This special volume of Studies in Christian Ethics constitutes the most significant continuation to date of Christian social ethics in the tradition of Ronald Preston. It brings together leading scholars and new voices in the field from around the world, covering a broad range of contemporary issues, including globalisation, poverty, feminism, civil society, economics and religious pluralism.

This special volume of Studies in Christian Ethics constitutes the most significant continuation to date of Christian social ethics in the tradition of Ronald Preston. It brings together leading scholars and new voices in the field from around the world, covering a broad range of contemporary issues, including globalisation, poverty, feminism, civil society, economics and religious pluralism.

The study of biodiversity spans many disciplines and includes data pertaining to species distributions and abundances, genetic sequences, trait measurements, and ecological niches, complemented by information on collection and measurement protocols. A review of the current landscape of metadata standards and ontologies in biodiversity science suggests that existing standards such as the Darwin Core terminology are inadequate for describing biodiversity data in a semantically meaningful and computationally useful way. Existing ontologies, such as the Gene Ontology and others in the Open (...) Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry library, provide a semantic structure but lack many of the necessary terms to describe biodiversity data in all its dimensions. In this paper, we describe the motivation for and ongoing development of a new Biological Collections Ontology, the Environment Ontology, and the Population and Community Ontology. These ontologies share the aim of improving data aggregation and integration across the biodiversity domain and can be used to describe physical samples and sampling processes (for example, collection, extraction, and preservation techniques), as well as biodiversity observations that involve no physical sampling. Together they encompass studies of: 1) individual organisms, including voucher specimens from ecological studies and museum specimens, 2) bulk or environmental samples (e.g., gut contents, soil, water) that include DNA, other molecules, and potentially many organisms, especially microbes, and 3) survey-based ecological observations. We discuss how these ontologies can be applied to biodiversity use cases that span genetic, organismal, and ecosystem levels of organization. We argue that if adopted as a standard and rigorously applied and enriched by the biodiversity community, these ontologies would significantly reduce barriers to data discovery, integration, and exchange among biodiversity resources and researchers. (shrink)

Current methods to capture, analyse and present the audience participation of broadcast events are increasingly carried out using social media. Uptake of such technology tools has so far been poor amongst older adults, and it has the worrying effect of excluding the demographic from participation. Our work explores whether a common desire to interact with debates can be tapped with technology with a very low barrier to entry, to both support better engagement with broadcast debates and encourage greater use of (...) social media. This paper describes experiments where older adults interact with a BBC radio debate programme: The Moral Maze. As a result, we obtained common interaction patterns which then are used to define recommendations for software-supported interaction with debates based on theories of argumentation. Our goal is to combine research on computational models of argument and user-driven research on human-centred computing in a project with the potential for high-profile impact in addressing older adults inclusion in the digital economy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God’s ShadowWalter L. ReedPostmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God’s Shadow, by Brian D. Ingraffia; xvi & 284 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, $59.95 cloth, $17.95 paper.At the beginning of John Updike’s new novel In the Beauty of the Lilies, a Presbyterian minister, trained by the Princeton Fundamentalists in the early years of the 20th century, is reading a book by (...) the popular agnostic Robert Ingersoll when he suddenly loses his faith. Brian Ingraffia’s Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology puts secular clerics at the end of the century, secure in their atheism or agnosticism, in danger of the opposite fate. Postmodern theorists are at risk here of losing their doubt. At least they are in danger of losing their confidence that Christianity need not be taken seriously since Nietzsche announced its demise and Heidegger and Derrida elaborated its obituary.Ingraffia is straightforward about his intentions. “In this study I seek to analyze critically the antipathy exhibited in postmodern theory toward theology,” he begins. “Whereas modernism tried to elevate man into God’s place, postmodern theory seeks to destroy or deconstruct the very place and attributes of God” (p. 1). Ingraffia focuses on Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida, arguably the three most rigorous and original philosophers of what has come to be known more loosely as postmodern theory. He analyzes the development of each writer’s critique of Western metaphysics in its own right, but he also attends to the genealogy of subversive genealogies among them—in Heidegger’s critique of the residual metaphysics of Nietzsche, for example, [End Page 184] and Derrida’s attempt to deconstruct, at times by appealing to concepts from Nietzsche, the residual ontotheology of Heidegger. “By deconstructing the metaphysics of presence, these thinkers all claim to have deconstructed ontotheology, [that is,] both Greek metaphysics and Christian theology,” Ingraffia concludes. But as he has argued in different specific contexts throughout his persuasive book, “the logos of biblical theology is radically different from the logos of Greek philosophy and modern rationalism,” these being the real sources or substance of the ontotheology that postmoderism is so dead set against (p. 237). In planting a headstone over Christian theology, in other words, postmodern theory has got the wrong grave.The genuine “biblical theology” Ingraffia counterposes to the misrepresentations of Christianity by Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida is found first and foremost in the New Testament letters of Paul. It is one of the striking features of the book that it brings a powerful voice from the first century into conversation and controversy with these powerful voices from the modern era. “The inventor of Christianity,” as Nietzsche labeled Paul in one of his many bitter aphorisms, is the central spokesman for the Christian understanding of truth that postmodernism has, deliberately as well as misadvertently, according to Ingraffia, misconstrued. Thus Paul’s doctrine of “the redemptive-eschatological separation between the present world and the world to come” (pp. 62 ff.), especially in the Letter to the Philippians, is set against Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence; Paul’s discrimination of “flesh and spirit,” with a salutary attention to the koiné Greek meanings of these terms and their cognates in the Letter to the Romans, is opposed to Heidegger’s doctrine of the authentic self. And in the most original of Ingraffia’s Pauline probes, Paul’s distinction between the “letter” (gramma) foolishly grasped and the “Scripture” (graphe) spiritually apprehended in the Second Letter to the Corinthians is counterposed to Derrida’s grammatology, where arche-writing effectively levels all hierarchies and distinctions.The strength of Ingraffia’s argument lies in his clear and, on one level, sympathetic exposition of the different but related projects of these three thinkers. This is not the kind of defensive dismissal of “secular humanism” or “godless philosophy” that evangelical Christianity has sometimes made from behind the barricades of its antimodernist revolt. With lucid expositions of crucial turns of their arguments and judicious appeals to current scholarship on each figure, Ingraffia shows how Nietzsche and Heidegger, “theology students turned philosopher” (p. 47), derive important concepts by borrowing from Christian theology on the one hand... (shrink)

