Although many of the congenital syndromes that used to be lethal no longer are, they are still routinely referred to as “lethal anomalies.” But the label is not only inaccurate, it is also dangerous: by portraying as a medical determination what is in fact a judgment about the child's quality of life, it wrests from the parents a decision that only the parents can make.

This study examines business students’ ethical awareness for two virtues needed to maintain academic integrity, respect, and responsibility. Using the multidimensional ethics survey, five dimensions were measured for six scenarios representing student behaviors using Information Technology . The results indicate that students are ethically aware in respect situations, but are more neutral in responsibility situations. Of the five ethical dimensions, moral equity and relativism appear to be the strongest influences in academic integrity scenarios utilizing IT. This study provides guidance for (...) business professors in their pursuit of ethical excellence in the classroom and for researchers in search of greater understanding of ethical judgments of students. (shrink)

Counterfactual verbal irony, an evaluative form of figurative language wherein a speaker’s intended meaning is opposite to the literal meaning of his or her words, is used to serve many social goals. Despite recent calls for theoretical accounts to include the factors that influence irony interpretation, few studies have examined the individual differences that may impact verbal irony interpretation. The present study examined whether adults with elevated shyness would generate more negative interpretations of ironic statements. University students with varying degrees (...) of shyness listened to stories wherein one character made literal or ironic criticisms or compliments to another character. Participants then appraised each speaker’s belief and attitude. Self-reported shyness did not predict comprehension of the counterfactual nature of ironic statements. However, shyer adults rated speakers who made ironic compliments as being meaner than did adults low in shyness. Thus, while understanding that ironic speakers intended to communicate their true beliefs, shyer individuals construed the social meaning of irony more negatively. Such interpretive biases may lead shy individuals to more frequently take offense at ironic compliments and experience more negativity in social interactions. (shrink)

People with a repressive coping style are highly motivated to defend themselves against self-concept threats. But what kinds of unfavourable personal characteristics are they most focused on avoiding? Weinberger (Citation1990) suggested that repressors are primarily concerned with seeing themselves (and having others see them) as calm, unemotional people who are not prone to experiencing negative affect. A content analysis of the actual (self-ascribed) and undesired attributes of 349 male and female college students, however, provided no support for that hypothesis. Instead, (...) relative to other participants, repressors’ undesired selves consisted more of traits exemplifying disagreeableness (as defined by the five-factor model). Repressors might not engage in affective self-regulation for its own sake, but because it allows them to control expression of traits with which they are more directly concerned. (shrink)

This study considered representations of divine and human others in the self-understanding of monotheists from three religions. Self-understanding was conceptualized on the basis of semantic and episodic knowledge in narrative response data. Given the importance of social context in the formation of cognitive schemas, the project emphasized self-understanding in a comparative religious design. The sample included sixty nominated religious exemplars who responded to a structured interview. Schemas were subsequently mapped for Jews, Muslims, and Christians by comparison of self and other (...) representations in a computational model known as latent semantic analysis (LSA). Findings indicated that representation of the divine is far removed from parents in cognitive schemas for all participants. Unlike Jews and Christians, Muslims appear to represent human others on the basis of self-understanding which principally references the divine. When considered in a computational semantic space, exemplars generally represent the self in a manner corresponding with divine and peer figures. (shrink)

Psychological factors have long been associated with the onset, maintenance and exacerbation of many cutaneous disorders (Newell, 2000, p. 8; Papadopoulos, Bor & Legg, 1999, p. 107). Chronic cutaneous disease is often visible to others so that social factors in coping and adjustment are thus highly relevant (Papadopoulos, et al., 1999, p. 107). Psychological factors tend, however, to be overlooked in the dermatological treatment domain when the skin problem is not regarded as life threatening (MacGregor, 1990 as cited in Papadopoulos, (...) et al., 1999, p. 113). In 2004, at a meeting of the Editorial Board of Dermatology Nursing, the need for studies presenting the patient’s perspective on living with a skin disease was discussed. It was thought that qualitative exploration of the patient’s experience of cutaneous disease would provide medical and mental health care professionals with valuable insights and important information to help improve dermatology patient care (Hill, 2004, p. 399). More specifically, Papadopoulos et al. (1999, p. 122) posit that qualitative exploration of dermatological patients’ lived experience might help provide insight into the efficacy of coping strategies, the need for psychological counsel, and also the need for a more holistic understanding of this patient population rather than maintaining a dichotomous focus on either the mind or the body. Research in the field is currently characterised by (a) a predominance of quantitative studies, the design of which results in inevitable loss of in-depth information regarding the experiential world of sufferers of cutaneous disease (Hill, 2004, p. 399; Papadopoulos, et al., 1999, p. 122), and (b) a dearth of studies investigating the impact of disfiguring skin conditions on the self-concept. In order to address this lack, and simultaneously to contribute towards mapping the psychodermatological terrain in need of qualitative exploration, this paper attempts to integrate the findings of relevant studies in the fields of both dermatology and psychology, with specific focus on women suffering from psoriasis, a common chronic disorder of the skin, and the impact of this on the various dimensions of self. The primary aim of this paper is, however, to prompt qualitative - and, in particular, phenomenological - research in the area of body disfigurement and selfconcept in order to elucidate the lived experiences of people afflicted with disfiguring dermatological conditions, and as such to promote necessary change in the therapeutic domain. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 6, Edition 1 May 2006. (shrink)

