The dramatic increase in the number of overseas students studying in the United Kingdom and other Western countries has required academics to reevaluate many aspects of their own, and their institutions', practices. This article considers differing cultural values among overseas students toward plagiarism and the implications this may have for postgraduate education in a Western context. Based on focus-group interviews, questionnaires, and informal discussions, we report the views of plagiarism among students in 2 postgraduate management programs, both of which had (...) a high constituency of overseas students. We show that plagiarist practices are often the outcome of many complex and culturally situated influences. We suggest that educators need to appreciate these differing cultural assumptions if they are to act in an ethical manner when responding to issues of plagiarism among international students. (shrink)

Belongingness is a central biopsychosocial system. Challenges to belongingness (i.e. exclusion/ostracism) engender robust negative effects on affect and cognitions. Whether overinclusion – getting more than one’s fair share of social attention – favourably impacts affect and cognitions remains an open question. This pre-registered meta-analysis includes twenty-two studies (N = 2757) examining overinclusion in the context of the Cyberball task. We found that the estimated overall effect size of overinclusion on positive affect was small but robust, and the effect on fundamental (...) needs cognitions (belongingness, self-esteem, meaningful existence and control) was moderate in size and positive in direction. Notably, the effect sizes of overinclusion were smaller than the corresponding effects of exclusion. Finally, the effects of overinclusion on positive affect were greater for high, as compared to low, socially anxious individuals. Exploring the sequelae of the full range of inclusion experiences – from exclusion to overinclusion – may enrich our understanding of the functioning of the belongingness system as well as its interaction with another central biosocial system – the social status system. (shrink)

Few ethics committees were in place when the New Jersey Supreme Court announced its ruling on the Quinlan case in 1976. Today, the vast majority of hospitals have formed ethics committees and their use in nursing homes and other healthcare facilities is growing. Given the increasing commitment to the use of ethics committees and their increasing influence on healthcare decision making, the careful evaluation of committee performance should be a high priority. Yet to date ethics committees appear to have undergone (...) relatively little scrutiny. While professional articles on ethics committees do appear and at least one journal sets aside a regular section for the discussion of “Ethics Committees at Work” articles to date have primarily been limited to essays, philosophical inquiries, reports, case studies, and, occasionally, surveys. The use of more structured research methodologies has been lacking. As a result, it is not yet clear, for example, what characteristics describe the best functioning ethics committee. Indeed, what constitutes best functioning lacks careful definition as well. Committee impact on medical decision making and patient outcomes, while discussed, has not been systematically measured and analyzed. (shrink)

Die Reihe Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) setzt seit mehreren Jahrzehnten die Agenda in der sich stetig verändernden Nietzsche-Forschung. Die Bände sind interdisziplinär und international ausgerichtet und spiegeln das gesamte Spektrum der Nietzsche-Forschung wider, von der Philosophie über die Literaturwissenschaft bis zur politischen Theorie. Die Reihe veröffentlicht Monographien und Sammelbände, die einem strengen Peer-Review-Verfahren unterliegen. Die Buchreihe wird von einem internationalen Redaktionsteam geleitet.

In Fallibilism Democracy and the Market, Calvin Hayes proposes an original solution to the major meta-theoretical issue in moral philosophy, the is-ought problem, then utilizes it to define and/or solve practical problems in both applied ethics and public policy. The solution and its applications are based on a unified theory of rationality applicable to epistemology, ethics and public policy, predicated on a revised Popperian fallibilism. It is intended as a defense of Karl Popper's political philosophy but only after a (...) substantial revision of its theoretical and meta-theoretical basis. (shrink)