This article introduces a new scale to measure executive servant leadership, situating the need for this scale within the context of ethical leadership and its impacts on followers, organizations and the greater society. The literature on servant leadership is reviewed and servant leadership is compared to other concepts that share dimensions of ethical leadership (e.g., transformational, authentic, and spiritual leadership). Next, the Executive Servant Leadership Scale (ESLS) is introduced, and its contributions and limitations discussed. We conclude with an agenda for (...) future research, describing ways the measure can be used to test hypotheses about organizational moral climate, ethical organizational culture, corporate responsibility, and institutional theory. (shrink)

Coastal ecosystems are increasingly dominated by humans. Consequently, the human dimensions of sustainability science have become an integral part of emerging coastal governance and management practices. But if we are to avoid the harsh lessons of land management, coastal decision makers must recognize that humans are one of the more coastally dependent species in the biosphere. Management responses must therefore confront both the temporal urgency and the very real compromises and sacrifices that will be necessary to achieve a sustainable coastal (...) ecosystem, one that is economically feasible, socially just, and ecologically sound. (shrink)

Much can be gained by specifying the operation of the emulation process. A brief review of studies from diverse domains, including complex motor-skill representation, emotion perception, and face memory, highlights that emulation theory offers precise explanations of results and novel predictions. However, the neural instantiation of the emulation process requires development to move the theory from armchair to laboratory.

This volume contains essays that examine infinity in early modern philosophy. The essays not only consider the ways that key figures viewed the concept. They also detail how these different beliefs about infinity influenced major philosophical systems throughout the era. These domains include mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, science, and theology. Coverage begins with an introduction that outlines the overall importance of infinity to early modern philosophy. It then moves from a general background of infinity up through Kant. Readers will learn (...) about the place of infinity in the writings of key early modern thinkers. The contributors profile the work of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant. Debates over infinity significantly influenced philosophical discussion regarding the human condition and the extent and limits of human knowledge. Questions about the infinity of space, for instance, helped lead to the introduction of a heliocentric solar system as well as the discovery of calculus. This volume offers readers an insightful look into all this and more. It provides a broad perspective that will help advance the present state of knowledge on this important but often overlooked topic. (shrink)

This volume reaches beyond the controversy surrounding the teaching and learning of evolution in the United States, specifically in regard to the culture, politics, and beliefs found in the Southeast. The editors argue that despite a deep history of conflict in the region surrounding evolution, there is a wealth of evolution research taking place—from biodiversity in species to cultural evolution and human development. In fact, scientists, educators, and researchers from around the United States have found their niche in the South, (...) where biodiversity is high, culture runs deep, and the pace is just a little bit slower. (shrink)