The book makes a new contribution to the contemporary debates on nihilism and the sacred. Drawing on an original interpretation of Richard Rorty’s writings, it challenges the orthodox treatment of nihilism as a malaise that human beings must overcome. Instead, nihilism should be framed as a problem for human culture to outgrow through pragmatism.

According to policy makers, telemedicine offers “huge opportunities to improve the quality and accessibility of health services.” It is defined as diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring, with doctors and patients separated by space but mediated through information and communication technologies. This mediation is explored through an ethnography of a U.K. teledermatology clinic. Diagnostic image transfer enables medicine at a distance, as patients are removed from knowledge generation by concentrating their identities into images. Yet that form of identity allows images and the (...) expert gaze to be brought into potentially lifesaving proximity. Following Latour’s thread, images must be captured and then mobilized to the knowledge base, where they must be stabilized into standard diagnoses, then combined with different images, waiting lists, skin lesions, dermatologists, paper records, and beds, so that ultimately, outcomes are produced. This huge task requires new knowledges and a widening of agency that, if unacknowledged, may see telemedicine projects continue to founder. (shrink)

In this astonishingly rich volume, experts in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, aesthetics, history, critical theory, and hermeneutics bring to light the best philosophical scholarship on what is arguably Nietzsche's most rewarding but most challenging text. Including essays that were commissioned specifically for the volume as well as essays revised and edited by their authors, this collection showcases definitive works that have shaped Nietzsche studies alongside new works of interest to students and experts alike. A lengthy introduction, annotated (...) bibliography, and index make this an extremely useful guide for the classroom and advanced research. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1989, Martin Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy has continued to produce animated debate with regard to the radical sense of futurity which defines and structures this text. In this essay, I first draw into question the common Nietzschean framing of this futurity and argue that the temporality of this futurity should be interpreted within the context of Heidegger's often overlooked descriptions of this coming time as granted by the last god. It is this anticipated gift that can (...) be seen to constitute the hermeneutic center around which the whole of Contributions is composed. In the final section, I then offer a critique of Heidegger's account of the relation between his last god and its granted time in terms of the givenness of a gift. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Commandment against the Law Writing and Divine Justice in Walter Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence”Tracy McNulty (bio)Pierre Legendre has shown that the Romano-canonical legal traditions that form the foundations of Western jurisprudence “are founded in a discourse which denies the essential quality of the relation of the body to writing” [“Masters of Law” 110]. It emerges historically as a repudiation of Jewish legalism and Talmud law, where the (...) rite of circumcision encodes the subject’s entry into law as an “allegiance to the absolute Writing,” or the “relationship between the human subject and the logical place of the Other” [110–11; see also “les juifs”]. In this shift, one understanding of writing is displaced by another: the material inscription of the letter, as an incommunicable limit or cut, is supplanted by the fantasy of what Legendre calls a “living writing,” a writing “in the heart” that promotes an ideal of perfect communication in which nothing is lost, in which meaning is lodged in an absolute Other who guarantees all knowledge. In his words, “we belong to a culture in which a mystically alienated human body stands in the place of the absolute book. The state has emerged from this structure.... Its basic characteristics can be set out by means of a fundamental Romano-pontifical maxim: the Emperor carries all the archives in his breast (omnia scrinia habet in pectore suo)” [“Masters of Law” 109].The ultimate theological source of this Roman maxim is Paul’s polemic against the Jewish law in the Epistle to the Romans. Paul’s polemic is structured by a distinction between two orders of law: the “law of God” and the “law of sin.” The first is associated with the intelligible “spirit” of the law, which is “written in the heart,” the second with the prescriptive “letter” of the Jewish law, which compromises or corrupts the first by binding it to a particular representation and consigning it to written form. Paul’s solution is to bypass the law, to bypass representation, and perhaps even language itself. The prescriptive “letter” of the Jewish law must be sublated by the law of the spirit, such that “we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit” [Romans 7: 6]. Christ, as the living embodiment of the law of God, upholds the spirit of the law by “fulfilling”––and so rendering obsolete–its written form.The doctrine of Christ as the “living law” sustains what Legendre describes as a “banalisation of writing” [“Masters of Law” 111], a disregard for its material inscription that holds the letter to be nothing more than a placeholder, a flawed or incomplete representation of a meaning or truth that is itself beyond words. At the same time, it makes possible the legal and political fantasy of a living writing, located in a single body understood as the site of interpretive authority. The extraction of a meaning or truth from the intractable letter becomes the ultimate aim of the legal order and the most lofty task of its sovereign interpreter, uniquely charged with animating the dead letter. This notion permeates what Peter Goodrich describes as “the most standard protocols of legal reading,” according to [End Page 34] which “it is not the letter but the spirit that determines the meaning of the law”:The text is composed of dead letters (litera mortua); the rule is no more than a “mute judge,” a sleeping form, requiring the interposition, anima legis, of jurist or judge.... [T]he meaning of the law is internal to its living body, viva vox iuris or lex loquens, its image, interpreter, or legislator. In classical terms it is spelled out by reference to something beyond words: “to know the law is not to know the words of the law, but its force and power.” In a renaissance formulation we are similarly told that “no words, forms, niceties, or propriety of language is of any regard in the Civil Law, in comparison to truth, faithfulness and integrity. For verba menti, non verbis servire debet; words, are made as instruments to serve and express the mind, and not to command it.”[229–30]1... (shrink)

