In a recent keynote speech Paul Standish noted ‘there is agreement in judgments. But how the response to those judgments is realised is always cultural’. Making judgments about what constitutes ‘crisis’ for children is not necessarily agreed universally, though clearly there are some commonalities across many countries, as evident in United Nations on the Convention of the Rights of the Child agreements. This article examines the local rhetoric and reality of ‘crisis’ for children in countries across the world. What constitutes (...) a crisis for children, and how this plays out in the contexts of nine countries is explored by the authors based on the insights of each countries’ Chapter representatives. Policies will be juxtaposed with provision based on the experiences of OMEP members reporting from their various contexts. Taken together they provide a contextualised perspective on ‘crisis’ and its relationship to a non-absolutist foundation to children’s rights. The article concludes that what constitutes crisis from a global perspective warrants consideration in the context of local reality—in this locale the concept of every child as having access to ‘rights’ is far from realisation. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to understand how governance mechanisms in cross-sector collaborations (CSCs) for sustainability affect value creation and capture and subsequently the survival of this organizational form. Drawing on a longitudinal, participatory, single-case study of collaborative action in the textile industry, we identify three governance mechanisms—safeguarding, bundling and connecting—that coevolve with the rising and waning of collaborative tensions and the shifting levels of action in the CSC we studied. These mechanisms aided value creation and helped facilitate private (...) value capture. We integrate these insights into a process model that visualizes the interplay between governance mechanisms of tensions and systems of value creation and capture in CSCs for sustainability. Our study contributes to the cross-sector collaboration literature by providing a dynamic and nuanced understanding of how governance mechanisms influence outcomes in CSCs for sustainability. We also add to the business model for sustainability literature by theorizing the value creation and capture system of collaborative rather than individual organizations. Our findings have important implications for policymakers who fund collaborative organizations and practitioners who manage or participate in them. (shrink)

Mythical stories are, according to Luce Irigaray, one source where the matrix of repression, desire and correction of the female body is made visible. The Book of Revelation is one of the parts of the Bible told in a typical mythical language framework. It is also one of the most infamous biblical books because of its misogynist approach and repeated use of female stereotypes such as the whore and the pure bride. The purpose of this article is not to deny (...) the validity of this feminist critique, but to open up the meaning of the story of Revelation from an Irigarayan perspective as also to include possibilities of a counter-story where phallocentrism is challenged and finally altered into a new era where women, as well as other previously objectified categories, are aware of themselves as subjects in their own right. (shrink)

Ethical dilemmas are part of medicine, but the type of challenges, the frequency of their occurrence and the nuances in the difficulties have not been systematically studied in low-income settings. The objective of this paper was to map out the ethical dilemmas from the perspective of Ethiopian physicians working in public hospitals. A national survey of physicians from 49 public hospitals using stratified, multi-stage sampling was conducted in six of the 11 regions in Ethiopia. Descriptive statistics were used and the (...) responses to the open-ended question “If you have experienced any ethical dilemma, can you please describe a dilemma you have encountered in your own words?” were analyzed using a template analysis process. A total of 587 physicians responded, and 565 met the inclusion criteria. Twelve of 24 specified ethically challenging situations were reported to be experienced often or sometimes by more than 50% of the physicians. The most frequently reported challenge concerned resource distribution: 93% agreed that they often or sometimes had to make difficult choices due to resource limitation, and 83% often or sometimes encountered difficulties because patients were unable to pay for the preferred course of treatment. Other frequently reported difficulties were doubts about doing good or harming the patient, relating to conflicting views, concern for family welfare, disclosure issues and caring for patients not able to consent. Few reported dilemmas related to end-of-life issues. The 200 responses to the open-ended question mirrored the quantitative results. Ethiopian physicians report ethical challenges related more to bedside rationing and fairness concerns than futility discussions and conflicts about autonomy as described in studies from high-income countries. In addition to the high report of experienced challenges, gravity of the dilemmas that are present in their narratives are striking. Recognition of the everyday experiences of physicians in low-income settings should prompt the development of ethics teaching and support mechanisms, discussion of ethical guidelines as well as increase our focus on how to improve the grave resource scarcity they describe. (shrink)

