A influência da família no desenvolvimento da criança e do adolescente é um foco importante de pesquisa atualmente. Para estudar a relação entre a interação familiar e a auto-estima de adolescentes, 111 alunos (13 e 14 anos), de três escolas particulares de Porto União (SC) responderam a Escala de A..

Controlled Human Infection Model (CHIM) research involves the infection of otherwise healthy participants with disease often for the sake of vaccine development. The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasised the urgency of enhancing CHIM research capability and the importance of having clear ethical guidance for their conduct. The payment of CHIM participants is a controversial issue involving stakeholders across ethics, medicine and policymaking with allegations circulating suggesting exploitation, coercion and other violations of ethical principles. There are multiple approaches to payment: reimbursement, wage (...) payment and unlimited payment. We introduce a new Payment for Risk Model, which involves paying for time, pain and inconvenience and for risk associated with participation. We give philosophical arguments based on utility, fairness and avoidance of exploitation to support this. We also examine a cross-section of the UK public and CHIM experts. We found that CHIM participants are currently paid variable amounts. A representative sample of the UK public believes CHIM participants should be paid approximately triple the UK minimum wage and should be paid for the risk they endure throughout participation. CHIM experts believe CHIM participants should be paid more than double the UK minimum wage but are divided on the payment for risk. The Payment for Risk Model allows risk and pain to be accounted for in payment and could be used to determine ethically justifiable payment for CHIM participants.Although many research guidelines warn against paying large amounts or paying for risk, our empirical findings provide empirical support to the growing number of ethical arguments challenging this status quo. We close by suggesting two ways (value of statistical life or consistency with risk in other employment) by which payment for risk could be calculated. (shrink)

The study of rare diseases has long been an area of challenge for medical researchers, with agonizingly slow movement towards improved understanding of pathophysiology and treatments compared with more common illnesses. The push towards evidence-based medicine (EBM), which prioritizes certain types of evidence over others, poses a particular issue when mapped onto rare diseases, which may not be feasibly investigated using the methodologies endorsed by EBM, due to a number of constraints. While other trial designs have been suggested to overcome (...) these limitations (with varying success), perhaps the most recent and enthusiastically adopted is the application of artificial intelligence to rare disease data. This paper critically examines the pitfalls of EBM (and its trial design offshoots) as it pertains to rare diseases, exploring the current landscape of AI as a potential solution to these challenges. This discussion is also taken a step further, providing philosophical commentary on the weaknesses and dangers of AI algorithms applied to rare disease research. While not proposing a singular solution, this article does provide a thoughtful reminder that no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach exists in the complex world of rare diseases. We must balance cautious optimism with critical evaluation of new research paradigms and technology, while at the same time not neglecting the ever-important aspect of patient values and preferences, which may be challenging to incorporate into computer-driven models. (shrink)

This article problematizes claims of women’s empowerment in “masculine” sports through an exploration of women’s participation in mixed martial arts —a combat sport colloquially referred to as “cage fighting.” MMA, perhaps more than any other sport, allows women athletes to challenge patriarchal beliefs about gender by demonstrating women’s capacity for physical violence and domination. But whereas investigations into MMA have produced important findings for studies of men and masculinities, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to women’s participation in this (...) hypermasculine world. This article begins to fill this gap through an ethnographic account of this growing sport. Drawing from more than four years of ethnographic fieldwork and 40 semi-structured interviews with professional women’s MMA athletes, I show how the neoliberal–postfeminist culture of MMA undermines its empowerment potential by shaping gendered subjecthood in ways that are conducive to the maintenance of gender inequality. I conclude by discussing the implications of my findings for women’s empowerment in sport. (shrink)

This paper examines the meaningfulness of pointing in great apes. We appeal to Hannah Ginsborg’s conception of primitive normativity, which provides an adequate criterion for establishing whether a response is meaningful, and we attempt to make room for a conception according to which there is no fundamental difference between the responses of human infants and those of other great apes to pointing gestures. This conception is an alternative to Tomasello’s view that pointing gestures and reactions to them reveal a fundamental (...) difference between humans and other apes. (shrink)

