Positivist medical historians, guided by the savoir of modern western biomedicine, have long depicted medieval medicine as an aberration along the continuum of scientific and medical progress. Historical epistemology, founded in the ideas of Cavailles, Foucault, Davidson, and Hacking, however, allows the historian to disrupt this false continuum and to unchain medieval medicine from modern medicine. Postmodernist approaches, such as those sourced in Lyotard, Barthes, and Derrida, allow the historian to further deconstruct medieval and modern medical discourse, revealing a multitude (...) of narrative lenses spinning around biomedical and biocultural strands. In liberating these two medical systems and setting them within the distinct historical and epistemological contexts that both shaped and were shaped by them, the historian can revision the theories, practices, and culture of medieval medicine without having to anachronistically justify them according to modern medical discourse. (shrink)

Positivist medical historians, guided by the savoir of modern western biomedicine, have long depicted medieval medicine as an aberration along the continuum of scientific and medical progress. Historical epistemology, founded in the ideas of Cavailles, Foucault, Davidson, and Hacking, however, allows the historian to disrupt this false continuum and to unchain medieval medicine from modern medicine. Postmodernist approaches, such as those sourced in Lyotard, Barthes, and Derrida, allow the historian to further deconstruct medieval and modern medical discourse, revealing a multitude (...) of narrative lenses spinning around biomedical and biocultural strands. In liberating these two medical systems and setting them within the distinct historical and epistemological contexts that both shaped and were shaped by them, the historian can revision the theories, practices, and culture of medieval medicine without having to anachronistically justify them according to modern medical discourse. (shrink)

This article explores an aspect of women’s transnational labor migration that has been understudied in many labor-sending countries: how men experience shifts in the household labor division triggered by women’s migration. In so doing, we shed light on the diverse ways notions of masculinity and gender identities are being reworked and renegotiated in the transnational family. Drawing on qualitative data collected from in-depth interviews with carers of left-behind children in Northern Vietnam, we show how men are confronted with the need (...) to take on child care duties, which have traditionally been ascribed to women, while at the same time being under considerable pressure to live up to locally accepted masculinity ideals. We provide interesting insights into the changing family structures and dynamics in Vietnamese society where patriarchal norms continue to exert significant influence on different facets of life. (shrink)

Philosophy of Communication Ethics is a unique and timely volume that creatively examines communication ethics, philosophy of communication, and "the other.".

This essay evaluates Charles Taylor's defence of a politics of recognition in light of his broader account of modern identity and the self. I argue that his call for a politics of recognition betrays what is most ethically promising in his own account of modern subjectivity – namely, its emphasis on and affirmation of inner multiplicity. The first part of the paper identifies the ways in which his account of the self affirms inner multiplicity. The second part of the paper (...) outlines how a politics of recognition circumscribes this inner plurality by rendering core aspects of personal identity rigid and by promoting attitudes that inhibit attentiveness to multiplicity within the self. By outlining the ways in which it circumscribes inner multiplicity, I show that Taylor's preferred form of politics undermines two of his own central goals: that of securing the conditions in which authentic identity can be realized and that of promoting mutually receptive relations among diverse selves. A form of liberalism that strives for neutrality with respect to cultural symbols and practices more effectively facilitates the realization of these goals. (shrink)

BackgroundSocial media has globalised compassion enabling requests for donations to spread beyond geographical boundaries. The use of social media for medical crowdfunding links people with unmet healthcare needs to charitable donors. There is no doubt that fundraising campaigns using such platforms facilitates access to financial resources to the benefit of patients and their caregivers.Main textThis paper reports on a critical review of the published literature and information from other online resources discussing medical crowdfunding and the related ethical questions. The review (...) highlighted the benefits of crowdfunding as well as the under-exploration of the risk of having patients’ desires and human rights undermined during online fundraising campaigns. Majority of these campaigns get initiated on behalf of the patients, especially the very sick and dependant. The ethical questions raised relate to the voluntariness of informed consent and the possibility of patients being used as a means to an end. Vulnerability of patients may expose them to coercion, undue influence, manipulation, and violation of their human rights. The success of these campaigns is influenced by the digital skills, pre-existing social networks and, the emotional potency. Healthcare is a public good, and online market forces should not determine access to essential health services. The benefits of crowdfunding cannot be subverted, but it can perpetuate unintended injustices, especially those arising from socio-economic factors.ConclusionsPolicymakers ought to monitor the utilisation of crowdfunding sites to identify policy failures and unmet essential health care needs responsible for driving individuals to use these platforms. The upholding of human rights and the fundamental respect of the individual’s wishes is a moral imperative. The need for an ethics framework to guide different stakeholders during medical crowdfunding needs further examination. (shrink)