The lateralized ERP N2pc component has been shown to be an effective marker of attentional object selection when elicited in a visual search task, specifically reflecting the selection of a target item among distractors. Moreover, when targets are known in advance, the visual search process is guided by representations of target features held in working memory at the time of search, thus guiding attention to objects with target-matching features. Previous studies have shown that manipulating working memory availability via concurrent tasks (...) or within task manipulations influences visual search performance and the N2pc. Other studies have indicated that visual vs. spatial working memory manipulations have differential contributions to visual search. To investigate this the current study assesses participants' visual and spatial working memory ability independent of the visual search task to determine whether such individual differences in working memory affect task performance and the N2pc. Participants completed a visual search task to elicit the N2pc and separate visual working memory and spatial working memory assessments. Greater SPWM, but not VWM, ability is correlated with and predicts higher visual search accuracy and greater N2pc amplitudes. Neither VWM nor SPWM was related to N2pc latency. These results provide additional support to prior behavioral and neural visual search findings that spatial WM availability, whether as an ability of the participant's processing system or based on task demands, plays an important role in efficient visual search. (shrink)

The aim of UK-REACH (“The United Kingdom Research study into Ethnicity And COVID-19 outcomes in Healthcare workers”) is to understand if, how, and why healthcare workers (HCWs) in the United Kingdom (UK) from ethnic minority groups are at increased risk of poor outcomes from COVID-19. In this article, we present findings from the ethical and legal stream of the study, which undertook qualitative research seeking to understand and address legal, ethical, and social acceptability issues around data protection, privacy, and information (...) governance associated with the linkage of HCWs’ registration data and healthcare data. We interviewed 22 key opinion leaders in healthcare and health research from across the UK in two-to-one semi-structured interviews. Transcripts were coded using qualitative thematic analysis. Participants told us that a significant aspect of Big Data research in public health is varying drivers of mistrust—of the research itself, research staff and funders, and broader concerns of mistrust within participant communities, particularly in the context of COVID-19 and those situated in more marginalised community settings. However, despite the challenges, participants also identified ways in which legally compliant and ethically informed approaches to research can be crafted to mitigate or overcome mistrust and establish greater confidence in Big Data public health research. Overall, our research indicates that a “Big Data Ethics by Design” approach to research in this area can help assure (1) that meaningful community and participant engagement is taking place and that extant challenges are addressed, and (2) that any new challenges or hitherto unknown unknowns can be rapidly and properly considered to ensure potential (but material) harms are identified and minimised where necessary. Our findings indicate such an approach, in turn, will help drive better scientific breakthroughs that translate into medical innovations and effective public health interventions, which benefit the publics studied, including those who are often marginalised in research. (shrink)

Donald Davidson is probably the most eminent living analytic philosopher, and his writings in philosophy of language and philosophy of action have shaped much of the recent work in both these fields. However, despite the obvious shared concerns of literary theory and these aspects of philosophy, up to this point literary theorists have not paid much attention to Davidson's ideas or have only known about them through the interpretations of other philosophers like Richard Rorty. Literary theorists have seen more relevance (...) to their concerns in Continental philosophy and, among analytic philosophers, in the essentially anti-analytic work of J. L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein than in the harder tradition of analytic philosophy—more concerned with logic and philosophy of science—represented by the work of Donald Davidson. _Literary Theory after Davidson _challenges both views, stressing the variety of ways in which Davidson's thought can contribute to the development of literary theory. Davidson himself has contributed a new essay to the collection that explores the interrelations between his theories of language and literature. (shrink)

Donald Davidson is probably the most eminent living analytic philosopher, and his writings in philosophy of language and philosophy of action have shaped much of the recent work in both these fields. However, despite the obvious shared concerns of literary theory and these aspects of philosophy, up to this point literary theorists have not paid much attention to Davidson's ideas or have only known about them through the interpretations of other philosophers like Richard Rorty. Literary theorists have seen more relevance (...) to their concerns in Continental philosophy and, among analytic philosophers, in the essentially anti-analytic work of J. L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein than in the harder tradition of analytic philosophy—more concerned with logic and philosophy of science—represented by the work of Donald Davidson. _Literary Theory after Davidson _challenges both views, stressing the variety of ways in which Davidson's thought can contribute to the development of literary theory. Davidson himself has contributed a new essay to the collection that explores the interrelations between his theories of language and literature. (shrink)

