Surgical devices are often marketed before there is good evidence of their safety and effectiveness. Our paper discusses the ethical issues associated with the early marketing and use of new surgical devices from the perspectives of the six groups most concerned. Health Canada, which is responsible for licensing new surgical devices, should amend their requirements to include rigorous clinical trials that provide data on effectiveness and safety for each new product before it is marketed. Industry should comply with all Health (...) Canada requirements to obtain licenses for new products. Until Health Canada requires effectiveness and safety data, industry should cooperate with physicians in appropriate studies before releasing new products and should make balanced presentations of all the available evidence. Surgeons should, before using a new surgical device, assess the evidence on its effectiveness and safety and ensure they are properly trained and competent in using the device. Surgeons should provide their patients with an evaluation of the available evidence and inform them about possible complications and the surgeon's level of experience with the new device. Patients, who should be given an honest evaluation of the available evidence, possible complications, and the surgeon's experience, should be encouraged to evaluate the evidence and information to their own satisfaction to ensure that fully informed consent is given. Health institutions, responsible for regulating practice within their walls, should review new devices for safety, effectiveness, and economic impacts, before allowing their use. They should also limit the use of new surgical devices to surgeons trained and competent in the new technology. Professional societies should provide guidance on the early adoption of new surgical devices and technologies. We urge all those involved in the development, licensing, and use of new surgical devices to aim for higher ethical standards to protect the health and safety of patients requiring surgery. The lowest acceptable ethical standard would require device manufacturers to provide surgeons with accurate and timely information on the efficacy and safety of their products, allowing surgeons and patients to evaluate the evidence (and the significance of information not yet available) before surgery. (shrink)

In "A Serpentine Gesture": John Ashbery's Poetry and Phenomenology Elisabeth W. Joyce examines John Ashbery's poetry through the lens of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's conception of phenomenology. For Merleau-Ponty, perception is a process through which people reach outside of themselves for sensory information, map that experiential information against what they have previously encountered and what is culturally inculcated in them, and articulate shifts in their internal repositories through encounters with new material. Joyce argues that this process reflects Ashbery's classic statement (...) of poetry being the "experience of experience." Through incisive close readings of Ashbery's poems, Joyce examines how he explores this process of continual reverberation between what is sensed and what is considered about that sensation and, ultimately, how he renders these perceptions into the 'serpentine gesture' of language. (shrink)

A tribute to vision boards evaluates their creative, motivational, and inspirational role in providing visual life and career maps for famous and everyday ...

Following Kripke and Putnam, the received view of chemical kinds has been a microstructuralist one. To be a microstructuralist about chemical kinds is to think that membership in said kinds is conferred by microstructural properties. Recently, the received microstructuralist view has been elaborated and defended, but it has also been attacked on the basis of complexities, both chemical and ontological. Here, I look at which complexities really challenge the microstructuralist view; at how the view itself might be made more complicated (...) in order to accommodate such challenges; and finally, at what this increasingly complicated picture implies for our standard assessment of chemical kindhood—primarily, for the widespread assumption that chemical kinds in general are more neat and tidy than those messy biological ones. _1_ The Received View _2_ A Taxonomy of Chemical Kinds _3_ Atomic Number _4_ H2O, H3O+, OH−, and More _5_ Complicating the Microstructuralist Picture _6_ Concrete and Other Mixtures _7_ Macromolecules, Especially Proteins _8_ Abandoning Sameness of Elemental Composition _9_ Not So Different after All. (shrink)

