Background and rationale Several factors that motivate individuals to participate in non-therapeutic studies have been identified. This study was conducted as limited data is available regarding these motivations from developing countries. Methods This was a single-centre study conducted over 4 months in which a questionnaire was administered to 102 healthy participants and 16 patient participants who had earlier taken part in non-therapeutic studies at our centre. Descriptive statistics and univariate analysis were used to analyse data. Results The most common motivation (...) among healthy participants was financial reward (65%) followed by altruism, free medical check up, curiosity and personal health benefit. Patient participants, however, most commonly said they consented to take part in the trial as they were ‘invited to participate by the treating physician’ (88%). In comparison with the patient participants, healthy participants were more likely to be satisfied with the financial reward (p=0.02), and recommend participation in studies to friends or relatives (p=0.0013). Conclusions The most common motivating factor to participate in non-therapeutic studies appears to be different for healthy participants (financial reward) and patient participants (invitation to participate by the physician). Participants also felt that adequate information and care was given to them during the trial, and that they would participate in future clinical studies, and would also recommend such studies to their friends. (shrink)

This paper closely examines two statements proposed by Feijoo: 1. Machiavelli sets his doctrine in history, therefore his works do not constitute a really original position; 2. Feijoo writes on Machiavelli, but says he never read The Prince entirely. He only read some fundamental quotes, cited by other authors.It is clear that all his references also appear in the voice “Machiavelli” of Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire. Moreover, Feijoo’s interpretation is very different from Pierre Bayle’s: in the latter’s view, the work of (...) the Florentine is admirable because Machiavelli breaks with ignorance and hypocrisy revealing the truth of history. According to Feijoo, the Florentine master did not discover anything original and his works merely present the worst examples of governance practices. (shrink)

Contemporary bioethics education has been developed predominately within Euro-American contexts, and now, other global regions are increasingly joining the field, leading to a richer global understanding. Nevertheless, many standard bioethics curriculum materials retain a narrow geographic focus. The purpose of this article is to use local cases from the Asia-Pacific region as examples for exploring questions such as ‘what makes a case or example truly local, and why?’, ‘what topics have we found to be best explained through local cases or (...) examples?’, and ‘how does one identify a relevant local case?’ Furthermore, we consider the global application of local cases to help extend the possible scope of the discussion, opening new avenues for the development of practical bioethics educational materials. We begin with a background description and discussion of why local cases enhance bioethics education, move to an overview of what is currently available and what is not for the region, and then outline a discussion of what it means to be local using example cases drawn from Hong Kong, Australia, Pakistan, and Malaysia. We are not creating a casebook but rather constructing by example a toolbox for designing active and dynamic learning cases using regional diversity as contextualised cases with generalised principles. (shrink)

Honesty and integrity are key attributes of an ethically competent physician. However, academic misconduct, which includes but is not limited to plagiarism, cheating, and falsifying documentation, is common in medical colleges across the world. The purpose of this study is to describe differences in the self-reported attitudes and behaviours of medical students regarding academic misconduct depending on gender, year of study and type of medical institution in Pakistan.

At the heart of ethics reside the concepts of good and bad; they are at work when we assess whether a person is virtuous or vicious, an act right or wrong, a decision defensible or indefensible, a goal desirable or undesirable. But there are many varieties of goodness and badness. At their core lie intrinsic goodness and badness, the sort of value that something has for its own sake. It is in virtue of intrinsic value that other types of value (...) may be understood, and hence that we can begin to come to terms with questions of virtue and vice, right and wrong, and so on. This book investigates the nature of intrinsic value: just what it is for something to be valuable for its own sake, just what sort of thing can have such value, just how such a value is to be computed. In the final chapter, the fruits of this investigation are applied to a discussion of pleasure, pain, and displeasure and also of moral virtue and vice, in order to determine just what value lies within these phenomena. (shrink)

At the beginning of the 20th century Machiavelli is an author celebrated by Ortega y Gasset: the philosopher of Madrid despises the nineteenth century, epilogue of an era, as much as he admires the Renaissance. Twenty years later - in España invertebrada - Ortega reads the pages of Il Principe as the brilliant commentary “from an Italian to the deeds of two Spaniards”, Fernando el Católico and César Borja. D ‘Ors’s position is very different. Although in 1920, in favor of (...) Machiavelli, he opposed “vulgar beliefs”, certainly ends up among the most radical critics. According to d ‘Ors, Machiavelli reaffirms in modernity the paganism of the Emperor Julian and anticipates - against Dante and his theory of the empire - the fate of a fragmented Europe, in which ideas and nations fight, without any reference to a universal authority. (shrink)

The significant social and cultural transformations which took place in recent decades brought about significant changes in the way couples interact and deal with “the risk of bonding”. The vulnerability that characterizes the couple in post-modernity is the consequence of these changes. The application of a co-therapy model with couples in crisis is based on the premise of mutual gift, which has to be understood as both an exchange of expertise and professionalism to the benefit of the couple, and as (...) a bond of unity between co-therapists. The work that follows suggests some reflections which originate from the co-therapy model. The novelty of this model originates from the fact that the clinical work is based on two connected and complementary aspects: a deep attention towards the patient and a deep attention towards the relationship between the co-therapists. Both of these aspects are characterized by the dimension of gift. In this clinical model therapists transform any specific suffering lived by the couple in a positive relational experience between themselves which then becomes an example for the couple. Thus, for example, the inability to understand each other that the couple lives is contrasted by the capacity to listen to each other in a deep and authentic way by the therapists; the attitude of prevailing over each other in the couple, is counterbalanced by the therapists’ attention towards each other. And so on. This act of “overturning the limit” seems to reveal the therapeutic potential that a model of co-therapy, based on a new humanism, can offer to the clinical work with couples in crisis. (shrink)

Like Caesar's Gaul, my essay is divided into three parts, according to the subjects mentioned in the subtitle. The “crisis consciousness” of the main title forms less a subdivision of the essay than a leitmotif accompanying all the parts as well as the whole.