Continuing medico-technical progress has led toan increasing medicalisation of pregnancy andchildbirth. One of the most common technologiesin this context is ultrasound. Based on someidentified `pro-technology feminist theories',notably the postmodernist feminist discourse,the technology of ultrasound is analysedfocusing mainly on social and political ratherthan clinical issues. As empirical researchsuggests, ultrasound is welcomed by themajority of women. The analysis, however, showsthat attitudes and decisions of women areinfluenced by broader social aspects. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the visualtechnology of ultrasound, in addition to otherreproductive technology (...) in maternity care, islinked to the `personification' of the foetusand has therefore contributed to a new image ofthe foetus. The exploration of these issueschallenges some arguments of feministdiscourse. It draws attention to possibleadverse implications of the technology forwomen's reproductive freedom and indicates theimportance of the topic for politicaldiscussions. (shrink)

Many people who claim to genuinely care about nature still seem reluctant to ascribe intrinsic value to it. Environmentalists, nature friendly people in general, and even environmental activists, often hesitate at the idea that nature possesses value in its own right—value that is not reducible to its importance to human or other sentient beings. One crucial explanation of this reluctance is probably the thought that such value—at least when attached to nature—would be mysterious in one way or another, or at (...) least very difficult to account for. In addition, Bryan Norton’s influential convergence hypothesis states that, from a practical point of view, it makes no or little difference whether we ascribe intrinsic value to nature, given the depth and variety of instrumental value it possesses. In this paper, I argue that people who genuinely care about nature cannot avoid ascribing intrinsic value (in a certain sense) to it, if they want to be able to consistently defend the kind of claims about protecting nature they arguably want to make, i.e., claims to the effect that we ought to protect for instance nature areas and species. The cost of denying intrinsic value in nature is the cost of giving up a crucial resource to philosophically defend such claims. (shrink)

Human embryos produced in labs since the 1970s have generated layers of uncertainty for law and policy: ontological, moral, and administrative. Ontologically, these lab-made entities fall into a gray zone between life and not-yet-life. Should in vitro embryos be treated as inanimate matter, like abandoned postsurgical tissue, or as private property? Morally, should they exist largely outside of state control in the zone of free reproductive choice or should they be regarded as autonomous human lives and thus entitled to constitutional (...) protection like full-fledged citizens? Administratively, if they deserve protection, what institutional and policy mechanisms are best suited to carrying out the necessary oversight? Using a method termed comparative problematization, this article traces divergent answers to these questions produced in three countries—the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany—across the last twenty-five years. Comparison reveals distinct bioconstitutional foundations that give rise to systematically different understandings of each state’s responsibilities toward human life and hence its particular treatment of claims on behalf of embryonic lives. (shrink)

Background:The global COVID-19 pandemic has imposed challenges on healthcare systems and professionals worldwide and introduced a ´maelstrom´ of ethical dilemmas. How ethically demanding situations are handled affects employees’ moral stress and job satisfaction.Aim:Describe priority-setting dilemmas, moral distress and support experienced by nurses and physicians across medical specialties in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Western Norway.Research design:A cross-sectional hospital-based survey was conducted from 23 April to 11 May 2020.Ethical considerations:Ethical approval granted by the Regional Research Ethics Committee in (...) Western Norway (131421).Findings:Among the 1606 respondents, 67% had experienced priority-setting dilemmas the previous two weeks. Healthcare workers who were directly involved in COVID-19 care, were redeployed or worked in psychiatry/addiction medicine experienced it more often. Although 59% of the respondents had seen adverse consequences due to resource scarcity, severe consequences were rare. Moral distress levels were generally low (2.9 on a 0–10 scale), but higher in selected groups (redeployed, managers and working in psychiatry/addiction medicine). Backing from existing collegial and managerial structures and routines, such as discussions with colleagues and receiving updates and information from managers that listened and acted upon feedback, were found more helpful than external support mechanisms. Priority-setting guidelines were also helpful.Discussion:By including all medical specialties, nurses and physicians, and various institutions, the study provides information on how the COVID-19 mitigation also influenced those not directly involved in the COVID-19 treatment of patients. In the next stages of the pandemic response, support for healthcare professionals directly involved in outbreak-affected patients, those redeployed or those most impacted by mitigation strategies must be a priority.Conclusion:Empirical research of healthcare workers experiences under a pandemic are important to identify groups at risks and useful support mechanisms. (shrink)