The sheer impact of the recent global financial turmoil and scandals (such as Enron and WorldCom) has demonstrated that unbridled commercial entrepreneurs who are allowed to pursue their short-term opportunities regardless of the consequences has led to a massive depreciation of the wealth of nations, social livelihood and environmental degradation. This article suggests that the time has come for entrepreneurs to adopt a more integrative view of business that blends economic, social and environmental values. Social entrepreneurs present such a proposition (...) through their deep commitment towards the social vision, appreciation of sustainable practices, innovativeness, ability to build social networks and also generate viable financial returns. It could be expected that social entrepreneurs often possess certain distinct personality characteristics which define their behaviours/actions. Personality traits are partly developed by innate nurturing, socialization and education. These tacit traits are also formed values/beliefs held and play an important role in driving social entrepreneurial decision making. Thus, personality traits may influence the intentions and the manner in which the individual acts. We hold that if social entrepreneurship is to be effective and impactful, business and management education can facilitate the development of these critical personality traits. Thus, this study primes at determining the personality traits that influence social entrepreneurs’ start-up intentions. It also reinforces the findings that personality traits do influence entrepreneurship in general. This study examines the influence of the Big Five personality traits on social entrepreneurship dimensions. The findings reveal that agreeableness positively influences all dimensions of social entrepreneurship, whereas openness exerts a positive influence on social vision, innovation and financial returns. Methodologically, this study develops valid and reliable scales for social entrepreneurship and verifies the adopted Big Five personality measure of Schmit et al. (Pers Psychol 53:153–193, 2000) using the five-point Likert scale. The implication of this study is that element of appreciation of social responsibility, sustainability and character development needs to be integrated within the business education curriculum to support social entrepreneurs in realizing genuine value and impact to the causes and communities they serve. Future business leaders also need to be equipped with entrepreneurship skills, while exuding independent and reflective thinking in the pursuit life-long learning. The originality of this study lies in its focus on personality traits on social rather than commercial entrepreneurship. It is hoped that the findings will trigger a paradigm shift towards greater social entrepreneurship through education by nurturing sustainable development values in future business graduates. (shrink)

More than a decade of exacting scientific research involving paleontological fragments and ancient DNA has lately produced a series of pronouncements about a purportedly novel population of archaic hominins dubbed “the Denisova.” The science involved in these matters is both technically stunning and, socially, at times a bit reckless. Here I discuss the responsibilities which scientists incur when they make inductively risky pronouncements about the different relative contributions by Denisovans to genomes of members of apparent subpopulations of current humans. This (...) science is sensational: it is science which empirically speculates, to the public delight’s and entertainment, about scintillating topics such as when humans evolved, where we came from, and who else we were having sex with during our early hominin history. An initial characterization of sensational science emerges from my discussion of the case, as well as a diagnosis of an interactive phenomenon termed amplified inductive risk. (shrink)

There is a perennial philosophical dream of a certain natural order for the natural kinds. The name of this dream is ‘the hierarchy requirement’. According to this postulate, proper natural kinds form a taxonomy which is both unique and traditional. Here I demonstrate that complex scientific objects exist: objects which generate different systems of scientific classification, produce myriad legitimate alternatives amongst the nonetheless still natural kinds, and make the hierarchical dream impossible to realize, except at absurdly great cost. Philosophical hopes (...) for a certain order in nature cannot be fulfilled. Natural kinds crosscut one another, ubiquitously so, and this crosscutting spells the end of the hierarchical dream. (shrink)

Skipper and Millstein analyze natural selection and mechanism, concluding that natural selection is not a mechanism in the sense of the new mechanistic philosophy. Barros disagrees and provides his own account of natural selection as a mechanism. This discussion identifies a missing piece of Barros's account, attempts to fill in that piece, and reconsiders the revised account. Two principal objections are developed: one, the account does not characterize natural selection; two, the account is not mechanistic. Extensive and persistent variability causes (...) both of these difficulties, so further attempts to describe natural selection as a mechanism are also unlikely to succeed. (shrink)

In the present work are identified the main features of the algebraic structure with respect to the logical operations, of the set of all the quantum mechanical utterances for which can be specified a factual counterpart and factual rules for truth valuation. This structure is found not to be a lattice. It depends crucially on the spacetime features of the operations by which the observer prepares the studied states and performs measurements on them.

: This essay considers the implications of President George W. Bush's proposal for human embryonic stem cell research. Through the perspective of patent law, privacy, and informed consent, we elucidate the ongoing controversy about the moral standing of human embryonic stem cells and their derivatives and consider how the inconsistencies in the president's proposal will affect clinical practice and research.

