Sustainable practices are commended to us both out of prudential regard for our own future and out of principled concern for the ‘right to life’ of endangered species, ecosystems and ways of life and for intergenerational justice among our own kind. The larger point of the ‘sustainability ethic’ might be more political, however. Insisting that any practice we adopt now must be sustainable into the indefinite future constitutes an institutional check preventing us from taking unfair advantage of our privileged temporal (...) position vis‐a‐vis our successors. (shrink)

[R]eflection is a system of thought no less closed than insanity, with this difference that it understands itself and the madman too, whereas the madman does not understand it.– Merleau-Ponty, Phen...

The duty to protect patient welfare underpins undergraduate medical ethics and patient safety teaching. The current syllabus for patient safety emphasises the significance of organisational contribution to healthcare failures. However, the ongoing over-reliance on whistleblowing disproportionately emphasises individual contributions, alongside promoting a culture of blame and defensiveness among practitioners. Diane Vaughan’s ‘Normalisation of Deviance’ provides a counterpoise to such individualism, describing how signals of potential danger are collectively misinterpreted and incorporated into the accepted margins of safe operation. NoD is an (...) insidious process that often goes unnoticed, thus minimising the efficacy of whistleblowing as a defence against inevitable disaster. In this paper, we illustrate what can be learnt by greater attention to the collective, organisational contributions to healthcare failings by applying NoD to The Morecambe Bay Investigation. By focusing on a cluster of five ‘serious untoward incidents’ occurring in 2008, we describe a cycle of NoD affecting trust handling of events that allowed poor standards of care to persist for several years, before concluding with a poignant example of the limitations of whistleblowing, whereby the raising of concerns by a senior consultant failed to generate a response at trust board level. We suggest that greater space in medical education is needed to develop a thorough understanding of the cultural and organisational processes that underpin healthcare failures, and that medical education would benefit from integrating the teaching of medical ethics and patient safety to resolve the tension between systems approaches to safety and the individualism of whistleblowing. Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study. (shrink)

This paper discusses the role of cultural anthropology in Cognitive Science. Culture is described as a very large pool of information passed along from generation to generation, composed of learned “programs” for action and understanding. These cultural programs differ in important ways from computer programs. Cultural programs tend to be unspecified and inexplicit rather than clearly stated algorithms learned through a slow process of guided discovery, and involve the manipulation of content based rather than formal symbol systems. Cultural symbol systems (...) often have affective as well as objective referents, giving them a strong directive effect. The argument is made that in the process of repeated social transmission and use, cultural programs come to take forms which have a good “fit” to the natural capacities and constraints of the human information processing system. (shrink)

This paper discusses the role of cultural anthropology in Cognitive Science. Culture is described as a very large pool of information passed along from generation to generation, composed of learned “programs” for action and understanding. These cultural programs differ in important ways from computer programs. Cultural programs tend to be unspecified and inexplicit rather than clearly stated algorithms learned through a slow process of guided discovery, and involve the manipulation of content based rather than formal symbol systems. Cultural symbol systems (...) often have affective as well as objective referents, giving them a strong directive effect. The argument is made that in the process of repeated social transmission and use, cultural programs come to take forms which have a good “fit” to the natural capacities and constraints of the human information processing system. (shrink)

BackgroundFinancial compensation of research participants has been standard practice for centuries, however, there is an ongoing debate among researchers and ethicists regarding the ethical nature of this practice. While these debates develop ethical arguments and theories, they fail to incorporate input from those most affected by financial compensation: potential research participants.MethodsTo identify attitudes surrounding clinical research, participants of a long-standing cohort completed a one-time interview. Open-ended questions stimulated a participant-driven discussion surrounding medical research. Following a grounded theory methodology, 58 semistructured (...) interview transcripts were coded, focusing on attitudes surrounding financial compensation of research participants.ResultsOf the interviews coded, the majority of participants identified as Black/African American and were women. Five major themes emerged. In support of financial compensation, participants felt that study participants should be compensated for time, effort and risk. However, participants were concerned that compensation may differentially impact low-income populations and entice them to hide potentially harmful side effects. Participants also mentioned that financial compensation may invalidate study results if participants knowingly provide false information to subvert inclusion/exclusion criteria.ConclusionThe emergence of both positive and negative themes reiterates the complicated issue of providing financial compensation for study participation. While compensation as a motivator for research participation raises ethical concerns, participants discussed weighing the benefits with the risks in order to make an informed decision. To avoid paternalistic behaviours, research staff must allow potential research participants to review the available information and make the decision that best reflects their wishes. (shrink)