Ever since environmental ethics began to take form as an academic discipline in the early 1970s, the notion of intrinsic value has occupied a prominent position within the field. Recently, however, various types of critique have emerged within EE against invoking this notion. Contrary to these critiques, I argue that appeals to intrinsic value are not problematic, given the reason-implying sense of 'intrinsic value' that is most relevant to EE. I further argue that also those who criticise 'intrinsic-value-talk' in EE (...) actually need this reason-implying concept of intrinsic value. However, once we realise that this is the sense of 'intrinsic value' that is most relevant to EE, it also becomes clear that it is the concept of a reason, rather than that of intrinsic value, that is most important to EE. (shrink)

This commentary focuses upon the ‘fetishism of persons’ in Marx which Balibar claims both mirrors and animates the better-known fetishism of things. Revisiting the chapter on exchange in which Balibar grounds his thesis, the essay attends to the theatrical metaphors by which Marx presents legal personhood as a pantomime of commodity fetishism. The essay demonstrates how the movable immobility of the commodity comes to life in its inverse, the mobile and immovable figure of the legal person; it then claims that (...) this inversion positions legal persons as animate props for property. But if legal persons, the essay asks, merely personify economic relations, by what means are they sufficiently distanced from commodities to be able to become their reflex and puppet? In other words, what vestibule keeps personal liberty’s analogy with economic relations from collapsing into identity? A significant historical answer, the essay asserts, is transatlantic chattel slavery—not only because this institution is both ideological foil to, and material basis for, liberal capital, but also because the slave herself, as animate property, undoes the distinction between persons and commodities. The essay concludes by insisting upon the significance of this neglected figure in philosophies of the transindividual, while also taking first steps toward a transindividual analysis of slavery. (shrink)

This essay examines the early reception of Scheler’s anthropological thought in Spain. The article traces the two main ways of reception of Scheler’s work in the School of Madrid and the School of Barcelona. I argue that, on the one hand, the Spanish translations of the works of the early phenomenologists – Scheler was a central figure among them – contributed to the diffusion of Scheler’s thought; and that, on the other hand, the Spanish authors subjected Scheler’s thought to a (...) critical assimilation and further developments. Scheler influenced the Spanish philosophy of the human affectivity, in which the capacity to feel, the values and love as a kernel of the human being occupy an exceptional position. This reception shows the originality of Spanish authors that incorporate Scheler’s ideas to their anthropological interest and develop these ideas in the direction of their own phenomenological anthropology. (shrink)

In a recent article in Utilitas, Gerald Lang suggests a solution to the so-called (WKR problem) for the buck-passing account of value. In two separate replies to Lang, Jonas Olson and John Brunero, respectively, point out serious problems with Lang's suggestion, and at least Olson concludes that the solution Lang opts for is of the wrong kind for solving the WKR problem. I argue that while both Olson and Brunero have indeed identified considerable flaws in Lang's suggestion for a solution (...) to the WKR problem, they have not provided sufficient grounds for dismissing the kind of solution that Lang proposes. I show how a version of this kind of solution can be formulated so as to avoid both Olson's and Brunero's objections. I also raise some worries concerning an alternative solution to the WKR problem suggested by Sven Danielsson and Jonas Olson. (shrink)

Stakeholder participation is an increasingly popular ingredient within environmental management and decision-making. While much has been written about its purported benefits, a question that has been largely neglected is whether decision-making informed through stakeholder participation is actually likely to yield decisions that are morally justified in their own right. Using moral methodology as a starting point, we argue that stakeholder participation in environmental decision-making may indeed be an appropriate means to produce morally justified decisions, the reason being that such participation (...) may constitute an efficient way to satisfy the standard requirements on moral reasoning and moral justification. This finding also emphasizes the importance of identifying those settings most conducive to allowing different stakeholders to both challenge each other’s arguments and to adopt each other’s perspectives in order to make effective use of participation in environmenta... (shrink)

This article analyses the general ethical milieu in a nursing home for elderly residents and provides a decision-making model for analysing the ethical situations that arise. It considers what it means for the residents to live together and for the staff to be in ethically problematic situations when caring for residents. An interpretative phenomenological approach and Sandman’s ethical model proved useful for this purpose. Systematic observations were carried out and interpretation of the general ethical milieu was summarized as ‘being in (...) the same world without meeting’. Two themes and four subthemes emerged from the analysis. Three different ethical problems were analysed. The outcome of using the decision-making model highlighted the discrepancy between the solutions used and well-founded solutions to these problems. An important conclusion that emerged from this study was the need for a structured tool for reflection. (shrink)