Is there a compensation gap between female CEOs and male CEOs? If so, are there mechanisms to mitigate the compensation gap? Extending role congruity theory, we argue that the perception mismatch between the female gender role and the leadership role may lead to lower compensation to female CEOs, resulting in a gender compensation gap. Nevertheless, the compensation gap may be narrowed if female CEOs display agentic traits through risk-taking, or alternatively, work in female-dominated industries where communal traits are valued. Additionally, (...) we expect that female CEOs’ risk-taking is less effective in reducing the gender compensation gap in female-dominated industries due to the conflicting emphases on agentic and communal traits. Leveraging a sample of Chinese publicly listed firms, we find support for our hypotheses. Overall, this study contributes to the ethics literature on income inequality issues, by highlighting the effectiveness of potential mechanisms to close the gender compensation gap between female and male CEOs. (shrink)

Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any (...) implications follow from this hypothesis. Might the fact that the human brain has been biologically prepared by natural selection to engage in moral judgment serve in some sense to vindicate this way of thinking--staving off the threat of moral skepticism, or even undergirding some version of moral realism? Or if morality has an adaptive explanation in genetic terms--if it is, as Joyce writes, "just something that helped our ancestors make more babies"--might such an explanation actually undermine morality's central role in our lives? He carefully examines both the evolutionary "vindication of morality" and the evolutionary "debunking of morality," considering the skeptical view more seriously than have others who have treated the subject.Interdisciplinary and combining the latest results from the empirical sciences with philosophical discussion, The Evolution of Morality is one of the few books in this area written from the perspective of moral philosophy. Concise and without technical jargon, the arguments are rigorous but accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. Joyce discusses complex issues in plain language while advocating subtle and sometimes radical views. The Evolution of Morality lays the philosophical foundations for further research into the biological understanding of human morality. (shrink)

Many male traits are well explained by sexual selection theory as adaptations to mating competition and mate choice, whereas no unifying theory explains traits expressed more in females. Anne Campbell's “staying alive” theory proposed that human females produce stronger self-protective reactions than males to aggressive threats because self-protection tends to have higher fitness value for females than males. We examined whether Campbell's theory has more general applicability by considering whether human females respond with greater self-protectiveness than males to other threats (...) beyond aggression. We searched the literature for physiological, behavioral, and emotional responses to major physical and social threats, and found consistent support for females' responding with greater self-protectiveness than males. Females mount stronger immune responses to many pathogens; experience a lower threshold to detect, and lesser tolerance of, pain; awaken more frequently at night; express greater concern about physically dangerous stimuli; exert more effort to avoid social conflicts; exhibit a personality style more focused on life's dangers; react to threats with greater fear, disgust, and sadness; and develop more threat-based clinical conditions than males. Our findings suggest that in relation to threat, human females have relatively heightened protective reactions compared to males. The pervasiveness of this result across multiple domains suggests that general mechanisms might exist underlying females' unique adaptations. An understanding of such processes would enhance knowledge of female health and well-being. (shrink)

A new integrated view on the probabilistic organization of quantum mechanics is constructed. It is then proved that for superposition state vectors the theoretical quantum mechanical distribution for the momentum observable is devoid of operational definition, and hence cannot be the source of conditions of compatibility to be imposed upon a researched joint probability concept. A compatible joint probability concept is outlined.

