Improving how health care providers respond to medical injury requires an understanding of patients’ experiences. Although many injured patients strongly desire to be heard, research rarely involves them. Institutional review boards worry about harming participants by asking them to revisit traumatic events, and hospital staff worry about provoking lawsuits. Institutions’ reluctance to approve this type of research has slowed progress toward responses to injuries that are better able to meet patients’ needs. In 2015–2016, we were able to surmount these challenges (...) and interview 92 injured patients and families in the USA and New Zealand. This article explores whether the ethical and medico‐legal concerns are, in fact, well‐founded. Consistent with research about trauma‐research‐related distress, our participants’ accounts indicate that the pervasive fears about retraumatization are unfounded. Our experience also suggests that because being heard is an important (but often unmet) need for injured patients, talking provides psychological benefits and may decrease rather than increase the impetus to sue. Our article makes recommendations to institutional review boards and researchers. The benefits to responsibly conducted research with injured patients outweigh the risks to participants and institutions. (shrink)

For decades, aged care facility residents at risk of pressure ulcers (PUs) have been repositioned at two-hour intervals, twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week (24/7). Yet, PUs still develop. We used a cross-sectional survey of eighty randomly selected medical records of residents aged ≥ 65 years from eight Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs) to determine the number of residents at risk of PUs, the use of two-hourly repositioning, and the presence of PUs in the last week of life. Despite 91 per cent (73/80) (...) of residents identified as being at risk of PUs and repositioned two-hourly 24/7, 34 per cent (25/73) died with one or more PUs. Behaviours of concern were noted in 72 per cent (58/80) of residents of whom 38 per cent (22/58) were restrained. Dementia was diagnosed in 70 per cent (56/80) of residents. The prevalence of behaviours of concern displayed by residents with dementia was significantly greater than by residents without dementia (82 per cent v 50 per cent, p = 0.028). The rate of restraining residents with dementia was similar to the rate in residents without dementia. Two-hourly repositioning failed to prevent PUs in a third of at-risk residents and may breach the rights of all residents who were repositioned two-hourly. Repositioning and restraining may be unlawful. Rather than only repositioning residents two-hourly, we recommend every resident be provided with an alternating pressure air mattress. (shrink)

For decades, aged care facility residents at risk of pressure ulcers have been repositioned at two-hour intervals, twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. Yet, PUs still develop. We used a cross-sectional survey of eighty randomly selected medical records of residents aged ≥ 65 years from eight Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities to determine the number of residents at risk of PUs, the use of two-hourly repositioning, and the presence of PUs in the last week of life. Despite 91 per cent of residents identified as (...) being at risk of PUs and repositioned two-hourly 24/7, 34 per cent died with one or more PUs. Behaviours of concern were noted in 72 per cent of residents of whom 38 per cent were restrained. Dementia was diagnosed in 70 per cent of residents. The prevalence of behaviours of concern displayed by residents with dementia was significantly greater than by residents without dementia. The rate of restraining residents with dementia was similar to the rate in residents without dementia. Two-hourly repositioning failed to prevent PUs in a third of at-risk residents and may breach the rights of all residents who were repositioned two-hourly. Repositioning and restraining may be unlawful. Rather than only repositioning residents two-hourly, we recommend every resident be provided with an alternating pressure air mattress. (shrink)

The rapidly increasing wealth of genomic data has driven the development of tools to assist in the task of representing and processing information about genes, their products and their functions. One of the most important of these tools is the Gene Ontology (GO), which is being developed in tandem with work on a variety of bioinformatics databases. An examination of the structure of GO, however, reveals a number of problems, which we believe can be resolved by taking account of certain (...) organizing principles drawn from philosophical ontology. We shall explore the results of applying such principles to GO with a view to improving GO’s consistency and coherence and thus its future applicability in the automated processing of biological data. (shrink)