We examine the Dual Ramsey Theorem and two related combinatorial principles VW(k,l) and OVW(k,l) from the perspectives of reverse mathematics and effective mathematics. We give a statement of the Dual Ramsey Theorem for open colorings in second order arithmetic and formalize work of Carlson and Simpson [1] to show that this statement implies ACA 0 over RCA 0 . We show that neither VW(2,2) nor OVW(2,2) is provable in WKL 0 . These results give partial answers to questions posed by (...) Friedman and Simpson [3]. (shrink)

PHOTO ID 121339257© Designer491| Dreamstime.com ABSTRACT When physicians use their clinical knowledge and skills to advance the well-being of their patients, there may be apparent conflict between patient autonomy and physician beneficence. We are skeptical that today’s medical ethics education adequately fosters future physicians’ commitment to beneficence, which is both rationally defensible and fundamentally consistent with patient autonomy. We use an ethical dilemma that was presented to a group of third-year medical students to examine how ethics education might be causing (...) them to give undue deference to autonomy, thereby undermining their commitment to beneficence. INTRODUCTION The right of patients to choose which treatments they prefer is rooted in today’s social mores and taught as a principle of medical ethics as respect for autonomy. Yet, when physicians use their clinical knowledge and skills to advance the well-being of their patients, there may be a conflict between patient autonomy and physician beneficence. We are skeptical that today’s medical ethics education adequately fosters a commitment to beneficence, which is both rationally defensible and fundamentally consistent with patient autonomy. I. An Ethical Dilemma The impetus for this paper arose when students who were completing their third clinical year discussed a real-life ethical dilemma. A middle-aged man developed a pulmonary hemorrhage while on blood thinners for a recently placed coronary stent. The bleeding was felt to be reversible, but the patient needed immediate intubation or he would die. The cardiologist was told that the patient previously expressed to other physicians that he never wanted to be intubated. However, the cardiologist made the decision to intubate the patient anyway, and the patient eventually recovered.[1] Students were asked if they believed that the cardiologist had acted ethically. Their overwhelming response was, “No, the patient should have been allowed to die.” We looked into how students applied ethical reasoning to conclude that this outcome was ethically preferred. To explore how the third-year clinical experience might have formed the students’ judgment, we presented the same case to students who were just beginning their third year. Their responses were essentially uniform in recommending intubation. While there is likely more than one reasonable view in this case, we agree with the physician and the younger medical students that intubation was the ethically appropriate decision and will present an argument for it. But first, we explain the reasoning behind the more advanced medical students’ decision to choose patient autonomy at the expense of beneficence. II. Medical Ethics Education and the Priority of Autonomy Beauchamp and Childress’s Principles of Biomedical Ethics, first published in 1979 and now in its 8th edition, is a significant part of the formal ethics education in medical school.[2] Students learn an ethical decision-making approach based on respect for four ethical principles: autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. While Beauchamp and Childress officially afford no prima facie superiority to any principle, the importance of respect for patient autonomy has increased through the editions of their book. For example, early editions of their book opposed the legalization of physician-assisted death compared to recent editions that defended it.[3] As another example, Beauchamp and Childress make paternalism harder to justify by adding an autonomy-protecting condition to the list of conditions for acceptable paternalism.[4] Authority, they contend, need not conflict with autonomy—provided the authority is autonomously chosen.[5] “The main requirement,” they write, “is to respect a particular patient’s or subject’s autonomous choices, whatever they may be.[6] In the principlism of Beauchamp and Childress, autonomy now seems to have a kind of default priority.[7] However, the bioethics discourse has strong counternarratives, noting some movement to elevate the role of beneficence and to respect the input of stakeholders, including the family and the healthcare team. Ethics education achieves particular relevance in the third clinical year when students become embedded in the care of patients and learn from what has been called the informal curriculum. They observe how attending physicians approach day-to-day ethical problems at the patient’s bedside. In this context, students observe the importance of informed consent for serious treatments or invasive procedures, a practice that highlights the principle of patient autonomy. In both the formal and informal curriculum, medical students observe how, in the words of Paul Wolpe, “patient autonomy has become the central and most powerful principle in ethical decision-making in American medicine.”