The University of Hawai’i at Mānoa’s Uehiro Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education (UHM Uehiro Academy) prepares, supports and sustains philosophy for children Hawai‘i (p4cHI) educators, researchers, and students in Hawai‘i and beyond. This paper documents the impact of the Uehiro Academy’s philosophy outreach program at Kailua High School (KHS), a public secondary school on the Hawaiian Island of O’ahu. It describes the twenty year partnership between the University and KHS, which built a foundation for p4cHI to become integrated (...) across the curriculum and within the school culture. To better understand the overall impact of the UHM Uehiro Academy philosophy outreach program on KHS, researchers asked, ‘How has the UHM Uehiro Academy philosophy outreach program impacted the school culture at KHS?’ Qualitative methods were applied to design and conduct a research study, which included interviewing 68 members of the KHS community. Data analysis revealed four main themes: (1) a schoolwide learner-centred pedagogy, (2) a place for learning more than just academics, (3) a community of diverse and connected individuals, (4) a commitment to professional growth for the purpose of a better world. The paper ends with conclusions, implications of the findings, and the researchers reflecting on the findings, including the benefits and challenges of university philosophy outreach programs in the secondary school setting. (shrink)

Arguments for a just transition are integral to debates about climate change and the drive to create a carbon-neutral economy. There are currently two broad approaches rooted in ethics and justice for framing just energy transitions. The first can be described as internal to the transition and emphasizes the anticipation, assessment, and redressing of harms created by the transition itself and the inclusion in transition governance of groups or communities potentially harmed by its disruptions. In this article, we propose a (...) second approach to ethics and justice in an energy transition, which we describe as systemic or societal in scope. This approach complements attention to the proximate dynamics and impacts of the transition process with a focus on the distant societal and economic outcomes the transition brings into being and how they compare to conditions prior to the transition. It poses the question: do the transformative social, economic, and technological changes wrought by energy systems create more just societies and economies, or do they instead reinforce or recreate long-standing injustices and inequalities? We illustrate this approach with an assessment of one of the most significant existing forms of energy injustice: the energy-poverty nexus. We argue that the energy-poverty nexus reflects configurations of socio-energy systems that create complex, extractive feedbacks between energy insecurity and economic insecurity and, over time, reinforce or exacerbate poverty. We further argue that just energy transitions should work to disentangle these configurations and re-design them so as to create generative rather than extractive feedbacks, thus ending the energy-poverty nexus and creating long-term outcomes that are more just, equitable, and fair. (shrink)