One of the lamentable characteristics of our contemporary age is the way in which abortion has been adopted as a natural part of the culture. This essay describes this adoption as a symptom of that culture’s profound de-Christianization. As that culture sheds its once Christian commitments, persons change the way in which they relate to their body in its sexually differentiated physiology, its physical drives and impulses. They refashion their sense of human flourishing, their vision of women’s social role, the (...) value they place on education, career, and economic well-being, and their understanding of reproductive responsibility. This de-Christianization is not sufficiently appreciated in a nominally still “Christian culture.” Such blindness reflects an inability to distinguish Christian commitments from moral commitments, which, although framed in terms that are compatible with Christian meanings, are equally open to meanings affirming the idolatry informing secular humanism. De-Christianization is not the same as de-moralization. This essay explores the way in which the new moral norms about sexuality, about education and career opportunities for women, authority within marriage, the role of this-worldly well-being and human suffering all contribute to our culture’s complacency in view of abortion. The underlying concern is to illustrate how a morality (even a morality of human sympathy and solidarity) that is not anchored in a genuine Tradition-affirming Christian conduct of life leads away from Christ, and how only a return to that conduct can heal our “culture of death.”. (shrink)

Schmidt and Egler's critique of Christianity's exclusivist claim to truth rests on two suppositions: (a) that inter-religious pastoral care for dying patients requires a respect for their cultural backgrounds which necessitates accepting the equal validity of their respective (non-Christian) religions, and (b) that exclusivism is incompatible with the Christian love-of-neighbor commandment. In opposition to this critique, (a) the authors' own “pluralist” understanding of Christianity is refuted on two levels. First, it leads to inconsistencies in the authors' own (and very adequate) (...) understanding of pastoral care, especially with regard to their notion of intolerance, and second, it is irreconcilable with explicit New and Old Testament claims to absoluteness. In addition, (b) the authors' understanding of the way in which “exclusivism” justifies intolerance and missionary violence is shown to rest, first, on a secularized reduction of Christianity, i.e., of Christians' own “religious identity” as well as of the Christian way of “helping those in need,” and second, on a merely theoretical (rather than also practical) view of Christians' commitment to God. As a corollary to that refutation, a reconsideration of the truly Christian sources of obedience and charity is recommended. (shrink)

Corinna Delkeskamp-Hayes; Christian Credentials for Roman Catholic Health Care: Medicine versus the Healing Mission of the Church, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecum.

This introduction explores the relationship between Europe and its Christianities. It analyses different diagnostic and evaluative approaches to Europe's Christian or post-Christian identity. These are grouped around the concepts of diverse traditional, and, on the other hand, post-Enlightenment Christianities. While the first revolves around a liturgical and mystical account of the church, a Christ-centred humanism, an emphasis on man's future life, noetic theology and a foundationalist claim to universal truth, the second endorses a moralization of the “Christian message,” political implementation (...) of “Christian goals,” rationalism, a this-worldly humanism, and tolerance for religious diversity. Since even the concepts of “traditional” and “post-Enlightenment” Christianity turn out to be deeply ambiguous, the essay concludes with exploring the different ways in which the Christianity of the Apostolic Church, the Enlightenment (along with the “Western” Christianities it shaped), and contemporary liberalism each conceive of their respective endorsements of human freedom as either normative, that is obligatory, value-laden, or contingent, and arbitrary. In each case, a different notion of “tradition” (as well as familial and church authority) is placed either in harmony or in opposition to such freedom. As a result of this conceptual analysis, the deeply fractured identity of Europe, as exemplified by the diverse bioethical positions adopted by the authors in this issue, becomes visible. (shrink)

Paternal authority is recommended as a valid Christian resource for conflict resolution in biomedical (and other inner-familial) decision making. Its bases are explored in view of the two-fold creation account in Genesis, interpreted in the light of the Pauline theology. In addition, a theological account is proposed that portrays the taxis between husband and wife as a condition under which humans can seek to emulate the inner-Trinitarian love. The relationship between that love (as portrayed in St. Basil’s On the Holy (...) Spirit), the love between God and man, and the love between the sexes (as further extended to the children in a family that constitutes a “small church”), is described in terms of an interplay between the Divine offer of grace and the human response of obedience. In framing their marital love according to the model of Christ and His Church, couples can also profit from the ascetical therapy predicted for their fallen nature in the “curse” that drove our forefathers from Paradise. (shrink)