In previous works we have established that the spacetime probabilistic organization of the quantum theory is determined by the spacetime characteristics of the operations by which the observer produces the objects to be studied (“states” of microsystems) and obtains qualifications of these. Guided by this first conclusion, we have then built a “general syntax of relativized conceptualization” where any description is explicitly and systematically referred to the two basic epistemic operations by which the conceptor introduces the object to be qualified (...) and then obtains qualifications of it. Inside this syntax there emerges a general typology of the relativized descriptions. Here we show that with respect to this typology the type of the predictive quantum mechanical descriptions acquires a precise definition. It appears that the quantum mechanical formalism has captured and has expressed directly in a mathematical language the most complex form in which can occur a first descriptional phase that lies universally at the bottom of any chain of conceptualization. The main features of the Hilbert-Dirac algorithms are decoded in terms of the general syntax of relativized conceptualization. This renders explicit the semantical contents of the quantum mechanical representations relating each one of these to its mathematical quantum mechanical expression. Basic insufficiencies are thus identified and, correlatively, false problems as well as answers to these, or guides toward answers. Globally the results obtained provide a basis for future attempts at a general mathematical representation of the processes of conceptualization. “Il pourrait, en effet, être dangereux pour l'avenir de la Physique qu'elle se contente trop facilement de purs formalismes, d'images floues et d'explications toutes verbales s'exprimant par des mots à signification imprécise”—Louis de Broglie,Certitudes et Incertitudes de la Science (Albin Michel, Paris, 1965). (shrink)

Bell's theorem is believed to establish that the quantum mechanical predictions do not generally admit a causal representation compatible with Einsten's principle of separability, thereby proving incompatibility between quantum mechanics and relativity. This interpretation is contested via two convergent approaches which lead to a sharp distinction between quantum nonseparability and violation of Einstein's theory of relativity.In a first approach we explicate from the quantum mechanical formalism a concept of “reflected dependence.” Founded on this concept, we produce a causal representation of (...) the quantum mechanical probability measure involved in Bell's proof, which is clearly separable in Einstein's sense, i.e., it does not involve supraluminal velocities, and nevertheless is “nonlocal” in Bell's sense. So Bell locality and Einstein separability aredistinct qualifications, and Bell nonlocality (or Bell nonseparability) and Einstein separability arenot incompatible. It is then proved explicitly that with respect to the mentioned representation Bell's derivation does not hold. So Bell's derivation does notestablish thatany Einstein-separable representation is incompatible with quantum mechanics. This first—negative—conclusion is asyntactic fact.The characteristics of the representation and of the reasoning involved in the mentioned counterexample to the usual interpretation of Bell's theorem suggest that the representation used—notwithstanding its ability to bring forth the specified syntactic fact—isnot factually true. Factual truth and syntactic properties also have to be radically distinguished in their turn. So, in a second approach, starting from de Broglie's initial relativistic model of a microsystem, a deeper, factually acceptable representation is constructed. The analyses leading to this second representation show that quantum mechanics does indeed involve basically a certain sort of nonseparability, called here de Broglie-Bohr quantum nonseparability. But the de Broglie-Bohr quantum nonseparability is shown to stem directly from the relativistic character of the considerations which led Louis de Broglie to the fundamental relation p = h/λ,thereby being essentially consistent with relativity. As to Einstein separability, it appears to be a still insufficiently specified conceptof which a future, improved specification, will probably be explicitly harmonizable with the de Broglie-Bohr quantum nonseparability.The ensemble of the conclusions obtained here brings forth a new concept of causality, a concept offolded, zigzag, reflexive causality, with respect to which the type of causality conceived of up to now appears as aparticular case of outstretched, one-way causality. The reflexive causality is found compatible with the results of Aspect's experiment, and it suggests new experiments.Considered globally, the conclusions obtained in the present work might convert the conceptual situation created by Bell's proof into a process of unification of quantum mechanics and relativity. (shrink)