Hunger continues to be one of humanity's greatest challenges despite the existence of a more-than-adequate global food supply equal to 2,800 kilocalories for every person every day. In measuring progress, policy-makers and concerned citizens across the globe rely on information supplied by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an agency of the United Nations. In 2010 the FAO reported that in the wake of the 2007–2008 food-price spikes and global economic crisis, the number of people experiencing hunger worldwide since 2005–2007 (...) had increased by 150 million, rising above 1 billion in 2009. However, in itsState of Food Insecurity in the World 2012(SOFI 12) the FAO presented new estimates, having revamped its methods and reinterpreted its hunger data back to 1990. The revised numbers for the period 1990–1992 to 2010–2012 reverse the trend to a steadily falling one. Based on the FAO's new calculations, extreme undernourishment peaked in 1990 at a record-breaking one billion, followed by a significant decline through 2006, when progress stalled but did not reverse (see chart below). (shrink)

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Volume 20, Issue 2, Page 294-298, May 2012.

While experience often affords important knowledge and insight that is difficult to garner through observation or testimony alone, it also has the potential to generate conflicts of interest and unrepresentative perspectives. We call this tension the paradox of experience. In this paper, we first outline appeals to experience made in debates about access to unproven medical products and disability bioethics, as examples of how experience claims arise in bioethics and some of the challenges raised by these claims. We then motivate (...) the idea that experience can be an asset by appealing to themes in feminist and moral epistemology, distinguishing between epistemic and justice-based appeals. Next, we explain the concern that experience may be a liability by appealing to empirical work on cognitive biases and theoretical work about the problem of partial representation. We conclude with preliminary recommendations for addressing the paradox and offer several questions for future discussion. (shrink)

Patients who experience difficulty making medical decisions are often referred to as “ambivalent.” However, the current lack of attention to the nuances between a cluster of phenomena that resemble...

Insider trading is illegal, and is widely believed to be unethical. It has received widespread attention in the media and has become, for some, the very symbol of ethical decay in business. For a practice that has come to epitomize unethical business behavior, however, insider trading has received surprisingly little ethical analysis. This article critically examines the principal ethical arguments against insider trading: the claim that the practice is unfair, the claim that it involves a misappropriation of information and the (...) claim that it harms ordinary investors and the market as a whole. The author concludes that each of these arguments has some serious deficiencies; no one of them by itself provides a sufficient reason for outlawing insider trading. This does not mean, however, that there are no reasons for prohibiting the practice. The author argues that the real reason for outlawing insider trading is that it undermines the fiduciary relationship that lies at the heart of American business. (shrink)

This article examines disciplinary proceedings about sexual misconduct by lawyers. Sexual misconduct in a professional relationship is harmful and unacceptable and should result in immediate disciplinary action to protect victims, future victims and the public. However, there is no explicit offence of sexual misconduct in Australian disciplinary legislation regarding lawyers. Rather, sexual misconduct must be linked to the statutory offences. While the Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules guide the interpretation of the offences, there is only express reference to sexual harassment. We (...) examined tribunal and court legal disciplinary cases from 2000 to 2020 across all Australian jurisdictions in which sexual misconduct had occurred. Decision makers typically only considered sexual misconduct sufficiently egregious to meet the required standard of a disciplinary offence when accompanied by a criminal conviction. The conduct was often portrayed as a result of character flaws, rather than harmful to victims and the public. Thus, decision makers failed to locate the behaviour in the wider incidence of violence against women. The profession’s failure to acknowledge sexual misconduct reflects narrow professional norms which do not robustly protect victims. Explicit acknowledgement of sexual misconduct in disciplinary proceedings is essential. These amendments would signify the importance, frequency and impact of sexual misconduct. (shrink)

There are compelling possibilities for the ways in which creative writing practices can inform qualitative and collaborative research projects, particularly those projects devoted to phenomenological inquiry. This article lays out a specific research methodology based on a creative writing practice that is prompted by words and phrases evocative of a research question. This practice, called “pointing,” is explained through Gadamer's notion of understanding, play, and conversation as well as Heidegger's hermeneutical process. The use of such a practice in a specific (...) collaborative research project on therapists' experience of hopelessness is described and implications for additional projects are proposed. (shrink)