[8] In short, students appear to learn a deference for patient autonomy. This curricular shift in favor of autonomy coincides with legal developments that protect patients’ rights and decision-making with respect to their healthcare choices. The priority of autonomy in medicine benefits patients by reflecting their choices and, in some cases, their fundamental liberty. III. The Practice of Medicine and the Commitment to Beneficence There are many critiques of the dominant place that autonomy has in biomedical ethics,[9] especially considering that autonomy seems to be biased toward individualistic, Western, and somewhat American culture-driven values.[10] In addition, many bioethical dilemmas are cast as a conflict between autonomy and beneficence. Our point is that medical students bring to their study of medicine a commitment to beneficence that seems to be suppressed by practical ethics education. We think this commitment is rationally defensible and should be nurtured. It is striking that young medical students have a pre-reflective commitment to beneficence at all. For, as we mentioned, it is not just medicine but Western culture generally that prioritizes autonomy in settling ethical dilemmas. In wanting to act for the good of others (rather than simply agreeing to what others want), physicians are already swimming somewhat against the cultural tide.[11] However, doing so makes sense, given the nature of medicine and the profession of healing. When prospective medical students are asked why they wish to become physicians, the usual answer is some variation on caring for the sick and preventing disease. It is unlikely that a reason to become a physician is to respect a patient’s autonomy. It would be easy to dismiss medical students’ commitment to beneficence as a mere intuition and contrary to a more reasoned and deliberative approach. Beauchamp and Childress seem to minimize the value of physician intuition, stating that justifications for certain procedures are “…supported by good reasons. They need not rest merely in intuition or feeling.”[12] Henry Richardson writes that “situational or perceptive intuition…leaves the reasons for decision unarticulated.”[13] We think this is a crude and rather thin way of understanding intuition. Some bioethicists have defended intuition as essential to the practice of medicine and not something opposed to reason.[14] In the case we describe, we believe the ethical justifications s for the patient’s intubation are fundamentally sound: the patient did not have a “do not intubate” order written in the chart, the emergency intubation had not been foreseen, so the patient did not have the opportunity to consent to or reject intubation; the patient had consented to the treatment for his cardiac disease so his consent for intubation could have been assumed;[15] and the consequences of respecting his autonomy did not justify allowing him to die.[16] While it is possible to have more than one reasonable view on this case, we think the case for beneficence is strong and certainly should not be dismissed out of hand. We do not deny that if a patient makes a clearly documented, well-informed decision to forgo intubation that this decision ought to be respected by the physician (even if the physician disagrees with the patient’s decision). But, in this situation, as in many others in the practice of medicine, the patient’s real wishes and preferences are not well-articulated in advance. There are many cases where a physician acts based on what she believes the patient, or the surrogate, would want, sometimes in situations that do not allow much time for reflection. An example might be resuscitation of a newborn at the borderline of viability. In their ethics education, beneficence would mean acting first to save a life. If the patient or surrogate makes an informed decision to the contrary, a beneficent physician respects that autonomous decision. In the case presented, the patient expressed gratitude to the cardiologist when extubated. But what if he had expressed anger at the physician for violating his autonomy? There are those who could argue that not only was intubation ethically wrong but that the cardiologist put himself in legal jeopardy by his actions (especially if there had been a written refusal applicable to the specific situation). In the example we use, we point out that the cardiologist may not have escaped a lawsuit if the patient had died without intubation. His family, when hearing the circumstances, may have sued for failure to act and dereliction of the cardiologist’s duty to save him. Beyond a potential legal challenge for either action or inaction, there is an overriding ethical question the cardiologist had to address: what course would be most satisfying to his conscience? Would he rather allow a patient to die for fear of recrimination, or act to save his life, regardless of the personal consequences? In the absence of real knowledge about the patient’s considered wishes, it is most reasonable to err on the side of promoting patient well-being. A physician’s commitment to beneficence is not necessarily a way of undermining a patient’s autonomy. In acting for the patient's good, physicians are also acting on what it is reasonable to believe a patient (or most patients, perhaps) would want, which is obviously connected to what a patient does want. Pellegrino and Thomasma argue that beneficence includes respect for a patient’s autonomy since “the best interests of the patient are intimately linked with their preferences.”