. This paper reports the preliminary results from a semester-long ethics project at an AACSB accredited, regional comprehensive undergraduate school. This project culminated in an Ethics Awareness Week, which highlight a case study of the controversial EverQuest® multi-player online game. Issues of project planning and design are outlined, the dynamics of a business program-wide approach to ethics are social responsibility are presented, student survey results are presented and analyzed, and issues related to ongoing research are discussed. Nonparametric survey results indicate (...) that the greatest effect in student’s self reported enhanced understanding and interest in issues of business ethics is present when multiple pedagogical methods, e.g., case studies, lectures, assignments, and an Oxford-style debate, are applied by a number of faculty members over an extended time period. The paper concludes with a discussion of future research issues as well as a series of prescriptions for planning, organizing, and implementing such an extended activity. (shrink)

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

To help professionals in all health care disciplines grapple with ethical issues, Ahronheim (medicine, New York Medical College), Moreno (biomedical ethics, U. of Virginia) and Zuckerman (Center for Ethics in Medicine, Beth Israel Medical Center) review the history and theory of clinical ethics and present 31 case studies analyzed from medical, ethical and legal perspectives. This second edition expands the original discussions of ethical dilemmas caused by advances in medical genetics, organ transplants, HIV medicine and other developments. The appendix includes (...) Internet references, suggested readings and other resources. (shrink)

Surgeons have an ethical obligation to ensure all patients, regardless of their personal characteristics, receive the same quality of care. Established surgeons also have an obligation to ensure equal treatment for their peers and for those who would like to join the field. The commitment to ethical hiring and working standards entails making certain all individuals have the same opportunities free from discriminatory practices. The world of business has long realized the positive implications of having a diverse and inclusive workforce. (...) Studies have shown a positive correlation between increased racial and gender diversity and company performance. Diversity can lead to an increase in knowledge by sharing ideas with individuals who come from different life experiences and breakdown cultural barriers. We have already begun to see the impact of ignoring the importance of diversity within healthcare, including surgery. Healthcare disparities are defined by the NIH as “differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and burden of diseases and other adverse health conditions that exist among specific population groups.” Healthcare disparities persist despite decades acknowledging their existence, and they are pernicious and prevalent in surgery. One proposed method to help reduce or eliminate healthcare disparities is to increase the diversity of the workforce treating the patients, which would in turn reduce potential bias the patients face in the healthcare setting. Implicit bias can play a key role in interactions with patients and colleagues and needs to be explored on an individual basis. Cultural competence training can also provide surgeons the ability to effectively communicate with not only a diverse population of patients but also a diverse surgical workforce. All surgeons regardless of their role can have a positive impact on diversity as it relates to patient care and the surgical workforce. (shrink)

This new volume gives discursive shape to several key facets of the relationship among politics, theology and religious thought. Powerfully relevant to a wealth of further academic disciplines including history, law and the humanities, it sharpens the contours of our understanding in a live and evolving field. It charts the mechanisms by which, contrary to the avowed secularism of many of today's polities, theology and religion have often, and sometimes profoundly, shaped political discourse. By augmenting this broader analysis with a (...) selection of authoritative papers focusing on the prominent sub-field of political theology, the anthology offsets a startling academic lacuna. Alongside focused analysis of subjects such as conscience, secularism and religious tolerance, the discussion of political theology examines the tradition's critical moments, including developments during the post-World War I Weimar republic in Germany and the epistemological imprint the theory has left behind in works by political thinkers influenced by the three major monotheistic traditions. (shrink)

Last year the editors of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society invited feminists worldwide to comment on the millennial transition. Representing a disciplinary and generational range of writers, the resulting collection is at turns inspiring, troubling, provocative, despairing, celebratory. Some of the essays give voice to anxieties, others are more hopeful some reflect back, others look forward. Many of these fifty-plus short essays speak to themes of gender, nationality, global independence, transnational corporate domination, racial and ethnic identities, and (...) complex intersections among these systems. Readers will find eye-opening writing that is thoughtful, committed, and passionate about feminist futures. (shrink)