Empathy is a form of emotionally charged imaginative perspective‐taking. It is also the unique source of a particular form of understanding, which I will call humane understanding. Humane understanding consists in the direct apprehension of the intelligibility of others’ emotions. This apprehension is an epistemic good whose ethical significance is multifarious. In this paper, I focus on elaborating the sense in which humane understanding of others is non‐instrumentally valuable to its recipients. People have a complex but profound need to be (...) humanely understood. Because we respond to others’ very real need when we pursue this sort of understanding of their emotions, empathy is best understood as itself a way of caring, rather than just a means to promote other caring behavior. (shrink)

Several studies have illuminated how processing manual action verbs (MaVs) affects the programming or execution of concurrent hand movements. Here, to circumvent key confounds in extant designs, we conducted the first assessment of motor–language integration during handwriting—a task in which linguistic and motoric processes are co‐substantiated. Participants copied MaVs, non‐manual action verbs, and non‐action verbs as we collected measures of motor programming and motor execution. Programming latencies were similar across conditions, but execution was faster for MaVs than for the other (...) categories, regardless of whether word meanings were accessed implicitly or explicitly. In line with the Hand‐Action‐Network Dynamic Language Embodiment (HANDLE) model, such findings suggest that effector‐congruent verbs can prime manual movements even during highly automatized tasks in which motoric and verbal processes are naturally intertwined. Our paradigm opens new avenues for fine‐grained explorations of embodied language processes. (shrink)

A timely and penetrating investigation, this book seeks to transform moral philosophy. In the face of continuing disagreement about which general moral principles are correct, there has been a resurgence of interest in the idea that correct moral judgements can be only about particular cases. This view--moral particularism --forecasts a revolution in ordinary moral practice that has until now consisted largely of appeals to general moral principles. Moral particularism also opposes the primary aim of most contemporary normative moral theory that (...) attempts to show that either one general principle, or a set of general principles, is superior to all its rivals. (shrink)

This article discusses the triage response to the COVID-19 delta variant surge of 2021. One issue that distinguishes the delta wave from earlier surges is that by the time it became the predominant strain in the USA in July 2021, safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19 had been available for all US adults for several months. We consider whether healthcare professionals and triage committees would have been justified in prioritising patients with COVID-19 who are vaccinated above those who are unvaccinated (...) in first-order or second-order triage. Given that lack of evidence for a correlation between short-term survival and vaccination, we argue that using vaccination status during first-order triage would be inconsistent with accepted triage standards. We then turn to notions of procedural fairness, equity and desert to argue that that there is also a lack of justification for using vaccination status in second-order triage. In planning for future surges, we recommend that medical institutions base their triage decisions on principles meant to save the most lives, minimise inequity and protect the public’s trust, which for the time being would not be served by the inclusion of vaccination status. (shrink)

Bernard Spodek, one of the most important figures in contemporary early childhood education, has been a seminal figure in early childhood education for approximately six decades. He has also been a creative contributor to contemporary thinking on the integration of theory, research, and practice on the development and education of young children. He is the author of numerous theoretical, research, and practical articles that continue to be published in scholarly journals and the author of textbooks that span the fields of (...) early childhood education and child development. This book, Bernard Spodek: Early Childhood Education Scholar, Researcher, and Teacher, offers an understanding of an eminent scholar who has made significant contributions to the field of early childhood education. It has a richly detailed and intimate picture of the construction of a knowledge base for the development and education of young children. All of the chapters show how Bernard Spodek assumes various roles to promote the field of early childhood education as he functions as a mentor, scholar, researcher, and master teacher. Bernard Spodek: Early Childhood Education Scholar, Researcher, and Teacher is a text for students who are interested in acquiring the basic knowledge about early childhood education, about the work that practitioners do with young children, and about the ideas that underlie that work. It is an appropriate text for graduate students in four-year colleges and universities. (shrink)

Professional codes of ethics are regarded as elements of nurses' ethical knowledge base and consequently part of their ethics education. However, research focusing on these codes from an educational viewpoint is scarce. This study explored the need and applicability of nursing codes of ethics in modern health care, their importance in the nursing ethics curriculum, and the need for development of their teaching. A total of 183 Finnish nurse educators and 212 nursing students answered three structured questions, with an opportunity (...) to justify their responses, and one open-ended question. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyse the data. The results suggest that the existence of the codes was seen as important and their applicability mainly as appropriate, despite new challenges posed by modern health care. The codes were regarded as an important part of nurses' ethics education, but current integrated teaching methods require development. (shrink)

