The naturalistic fallacy is mentionedfrequently by evolutionary psychologists as anerroneous way of thinking about the ethicalimplications of evolved behaviors. However,evolutionary psychologists are themselvesconfused about the naturalistic fallacy and useit inappropriately to forestall legitimateethical discussion. We briefly review what thenaturalistic fallacy is and why it is misusedby evolutionary psychologists. Then we attemptto show how the ethical implications of evolvedbehaviors can be discussed constructivelywithout impeding evolutionary psychologicalresearch. A key is to show how ethicalbehaviors, in addition to unethical behaviors,can evolve by natural selection.

This book offers both the theoretical background behind the minority effect, teachers' personal experiences as they experienced being a minority, and their analyses and insights for teaching diverse learners. This book uses real-life experiences of diverse people to illustrate that, if not understood and addressed, situational minorities at school or work are unlikely to perform at their highest potentials.

The necessity of incorporating societal and environmental concerns into publicly funded agricultural initiatives in research, extension, and practice is increasingly evident. Agriculturalists are urged to acknowledge and respond to societal concerns before an insensitive and largely ill-informed urban majority assumes a dominant posture in agricultural policy. In recent history, the availability of unrealistically cheap energy encouraged the evolution of a form of commercial agriculture unfettered by sound ecological principles. At present, external, resource-intensive intervention of increasing magnitude is needed to compensate (...) for the apparent ecological instability generated by practices such as intensive cereal management or conservation tillage practices. Polarization of the enterprises of plant and animal agriculture to enable centralized, concentrate-intensive, confinement feeding has disrupted the natural cycling of nutrients and carbon in the soil, encouraged the withdrawal of perennial forages from crop rotations, and invoked a widely ramifying network of agricultural and societal problems. Solutions to these problems must evolve from a holistic and far-reaching appraisal of causes, rather than from a piecemeal approach to individual symptoms. (shrink)

Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable (...) if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pro P. Sulla OratioAnn VasalyD. H. Berry, ed. Cicero: Pro P. Sulla Oratio. With introduction and commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. xxvi 1 335 pp. 2 figs. Cloth, $64.95. (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, 30)As the author points out, Pro Sulla is only the fifth of the fifty-eight extant speeches of Cicero to receive a full-scale scholarly commentary in English in this century (the last English commentary on (...) Pro Sulla being J. S. Reid’s school edition of 1882). Berry convincingly argues that this particular speech in no way deserves the neglect into which it has fallen, for it is at once compelling as a paradigm of Ciceronian persuasive technique and invaluable as a reflection of Roman political, social, and legal affairs in the tumultuous period of the 60s b.c. Furthermore, a new edition of the text was surely called for, since neither Clark’s OCT of 1911 nor Kasten’s Teubner editions (1933, 1949, 1966) collated more than three of the manuscripts cited by each, whereas for the present edition Berry has collated all seven of the principal manuscripts and has provided [End Page 471] a complete account of the evidence (using the apparatus criticus for five of the manuscripts and providing a collation of the often corrupt readings of two others in Appendix 2). Unlike earlier editors, he has been able to draw on P. L. Schmidt’s discovery in 1974 of a collation by J. Gulielmius of the twelfth-century codex Erfurtensis. This collation, transcribed and published by Berry in 1989, is particularly valuable as it is the only reliable witness to the lost folios of the Erfurtensis which contained most of Pro Sulla.In addition to an account of the manuscripts, Berry’s full introduction treats the life of P. Cornelius Sulla; historical, political, and legal questions concerning his trial; and various aspects of the speech itself, including structure, prose rhythm, and date of publication. Here, the years Berry has devoted to preparing this work are reflected in his careful and thorough treatment of prosopography (the relationship of the defendant to Sulla the dictator is also treated in a separate appendix) and in his acute analysis of the laws under which the defendant was charged. It is interesting to note that Berry also confronts head-on two issues that ultimately concern our assessment of Cicero not as a persuasive orator or an effective politician but as an ethical human being: “Was Sulla Guilty?” and “The Morality of Cicero’s Defense” comprise the last two subsections of the part of the introduction that deals with the trial. Dismissing the hostile, and ultimately uncritical, method of some earlier scholars who tended to accept as truth the exact opposite of any assertion made by Cicero in a speech, Berry is inclined to absolve Sulla of a number of the more serious charges on which he was prosecuted, and especially of active complicity in Catiline’s attempted coup of 63. Proceeding from this thesis, he goes on to assert—rather boldly, given that the shades of Mommsen, Syme, and Carcopino still haunt any scholar willing to credit Cicero with a show of moral courage—that “if Sulla was indeed innocent of the charges relating to the conspiracy, then Cicero may be regarded as having stepped in, at great personal risk, to save a man who was innocent at least of the main charges on which he was accused, and who otherwise would have been condemned” (42).The commentary expands on various prosopographical and legal questions raised by the text, and Berry is particularly adroit at unraveling the meaning of a number of perplexing passages. Among many valuable discussions that could be cited: Roman social practice vis-à-vis the often conflicting demands of amicitia in judicial proceedings (143); Torquatus’ charges and Cicero’s strategy of response concerning the damning contents of Cicero’s letter to Pompey (265–66); the nature of Torquatus’ accusations of Sulla’s complicity in the “first conspiracy” (270–73); the editio process used to empanel the jurors in the trial (316–18).Every commentary has a unique character that reflects the preoccupations and special interests of its author. The... (shrink)

