A revised core curriculum for medical ethics and law in UK medical schools has been published. The General Medical Council requires medical graduates to understand law and ethics and behave in accordance with ethical and legal principles. A parallel policy agenda emphasises accountability, the development of professionalism and patient safety. Given the renewed focus on teaching and learning law alongside medical ethics and the development of professional identity, this survey aimed to identify how medical schools are responding to the preparation (...) of medical students for practice in the future. Questions were asked about the location, content and methods of teaching and assessment of law in undergraduate medical education. Examples of course documentation were requested to illustrate the approaches being taken. A 76% response rate was achieved. Most responding schools integrate law teaching with medical ethics, emphasising both the acquisition of knowledge and its application in a clinical context. Teaching, learning and assessment of law in clinical attachments is much less formalised than that in non-clinical education. Coverage of recommended topic areas varies, raising questions about the degree to which students can embed their knowledge and skills in actual practice. More positively, teaching does not rely on single individuals and clear descriptions were offered for problem-based and small group case-based learning. Further research is required to explore whether there are optimum ways of ensuring that legal knowledge, and skills in its use, form part of the development of professionalism among doctors in training. (shrink)

Medical councils increasingly require graduates to understand law and to practise medicine mindful of the legal rules. In the UK a revised curriculum for medical law and ethics has been published. However, coverage of law in medical education remains variable and doubts exist about how far students acquire legal knowledge and skills in its implementation. This survey of students in two UK medical schools measured their law learning and their confidence in using this knowledge. Concept maps and a self-audit questionnaire (...) were used to capture students' understanding and perceptions of this knowledge domain and self-assessments of their legal knowledge and skills. A large sample was achieved across first, second and final year students. Students agree that a sound understanding of law is essential to being a good doctor. Their perceptions of law are generally positive but the interface between the legal rules and codes of medical ethics creates difficulty. In some areas students offer relatively confident self-assessments of their legal knowledge and skills for practising law. However, levels of confidence in other areas of their law learning raise doubts about the degree to which they can advocate for and protect their patients. Conclusions are drawn about the effectiveness of students' law learning and recommendations made for further research. (shrink)

This paper draws on the experience of one research project in action to evaluate the usefulness of research ethics frameworks when the environment surrounding project negotiation, data collection and dissemination is seriously disturbed by critical incidents. The paper questions the lack of emphasis in research ethics codes on the competence and capacity of agencies when commissioning and sponsoring research. Using events that surrounded one project, the paper researches the research. It explores what impacted on the creation of the context for (...) ethical and effective research and how the researchers responded to the ethical challenges that emerged. Different theoretical understandings and ethical models are drawn upon to explore how a research team translated ethical research in theory into ethical research in practice within an organization in turmoil. (shrink)

In medical education, where law and ethics are often taught simultaneously, a hidden or silent curriculum emerges strongly from research-based and descriptive reviews of practice experienced by students and qualified practitioners. In social work education, where law and ethics are more commonly taught separately, specific reference to such a curriculum does not emerge from the literature. However, evidence from reviews of social work practice points to instances of ethical and legal erosion in the context of a profession which asserts its (...) location as a moral activity and its commitment to human rights and social justice. The purpose of this article is not to systematically compare what students may be learning in and about medicine and social work. Rather, prompted by concerns expressed in medical education research, it reviews the social work evidence and why it achieves a lower profile than parallel experiences in medicine. It explores the problems encountered in practice by students and qualified social workers when drawing on their legal and ethical knowledge. It reviews the impacts of legal and values education on social work programmes. It concludes by questioning whether the initiatives to improve social work, in England specifically, by the Social Work Task Force and Social Work Reform Board are appropriately configured to address the tensions that divide recommended from actual practice. (shrink)