This study investigated attitudes toward the use of deception in negotiation, with particular attention to the distinction between deception regarding the informational elements of the interaction (e.g., lying about or misrepresenting needs or preferences) and deception about emotional elements (e.g., misrepresenting one's emotional state). We examined how individuals judge the relative ethical appropriateness of these alternative forms of deception, and how these judgments relate to negotiator performance and long-run reputation. Individuals viewed emotionally misleading tactics as more ethically appropriate to use (...) in negotiation than informational deception. Approval of deception predicted negotiator performance in a negotiation simulation and also general reputation as a negotiator, but the nature of these relationships depended on the kind of deception involved. (shrink)

In this article, a teleological model for analysis of everyday ethical situations in dementia care is used to analyse and clarify perennial ethical problems in nursing home care for persons with dementia. This is done with the aim of describing how such a model could be useful in a concrete care context. The model was developed by Sandman and is based on four aspects: the goal; ethical side-constraints to what can be done to realize such a goal; structural constraints; and (...) nurses’ ethical competency. The model contains the following main steps: identifying and describing the normative situation; identifying and describing the different possible alternatives; assessing and evaluating the different alternatives; and deciding on, implementing and evaluating the chosen alternative. Three ethically difficult situations from dementia care were used for the application of the model. The model proved useful for the analysis of nurses’ everyday ethical dilemmas and will be further explored to evaluate how well it can serve as a tool to identify and handle problems that arise in nursing care. (shrink)

Environmental pragmatists have presented environmental pragmatism as a new philosophical position, arguing that theoretical debates in environmental philosophy are hindering the ability of the environmental movement to forge agreement on basic policy imperatives. Hence, they aim to lead environmental philosophers away from such theoretical debates, and toward more practical—and pragmatically motivated—ones. However, a position with such an aim is not a proper philosophical position at all, given that philosophy (among other things) is an effort to get clear on the problems (...) that puzzle us. (shrink)