This essay enacts a particular instance of the challenge post-structuralism poses to the study of history. In simpler, language, it concerns the difference that point of view makes when people are giving account of events, whether at first or second hand. The problem is that if all accounts of events are determined through and through by the observer’s frame of reference, then one will never know, in any given case, what really happened.I encountered this problem in concrete terms while preparing (...) to teach a course in colonial American literature. I’d set out to learn what I could about the Puritans’ relations with American Indians. All I wanted was a general idea of what had happened between the English settlers and the natives in seventeenth-century New England; post-structuralism and its dilemmas were the furthest things from my mind. I began, more or less automatically, with Perry Miller, who hardly mentions the Indians at all, then proceeded to the work of historians who had dealt exclusively with the European-Indian encounter. At first, it was a question of deciding which of these authors to believe, for it quickly became apparent that there was no unanimity on the subject. As I read one, however, I discovered that the problem was more complicated than deciding whose version of events was correct. Some of the conflicting accounts were not simply contradictory, they were completely incommensurable, in that their assumptions about what counted as a valid approach to the subject, and what the subject itself was, diverged in fundamental ways. Faced with an array of mutually irreconcilable points of view, points of view which determined what was being discussed as well as the terms of the discussion, I decided to turn to primary sources for clarification, only to discover that the primary sources reproduced the problem all over again. I found myself, in other words, in an epistemological quandary, not only unable to decide among conflicting versions of events but also unable to believe that any such decision could, in principle, be made. It was a moral quandary as well. Knowledge of what really happened when the Europeans and the Indians first met seemed particularly important, since the result of that encounter was virtual genocide. This was the kind of past “mistake” which, presumably, we studied history in order to avoid repeating. If studying history couldn’t put us in touch with actual events and their causes, then what was to prevent such atrocities from happening again? Jane Tompkins is professor of English at Duke University. She is the author of Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860 and editor of Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism . Her current work concerns the construction of male identity in American popular culture. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.2 (2001) 179-181 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition: From Plato to Postmodernism Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition: From Plato to Postmodernism. James L. Kastely. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997. Pp. viii + 293. $30.00. In Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition, James Kastely presents an alternative to the "standard" rhetorical tradition; he calls this alternative skeptical rhetoric, describes its characteristic activity as (...) refutation, and claims for it special relevance in negotiating postmodern challenges to rhetoric, specifically, that it can serve as a "refutation of postmodernism" (23). This alternative tradition inheres in a canon of works somewhat different from the standard canon, and an examination of key works organizes most of the chapters in this book. To establish and articulate this tradition in the classical era, Kastely examines Plato's Gorgias and Meno, Sophocles' Philoctetes, and Euripides' Hecuba; he then moves to the modern era, and to two works that address themes central to ancient rhetorical skepticism: Jane Austen's Persuasion (1818) and Jean-Paul Sartre's What Is Literature? (1949). Finally, Kastely turns to the two prongs of the postmodern reappropriation of traditional rhetoric, the tropological formalism of Paul de Man and the ideological approaches of Marxist critics such as Terry Eagleton, challenging both of them with the comic skepticism of Kenneth Burke.The skeptical tradition begins with Socrates, of course. It takes as its central problem, not the impossibility or contingency of knowledge, but the existence of injustice. In a political community, the unavoidability of doing inadvertent injury both requires rhetoric and at the same time makes it party to continued injustice: "[D]oing injury is an inescapable aspect of a being who is born into a world that is shaped by a language and by conventional practices that embody a particular set of values" (42). It is these prior commitments and conventional practices that, Kastely argues, lead us to cause injury. Thus, the positive task of rhetoric is not to persuade others away from injustice or to promote remedies; it is to keep us constantly open to refutation, to the possibility of seeing an alternative to the inadvertent wrong we commit. The inherency of injustice is what makes rhetoric a philosophical problem, but refutation is what rhetoric can offer to philosophy (a claim that might surprise philosophers). And in his reading of the Meno, Kastely argues explicitly for a rhetorical, rather than philosophical or logical, understanding of refutation.Overall, Kastely offers us a Plato who is not the enemy of rhetoric, but rather "the most sophisticated and profound rhetorical theorist" (30), who dramatizes in dialogue the philosophical dilemma of rhetoric. In [End Page 179] Sophocles and Euripides, he finds dramatists who illustrate practical forms the dilemma can take, specifically the problem of the unavailable audience. In the Philoctetes, the problem is how to regain the trust and confidence of the marginalized and disenfranchised, how to restore the status of rhetorical audience to one who no longer believes that justice is possible. In the Hecuba, the problem is how a disempowered rhetor can speak to the powerful. In both plays, but especially in Hecuba, the proximity of rhetoric to violence is a practical consequence of the unsolved philosophical problem.Kastely admits that the skeptical legacy from classical rhetoric has had little effect since antiquity. His argument that this alternate tradition deserves recognition is made primarily by his chapters on Austen and Sartre. He sees the works he examines here as raising a question central to rhetorical skepticism: "Can there be a way of speaking and writing that can effectively challenge the marginalization and dehumanization of people in a world in which traditional structures of authority that made discourse coherent have vanished or, at least, are seriously and irretrievably eroded?" (139-40). Both question Enlightenment assumptions about universality and at the same time confront the vacuum left by the erosion of local communal and authority structures. Austen's "active exploration" of a "crisis in discursive practice" (141) and Sartre's concern with the "social responsibility of the writer" and the loss of a public... (shrink)

Payment for research participation has raised ethical concerns, especially with respect to its potential for coercion. We argue that characterising payment for research participation as coercive is misguided, because offers of benefit cannot constitute coercion. In this article we analyse the concept of coercion, refute mistaken conceptions of coercion and explain why the offer of payment for research participation is never coercive but in some cases may produce undue inducement.