[17] Instead of conceptualizing ethical dilemmas in medicine as conflicts between autonomy and beneficence, it is possible that medical schools could teach students that truly practicing beneficence is a way of valuing patient autonomy, especially when the patient’s wishes are not specific to the situation and are not clearly expressed. CONCLUSION It is important for students and practicing physicians to understand the principle of respect for patient autonomy in a pluralistic society that demands personal self-determination. However, the role of the physician as a beneficent healer should not be diminished by this respect for autonomy. Respecting a patient’s autonomy is grounded in and manifested by physician beneficence.[18] That is, seeking what is good for the patient can only be good if it respects their personhood and dignity. We propose that a commitment to beneficence, incipient in young medical students, should be developed over time with their other clinical reasoning skills. Such a commitment need not be sacrificed on the altar of patient autonomy. Beneficence needs greater relative moral weight with students as they proceed in their ethics education. - [1] S. Jauhar, “When Doctors Need to Lie,” New York Times, February 22, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/when-doctors-need-to-lie.html. [2] T. L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 8th ed. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019). [3] Louise A. Mitchell, “Major Changes in Principles of Biomedical Ethics,” The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 14, no. 3 (2014): 459–75, https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq20141438. [4] Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 8th ed. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 238. [5] Beauchamp and Childress, 103. [6] Beauchamp and Childress, p. 108. [7] For other accounts that prioritize autonomy, see e.g. Allen E. Buchanan and Dan W. Brock, Deciding for Others: The Ethics of Surrogate Decision Making (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 38–39; R Gillon, “Ethics Needs Principles—Four Can Encompass the Rest—and Respect for Autonomy Should Be ‘First among Equals,’” Journal of Medical Ethics 29, no. 5 (October 2003): 307–12, https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.29.5.307. For examples of critiques of these accounts, see footnote 9. [8] P. R. Wolpe, “The Triumph of Autonomy in American Bioethics: A Sociological View,” in Bioethics and Society: Constructing the Ethical Enterprise, p. 43. [9] V. A. Entwistle et al., “Supporting Patient Autonomy: The Importance of Clinician-Patient Relationships,” Journal of General Internal Medicine 25, no. 7 (July 2010): 741–45; C. Foster, Choosing Life, Choosing Death: The Tyranny of Autonomy in Medical Ethics and Law, 1st ed. (Oxford ; Hart Publishing, 2009); O. O’Neill, Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics, The Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh 2001 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002). [10] P. Marshall and B. Koenig, “Accounting for Culture in a Globalized Bioethics,” The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics: A Journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics 32, no. 2 (2004): 252–66; R. Fan, “Self-Determination vs. Family-Determination: Two Incommensurable Principles of Autonomy,” Bioethics 11, no. 3–4 (1997): 309–22. [11] Arguments stressing the importance of beneficence, as ours does here, certainly approach paternalistic arguments. We set aside the complex issue of paternalism for purposes of this paper and simply note that the principle of beneficence as such does not say anything specifically about acting against the patient’s will. In the case study that focuses this paper, we do not believe the patient’s will or wishes were clearly indicated. [12] Beauchamp and Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics, p. 20, see note 2 above. [13] H. S. Richardson, “Specifying, Balancing, and Interpreting Bioethical Principles,” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine 25, no. 3 (January 1, 2000): 285–307, p. 287. [14] H. D. Braude, Intuition in Medicine a Philosophical Defense of Clinical Reasoning (Chicago ; University of Chicago Press, 2012). [15] R. Kukla, “Conscientious Autonomy: Displacing Decisions in Health Care,” The Hastings Center Report 35, no. 2 (2005): 34–44. [16] M. Schermer, The Different Faces of Autonomy: Patient Autonomy in Ethical Theory and Hospital Practice, vol. 13, Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2002). [17] E. D. Pellegrino and D. C. Thomasma, For the Patient’s Good - the Restoration of Beneficence in Health Care (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 29. [18] Pellegrino and Thomasma, For the Patient’s Good. 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This article tests the proposition that new weapons technology requires Christian ethics to dispense with the just war tradition (JWT) and argues for its development rather than dissolution. Those working in the JWT should be under no illusions, however, that new weapons technologies could (or do already) represent threats to the doing of justice in the theatre of war. These threats include weapons systems that deliver indiscriminate, disproportionate or otherwise unjust outcomes, or that are operated within (quasi-)legal frameworks marked by (...) accountability gaps. The temptation to abrogate (L. abrogare—repeal, evade) responsibility to the machine is also a moral threat to the doing of justice in the theatre of war. (shrink)