Blockchain’s language and terminology is confusing, contested, and rapidly changing. As a hype-driven technology, Blockchain is critical to an increasing number of projects that exist in a space of regulatory uncertainty. As communities of blockchain develop and evolve, the language they use to describe these functions changes. This causes concerns when attempting to have global regulatory certainty and clarity. Regulators and communities have different approaches to blockchain language, and this causes problems because of the translation between practical use in a (...) community, and the legal effects created by regulators. Of particular concern is the lack of clear expression amongst the broader community regarding the concept of blockchain-related assets as these ‘tokens’, ‘coins’, and ‘assets’ form a key part of financial regulation. This project uses semiotics to study the diverse language associated with blockchain. This analyzes a series of self-proclaimed ‘dictionaries of blockchain’ to assess key definitions, themes, perceptions, and misconceptions present in these communities. The study involved a case analysis of the terminology used in Australia’s proposed response to blockchain in comparison with that of wider communities. When comparing this to regulatory definitions and approaches, it becomes clear that this is an area that requires further attention. This project highlights the need for regulators to understand and use common terms in blockchain regulation. It is argued that this approach facilitates a better understanding of poorly understood concepts and clearly connects the law with those it intends to target. (shrink)

In Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke articulates a form of scepticism about meaning. Even though there is considerable disagreement among critics about the reasoning in which the sceptic engages, there is little doubt that he seeks to offer constraints for an adequate account of the facts that constitute the meaningfulness of expressions. Many of the sceptic's remarks concern the nature of the guidance involved in a speaker's meaningful uses of expressions. I propose that we understand those remarks (...) as seeking to give shape to the idea that to use an expression under the guidance of one's understanding is to have a reason for that use, which one's understanding allows one to discern and act on. Any philosophical elucidation of meaning must adequately capture the rational nature of our linguistic acts. (shrink)

We thank the authors of the five commentaries for their careful and highly constructive consideration of our paper,1 which has enabled us to develop our proposal. Participation in research has traditionally been viewed as altruistic. Over time, payments for inconvenience and lost wages have been allowed, as have small incentives, usually in kind. The problem, particularly with controlled human infection model research or ‘challenge studies’, is that they are unpleasant and time-consuming. Researchers want to offer carrots to incentivise participation. We (...) are proposing that research participation be viewed as a job with the full suite of financial entitlements of fairly remunerated work, including payment for risk and labour law protections. This would be a significant shift from current practice and standards. Ambuehl, Ockenfels and Roth have grasped this basic point and have beautifully elaborated how a fair price could be arrived at using economic theory. They build on our proposal helpfully and suggest ‘ salary for time involvement that is adjusted to account for the amount of discomfort experienced during participation, insurance against ex post adverse outcomes and ex ante compensation for risks that cannot be compensated ex post.’3 This effectively addresses Fernandez Lynch and Largent’s2 concern that compensation for risk is inappropriate for harms which do not eventuate. However, because death cannot be compensated for, there must be payment for risk of death, as Ambuehl, Ockenfels and Roth convincingly argue.3 Indeed, the three-part model suggested by Ambuehl, Ockenfels and Roth makes us realise that job model would be a better title for our model than a payment for risk model. The alternative to a properly remunerated job model is the original altruistic model. However, this …. (shrink)

Streaming in secondary schools is not beneficial for improving student outcomes of education with vast amounts of educational research indicating that it does not improve academic results and increases inequity. Yet teachers often prefer working in streamed classes, and research shows that teachers mediate the effects of streaming on students. This study sought to add to the understanding of teachers’ role in student learning by investigating how teachers conceptualise the students in streamed classes. A qualitative case study approach was used, (...) where 18 teachers were interviewed in-depth to create narrative examples, three of which are presented here. These narratives summarise the research findings that teachers saw students in high and low streams as having homogenous characteristics according to five dichotomous categories: approach to learning, attitude to learning, learning style, autonomy and background. Students in mixed-ability classes were viewed along these same continua, but as more heterogeneous groups. Furthermore, these views of students had direct implications for how teachers planned for learning and the expectations that they held of their students. The discussion links streaming research with teacher expectation research, suggesting that teachers of streamed classes in this secondary school hold specific whole-class ideas that affect student learning. The article concludes with recommendations for further inquiry that links these two important fields of educational research. (shrink)