This article demonstrates how researchers from both the sciences and the humanities can learn from Charles Darwin’s mixed methodology. We identify two basic challenges that face emotion research in the sciences, namely a mismatch between experiment design and the complexity of life that we aim to explain, and problematic efforts to bridge the gap, including invalid inferences from constrained study designs, and equivocal use of terms like “sympathy” and “empathy” that poorly reflect such methodological constraints. We argue that Darwin’s mixed (...) methodology is a model for addressing these challenges even in laboratory work on emotion, because it shows how close observation of emotional phenomena makes sense only within broader historical contexts. The article concludes with 5 practical research recommendations. (shrink)

There is disagreement in the literature about the exact nature of the phenomenon of empathy. There are emotional, cognitive, and conditioning views, applying in varying degrees across species. An adequate description of the ultimate and proximate mechanism can integrate these views. Proximately, the perception of an object's state activates the subject's corresponding representations, which in turn activate somatic and autonomic responses. This mechanism supports basic behaviors that are crucial for the reproductive success of animals living in groups. The Perception-Action Model, (...) together with an understanding of how representations change with experience, can explain the major empirical effects in the literature. It can also predict a variety of empathy disorders. The interaction between the PAM and prefrontal functioning can also explain different levels of empathy across species and age groups. This view can advance our evolutionary understanding of empathy beyond inclusive fitness and reciprocal altruism and can explain different levels of empathy across individuals, species, stages of development, and situations. Key Words: altruism; cognitive empathy ; comparative; emotion; emotional contagion; empathy ; evolution; human; perception-action; perspective taking. (shrink)

An important component of souls is the capacity for free will, as the origin of agency within an individual. Belief in souls arises in part from the experience of conscious will, a compelling feeling of personal causation that accompanies almost every action we take, and suggests that an immaterial self is in charge of the physical body.

Augustine’s early works Against the Academicians (386) and The Teacher (389) belong together. In the former, which is directed at Cicero’s Academica, he defends the possibility of knowledge against the skeptical arguments of the New Academy;1 in the latter, directed at Plato’s Meno, he offers his theory of illumination to explain how knowledge is acquired. As a pair, they present Augustine’s alternative to the pose of ironical detachment fashionable among late Roman intellectuals.

If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of.

If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of.

One foundation of Eliminative Materialism is the claim that the totality of our ordinary resources for explaining and predicting behaviour, ?Folk Psychology?, constitutes a theoretical scheme, potentially in conflict with other theories of behaviour. Recent attacks upon this claim, as well as the defence by Paul Churchland, are examined and found to be lacking in a suitably realistic conception of theory. By finding such a conception, and by correctly identifying the level of conceptual structures within which Folk Psychology is located, (...) the original claim is reinforced. (shrink)

Death is a bad thing by virtue of its ability to frustrate the subjectively valuable projects that shape our identities and render our lives meaningful. While the presumption that immortality would necessarily result in boredom worse than death proves unwarranted, if the constraint of mortality is a necessary element for virtues, relationships, and motivation to pursue our life-projects, then death might nevertheless be a necessary evil. Mortal or immortal, it’s clear that the value of one’s life depends on its subjectively (...) determined quality, rather than its quantity. Thus, it is imperative to live forever in the present, with flourishing always in mind. (shrink)

Only a broad theory that looks across levels of analysis can encompass the many perspectives on the phenomenon of empathy. We address the major points of our commentators by emphasizing that the basic perception-action process, while automatic, is subject to control and modulation, and is greatly affected by experience and context because of the role of representations. The model can explain why empathy seems phenomenologically more effortful than reflexive, and why there are different levels of empathy across individuals, ages, and (...) species. (shrink)

In this open peer commentary, we categorize the possible “neuroscience in national security” definitions of misuse of science and identify which, if any, are uniquely presented by advances in neuroscience. To define misuse, we first define what we would consider appropriate use: the application of reasonably safe and effective technology, based on valid and reliable scientific research, to serve a legitimate end. This definition presents distinct opportunities for assessing misuse: misuse is the application of invalid or unreliable science, or is (...) the use of reliable scientific methods to serve illegitimate ends. Ultimately, we conclude that while national security is often a politicized issue, assessing the state of scientific progress should not be. (shrink)