Hospital chaplaincy, in its exposure to clients, colleagues, and care-takers from different faith backgrounds, can be understood in either generic or catholic terms. The first understanding, often merely implicit in denominationalist approaches, assumes that some “Absolute” can be prayerfully invoked through the medium of diverse rituals, confessions, and symbols. This position combines the advantage of unprejudiced acceptance of other creeds and traditions with the disadvantage of lacking resources for discriminating among the spiritualities that may be operative within those other creeds (...) and traditions. Catholicism, in linking true spirituality with the one true church as the mystical body of the Tri-une God, secures such a criterion but fails to satisfy the tolerance-of-acknowledgement in the secular sense, which is canonical in contemporary ecumenism. The Orthodox understanding of Catholicism is portrayed as imposing a non-judgemental humility and repentance which provides a solution to that spiritual-human dilemma of inter-faith cooperation in the hospital. (shrink)

Patristic teaching about sin and disease allows supplementing well-acknowledged conditions for a Christian medicine with further personal challenges, widely disregarded in Western Christianities. A proper appreciation of man's vocation toward (not just achieving forgiveness but) deification reveals the need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit's offer of grace toward restoring man's prefallen nature. Ascetical exercises designed at re-establishing the spirit's mastery over the soul distance persons from (even supposedly harmless) passion. They thus inspire the struggle towards emulating Christ's (self-crucifying) kenotic (...) love, and to accept even secularly “undeserved” suffering as spiritually deserved in view of his (forever) lacking fervor in that struggle. Only in the spirit of that love can the evil Adam's sin brought into this world work its therapeutic impact, the eschatological purpose of which explains God's lovingly permitting that evil. This therapeutic impact is physically manifested already in this life through the transforming energies granted the saints of the church. (shrink)

The Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine confuses respect for a person's right to self-determination with concern about protecting human beings generally. In a legal document, this mixture of deontological with utilitarian considerations undermines what it should preserve: respect for human dignity as the foundation of modern rights-based democracies. Falling prey to the ambiguity of freedom, the Convention blurs the dividing line between morality and the law. The document should be remedied through distinguishing fundamental rights from social 'rights', persons as (...) entitled to the right to self-determination from born humans as entitled to the right to life and from members of the human species as entitled to the morally respo-nsible care of voting majorities. For the cultivating of the required responsibility, the conditions for an adequate public debate should be secured. (shrink)

Unlike (especially) the various Protestantisms, Orthodox Christianity recognizes no fundamentally different problems in the development and (future) application of human germ line genetic engineering (HGGE) than those raised by more traditional medicine. The particular challenges which frame the life of a traditional Christian arise not only in view of “groundbreaking” technological progress and its attendant increase in human power over nature, but permeate already his most simple daily routines. The diverse post-traditional Christianities have ceased confronting such liturgical–ascetical challenges. The quite (...) appropriately pious desire, among those committed to such Christianities, for some restraint in the face of such increase of power therefore gets refocused onto substitute concerns. The new challenge then arises to establish the universal validity of the moral norms underlying such concerns in order to ground the desired prohibition. The discussions of several such norms offered in this issue of Christian Bioethics illustrate the embarrassment presented by the unavailability of either theological or rational foundations needed for such a project. The attempt to prove that there is something in principle morally wrong about HGGE is thus not only unnecessary for the Christian conduct of life (and presents a distraction), but also doomed to fail. (shrink)

Does a non-ecumenical journal on Christian bioethics make sense? Taking issue with Stanley Hauerwas' critique of Ramsey, the author argues (l) interdenominational exchange should not be construed as contest, and (2) the attempt on the part of Christians to address secular issues in secular terms should not be mistrusted or viewed as a contamination hazard. Instead (I) an awareness of human limits should render adherents of different traditions willing to learn from each other and (2) one should see in the (...) love-of-neighbor principle an obligation to serve the world. Addressing the communication problem, the author recommends different language levels for intra-group and ever more encompassing inter-group exchanges. (shrink)

Corinna Delkeskamp-Hayes; Sin and Disease: An Introduction, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality, Volume 12, Issue 2, 1 January 2006.

