In behavioral ethics today, there is debate as to which theory of moral development is the best for understanding ethical decision making, thereby facilitating ethical behavior. This debate between behavioral ethicists has been profoundly influenced by the field of moral psychology. Unfortunately, in the course of this marriage between moral psychology and business ethics and subsequent internal debate, a simple but critical understanding of human being in the field of management has been obscured; i.e., that morality is not a secondary (...) phenomenon arising out of something else. Therefore, in this paper, we will argue that there is a need in behavioral ethics to shift our understanding away from the influence of contemporary moral psychology and back to management theorist Ghoshal’s :75–91, 2005) view of what it means to be human in which the moral is fundamental. To assist in this labor, we will build on the philosophical work of Emmanuel Levinas who sees ethics, regardless of the setting, as a metaphysical concern. What this means is that Levinas sees the essential moral character of human life and the reality of human agency as ontologically fundamental, or constitutive of human nature itself. In other words, the ethical is the “first cause” in regard to understanding the nature and action of the individual, including within organizations. Thus, morality in any sphere of human endeavor, including in business, is not merely epiphenomenal to some more fundamental reality. (shrink)

Several lines of evidence indicate that rapid target-aiming movements, involving both the eyes and hand, can be biased by the visual context in which the movements are performed. Some of these contextual influences carry-over from trial to trial. This research indicates that dissociation between the dorsal and ventral systems based on speed, conscious awareness, and frame of reference is far from clear.

The Protein Ontology (PRO) provides a formal, logically-based classification of specific protein classes including structured representations of protein isoforms, variants and modified forms. Initially focused on proteins found in human, mouse and Escherichia coli, PRO now includes representations of protein complexes. The PRO Consortium works in concert with the developers of other biomedical ontologies and protein knowledge bases to provide the ability to formally organize and integrate representations of precise protein forms so as to enhance accessibility to results of protein (...) research. PRO (http://pir.georgetown.edu/pro) is part of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry. (shrink)

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's competitive career development award selects awardees annually. This paper describes changes DDCF made to its grants making process to improve gender representation in its applicant and awardee pools.

The federal government is funding a sea change in health care by investing in interventions targeting social determinants of health, which are significant contributors to illness and health inequity. This funding power has encouraged states, professional and accreditation organizations, health care entities, and providers to focus heavily on social determinants. We examine how this shift in focus affects clinical practice in the fields of oncology and emergency medicine, and highlight potential areas of reform.

The Protein Ontology (PRO) web resource provides an integrative framework for protein-centric exploration and enables specific and precise annotation of proteins and protein complexes based on PRO. Functionalities include: browsing, searching and retrieving, terms, displaying selected terms in OBO or OWL format, and supporting URIs. In addition, the PRO website offers multiple ways for the user to request, submit, or modify terms and/or annotation. We will demonstrate the use of these tools for protein research and annotation.

Background. As the development and use of genetic tests have increased, so have concerns regarding the uses of genetic information. Genetic discrimination, the differential treatment of individuals based on real or perceived differences in their genomes, is a recently described form of discrimination. The range and significance of experiences associated with this form of discrimination are not yet well known and are investigated in this study. Methods. Individuals at-risk to develop a genetic condition and parents of children with specific genetic (...) conditions were surveyed by questionnaire for reports of genetic discrimination. A total of 27,790 questionnaires were sent out by mail. Of 917 responses received, 206 were followed up with telephone interviews. The responses were analyzed regarding circumstances of the alleged discrimination, the institutions involved, issues relating to the redress of grievances, and strategies to avoid discrimination. (shrink)

Nul n'ignore, depuis l'arrêt Branly, que l'histoire peut être objet de chicane. L'évolution des mœurs ayant transformé l'institution judiciaire en caisse de résonance propre à mettre en lumière les causes les plus obscures, cette rencontre du droit et de l'histoire ne relève plus, aujourd'hui, de l'anecdote mais du phénomène social. Il ne s'agit plus seulement de réparer l'outrage causé par le silence de l'historien négligent sur l'œuvre d'un aïeul méritant. On ne craint plus d'ériger le juge en arbitre des différentes (...) lectures possibles des événements historiques récents. Il est parfois sommé de dire si la manière dont on a rapporté ces faits est licite, c'est-à-dire conforme au droit. Comment pourrait-il échapper à cette singulière mission quand la loi elle-même encourage la " judiciarisation " de l'histoire? L'un des apports majeurs de la thèse réside dans l'examen du rôle imparti au juge et à la loi en la matière : ce qu'il est et ce qu'il devrait être. On voit ainsi émerger de cette étude une conclusion inespérée. Carole Vivant démontre une tendance constante des tribunaux à prendre en considération la spécificité du travail de l'historien et son utilité sociale. Il en résulte un allègement des contraintes juridiques susceptibles de nuire à la recherche historique. Mieux : malgré les pressions qu'il subit, malgré quelques décisions isolées qui sont l'arbre cachant la forêt, il s'avère que le juge répugne à museler la liberté de l'historien, que ce soit au nom d'un intérêt privé ou en considération d'une certaine vision de l'intérêt général. Belle leçon donnée au législateur, qui pourrait s'inspirer de cette sagesse prétorienne. P.P. Les historiens se félicitent que les conclusions de cette thèse rejoignent et confortent leurs préoccupations de préserver l'indispensable liberté de la recherche. La publication du grand travail de Carole Vivant arrive à point. R. R. (shrink)

