How do ethical investment funds choose their ethical criteria? How intelligent is this process from an ethical point of view? This paper reports on his field work carried out as part of the Bath University ‘Morals and Money’ Project. After completing this research, Dr. Craig Mackenzie left academia to become ethics development officer at Friends Provident. He can be contacted at 15 Old Bailey, London, EC4M 7AP; c.mackenzie@stewardship.co.uk.

This paper is a report of an empirical psychological study of the relationship between the ethical and financial beliefs and desires of ethical investors. Semi-structured interviews of 20 ethical investors have been carried out by the project 10 of which have been analysed using qualitative data analysis software. All of our participants faced the problem that, while they had ethical concerns, they were not prepared to sacrifice their essential financial requirements to address them. We found four common ways of dealing (...) with this problem: they divided up their money into core and surplus accounts; they decided that it was enough to only be a partial ethical investor; they avoided detailed consideration of the costs of ethical investment; and they avoided rigorous ethical thinking. One equilibrium position arising from these responses is a portfolio approach to ethics, which allows people to assuage their consciences by investing only a small proportion of their investments ethically, while leaving the rest in non-ethical investment vehicles. (shrink)

A general obligation to make aggregate research results available to participants has been widely supported in the bioethics literature. However, dementia research presents several challenges to this perspective, particularly because of the fear associated with developing dementia. The authors argue that considerations of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice fail to justify an obligation to make aggregate research results available to participants in dementia research. Nevertheless, there are positive reasons in favor of making aggregate research results available; when the decision (...) is made to do so, it is critical that a clear strategy for communicating results is developed, including what support will be provided to participants receiving aggregate research results. (shrink)

An important goal of ethical investment is to influence companies to improve their ethical and environmental performance. The principal means that many ethical funds employ is passive market signalling, which may not, on its own, have a significant effect. A much more promising approach may be active engagement. This paper reports on a questionnaire study of a sample of 1146 ethical investors in order to assess whether U.K. ethical investors would support more activist ethical investment and whether they would be (...) prepared to invest in companies which are failing ethically in order to do so. The results show general support for the current practice of passive signalling accompanied by "soft" engagement in the form of lobbying and the development of dialogue in order to improve corporate practice. The "harder" options of investing in companies that err in order to change them is, however, favoured by consistent minorities. (shrink)

How do ethical investment funds choose their ethical criteria? How intelligent is this process from an ethical point of view? This paper reports on his field work carried out as part of the Bath University ‘Morals and Money’ Project. After completing this research, Dr. Craig Mackenzie left academia to become ethics development officer at Friends Provident. He can be contacted at 15 Old Bailey, London, EC4M 7AP; c.mackenzie@stewardship.co.uk.

The current study evaluated the degree to which nature-based physical activity influenced two distinct types of psychological wellbeing: hedonic wellbeing and eudaimonic wellbeing. The type of motivation an individual experiences for physical activity, and the extent to which individuals have a sense of relatedness with nature, have been shown to influence the specific type of psychological wellbeing that is experienced as a result of NPA. However, the role of these two variables in the relationship between NPA and psychological wellbeing has (...) not been examined. Thus, this study assessed the potential mediating influence of motivational quality and nature relatedness on the relationships between NPA and hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing, respectively. Participants completed an online survey assessing hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing, NPA, intrinsic motivation, autonomous extrinsic motivation, and nature relatedness. Data were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling. Results showed that motivational quality and nature relatedness both fully mediated the relationships between NPA and hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. Specifically, intrinsic motivation positively mediated the relationship between NPA and hedonic wellbeing. Autonomous extrinsic motivation and nature relatedness positively mediated the relationship between NPA and eudaimonic wellbeing. These findings suggest that the associations between NPA and eudaimonic wellbeing and hedonic wellbeing, respectively, are driven by different mechanisms relating to an individual’s underlying motivation and sense of connection to nature. These findings suggest that promoting distinct types of wellbeing through NPA requires distinct approaches. Emphasising enjoyment, pleasure, and positive kinaesthetic experiences within NPA may be more conducive to hedonic wellbeing, while highlighting opportunities for connecting with nature or experiencing valued outcomes of NPA may be more conducive to eudaimonic wellbeing. (shrink)