At a time when monuments are falling, learning processes and discourses accelerating, it seems apposite to pay attention also to artworks commissioned by established institutions in order to give form to good intentions. This essay focuses on a commissioned portrait of female professors, on art education, Dutch art policy / politics and the former colonial site that the University of Amsterdam occupies, in order to aide this institution’s desired process to become more inclusive. It proposes Art Research as a realm (...) that can contribute a differentiated and thoughtful positioning of research and universities in visual and public domains: a necessary ally. Since the essay was written in Summer 2019, much has happened: the Faculty in question has been found to be the locus of ongoing sexual harassment. The student victims did not feel that the complaints procedures were safeguarding them sufficiently. They went to the media. The university’s ombudsperson asked to investigate found no systemic deficiencies. Since George Floyd’s death, such a conclusion is no longer possible, and the Board of the university has admitted shameful and systemic failures.[1] We now know better what “systemic” means. This essay’s case study is meant to show that art and philosophy can jointly analyze systems and organizations as a basis for necessary conversations, followed by a broad range of people taking responsibility and acting accordingly. In Covid lock-down times, it became deceptively obvious how unimportant art is. Through an essay such as this, it is hopefully also evident how art can be an indicator of institutional culture: e.g. in relation to how embedded the principle to consult specialists is, even if this seems to be unimportant. And that is a matter of life and death. [1] https://www.folia.nl/actueel/138876/fred-weerman-en-geert-ten-dam-dit-is-ongehoord-beschamend. (shrink)

Belgium's policy of not permitting Catholic hospitals to refuse euthanasia services rests on ethical presuppositions concerning the secular justification of political power which reveal the paradoxical character of European liberalism: In endorsing freedom as a value (rather than as a side constraint), liberalism prioritizes first-order intentions, thus discouraging lasting moral commitments and the authority of moral communities in supporting such commitments. The state itself is thus transformed into a moral community of its own. Alternative policies (such as an explicit moral (...) diversification of public healthcare or the greater tolerance for Christian institutions in the Netherlands) are shown to be incompatible with Europe's liberal concern with securing social and material freedom resources, as well as the concern with equality of opportunity, as embodied in the European Union's anti-discrimination labor law. The essay's argument for the preferability of a libertarian solution closes with the challenge that only if the provision of public healthcare can be shown to be rationally indispensable for a morally justified polity, could the exposed incoherence of modern European liberalism be generously discounted. (shrink)

This paper presents a cognitive model of the planning process. The model generalizes the theoretical architecture of the Hearsay‐ll system. Thus, it assumes that planning comprises the activities of a variety of cognitive “specialists.” Each specialist can suggest certain kinds of decisions for incorporation into the plan in progress. These include decisions about: (a) how to approach the planning problem; (b) what knowledge bears on the problem; (c) what kinds of actions to try to plan; (d) what specific actions to (...) plan; and (e) how to allocate cognitive resources during planning. Within each of these categories, different specialists suggest decisions at different levels of abstraction. The activities of the various specialists are not coordinated in any systematic way. Instead, the specialists operate opportunistically, suggesting decisions whenever promising opportunities arise. The paper presents a detailed account of the model and illustrates its assumptions with a “thinking aloud” protocol. It also describes the performance of a computer simulation of the model. The paper contrasts the proposed model with successive refinement models and attempts to resolve apparent differences between the two points of view. (shrink)