A general representation of the processesof conceptualization, founded upon adescriptional mould drawn from fundamentalquantum mechanics, is outlined. The approach iscalled the method of relativizedconceptualization. This stresses that therepresentation is not researched as a ``neutralstatement of facts'' but, from the start on, asa method subjected to definitedescriptional aims, namely an a prioriexclusion of the emergence of false problems orparadoxes and of any gliding into relativism.The method is characterized by an explicit andsystematic relativization of each descriptionalstep, to all the descriptional elementsinvolved in (...) this step, namely: the epistemicaction by which the object-entity is generated,the object-entity itself, and the epistemicaction by which the object-entity is qualified.Successive steps which complexify progressivelya given initial description, form an unlimitedchain of cells of conceptualization wherethe very first cell, necessarily, is rooted in as yet strictly unconceptualizedphysical factuality while the subsequent cellsconsist of increasingly abstract descriptionsthat are connected hierarchically. The chainsinteract at nodes where they branch, thusgenerating an indefinitely evolving,complexifying web of relativizedconceptualization, free of ambiguities, andwhere each element stays under control.The method contains the positedassertion of a realism of which a definite sortof minimality follows then inside themethod. This generates a clear distinctionbetween illusory qualifications of``how-a-physical-entity-is-in-itself'', and models of this physical entity. Thereby aworked out connection with philosophicalthinking is incorporated in the method. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to initiate a new discipline, namely a formalized epistemological method drawn from the cognitive strategies practised in the most effective among the modern scientific disciplines, as well as from general philosophical thinking. Indeed, what is lacking in order to improve our knowledge and our domination of the modes which nowadays are available for the generation and communication of knowledge, thoroughly and rapidly and with precision and detail? It is a systematic explication of the epistemological (...) essence encrypted in the specialized languages and algorithms of the major modern scientific approaches, a systematic cross-referencing of the explicated results, and a final elaboration of a new coherent whole. Quantum mechanics, like a diver, can take us down to the level of the very first actions of our conceptualization of reality. And starting from there, it can induce an explicit understanding of certain fundamental features of the new scientific thinking. A formalized epistemology should not be mistaken for a crossdisciplinary or a multidisciplinary project. The latter projects are designed to offer to nonspecialists access to information, to results obtained inside specialized disciplines, as well as a certain understanding of these results; whereas a formalized epistemology should equip anyone with a framework for conceptualizing himself in whatever domain and direction he or she might choose. A formalized epistemology should not be mistaken either for an approach belonging to the modern cognitive sciences. These try to establish as neutrally as possible descriptions of how the human body-and-mind work spontaneously when knowledge is generated; whereas a method of conceptualization should establish what conceptual-operational deliberate procedures have to be applied in order to represent and to achieve processes of generation of knowledge optimized accordingly to any definite aims. This book addresses philosophers of science, physicists, mathematicians, logicians, computer scientists, researchers in cognitive sciences, and biologists, as well as any intellectual who is interested in scientific and philosophical thinking. (shrink)

The exact bearing of an important theorem proved by Wigner is established. The study brings out the fact that marginal conditions as well as mean conditions of a form currently required in joint probability attempts are in fact inadequate for the determination of a relevant concept of a joint probability. New vistas are thereby opened up.

In connection with my previous paper “Locality, Reflection, and Wave-Particle Duality” [Found. Phys. 17, 813 (1987)], in this paper I distinguish explicitly, in the locality problem, between assertions, deductively established results, interpretations, intuitions, and facts. This clarifies the structure of the problem.

In The Myth of Morality, Richard Joyce argues that moral discourse is hopelessly flawed. At the heart of ordinary moral judgements is a notion of moral inescapability, or practical authority, which, upon investigation, cannot be reasonably defended. Joyce argues that natural selection is to blame, in that it has provided us with a tendency to invest the world with values that it does not contain, and demands that it does not make. Should we therefore do away with morality, (...) as we did away with other faulty notions such as witches? Possibly not. We may be able to carry on with morality as a 'useful fiction' - allowing it to have a regulative influence on our lives and decisions, perhaps even playing a central role - while not committing ourselves to believing or asserting falsehoods, and thus not being subject to accusations of 'error'. (shrink)

Ulysses is certainly the greatest novel in the English language, and one might argue for its being the greatest single work of art in our tradition. How significant, then, and how teasing, that this masterwork should be a comedy, and that its creator should have explicitly valued the comic "vision" over the tragic—how disturbing to our predilection for order that, with an homage paid to classical antiquity so meticulous that it is surely a burlesque, Joyce's exhibitionististicicity is never so (...) serious as when it is most outrageously comic. Joyce might have been addressing his readers when he wrote to Nora in 1909: "Now . . . I want you to read over and over all I have written to you. Some of it is ugly, obscene, and bestial, some of it is pure and holy and spiritual: all of it is myself." Joyce Carol Oates is the author of, among others, them, Wonderland, and The Assassins. "Jocoserious Joyce" is part of a book on tragedy and comedy. Her contributions to Critical Inquiry, include "Lawrence's Gotterdammerung" and “The Picture of Dorian Gray: Wilde's Parable about the Fall". (shrink)

