A limiting factor in ethics education in medical training has been difficulty in assessing competence in ethics. This study was conducted to test the concept that content analysis of pediatric residents’ personal reflections about ethics experiences can identify changes in ethical sensitivity and reasoning over time. Analysis of written narratives focused on two of our ethics curriculum’s goals: 1) To raise sensitivity to ethical issues in everyday clinical practice and 2) to enhance critical reflection on personal and professional values as (...) they affect patient care. Content analysis of written reflections was guided by a tool developed to identify and assess the level of ethical reasoning in eight domains determined to be important aspects of ethical competence. Based on the assessment of narratives written at two times (12 to 16 months/apart) during their training, residents showed significant progress in two specific domains: use of professional values, and use of personal values. Residents did not show decline in ethical reasoning in any domain. This study demonstrates that content analysis of personal narratives may provide a useful method for assessment of developing ethical sensitivity and reasoning. (shrink)

Nancy Scheper-Hughes is one of the most prominent critics of markets in human organs. Unfortunately, Scheper-Hughes rejects the view that markets should be used to solve the current shortage of transplant organs without engaging with the arguments in favour of them. Scheper-Hughes’s rejection of such markets is of especial concern, given her influence over their future, for she holds, among other positions, the status of an adviser to the World Health Organization on issues related to global transplantation. Given her influence, (...) it is important that Scheper-Hughes’s moral condemnation of markets in human organs be subject to critical assessment. Such critical assessment, however, has not generally been forthcoming. A careful examination of Scheper-Hughes’s anti-market stance shows that it is based on serious mischaracterisations of both the pro-market position and the medical and economic realities that underlie it. In this paper, the author will expose and correct these mischaracterisations and, in so doing, show that her objections to markets in human organs are unfounded. (shrink)

This paper argues that professionals who make boundary-related decisions should be guided by relationship-based practice. In our roles as service users and professionals, drawing from our lived experiences of professional relationships, we argue we need to move away from distance-based practice. This includes understanding the boundary stories and narratives that exist for all of us – including the people we support, other professionals, as well as the organisations and systems within which we work. When we are dealing with professional boundary (...) issues, we should centre relationship-building skills that are central to many other aspects of our work. Skills that foster relationships at all levels – between professionals, service users, and services – need to be revalued. Our final recommendation is to create, develop, and foster safer spaces within and outside of organisations, as well as inter-professionally, for the discussion and exploration of boundary-related issues and practice. We are interested in hearing from those with experiences of being marginalised by boundaries so that they can inform a reshaping of our collective ideas around boundary related practices. To foster relationship-based practices in organisations, we have outlined several recommendations here; however, we recognize that these do not go far enough, and that collective action is needed to inform systemic change. (shrink)

In this paper I develop and defend my arguments in favor of the moral permissibility of a legal market for human body parts in response to the criticisms that have been leveled at them by Paul M. Hughes and Samuel J. Kerstein.

In the recent literature of environmental ethics, certain criticisms of pragmatism in general and Dewey in particular have been made, specifically, that certain features of pragmatism make it unsuitable as an environmental ethic. Eric Katz asserts that pragmatism is an inherently anthropocentric and subjective philosophy. Bob Pepperman Taylor argues that Dewey’s naturalism in particular is anthropocentric in that it concentrates on human nature. I challenge both of these views in the context of Dewey’s naturalism. I discuss his naturalism, his (...) critique of subjectivity, his naturalization of intrinsic value, and his holistic treatment of justification. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to extract from Taylor's writings a critique of Kuhn's suggestion of the possible unity of the natural and the human sciences, and from Kuhn a critique of Taylor's account of the natural sciences. An outcome of this enterprise will be a re-construal of the unity of the sciences.O objetivo do artigo é o de extrair dos escritos de Taylor uma crítica da concepção de Kuhn a respeito de uma possível unidade entre (...) as ciências naturais e as ciências humanas, e dos de Kuhn uma crítica à caracterização proposta por Taylor para as ciências naturais. Deste empreendimento resulta uma reconceptualização da unidade das ciências. (shrink)

This paper attempts to show that Charles Taylor’s persuasive and expansive phenomenology, developed primarily in his Sources of the Self, ultimately depends upon an ontology of the human person that remains undeveloped, as he often admits. His fundamentalphilosophical claims stand finally as postulates of practical reason, which nevertheless depend upon a dialogical practice that is grounded in the dialogical nature of the human person. This phenomenological and ethical approach raises persistent epistemological and metaphysical questions. What Taylor does not (...) admit, and what this paper will propose in his stead, is that a more systematic metaphysics in the existential Thomist tradition can help support philosophically both his explicit and implicit ontological claims regarding the nature of the human person. (shrink)

