The Uber driver, agricultural day labourer, adjunct faculty member, and fee-for-service mental health counsellor – all contingent workers who are part of an increasingly important segment of the U....

Human service managers are called on to make a variety of difficult decisions that often involve fundamental conflicts in values. Such conflicts constitute ethical dilemmas. This qualitative exploratory study examines how human service managers (N = 40), from the United States, identify and resolve ethical dilemmas. The dilemmas identified by the managers tended to result in the restriction of missions, programs, services and practice methods. The resolution of these ethical problems often rested on following the very rules that created the (...) dilemmas. Additional strategies included consultations and reliance on abstract principles, specifically those of one's spiritual faith. Missing, however, were systematic or evidence-based procedures for resolving challenges that often threatened the very goals of the human service agencies. The need for more careful training in the area of ethical problem solving that maintains the vision of human services is presented. (shrink)

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to gain an in-depth understanding of how three award-winning secondary economics teachers demonstrated their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), specifically horizon content knowledge, specialized content knowledge, knowledge of content and teaching, and knowledge of content and students. The teachers consistently connected economic content to other grades, subjects, and economic concepts and skills. Economic content was also regularly used to prepare students for citizenship, including casting more informed votes and understanding current events. However, authentic (...) discussions, including ones about controversial issues, were mostly lacking. An emphasis was placed on developing students’ economic reasoning skills, including real-world applications of the economic way of thinking and decision-making models. Additionally, active learning instructional practices were frequently incorporated, and economic content was almost always related to students’ interests and experiences. A detailed description of a first step toward a practice-based theory of PCK in secondary economics concludes the article. (shrink)

This study investigates professional tax practitioners' ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in cases involving client pressure to adopt aggressive reporting positions, an issue that has been identified as the most difficult ethical/moral problem facing public accounting practitioners. The multidimensional ethics scale (MES) was used to measure the extent to which a hypothetical behavior was consistent with five ethical philosophies (moral equity, contractualism, utilitarianism, relativism, and egoism). Responses from a sample of 67 tax professionals supported the existence of all dimensions of (...) the MES other than egoism. Regressions of ethical judgments and behavioral intentions on the MES dimensions indicate that ethical decision making is most heavily influenced by the moral equity dimension, followed by the contractualism dimension. In contrast, the utilitarianism and relativism dimensions were only related to ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in isolated instances. (shrink)

This project assesses the ability of a game tutorial, “Goblin Threat” to increase university students’ ability to recognize plagiarized passages. The game tutorial covers information about how to cite properly, types and consequences of plagiarism, and the differences between paraphrasing and plagiarism. The game involves finding and clicking on “goblins” who ask questions about various aspects of plagiarism. Sound effects and entertaining visuals work to keep students’ attention. One group of 177 students enrolled in an online Psychology of Adolescence course (...) answered four multiple choice plagiarism recognition questions in the months after completing the online game tutorial while another group of over 400 students in the same online psychology course did not have access to the game tutorial, but answered the same multiple choice plagiarism recognition questions over the same period of time. The group who played the game tutorial showed an 11% improvement in recognizing plagiarized passages over the comparison group, a statistically significant difference. Results suggest the ability to keep students focused may be an important ingredient for plagiarism interventions. (shrink)

Despite recognition of the importance of family in health‐care and progress in family theory development, there has been limited transfer of family theory to acute care nursing practice. We argue that this family theory–practice gap results from a persistent lack of conceptual clarity in family nursing and other barriers. Lack of conceptual clarity takes the form of conceptual overlap and semantic inconsistency, as well as the complexity of language found in the family nursing literature. Barriers include practice contexts, relational problems, (...) and knowledge types. Our exploration begins with a brief discussion of the intimate link between nursing theory and practice followed by an overview of some issues associated with the family nursing theory–practice gap. Based on a synthesis of family nursing literature, problems associated with conceptual clarity in family nursing theory are explored. We conclude with recommendations for family nursing research to develop concepts grounded in nursing practice. (shrink)