It is well known that Heidegger described his Nietzsche lecture courses as confrontations with National Socialism. Traditionally, this sense of resistance was seen firstly in the fact that Heidegger read Nietzsche at the level of metaphysics and explicitly rejected those ideological appropriations which attempted to reduce Nietzsche’s philosophy to the level of biologism or mere Weltanschauung. This essay argues that the way in which Heidegger framed his interpretation of will to power in his first and second Nietzsche lecture courses can (...) be seen to contain a more explicit critique of the contemporaneous “official” Nietzschebild than has customarily been said. (shrink)

Derrida always stressed the importance of his engagement with Heidegger and often returned throughout his life to different aspects of Heidegger’s thought. With the recent publication of his 1964-65 course, Heidegger: The Question of Being and History greater insight is now possible into the exact terms of Derrida’s early engagement with Heidegger and the significance he would accord it in the major works of 1967 and beyond. With the reception of this text just beginning, many lines of interpretation are being (...) unfolded. However, one aspect not yet addressed in this early reception which will be crucial for approaching and orienting this work is the theme of auto-affection. The concept of auto-affection is important for assessing Derrida’s Heidegger course for two reasons. Firstly, Derrida understands auto-affection to be Heidegger’s most radical figuration of temporality in the period of Being and Time. Secondly, tracing Derrida’s early focus on auto-affection in Heidegger can provide an important context for understanding the initial development of what would become a prominent theme in Derrida’s own work. My argument in this paper is structured in three sections. In the first, I give a brief introduction to Derrida’s course. I then present the theme of auto-affection in this course and demonstrate its central importance. In conclusion, I show how Derrida’s treatment of this theme in the context of his early Heidegger engagement can be seen to look forward to his employment of auto-affection in Speech and Phenomena. (shrink)

Despite the initial strangeness of grouping Iris Murdoch (a Platonist), Martha Nussbaum (an Aristotelian), and Richard Rorty (a pragmatist) together, this paper will argue that these thinkers share a strong commitment to the moral purport of literature. I will also show that their shared idea of moral engagement through literature interlocks the individual’s sense of self and the world of others. After considering their accounts, I will conclude by raising the question of literature’s moral limits.