Research into early Chinese olfactory culture is only just beginning. This paper argues that before the arrival of Buddhism, elite scent culture had already begun to be transformed by the importation of foreign aromatics, though these substances arrived shorn of their original cultural context. Prior to the importing of intense foreign perfumes, the aromatics available were mostly local, and traditional Chinese practice stressed the use of individual scents in religious contexts, a concept which also had a profound influence on secular (...) usage. The same is true of early osmographies, which link particular kinds of smells—including many that might be considered unpleasant—to the changing seasons. When foreign spices and aromatics arrived in China for the first time, a phenomenon later literature specifically associates with the reign of Han Wudi, this resulted in the development of new complex and powerful perfumes. This in turn may have had a significant impact upon the material culture of Han China, with the spread of personal scenting devices and incense burners. (shrink)

According to the sceptic Saul Kripke envisages in his celebrated book on Wittgenstein on rules and private language, there are no facts about an individual that determine what she means by any given expression. If there are no such facts, the question then is, what justifies the claim that she does use expressions meaningfully? Kripke’s answer, in a nutshell, is that she by and large uses her expressions in conformity with the linguistic standards of the community she belongs to. While (...) Kripke’s sceptical problem has gripped philosophers for over three decades, few, if any, have been satisfied by his proposed solution, and many have struggled to come up with one of their own. The purpose of this paper is to show that a more satisfactory answer to Kripke’s challenge can be developed on the basis of Donald Davidson’s writings on triangulation, the idea of two individuals interacting simultaneously with each other and the world they share. It follows from the triangulation argument that the facts that can be regarded as determining meaning are irreducible. Yet, contra Kripke, they are not mysterious, for the argument does spell out what is needed for an individual’s expressions to be meaningful. (shrink)

Praise, unlike blame, is generally considered well intended and beneficial, and therefore in less need of scrutiny. In line with recent developments, we argue that praise merits more thorough philosophical analysis. We show that, just like blame, praise can be problematic by expressing a failure to respect a person’s equal value or worth as a person. Such patronizing praise, however, is often more insidious, because praise tends to be regarded as well intended and beneficial, which renders it harder to recognize (...) and object to. Among other things, a philosophical analysis of patronizing praise helps people on the receiving end articulate why they feel uncomfortable or offended by it, shows patronizing praisers how their praise is problematic, and provides input for further philosophical analysis of blame.In the first section of the paper, we discuss how hypocritical praise, just like hypocritical blame, can fail to respect the equality of persons by expressing that the praiser applies more demanding moral standards to the praisee than to themself. We further discuss obstructionist praise, which loosely corresponds to complicit blame, and can similarly express that certain moral standards apply to others but not to the praiser. In the second part of the paper, we discuss another variety of patronizing praise. Praise can be an inaccurate appraisal of a person based on irrelevant considerations – like race, gender, or class – and thereby constitute a failure to recognize their equal worth as a person. We identify three ways in which such praise can manifest. (shrink)

This paper examines Hannah Ginsborg's attempt to address the challenge raised by Saul Kripke's meaning sceptic. I start by identifying the two constraints that the sceptic claims must be met by a satisfactory answer. Then I try to show that Ginsborg's proposal faces a dilemma. In the first instance, I argue that it is able to meet the second constraint, but not the first. I then amend the proposal in order to make room for the first constraint. I go on (...) to argue that, under this new interpretation, it cannot meet the second constraint. (shrink)

In this article, it will be concluded that the major automotive racing league, Formula 1, is failing in its efforts to be a truly unisex sport. In the current Formula 1 series, there are no female drivers. Although women have never been officially prohibited from competing in Formula 1, there have been fewer than 10 female drivers since its inception. This inquiry focuses on why women drivers have been prevented from securing professional driving positions in Formula 1 and racing on (...) equal terms with men. I argue that there are five major barriers which perpetuate women’s exclusion from this league: historical and current attitudes, assumed physical and mental inferiority, sexualisation, money, and representation and visibility. In this cultural examination, I demonstrate that the situation for women in Formula 1 appears to be bleaker than in other sports that are making progress in their quest for gender equality. However, I also suggest that, despite ethical issues, W Series – a new, women-only, single-seater car racing championship – could potentially motivates positive change for women’s car racing by promoting gender equity through a new league which enables women to improve themselves in a protected category. This article also considers the impact of sex in Formula 1, which is pertinent to the discussion surrounding alleged biological differences. The discussion employs Simone de Beauvoir’s conceptualisation of ‘Otherness’, as well as Helmut Pflugfelder’s account of female embodiment in motorsport. The overall findings are that more focused research is required for gender issues in Formula 1 to be accurately addressed. (shrink)