John McMillan's article raises numerous important points about the ethics of surgical castration of sex offenders.1 In this commentary, we focus solely on and argue against the claim that the offer of release from detention conditional upon surgical castration is a coercive offer that compromises the validity of the offender's consent. We take no view on the question as to whether castration for sex offenders is ethically permissible. But, we reject the claim that it is ethically permissible only if competing (...) ethical considerations outweigh worries about coercion. For in the situation described, the proposal is not coercive at all.McMillan states that if offenders agree to castration because they fear long-term detention, then ‘it seems, intuitively, as if agreeing to be castrated under these conditions makes the decision coerced in some way.’1 He adds that if castration is ‘the only way that they will be released back into the community, the status of this decision as a genuine expression of their autonomy is questionable.’1 In defence of his claim, he uses two analogies that he borrows from Joel Feinberg. First, if a governor offers to commute a death sentence if the prisoner agrees to participate in a medical experiment, then ‘it's clear that the governor is coercing the prisoner.’1 Second, if a millionaire offers to give a woman $1 000 000 …. (shrink)

This book is the result of a three-year study undertaken by a multidisciplinary working party of the Institute of Medical Ethic (UK). The group was chaired by a moral theologian, and its members included biological and ethological scientists, toxicologists, physicians, veterinary surgeons, an expert in alternatives to animal use, officers of animal welfare organizations, a Home Office Inspector, philosophers, and a lawyer. Coming from these different backgrounds, and holding a diversity of moral views, the members produced the agreed report as (...) a result of detailed and rigorous discussions. The book sets out facts about animal experiments and about animal abilities to experience pain, distress and anxiety. There is a detailed examination of the moral claims related to the benefits likely to accrue from animal research, and of strategies for weighing these benefits against the harm caused to animals, in order to decide whether particular research projects ought or ought not to proceed. This leads to consideration of the statutory and non-statutory controls which safeguard standards in such research. The final section explores a variety of philosophical arguments about the use of animals in research, and offers a philosophical justification for the Working Party's more practical conclusions. Written in clear, nontechnical language, this book is accessible to lay people as well as to scientists. It is the first such document to emerge from a meeting of people with such widely differing views on this highly controversial subject, and represents a major contribution towards informing and raising the quality of contemporary debate. The book is unique in drawing together material and ideas never before found in one volume. It will interest a broad spectrum of readers, from ethicists and animal rights advocates to scientific researchers and laboratory administrators, along with general readers concerned about this compelling issue. (shrink)

Jane Grant's book explores the need to redefine the social compact in twenty-first century America. It proposes a new compact that would honor the expansion of civil, political, and social rights in America, and would integrate these rights within a new civic procedural ethos, clarifying our obligations to each other, future generations, other nations, and other species.

I begin my comments with a first-person narrative. I know Octavio, Erotildes, and Nuria from the time I worked at the Institute of Psychiatry and was very close to the field of mental health. They are people whose work I admire and appreciate. I comment on this text from the point of view of someone who has never worked directly in mental health assistance and whose knowledge about severe mental illness therapy has occurred mostly from a third-person perspective. My comments (...) are based on parallels with situations and experiences that I have been studying lately.First of all, I want to say that I fully agree with the authors’ argument that “experiences and narratives about illness, treatment, and recovery are... (shrink)