After 1900, the selective breeding of a few standard animals for research in the life sciences changed the way science was done. Among the pervasive changes was a transformation in scientists' assumptions about relationship between diversity and generality. Examination of the contents of two prominent physiology journals between 1885 and 1900, reveals that scientists used a diverse array of organisms in empirical research. Experimental physiologists gave many reasons for the choice of test animals, some practical and others truly comparative. But, (...) despite strong philosophical differences in the approaches they represented, the view that it was best to incorporate as many species as possible into research on physiological processes was widespread in both periodicals. Authors aimed for generality, but they treated it as a conclusion that would or would not follow from the examination of many species. After 1900, an increasing emphasis on standardization, the growth of the experimental method and the growing industrialization of the life sciences led to a decline in the number of species used in research. In this context, the selective breeding of animals for science facilitated a change in assumptions about the relationship between generality and diversity. As animals were increasingly viewed as things that were assumed to be fundamentally similar, scientific generality became an a priori assumption rather than an empirical conclusion. (shrink)

In America by the 1930s, albino rats had become a kind of generic standard in research on physiology and behavior that de-emphasized diversity across species. However, prior to about 1915, the early work of many of the pioneer rat researchers in America and in central Europe reflected a strong interest in species differences and a deep regard for diversity. These scientists sought broad, often medical, generality, but their quest for generality using a standard animal did not entail a de-emphasis of (...) organic diversity. They chose white rats as test animals for two primary reasons. First, rats develop very slowly. They therefore made features of physiological, neural and psychological development accessible to the experimental method at a time when its application to the phenomena of development remained controversial. Secondly, rats were thought to have unusually strong sex drives. For this reason they became central to the experimental study of sexuality and, in the work of the reproductive physiologist Eugen Steinach, sexual development. Connections among three research institutes that stressed experimental approaches to the study of brain and development demonstrate the importance of the rat's institutional role. As the emphasis on experimentation in the study of development grew, two of these institutes bred rats to provide uniform materials. Eventually, however, their reasons for selecting rats were lost; and the ready availability of a uniform test animal led to a shift in scientists' presumptions about diversity, as the standard rat became a tool for assuring generality. (shrink)

As initially envisioned, Gödel's Collected Works were to include transcriptions of material from his mathematical workbooks. In the end that material, as well as some other manuscript items from Gödel's Nachlass, had to be left out. This note describes some of the unpublished items in the Nachlass that are likely to attract the notice of scholars and surveys the extent of shorthand transcription efforts undertaken hitherto. Some examples of sources outside Gödel's Nachlass that may be of interest to Gödel scholars (...) are also indicated. (shrink)

In 1920, Eugen Steinach and Paul Kammerer reported experiments showing that exposure to high temperatures altered the structure of the gonad and produced hyper-sexuality in "heat rats," presumably as a result of the increased production of sex hormones. Using Steinach's evidence that the gonad is a double gland with distinct sexual and generative functions, they used their findings to explain "racial" differences in the sexuality of indigenous tropical peoples and Europeans. The authors also reported that heat induced anatomical changes in (...) the interstitial cells of the gonad were inherited by the heat rats' descendants. Kammerer used this finding to link endocrinology to his long-standing interest in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The heat rats supported his hypothesis that the interstitial cells of the double gland were the mechanism of somatic induction in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The Steinach-Kammerer collaboration, Kammerer's use of Steinach's "puberty gland" to explain somatic induction, and his endocrine analysis of symbiosis reveal Paul Kammerer's late career attempt to integrate endocrinology and genetics with the political ideals of Austrian socialism. With them he developed a bioethics that challenged the growing reliance on race in eugenics and instead promoted cooperation over competition in evolution. I relate his attempt to the controversies surrounding the interstitial cells, to the status of extra-nuclear theories of heredity, and to Kammerer's commitment to Austromarxist social reforms during the interwar period. (shrink)