The ethics of technology has primarily focused on what values are and how they can be embedded in technologies through design. In this context, some work has been done to show the efficacy of a number of design approaches. However, existing studies have not clearly pointed out the ways in which design-for-values approaches can be used by design team managers to properly organize and use technologies in practice. This chapter attempts to fill this gap by discussing the value sensitive design (...) (VSD) approach as a useful means of co-designing technologies as a toolkit for existing workflow management, in this case, Agile. It will be demonstrated that VSD shows promise as a way of democratically designing technologies as well as fostering democratic technology policy innovation. (shrink)

Although undergraduate engineering ethics courses often include the development of moral sensitivity as a learning objective and the use of active learning techniques, teaching centers on the transmission of cognitive knowledge. This article describes a complementary assignment asking students to perform an ethics “experiment” on themselves that has a potential to enhance affective learning and moral imagination. The article argues that the focus on cognitive learning may not promote, and may even impair, our efforts to foster moral sensitivity. In contrast, (...) the active learning assignments and exercises, like the ethics “experiment” discussed, offer great potential to expand the scope of instruction in engineering ethics to include ethical behavior as well as knowledge. Engineering ethics education needs to extend beyond the narrow range of human action associated with the technical work of the engineer and explore ways to draw on broader lifeworld experiences to enrich professional practice and identity. (shrink)

Background:Nursing as an ethical practice requires courage to be moral, taking tough stands for what is right, and living by one’s moral values. Nurses need moral courage in all areas and at all levels of nursing. Along with new interest in virtue ethics in healthcare, interest in moral courage as a virtue and a valued element of human morality has increased. Nevertheless, what the concept of moral courage means in nursing contexts remains ambiguous.Objective:This article is an analysis of the concept (...) of moral courage in nursing.Design:Rodgers’ evolutionary method of concept analysis provided the framework to conduct the analysis.Data sources:The literature search was carried out in September 2015 in six databases: PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and The Philosopher’s Index. The following key words were used: “moral” OR “ethical” AND “courage” OR “strength” AND “nurs*” with no time limit. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 31 studies were included in the final analysis.Ethical considerations:This study was conducted according to good scientific guidelines.Results:Seven core attributes of moral courage were identified: true presence, moral integrity, responsibility, honesty, advocacy, commitment and perseverance, and personal risk. Antecedents were ethical sensitivity, conscience, and experience. Consequences included personal and professional development and empowerment.Discussion and conclusion:This preliminary clarification warrants further exploring through theoretical and philosophical literature, expert opinions, and empirical research to gain validity and reliability for its application in nursing practice. (shrink)

Are there limits to what it is morally okay to imagine? More particularly, is imaginatively inhabiting morally suspect perspectives something that is off-limits for truly virtuous people? In this paper, I investigate the surprisingly fraught relation between virtue and a familiar form of imaginative perspective taking I call empathy. I draw out a puzzle about the relation between empathy and virtuousness. First, I present an argument to the effect that empathy with vicious attitudes is not, in fact, something that the (...) fully virtuous person can indulge in. At least one prominent way of thinking about the psychology of the virtuous person excludes the possibility that the virtuous could emotionally apprehend the world in a less than virtuous way, and empathizing with vicious outlooks does seem to run afoul of that restriction. Then, I develop an argument that runs in the contrary direction: virtue in fact requires empathy with vicious outlooks, at least in some situations. There is reason to think that a crucial part of being virtuous is ministering effectively to others’ needs, and there is also reason to think that other people may need to be empathized with, even if their emotional outlooks are at least minorly vicious. Finally, I outline two different solutions to this puzzle. Both solutions hold some promise, but they also bring new challenges in their train. (shrink)

The reality-virtuality continuum encompasses a multitude of objects, events and environments ranging from real-world multisensory inputs to interactive multisensory virtual simulators, in which sensory integration can involve very different combinations of both physical and digital inputs. These different ways of stimulating the senses can affect the consumer’s consciousness, potentially altering their judgements and behaviours. In this perspective paper, we explore how technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality can, by generating and modifying the human sensorium, act on consumer consciousness. (...) We discuss the potential impact of this altered consciousness for consumer behaviour while, at the same time, considering how it may pave the way for further research. (shrink)