My dissertation, “Love, Self-Constitution, and Practical Necessity,” offers an interpretation of love between people. Love is puzzling because it appears to involve essentially both rational and non-rational phenomena. We are accountable to those we love, so love seems to participate in forms of necessity, commitment, and expectation, which are associated with morality. But non-rational attitudes—forms of desire, attraction, and feeling—are also central to love. Consequently, love is not obviously based in rationality or inclination. In contrast to views that attempt to (...) fit love into existing models of practical reasoning, I argue that love participates in a unique form of practical necessity, different from both moral and psychological necessity, yet bearing resemblances to each. Distinctive to this type of practical necessity is a direct appeal to another particular person that cannot be delivered in third-personal terms—that is, a non-moral yet normative type of expectation on another person. This type of expectation is predominant in loving relationships, but can also make better sense of the experiences of humor and beauty, as well as attitudes like forgiveness, gratitude, and agent-regret. I treat Immanuel Kant’s discussion of the experience of beauty in the Critique of Judgment and Christine Korsgaard’s work on self-constitution as fruitful starting points for this account of love. I conclude that our loving relationships enable us to have distinctive personal selves, and provide support for this account of love by offering a complementary theory of grief. In Part One of the dissertation, I focus on two prominent approaches to love characteristic of the sentimentalist and rationalist traditions. I begin with the work of David Hume, which treats desire (understood as something like a simple impulse or craving) as the paradigmatic mental state, and emphasizes our personal and affective dimensions. Hume has the valuable insight that loving someone affects our sense of ourselves. But Hume’s view becomes unsatisfying when he claims that love is essentially enfeebling, implying that to love is to be passive toward and readily overcome by another person. While this indicates Hume’s awareness that love involves being open and receptive to another person, the problem is that love is also a demanding attitude. Hume lacks the conceptual resources to offer a nuanced view of the self, in which we can—with one attitude—be both demanding of and vulnerable to another person. Hume’s model of a desire-based deliberative process has recently been revived in Harry Frankfurt’s discussions on love and rationality. Frankfurt, however, goes beyond Hume’s picture of the self by introducing a notion of “identification,” which he offers to make sense of our apparent ability to commit ourselves decisively to certain projects or people. I argue that active powers like identification and commitment cannot be accommodated within any basically Humean moral psychology. Such abilities, and with them the possibility of love, depend on something closer to a Kantian conception of rational agency. I next focus on the work of Kant, who provides the substantial counterpart to Humean-inspired moral theories, but is not known for his insight into our emotional lives. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant divides love into “practical love”—what we experience when we are morally motivated to help someone—and “pathological love”—what we experience when we feel fond of something. But in reality, we experience love neither as a mere preference for another person, nor as something that generates the kind of demands that would be binding on any rational creature. David Velleman attempts to remedy the deficiency of Kant’s dichotomy. Velleman offers a Kantian theory in which he describes love and respect as two ends of a continuum of attitudes that it is morally appropriate to have toward people. Velleman’s view has the peculiar implication that everyone deserves the love of everyone else, and I argue that this is a fatal flaw. Like Kant and Velleman, Korsgaard characterizes personal love as involving the treatment of other people as Kantian ends-in-themselves to a heightened degree. Korsgaard, though, also contends that our individual identities depend upon our personal relationships, and I take this position seriously for the remainder of the dissertation. Ultimately, however, characterizations of loving relations as subsets of moral relations can account for the authority of the demands of love, but not its particularity. The major conclusion of Part One is that any attempt to understand love primarily on a model of practical reasoning with which we are already familiar is doomed to fail. Our experience of love calls for a theory of a unique type of practical necessity. In Part Two I take seriously the possibility that love is simultaneously inescapable (in something like the way morality is supposed to be), and yet ineluctably personal. In love, we experience an engagement with a person as essentially particular, rather than as an instance of a rational agent in general. To make sense of this direct attachment to an individual, I argue that love involves distinctive forms of expectation and disappointment. When those we love let us down, they hurt our feelings, which is not a response to a failed prediction, but nor is it a reaction to a moral insult or offense. According to Peter Strawson and Stephen Darwall, second-personal moral reactive attitudes (such as resentment) always have third-personal analogues (such as indignation). In contrast, I argue that the type of hurt feelings associated with love is a second-personal reactive attitude that does not have a third-personal corollary. I take this as evidence that the expectations involved in love are not objective in the way that the moral is objective. Nor, however, is love a matter of mere preference. On my interpretation, Kant introduces this different type of expectation in the Critique of Judgment. Whereas he characterizes moral judgments as universally communicable, judgments of beauty implicitly involve only second-personal address: I appeal to your direct experience with a particular object. This provides the conceptual space for an account of love according to which it involves a uniquely second-personal form of practical necessity. I contend that the second-personal addresses we make in love are appeals to strengthen the intimacy implicit in the loving relationship, and I identify three interrelated dimensions of that intimacy. First, those we love have the standing to interpret us in a constitutive manner. We fine-tune and make determinate the character of our concerns and interests in part by accepting the interpretations provided by those we love. In that way, the people we love have the normative power to constitute who we are. Second, we share a perspective with those we love in a way that is not reducible to or derivative of our independent perspectives. Loving someone centrally involves the activity of forming concerns together, and we do this in a mode best understood on the model of playing a spontaneous game or improvising music. Finally, being loved enables us to see ourselves as distinctive and special, because the concern those who love us have for us does not track the objective merit of our characteristics. These dimensions of the intimacy that characterizes a loving relationship reveal what it is that we appeal for in love, and how we are hurt when our appeals are rebuffed. In broad terms, this dissertation advocates the recognition of a non-moral yet normative type of expectation, which is predominant in loving relationships. Humor and beauty, too, make more sense when understood in terms of this non-moral yet normative type of expectation, as they involve appeals to others that are more than mere predictions of, but less than rational demands for, a certain kind of response. Introducing this alternative notion of expectation into the discourse of moral philosophy can shed light on other common attitudes that are clearly normative, but defy translation into objective, third-personal terms. Such attitudes include certain experiences of pride and shame, apology and forgiveness, the bestowing of mercy, gratitude, agent-regret, and perhaps a basic sense of trust we have in others. Ultimately, I situate love in respect to grief, which demonstrates my theory’s ability to make sense of related dimensions of our emotional lives. The people we love and grieve over give us a sense of who we are as distinctive, particular individuals, as the three interrelated dimensions of intimacy in loving relationships reveal. Consequently, grief is best understood as a type of practical disorientation—namely, a disorientation that involves the loss of the personal self. I present my account of grief against the type of account that would draw philosophical conclusions about the nature of love and grief from empirical psychological data alone. In particular, these data indicate that we recover quickly from the deaths of loved ones, and Dan Moller draws the philosophical conclusion that those we love fulfill certain roles in our lives and are replaceable. In contrast, I contend that while we should acknowledge the truth of the objective judgment, made in the third-person, that we will likely recover after the deaths of those we love, it does not follow that we must affirm such a claim from the internal perspective of one person who loves another. As a result, the case of love and grief supports a general claim concerning the proper work of moral philosophy, which is that the understanding of ourselves gained through empirical data is not a substitute for the normative conclusions that are revealed through first-personal reflections on our relationships. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 249-270, June 2022.