Maintaining academic integrity is a growing concern for higher education, increasingly so due to the pivot to remote learning in 2020 caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We canvassed students, faculty, and tutors at an online Canadian university about their perspectives on academic integrity and misconduct. The survey asked how the university could improve policies concerning issues of academic integrity, how faculty and tutors handled cases of misconduct, about satisfaction with how academic violations were treated, and about the role of students, (...) faculty, and tutors in encouraging academic integrity. As well, we collected suggestions from respondents for reducing cheating, addressing academic misconduct, and general ideas about academic integrity. The distinction between misconduct and integrity was not always clear in their comments. We received responses from 228 students and 73 faculty and tutors, generating hundreds of comments. In this paper we focus only on the answers to open-ended questions. Using content analysis, we categorized the replies into similar threads. After multiple iterations of analysis, we extracted three general recommendation groupings: Policy and Procedures, Compliance and Commitment, and Resources. Based on respondents’ views, we propose a balanced approach to supporting academic integrity. Although we conducted the study pre-COVID-19, the recommendations apply to current and future academic integrity practices in our context and beyond. (shrink)

While the balance between individual privacy and government monitoring or corporate surveillance has been a frequent topic across numerous disciplines, the issue of privacy within the family has been largely ignored in recent privacy debates. Yet privacy intrusions between parents and children or between adult partners or spouses can be just as profound as those found in the more “public spheres” of life. Popular access to increasingly sophisticated forms of electronic surveillance technologies has altered the dynamics of family relationships. Monitoring, (...) mediated and facilitated by practices of both covert and overt electronic surveillance, has changed the nature of privacy within the family. Parents are tracking children via GPS-enabled cell phone tracking software and are monitoring the Internet use of family members. Parents, siblings, and children are also posting information about their family members online, often without consent, and are creating social media profiles for others online. Prior scholarly work in philosophy and law has primarily addressed the privacy of children from third parties, usually commercial entities, and in the context of making medical decisions. Less attention has been directed at exploring a more general right of privacy of one family member against parents, siblings, children, or spouses. In this article, we do just that. We consider several moral rules that determine appropriate privacy boundaries within the family. More specifically, we will consider when overt or covert surveillance of a child, spouse, or partner by an adult family member is morally permitted. (shrink)

In this multiple case study, the authors compare the instruction of two high school civics teachers during the 2012 Presidential Election. Both were highly-qualified practitioners who worked in schools with one-to-one laptop initiatives, creating an environment in which access to digital technology ceased to be an issue. Although both teachers regularly used technology in their classrooms, the authors describe stark differences in the complexity and authenticity of their instruction, which the authors attribute to the teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK). (...) The authors conclude by discussing implications for better understanding TPCK within civics instruction, specifically in classrooms with one-to-one laptop access. (shrink)

For those with advanced life-limiting illness, the optimization of quality of life and avoidance of nonbeneficial treatments at the end of life are key ethical concerns. This article evaluates the efficacy of an Interdisciplinary Ethics Panel (IEP) approach to decision making at the end of life for unbefriended nursing home residents who lack decisional capacity and have advanced life-limiting illness, through the use of a ninestep algorithm developed for this purpose. We reviewed the outcomes of three quality-of-care phased initiatives conducted (...) in our facility, a large public nursing home in New York City, between June 2016 and February 2020, which indicated that this IEP approach promoted advance-care planning, as palliative measures were endorsed to optimize quality of life for this vulnerable population at the end of life. We also examined another quality-of-care initiative when this IEP approach was applied to end-of-life decision making for nursing home residents who had a surrogate during the COVID-19 pandemic. This application appeared to be beneficial in adding more residents to our Palliative Care Program while it improved rates of advance-care planning. When all of the above findings are considered, we believe this novel IEP approach and algorithm have the potential to be applied elsewhere after appropriate assessment. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Self-efficacy is the assessment of one’s capacity to perform tasks. Previous research has demonstrated that self-efficacy impacts ethical behavior and attitudes but its effect on ethical cognition and perceptions has not been studied. For the present study, participants analyzed an ethical dilemma after either high or low self-efficacy was induced. Participants analyzed the dilemma using one of two cognitive problem-solving techniques versus a third, control group, and what participants wrote about the problem was content-analyzed to determine how ethical cognition (...) is impacted by self-efficacy. Additionally, perceptions of the ethical problem were examined. Results revealed that differences in self-efficacy did not lead to changes in ethical cognition, but they did lead to changes in perceptions of ethical problems. Implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