Background:Moral courage is required at all levels of nursing. However, there is a need for development of instruments to measure nurses’ moral courage.Objectives:The objective of this study is to develop a scale to measure nurses’ self-assessed moral courage, to evaluate the scale’s psychometric properties, and to briefly describe the current level of nurses’ self-assessed moral courage and associated socio-demographic factors.Research design:In this methodological study, non-experimental, cross-sectional exploratory design was applied. The data were collected using Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale and analysed (...) statistically.Participants and research context:The data were collected from a convenience sample of 482 nurses from four different clinical fields in a major university hospital in Finland for the final testing of the scale. The pilot comprised a convenience sample of 129 nurses.Ethical considerations:The study followed good scientific inquiry guidelines. Ethical approval was obtained from the university ethics committee and permission to conduct the study from the participating hospital.Findings:Psychometric evaluation showed that the 4-sub-scale, 21-item Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale demonstrates good reliability and validity at its current state of development showing a good level of internal consistency for a new scale, the internal consistency values ranging from 0.73 to 0.82 for sub-scales and 0.93 for the total scale, thus well exceeding the recommended Cronbach’s alpha value of >0.7. Principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis supported the theoretical construct of Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale. Face validity and expert panel assessments markedly contributed to the relevance of items in establishing content validity.Discussion and conclusion:Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale provides a new generic instrument intended for measuring nurses’ self-assessed moral courage. Recognizing the importance of moral courage as a part of nurses’ moral competence and its assessment offers possibilities to develop interventions and educational programs for enhancement of moral courage. Research should focus on further validation measures of Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale in international contexts. (shrink)

A sensibility is, on a rough first pass, an emotional orientation to the world. It shapes how things appear to us, evaluatively speaking. By transfiguring things’ evaluative appearances, a change in sensibility can profoundly alter one’s overall experience of the world. I argue that some forms of sensibility change entail (1) risking one’s knowledge of what experiences imbued with one’s prior sensibility were like, and (2) surrendering one’s grasp on the intelligibility of one’s prior emotional apprehensions. These costs have consequences (...) for Laurie Paul’s ‘problem of transformative experience.’ Paul has argued that when we are poised to become someone new, our inexperience generates problems for authentic choice about our own futures. By reckoning with the epistemic losses involved in sensibility change, I show that this problem must not be confined to novel transformations. Prior experience does not guarantee the knowledge or understanding necessary for choosing authentically (in Paul’s sense). If the problem Paul highlights is indeed a problem _at all,_ then, it is a still more pervasive and intractable one than it has been taken to be. (shrink)

Our collective enthusiasm for empathy reflects a sense that it is deeply valuable. I show that empathy bears a complex and surprisingly problematic relation to another social epistemic phenomenon that we have reason to value, namely testimonial trust. My discussion focuses on empathy with and trust in people who are members of one or more oppressed groups. Empathy for oppressed people can be a powerful tool for engendering a certain form of testimonial trust, because there is a tight connection between (...) empathy and a approval of another's outlook. I then argue that the qualities of empathy that make it such a powerful tool for bridging differences and building trust also have a problematic upshot: they make it the case that reliance on empathy will sometimes have a distorting effect upon the ways we extend testimonial trust. (shrink)

The House of Lords majority decision in Matthews v. Kent and Medway Towns Fire Authority overturns the narrow interpretation given to key aspects of the Part-Time Workers (Protection of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations’ core comparator mechanism in the lower tribunals and the Court of Appeal. It is a contextually astute judgment, which recognises the reductionist implications of an overly narrow approach to establishing comparability for the purposes of a less favourable treatment claim on the grounds of part-time work. The positive (...) aspect of this decision remains overshadowed, however, by the fact that this interpretation provides little consolation to the large majority of part-time women workers whose disadvantage and inequality remains outside the scope of the Regulations’ protection. (shrink)