For many, the Holocaust made thinking about ethics in traditional ways impossible. It called into question the predominance of speculative ontology in Western thought, and left many arguing that Western political, cultural and philosophical inattention to universal ethics were both a cause and an effect of European civilization's collapse in the twentieth century. Emmanuel Levinas, Elie Wiesel and Richard Rubenstein respond to this problem by insisting that ethics must be Western thought's first concern. Unlike previous thinkers, they locate humanity's source (...) of universal ethical obligation in the temporal world of experience, where human suffering, rather than metaphysics, provides the ground for ethical engagement. All three thinkers contend that Judaism’s key lesson is that our fellow human is our responsibility, and use Judaism to develop a contemporary ethics that could operate with or without God. _Ethics and Suffering since the Holocaust_ explores selected works of Levinas, Wiesel, and Rubenstein for practical applications of their ethics, analyzing the role of suffering and examining the use each thinker makes of Jewish sources and the advantages and disadvantages of this use. Finally, it suggests how the work of Jewish thinkers living in the wake of the Holocaust can be of unique value to those interested in the problem of ethics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Presenting a thorough investigation of the work of Levinas, Wiesel and Rubinstein, this book is of key interest to students and scholars of Jewish studies, as well as Jewish ethics and philosophy. (shrink)

During the past decade, screening tests using computed tomography have disseminated into practice and been marketed to patients despite neither conclusive evidence nor professional agreement about their efficacy and cost-effectiveness at the population level. This phenomenon raises questions about physicians' professional roles and responsibilities within the setting of medical innovation, as well as the appropriate scope of patient autonomy and access to unproven screening technology. This article explores how physicians ought to respond when new screening examinations that lack conclusive evidence (...) of overall population benefit emerge in the marketplace and are requested by individual patients. To this end, the article considers the nature of evidence and how it influences decision-making for screening at both the public policy and individual patient levels. We distinguish medical and ethical differences between screening recommended for a population and screening considered on an individual patient basis. Finally, we discuss specific cases to explore how evidence, patient risk factors and preferences, and physician judgment ought to balance when making individual patient screening decisions. (shrink)

The subject-matter of this essay is the moral status of nature. This subject is dealt with in terms of normative reasons. The main question is if there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in addition to the numerous indirect normative reasons that there are for doing so. Roughly, if there is some such reason, and that reason applies to any moral agent, then nature has direct moral status as I use the phrase. I develop the notions of direct (...) normative reason and direct moral status in detail and identify and discuss the two main types of theory according to which nature has direct moral status: analogy-based nature-considerism and non-analogy-based nature-considerism. I argue for the plausibility of a particular version of the latter, but against the plausibility of any version of the former. The theory that is representative of AN claims that nature has direct moral status in virtue of possessing interests. Proponents of this theory fail to show that nature has interests of the kind that they reasonably want to ascribe to it, and that interests of this kind are morally significant. In contrast to AN, NN comes in a variety of different forms. I elaborate a version of NN according to which there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in virtue of its unique complexity, and its indispensability. I argue that even if these reasons should turn out not to apply to any moral agent, they are still genuine direct normative reasons: there is nothing irrational or misdirected about them. Finally, I show how the question of whether there are direct normative reasons to care for nature is relevant to private and political decision-making concerning nature. This is exemplified with a case from the Swedish mountain region. (shrink)

Ever since environmental ethics began to emerge as a philosophical discipline in the 1970s, one of the most common projects of environmental ethicists has been to formulate theories according to which nature (or some non-human natural entities) possesses intrinsic value. However, from time to time we have seen efforts to refute this project, the claim being that not only are the particular theories suggested flawed, but the very idea of intrinsic value in nature—at least in some allegedly important sense of (...) “intrinsic value”—is in principle indefensible (e.g. Norton 1984; Thompson 1990; Regan 1992; Jamieson 1998). In previous work I have criticized several of these alleged refutations of the view that nature .. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to obtain an increased understanding of the experiences of elderly people in geriatric care, with special reference to integrity. Data were collected through qualitative interviews with elderly people and, in order to obtain a description of caregivers’ integrity-promoting or non-promoting behaviours, participant observations and qualitative interviews with nursing students were undertaken. Earlier studies on the integrity of elderly people mainly concentrated on their personal and territorial space, so Kihlgren and Thorsén opened up the possibility (...) of considering the concept of integrity from a broader view by recognizing its relationship to the larger framework of the self-concept. Based on this, findings in the present study indicate that elderly people’s integrity relating to their corporal self were the least violated. On the other hand, their psycological, information and cultural selves were the most exposed. The study also identified a further dimension (i.e. one relating to social self), which should be included in the concept of integrity because respecting elderly people’s social self reduces their feelings of loneliness, isolation and seclusion. In summary, the results indicate that the concept of integrity is complex and has several dimensions. (shrink)