Born in Bolton on 13 July 1938, the son of a mill-worker, Martin William Doyle was educated at St Joseph's R.C. primary school and then, having obtained an academic scholarship, at Thornleigh Salesian College. He entered the Order of Friars Minor at the age of 16, made his solemn profession the day after his twenty-first birthday and was ordained to the priesthood on 16 July 1961, which required a dispensation in view of his young age. This was followed by studies (...) in Rome at the Athenaeum Antonianum, 1962-64, where Doyle trained as an ecclesiastical historian and where he received his doctorate summa cum laude, obtaining maximum possible marks.Inspired by Vatican Council II Doyle was at the forefront of the renewal... (shrink)

Rather than choose between competing theories of alienation, whether Marxist, feminist, or psychoanalytic, this chapter argues that each theory has its value for a critical understanding of Jelinek’s literary work. At the level of the “signified or plot,” the author finds that Marxist theories of alienation through labor, and feminist theories of alienation in patriarchy, are both helpful frameworks for exploring the situations represented in the novel. In addition, at the level of “signifier or language,” the author shows how Jelinek’s (...) use of metonymy also works to subvert customary expectations of a romance formula. (shrink)

This comparative case analysis contrasts two nations – Viet Nam and The United States of America (U.S.) – in terms of processes each employed and results each achieved in respective response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We use a general theory of teaching to contrast the countries in terms of their approaches to COVID public health education. Viet Nam followed the recommendations of the theory. The U.S. did not. While our analysis does not and cannot prove educational theory acted as the (...) sole causal factor in realization of the disparate results in the countries, our case study does illustrate that the different approaches to public health education used by the countries may be counted among factors contributing to wide differences in the contrasting cases. The argument proceeds by 1) describing differences in relevant statistics between Viet Nam and the U.S., 2) outlining the theory of teaching we use to analyze differences in public health education in the two contexts, and 3) discussing successful implementation of the theory in Viet Nam and failure to implement in the U.S. Finally, we 4) dismiss competing explanations of differences between the countries and 5) offer considerations about how the U.S. may educate citizens away from turning the pandemic into a pan(en)demic. (shrink)

This volume is a lively, wide-ranging introduction to ethics. It provides accessible coverage of the main ethical theories which offer the basis for an exploration of key issues and recent developments in applied ethics. The author's approach differs from other recent introductions, eschewing the utilitarian approach in favor of a rights and virtue ethics alternative.

Despite a growing body of research by management scholars to understand and explain failures in ethical decision making (EDM), misconduct prevails. Scholars have identified character, founded in virtue ethics, as an important perspective that can help to address the gap in organizational misconduct. While character has been offered as a valid perspective in EDM, current theorizing on how it applies to EDM has not been well developed. We thus integrate character, founded in virtue ethics, into Rest’s (1986) EDM model to (...) reveal how shifting attention to the nature of the moral agent provides critical insights into decision making more broadly and EDM specifically. Virtue ethics provides a perspective on EDM that acknowledges and anticipates uncertainties, considers its contextual constraints, and contemplates the development of the moral agent. We thus answer the call by many scholars to integrate character in EDM in order to advance the understanding of the field and suggest propositions for how to move forward. We conclude with implications of a character-infused approach to EDM for future research. (shrink)

A citizen’s jury brings together a mix of citizens from different socio-economic groups who deliberate on a particular policy issue over a number of days. Since their development in the 1970s in th...

"Space," William James confessed, "is [both] a direfully difficult subject [and the] driest of subjects.'" Nonetheless, convinced that most previous accounts of space were either incoherent or mythological, he set out to describe space as it is actually experienced. His first effort, "The Spatial Quale," appeared in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy in 1879. 2 This article is historically important; as Ralph Barton Perry notes, "his peculiar view of the amplitude and eonnectedness of experience seems to have begun with the (...) application to space. ''3 But, despite this fact, it is seldom read today. It was not reprinted in James's Collected Essays and Reviews because the editor found "no important difference" between the content of this article and that of the chapter in The Principles of Psychology dealing with the same topic. 4 And it has not been included in more recent anthologies of James's writings. James would undoubtedly have concurred with the reasoning behind these editorial decisions. In the preface to the Psychology he wrote: Chapter 20, on Space-perception, is a terrible thing, which, unless written with all that detail, could not be fairly treated at all. An abridgment of it, called The Spatial Quale' ... may be found by some persons a useful substitute for the entire chapter? In fact, however, there is a significant philosophical difference between... (shrink)

