adolescence constitutes an “experience expectant” developmental period for ritual conditioning of sacred symbols. We suggest that such symbols evolved to solve an ecological problem by extending communication and coordination of social relations across time and space. (shrink)

Is unethical conduct necessarily irrational? Answering this question requires giving an account of practical reason, of practical good, and of the source or point of wrongdoing. By the time most contemporary philosophers have done the first two, they have lost sight of the third, chalking up bad action to rashness, weakness of will, or ignorance. In this book, Candace Vogler does all three, taking as her guides scholars who contemplated why some people perform evil deeds. In doing so, she (...) sets out to at once engage and redirect contemporary debates about ethics, practical reason, and normativity. -/- Staged as a limited defense of a standard view of practical reason (an ancestor of contemporary instrumentalist views), Vogler's essay develops Aquinas's remark about three ways an action might be desirable into an exhaustive system for categorizing reasons for acting. Drawing on Elizabeth Anscombe's pioneering work on intention, Vogler argues that one sort (means/end or calculative reasons for acting) sets the terms for all sound work on practical rationality. -/- She takes up Aquinas's work on evil throughout, arguing that he provides us with a systematic theory of immorality that takes seriously the goods at issue in wrongdoing and the reasons for unethical conduct. Vogler argues that, shorn of its theological context, this theory leaves us with no systematic, uncontroversial way of arguing that wrongdoing is necessarily contrary to reason. (shrink)

In this essay, we provide an overview of how production systems can be re-engineered to improve the welfare of the animals involved. At least three potential options exist: engineering their environments to better fit the animals, engineering the animals themselves to better fit their environments, and eliminating the animals from the system by growing meat in vitro rather than on farms. The morality of consuming animal products and the conditions under which agricultural animals are maintained remain highly contentious, and when (...) concerns about animal welfare are coupled with concerns about sustainability and global food security, the problem of welfare in animal agriculture constitutes “a wicked problem,” because it is unlikely that any proposed solution will simultaneously address all the issues of concern. In the final section of this essay, we offer some observations on how debate over reforms in animal agriculture could proceed going forward. (shrink)

The authors discuss the political, moral, cultural, and legal aspects of the United States' response to the attacks of September 11.

In a 2012 review article, Anthony P. Maingot made a case for each generation rewriting history according to its own needs and preoccupations. Everyone, he suggested, has their own C.L.R. James. Everyone, perhaps, except students of international relations and international history, where references to James’s copious and critical body of work are less common. In the spirit of finding one’s own James, this article employs The Black Jacobins and James’s other magnum opus, World Revolution,1917–1936: The Rise and Fall of the (...) Communist International, to think historically about two interrelated processes of the twentieth century: the rise of the state, and the relationship between nationalisms and internationalisms. Along with encounters with revolutionary Marxism and pan-Africanism, James bore witness to the challenges of the state, and the tensions between nationalism and internationalism that were so central to understanding the twentieth century. (shrink)

This article contributes to the development of a professional responsibility theory of public relations ethics. Toward that end, we examine the roles of a public relations practitioner as a professional, an institutional advocate, and the public conscience of institutions served. In the article, we review previously suggested theories of public relations ethics and propose a new theory based on the public relations professional's dual obligations to serve client organizations and the public interest.

Many people share the intuition that by turning to works of literature something can be learned about the world. One way to explain the epistemic access to the world that fictional literature provides is by comparing it to thought experiments. Both? thought experiments and works of fiction? might be seen as imaginative exercises which help to find out what would or could happen if certain conditions were met. This comparison of fictional literature with thought experiments provides the point of departure (...) for the contributions in our volume. It contributes to the discussion of an approach that has quite recently entered the field of the philosophy of literature. (shrink)

Introduction -- Global traits of character -- Traits as dispositions -- Situational traits of character -- Situational traits and social psychology -- Situational traits and the friendly consequentialist.

The principle of respect for autonomy is increasingly under siege as a valuable component of healthcare ethics. Its critics charge that it has been elevated to a position out of proportion to its contribution, so that the individual's wishes and rights have come to dominate healthcare decisionmaking, while obligations and responsibilities are ignored or devalued. If we are to salvage respect for autonomy we must find a way to reconnect the individual and the community, rights and responsibilities, in the way (...) we think about, discuss, and make healthcare decisions. (shrink)

This volume provides new sources of knowledge based on Michael Otte’s fundamental insight that understanding the problems of mathematics education – how to teach, how to learn, how to communicate, how to do, and how to represent ...