Background Financial compensation of research participants has been standard practice for centuries, however, there is an ongoing debate among researchers and ethicists regarding the ethical nature of this practice. While these debates develop ethical arguments and theories, they fail to incorporate input from those most affected by financial compensation: potential research participants. Methods To identify attitudes surrounding clinical research, participants of a long-standing cohort completed a one-time interview. Open-ended questions stimulated a participant-driven discussion surrounding medical research. Following a grounded theory (...) methodology, 58 semistructured interview transcripts were coded, focusing on attitudes surrounding financial compensation of research participants. Results Of the interviews coded, the majority of participants identified as Black/African American and were women. Five major themes emerged. In support of financial compensation, participants felt that study participants should be compensated for time, effort and risk. However, participants were concerned that compensation may differentially impact low-income populations and entice them to hide potentially harmful side effects. Participants also mentioned that financial compensation may invalidate study results if participants knowingly provide false information to subvert inclusion/exclusion criteria. Conclusion The emergence of both positive and negative themes reiterates the complicated issue of providing financial compensation for study participation. While compensation as a motivator for research participation raises ethical concerns, participants discussed weighing the benefits with the risks in order to make an informed decision. To avoid paternalistic behaviours, research staff must allow potential research participants to review the available information and make the decision that best reflects their wishes. (shrink)

The book that the French reader holds in his hands is one of the century’s most fascinating and liberating. It does nothing less than instigate the psychoanalytic approach as a universal method of...

The professional regulatory system known as medical ethics has been one of the most visionary and socially valuable creations of the medical profession. Its beneficial influence has extended beyond physician/patient relations, to the shaping of many key humanistic and egalitarian features of the world’s legal and political institutions. The continued existence of medical ethics as a professionally influential normative system, however, is being challenged by international human rights. The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, is likely to be (...) an important point of intersection in this process. (shrink)

Sudoku puzzles, which are popular worldwide, require individuals to infer the missing digits in a 9 9 array according to the general rule that every digit from 1 to 9 must occur once in each row, in each column, and in each of the 3-by-3 boxes in the array. We present a theory of how individuals solve these puzzles. It postulates that they rely solely on pure deductions, and that they spontaneously acquire various deductive tactics, which differ in their difficulty (...) depending on their “relational complexity”, i.e., the number of constraints on which they depend. A major strategic shift is necessary to acquire tactics for more difficult puzzles: solvers have to keep track of possible digits in a cell. We report three experiments corroborating this theory. We also discuss their implications for theories of reasoning that downplay the role of deduction in everyday reasoning. (shrink)

