The moral standing of involuntary sterilization has long been subject to debate but has only recently been looked upon with disfavor. When sterilization of a mentally handicapped minor is entertained, issues of eugenics, medical ethics, and legal precedent specially arise. Ethics consultants and ethics committees have been asked to consider such cases.

George Yancy gathers white scholarship that dwells on the experience of whiteness as a problem without sidestepping the question’s implications for Black people or people of color. This unprecedented reversion of the “Black problem” narrative challenges contemporary rhetoric of a color-evasive world in a critically engaging and persuasive study.

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

This text explores how human beings construe experience: experience as a resource, as a potential for understanding, representing and acting on reality.

In this collection, white women philosophers engage boldly in critical acts of exploring ways of naming and disrupting whiteness in terms of how it has defined the conceptual field of philosophy. Focuses on the whiteness of the epistemic and value-laden norms within philosophy itself, the text dares to identify the proverbial elephant in the room known as white supremacy and how that supremacy functions as the measure of reason, knowledge, and philosophical intelligibility.

Objective: This study examined whether patients who were randomly assigned to their preferred therapy arm had stronger engagement with their treatment than those who were randomly assigned to a non-preferred therapy arm.Method: Data were drawn from a RCT comparing Individual Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy, with Individual Supportive Psychotherapy, in patients with advanced cancer. Treatment engagement was operationalized as patients' perceptions of the therapeutic alliance with their therapist and therapy sessions attended. Two 2 by 2 Analysis of Variance models were used, with treatment (...) preference and treatment assignment as the independent variables and working alliance and number of sessions attended as outcome variables.Results: Patients who preferred and were assigned to IMCP reported a significantly stronger alliance than those who preferred IMCP but were assigned to ISP.Conclusions: The findings from this study have broader implications for research on psychotherapy beyond the appeal of IMCP in advanced cancer patients. Patients who prefer a novel psychotherapy that they cannot engage in elsewhere, but receive the standard treatment may experience weaker alliance than patients who prefer the standard but receive the novel therapy.Trial registration:Clinicaltrial.gov ID: NCT01323309. (shrink)

In recent literature, panpsychism has been defended by appeal to two main arguments: first, an argument from philosophy of mind, according to which panpsychism is the only view which successfully integrates consciousness into the physical world (Strawson 2006; Chalmers 2013); second, an argument from categorical properties, according to which panpsychism offers the only positive account of the categorical or intrinsic nature of physical reality (Seager 2006; Adams 2007; Alter and Nagasawa 2012). Historically, however, panpsychism has also been defended by appeal (...) to a third argument based on considerations about the nature and observability of causation. This argument has not been much discussed in recent times. Here is a concise version from William James: "… the concrete perceptual flux, taken just as it comes, offers in our own activity-situations perfectly comprehensible instances of causal agency … If we took these experiences as the type of what actual causation is, we should have to ascribe to cases of causation outside of our life, to physical cases also, an inwardly experiential nature. In other words, we should have to espouse a so-called “pan-psychic” philosophy" (James 1911: 218). James here suggests that we have direct experience of causation in our own agency. He thereby directly contradicts David Hume, who famously denied that we have any experience of causation. James goes on to claim that if this experience is representative of causation in general, it follows that all causation is mental, and that panpsychism is true. This kind of argument for panpsychism can be called the argument from (experience of) causation. This chapter offers, first, a history of this argument and arguments closely related to it, and second, an analysis of the argument – is it valid, are its premises in any way defensible, and how does it relate to the other, more popular arguments for panpsychism from philosophy of mind and categorical properties? (shrink)

The author presents and defends three theses: (1) "the first is that it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology." (2) "the second is that the concepts of obligation, And duty... And of what is morally right and wrong, And of the moral sense of 'ought', Ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible...." (3) "the third thesis is that (...) the differences between the well-Known english writers on moral philosophy from sidgwick to the present day are of little importance." (staff). (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive study of Nietzsche's earliest (and extraordinary) book, The Birth of Tragedy (1872). When he wrote it, Nietzsche was a Greek scholar, a friend and champion of Wagner, and a philosopher in the making. His book has been very influential and widely read, but has always posed great difficulties for readers because of the particular way Nietzsche brings his ancient and modern interests together. The proper appreciation of such a work requires access to ideas that cross (...) the boundaries of conventional specialisms. This is now provided by M. S. Silk and J. P. Stern in their joint study of Nietzsche's book. They examine in detail its content, style and form; its strange genesis and hybrid status; its biographical background and the controversy engendered by its publication; its value as an account of ancient Greek culture and as a theory of tragedy and music; its relation to other theories of tragedy; and its place in the history of German ideas and in Nietzsche's own philosophical career. (shrink)