The authors found that the feeling of authorship for mental actions such as solving problems is enhanced by effort cues experienced during mental activity; misattribution of effort cues resulted in inadvertent plagiarism. Pairs of participants took turns solving anagrams as they exerted effort on an unrelated task. People inadvertently plagiarized their partners’ answers more often when they experienced high incidental effort while working on the problem and reduced effort as the solution appeared. This result was found for efforts produced when (...) participants squeezed a handgrip during the task (Experiment 1) or when the anagram was displayed in a font that was difficult to read (Experiments 2, 3a, and 3b). Plagiarism declined, however, when participants attended to the source of the effort cues (Experiments 3a and 3b). These results suggest that effort misattribution can influence authorship processing for mental activities. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;My aim has been to present an abstract model for the acquisition of knowledge, to develop its consequences, and to compare these consequences with science$\sp1$. ;My intention has been to take this remark seriously. I hope to demonstrate that the papers which Feyerabend wrote between 1955 and the mid-1960's can most profitably be understood as a contribution to this project. The first three chapters lay the groundwork of Feyerabend's (...) earlier epistemology. They pick out the themes in his model for the acquisition of 'knowledge'. Chapter One sets out Feyerabend's rather unorthodox conception of scientific or theoretical realism, which has not received the attention which I believe it deserves. I detail Feyerabend's objections to some anti-realist positions and outline the formidable structure of his central argument for realism. I then consider a vital and problematic part of his epistemology, the 'pragmatic theory of observation'. ftn$\sp1$'Reply To Criticism: Comments on Smart, Sellars and Putnam', reprinted in Feyerabend's Philosophical Papers volume I, p.104. (shrink)

In Philosophy as a Way of Life, Pierre Hadot discusses the understanding of philosophy held by the Greco-Roman ancients. Philosophy was not understood only as an exegetical or analytical exercise, but as a spiritual practice - a way of life. Becoming a member of a philosophical school was tantamount to a religious conversion involving one's entire self. To make one's doctrines 'ready to hand' required a number of 'spiritual exercises' which, if regularly followed, were intended to evince such a transformation. (...) Hadot discusses the role of such exercises for (among others) Platonists, Epicureans, Christians, and Stoics. I propose that the Samurai should be added to such a consideration. Their respective exercises allowed the adherents genuinely to adopt their system of beliefs. Many beliefs held by Stoics and Samurai are surprisingly similar. After having discussed some of these similarities, the most striking similarity will be revealed: the role of spiritual exercises in preparing both the Stoic and the Samurai for death. (shrink)

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States housed 2.3 million inmates in 7,147 incarceration structures that, because of age, overcrowding, and poor ventilation, exacerbated the spread of airborne infections. The flow of individuals into and out of correctional facilities compounded the challenges in keeping them COVID-free. This article focuses on the work of the health and administrative leadership, in partnership with judicial and police personnel, to prevent COVID-19 inside the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail and to mitigate its spread when the (...) jail population and/or its staff became infected. From the onset, implementing science-based policies and upholding the human right to health and healthcare for all were priorities. (shrink)

Using student self-reported cheating admissions and answers from a hypothetical cheating scenario, this paper analyzes the effects of individual and situational factors on potential cheating behavior. Results confirm several conclusions about student factors that are related to cheating. The probability of cheating is associated with younger students, lower GPAs, alcohol consumption, fraternity/sorority membership, and having cheated in high school. Student perceptions of the certainty and severity of punishment appear to have a negative and significant impact on the probability of cheating (...) on in-class assignments. Students who report a belief that cheating is never acceptable appear to be significantly less likely to cheat in any circumstance. This study illustrates the context-dependent nature of academic dishonesty, and the associated difficulty in understanding the relationships between measurable factors and cheating behavior. (shrink)

There is a rather striking video currently used in police training. A firearms officer is caught on video shooting an armed suspect. The officer then gives his account of what happened, and there is no suggestion that he is tying to fabricate evidence. He says that he shot the suspect once; his partner says that he fired two shots. On the video we see four shots being deliberately fired. Memory, it seems, is an unreliable witness in situations of stress.