Thomas Alured Faunce, College of Law, Fellows Road, Acton, Canberra ACT 0200, Australian National University, Fax: 61 2 61253971, Email: Thomas.Faunce{at}anu.edu.au ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//-->This paper sets out to analyse three different academic proposals for addressing the needs of the poor in relation to new, rather than ‘essential’ medicines. It focuses particularly on research and development prize funds, a health impact fund system and a multilateral treaty on health technology cost-effectiveness evaluation and competitive (...) tender. It compares the extent to which each responds to the ‘market fundamentalist’ philosophy and begins to analyse their respective strengths and weaknesses. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The United Nations Scientific, Education and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (UDBHR) expresses in its title and substance a controversial linkage of two normative systems: international human rights law and bioethics. The UDBHR has the status of what is known as a ‘non-binding’ declaration under public international law. The UDBHR’s normative foundation within bioethics (and association, for example, with virtue-based or principlist bioethical theories) is more problematic. Nonetheless, the UDBHR contains socially important principles of technology (...) transfer and transnational benefit (articles 14, 15 and 21). This paper is one of the first to explore how the disciplines of bioethics and international human rights law may interact in the UDBHR to advance the policy relevance and health impact of technology transfer and transnational benefit principles. It investigates their normative ancestry in the UDBHR, as well as relevant conceptual differences between bioethics and public international law in this respect and how these may be relevant to their conceptual evolution and application. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo assess the scientific and ethical basis for clinical innovation in psychopharmacology.MethodsWe conducted a literature review, utilizing MEDLINE search and bibliographic cross-referencing, and historical evidence regarding the discovery and development of new medications in psychiatry. Clinical innovation was defined as use of treatments in a clinical setting which have not been well-proven in a research setting.ResultsEmpirical data regarding the impact of clinical innovation in psychopharmacology are lacking. A conceptual and historical assessment of this topic highlights the ethical and scientific importance (...) of clinical innovation. Ethically, it touches a borderline that, in our judgment, is not adequately framed in contemporary mainstream bioethics. Currently, research is viewed as not at all benefiting the patients who participate in it, while clinical care is viewed as being solely for the benefit of patients. Clinical innovation straddles these two worlds, uncomfortably at times. While many argue that clinical innovation should either be avoided or folded into research projects, we argue that clinical innovation is necessary for progress in psychopharmacology research, and that it can prosper best when guided by the following ethical principles: 1.) The treatment should be based on a viable hypothesis. 2.) Whenever possible, one's clinical observations should be reported so they can be evaluated by the scientific community. 3.) One should be willing to report unexpected observations of drug effects. 4.) A high standard of informed consent should be maintained. Again, this proposal goes against the standard view among bioethicists that research and clinical care are categorically opposed activities, as made clear by the either-or dichotomy of the Belmont Report on bioethics. This approach has so polarized our profession into clinicians versus researchers, that many clinicians will not apply new knowledge produced by clinical research until it eventually gets incorporated into formal treatment guidelines, while researchers have little to guide them as to what kind of new knowledge it is most important to provide.SummaryClinical innovation brings out the ambiguities in our current ethical conceptions of research versus clinical care. Yet, historically, clinical innovation has been an important contributor to progress in psychopharmacology. We argue that clinical innovation should not be discouraged, but rather it should occur under certain ethical conditions."Almost everyone can and should do research...because almost everyone has a unique observational opportunity at some time in his life which he has an obligation to record....If one considers the fundamental operations or methods of research, one immediately realizes that most people do research at some time or another, except that they do not call their activity by that name. There are seven operations....In simple language they are counting, sorting, measuring, comparing, nature-study, guess testing, and reappraisal....Guess testing is of course what most people think of when the word research is mentioned; except that it is bad manners to call a guess a guess. It should be called an hypothesis. Let us make one plea. Guessing becomes merely a game unless it is done in the context of a plan for action. It is a waste of time elaborating untestable hypotheses [1]."John Cade. (shrink)

Many U.S. corporations and the goods they produce negatively impact our society without breaking any laws. We are all too familiar with the tobacco industry's effect on public health and health care costs for smokers and nonsmokers, as well as the role of profit in the pharmaceutical industry's research priorities. It's Legal but It Ain't Right tackles these issues, plus the ethical ambiguities of legalized gambling, the firearms trade, the fast food industry, the pesticide industry, private security companies, and more. (...) Aiming to identify industries and goods that undermine our societal values and to hold them accountable for their actions, this collection makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion of ethics in our time. This accessible exploration of corporate legitimacy and crime will be important reading for advocates, journalists, students, and anyone interested in the dichotomy between law and legitimacy. Nikos Passas is Professor in the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. Neva Goodwin is Co-director of the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. (shrink)

A topical approach to the major existentialist themes which presupposes no previous knowledge of philosophy.