After retirement, older people often find themselves far from their children and grandchildren, and many spend their last years isolated and alone. As traditional concepts of family and social institutions fragment, social networks weaken, leading to an epidemic of loneliness, and substance abuse and suicide in developed countries. In fact, life expectancy in the US has dropped for the past few years, in large part due to a dramatic increase in suicide and drug overdose. None of these social problems is (...) likely to be solved by metformin. They point to a crisis of identity and meaning, an existential crisis. In this context, one might wonder if we are already seeing the effects of tinkering with our lifespan. There are many more conclusions one could draw about the implications of longevity, many of which have been elegantly described in Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness, published by the President’s Council on Bioethics, which I used as a reference for this talk. I hope I have been successful in providing a 10,000-foot view of the questions of efforts to extend human longevity and its implications that will provoke thought and discussion. I would like to end these reflections by turning back to my favorite transhumans. The reason we love superheroes is not for their superior strength or intelligence, but their characters. They use their powers to protect and serve humanity rather than dominate or annihilate it. It is not their gadgetry that makes them great, but how they use it to save the vulnerable. Even as a small child I knew that if everyone acted the way they did, the world would be a better place. The moral of every story was that the “enhancement” humanity needed would not come as the fruit of technology, but of virtue. (shrink)

Eduard Pernkopf’s Atlas of Topographical and Applied Human Anatomy is a four-volume anatomical atlas published between 1937 and 1963, and it is generally believed to be the most comprehensive, detailed, and accurate anatomy textbook ever created. However, a 1997 investigation into “Pernkopf’s Atlas,” raised troubling questions regarding the author’s connection to the Nazi regime and the still unresolved issue of whether its illustrations relied on Jewish or other political prisoners, including those executed in Nazi concentration camps. Following this investigation, the (...) book was removed from both anatomy classrooms and library bookshelves. A debate has ensued over the book’s continued use, and justification for its use has focused on two issues: there is no definitive proof the book includes illustrations of concentration camp prisoners or Jewish individuals in particular, and there is no contemporary equivalent to this text. However, both points fail to address the central importance of the book, not simply as part of anatomy instruction, but also as a comprehensive historical narrative with important ethical implications. Having encountered a first edition copy, these authors were given a unique opportunity to engage with the text through the respective humanities lenses of history, ethics, and narrative. In doing so, an instructive and profound irony has surfaced: Nazis, including Pernkopf, viewed specific groups of people as less than human, giving rise to unthinkable atrocities perpetuated against them. However, these same individuals became the sources for the creation of the Atlas, which served as the model for primary instruction on the human form for more than half of the twentieth century. In this article, we recount the difficult and somewhat opaque provenance of this book, engage the ethical questions surrounding both its creation and its use, and ultimately propose a pedagogical methodology for its continued use in medical education. (shrink)

The idea that our conscious decisions determine our actions has been challenged by a report suggesting that the brain starts to prepare for a movement before the person concerned has consciously decided to move . Libet et al. claimed that their results show that our actions are not consciously initiated. The current article describes two experiments in which we attempted to replicate Libet et al.'s comparison of participants' movement-related brain activity with the reported times of their decisions to move and (...) also the reported times of their decisions of which hand to move. We also looked at the distribution of participants' reports over time to evaluate an alternative explanation of Libet et al.'s results. Although the Readiness Potential was usually present before all of the decisions to move, consistent with the findings of Keller and Heckhausen and Libet et al. , we found that many reported decision times were before the onset of the Lateralized Readiness Potential, which measures hand-specific movement preparation. The latter finding is consistent with the conclusion that the LRP always started after the conscious decision to move. We conclude that even though activity related to movement anticipation may be present before a conscious decision to move, the cortical preparation necessary for the movement to happen immediately may not start until after the conscious decision to move. (shrink)

We argued last year in this journal that extensive integration of research and care is a worthy goal of health system design, and we second the call from Ruth Faden and colleagues to move toward learning health care systems. As they recognize, learning health care systems demand the coordination of research and medical ethics—two sets of normative commitments that have long been considered distinct. In offering a novel ethics framework for such systems, Faden et al. advance the scholarly debate about (...) how best to do this and challenge us to think more deeply about its practical implications. However, we believe that at least three issues they raise require additional attention. First, the research‐care distinction has more normative bite than they are willing to concede. Second, the role for independent oversight requires clarification. Finally, they neglect the concept of stewardship as a guiding obligation of learning health care systems. (shrink)