The percentage of bachelor's degrees awarded in computer science to women has decreased almost every year over the last decade. That is, even though more women are awarded bachelor's degrees, and even though the percentages of bachelor's degrees awarded to women in disciplines similar to computer science increased, the percentage of bachelor's degrees awarded in computer science to women decreased. Thus, the pipeline, which represents the ratio of women involved in computer science from high school to graduate school, shrinks both (...) from one end to the other _and_ in the middle. Since the number of women at the bachelor's level affects the number of women at levels higher in the pipeline and in the job market, these facts are of great concern to many in the computing community.In this paper, we review the harsh facts concerning the percentage of degrees awarded in computer science to women. When we presented these facts in CACM, we requested that the community respond to the facts through an interactive survey. At this time, 120 people have responded to the survey. In this paper, we present the results we have obtained from compiling these 120 survey responses. (shrink)

This article argues that the common law constitution can be thought of as the working out of a tradition within which notions of gender, national identity and citizenship are conveyed and secured. It looks at the making and interpretation of Commonwealth Caribbean Constitutions in the latter half of the twentieth century. It shows how the language of the common law constitution was employed to bolster the competence of West Indian male nationalists to govern and to legitimize measured progress for women. (...) The article also explores the fundamental role played by common law constitutionalism in the conceptualization of Caribbean constitutions as evolutionary and the veneration of ordinary existing laws as an expression of valuable norms about gender relations. Narratives of continuity as well as discontinuity are identified with the Caribbean common law constitution. As judicial decisions on gender equality become more liberal, problematic earlier decisions are categorized as ‘badly decided’, signifying a clean break from the past and the abandonment of harmful practices. This article claims that these narratives of discontinuity are associated with the conventional faith in the common law's capacity for change and that they substantially conceal the force and persistence of gender asymmetries in Caribbean societies and the ideologies that have enabled and sustained them. (shrink)

This book examines both the personal and the political sides of Nietzsche's writings to show how his writings can expand notions of democratic politics and democratic understanding.

This paper examines the recourse to mathematics as a “language of the real” in the literature of perversion and in the philosophical project of Alain Badiou.

Physicians often express frustration with the ‘system’ in which they work. Over time, this frustration may put them at risk of burnout and disengagement, which may impact patient care. In this study, we aimed to understand the nature of the system flaws that physicians identified in their published narratives and to explore their self-representation as agents of change. We reviewed all reflective narratives published in four medical journals between January 2015 and December 2017. By consensus, we identified those that addressed (...) system flaws. Using content and narrative analysis, we analyzed the types of flaws and the physicians’ orientation to the flawed system. We identified seven recurring system flaws—five related to medical culture: failures of communication, erosive impact of the hidden curriculum, inadequate health advocacy, frenzied pace of work, and experience of stigma. Less frequently, physicians’ narratives also exposed limited and disparate healthcare resources and restrictive institutional practices as impeding patient-centered care. Physicians expressed agency to create change foremost when writing about flaws related to medical culture. While physicians are challenged by system flaws, they strive to practice in ways that do not succumb to them. We saw tension between the elements outside the physician’s control and those within it. This tension becomes a source of distress when the compromises that emerge from system flaws move physicians away from the values that define their professional identity. (shrink)

We advance a model of human probability judgment and apply it to the design of an extrapolation algorithm. Such an algorithm examines a person's judgment about the likelihood of various statements and is then able to predict the same person's judgments about new statements. The algorithm is tested against judgments produced by thirty undergraduates asked to assign probabilities to statements about mammals.

Background:Nurses must balance their perceived duty to care against their perceived risk of harm to determine their willingness to report during disaster events, potentially creating an ethical dilemma and impacting patient care.Research aim:The purpose of this study was to investigate nurses’ perceived duty to care and whether there were differences in willingness to respond during disaster events based on perceived levels of duty to care.Research design:A cross-sectional survey research design was used in this study.Participants and research context:Using a convenience sample (...) with a snowball technique, data were collected from 289 nurses throughout the United States in 2017. Participants were recruited through host university websites, Facebook, and an American Nurses Association discussion board.Ethical considerations:Institutional review board approval was obtained from the University of Texas at Tyler and the University of Arkansas.Findings:Analysis of willingness to report to work based on levels of perceived duty to care resulted in the emergence of two groups: “lower level of perceived duty to care group” and “higher level of perceived duty to care group.” The most discriminating characteristics differentiating the groups included fear of abandonment by co-workers, reporting because it is morally the right thing to, and because of imperatives within the Nursing Code of Ethics.Discussion:The number of nurses in the lower level of perceived duty to care group causes concern. It is important for nursing management to develop strategies to advance nurses’ safety, minimize nurses’ risk, and promote nurses’ knowledge to confidently work during disaster situations.Conclusion:Level of perceived duty to care affects nurses’ willingness to report to work during disasters. Primary indicators of low perceived duty to care are amenable to actionable strategies, potentially increasing nurses’ perceived duty to provide care and willingness to report to work during disasters. (shrink)