In this dissertation I argue for a theory of rectificatory justice, and apply that theory to circumstances involving two social groups generally thought to have been historically wronged, viz., Native Americans and African Americans. ;Development of a conception of rectificatory justice is begun in Chapter 1 by examining the distinction between distributive justice and rectificatory justice, and by suggesting a theory of compensation. It is argued that the notion of compensation cannot provide an adequate ground for a species of justice. (...) ;I argue in Chapter 2 that a taxonomy of justice ought to consist of only two species, viz., distributive justice and rectificatory justice. In addition to compensation, the view of rectification argued for includes accounts of restoration, apology, and punishment. Some theories of so-called corrective justice are examined, and are found to be morally inadequate. ;In Chapter 3, I examine several views of a right to compensation, including those of Joel Feinberg and Judith Jarvis Thomson. Jules Coleman's claim that a requirement in justice for compensation can arise without the transgression of rights is examined and then rejected. ;After suggesting a theory of social groups, and adopting Allen Buchanan's account of groups rights, I argue in Chapter 4 that rectification rights can be legitimately ascribed to social groups. I assess the practical implications of my theory of rectificatory justice by applying it to two cases. In the first case, I argue that the fishing rights that were restored to Native American tribes of the Northwest as a result of U.S. v. Washington are justified when grounded on their right to rectification; hence, the claim that the restoration of these rights constituted an injustice to non-Native American fishing interests is mistaken. In the second case, I show how a right to rectification can legitimately be ascribed to African Americans as a group. ;The dissertation concludes with Chapter 5, where I consider several justificatory arguments for a moral statute of limitations on injustice. I conclude that a significant part of any such argument must ultimately rest on our judgements about competing claims. (shrink)

What are the moral obligations of participants and bystanders during—and in the wake of –a conflict? How have theoretical understandings of justice, peace and responsibility changed in the face of contemporary realities of war? Drawing on the work of leading scholars in the fields of philosophy, political theory, international law, religious studies and peace studies, the collection significantly advances current literature on war, justice and post-conflict reconciliation. Contributors address some of the most pressing issues of international and civil conflict, including (...) the tension between attributing individual and collective responsibility for the wrongs of war, the trade-offs made between the search for truth and demands for justice, and the conceptual intricacies of coming to understand just what is meant by ‘peace’ and ‘conflict.’ Individual essays also address concrete topics including the international criminal court, reparations, truces, political apologies, truth commissions and criminal trials, with an eye to contemporary examples from conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and North and South America.​. (shrink)

Basement membranes are thin sheets of extracellular proteins situated in close contact with cells at various locations in the body. They have a great influence on tissue compartmentalization and cellular phenotypes from early embryonic development onwards. The major constituents of all basement membranes are collagen IV and laminin, which both exist as multiple isoforms and each form a huge irregular network by self assembly. These networks are connected by nidogen, which also binds to several other components (proteoglycans, fibulins). Basement membranes (...) are connected to cells by several receptors of the integrin family, which bind preferentially to laminins and collagen IV, and via some lectin‐type interactions. The formation of basement membranes requires cooperation between different cell types since nidogen, for example, is usually synthesized by cells other than those exposed to the basement membranes. Thus many molecular interactions, of variable affinities, determine the final shape of basement membranes and their preferred subanatomical localization. (shrink)

About one third of patients with epilepsy have seizures refractory to the medical treatment. Electrical stimulation mapping is the gold standard for the identification of “eloquent” areas prior to resection of epileptogenic tissue. However, it is time-consuming and may cause undesired side effects. Broadband gamma activity recorded with extraoperative electrocorticography during cognitive tasks may be an alternative to ESM but until now has not proven of definitive clinical value. Considering their role in cognition, the alpha and beta bands could further (...) improve the identification of eloquent cortex. We compared gamma, alpha and beta activity, and their combinations for the identification of eloquent cortical areas defined by ESM. Ten patients with intractable focal epilepsy participated in a delayed-match-to-sample task, where syllable sounds were compared to visually presented letters. We used a generalized linear model approach to find the optimal weighting of each band for predicting ESM-defined categories and estimated the diagnostic ability by calculating the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Gamma activity increased more in eloquent than in non-eloquent areas, whereas alpha and beta power decreased more in eloquent areas. Diagnostic ability of each band was close to 0.7 for all bands but depended on multiple factors including the time period of the cognitive task, the location of the electrodes and the patient’s degree of attention to the stimulus. We show that diagnostic ability can be increased by 3–5% by combining gamma and alpha and by 7.5–11% when gamma and beta were combined. We then show how ECoG power modulation from cognitive testing can be used to map the probability of eloquence in individual patients and how this probability map can be used in clinical settings to optimize ESM planning. We conclude that the combination of gamma and beta power modulation during cognitive testing can contribute to the identification of eloquent areas prior to ESM in patients with refractory focal epilepsy. (shrink)