We argued last year in this journal that extensive integration of research and care is a worthy goal of health system design, and we second the call from Ruth Faden and colleagues to move toward learning health care systems. As they recognize, learning health care systems demand the coordination of research and medical ethics—two sets of normative commitments that have long been considered distinct. In offering a novel ethics framework for such systems, Faden et al. advance the scholarly debate about (...) how best to do this and challenge us to think more deeply about its practical implications. However, we believe that at least three issues they raise require additional attention. First, the research‐care distinction has more normative bite than they are willing to concede. Second, the role for independent oversight requires clarification. Finally, they neglect the concept of stewardship as a guiding obligation of learning health care systems. (shrink)

Business and Society Review, Volume 127, Issue S1, Page 193-222, Spring 2022.

In the ancient world, precious stones (valuable stones and hard substances excluding gold, silver and copper) were distinguished in terms of appearance (beauty, colour), function (durability) and cost (rarity). As a result, there is considerable difficulty in determining how to correlate the inventory of lexical terms referring to precious stones in the ancient Near East with modern mineralogical identifications. In this article, the etymology and identification of precious stones in the Bible are revisited using editorial theory and complexity thinking. The (...) starting point for lexicographical identification is the breastpiece of the high priest (Ex 28:17–20; 39:10–14) with its 12 precious stones and the translation of the Hebrew terms in the Septuagint. In the light of the considerable writings in the Hellenistic world on precious stones, especially Pliny’s Naturalis Historia and Theophrastus’ On Stones, the Septuagint provides the key for the etymology and identification of the precious stones in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Contribution: The Septuagint translation of the precious stones in the high priest’s breastpiece is the Rosetta Stone for the identification all of the precious stones in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. The subsequent translations of the terms indicate changes or substitutions of referents and their meanings. (shrink)

We seek to add to the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainable Development (SD) literature through the empirical study of Latin American firm membership in the United Nations Global Compact (GC) and Global Report Initiative (GRI). Within an institutional-based framework, we explore through three filters – commercial, state-signaling, and distinguished peers – the impact of normative and mimetic pressures associated with GC/gri membership. Our sample includes 207 public firms from six Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru). (...) Our results suggest Latin American firms from countries with a greater European influence (normative pressure) are twice as likely to be enrolled in the GC/gri. Additionally, we find that Latin American firms listed on the NYSE (mimetic pressure) are also twice as likely to sign up under the GC/gri. Hence, the normative and mimetic pillars of institutional theory are found to be significant factors for Latin American firms adopting sustainability initiatives. (shrink)

Purpose Prescription stimulant use as “cognitive enhancers” has been described among undergraduate college students. However, the use of prescription stimulants among future health care professionals is not well characterized. This study was designed to determine the prevalence of prescription stimulant misuse among students at an academic health sciences center. -/- Method Electronic surveys were e-mailed to 621 medical, pharmacy, and respiratory therapy students at East Tennessee State University for four consecutive weeks in fall 2011. Completing the survey was voluntary and (...) anonymous. Surveys asked about reasons for, frequency of, and side effects of nonprescription misuse of prescription stimulants. Given the sensitive material, an opportunity to win one of ten $50 gift cards was used as an incentive. -/- Results Three hundred seventy-two (59.9%) students completed the survey from three disciplines (47.6% medical, 70.5% pharmacy, and 57.6% respiratory therapy). Overall, 11.3% of responders admitted to misusing prescription stimulants. There was more misuse by respiratory therapy students, although this was not statistically significant (10.9% medicine, 9.7% pharmacy, 26.3% respiratory therapy; P = .087). Reasons for prescription stimulant misuse included to enhance alertness/ energy (65.9%), to improve academic performance (56.7%), to experiment (18.2%), and to use recreationally/get high (4.5%). -/- Conclusions Prescription stimulant misuse was prevalent among participating students, but further research is needed to describe prevalence among future health care workers more generally. The implications and consequences of such misuse require further study across professions with emphasis on investigating issues of academic dishonesty (e.g., “cognitive enhancement”), educational quality, and patient safety or health care quality. (shrink)