Covid-19 lockdown restrictions constitute a population-wide “life-change event” disrupting normal daily routines. It was proposed that as a result of these lockdown restrictions, physical activity levels would likely decline. However, it could also be argued that lifestyle disruption may result in the formation of increased physical activity habits. Using a longitudinal design, the purpose of this study was to investigate changes in physical activity of different intensities, across individuals who differed in activity levels prior to lockdown restrictions being imposed, and (...) across three time periods: pre-, during- and post-lockdown. This study also examined the extent to which the experience of daily hassles explained any changes in physical activity. A convenience sample recruited through social media, provided data from an online survey administered during weeks 2–3 of a 5-week lockdown and 231 participants provided complete data again 6 weeks post-lockdown. Participants completed the International Physical Activity Questionnaire–Short Form and the Daily Hassles Scale. Results showed that vigorous and moderate intensity PA were significantly lower during- and post-lockdown compared to pre-lockdown in those individuals who had been highly active pre-lockdown. In contrast, for moderately active individuals pre-lockdown, vigorous and moderate intensity PA was significantly higher during-lockdown compared to pre-lockdown, and these increased levels of vigorous PA were maintained post-lockdown. Participants experienced daily hassles due to inner concerns, time pressures, family, and financial concerns to the same extent during- and post-lockdown. Those daily hassles had a small negative predictive effect on post-lockdown PA. It appears that to understand the effect of COVID-19 restrictions on PA, the activity status of individuals pre-lockdown needs to be taken into account. The daily hassles appeared to play a role in post-lockdown PA behavior, but future research should investigate why these results occurred. (shrink)

Concern for human vulnerability seems to be at the heart of bioethical inquiry, but the concept of vulnerability is under-theorized in the bioethical literature. The aim of this article is to show why bioethics needs an adequately theorized and nuanced conception of vulnerability. We first review approaches to vulnerability in research ethics and public health ethics, and show that the bioethical literature associates vulnerability with risk of harm and exploitation, and limited capacity for autonomy. We identify some of the challenges (...) emerging from this literature: in particular, how to reconcile universal human vulnerability with a context-sensitive analysis of specific kinds and sources of vulnerability; and how to reconcile obligations to protect vulnerable persons with obligations to respect autonomy. We then briefly survey some of the theoretical resources available within the philosophical literature to address these challenges, and to assist in understanding the conceptual connections between vulnerability and related concepts such as harm, exploitation, needs, and autonomy. We also sketch out a taxonomy of sources and kinds of vulnerability. Finally, we consider the implications for policy evaluation of making vulnerability an explicit and central focus of bioethics. Our investigation is in the form of a broad survey motivating a research agenda rather than a detailed analysis. (shrink)

In “Artificial Intelligence, Social Media and Depression: A New Concept of Health-Related Digital Autonomy,” Laacke and colleagues posit a revised model of autonomy when using digital algori...

In October 2021, the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence publicly released Delphi, an artificial intelligence system trained to make general moral decisions (Allen Institute for Artifi...

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 29-31.

Justification for psychiatric paternalism is most easily established where mental illness renders the person mentally incompetent, depriving him of the capacity for rational agency and for autonomy, hence undermining the basis for liberal rights against paternalism. But some philosophers, and no doubt some doctors, have been deeply concerned by the inadequacy of the concept of mental incompetence to encapsulate some apparently appealing cases for psychiatric paternalism. We ought to view mental incompetence as just one subset of a broader justification for (...) psychiatric paternalism. The very basis of liberal limitations on psychiatric paternalism, whether described in terms of rights to autonomy or as respect for differences in values and lifestyles, presupposes a sense of moral persistence, and hence some sufficiently persistent self. Paternalistic intervention is warranted when we are unable to govern our lives in a manner consistent with the goals and values that comprise that ‘self’. One way that can occur is when we lack the mental capacities required for autonomy, such that we are unable to interpret and interact with our environment in order to meaningfully pursue our goals, i.e. mental incompetence. But it can also occur when we are subject to impositions that alter our goals without altering our capacity to pursue them — i.e. when it is our ‘self’ that is impaired rather than our competence. (shrink)