Literary fiction gives us a window into ourselves and into those who may seem most unfamiliar to us. We therefore have a moral imperative to read, just as, as psychotherapists, we have a moral imperative to listen. Literary study teaches us to read closely, to listen for structure as well as content, and it also instructs us about different ways of paying attention. Inversely, because the practice of psychotherapy values connection and process, rather than simply interpretation, it shows us how (...) we can bring ourselves more fully to literature. In this paper I propose ways of engaging the field of phenomenological psychology in this dialectical relationship of literature and psychotherapy. By using as a case study a recent experience of teaching Aimee Bender’s (2000) novel An Invisible Sign of My Own in an interdisciplinary seminar on literature and psychology, I illustrate how literature and clinical discourses can inform and challenge each other as we seek to understand the meaning and lived experience of neuroses. I argue that the very act of reading can give the reader the sense and structure of experience that, if explored in a dialogal context, helps us gain access to phenomena that is neither simply self-generated nor simply observed in the other. I term this access evocation: A response that is a calling forth of the reader’s own lived experiencing. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 12, Special Edition July 2012. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 42-50, January/February 2022.

In his What is Business Ethics? Peter Drucker accuses business ethics of singling out business unfairly for special ethical treatment, of subordinating ethical to political concerns, and of being, not ethics at all, but ethical chic. We contend that Drucker's denunciation of business ethics rests upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the field. This article is a response to his charges and an effort to clarify the nature, scope and purpose of business ethics.

This paper evaluates the proposed amendments to New Zealand’s Cosmetic Group Standard that relate to nanomaterials in cosmetics. Manufactured nanomaterials are being increasingly used in cosmetic products. There are concerns that some nanomaterials present potential human and environmental health and safety risks. The proposed amendments are unique in New Zealand not only because they make specific mention of nanomaterials, but also because they propose introducing labelling requirements. Few jurisdictions have adopted mandatory labelling for products containing nanomaterials. The use of nanomaterials (...) in consumer products provides another opportunity to explore the efficacy of labelling as a regulatory tool. The challenges are heightened for products containing nanomaterials due to the difficulties in defining the term “nano.”. (shrink)

This article evaluates New Zealand’s Medicines Amendment Bill 2011. This Bill is currently before Parliament and will amend the Medicines Act 1981. On June 20, 2011, the Australian and New Zealand governments announced their decision to proceed with a joint scheme for the regulation of therapeutic products such as medicines, medical devices, and new medical interventions. Eventually, the joint arrangements will be administered by a single regulatory agency: the Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Agency. The medicines regulations in Australia and (...) New Zealand will be updated as part of this process. The Medicines Amendment Bill addresses some of the well-recognised deficiencies in the Medicines Act 1981. However, a comprehensive overhaul of the Act is not being undertaken. I argue that repealing and replacing the Medicines Act 1981 would be preferable and advisable, given the number of legal difficulties with the Act and, in particular, where it does not align with equivalent current international law. (shrink)

“Research assistant” is a term used to describe student researchers across a variety of contexts and encompasses a wide array of duties, rewards, and costs. As critical/qualitative scholars situated in a discipline that rarely offers funded research assistantships to graduate students, we explore how we have engaged in faculty-student research in one particularly understudied context: the independent study. Using narrative writing and reflection within a framework of collaborative autoethnography, the first three authors reflect as three “generations” of protégés who were (...) each mentored through independent studies during their MA programs by the fourth author. We explore the environmental context, mentor facets, and protégé facets that highlight the light and shadow, or successes and struggles, of our mentoring relationships. Reflecting on our own experiences of collaborative research through independent studies, we suggest a model of feminist research mentorship that may be enacted across disciplines. (shrink)

We make decisions all day, don't we? Do I pick up the dog's poop when I take him for his walk? Should I tell Mom where I really went after school? When I see something wrong happening, what should I do? Making a good choice, doing the right thing, or even knowing right from wrong can be hard! In What Would You Do? ​you can practice making hard decisions and have some fun while we explore some everyday dilemmas!​.