Sometimes referred to as "the last taboo," money has remained something of a secret within psychoanalysis. Ironically, while it is an ingredient in almost every encounter between analyst and patient, the analyst's personal feelings about money are rarely discussed openly or in any great depth. So what is it about money that relegates it to the background, both on the couch and off? In _Money Talks_, Brenda Berger, Stephanie Newman, and their excellent cast of contributors address this and other (...) questions surrounding the tender topic of money, how we talk about it, and how it talks to us. Its multiple meanings are explored in the contexts of patients and analysts and the ways in which they relate, in the training and practice of the analysts themselves, as well as the psychological and cultural consequences of having too much or too little in both flush and tight economic times. Throughout, a clinical sensibility is brought to bear on money's softly spoken place in therapy and life. _Money Talks_ paves the way for an open discourse into the psychology of money and its pervasive influence on the psyche of both patient and analyst. (shrink)

Introduction : "The idea of divine providence in Orosius, Augustine, and Dante" -- "Destined lands and chosen fathers: Virgil, Livy, and the Bible" -- "Orosius defends the Roman Empire" -- "Augustine's theology of history" -- "Dante's monarchia with and against Augustine" -- "Dante's Commedia and the ascent to incarnational history" -- Conclusion : "The hand of God".

This two-part study analyzed some of the ethical choices made by founding entrepreneurs during the creation and development of their ventures in order to identify the areas in which founding entrepreneurs must make decisions related to ethics or social responsibility during venture creation and development. Content analysis was used to identify decisions with ethical components and/or implications from in-depth interviews with 10 successful business founders. The research for part one of the study was guided by the following research question: In (...) what areas must entrepreneurs make decisions with ethical and/or social responsibility implications during new venture creation and development? The authors identified four distinct categories of decisions where ethical or social responsibility components exist: (1) individual entrepreneurial values-related decisions, (2) organizational culture/employee well-being decisions, (3) customer satisfaction and quality decisions, and (4) external accountability decisions. In the second part of the study, the decisions identified in part one were analyzed using a framework derived from prior research in ethics. This framework was developed from the work of Kant (1964) who theorized about human morals and Rawls (1971) who developed theories about justice. Part two of the study was guided by the following research questions: Do entrepreneurs have values and ethics similar to those held by society in general? If they don’t, how do their values and ethics differ? The comparison revealed that the ethics and/or values that the entrepreneurs either explicitly or implicitly acknowledged were in fact similar to those of society in general. (shrink)

The dominant discourse in chronic disease management centres on the ideal of person-centred healthcare, with an empowered patient taking an active role in decision-making with their healthcare provider. Despite these encouraging developments toward healthcare democracy, many person-centred conceptions of healthcare and programming continue to focus on the healthcare institution’s perspective and priorities. In these debates, the patient’s voice has largely been absent. This article takes the example of patient empowerment to show how the concept has been influenced by a variety (...) of competing and shifting influences that have led to conceptualisations and programming designed for the patient, but developed without the patient. The framework of epistemic injustice is proposed to unravel the complexity of these omissions. The concept can be defined as a wrong done to someone specifically in their capacity as a knower. It occurs when a person is ignored or not believed due to a prejudice of some kind. It has been applied to healthcare in order to better understand barriers for patient participation and will be used to better understand the problems with current empowerment definitions and implementation strategies. The article will end by proposing some methodologies to facilitate patient-developed concepts of empowerment. (shrink)

This paper examines the vagaries of war and peace discourse which seek to legitimise the notion of brutality over the principle of morality. In recognition of the limitlessness of brutality the just war tradition was developed to take account of the reasons for going to war and of the conduct of war. Nevertheless, the just war solution can invoke a mode of binary thinking dictating the imperative of brutality over morality during a conflict situation. Feminist scholars argue that traditional just (...) war theory is inadequate to the task to which it is directed. The political theorist Laura Sjoberg is one such scholar who attempts to reformulate just war theory from a feminist perspective. I assess the contribution made by Sjoberg as it relates to the gendered impact of war on women arguing that Sjoberg’s reformulation of just war theory fails to deliver a sufficient rejoinder to the problem of gendered violence in war. (shrink)