In response to Korn, Huelsman, and Reed's (1992)question, "Who defines those interests, and how serious must the setback be?" (p. 126), we argue that a wrongful (unjust) harm (a setback of interest) is not equivalent to a hurt (a temporary distressing mental state) and that the interests of importance are welfare interests (general means to our ulterior aims), not just a desire to avoid unpleasant mental states (hurts). To set back a welfare interest is to reverse its course or (...) to impede, thwart, defeat, or doom it. It is the primary responsibility of the investigator to define both welfare interests and the risk of harm. An informed consent - one with substantial understanding, in substantial absence of control by others, and given intentionally - allows participants to autonomously authorize participation in research, including their toleration of acts of mental discomfort or distress during an experiment. Not only were our participants not wrongfully harmed, they benefited and were willing to volunteer for future research. No strong evidence has been advanced or linked to guided imagery in a way that would justify its restraint; to so claim evokes a standard of legal paternalism that fails to respect participants' competence and autonomy to choose to participate in research on rape using guided imagery. (shrink)

Because they failed to include our informed consent, guided imagery scenarios, and debriefing, the relevance of Korn, Huelsman, Reed, and Aiello's (1992) data remains unknown. The design of their Study 1 did not test the greater objectivity of role taking over involved participation. The design of their Study 2 did not demonstrate the effects of demand characteristics. The older "personal acquaintances" were not at higher risk of rape as they claimed. Properly gathered data from the University of Connecticut's laboratory (...) demonstrated that participants regarded the guided imagining of rape to be personally and scientifically beneficial, educating them about the crime and the experience of the rape victim. Prior research had demonstrated that exposure to rape stimuli in combination with debriefing had an educational effect on the decreased endorsement of rape myths. Previously published ethical principles for balancing the rights of scientists, subjects, and society explicate our ethical stance. Informed consent precludes the occurrence of wrongful harms. This poorly designed and poorly reasoned "ethical" critique was unfounded; yet, it might produce a chilling effect on both the use of guided imagery and freedom of inquiry into politically sensitive topics. (shrink)

Résumé : Le PPBS a été conçu comme un instrument destiné à ceux qui décident de l'allocation des ressources publiques : il doit leur permettre de prendre de meilleures décisions. S'il est très difficile de repérer et de juger les choix que le développement du système a inspirés aux Etats-Unis, il n'en est pas mains certain que ses résultats tangibles sant maigres car la masse des anciens programmes, principale source potentielle de moyens nouveaux, n'a guère été remise en question.La valeur (...) intrinsèque du PPBS ne peut être mise en cause. Ce qui doit l'être, c'est la lenteur de son développement, qui demeure peu avancé. Cette lenteur s'explique, car le système ne peut produire des fruits dans une terre stérile qu'on n'a pas préparée.La brutalité et les maladresses de l'opération déclenchée en 1965 dans le gouvernement fédéral américain ne pouvaient que renforcer la résistance au changement et retarder, sinon compromettre, le succès final. Les perspectives demeurent heureusement favorables, puisque la nouvelle administration ne semble pas décidée à faire machine arrière et que les Etats et Villes ont démarré sous de bien meilleurs auspices.La principale conclusion qu'imposent les expériences américaines est que toute juridiction intéressée par le PPBS doit impérativement développer, de la façon la plus générale, la volonté d'instaurer le système et s'assurer les moyens de le faire. C'est dire qu'il est peu sage d'engager la bataille sur tous les fronts à la fois : il faut tenter des percées. Mais c'est dire aussi combi en l'information et la formation sant essentielles. A cet égard, l'installation généralisée de certains éléments du système, à savoir la structure de programmes et le budget-programme, loin de présenter des inconvénients, peut constituer un excellent exercice en dehors de son utilité directe pour le preneur de décision. La bataille en cause est surtout celle de la conviction: l'outil est prêt, il est bon, encore faut-il que l' ouvrier accepte de s'en servir.Samenvatting:Planning-programming-budgeting werd ontworpen als een instrument voor diegenen die beslissen over de toewijzing van de overheidsmiddelen.Dit instrument moet de beslissers in staat stellen betere beslissingen te treffen. Het is niet makkelijk deze beslissingen op te sporen en te beoordelen welke in de Verenigde Staten getroffen werden onder invloed van de ontwikkeling van deze systeembenadering. Toch is het met vrij grote zekerheid te stellen dat de tastbare resultaten gering zijn omdat de veelheid aan oude programma's die tenslotte toch de voornaamste potentiële bronnen zijn van nieuwe middelen, nooit werden aangevochten.De intrinsieke waarde van PPBS kan daarom evenwel niet worden genegeerd. Wat wel dient aangeklaagd is de traagheid van zijn aanslepende ontwikkeling. Deze traagheid is te verklaren door het feit dat het systeem slechts vruchten kan afwerpen zo het ingeplant wordt in degelijk voorbereid terrein.De brutaliteit en de onhandigheden bij de operatie die in 1965 werd ingezet in het amerikaans federaal overheidsbestel konden niets anders dan de weerstand tegen de verandering versterken en afbreuk doen aan het uiteindelijk slagen van het systeem. Gelukkiglijk blijven de vooruitzichten gunstig want de nieuwe beleidsvoerders sinds de presidentsverkiezingen, blijken ermee te willen doorgaan en de staten en lokale overheden zijn ermee van wal gestoken onder veel betere omstandigheden. Het doorslaggevend besluit uit de amerikaanse ervaringen terzake is wel dat elke instantie welke belangstelling heeft voor PPBS, nodig moet op zo breed mogelijk vlak de wil doen groeien om het systeem te ontwikkelen en er ook de nodige middelen toe ter beschikking stellen. Dit betekent tevens dat het weinig aan te bevelen is de strijd op alle fronten terzelvertijd aan te binden maar wel geleidelijk doorbraken te verwezenlijken. Dit brengt dan evenwel ook met zich dat informatie en vorming essentieel zijn bij deze strategie. In dit verband moet dan ook gezegd worden dat reeds het invoeren van sommige deelementen van het systeem, zoals de programmastructuur en het programmabudget, voor de beslisser nuttig kan zijn voor zijn persoonlijk inzicht en vorming.De te voeren actie dient nog slechts te worden toegespitst op het overtuigen van de verantwoordelijken. Het instrument is immers gebruiksklaar en degelijk, er is alleen nog het wachten op de wil van de gebruiker dit instrument ter hand te nemen. (shrink)