Traditional Chinese commentators rightly see that understanding Zhuangzi's way with words is the presupposition for understanding Zhuangzi at all. They are not sure, however, if Zhuangzi's words are super-effective or pure nonsense. I consider Zhuangzi's experience with language, and then turn to Heidegger's word of being to see if it may throw light on Zhuangzi's way of saying. I argue that a conversation between Heidegger and Zhuangzi on language is possible, but only by expanding Heidegger's notion of Gestell and through (...) a destruction of the dominant Confucian discourse that obscures Zhuangzi's way of saying. (shrink)

In this article, I trouble the pedagogical practice of comforting discomfort in the social-justice classroom. Is it possible to support white students, for instance, and not comfort them? Is it possible to support white students without recentering the emotional crisis of white students, without disregarding the needs and interests of students of color, and without reproducing the violence that students of color endure? First I address the dangers of comforting discomfort and discuss Robin DiAngelo's notion of white fragility, which has (...) been used to explain the tendency of white people to flee discomfort rather than tarry with it. Employing Erinn Gilson's work on vulnerability, I argue that white fragility is not a weakness but an active performance of invulnerability. I conclude by arguing that developing vulnerability is a counter to white fragility, and that one way such vulnerability can be encouraged is through offering critical hope, which I maintain is a type of support that does not comfort. (shrink)

Background. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated drastic changes to undergraduate medical training at the University of Botswana (UB). To save the academic year when campus was locked down, the Department of Medical Education conducted a needs assessment to determine the readiness for emergency remote teaching (ERT) of the Faculty of Medicine, UB. Objectives. To report on the findings of needs assessment surveys to assess learner and teaching staff preparedness for fair and just ERT, as defined by philosopher John Rawls. Methods. Needs (...) assessment surveys were conducted using Office 365 Forms distributed via WhatsApp, targeting medical students and teaching staff during the 5 undergraduate years. Data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results. Ninety-two percent (266/289) of students and 73.5% (62/84) of teaching staff responded. Surveys revealed a high penetration of smartphones among students, but poor internet accessibility and affordability in homes. Some teaching staff also reported internet and device insufficiencies. Only WhatsApp was accessible to students and teaching staff. Conclusions. For equitable access to ERT in the future, the surveys revealed infrastructural improvement needs, including wider, stronger, affordable WiFi coverage within Botswana and enhanced digital infrastructures in educational institutions, with increased support for students. (shrink)

In this article I show that although biological and neuropsychological factors enable and constrain the construction of music, culture is implicated on every level at which we can indicate an emotion-music connection. Nevertheless, music encourages an affective sense of human affiliation and security, facilitating feelings of transcultural solidarity.

The book highlights how well-intentioned white people who might even consider themselves as paragons of antiracism might be unwittingly sustaining an unjust system that they say they want to dismantle.

Being White, Being Good focuses on white complicity and white complicity pedagogy. It examines the shifts in our conceptualization of the subject, language and moral responsibility that are required for understanding white complicity and draws out implications for social justice pedagogy.

Greek text, english translation and commentary on the surviving fragments of Empedocles (fragments as known in 1981, does not include more recent finds).

With an inside view from an expert in the field and a clear and engaging writing style, Asian Philosophies, Seventh Edition invites students and professors to think along with the great minds of the Asian traditions. Eminent scholar and teacher John M. Koller has devoted his life to understanding and explaining Asian thought and practice. He wrote this text to give students access to the rich philosophical and religious ideas of both South and East Asia. New to this seventh edition: (...) Added material on Confucianism, including focused coverage of (1) the Analects and society and (2) ren and nature; Additional information on Theravada Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism as well as new in-depth coverage of ecological attitudes in Buddhism; Expanded coverage of ecological attitudes in all of the Asian traditions; Brief excerpts from primary sources to help better explain the key concepts; Added timelines for essential texts in each tradition; Improved Glossary and Pronunciation Guide; Additional text boxes, to help students quickly understand key ideas, texts, and concepts; Updated Further Reading sections. (shrink)

Bioethics needs an expanded moral vision. It is now time for bioethics to take full account of the problems of health disparities and structural injustice that are made newly urgent by the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of climate change. Nancy M. P. King, Gail E. Henderson, and Larry R. Churchill make the case for a more social understanding and application of justice, a deeper humility in assessing expertise in bioethics consulting, a broader and more relevant research agenda, and greater (...) appreciation of the profound health implications of global warming. (shrink)