Academic programs in the medical/health humanities have proliferated widely in recent years, and the professional, academic, and cultural drivers of this growth promise sustained new program development. In this article, we present the results of a survey sent to representatives of one hundred twenty-four baccalaureate and ten graduate programs in the medical/health humanities to assess the experiences and needs of existing programs. Survey results confirm the interest in and need for a descriptive toolkit as opposed to a prescriptive manual; indicate (...) what data and materials are most needed to support the successful development of new academic programs in the field; and identify areas for future research. Recognizing a need for program development resources, the Health Humanities Consortium has initiated the creation of a comprehensive online toolkit. We discuss survey results and the toolkit in relation to the drivers of new program growth. Finally, we describe resources now available through the HHC’s new online program toolkit, including existing programs; sample syllabi; sample curricula templates; program rationale; proposal templates; and graduation data. (shrink)

The Health Humanities Consortium was established in 2015 to “promote health humanities scholarship, education, and practice through transdisciplinary methods and theories that focus on the intersection of the arts and humanities, health, illness, and healthcare.” As the founding co-chairs of the HHC, we provide a history of the founding of this organization in this article, describing the journey of its creation, the choices and challenges it faced as a new organization, and our hopes for a rich future.

In 2005, President George Bush read John Barry’s The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. After his experiences of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, Bush began the first White...

What happens when neuroscientific knowledges move from laboratories and clinics into therapeutic settings concerned with the care of children? ‘Brain-based parenting’ is a set of discourses and practices emerging at the confluence of attachment theory, neuroscience, psychotherapy and social work. The neuroscientific knowledges involved understand affective states such as fear, anger and intimacy as dynamic patterns of coordination between brain localities, as well as flows of biochemical signals via hormones such as cortisol. Drawing on our own attempts to adopt brain-based (...) parenting, and engaging with various strands and critiques of new materialism and affect theory, we explore the ways in which the social sciences and humanities might fruitfully engage with neuroscientific concepts and affects. How does science-affected indeterminacy, with all its promises of ontological and experiential agency, help us to observe, wait, bind or hold together volatile mixtures of habit, speech and action? (shrink)

How ought we respond to advance directives that appear to fly in the face of a severely mentally impaired patient's quality of life? An advance directive is a legal instrument wherein a person records instructions regarding the medical treatment that she is to receive in the event that she becomes persistently incapable of refusing or giving informed consent to treatment. Where these instructions are legally binding, they enable a person to exercise control over her future medical treatment. This has been (...) welcomed by some on the grounds that it increases patient autonomy, but there has also been concern that in cases in which a patient is left conscious but severely mentally impaired, the person's advance .. (shrink)

The fierce debate about the reality of spirits and the “Invisible World” which flared up in the 1690’s helped define the early Enlightenment. All sides in this debate—from Spinoza and Balthasar Bekker to John Beaumont and Cotton Mather—refashioned familiar metaphors of light and darkness and connected them with the world beyond Europe in surprising new ways. This article shows how this key controversy of the early Enlightenment was built upon references to darkness, light, and the benighted pagan peoples of the (...) world. As new street lighting and improved domestic lighting nocturnalized daily life in the Netherlands, London, and Paris, the old denizens of the night - ghosts, spirits, and witches—were increasingly relegated to the extra-European world and used to articulate new categories of human difference based on civility, reason, and skin color. These new categories of human difference—new ways of seeing and ordering the world—were essential to the formation of early modern whiteness and the Enlightenment. (shrink)

People who approach philosophy, as it figures in the activities of mostEnglish-speaking universities, often find their expectations curiously wideof the mark. They have expectations, of course, because the word ‘philosophy’ is not a technical term; there is no need to have taken any exams to use it happily enough in general conversation.

Much of the recent AI-LLM literature has been apocalyptic in pointing out the risks of AI technology, “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal...