Functional human brain mapping is commonly performed during invasive monitoring with intracranial electroencephalographic electrodes prior to resective surgery for drug­ resistant epilepsy. The current gold standard, electrocortical stimulation mapping, is time ­consuming, sometimes elicits pain, and often induces after discharges or seizures. Moreover, there is a risk of overestimating eloquent areas due to propagation of the effects of stimulation to a broader network of language cortex. Passive iEEG spatial-temporal functional mapping has recently emerged as a potential alternative to ESM. However, (...) investigators have observed less correspondence between STFM and ESM maps of language than between their maps of motor function. We hypothesized that incongruities between ESM and STFM of language function may arise due to propagation of the effects of ESM to cortical areas having strong effective connectivity with the site of stimulation. We evaluated five patients who underwent invasive monitoring for seizure localization, whose language areas were identified using ESM. All patients performed a battery of language tasks during passive iEEG recordings. To estimate the effective connectivity of stimulation sites with a broader network of task-activated cortical sites, we measured cortico-cortical evoked potentials elicited across all recording sites by single-pulse electrical stimulation at sites where ESM was performed at other times. With the combination of high gamma power as well as CCEPs results, we trained a logistic regression model to predict ESM results at individual electrode pairs. The average accuracy of the classifier using both STFM and CCEPs results combined was 87.7%, significantly higher than the one using STFM alone, indicating that the correspondence between STFM and ESM results is greater when effective connectivity between ESM stimulation sites and task-activated sites is taken into consideration. These findings, though based on a small number of subjects to date, provide preliminary support for the hypothesis that incongruities between ESM and STFM may arise in part from propagation of stimulation effects to a broader network of cortical language sites activated by language tasks, and suggest that more studies, with larger numbers of patients, are needed to understand the utility of both mapping techniques in clinical practice. (shrink)

The intimate connection, within Christianity, of theology and ethics is invoked, and the ethical differences between Christian denominations are exposed, as they present themselves inMellon's case studies, in order to call attention to the unsolvable dilemma in which hospital chaplains find themselves, if they understand their role in a merely conciliatory fashion as that of a “comforter, mediator, educator, ethicist, and counselor”. As witnessed by the Calvinist and Anabaptist traditions Mellon introduces, concepts such as “the patient's good” can mean radically (...) different things in these theological contexts. Attempting to merely mediate between such positions in a spirit of merely generic prayer and on the basis of a merely psychological notion of well-being poses a risk to chaplains' spiritual integrity and faithfulness to their mission. (shrink)

Corinna Delkeskamp-Hayes; The Spiritual Claim of a Dying Mother – A Complement to Paul's Report, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality.

Humans possess great capacity for behavioral and cultural change, but our ability to manage change is still limited. This article has two major objectives: first, to sketch a basic science of intentional change centered on evolution; second, to provide examples of intentional behavioral and cultural change from the applied behavioral sciences, which are largely unknown to the basic sciences community.All species have evolved mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity that enable them to respond adaptively to their environments. Some mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity (...) count as evolutionary processes in their own right. The human capacity for symbolic thought provides an inheritance system having the same kind of combinatorial diversity as does genetic recombination and antibody formation. Taking these propositions seriously allows an integration of major traditions within the basic behavioral sciences, such as behaviorism, social constructivism, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and evolutionary psychology, which are often isolated and even conceptualized as opposed to one another.The applied behavioral sciences include well-validated examples of successfully managing behavioral and cultural change at scales ranging from individuals to small groups to large populations. However, these examples are largely unknown beyond their disciplinary boundaries, for lack of a unifying theoretical framework. Viewed from an evolutionary perspective, they are examples of managing evolved mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity, including open-ended processes of variation and selection.Once the many branches of the basic and applied behavioral sciences become conceptually unified, we are closer to a science of intentional change than one might think. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, in addition to having an obligation to resist the oppression of others, people have an obligation to themselves to resist their own oppression. This obligation to oneself, I argue, is grounded in a Kantian duty of self-respect.