This paper explores how preschools can be purposefully designed to aid cultural learning through guided play practices. In recent literature, there has been a renowned interest in the role of the exogenous environment in psychological processes, including learning. The idea that the design of preschools can meaningfully be seen as cultural niche construction and that guided play practices in these environments can aid the preparation for cultural action, is promoted, and a theoretical framework is presented. The empirical data draw from (...) a synthesis from three ethnographic research sites in multilingual communities, and data are used to explore how cultural affordances are used in designed environments as part of guided play practices. The results indicate how niche construction of affordances aid cultural learning and is achieved through both direct guided play interaction between teachers and children, but also in the way of the indirect design of environments that is incorporated in children’s peer play. It is discussed what this means for play research as well as for guided play practices that aim to promote cultural learning. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the ability to master a set of methods for moral reasoning as a form of ethical competence. These methods can be roughly assembled under the headings information, vividness, and coherence. We distinguish between the theoretical characterization of ethical competence and what we take to be its practical role and argue that the ability to master these methods fits the theoretical characterization of such competence as well as fulfils its practical role. An important upshot of this (...) result is that these methods are suitable as a basis for ethics education at various levels, at least when the goal of such education is partly practical: to provide tools for reaching justified moral decisions. Consequently, we encourage ethics educators who teach ethics with this goal to design their educational approaches in such a way that these methods are taught and practiced. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Increasing research attention to the ways that firms seek to influence the emotions of employees, consumers, and other stakeholders has not been accompanied by systematic attention to the ethical dimensions of emotion management. In this article we review and discuss research that informs the morality of influencing and regulating the emotions of others. What are the moral limits of the use of emotion as a management tool for shaping workplace behavior and influencing the thoughts and actions of consumers? Do the (...) ethics of emotional labor and emotional appeals (e.g., in consumer advertising) depart from moral rules that apply in “non-emotional” contexts? To explore these questions we examine research on the means by which individuals’ emotions are shaped and on the organizationally relevant consequences of individual emotional experience. We then discuss a number of potential ethical issues that are implicit or explicit in the organizationally sanctioned use of emotion management, incorporating existing literature in management and business ethics that has addressed the moral obligations of organizations in this context, and highlighting areas where there is yet work to be done. We conclude by discussing the implications of our analysis. (shrink)

In a reply to my recent paper “The Cost of Denying Intrinsic Value in Nature,” Rut Vinterkvist raises an important objection to my claim that environmentalists must ascribe intrinsic value to some natural entities to consistently defend the protectionist views I believe many of them have. To defend this claim, I provided three hypothetical cases, involving threatened natural entities, designed to show that only an intrinsic value of these respective entities could explain a reason to protect them. My claim was (...) that, even in these cases, environmentalists would generally find the natural entities in question protection-worthy. Against this claim, Vinterkvist argues that environmentalists can consistently opt for protection of these entities without ascribing any intrinsic value to them, the idea being that we can argue for protection of the entities on the basis that other people care for them (for whatever reasons, if any). We should protect them, not for their own sake, but for the sake of those who care for them. In this response, I explain why I believe her suggestion—challenging to my argument as it is—does not provide a proper option for environmentalists who want to argue for protection in these and similar cases. (shrink)

This monograph on the capability approach does two things. First, it provides an advanced introduction to the capability approach, as an account used in philosophy, as well as other disciplines. Second, it provides an account of the capability approach which is able to encompass all existing views and theories on the capability approach, including the writings on the capability approach by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen.

A IDENTIFICAÇÃO DO DIREITO AMBIENTAL MARÍTIMO.