Recent discussions of boundary theory, particularly in the field of ethnic relations, emphasize varying degrees of porousness of social boundaries and the importance of considering the effects of the intersections of multiple boundaries, most notably those of gender, ethnicity/race, and class. It is also increasingly acknowledged that within-group characteristics, including identities, of subordinate as well as of dominant groups may change, without their becoming less authentic distinctive collectivities. This article examines the changing identities of a specific collectivity—French-speaking Canadian women living (...) in Ontario—who, during the past century, have been either marginalized by, or excluded from, several larger collectivities for various reasons—religion, race/ethnicity, language, nationalism, region, and gender—related to boundary definitions of their multiple, intersecting identities. It explores the emergence of these various marginalities and the ability of these feminists to construct institutions and agendas on their own terms. (shrink)

BackgroundGeneral practitioners often act as gatekeeper, authorizing patients’ access to hospital care. This gatekeeping role became even more important during the current COVID-19 crisis as uncertainties regarding COVID-19 made estimating the desirability of hospital referrals (for outpatient or inpatient hospitalization) complex, both for COVID and non-COVID suspected patients. This study explored Dutch general practitioners’ experiences and ethical dilemmas faced in decision making about hospital referrals in times of the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsSemi-structured interviews with Dutch general practitioners working in the Netherlands were (...) conducted. Participants were recruited via purposive sampling. Thematic analysis was conducted using content coding.ResultsFifteen interviews were conducted, identifying four themes: one overarching regarding (1) COVID-19 uncertainties, and three themes about experienced ethical dilemmas: (2) the patients’ self-determination vs. the general practitioners’ paternalism, (3) the general practitioners’ duty of care vs. the general practitioners’ autonomy rights, (4) the general practitioners’ duty of care vs. adequate care provision.ConclusionsLack of knowledge about COVID-19, risks to infect loved ones, scarcity of hospital beds and loneliness of patients during hospital admission were central in dilemmas experienced. When developing guidelines for future crises, this should be taken into account. (shrink)

One hypothesis of isocortical evolution requires tangential migration of glutaminergic neurons. A second requires invasion of collothalamic afferents into the dorsal pallium, a territory that in sauropsids is solely lemnopallial. A third alternative is noted here – duplication of the original collopallial territory. The duplicated region would be formed by radial migration of excitatory neurons and would maintain its collothalamic innervation.

Although moral distress is now a well-recognized phenomenon among all of the healthcare professions, few evidence-based strategies have been published to address it. In morally distressing situations, the “presenting problem” may be a particular patient situation, but most often signals a deeper unit- or system-centered issue. This article describes one institution’s ongoing effort to address moral distress in its providers. We discuss the development and evaluation of the Moral Distress Consultation Service, an interprofessional, unit/system-oriented approach to addressing and ameliorating moral (...) distress. (shrink)