This volume considers how current transitions in postsecondary education are impacting Higher Education institutions and subjects in a number of Northern nations, as well as how these transitions are indicative of the wider shift from the welfare to the market state. The university is now considered a key site for training and wealth generation in the so-called 'knowledge economy' that operates in a globalising, high tech world. Further, these transitions are underpinned by neo-liberal economic ideas that assume that the public (...) sector is a drag on the economy unless it is subject to the rules, regulations and assumptions that govern the private sector. This excellent volume - an important contribution to Education as well as Economics and Politics - furthers our understandings of universities as marketable entities as part of the globalized economy. (shrink)

Globalisation has accelerated economic development in emerging economies through the outsourcing of their supply chains and at the same time has accelerated the degradation of environmental and social conditions. Society expects corporations to play an essential role in creating economic, environmental and social prosperity beyond their country of origin. In order to regulate outsourcing activities in the supply chain, many multinationals are constantly searching for ways to manage their indirect environmental and social impacts accordingly, as well as to meet their (...) stakeholder expectations. Because expectations of stakeholders vary widely across different regions, this study intends, by engaging with major stakeholders, to identify what are the local and regional supply chain stakeholders' perceptions and expectations. The findings would help in building consensus, strengthening the implementation and establishing the future corporate social responsibility (CSR) frame-work. This study collects and analyses data from 21 major stakeholders in Hong Kong and Mainland China. The results indicate that local and regional stakeholders perceive that CSR is fairly significant to largely export-oriented businesses, but it is lagging behind the West due to the fact that most local/regional companies only become involved in CSR when this is a client requirement. They see responsible corporations as meeting the local legislative requirement; going beyond this requirement is unnecessary. A voluntary approach favours multi-party partnership initiatives with pilot trust programmes aimed at managers' and workers' capacity building. Most stakeholders favour the proposed regional partnership initiative, supply chain task forces aimed at bringing together relevant organisations and people with different sets of skills. Distinct roles of different organisations are identified to assist suppliers to understand CSR, and only this will bring about long-term sustainable change. (shrink)

This book defends the view that any adequate account of rational decision making must take a decision maker's beliefs about causal relations into account. The early chapters of the book introduce the non-specialist to the rudiments of expected utility theory. The major technical advance offered by the book is a 'representation theorem' that shows that both causal decision theory and its main rival, Richard Jeffrey's logic of decision, are both instances of a more general conditional decision theory. The book solves (...) a long-standing problem for Jeffrey's theory by showing for the first time how to obtain a unique utility and probability representation for preferences and judgements of comparative likelihood. The book also contains a major new discussion of what it means to suppose that some event occurs or that some proposition is true. The most complete and robust defence of causal decision theory available. (shrink)

Scientists have been arguing for more than 25 years about whether it is a good idea to collect voucher specimens from particularly vulnerable biological populations. Some think that, obviously, scientists should not be harvesting organisms from, for instance, critically endangered species. Others think that, obviously, it is the special job of scientists to collect precisely such information before any chance of retrieving it is forever lost. The character, extent, longevity, and span of the ongoing disagreement indicates that this is likely (...) to be a hard problem to solve. Nonetheless, the aim of this paper is to help field biologists figure out what do to when collecting a voucher specimen risks extinction. Here I present and assess varying practices of specimen collection for both extant and extinct species in order to compare and contrast cases where extinction risk both is and is not a problem. When it comes to taking vouchers from extant species at some risk of extinction, I determine that those advocating for conservative approaches to collection as well as those advocating for liberal information-gathering practices have good reasons to assess things in the way they each do. This means that there is unlikely to be a decisive, one-size-fits-all response to this problem. Still, progress can be made. We can acknowledge the risks of proceeding in either manner, as well as the uncertainty about how best to proceed. We can proceed as thoughtfully as possible, and be ready to articulate a rationale for whichever procedure is used in any particular case. (shrink)