Rorty uses the private–public distinction as a conceptual tool to uphold the ideal of self–creation (Romanticism) simultaneously to the ideal of solidarity (Enlightenment liberalism). The difficulty of accommodating these two apparently opposing ideals has led Rorty to make inconsistent and contradictory claims about the private–public distinction. This article suggests a way of easing the tension that exists around Rorty’s formulations of the distinction. It does so by turning to the thematic of “self–enlargement” to be found in Rorty’s later writings. By (...) presenting self–enlargement as a common feature of self–creation and solidarity, this reading opens up a way of reconciling these two ideals and mitigating some of the difficulties in Rorty’s private–public distinction. (shrink)

This article engages Richard Rorty’s controversial concept of ethnocentrism with the help of Randolf (Randy) S. David’s writings. The first section defines Rorty’s concept of ethnocentrism and responds to the general criticisms of relativism and divisiveness that have been made against it. The second section suggests a conceptual replacement for Rorty’s notion of a vicious ethnocentrism: egotism. Egotism is a kind of cultural ethnocentrism that is resistant to openness, creativity, and social transformation. Inspired by David’s work, the third and final (...) section suggests how the concepts of ethnocentrism and egotism might be of some use as conceptual tools for articulating contemporary social issues in the Philippines. (shrink)

The predominance of patriarchally-based structures in Kristeva's work sets up an uncomfortable dichotomy for feminist critics. Her 1979 essay `Le temps des femmes' (translated as `Women's Time' in 1981) most explicitly articulates her own approach to feminism, addressing women's troubled relationship to patriarchy in terms of time and space. Kristeva identifies three distinct positions in feminist thought: `equality', `difference' and an anticipated `third generation' feminism that integrates the previous two attitudes, representing what she defines as a new `signifying space'. The (...) value of the `third space' is that it offers a method for proceeding beyond the either/or status offered by previous stages of feminist thought and analysis, challenging gender identity per se and bringing out the singularity of each individual subject. I explore ways of reading from the third space through examples of the `Cassandra' myth and H.D.'s epic poem Helen in Egypt (1974), looking specifically at women's relationship to patriarchal language. (shrink)

Bernard Stiegler's account of technology as constitutive of the human as such is without precedent. However, Stiegler's work must also be understood in terms of its explicit appropriations from the thought of Jacques Derrida. An important, yet overlooked, context for framing Stiegler's relation to Derrida is the question of nonhuman life thought in terms of différance . As I argue, Stiegler's account does not unfold the most profound implications of Derrida's understanding of nonhuman life as différance . While Stiegler describes (...) human life as prosthetic and in default of origin, there is no treatment of the way in which nonhuman life is also aporetic and constituted in terms of its relatedness to exteriority. I conclude with a reconsideration of Stiegler's work from the perspective of Derrida's richer account of nonhuman life as différance in order to bring to light an anthropocentric aspect of Stiegler's work. (shrink)

This article examines the potential for moral agency in human resource management practice. It draws on an ethnographic study of human resource managers in a global organization to provide a theorized account of situated moral agency. This account suggests that within contemporary organizations, institutional structures—particularly the structures of Anglo-American market capitalism— threaten and constrain the capacity of HR managers to exercise moral agency and hence engage in ethical behaviour. The contextualized explanation of HR management action directly addresses the question of (...) whether HRM is inherently unethical. The discussion draws on MacIntyre’s conceptualization of moral agency within contemporary social structures. In practice, HR managers embody roles that may not be wholly compartmentalized. Alternative institutional structures can provide HR managers with a vocabulary of motives for people-centred HRM and widen the scope for the exercising of moral agency, when enacted within reflective relational spaces that provide milieus for critical questioning of logics and values. This article aims to contribute to and extend debate on whether HRM can ever be ethical, and provide a means of reconnecting business ethics with longstanding concerns in critical management studies. (shrink)

This chapter takes a critical look at universities from the perspective of the neopragmatist philosophy of education outlined by Richard Rorty. The chapter begins with a discussion of Rorty’s view of the ends that educational institutions properly serve in a liberal democracy. It then considers the kind of culture that Rorty takes to be conducive to those ends and the kind that is antithetical to them. Rorty sometimes characterizes the latter as a culture of ‘egotism’. After describing the main aspects (...) of such a culture, the chapter uses it as an interpretive key for understanding the ‘dark side’ of the contemporary university. Our thesis is that within a Rortyan, neo-pragmatist philosophy of higher education, the ends that universities are meant to serve in a liberal democracy are vulnerable to frustration and corruption by a culture of egotism. (shrink)