ABSTRACTThis article addresses ethical and legal issues arising from the increasing use of e‐mail and other forms of instant written communication in the conduct of business. E‐mail communications are often casual and informal. Yet e‐mail is a written record that can be more permanent and widely accessible than a paper communication. This article focuses on the implications of this fact, including how individuals compromise their own privacy by the voluntary use of e‐mail; how e‐mail has complicated the duty of confidentiality (...) of employees to employers, and professionals to clients; whether the use of e‐mail affects ethical deliberation and choice; and the use of e‐mail as evidence of corporate conduct and intent in civil and criminal litigation. The article suggests that e‐mail users think “forensically” about their e‐mail—i.e., consider its potential as evidence in the context of other emails and underlying events—before pressing the “send” button. (shrink)

Background: New Zealand health and disability providers are expected to have local open disclosure policies in place, however, empirical analysis of these policies has not been undertaken. Aim: This study aims to examine the scope and content of open disclosure policies in New Zealand compare open disclosure policies in New Zealand, and provide baseline results for future research. Methods: Open disclosure policies were requested from all twenty New Zealand District Health Boards in June 2016. A total of twenty-one policies were (...) received, with nineteen policies included in the review. The data were analysed using conventional content analysis. Areas of identified guidance were categorised categorized under the headings: 1) identification of an adverse event, 2) actions before disclosure, 3) disclosure of harm, and 4) actions after disclosure. Results: A total of forty-six distinct areas of guidance could be categorized under the different phases of the open disclosure life-cycle. Conclusion: This review has identified significant unwarranted heterogeneity and important gaps in open disclosure documents in New Zealand which urgently needs to be addressed. Open disclosure policies which are both flexible and specific should enhance the likelihood that injured patients’ needs will be met. (shrink)

Organizational virtue orientation (OVO), an organizational-level construct, refers to the integrated set of beliefs and values that support ethical character traits and virtuous behaviors. To advance the study of organizational virtue, we examine OVO in firms making their initial public offerings (IPOs), with respect to key external stakeholders that serve as financial intermediaries (i.e., venture capital firms and underwriting banks). Drawing on stakeholder and resource dependence theories, we argue that mutual interdependencies occur between financial intermediaries and IPO firms such that (...) venture capital firms’ ownership levels and underwriter reputation are positively associated with the selection of more virtuous IPO firms. We also argue for the moderating relationship of IPO firm age on these main relationships; since IPO firms have more history and information availability, less importance will be placed on OVO in the selection process. In support of our hypotheses, the results of this study suggest the organizational virtue of IPO firms influences the selection decisions of financial intermediaries by reflecting positively on these key stakeholders to improve legitimacy and reputation. (shrink)

Questions about when to limit unhelpful treatments are often raised in general medicine but are less commonly considered in psychiatry. Here we describe a survey of U.S. psychiatrists intended to characterize their attitudes about the management of suicidal ideation in patients with severely treatment-refractory illness. Respondents (n = 212) received one of two cases describing a patient with suicidal ideation due to either borderline personality disorder or major depressive disorder. Both patients were described as receiving all guideline-based and plausible emerging (...) treatments. Respondents rated the expected helpfulness and likelihood of recommending each of four types of intervention: hospitalization, additional medication changes, additional neurostimulation, and additional psychotherapy. Across both cases, most respondents said they were likely to provide each intervention, except for additional neurostimulation in borderline personality disorder, while fewer thought each intervention would be helpful. Substantial minorities of respondents indicated that they would provide an intervention they did not think was likely to be helpful. Our results suggest that while most psychiatrists recognize the possibility that some patients are unlikely to be helped by available treatments, many would continue to offer such treatments. (shrink)

