O objetivo principal deste artigo é esclarecer como Brentano define a relação entre (a) o conhecimento de nossos próprios fenômenos de consciência e (b) o conhecimento de fenômenos de consciência de outros sujeitos. Por um lado, Brentano argumenta, seguindo a tradição moderna, que o conhecimento dos próprios atos mentais é absolutamente fundamental. Ao mesmo tempo, porém, ele quer mostrar com sua Psicologia do ponto de vista empírico uma clara alternativa ao introspeccionismo. Mostraremos como Brentano busca unir estes dois objetivos e (...) como ele também aderiu a esta linha em sua Psicologia Descritiva. Sua psicologia como um todo pode, portanto, ser entendida como um apelo ao pluralismo epistemológico. (shrink)

Background: This article describes the overall attitudes of children, their parents, and attending physicians toward including or excluding pediatric patients in medical communication and health care decision-making processes. Methods: Fifty-two interviews were carried out with pediatric patients (n = 17), their parents (n = 19), and attending oncologists (n = 16) in eight Swiss pediatric oncology centers. The interviews were analyzed using thematic coding. Results: Parenting styles, the child's personality, and maturity are factors that have a great impact upon the (...) inclusion of children in their health care processes. Children reported the desire to be heard and involved, but they did not want to dominate the decision-making process. Ensuring trust in the parent–child and physician–patient relationships and respecting the child as the affected person were important values determining children's involvement. These two considerations were closely connected with the concern that fantasies are often worse than reality. Seeking children's compliance with treatment was a practical but critical reason for informing them about their health care. The urge to protect them from upsetting news sometimes resulted in their (partial) exclusion. Conclusions: The ethical imperative for inclusion of children in their health care choices was not so much determined by the right for self-determination, but by the need to include them. If children are excluded, they imagine things, become more isolated, and are left alone with their fears. Nevertheless, the urge to protect children is innate, as adults often underestimate children's coping capacities. (shrink)

In this article I provide an overview of the many different terms that Brentano sometimes uses as synonyms or as explanations for “intentional inexistence”. The many terms associated with intentional inexistence appear in many different contexts, and we can conclude that Brentano uses these terms primarily to describe a property that is accidental and dependent on the subject from which it arises and with which it passes away. Ontologically, both properties and substances exist, but the former requires a substance (the (...) subject) for its existence. A mental act is to be considered as a first-order property, whereas the content (or part of the mental act) can be understood as an accident of that accident. (shrink)

Preventing future crime has become an increasingly dominant function of the criminal law of many liberal democracies. This “preventive turn” has led to a profound debate on the legal and ethical boundaries of the “preventive state.” However, the concept at the core of preventive justice—the dangerousness of the offender—has attracted relatively little attention in the current debate. This is remarkable, as the legal establishment of dangerousness permits intrusive preventive measures, such as preventive detention for an indeterminate period of time. In (...) the past, various concepts of dangerousness have been developed by criminal law scholars. We discuss these concepts in a chronological order to demonstrate how the meaning of dangerousness has evolved over time, and how it has been shaped by concurrent developments in forensic psychiatry and penology. Our description of the state of the art of legal scholarship on the concept of dangerousness also shows the lack of a fully developed theory of dangerousness, and therefore the necessity of further research. We identify five “aspects” of the concept of dangerousness on which scholars have widely diverging views. These five aspects are intended to guide further research on the concept of dangerousness in preventive criminal law. (shrink)

BackgroundFor many decades, the debate on children’s competence to give informed consent in medical settings concentrated on ethical and legal aspects, with little empirical underpinnings. Recently, data from empirical research became available to advance the discussion. It was shown that children’s competence to consent to clinical research could be accurately assessed by the modified MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research. Age limits for children to be deemed competent to decide on research participation have been studied: generally children of 11.2 (...) years and above were decision-making competent, while children of 9.6 years and younger were not. Age was pointed out to be the key determining factor in children’s competence. In this article we reflect on policy implications of these findings, considering legal, ethical, developmental and clinical perspectives.DiscussionAlthough assessment of children’s competence has a normative character, ethics, law and clinical practice can benefit from research data. The findings may help to do justice to the capacities children possess and challenges they may face when deciding about treatment and research options. We discuss advantages and drawbacks of standardized competence assessment in children on a case-by-case basis compared to application of a fixed age limit, and conclude that a selective implementation of case-by-case competence assessment in specific populations is preferable. We recommend the implementation of age limits based on empirical evidence. Furthermore, we elaborate on a suitable model for informed consent involving children and parents that would do justice to developmental aspects of children and the specific characteristics of the parent-child dyad.SummaryPrevious research outcomes showed that children’s medical decision-making capacities could be operationalized into a standardized assessment instrument. Recommendations for policies include a dual consent procedure, including both child as well as parents, for children from the age of 12 until they reach majority. For children between 10 and 12 years of age, and in case of children older than 12 years in special research populations of mentally compromised patients, we suggest a case-by-case assessment of children’s competence to consent. Since such a dual consent procedure is fundamentally different from a procedure of parental permission and child assent, and would imply a considerable shift regarding some current legislations, practical implications are elaborated. (shrink)

Schwartz developed his Theory of Basic Human Values and corresponding instruments, the portrait values questionnaire (PVQ) and the Schwartz values survey (SVS), in order to measure personal values. He uses these instruments (in a slightly modified form) in conjunction with his Theory of Cultural Value Orientations to measure cultural or societal values. His theoretical work is also used in studying organizational values; however, none of these instruments seem suitable to compare personal and perceived organizational values. If the PVQ is widely (...) used to measure personal values, and we need commensurate measures of the person and organization for comparative analysis, then can we not minimally adjust the PVQ to measure organizational values? In this article we discuss the testing of one such adjusted PVQ used for gauging universities’ organizational values. We developed the PVQ-uni to measure university values as perceived by students. We collected data from sociology departments at two universities, one in Austria ( n = 133) and one Nigeria ( n = 156). We then tested the reliability and the validity of the new instrument. Based on the data collected, we found that the PVQ-uni is a reliable and valid instrument; however, further refinements are needed for the instrument to be used successfully in Africa. (shrink)

It has often been noted that liberal democracies are facing a serious political crisis. A common reaction to this situation is to call for more comprehensive or more effective liberal democratic education. This volume discusses some of the most important challenges to and critiques of the paradigm of liberal democratic education. In doing so, it offers novel insights into how liberal democratic education can be amended, extended or qualified to address the special challenges of the current political moment.