The current interest in and discussion of virtue ethics suggests that this approach to moral decisionmaking has several distinct advantages as applied to ethical issues in healthcare delivery. For the most part, calls to incorporate the virtues of the healthcare provider in discussions of these issues have sought to supplement rather than totally replace traditional ethical theories, such as the utilitarian focus on maximizing the best overall consequences and the Kantian concern to act on the duty of respect for persons. (...) Including virtue-based ethics in such discussions allows for a more eclectic view of what should be considered in resolving difficult moral problems. As many critics of the purely principle-based approach have noted, real moral dilemmas are usually quite messy and are not easily susceptible to satisfactory resolution solely on the basis of abstract moral theories or principles. (shrink)

Developments in the sequencing of whole genomes and in simultaneously surveying many thousands of transcription and translation products of specific cells have ushered in a conceptual revolution in genetics that rationally introduces top-down, holistic analyses. This emphasized the futility of attempts to reduce genes to structurally discrete entities along the genome, and the need to return to Johannsen's definition of a gene as 'something' that refers to an invariant entity of inheritance and development. We may view genes either as generic (...) terms for units of inheritance whose referents are pragmatic ad hoc and context-dependent, or as (epistemologically) representing entities of cell functions. It is cellular functions that determine the structural referents along the DNA. Structures that happened to secure specific functions that were essential for or conducive to the survival of cells were selected for. With natural selection being the etiological background of genes as functions, genes obtain again their theoretical role as intervening variables, abstractive variables that purely 'summarize' characters. The importance of DNA sequences is that of all possible phenotypes these are the most basic ones from which we can read off the genotype directly. (shrink)

Sixteenth-century Christological debates sought to clarify the philosophical implications of the hypostatic union thesis formulated at Chalcedon. The genus maiesticatum, in particular, permitted that Christ’s created human nature could be said to possess divine attributes and powers. Other systematic regions like theological anthropology were implicated in this concept as well; the elevation of Christ’s human nature provided a conceptual framework for understanding the way divine indwelling might elevate human moral capacities in the elect. Medieval Scholastics after Lombard sought to clarify (...) what type of relation indwelling might be. Was it a hypostatic union as in Christology or something else? At the start of the sixteenth-century, Protestant reformers inherited this question. Their engagement with it demonstrates the systematic implications of Christological metaphysics and clarifies conceptual continuities and shifts that occurred across this historical moment of reform. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Promise of Martin Luther's Political Theology: Freeing Luther from the Modern Political Narrative by Michael Richard LaffinCandace L. KohliThe Promise of Martin Luther's Political Theology: Freeing Luther from the Modern Political Narrative Michael Richard Laffin NEW YORK: BLOOMSBURY / T&T CLARK, 2016. 272 pp. $121.00Is Christianity antagonistic of the political, as Machiavelli, Rousseau, and Nietzsche have all claimed? Michael Laffin argues against this position for "the life-affirming, (...) this worldliness of Christianity" by pointing to the "theologically saturated politics of [Martin] Luther" as one historical possibility (4). In particular, Laffin elevates Luther's notion of the three estates, the locus of sanctification in Luther's thought, and the Reformer's doctrine of the "two ecclesiae" as concepts holding together the "this-worldly" dimension of life with the theological tension of the fall and redemption. In this way, Laffin identifies a truly political life lived in community and a thoroughly theological politics extending from faith in the justifying God (3). Laffin defends Luther against charges of violent individualism (contra John Milbank) and quietism (contra [End Page 202] Jennifer Herdt) by highlighting the importance of the theology of the Word for Luther's treatment of politia. Per Laffin, Luther understands the Word as Christ's radically incarnate presence that transforms this-worldly communities by sanctifying the Christian's affections, which are then lived out in political relationships (chaps. 1–3). The politia therefore becomes a place of encounter with God in which the re-created human heart commits acts of moral beauty that are distinctively Christian (chaps. 4–5).One strength of Laffin's argument is his thoroughgoing critique of the constructed narratives in contemporary political theology and philosophy that construe Luther as the harbinger of modernity's ills, as the inventor of the desocialized individual via his notion of faith and a proponent of quietistic authoritarianism in his elevation of human passivity in justification. By looking outside Luther's classic "political" texts, Laffin shows that careful study of Luther's broader writings on scripture, the sacraments, and ecclesiology actually reveal complex theological theories about the place of the political in realizing the good in human life and community. Both Laffin's critique of Milbank's ontology of violence and his assertion about human moral agency in the politia presuppose, however, that Luther's theological move from justification to sanctification includes the possibility for some kind of real, effectual change in the human person. This requires a metaphysical language capable of describing ontological change, something Laffin negates when he denies Luther's creative reliance on nominalism (39). Laffin wants to assume this ontological change that makes human moral agency possible but restricts himself from engaging the historical realities of Luther's intellectual life that make his assumptions plausible. Laffin's deft critique of Milbanks and Herdt would be strengthened by a more nuanced understanding of Luther's simultaneous critique and use of nominalist theology and philosophy for contemplating human action in both divine and political relations. Here real possibilities exist for showing how Luther used nominalist principles to construct a view of human moral agency for political relationships through the theological locus of sanctification (contra Herdt) by rehabilitating human persons in relation to God (contra Milbanks).Despite this critique, Laffin's book opens up new questions about the historical narratives surrounding the secularization thesis and exactly what we mean by "political theology." Advanced political philosophers, theologians, and Christian ethicists must now reckon with the possibilities he creates for rethinking Luther's place in this narrative and the Reformer's ongoing relevance in current discussions. Laffin prompts these audiences to reconsider the extent to which the political and the theological can and do hold each other in tension, as he shows that Luther does. [End Page 203]Candace L. KohliNorthwestern UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The American Medical Association has provided a list of patient responsibilities, said to be derived from patient autonomy, without providing any justification for this derivation. In this article, the virtue of moral responsibility is proposed as a way to justify these kinds of limits on respect for individual autonomy. The need for such limits is explained by examining the traditional principles of health care ethics. What is missing in health care decision making, and can be provided by the virtue of (...) moral responsibility, is a careful consideration of the impact of individual decisions on particular others and the community, as a whole. The concept of moral responsibility as a virtue is then developed and examples of its application to health care decision making are provided. Finally, the roles of both physicians and health care ethicists in promoting the morally responsible exercise of individual autonomy are explored. (shrink)