In their target article, Nelson, Lushkov, Pomerantz, and Weeks demonstrate that there has been a lack of discussion on rural bioethics issues in published, or at least indexed, literature. They con...

This introductory textbook presents Christian philosophical and theological approaches to ethics. Combining their expertise in philosophy and theology, the authors explain the beliefs, values, and practices of various Christian ethical viewpoints, addressing biblical teachings as well as traditional ethical theories that contribute to informed moral decision-making. Each chapter begins with Words to Watch and includes a relevant case study on a vexing ethical issue, such as caring for the environment, human sexuality, abortion, capital punishment, war, and euthanasia. End-of-chapter reflection questions, (...) illustrations, and additional information tables are also included. (shrink)

Aunque muchos lectores de las novelas de Unamuno notan que el estilo de su primera novela, “Paz en la guerra” (1897), es bastante tradicional y que, por consiguiente, difiere mucho del estilo de las novelas que don Miguel escribe después, también tiene elementos que la vinculan claramente sus novelas más tardías. Uno de estos es el manejo del tiempo, el cual hace que el tiempo se detenga y produce lo que Henri Bergson llamaría la “virtualización” del tiempo. El tiempo también (...) se detiene y se virtualiza en otras novelas de Unamuno—en particular, “Niebla”. Por ejemplo, en “Niebla” varias anomalías temporales revelan el deseo de Unamuno de detener el tiempo y eternizar el momento para así escapar la muerte y existir perpetuamente, un deseo también presente en “Paz en la guerra”. Por lo tanto, el presente muestra que, por su manejo particular del tiempo, “Paz en la guerra” se vincula claramente a novelas más experimentales de Unamuno. (shrink)

The question of how intellectuals ought to relate to the ideological traditions of the political cultures of modern societies has been a recurrent theme of European social and political thought over the last two centuries. This chapter explores earlier traditions of European thinking, associated with the work of Karl Mannheim, Julien Benda, and Antonio Gramsci, which established the major lines of debate about the relationship of intellectuals to a sense of nationhood and the political traditions of the polities they inhabited. (...) These ideas form the backdrop to the analysis of the drift towards post-national thinking among important groups of intellectual practitioners in the UK towards the end of the twentieth century. Cosmopolitan thinking, the article suggests, has tended to obscure the ideological character of the main lines of political thinking associated with globalization, and ensured that progressive intellectuals tended to abandon the ‘national-popular’ to their counterparts on the political right, with fateful consequences. (shrink)

Finding solutions to complex health problems, such as obesity, violence, and climate change, will require radical changes in cross-disciplinary education, research, and practice. The fundamental determinants of health include many interrelated factors such as poverty, culture, education, environment, and government policies. However, traditional public health training has tended to focus more narrowly on diseases and risk factors, and has not adequately leveraged the rich contributions of sociology, anthropology, economics, geography, communication, political science, and other disciplines. Further, students are often not (...) sufficiently trained to work across sectors to translate research findings into effective, large-scale sustainable actions. During the past 2 decades, national and international organizations have called for more effective interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and translational approaches to graduate education. Although it has been difficult to work across traditional academic boundaries, some promising models draw on pedagogical theory and feature cross-disciplinary training focused on real-world problems, linkage between research, professional practice, community action, and cultivation of leadership skills. We describe the development the Doctor of Public Health program at the University of California, Berkeley, USA and its efforts to improve transdisciplinary and translational research education. We stress the need for international collaboration to improve educational approaches and better evaluate their impact. (shrink)

Over the last decade, public health and bioethics have been courting each other, trying to figure out a way to inform and assist one another. Ethics in public health began in epidemiology and public health in ethics began in health law. Attempts have been made to create both an ethics of and in public health. Although many edited volumes and even model curriculums have been created for the teaching of public health ethics, most efforts are mired in medical ethics and (...) do not take the unique population perspective of public health. Several challenges to the development and teaching of public health ethics remain, including the issue of ethics being a required public health competency and the questions: what should be in a public health ethics curriculum, where will instructors be trained and how wi;l such faculty be paid? A true public health ethics will help professionals address issues of values, critical thinking and decision making. (shrink)