Abstract Studying a concept as complex as moral distress is an ongoing challenge for those engaged in empirical ethics research. Qualitative studies of nurses have illuminated the experience of moral distress and widened the contours of the concept, particularly in the area of root causes. This work has led to the current understanding that moral distress can arise from clinical situations, factors internal to the individual professional, and factors present in unit cultures, the institution, and the larger health care environment. (...) Corley et al. ( 2001 ) was the first to publish a quantitative measure of moral distress, and her scale has been adapted for use by others, including studies of other disciplines (Hamric and Blackhall 2007 ; Schwenzer and Wang 2006 ). Other scholars have proposed variations on Jameton’s core definition (Sporrong et al. 2006 , 2007 ), developing measures for related concepts such as moral sensitivity (Lutzen et al. 2006 ), ethics stress (Raines 2000 ), and stress of conscience (Glasberg et al. 2006 ). The lack of consistency and consensus on the definition of moral distress considerably complicates efforts to study it. Increased attention by researchers in disciplines other than nursing has taken different forms, some problematic. Cultural differences in the role of the nurse and understanding of actions that represent threats to moral integrity also challenge efforts to build a cohesive research-based understanding of the concept. In this paper, research efforts to date are reviewed. The importance of capturing root causes of moral distress in instruments, particularly those at unit and system levels, to allow for interventions to be appropriately targeted is highlighted. In addition, the issue of studying moral distress and interaction over time with moral residue is discussed. Promising recent work is described along with the potential these approaches open for research that can lead to interventions to decrease moral distress. Finally, opportunities for future research and study are identified, and recommendations for moving the research agenda forward are offered. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s10730-012-9177-x Authors Ann B. Hamric, School of Nursing, Virginia Commonwealth University, P.O. Box 980567, Richmond, VA 23298-0567, USA Journal HEC Forum Online ISSN 1572-8498 Print ISSN 0956-2737. (shrink)

Since 1992, institutions accredited by The Joint Commission have been required to have a process in place that allows staff members, patients, and families to address ethical issues or issues prone to conflict. While the commission's expectations clearly have made ethics committees more common, simply having a committee in no way demonstrates its effectiveness in terms of the availability of the service to key constituents, the quality of the processes used, or the outcomes achieved. Beyond meeting baseline accreditation standards, effective (...) ethics resources are requisite for quality care for another reason. The provision of care to the sick is a practice with profound moral dimensions. Clinicians need what Margaret Urban Walker has called “moral spaces,” reflective spaces within institutions in which to explore and communicate values and ethical obligations as they undergird goals of care. Walker proposed that ethicists needed to be concerned with the design and maintenance of these moral spaces. Clearly, that concern needs to extend beyond ethicists to institutional leaders. This essay uses Walker's idea of moral space to describe individuals and groups who are actual and potential ethics resources in health care institutions. We focus on four requisite characteristics of effective resources and the challenges to achieving them, and we identify strategies to build them. In our view, such moral spaces are particularly important for nurses and their colleagues on interprofessional teams and need to be expanded and strengthened in most settings. (shrink)

The main objective of this essay is to validate some of the principal, currently competing, mammalian consciousness-brain theories by comparing these theories with data on both cognitive abilities and brain organization in birds. Our argument is that, given that multiple complex cognitive functions are correlated with presumed consciousness in mammals, this correlation holds for birds as well. Thus, the neuroanatomical features of the forebrain common to both birds and mammals may be those that are crucial to the generation of both (...) complex cognition and consciousness. The general conclusion is that most of the consciousness-brain theories appear to be valid for the avian brain. Even though some specific homologies are unresolved, most of the critical structures presumed necessary for consciousness in mammalian brains have clear homologues in avian brains. Furthermore, considering the fact that the reptile-bird brain transition shows more structural continuity than the stem amniote-mammalian transition, the line drawn at the origin of mammals for consciousness by several of the theorists seems questionable. An equally important point is that consciousness cannot be ruled out in the absence of complex cognition; it may in fact be the case that consciousness is a necessary prerequisite for complex cognition. (shrink)

The notion of virtue in general, and courage in particular, has had a hard time integrating itself into the everyday lexicon of bioethics. Following the lead of enlightenment moral philosophy, which concentrates on the theory of right action as opposed to the ancient Greeks' emphasis on the development of good character, bioethics, with some notable exceptions, has tended to relegate consideration of the virtues to the sidelines of moral argument. Recently, however, there have been calls for the necessity of “moral (...) courage” in the context of clinical ethics. As nurses, physicians, and other health care professionals confront a variety of moral contexts in which the virtue of courage is invoked to "do the right thing," stand up for patients' rights, and uphold the ethical standards of their professions, they are increasingly reminded of their moral duty to exhibit courage in the face of institutional obstacles to the proper care of their patients. For example, a nurse's hesitation to approach a physician to request increased sedation for an agitated patient out of fear of retaliation is represented in one article as a lack of courage.In this paper we offer a critical assessment of such invocations of courage. While we find courage to be an indispensable virtue in some challenging contexts, in other settings we find invocations of courage to be both an unfortunate endorsement of an oppressive status quo that can divert attention from the real problems and an undesirable and potentially destructive strategy within health care institutions whose goal is medically excellent and morally good clinical practice. As we shall argue, a call to virtuousness is not always virtuous. (shrink)