Background Clinical ethics consultants are expected to “reduce disparities, discrimination, and inequities when providing consultations,” but few studies about inequities in ethics consultation exist.1 The objectives of this study were (1) to determine if there were racial or gender differences in the timing of requests for ethics consultations related to limiting treatment, and (2) if such differences were found, to identify factors associated with that difference and the role, if any, of ethics consultants in mitigating them. Methods The study was (...) a mixed methods retrospective study of consultation summaries and hospital and ethics center data on 56 age-and gender-matched Caucasian and African American Medicare patients who received ethics consultations related to issues around limiting medical treatment in the period 2011 to 2014. The average age of patients was 70.9. Results Consultation requests for females were made significantly earlier in their stays in the hospital (6.57 days) than were consultation requests made for males (16.07 days). For African American patients, the differences in admission-to-request intervals for female patients (5.93 days) and male patients (18.64 days) were greater than for Caucasian male and female patients. Differences in the timing of a consultation were not significantly correlated with the presence of an advance directive, the specialty of the attending physician, or the reasons for the consult request. Ethics consultants may have mitigated problems that developed during the lag in request times for African American males by spending more time, on average, on those consultations (316 minutes), especially more time, on average, than on consultations with Caucasian females (195 minutes). Most consultations (40 of 56) did result in movement toward limiting treatment, but no statistically significant differences were found among the groups studied in the movement toward limiting treatment. The average number of days from consult to discharge or death were strongly correlated with the intervals between admission to the hospital and request for an ethics consultation. Conclusion Our findings suggest race and gender disparities in the timing of ethics consultations that consultants may have partially mitigated. (shrink)

In this article we examine how Qumran Hebrew can contribute to our knowledge of historical Hebrew linguistics. The premise of this paper is that Qumran Hebrew reflects a distinct stage in the development of Hebrew which sets it apart from Biblical Hebrew. It is further assumed that these unique features are able to assist us to understand the nature of the development of Biblical Hebrew in a more precise way. Evidence from the syntax of participial negation at Qumran as opposed (...) to Biblical Hebrew provides evidence for this claim. (shrink)

In this essay, we demonstrate that in addition to the Revised Standard Version and its revisions as part of the linear emergence of the Tyndale–King James Version tradition in the 20th and 21st centuries, there are also alternative revisions and retranslations of the King James Version (KJV) of 1611 as literal or word-for-word translations, which emerge as divergent branches. The revisions of the American Standard Version (ASV) (1901) emerged in the following branches, namely the New American Standard Bible (NASB) and (...) its revisions, The Amplified Bible (AB) and its revisions, as well as The Living Bible, Paraphrased and its retranslation, the New Living Translation (NLT). Then there are revisions that emerged as alternatives to the Revised Standard Version (1946–1952/1971) by reverting to the King James Revised (Blayney) Edition (1769) as their incipient text rather than the ASV, namely The Modern King James Version (MKJV) (and similar revisions), The New King James Version (NKJV) and the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible. Finally, there are retranslations within the Tyndale–King James Version tradition, namely the Contemporary English Version (CEV), and the Common English Bible (CEB). The diversity reflects the search for individual identity to satisfy particular reader expectations in an age of digital-media interpretive culture featuring broad universal values.Contribution: Instead of viewing the revisions and retranslations within the Tyndale–King James Version tradition since the second half of the 20th century as new and independent, it is demonstrated that the various branches and their versions rather continue the emergence of the pre-20th century translation complex within this tradition to satisfy particular reader expectations. (shrink)