Corinna Delkeskamp-Hayes; Bioethics for Thresholders: A Brief Introduction, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality, Volume 8, Issue 3.

Corinna Delkeskamp-Hayes; Sin and Disease in a Post-Christian Culture: An Introduction, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality, Volume.

This introduction to Christian Bioethics 15/2 focuses on the challenges which secular moral reconstruction and secular political implementation presents for Christian diakonia. It summarises the various Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox ways in which Christians’ loving service to the world have been integrated either into the secular state's provision of social welfare or into the Church's liturgical life by the authors of this issue. This summary centres on questions concerning the political nature of Christian charity, its role within the church, (...) the implication of public funding for the integrity of the Christian service, the relationship between love and justice, and the impact of different kinds of feminism on Christian diaconic work. (shrink)

This essay questions the way in which continental Western Christians welcome political implementation (i.e., integration into the publicly funded welfare network and collaboration with heterodox Christians, members of other religions, or irreligious humanitarians) when offering their diaconic services. Among the theological assumptions underlying such reliance from outside the Church, this essay takes special issue with the idea that Christianity's “ethical” commitment to charity can be separated from its spiritual (e.g., liturgical, ascetical, missionary) concerns. Such separation suggests prioritizing charity recipients’ needs (...) over against the framing character of charity providers’ Christian love. On the philosophical level, this same separation refashions Christian philanthropy in terms of a secularly construed “human dignity.” This dignity, even though nominally endorsed by the welfare bureaucracy, is however shown to get repudiated by the objectifying and depersonalizing implications of publicly funded social services. On the theological level, the potentially anti-Christian implications of secularly implemented “diakonia” are pointed out. The scriptural bases usually invoked for the prioritizing of needs are exposed as unfit to offer the hoped-for justification. As a result, only, and at most, a very limited, reserved, and watchful material cooperation with the secular state and with those outside the Church is recommended for Christian “diakonia.”. (shrink)

Can proposing a policy of equal access to health care be justified on Christian grounds? The notion of a “Christian justification” with regard to Christians' political activity is explored in relation to the New Testament texts. The less demanding policy of granting “rights to (basic) health care,” the meaning of Jesus' healing activities, early Christian welfare schemes, and Christian grounds for the ascription of “rights” are each discussed. As a result, with some stretching of the neighbor-love and missionary imperatives it (...) is proposed that a basic health care policy can be legitimized. With regard to equal access to health care, however, all attempts to derive an equalizing imperative from the spiritual “equality among humans” or by way of the “love your neighbor as yourself” imperative are shown to fail. Particular attention is given to whether “attending to the least of my brothers' needs” obliges Christians to satisfy those needs optimally, as well as to the personal involvement aspect of the love-commandment in its simultaneously spiritual and temporal orientations. (shrink)

This introduction supplies further bearing points for the conceptual map, which the introduction to the previous issue on European bioethics (2008/1) had provided for sorting out the various dimension in which the essays collected in these issues resemble and differ from each other. Special attention is devoted to communication, as diverse Christianities attend to different purposes, problems, and opportunities for normatively engaging (persuading, influencing, ruling, opposing, and converting) their surrounding secularized cultures. These differences reflect incompatible ways of conceiving Christ's acts (...) of healing, as these provide a model for His disciples' bioethics. These differences also reflect diversely rationalist and noetic epistemologies. The subtext concerns the haunting question about the enduring sustainability of a specifically Christian bioethics in Europe. As Schotsmans opts for a Roman Catholicism that is not recognized as such by his Magisterium, as Muller transforms Protestantism into a religiously nonhostile laicity, as Messer and Silva da Barbosa hope for the prophetic impact of communal “cities on the hill,” and as the Orthodox pursue the conversion of Western Europe in Greek, Russian, and Rumanian, ongoing Divine miracles present the most realistic hope. (shrink)