In the recent literature of environmental ethics, certain criticisms of pragmatism in general and Dewey in particular have been made, specifically, that certain features of pragmatism make it unsuitable as an environmental ethic. Eric Katz asserts that pragmatism is an inherently anthropocentric and subjective philosophy. Bob Pepperman Taylor argues that Dewey’s naturalism in particular is anthropocentric in that it concentrates on human nature. I challenge both of these views in the context of Dewey’s naturalism. I discuss his naturalism, his (...) critique of subjectivity, his naturalization of intrinsic value, and his holistic treatment of justification. (shrink)

Multiculturalism is often thought to be defined by its commitment to diversity, inclusivity, sensitivity, and tolerance, but these established values sometimes require contrary practices of homogenization, exclusion, insensitivity, and intolerance. Multiculturalism in Canada clarifies what multiculturalism is by relating it to more basic principles of equality, freedom, recognition, authenticity, and openness. Forbes places both official Canadian multiculturalism and Quebec's semi-official interculturalism in their historical and constitutional setting, examines their relations to liberal democratic core values, and outlines a variety of practical (...) measures that would make Canada a more open country and a better illustration of what a commitment to egalitarian cultural pluralism now means. Consisting of a series of connected essays-including careful considerations of the works of Will Kymlicka and Charles Taylor-this book provides the first comprehensive account of multiculturalism in Canada. (shrink)

The essays in this volume offer a range of new perspectives on Charles Taylor's philosophy. Part one addresses key metaphilosophical themes such as the role of transcendental arguments, the critique of representationalism, and the dialectics of Enlightenment. Part two critically examines Taylor's views on personhood, selfhood and interpersonal recognition. Part three discusses issues in Taylor's moral and political theory, including the nature of his moral realism, his theory of modernity, and his critical appropriation of the liberal tradition. (...) The book concludes with an interview with Taylor in which he summarizes his work and comments on some key contemporary issues. (shrink)

I have been told that for some twenty minutes after reading this paper Kripke believed I had shown that proper names could be non-rigid designators. (Then, apparently, he found a crucial error in the set-up.) I take great pride in this (alleged) fact.

Nussbaum seems to have had a spell during which she made villains heroes (and sometimes visa versa). Thus she has argued, in effect, that Steerforth is the hero of David Copperfield, and Heathcliff the most admirable character in Wuthering Heights. Here I discuss her more or less explicit claim that Alcibiades is the hero, (and Socrates the villain) in Plato’s Symposium. -/- .

I would like to get this published somewhere; but who would publish it?

In Analysis, Vol. 45, June 1984, George Rea published a paper attacking my claim that there could be ‘indeterminate minds'. This paper is a reply to his attack. I claim, again, that such ‘minds’ are possible – entities such that it is indeterminate whether or not these entities are people with minds. -/- .

In 1974 Putnam was a ‘realist’ in regard to the physical world. By 1981 he had become a 'non-realist' in this regard. (I don’t know where he stands today.) In this paper I argue that his realism was more plausible than his non-realism. The physical world is what it is independently of any rational being’s interpretation of it.

Parfit’s well known book, Reasons and Persons, argues, among other things, that ‘what matters’ in regard to ‘survival’ is not personal identity but something he calls ‘relation R.’ On this basis, plus other considerations, he rejects the ‘Self-interest’ theory as to what should be our aim in life. Here I show, or try to show, that his over-all argument is seriously defective. In particular, he fails to prove that personal identity is not what matters for survival.

It seems clear that second order fuzziness (indeterminacy) is possible. There can be borderline cases of borderline cases. But how about third order cases? Is there no end of degrees of borderlinehood? I offer a somewhat strange little 'language game' that seems to suggest that the ascension ends with second order cases. (The 'game' is intended to be somewhat like a simplified version of color perception.).

Descartes thought he could suppose he was the victim of massive deception in regard to the external world. In fact he undertakes the supposing of it.I will … suppose that … a certain evil spirit, not less clever and deceitful than powerful, has bent all his efforts to deceiving me. I will think that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds, and all other external things are nothing but illusions and dreams that he has used to trick my (...) credulity. I will regard myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, but believing falsely that I have all these things.Seated comfortably by his fire, Descartes imagines a remote possibility. Perhaps he is just a mind in the clutches of a deceiving demon. If Descartes is this man lounging here in his dressing gown, he is not vastly deceived; but if he is that mind, he is deceived indeed. The two possibilities are taken to be experientially indiscernible; and Descartes is assuming that the contents of his beliefs and the senses of his claims remain the same in either case. Thus, for example, whether he is this man or that mind, he believes he has two hands. But, and this is crucial, his belief is false if he is that mind, and true if he is this man. We begin to see what is required of cartesian semantics, and cartesian theories of the content of belief. (shrink)