This article focuses on the experiences of social care workers during the first wave of the Covid pandemic. The method involved analyzing diaries kept by 65 professionals in 8 French regions during the first lockdown in France in the spring of 2020. As a form of non-binding, narrative expression, keeping diaries breaks with traditional models of reporting common in social care structures and allowed professionals to reflect on the experience as it was lived. In the diaries, professionals explored how the (...) crisis disrupted and challenged their personal and professional values but also allowed innovation in care practices for vulnerable populations that will continue beyond the pandemic period. Five care values were put to forefront by professionals: (1) spontaneity/flexibility; (2) respect for persons; (3) team reflexivity; (4) innovation; (5) solidarity. Mobilizing philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s ideas on recognition, Payet and Laforgue’s analysis of weak actors, as well as research on moral distress, we discuss how these values were tested during the crisis and what effect they had on professionals’ and users’ vulnerabilities. We will also elaborate the interest of keeping account of social care work through narrative methods. (shrink)

We tend to take the phenomenon of humour for granted, seeing it for the most part as something innately and fundamentally human. However we might go even further than this, and say that the phenomenon of humour is perceived as an essential part of what makes us human. In this respect, philosophers and theorists as wide apart as Aristotle and the French, feminist Julia Kristeva (1980; also see Goldberg, 1999a) have regarded a baby's ability to laugh as one of the (...) earliest signs of the separation of 'self' from 'other', a reciprocal process deemed to be crucial to the formation of a separate identity. However, although the general importance of humour might be agreed amongst researchers, what theoretical position one takes will have a profound effect on how one approaches and analyses humour. In much psychological research the focus tends to be on how humour works, i.e., syntax, semantic categories, sex differences, personality types, etc., and one finds a frustrating neglect of what is actually meant by the term 'humour' in terms of history and emergences. Consequently, an important question tends to go unchallenged: Is humour some unproblematic innate human ability, or, a socially defined concept that has changed and mutated alongside our understanding of what is means to be person ? In an attempt to grapple with this question, the following genealogical account is less concerned with fathoming out how humour works than with relating it to notions of human subjectivity, or how theories of humor have informed and reflected social constructs of what it means to be a 'subject'. (shrink)

A response to Lataster's article defending Jesus’ agnosticism in Think 43Export citation.

Given a finite relational language L is there an algorithm that, given two finite sets A and B of structures in the language, determines how many homogeneous L structures there are omitting every structure in B and embedding every structure in A? For directed graphs this question reduces to: Is there an algorithm that, given a finite set of tournaments Γ, determines whether QΓ, the class of finite tournaments omitting every tournament in Γ, is well-quasi-order? First, we give a nonconstructive (...) proof of the existence of an algorithm for the case in which Γ consists of one tournament. Then we determine explicitly the set of tournaments each of which does not have an antichain omitting it. Two antichains are exhibited and a summary is given of two structure theorems which allow the application of Kruskal's Tree Theorem. Detailed proofs of these structure theorems will be given elsewhere. The case in which Γ consists of two tournaments is also discussed. (shrink)

Starting from support for James's critique of Clifford's dictum, the article argues for holding beliefs, whether secular or religious, firmly but provisionally, remaining open to fresh experience. This consideration prompts reflection on the debate following the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Alternative beliefs were opposing each other with seemingly equal certainty. The justification for insistence on the right to free speech itself requires scrutiny. The article finishes by noting the baleful effects of the intellectual apartheid which has tended to be practised (...) in the West which presumes that religion and reason have nothing to do with each other. (shrink)