First published in 2004, this book is a rigorous textbook on the metaphysics of the mind for advanced students of philosophy, covering the background they need to understand the debates and bringing them to the frontiers of current research. It is also a monograph on the nature of de re and de se states of mind, incorporating material the author published in journals. The short file you will see is only a gateway to more than two dozen other files which (...) are rewrites of the book. (shrink)

: The principle of respect for autonomy has come under increasing attack both within health care ethics, specifically, and as part of the more general communitarian challenge to predominantly liberal values. This paper will demonstrate the importance of respect for autonomy for the social practice of assigning moral responsibility and for the development of moral responsibility as a virtue. Guided by this virtue, the responsible exercise of autonomy may provide a much-needed connection between the individual and the community.

The 21st century has seen a much-increased focus on the importance of ethical behaviour in business, driven by major scandals, calls for stricter regulation and increased demands for improved governance and reporting. In parallel, there are calls for the incorporation of moral and ethical elements in business education and university accreditation bodies and schools are responding. In particular, the explosion of technology change, particularly Internet, social media and beyond have raised many challenges for individuals, organizations and legislators. However, educational responses (...) are varied and little has been done to determine the effectiveness of what has been done. Most responses to this need to provide ethical education follow a cognitive, rule-based approach, often using case-based techniques. This can improve knowledge and understanding of ethical issues, but it may have limited influence on actual behaviour. A relatively new field – Positive Psychology -- provides an alternate perspective, focusing on what is good rather than what is poor behaviour. One Positive Psychology approach, that of Appreciative Inquiry, which has not previously been used in ICT ethics education, offers a promising technique to develop improved moral attitudes and behaviour. This paper reports on a large-scale pedagogical research project that: examines ethical perspectives from philosophy, psychology and pedagogy in the context of ICT professional education; describes the development and multistage implementation of an ethics course in an undergraduate business ICT program delivered to more than 1,200 students; discusses the formal evaluation of changes in moral attitude following a Positive Psychology intervention in the education of some 300 Business ICT students using the Defining Issues Test, Version 2 and the IMIS Survey developed at the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility. The project results demonstrate that a well-designed applied ICT ethics course produces measureable positive changes in the ethical stances of participants and that the use of Appreciative Inquiry increases the impact of these changes. In addition to the relevance of the findings for educators they can provide guidance to those in organisations responsible for the ethical behaviour of their ICT employees. (shrink)

Der deutsch-griechische Philosophiehistoriker und politische Denker Panajotis Kondylis lebte von 1943 bis 1998. Er hat ein umfangreiches Werk hinterlassen, in das die einzelnen Aufsätze des Bandes einführen. "Die Urteile von Kondylis zeichnen sich aus durch Nüchternheit und einen Ernüchterungseffekt, durch Klarheit der Argumente und ihre Begründung, durch Unbestechlichkeit einer offenen Parteinahme jenseits aller modischen Schwankungen und Zumutungen. Seine wissenssoziologisch aufregende These, dass sich Identitäten ändern können oder sukzessive auswechselbar werden, während die reale Existenz einer Person sich durchhält, dieser erfahrungsgesättigte Satz (...) beruht auf seiner ganz persönlichen Leistung, nämlich seine eigene Existenz nie aufgegeben oder gewechselt oder gar verraten zu haben". (shrink)