It is not the purpose of this short essay to try the impossible and give an adequate historical survey of the Western image (or rather images) of China. There is, moreover, a vast literature on the subject to which both sinologists and historians of European culture have contributed. The following paragraphs will restrict themselves to two poles in this history: the perception and reception of China in the 17th century (with Leibniz as the most significant and impressive representative of the (...) period)—in other words the image of China as current among the philosophes i.e., the pre-enlightenment, still Christian humanists, none of which was (or could have been) a sinologist properly speaking—and again at the end of the 19th century, when academic sinology began to get into stride. Without in any way detracting from the significance of his great predecessors and contemporaries, especially Marcel Granet, we shall limit our discussion to J.J.M. de Groot (Leiden and Berlin, d. 1921). (shrink)

The problems and the history of contacts between distant continents in bygone ages and long before the age of fast and easy travel, have always fascinated both professional scholars and the interested public. Was ancient history really nothing but the history of co-existing and isolated geographic, cultural and political “islands?” Already at school we learned too much about migrations of peoples, economic contacts, influences on art styles, conquests, and the rise, expansion and fall of empires to believe that. The (highly (...) improbable) theory that certain archaeological finds in America suggest, or even prove, Mediterranean influence (e.g., the arrival of Phoenician ships), or the alleged Viking discovery of America centuries before Columbus, or Thor Heyerdahl's adventurous journey to prove South American influence on remote Pacific islands did not fail to cause widespread interest and even excitement (although many scholars still feel that Heyerdahl's epic adventure, thrilling as it is, failed to prove what it set out to prove). The island of Madagascar is pretty close to the African continent, but its language exhibits more points of contact with Polynesian than with African tongues. And the blow-bellows used by Malagache smiths are similar to those used in Malaysia and unlike those known to African metalworkers. Clearly the Polynesians, those great ancient mariners, sailed further than originally seemed likely. Musicologists studying the cantillation of the Hebrew Bible in the liturgy of the ancient Jewish communities on the Malabar coast in India discovered to their surprise that it was similar to the cantillation not of the Babylonian but of the Yemenite Jews! This surprise was, of course, no surprise to those who knew anything about trade-winds and shipping routes between South Arabia and the Indian coast. Historians of religion, even more than general historians, studying the spread and expansion of religious ideas and movements have realised long ago that the beginning of all wisdom is a basic knowledge of economic geography. (shrink)

The phenomenon of ambivalence is an important one for any philosophy of action. Despite this importance, there is a lack of a fully satisfactory analysis of the phenomenon. Although many contemporary philosophers recognize the phenomenon, and address topics related to it, only Harry Frankfurt has given the phenomenon full treatment in the context of action theory - providing an analysis of how it relates to the structure and freedom of the will. In this paper, I develop objections to Frankfurt's account, (...) all revolving around the charge that his account contains a serious ambiguity between willing and identifying. With such objections in place, I then develop an analysis that avoids the difficulties and ambiguities that Frankfurt's analysis is prey to. I briefly distinguish ambivalence from other types of internal conflict. This paper aims to offer conceptual clarification on the phenomenon of ambivalence, which will then allow for discussions about the normative merits and demerits of ambivalence, the effects of ambivalence on autonomous action, and methods of resolution of ambivalence. (shrink)

This book argues against the common view that there are no essential differences between Plato and the Neoplatonist philosopher, Plotinus, on the issues of mysticism, epistemology, and ethics. Beginning by examining the ways in which Plato and Plotinus claim that it is possible to have an ultimate experience that answers the most significant philosophical questions, David J. Yount provides an extended analysis of why we should interpret both philosophers as mystics. The book then moves on to demonstrate that both philosophers (...) share a belief in non-discursive knowledge and the methods to attain it, including dialectic and recollection, and shows that they do not essentially differ on any significant views on ethics. Making extensive use of primary and secondary sources, Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology and Ethics shows the similarities between the thought of these two philosophers on a variety of philosophical questions, such as meditation, divination, wisdom, knowledge, truth, happiness and love. (shrink)

In the late nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth thematic resemblances to the Roman elegists in Paulus Silentiarius were explained as the result of the poets' reliance on a common Hellenistic source – usually this was identified as the so-called ‘subjective Alexandrian love elegy’ – and this represented a departure from the views of earlier scholars such as Hertzberg and Postgate, who had maintained that Paulus knew and imitated the elegists. In recent years the pendulum has swung (...) back , and the prevailing opinion seems to be that the Roman elegists were known to Paulus. This is the view of, for instance, Giovanni Viansino in his edition of Paulus, of Elmar Schulz-Vanheyden in his important work on Propertius' relationship to Greek epigram, and of Hermann Beckby in his edition of the Greek Anthology. Recently, too, Gordon Williams has put forward a very strong case for earlier epigrammatists like Antipater and Crinagoras imitating the Augustan poets. (shrink)

In this book, James Lesher presents the Greek texts of all the surviving fragments of Xenophanes' teachings, with an original English translation on facing pages, along with detailed notes and commentaries and a series of essays on the philosophical questions generated by Xenophanes' remarks.