A IMPORTÂNCIA DE TRATAMENTO DE ÁGUAS RESIDUAIS ATRAVÉS DA BIORREMEDIAÇÃO: UMA ANÁLISE PRINCIPIOLÓGICA.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo examinar possíveis contribuições de Lyotard e Jameson para pensar um dos obstáculos ao ensino de filosofia que, por falta de melhor denominação chamaremos "regime de atenção dos adolescentes contemporâneos".

The distinction between anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric theories, together with the more fine-grained distinction between anthropocentrism, biocentrism and ecocentrism, are probably two of the most frequently occurring distinctions in the environmental ethics literature. In this essay I draw attention to some problematic aspects of the terminology used to draw these distinctions: the 'centrism-terminology'. I argue that this terminology is ambiguous and misleading, and therefore confusing. Furthermore, depending on which interpretation it is given, it is also either asymmetric and non-inclusive, or superfluous. (...) Although I find it unlikely that the centrism-terminology will be abandoned, I end the essay by providing a suggestion for an alternative way to categorise theories in environmental ethics. (shrink)

The subject-matter of this essay is the moral status of nature. This subject is dealt with in terms of normative reasons. The main question is if there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in addition to the numerous indirect normative reasons that there are for doing so. Roughly, if there is some such reason, and that reason applies to any moral agent, then nature has direct moral status as I use the phrase. I develop the notions of direct (...) normative reason and direct moral status in detail and identify and discuss the two main types of theory according to which nature has direct moral status: analogy-based nature-considerism (AN) and non-analogy-based nature-considerism (NN). I argue for the plausibility of a particular version of the latter, but against the plausibility of any version of the former. -/- The theory that is representative of AN claims that nature has direct moral status in virtue of possessing interests. Proponents of this theory fail to show (i) that nature has interests of the kind that they reasonably want to ascribe to it, and (ii) that interests of this kind are morally significant. In contrast to AN, NN comes in a variety of different forms. I elaborate a version of NN according to which there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in virtue of (i) its unique complexity, and (ii) its indispensability (to all moral agents). I argue that even if these reasons should turn out not to apply to any moral agent, they are still genuine direct normative reasons: there is nothing irrational or misdirected about them. -/- Finally, I show how the question of whether there are direct normative reasons to care for nature is relevant to private and political decision-making concerning nature. This is exemplified with a case from the Swedish mountain region. (shrink)

According to a popular critique of environmental ethics, the view that nature has intrinsic value faces an insurmountable demarcation problem. This critique was delivered in a particularly forceful manner two decades ago by Janna Thompson in her paper “A Refutation of Environmental Ethics.” However, the demarcation problem, albeit a real problem, is not insurmountable. Thompson’s argument draws on the claim that the possibility of environmental ethics depends on the possibility that nature can be demarcated with respect to some allegedly morally (...) significant property or set of properties. Her own view of nature’s moral significance is equally dependent on that possibility. Therefore, if the demarcation problem were insurmountable, that would imply a refutation of her own view on nature’s moral significance as well. (shrink)

Dealing with ethical issues is a central aspect of many professions. Consequently, ethics is taught to diverse student groups in universities and colleges, alongside philosophy students. In this paper, we address the question of how ethics is best taught to such “non-philosophy” student groups. The standard way of introducing ethics to non-philosophy students is to present them with a set of moral theories. We refer to this approach as the “smorgasbord approach”, due to the impression it is likely to make (...) on non-philosophy students approaching ethics as an academic discipline for the first time. This approach invites the assumption that adopting an ethical position is mainly a matter of choosing from this smorgasbord of different theories. We argue that this approach is problematic for several reasons, both theoretical and practical, and we suggest a methodsbased approach – focusing on methods for moral reasoning – as a more fruitful alternative. The main purpose of this paper is to explain and defend this methods-based approach to teaching ethics to non-philosophy students. In so doing, we also consider and meet some expected objections to this approach. (shrink)

It is well known that close relatives of terminally ill patients endure great emotional stress. Many factors, such as existential concerns, contribute to the distress of these relatives. In this study, interviews were conducted to explore experiences concerning life restrictions, emotional distress, and limited support, in a group of close relatives of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The purpose was to identify, illuminate and clarify ethical problems related to these experiences. The results indicate that close relatives of patients with (...) ALS need someone to talk to, as well as more information about the disease and its process. Furthermore, the study illustrates how ethical problems are related to choices and conflicts, and that a process including shared decision making is often an ideal when trying to find a solution to ethical problems. (shrink)