Recent data show that catastrophic events during one cell cycle can cause massive genome damage producing viable clones with unstable genomes. This is in contrast with the traditional view that tumorigenesis requires a long‐term process in which mutations gradually accumulate over decades. These sudden events are likely to result in a large increase in genomic diversity within a relatively short time, providing the opportunity for selective advantages to be gained by a subset of cells within a population. This genetic diversity (...) amplification, arising from a single aberrant cell cycle, may drive a population conversion from benign to malignant. However, there is likely a period of relative genome stability during the clonal expansion of tumors – this may provide an opportunity for therapeutic intervention, especially if mechanisms that limit tolerance of aneuploidy are exploited. (shrink)

High-hope and low-hope research participants (males and females), as preselected on the basis of a dispositional self-report scale, choose freely between brief audiotaped messages that varied in depressive content. In the first experiment, the messages were of either positive or negative content. Highhope as compared to low-hope persons preferred listening to the positive tapes (no differences related to Gender), and this Hope main effect remained after the shared variance related to depression and positive and negative affectivity were removed. In a (...) modified replication, the contents of the tapes were comprised of successful or unsuccessful goal-attainment statements related to hopeful thinking. High-hope as compared to low-hope persons again preferred to listen to the successful goal pursuit messages (no differences related to Gender), and this Hope main effect on listening choices remained after the shared variances related to depression, positive and negative affectivity, and self-esteem were removed. Implications are discussed. (shrink)

Most parts of the brain are conserved across reptiles and birds (sauropsids) and mammals. Two major qualitative differences occur in the upper part, or pallium, of the telencephalon, the most rostral part of the brain. Mammals have a six‐layered neocortex and also exhibit a different morphological organization in the lateral half, or sector, of their pallium than do sauropsids. These differences of lateral pallial construction may derive from small but crucial differences in migration patterns of neuronal precursors generated at or (...) above the corner of the lateral ventricle, the corticostriatal junction (CS). Sauropsids have a large structure, the dorsal ventricular ridge, that is proliferated from this region, and its anterior part (ADVR) receives ascending projections from the dorsal thalamus. Mammals have multiple structures in this same region—the lateral part of neocortex, amygdala, and claustrum‐endopiriform formation. We propose here that, as the degree of development of structures that form the deeper tier of the pallium varies across the stages of embryology and across phylogeny, mutations may have occurred during evolution at the origin of mammals that had profound consequences for the fate of neural populations generated in the region of the CS and its neighboring pallial germinal zone. BioEssays 24:530–541, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Ethics raises questions about what kind of society we ought to be, questions that are at the heart of this case. Increasingly, inequalities in healthcare fueled by lack of access, inadequate insurance coverage, and rising costs are creating dilemmas in the proper distribution of healthcare resources. Questions of distributing scarce and valuable resources are fundamentally questions of justice. The classic definition of justice is the duty to give to each person what they deserve and can legitimately claim so that justice (...) is understood as a moral obligation to help persons exercise their rights. Distributive justice, i.e., what distribution of resources is fair, equitable, and appropriate, thus turns on the concept of rights. One of the key questions in this case is whether and to what extent this patient has a right to treatment for his heart disease. In the classic understanding of justice, he must assert and we as a society must agree that he has a right to treatment for his heart condition before we are morally obligated to provide this care. Are there limits to this patient's right to healthcare? If so, what are they? The differing principles of distributive justice use different criteria to rank or weight decisions regarding the proper and just distribution of healthcare services. In this case, at least two competing but ethically valid principles can be identified: the humanitarian principle and the libertarian principle. (shrink)

This paper attempts to outline some of the important concepts and ideas used in system analysis which is taken to be a general mode of analysis used in all sciences. Systems are seen from three perspectives: that involving the relationship between system and environment, that involving interaction between several systems, and that involving one type of system composed of other types of systems. The writers also discuss the concepts "structure" and "equilibrium" as they apply to system analysis, the point being (...) made that the use of these concepts in the social sciences has often been vague or even incorrect. (shrink)

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) requires U.S. banks to make loans available in low- and middle-income sectors of their communities. Vaguely worded and unevenly enforced, CRA has created a major dilemma for banks because their CRA ratings are open to public scrutiny and used by regulators in determining whether to permit a bank to expand its products, services, or geo- graphic presence. Ironically, foreign banks doing business in the United States have been able to avoid the impact of CRA because (...) of legal privileges that are now disappearing. As Depression era-banking laws are set aside so that American banks can regain their international competitiveness, foreign banks in the United States will be forced to comply with CRA to take full advantage of the new opportunities available in the American banking arena. Based on current evidence, it appears that CRA may be a major stumbling block in the path of future foreign bank expansion in the United States. (shrink)