Argumentation schemes have played a key role in our research projects on computational models of natural argument over the last decade. The catalogue of schemes in Walton, Reed and Macagno’s 2008 book, Argumentation Schemes, served as our starting point for analysis of the naturally occurring arguments in written text, i.e., text in different genres having different types of author, audience, and subject domain, for different argument goals, and for different possible future applications. We would often first attempt to analyze (...) the arguments in our corpora in terms of those schemes, then adapt schemes as needed for the goals of the project, and in some cases implement them for use in computational models. Among computational researchers, the main interest in argumentation schemes has been for use in argument mining by applying machine learning methods to existing argument corpora. In contrast, a primary goal of our research has been to learn more about written arguments themselves in various contemporary fields. Our approach has been to manually analyze semantics, discourse structure, argumentation, and rhetoric in texts. Another goal has been to create sharable digital corpora containing the results of our studies. Our approach has been to define argument schemes for use by human corpus annotators or for use in logic programs for argument mining. The third goal is to design useful computer applications based upon our studies, such as argument diagramming systems that provide argument schemes as building blocks. This paper describes each of the various projects: the methods, the argument schemes that were identified, and how they were used. Then a synthesis of the results is given with a discussion of open issues. (shrink)

Recent preclinical studies have shown the feasibility of specific variants of nuclear transfer to prevent mitochondrial DNA disorders. Nuclear transfer could be a valuable reproductive option for carriers of mitochondrial mutations. A clinical application of nuclear transfer, however, would entail germ-line modification, more specifically a germ-line modification of the mitochondrial genome. One of the most prominent objections against germ-line modification is the fear that it would become possible to alter ‘essential characteristics’ of a future person, thereby possibly violating the child's (...) right to an open future. As only the nuclear DNA would contain the ingredients for individual characteristics, modification of the mtDNA is often considered less controversial than modification of the nuclear DNA. This paper discusses the tenability of this dichotomy. After having clarified the concept of germ-line modification, it argues that modification of the mtDNA is not substantively different from modification of the nuclear DNA in terms of its effects on the identity of the future person. Subsequently the paper assesses how this conclusion affects the moral evaluation of nuclear transfer to prevent mtDNA disorders. It concludes that the moral acceptability of germ-line modification does not depend on whether it alters the identity of the future child—all germ-line modifications do—but on whether it safeguards the child's right to an open future. If nuclear transfer to prevent mtDNA disorders becomes safe and effective, then dismissing it because it involves germ-line modification is unjustified. (shrink)

How did bioethics manage to grow, flourish and ultimately do so well from a very unpromising birth in the 1970s? Many explanations have been advanced. Some ascribe the field9s growth to a puzzling, voluntary abnegation of moral authority by medicine to non-physicians. Some think bioethics survived by selling out to the biomedical establishment—public and private. This transaction involved bestowing moral approbation on all manner of biomedicine9s doings for a seat at a well-stocked funding table. Some see a sort of clever (...) intellectual bamboozlement at work wherein bioethicists pitched a moral elixir of objective expertise that the morally needy but unsophisticated in medicine and the biological sciences were eager to swallow. While each of these reasons has its defenders, I think the main reason that bioethics did well was that it did good. By using the media to move into the public arena, the field engaged the public imagination, provoked dialogue and debate, and contributed to policy changes that benefitted patients and healthcare providers. (shrink)

Oxford Scholarly Classics brings together a number of great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in a uniform series design, they will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.