Judith Allen Shelly and Arlene B. Miller help and encourage nurses to resolve conflicts between their Christian beliefs and professional ethics.

As nursing and healthcare continue to change, we need nurses who are committed both to a solid understanding of their profession and to caring well for patients and their families. Offering a historically and theologically grounded vision of the nurse's call, this thoroughly revised third edition of a classic text includes practical features for educators, students, and practitioners.

Two decades of research on euthanasia in the Netherlands have resulted into clear insights in the frequency and characteristics of euthanasia and other medical end-of-life decisions in the Netherlands. These empirical studies have contributed to the quality of the public debate, and to the regulating and public control of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. No slippery slope seems to have occurred. Physicians seem to adhere to the criteria for due care in the large majority of cases. Further, it has been shown (...) that the majority of physicians think that the euthanasia Act has improved their legal certainty and contributes to the carefulness of life-terminating acts. In 2005, eighty percent of the euthanasia cases were reported to the review committees. Thus, the transparency envisaged by the Act still does not extend to all cases. Unreported cases almost all involve the use of opioids, and are not considered to be euthanasia by physicians. More education and debate is needed to disentangle in these situations which acts should be regarded as euthanasia and which should not. Medical end-of-life decision-making is a crucial part of end-of-life care. It should therefore be given continuous attention in health care policy and medical training. Systematic periodic research is crucial for enhancing our understanding of end-of-life care in modern medicine, in which the pursuit of a good quality of dying is nowadays widely recognized as an important goal, in addition to the traditional goals such as curing diseases and prolonging life. (shrink)

In my contribution to this volume, I (BHS) comment on on the stultifying rhetoric of contemporary analytic moral theory as illustrated in Judith Jarvis Thomson's Tanner Lectures, with particular reference to Thomson's anxieties about the moral relativism exhibited by college freshman and to her efforts--quite strained, in my view, and inevitably unsuccessful--to demonstrate the existence of objective judgments in matters of morality and taste .

Next SectionBiodefence, broadly understood as efforts to prevent or mitigate the damage of a bioterrorist attack, raises a number of ethical issues, from the allocation of scarce biomedical research and public health funds, to the use of coercion in quarantine and other containment measures in the event of an outbreak. In response to the US bioterrorist attacks following September 11, significant US policy decisions were made to spur scientific enquiry in the name of biodefence. These decisions led to a number (...) of critical institutional changes within the US federal government agencies governing scientific research. Subsequent science policy discussions have focused largely on ‘the dual use problem’: how to preserve the openness of scientific research while preventing research undertaken for the prevention or mitigation of biological threats from third parties. We join others in shifting the ethical debate over biodefence away from a simple framing of the problem as one of dual use, by demonstrating how a dual use framing distorts the debate about bioterrorism and truncates discussion of the moral issues. We offer an alternative framing rooted in social epistemology and institutional design theory, arguing that the ethical and policy debates regarding ‘dual use’ biomedical research ought to be reframed as a larger optimisation problem across a plurality of values including, among others: (1) the production of scientific knowledge; (2) the protection of human and animal subjects; (3) the promotion and protection of public health (national and global); (4) freedom of scientific enquiry; and (5) the constraint of government power. (shrink)

In this interview, C. P. Goodman invites British Polanyi scholar Richard T. Allen to reflect on his interest in Polanyi’s philosophical ideas and share what he believes is valuable in his thought.