Sudoku puzzles, which are popular worldwide, require individuals to infer the missing digits in a 9 9 array according to the general rule that every digit from 1 to 9 must occur once in each row, in each column, and in each of the 3-by-3 boxes in the array. We present a theory of how individuals solve these puzzles. It postulates that they rely solely on pure deductions, and that they spontaneously acquire various deductive tactics, which differ in their difficulty (...) depending on their “relational complexity”, i.e., the number of constraints on which they depend. A major strategic shift is necessary to acquire tactics for more difficult puzzles: solvers have to keep track of possible digits in a cell. We report three experiments corroborating this theory. We also discuss their implications for theories of reasoning that downplay the role of deduction in everyday reasoning. (shrink)

Machery has usefully organized the vast heterogeneity in conceptual representation. However, we believe his argument is too narrow in tacitly assuming that concepts are comprised of only prototypes, exemplars, and theories, and also that its eliminative aspect is too strong. We examine two exceptions to Machery's representational taxonomy before considering whether doing without concepts is a good idea.

Recent research has investigated whether people think of their moral beliefs as objectively true facts about the world, or as subjective preferences. The present research examines variability in the perceived objectivity of different moral beliefs, with respect both to the content of moral beliefs themselves (what they are about), and to the social representation of those moral beliefs (whether other individuals are thought to hold them). It also examines the possible consequences of perceiving a moral belief as objective. With respect (...) to the content of moral beliefs, we find that beliefs about the moral properties of negatively valenced acts are seen as reliably more objective than beliefs about the moral properties of positively valenced acts. With respect to the social representation of moral beliefs, we find that the degree of perceived consensus regarding a moral belief positively influences its perceived objectivity. The present experiments also demonstrate that holding a moral belief to be objective is associated with a more ‘closed’ response in the face of disagreement about it, and with more morally pejorative attributions towards a disagreeing other person. (shrink)

"Using hundreds of examples from newsrooms large and small, author Ron F. Smith challenges readers to determine how they would face moral dilemmas on the job. Chapters evaluate the search for principles, accountability, truth and objectivity, errors and corrections, diversity, "faking" the news, reporters and their sources, privacy, the government watch, deception, compassion, the business of news, journalists and their communities, and financial concerns. New to this edition: a chapter on improving coverage of minorities, expanded discussion of broadcast journalism and (...) reporting on the Internet, and stories from recent front pages and TV news programs."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

Douglas Walton has been right in calling us to attend to the pragmatics of argument. He has, however, also insisted that arguments should be understood and assessed by considering the functions they perform; and from this, I dissent. Argument has no determinable function in the sense Walton needs, and even if it did, that function would not ground norms for argumentative practice. As an alternative to a functional theory of argumentative pragmatics, I propose a design view, which draws attention to (...) the way participants strategically undertake and impose norms on themselves in order for their arguments to have force. (shrink)

This is a major phenomenological work in which real learning works in graceful tandem with genuine and important insight. Yet this is not a work of scholarship; it is a work of philosophy, a work that succeeds both in the careful, descriptive massing of detail and in the power of its analysis of the conditions that underlie the possibility of such things as description, interpretation, perception, and meaning._ _Principles of Interpretation__ formulates answers to these questions: How does the interpretative process (...) proceed? What are its fundamentals? What assurance have we that our interpretations are in principal faithful to that which is to be interpreted? What conclusions are indicated concerning the past phases of our history and its present tendencies? (shrink)

Work in Argumentation Studies (AS) and Studies in Expertise and Experience (SEE) has been proceeding on converging trajectories, moving from resistance to expert authority to a cautious acceptance of its legitimacy. The two projects are therefore also converging on the need to account for how, in the course of complex and confused civic deliberations, nonexpert citizens can figure out which statements from purported experts deserve their trust. Both projects recognize that nonexperts cannot assess expertise directly; instead, the nonexpert must judge (...) whether to trust the expert. But how is this social judgment accomplished? A normative pragmatic approach from AS can complement and extend the work from SEE on this question, showing that the expert’s putting forward of his view and “bonding” it with his reputation for expertise works to force or “blackmail” his audience of citizens into heeding what he says. Appeals to authority thus produce the visibility and accountability we want for expert views in civic deliberations. (shrink)