Most of the debate about drug testing in the workplace has focused on the right to privacy. Proponents of testing have had to tackle difficult questions concerning the nature, extent, and weight of the privacy rights of employees. This paper examines a different kind of argument — the claim that because corporations are responsible for harms committed by employees while under the influence of drugs, they are entitled to test for drug use. This argument has considerable intuitive appeal, because it (...) seems, at least at first glance, to bypass the issue of privacy rights altogether. The argument turns, not on rights, but on the nature and conditions of responsibility. We may therefore call it an ought implies can argument.In spite of its initial appeal, however, the argument does not succeed in circumventing the claims of privacy rights. Even responsibility for the actions of others does not entitle us to do anything at all to control their behavior; we must look to rights, among other things, to determine what sorts of controls are morally permissible. In addition, the argument rests on unjustified assumptions about the connection between drug testing and the prevention of drug-related harm. (shrink)

This book's importance is derived from three sources: careful conceptualization of teacher induction from historical, methodological, and international perspectives; systematic reviews of research literature relevant to various aspects of teacher induction including its social, cultural, and political contexts, program components and forms, and the range of its effects; substantial empirical studies on the important issues of teacher induction with different kinds of methodologies that exemplify future directions and approaches to the research in teacher induction.

Very little has been done to find out what corporations have done to build ethical values into their organizations. In this report on a survey of 1984 Fortune 1000 industrial and service companies the Center for Business Ethics reveals some facts regarding codes of ethics, ethics committees, social audits, ethics training programs, boards of directors, and other areas where corporations might institutionalize ethics. Based on the survey, the Center for Business Ethics is convinced that corporations are beginning to take steps (...) to institutionalize ethics, while recognizing that in most cases more specific mechanisms and strategies need to be implemented to make their ethics efforts truly effective. (shrink)

Allhoff, Fritz, Patrick Lin, and Daniel Moore. 2010. What is nanotechnology and why does it matter? From science to ethics Content Type Journal Article Pages 209-211 DOI 10.1007/s11673-011-9289-z Authors Jennifer Kuzma, University of Minnesota, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, 301 19th Ave So, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA Journal Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Online ISSN 1872-4353 Print ISSN 1176-7529 Journal Volume Volume 8 Journal Issue Volume 8, Number 2.

Recently, Yalcin (Epistemic modals. Mind, 116 , 983–1026, 2007) put forward a novel account of epistemic modals. It is based on the observation that sentences of the form ‘ & Might ’ do not embed under ‘suppose’ and ‘if’. Yalcin concludes that such sentences must be contradictory and develops a notion of informational consequence which validates this idea. I will show that informational consequence is inadequate as an account of the logic of epistemic modals: it cannot deal with reasoning from (...) uncertain premises. Finally, I offer an alternative way of explaining the relevant linguistic data. (shrink)

First published in 1903, this volume revolutionized philosophy and forever altered the direction of ethical studies. A philosopher’s philosopher, G. E. Moore was the idol of the Bloomsbury group, and Lytton Strachey declared that Principia Ethica marked the rebirth of the Age of Reason. This work clarifies some of moral philosophy’s most common confusions and redefines the science’s terminology. Six chapters explore: the subject matter of ethics, naturalistic ethics, hedonism, metaphysical ethics, ethics in relation to conduct, and the ideal. (...) Moore's simplicity of style and precise use of everyday language exercised an enormous influence on the development of analytic philosophy, and they contribute to the continuing resonance of his compelling arguments. (shrink)

In the late Middle Ages the philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart preached that to know the truth you must be the truth. But how to be the truth? Eckhart's answer comes in the form of an imperative: release yourself, let be. Only then will you be able to understand that the deepest meaning of being is releasement. Only then will you become who you truly are. This book interprets Eckhart's Latin and Middle High German writings under the banner of an (...) imperative of releasement, and then shows how the twentieth-century thinker Martin Heidegger creatively appropriates this idea at several stages of his career. Heidegger had a lifelong fascination with Eckhart, referring to him as "the old master of letters and life." Drawing on archival material and Heidegger's marginalia in his personal copies of Eckhart's writings, Moore argues that Eckhart was one of the most important figures in Heidegger's philosophy. This book also contains previously unpublished documents by Heidegger on Eckhart, as well as the first English translation of Nishitani Keiji's essay "Nietzsche's Zarathustra and Meister Eckhart," which he initially gave as a presentation in one of Heidegger's classes in 1938. (shrink)