C.S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, argued that truth is what we would agree upon, were inquiry to be pursued as far as it could fruitfully go. In this book, Misak argues for and elucidates the pragmatic account of truth, paying attention both to Peirce's texts and to the requirements of a suitable account of truth. An important argument of the book is that we must be sensitive to the difference between offering a definition of truth and engaging in a (...) distinctively pragmatic project. The pragmatic project spells out the relationship between truth and inquiry; it articulates the consequences of a statement's being true. The existence of a distinct pragmatic enterprise has implications for the status of the pragmatic account of truth and for the way in which philosophy should be conducted. (shrink)

Each title in the "Key Issues" series aims to set the work in its historical context. In this collection of contemporary responses to "Leviathan", attention is focused on its critics who attacked Hobbes's moral, political and religious ideas in a series of pamphlets and short books.

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)

Abstract: Some first person statements, such as ‘I am in pain’, are thought to be immune to error through misidentification (IEM): I cannot be wrong that I am in pain because—while I know that someone is in pain—I have mistaken that person for myself. While IEM is typically associated with the self-ascription of psychological properties, some philosophers attempt to draw anti-Cartesian conclusions from the claim that certain physical self-ascriptions are also IEM. In this paper, I will examine whether some physical (...) self-ascriptions are in fact IEM, and—if they are—what role that fact is supposed to play in arguments for the anti-Cartesian claim that self-consciousness is consciousness of oneself as a material object. I will argue that if we accept the assumptions required to show that physical self-ascriptions are IEM, then IEM cannot play the role it needs to play in these anti-Cartesian arguments. (shrink)

This paper sought to test whether student demographics (gender, age, religion, type of degree and number of courses done containing ethics) influenced the likelihood of engaging in unethical business practices. The study involved the use of a questionnaire being administered to a sample of 231 undergraduate students in Barbados. It was found that gender, religiousness, type of degree and number of courses taken containing ethics significantly impacted on the intentions to engage in unethical behaviour. It was also found that the (...) impact of age was not conclusive. The study has several limitations including low generalisability due to the use of a non-probability sampling method, and the possibility of social desirability bias. The study informs educators about the need to integrate ethics into the curriculum as an essential component of professional training for future managers and business people. This study makes an important contribution to the ethics literature on small island developing states, since the study was done in the country of Barbados. (shrink)

Marshall et al. (2024) raise questions regarding patient refusals of care. In this commentary we address refusals of care from the lens of patient autonomy and provide suggestions for patient cente...

Organ transplantation is an accepted therapy for major organ failure, but it depends on the availability of viable organs. Most organs transplanted in the U.S. come from either "brain-dead" or living related donors. Recently organ procurement from patients pronounced dead using cardiopulmonary criteria, so-called "non-heart-beating cadaver donors" (NHBCDs), has been reconsidered. In May 1992, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) enacted a new, complicated policy for procuring organs from NHBCDs after the elective removal of life support. Seventeen months later (...) only one patient has become a NHBCD. This article describes her case and the results of interviews with the health care team and the patient's family. The case and interviews are discussed in relation to several of the ethical concerns previously raised about the policy, including potential conflicts of interest, the definition of cardiopulmonary death, and a possible net decrease in organ donation. The conclusion is reached that organ procurement from non-heart-beating cadavers is feasible and may be desirable both for the patient's family and the health care providers. (shrink)