Globalisation has accelerated economic development in emerging economies through the outsourcing of their supply chains and at the same time has accelerated the degradation of environmental and social conditions. Society expects corporations to play an essential role in creating economic, environmental and social prosperity beyond their country of origin. In order to regulate outsourcing activities in the supply chain, many multinationals are constantly searching for ways to manage their indirect environmental and social impacts accordingly, as well as to meet their (...) stakeholder expectations. Because expectations of stakeholders vary widely across different regions, this study intends, by engaging with major stakeholders, to identify what are the local and regional supply chain stakeholders’ perceptions and expectations. The findings would help in building consensus, strengthening the implementation and establishing the future corporate social responsibility framework. This study collects and analyses data from 21 major stakeholders in Hong Kong and Mainland China. The results indicate that local and regional stakeholders perceive that CSR is fairly significant to largely export-oriented businesses, but it is lagging behind the West due to the fact that most local/regional companies only become involved in CSR when this is a client requirement. They see responsible corporations as meeting the local legislative requirement; going beyond this requirement is unnecessary. A voluntary approach favours multi-party partnership initiatives with pilot trust programmes aimed at managers’ and workers’ capacity building. Most stakeholders favour the proposed regional partnership initiative, supply chain task forces aimed at bringing together relevant organisations and people with different sets of skills. Distinct roles of different organisations are identified to assist suppliers to understand CSR, and only this will bring about long-term sustainable change. (shrink)

Introduction to "A World without Values....".

Interprofessional collaboration has become accepted as an important component in today’s health care and has been guided by concerns with patient safety, quality health-care outcomes, and economics. It is widely accepted that interprofessional collaboration improves patient outcomes through enhanced communication among health-care providers and increased accessibility to services. Although there is a paucity of research that provides confirmatory evidence, interprofessional competencies continue to be incorporated into the curricula of health-care students. This article examines the ethics of interprofessional collaboration and ethical (...) issues that arise from the mainstream adoption of interprofessional competencies and the potential for moral distress in nursing. (shrink)

This article argues that localizing access – a general ethical principle – is a workable strategy that can be used in approaching participants in qualitative research across disciplines and in coping with respective institutional practices in order to collect meaningful data. This article is based on the autobiographical, lived experiences of the authors during the period of their data collection in Cameroon in 2013 and 2015, by the second and first author, respectively. Therefore, generalization across a broader context is somewhat (...) restricted, and a closer analysis of specific cultural and situational realities is needed. The article addresses two main objectives, that is, to identify factors that inhibit and factors that facilitate access to individuals and institutions. To this end, the article employs self-reflexivity and provides valuable explanations on the workability of applying skills of negotiating access in a local cultural context. (shrink)

Alarmed by the domination inherent in the patriarchal idea of truth, the author sketches principles that allow her to develop accounts of reality-to "do theory"-without implying that others should agree. This epistemological setting supports differences among wimmin that are expressed in different understandings of the world; it also supports agreement.

The pragmatic character of the Dutch book argument makes it unsuitable as an "epistemic" justification for the fundamental probabilist dogma that rational partial beliefs must conform to the axioms of probability. To secure an appropriately epistemic justification for this conclusion, one must explain what it means for a system of partial beliefs to accurately represent the state of the world, and then show that partial beliefs that violate the laws of probability are invariably less accurate than they could be otherwise. (...) The first task can be accomplished once we realize that the accuracy of systems of partial beliefs can be measured on a gradational scale that satisfies a small set of formal constraints, each of which has a sound epistemic motivation. When accuracy is measured in this way it can be shown that any system of degrees of belief that violates the axioms of probability can be replaced by an alternative system that obeys the axioms and yet is more accurate in every possible world. Since epistemically rational agents must strive to hold accurate beliefs, this establishes conformity with the axioms of probability as a norm of epistemic rationality whatever its prudential merits or defects might be. (shrink)