Accumulating evidence for the unique social, behavioral, and physical health benefits of positive emotion and related well-being constructs has led to the development and testing of positive psychological interventions to increase emotional well-being and enhance health promotion and disease prevention. PPIs are specifically aimed at improving emotional well-being and consist of practices such as gratitude, savoring, and acts of kindness. The purpose of this narrative review was to examine the literature on PPIs with a particular focus on positive emotion outcomes. (...) We evaluated the evidence on the effects of PPIs on positive emotion specifically, and discussed the range of evidence regarding the relative responsiveness of emotion measures to PPIs in order to gain a better understanding of the specific emotional pathways through which PPIs influence psychological and physical well-being. We conclude with recommendations for best evaluating effects of PPIs on positive emotion outcomes. (shrink)

This comprehensive Gandhi reader provides an essential new reference for scholars and students of his life and thought. It is the only text available that presents Gandhi's own writings, including excerpts from three of his books—An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Satyagraha in South Africa, Hind Swaraj —a major pamphlet, Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place, and many journal articles and letters, along with a biographical sketch of his life in historical context and recent essays by highly (...) regarded scholars. (shrink)

In the early 2000s, the development of local food systems in advanced industrial countries has expanded beyond creation and support of farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture farms and projects to include targeted Buy Local Food campaigns. Non-governmental groups in many U.S. places and regions have launched such campaigns with the intent of motivating and directing consumers toward more local food purchasing in general. This article examines the current manifestations and possibilities for social justice concerns in Buy Local Food campaigns, (...) by considering them within the more general category of “selective patronage“ campaigns. Historical campaign examples, such as Buy Union, Buy American, and Buy Black campaigns, offer instructive comparisons to contemporary consumer campaigns promoting local food. Through examining the construction of threats, intended beneficiaries, products to be avoided, and those to be preferentially selected, the paper demonstrates how selective patronage campaigns have emphasized social justice needs and concerns for designated groups in ways that have been potentially exclusionary of other disadvantaged groups and thus undermining of social justice more broadly. As a contemporary instance of “selective patronage,“ Buy Local Food campaigns exhibit similar contradictory impulses, which are intensified by the conceptual and practical pitfalls in designating “local.“ The article concludes by considering how the challenges and prospects for commitments to social justice in local food consumer campaigns reinforce the importance of emerging initiatives centered on domestic fair trade. (shrink)

In this anthology of new and classic articles, fifteen noted feminist philosophers explore contemporary ethical issues that uniquely affect the lives of women. These issues in applied ethics include autonomy, responsibility, sexual harassment, women in the military, new technologies for reproduction, surrogate motherhood, pornography, abortion, nonfeminist women and others. Whether generated by old social standards or intensified by recent technology, these dilemmas all pose persistent, 'nagging,' questions that cry out for answers.

A collection of essays, comments and replies on some of the contentious issues in feminist theory. Specific conversations centre on topics of debate such as feminist standpoint theory; gender as an analytic category; problems with sexual difference; and privacy and representations of the personal. Each exchange covers issues central to feminist scholarship and includes discussions from a cross-section of disciplines: political/social theory, philosophy, sociology, cultural studies and critical theory.

Reading, a micro-level and subjective activity, is a mechanism through which gender is constructed and reinforced. Drawing on insights from cultural studies and feminist literary critics, and applying sociological perspectives and methodologies, we explored how 53 women and men read and interpreted two short stories, William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” and Jayne Anne Phillip's “Home.” We found that the gender of the readers had relatively few effects on their interpretations, but that indicators of life experience were influential. In general, (...) more substantial life experience as reflected in greater age, being married, and having children was associated with more sympathetic, empathic reactions to the major characters. Ideological positions also influenced readers' interpretations, when those positions were relevant to the themes of the text; these individual values and attitudes were associated with more particularistic patterns of empathy. Rather than dismissing gender as an influence on reading, however, we suggest that gender influences reading and interpretation partially through the pervasive gender-markings of social context. (shrink)