A sign seen in the Philosophy Department of the University of Uppsala reads: A philosopher is one who will deliver a paper on the Hangman's Paradox at a conference on capital punishment. I might take as a supporting example of this tendency to focus on the irrelevant or the inappropriate a real paper to a medico-legal conference on organ transplants which argued that it would be morally justifiable to remove a heart from a healthy would-be heart donor. There are also (...) many amusing and intelligent papers on the ‘survival lottery’—a hypothetical arrangement which would allow individuals to be seized and cannibalised for their organs. These articles are light-hearted exercises in argumentative ingenuity, harmless in themselves, but they are offered in a world in which street children in Brazil are snatched for their kidneys, Chinese political dissidents have their organs seized officially at their place of execution, and poor peasants in Turkey and India sell their own kidneys or those of their relatives, for money. At the same time, the most frequently cited paper on the fraught topic of abortion is one in which pregnancy is compared to the plight of one unwillingly or unintentionally connected to a violinist who temporarily needs the link in order to survive. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article examine les conséquences pour l’inégalité sexuelle au Canada des coupures gouvernementales dans les soins de santé et les services sociaux, et les évalue à l’aune de la jurisprudence relative à la Charte. L’auteure soutient que ce recul a en fait désavantagé les femmes d’une manière disproportionnée, et qu’on pourrait y voir, du point de vue de la Charte, une discrimination à leur endroit. Or les gouvernements n’ont offert aucune justification de ces effets discriminatoires qui satisferait aux critères (...) de la Charte en en montrant le caractère raisonnable dans une société libre et démocratique. Présenter l’action gouvernementale comme un exercice neutre de transfert de responsabilités vers les familles et les communautés ne saurait constituer une telle justification. (shrink)

RésuméCet article examine les conséquences pour l'inégalité sexuelle au Canada des coupures gouvernementales dans les soins de santé et les services sociaux, et les évalue à I'aune de la jurisprudence relative à la Charte. L'auteure soutient que ce recul a en fait désavantagé les femmes d'une manière disproportionnée, et qu'on pourrait y voir, du point de vue de la Charte, une discrimination à leur endroit. Or les gouvernements n'ont offert aucune justification de ces effets discriminatoires qui satisferait aux critères de (...) la Charte en en montrant le caractère raisonnable dans une société libre et démocratique. Présenter l'action gouvernementale comme un exercice neutre de transfert de responsabilités vers les families et les communautés ne saurait constituer une telle justification. (shrink)

Ensuring patient participation in healthcare decision making remains a difficult task. Factors such as a lack of time in the consultation, medical objectivation, or the difficulties of translating individual patient experience into the treatment plan have been shown to limit patient contributions. Little research attention has focused however on how emotions experienced by both the patient and the healthcare provider may affect the ability of the patient to participate. In this research, patient’s and healthcare provider’s emotions were identified and analysed. (...) The research method showed fear as a prominent emotion experienced. This included patient’s fears both inside and outside the consultation, as well as the healthcare provider’s fears in their professional practice. Using Martha Nussbaum’s cognitive-evaluative theory of emotions as an additional means of analysis, the research looked at what this emotion could show about the importance of the object of this fear to the person’s eudaimonia (flourishing). At the end of the article, several solutions were proposed to help mitigate this fear to keep it from becoming a destructive force in the healthcare provider—patient relationship. (shrink)

Presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability.

Sex workers in the Netherlands experienced severe financial and social distress during the COVID-19 health crisis. Notwithstanding them paying taxes over the earnings, they were excluded from government financial support, faced discriminatory treatment concerning safe reopening, and experienced increased repression and stigmatization. In this contribution, I explore whether the concept of “vulnerability” contributes to understanding (and addressing) that situation. Data acquired through participatory action research, partly taking place online during lock-down measures, and literature and content analysis show that labeling sex (...) workers “vulnerable” deflects attention away from the (in)actions of Dutch authorities responsible for sex workers’ precarious conditions during the pandemic. Government denial and strategies of abjection explain these conditions better than “vulnerability” does, as they return the gaze to actors and processes accountable for sex workers’ exclusion and criminalization during the COVID-19 health crisis and thereby put responsibility where it belongs. (shrink)

Although T.L.S. Sprigge described idealist philosophy as the stage beyond religion, his pantheistic idealism, while not itself a religion, offers a conception of God that seeks to meet the aspiration of human beings to understand their own place in the universe. While he shared with most mid twentieth century British philosophers a basic assumption of the primacy of experience, Sprigge took this strong empiricist assumption in a Berkeleyian rather than a Humean direction. This enabled him to find a place for (...) the phenomenon of religious consciousness, which he saw as the source of a yearning that can be met by absolute idealism's conception of a 'Whole' that encompasses ourselves and all aspects of our world. He describes this recognition as the faltering adumbration of a truth - one that is sometimes encountered in aesthetic experience, and sometimes more directly in the lives of mystics.The metaphysical basis for this form of absolute idealism is provided by a concept of time in which each fleeting 'now' has a fixed and permanent place, and by a theory of identity according to which personal individuality is dissolved in a unitary 'Whole'. (shrink)