In the fall of 2021 a news story reported of a successful experimental xenotransplant of a genetically engineered pig kidney in to the circulatory system of a research subject who was dead by neurological criteria. Although not a first of its kind, this case raises the issue of the ethics of research on those declared brain dead. Such possibilities have been discussed in the published literature since 1974, when Willard Gaylin expressed concern over human dignity when he imagined hospital wards (...) filled with “neomorts” used for education, teaching, research, and manufacturing. In this essay, the author explores the nuances of whether such subjects are considered alive, dead, or something in between. Notions of consent/ permission and risk/benefit are determined by this categorization. After discussing the 2005 Consensus Panel Guidelines on Research with the Recently Dead, the essay concludes with the need for a liminal state between living and dead that respects human dignity but also recognizes the utilitarian value of such experiments to protect fully alive humans. Having not just guidelines but oversight structures such as the University of Pittsburgh’s Committee for Oversight of Research Involving the Dead (CORID) and regulations are necessary if such work is to become more common. (shrink)

The Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks: Philosophy series serves undergraduate college students who have had little or no exposure to philosophy, as well as the curious lay reader. Following this first primer volume, which introduces both the discipline and the topics of the remaining nine volumes, each handbook will usher the reader into a subfield of philosophy (see list of titles below), and explore fifteen to thirty topics in that subfield. Every chapter in each volume will use vehicles such as film to (...) facilitate understanding of philosophical issues; for example, the film Dead Man Walking may be used as an introduction to issues related to the death penalty. (shrink)

In their intriguing article “Bioethics and the Moral Authority of Experience,” Nelson and colleagues (2023) provide important insight into an important ethical problem. We frequently demand that th...

While the plea of duress is generally accepted as a defense against criminal prosecution, the reasons why it exonerates are subject to dispute and disagreement. Duress is not easily recognizable as either an excusing or justifying condition. Additionally, duress is generally not permitted as a defense against criminal homicide, though some American jurisdictions allow the defense in felony-murder cases. In this paper, I present an argument for how and why the presence of duress can defeat a finding of criminal responsibility. (...) This is intended to establish the philosophical foundation for the legal acceptability of the duress defense, even though I conclude that the defense does not qualify as either an excuse or a justification. I also argue that the duress defense should be allowed in cases of homicide. (shrink)

This article explores and discusses Tim Burton's film Edward Scissorhands by applying a Georg Simmel/Ernst Bloch analysis. Aside from each of the philosophical approaches serving as insightful analyses of the symbolism and narrative of the film, it is also theoretically useful to compare and unpack the similarities and differences in aspects of both Simmel's and Bloch's philosophical ideas and metaphors, influenced by their collaboratory experiences; Bloch became associated with Georg Simmel in 1908. The association and friendship with Simmel lasted until (...) 1911; at this time Bloch became increasingly disillusioned with Simmel's apparent inability to commit to any particular philosophical position. Correspondence finally drew to a close when Simmel openly supported the war policy of Imperial Germany in 1914. The influences of many of Simmel's ideas in relation to the development of Bloch's philosophy are implicitly noticeable in the cross-referencing of similar ideas, metaphors and themes. This article will suggest and tentatively work through aspects of some similarities and differences. The aim of this comparison and contrast of Simmel in relation to Bloch via Edward Scissorhands, will also serve to highlight Bloch's philosophical departure from Simmel's fragments. By exploring and discussing Simmel's essays 'The Aesthetic Significance of the Face', 'The Ruin' and 'The Stranger,' in the context of Edward Scissorhands, I will suggest that the film can be seen as a particularly poignant and effective cultural metaphor of not only the problematic nature of human ideals, but also urban ennui and disconnectedness. By comparison, the Blochian treatment of Edward Scissorhands will emphasise the Gothic, the radical stridency of Youth, and, potential utopian possibilities that are, so far, 'Not-Yet'. These frameworks will suggest that Edward Scissorhands be understood as a beautiful-monster, a cultural refraction of the utopian incognito of Not-Yet articulated future possibilities. (shrink)