Anne Conway (1631–1679) is often described as a vitalist. Scholars typically take this to mean that Conway considers life to be ubiquitous throughout the world. While Conway is indeed a vitalist in this sense, I argue that she is also committed to a stronger view: namely, the panpsychist view that mental capacities are ubiquitous and fundamental in creation. Reading Conway as a panpsychist highlights several aspects of her philosophy that deserve further attention, especially her accounts of emanative causation and universal (...) perfectibility. There are also historical benefits to interpreting Conway as a panpsychist. Through its history, ‘vitalism’ has often been used to describe philosophies that draw a sharp line between living and non-living nature; surely, Conway is not a vitalist in this way. Moreover, some of Conway’s contemporaries (for instance, Ralph Cudworth and Henry More) are sometimes regarded as vitalists, but were not panpsychists. It is important to distinguish between Conway’s vitalism and her version of panpsychism and to add a term like ‘panpsychism’ to the interpretive lexicon. Otherwise, we run the risk of undervaluing Conway’s originality within her own context and beyond. (shrink)

Against the background of a deeply uneven package of work–family reconciliation measures and an increasing focus on engaging men in unpaid care work, in this article I discuss the extension of the Irish discrimination law framework to provide protection against family status discrimination to workers who are engaged in certain care relationships. While this development of the law to recognize a relational understanding of inequality is welcome, its confined definition of family status fails to capture the range of workers’ caring (...) relationships and networks. Adopting a contextualized assessment of 12 years of litigation generated under the ‘family status’ ground, with reference to complainants’ gender and work status, the study considers the types of experiences being litigated as ‘family status’ discrimination. The study show how much of the nature and forms of inequality presented before the tribunals are beyond the conceptual boundaries of the principle of equal treatment that depends upon a sameness of treatment model with the ‘care-less’ comparator. Despite its potential to question the neutrality of workplace structures predicated upon the division between paid work and unpaid care, the principle of indirect family status discrimination has been under utilised as a litigation strategy. The most successful dimension of family status discrimination protection has been in respect of its ability to capture the negative stereotyping of worker–carers who continue to perform as ideal workers. I suggest that this extension of a limited negative rights framework, when considered alongside the state’s extremely poor support for workcare reconciliation more broadly, places negligible obligations on employers, and that the gender neutrality implicit in its provisions have yet to impact on gender equality as regards work–care reconciliation. (shrink)

In this article, the authors assess the still limited literature on domestic violence among immigrant women in major receiving countries so as to begin delineating a framework to explain how immigrant-specific factors exacerbate the already vulnerable position—as dictated by class, gender, and race—of immigrant women in domestic violence situations. First, a review of this scholarship shows that the incidence of domestic violence is not higher than it is in the native population but rather that the experiences of immigrant women in (...) domestic violence situations are often exacerbated by their specific position as immigrants, such as limited host-language skills, isolation from and contact with family and community, lack of access to dignified jobs, uncertain legal statuses, and experiences with authorities in their origin countries. The authors then examine the various responses at the national and local community levels to this issue in receiving countries. (shrink)

Mental health-care clinicians report that they hold patients responsible for morally objectionable behaviour but at the same time consider blaming attitudes to be inappropriate. These practices present a conundrum for all Strawsonian theories of responsibility. In response to this conundrum, Pickard has proposed severing the Strawsonian connection between being responsible and being an appropriate target of blaming attitudes. In this article I will argue that her solution fails to explain the practices at stake and provide an alternative solution that uncovers (...) an under-theorized stance we take towards those whose abilities are underdeveloped or compromised. (shrink)

Background: Spasticity following a stroke occurs in about 30% of patients. The mechanisms underlying this disorder, however, are not well understood. Method: This review aims to define spasticity, describe hypotheses explaining its development after a stroke, give an overview of related neuroimaging studies as well as a description of the most common scales used to quantify the degree of spasticity and finally explore which treatments are currently being used to treat this disorder.

A considerable body of evidence now documents, beyond reasonable doubt, biological and health risk factors for crime and violence. Nevertheless, intervention and prevention efforts with offenders have avoided biological interventions, in part due to past misuses of biological research and the challenges that biological predispositions to crime raise. This article reviews the empirical literature on two biological intervention approaches, omega-3 supplementation and transcranial direct current stimulation. Emerging research on these relatively benign interventions suggests that increased omega-3 intake through dietary intervention (...) and prefrontal upregulation using non-invasive brain stimulation may show some initial promise in reducing antisocial behavior. The ethical issues related to mandated and offered biological interventions within the criminal justice system are discussed. (shrink)