Moral distress is a phenomenon increasingly recognized in healthcare that occurs when a clinician is unable to act in a manner consistent with his or her moral requirements due to external constraints. We contend that some experiences of moral distress are self-inflicted due to one’s under-assertion of professional authority, and these are potentially avoidable. In this article we outline causes of self-inflicted moral distress and offer recommendations for mitigation.

Objectives: To analyse legislation and medical professional positions concerning the doctor’s role in assisted dying in western Europe, and to discuss their implications for doctors.Method: This paper is based on country-specific reports by experts from European countries where assisted dying is legalised , or openly practiced , or where it is illegal .Results: Laws on assisted dying in The Netherlands and Belgium are restricted to doctors. In principle, assisted suicide is not illegal in either Germany or Switzerland, but a doctor’s (...) participation in Germany would violate the code of professional medical conduct and might contravene of a doctor’s legal duty to save life. The Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill proposed in the UK in 2005 focused on doctors, whereas the Proposal on Assisted Dying of the Norwegian Penal Code Commission minority in 2002 did not.Professional medical organisations in all these countries except The Netherlands maintain the position that medical assistance in dying conflicts with the basic role of doctors. However, in Belgium and Switzerland, and for a time in the UK, these organisations dropped their opposition to new legislation. Today, they regard the issue as primarily a matter for society and politics. This “neutral” stance differs from the official position of the Royal Dutch Medical Association which has played a key role in developing the Dutch practice of euthanasia as a “medical end-of-life decision” since the 1970s.Conclusion: A society moving towards an open approach to assisted dying should carefully identify tasks to assign exclusively to medical doctors, and distinguish those possibly better performed by other professions. (shrink)

The target article does not consider neural data on primate spatial representations, which we suggest provide grounds for believing that navigational space may be three-dimensional rather than quasi–two-dimensional. Furthermore, we question the authors' interpretation of rat neurophysiological data as indicating that the vertical dimension may be encoded in a neural structure separate from the two horizontal dimensions.

We extend the discussion in the target article about distinctions between extrinsic coding and the alternative we and the target article both favor, intrinsic coding. Central to our thinking about intrinsic coding is population coding and the concept of high-dimensional neural response spaces.

Activists’ investigations of animal cruelty expose the public to suffering that they may otherwise be unaware of, via an increasingly broad-ranging media. This may result in ethical dilemmas and a wide range of emotions and reactions. Our hypothesis was that media broadcasts of cruelty to cattle in Indonesian abattoirs would result in an emotional response by the public that would drive their actions towards live animal export. A survey of the public in Australia was undertaken to investigate their reactions and (...) responses to. The most common immediate reaction was feeling pity for the cattle. Women were more likely than men to feel sad or angry. Most people discussed the media coverage with others afterwards but fewer than 10 % contacted politicians or wrote to newspapers. We conclude that the public were emotionally affected by the media coverage of cruelty to cattle but that this did not translate into significant behavioral change. We recommend that future broadcasts of animal cruelty should advise the public of contact details for counseling and that mental health support contacts, and information should be included on the websites of animal advocacy groups to acknowledge the disturbing effect animal cruelty exposes can have on the public. (shrink)

Changes in global patterns of grain production have affected the profitability of commercial, cash-crop agriculture in North America. The current financial crisis has highlighted a perceived conflict between the priorities of (1) strengthening net farm profit, (2) maintaining the productive potential of the land base, (3) enhancing the health and cohesiveness of the agricultural community, and (4) addressing societal demands for safe foodstuffs. Reducing input costs by reducing the need for privately owned machinery can minimize the scale-dependence of agricultural practices, (...) as illustrated with examples involving silage and intensively managed pasture in Ontario. This approach could improve farming opportunities for nontraditional, part-time farmers, and at the same time, create a niche for professional custom operators and managers. Enhancing the viability of nontraditional farm operations, a historically neglected component of the farming community, as well as commercial farms is viewed as one approach to sustaining and improving both the agricultural land base and the agricultural community. Applying resource-extensive rather than resource-intensive approaches to forage management reveals that these apparently divergent priorities are, in fact, interlocking pieces of the same puzzle. (shrink)