Traditional approaches to animal ethics commonly emerge from one of two influential ethical theories: Regan’s deontology (The case for animal rights. University of California, Berkeley, 1983) and Singer’s preference utilitarianism (Animal liberation. Avon Books, New York, 1975). I argue that both of the theories are unsuccessful at providing adequate protection for animals because they are unable to satisfy the three conditions of a minimally decent theory of animal protection. While Singer’s theory is overly permissive, Regan’s theory is too restrictive. I (...) argue that a minimally decent animal ethic requires a framework that allows for context-dependent considerations of our complex human–animal relationship in a non-ideal world. A plausible theory which exemplifies this new ethic is virtue ethics. (shrink)

Broadening participation in early science, technology, engineering and math learning outside of school is important for families experiencing poverty. We evaluated variations of the Teaching Together STEM pre-kindergarten program for increasing parent involvement in STEM learning. This informal STEM, family engagement program was offered in 20 schools where 92% of students received free/reduced lunch. The core treatment included a series of family education workshops, text messages, and family museum passes. The workshops were delivered at school sites by museum outreach educators. (...) We randomly assigned schools to business-as-usual control or one of three additive treatment groups. Using an additive treatment design, we provided the core program in Treatment A, we added take-home STEM materials in Treatment B, and added materials + parent monetary rewards in Treatment C. The primary outcome was parent involvement in STEM. There were no significant impacts of any treatment on parent involvement; however, the groups that added take-home materials had larger effect sizes on parent involvement at posttest and later, kindergarten follow-up. Adding parent monetary rewards only produced short-term improvements in parent involvement that faded at follow-up. We discuss implications for other community-sponsored family engagement programs focused on informal STEM learning, including considering characteristics of families who were more versus less likely to attend. These null findings suggest that alternatives to in-person family education workshops should be considered when parents are experiencing poverty and have competing demands on their time. (shrink)

Professional engineers are under increasing pressure to practice in an environmentally sensitive way. To prepare engineers for this new reality, changes in engineering education are needed. For example, engineering hydrology has traditionally been taught with an emphasis on the interpretation of numerical data bout rainfall and runoff in watersheds. However, to do environmentally sensitive hydrology work, it is necessary to also understand the life forms that share the watershed. In 1997, a project was undertaken in the Department of Civil Engineering (...) at the University of Toronto to enhance an introductory hydrology course by adding information about how hydrological phenomena affect fish. Through carefully structured assignments and exam questions, an assessment was made of the effectiveness of the enhancements in increasing students’ awareness of the life context of hydrology. The project has resulted in a commitment to increased environmental information in the hydrology curriculum, and the implementation of an assessment process for all students, to monitor changes in their environmental knowledge and attitudes. It has also raised questions about ultimate objectives in engineering education. (shrink)

In the preceding commentary, Campbell and Weber raise two valid and important issues concerning non-heart-beating organ donation (NHBOD). First, because the procedure links withdrawal of life support and the potential for subsequent organ donation, the desire for organs may create a situation in which care of the dying individual has relatively less importance and the dying may receive suboptimal care. Second, even if concerns about care of the dying were dealt with adequately, there will not be enough non-heart-beating donors to (...) significantly decrease the organ shortage that exists, making the procedure not worth the risk. We agree that attention to the important details of caring for the dying are, and must be, the primary concern of all health care workers caring for those individuals. Ensuring the patients' comfort, dignity, and autonomy, and providing for family and social support are the mainstays of this care. All policies for NHBOD should clearly support and mandate these concepts. Regarding the second concern, we agree that NHBOD is currently rare; however, evidence is increasing that this type of donation has great potential. Continued growth of the practice in this country will depend largely on public acceptance, which we believe will be directly influenced by whether the public perceives that care of the dying is not compromised by this procedure. (shrink)