In a recently published article, R. N. McLaughlin argues for what he calls an “open form” of bill of rights, in preference to the standard closed form. Such an open form would consist of a directive to the courts “to invalidate laws which offend fundamental morals by depriving citizens of basic rights, or by forcing them to deprive others of basic rights.” A standard form consists, of course, of a list of rights which are not to be violated. His reason (...) for making this proposal is that he does not think the standard form is capable of keeping pace with the changing moral codes which such a bill is supposed to reflect, whereas the open form would by its very nature do so. I should like, in what follows, to argue that the open form presents a number of serious problems which the standard form does not, and that a standard form is in the end to be preferred, both because it does not present these new problems and because it need not be as inflexible in the face of changing moral standards as McLaughlin thinks. (shrink)

Clark, R. L. Facts, fact-correlates, and fact-surrogates.--Heintz, J. The real subject-predicate asymmetry.--Stenius, E. All men are mortal.--Wilson, N. L. Notes on the form of certain elementary facts.--Binkley, R. The ultimate justification of moral rules.--Castañeda, H. Goodness, intentions, and propositions.--Patterson, R. L. An analysis of faith.--Simpson, E. Discrimination as an example of moral irrationality.--Welsh, P. Osborne on the art of appreciation.--Lachs, J. The omnicolored sky: Baylis on perception.--Strawson, P. F. Causation in perception.--Reid, C. L. Charles A. Baylis: a bibliography.

The Protein Ontology (PRO; http://proconsortium.org) formally defines protein entities and explicitly represents their major forms and interrelations. Protein entities represented in PRO corresponding to single amino acid chains are categorized by level of specificity into family, gene, sequence and modification metaclasses, and there is a separate metaclass for protein complexes. All metaclasses also have organism-specific derivatives. PRO complements established sequence databases such as UniProtKB, and interoperates with other biomedical and biological ontologies such as the Gene Ontology (GO). PRO relates to (...) UniProtKB in that PRO’s organism-specific classes of proteins encoded by a specific gene correspond to entities documented in UniProtKB entries. PRO relates to the GO in that PRO’s representations of organism-specific protein complexes are subclasses of the organism-agnostic protein complex terms in the GO Cellular Component Ontology. The past few years have seen growth and changes to the PRO, as well as new points of access to the data and new applications of PRO in immunology and proteomics. Here we describe some of these developments. (shrink)

This paper is a theoretical and empirical investigation into whether persons in subordinate social contexts possess agency and if they do, how do we recognise and recover their agency given the oppressive conditions of their lives. It aims to achieve this through forging closer links between the philosophical arguments and the ethnographic evidence of women's agency. Through such an exercise, this paper hopes to bridge the existing gap between feminist theoretical interventions and feminist politics as well as to increase ‘sociological (...) awareness’ within feminist philosophical arguments. In order to think about women's agency in oppressive social contexts, the paper evaluates the suitability of existing theoretical frameworks for examining, describing and capturing the autonomy of persons and concludes that a new and a more complex thinking is required to facilitate thinking about human agency within oppressive transcultural contexts. The social context of subordination, the exhibition of agency within and oppressive context and the application of the new theoretical framework is illustrated in an extensive empirical study of the contact with modernity and its accompanying ideas of autonomy and individual rights of rural women belonging to two districts in Rajasthan, North western India. (shrink)

Une lettre de l'Espagnol Consentius, chrétien, adressée à Augustin d'Hippone , exprime l'embarras du lecteur des « Confessions » d'Augustin devant un genre tout à fait nouveau de style. Cela permet à l'A. de montrer comment réagissaient les contemporains devant une rhétorique qui n'étonne plus le lecteur moderne; et d'établir qu'Augustin a délibérément créé un langage et un style « chrétien » destiné à contrebalancer le style classique lié aux souvenirs païens.

When I was seven years old I discovered that I had been seeing the world differently from other people. My senses were joined. I was a synesthete. Over the years, I learned quite a bit about my synesthesia, but I was surprised in 2013 when I suddenly began to have another kind of vision, hypnagogic images. At first, I thought these new visions were part of my synesthesia, that I was seeing a new form, one I didn’t have a name (...) for. But synesthesia needs a trigger, a trigger that causes us to see what we see. This form did not have a trigger, and that concerned me. In this paper I will explore the visual similarities and differences between my synesthetic photisms and my hypnagogic visions. I will compare the triggers or lack thereof, where I see the images, the ways in which the shapes I see appear, their colors, and their commonalities. I will discuss how the hypnagogic visions have changed, along with the fact that now both synesthetic and hypnagogic visions occur during the same experience, and that I have found other synesthetes who also have both synesthesia and hypnagogia. À l’âge de sept ans j’ai découvert que je voyais le monde différemment des autres. Mes sens étaient reliés. J’étais une synesthète. Avec les années, j’ai beaucoup appris sur ma synesthésie mais j’ai été surprise en 2013 quand soudain j’ai commencé à voir une autre sorte de vision, des images hypnagogiques. Au début j’ai pensé que ces nouvelles visions faisaient partie de ma synesthésie, que j’en voyais une nouvelle forme, dont j’ignorais le nom. J’ai commencé à être préoccupée par cette forme qui n’avait pas de déclencheur. Dans cet article j’explorerai les similarités visuelles et les différences entre mes photismes synesthétiques et mes visions hypnagogiques. Je comparerai les déclencheurs ou leur absence, les espaces où je vois les images et de quelles manières apparaissent les formes que je vois, leurs couleurs et leurs points communs. J’examinerai comment changeaient les visions hypnagogiques et le fait que je vois des visions à la fois synesthésiques et hypnagogiques se produire dans la même expérience, et que j’ai trouvé d’autres synesthètes qui eux aussi ont à la fois la synesthésie et l’hypnagogie. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: My comment will focus on the following five claims of Humphrey's. At some points I will be drawing on his book A History of the Mind as well as the target article in this issue.

Cet article présente et discute la méthodologie de construction d’un corpus plurilingue en diachronie longue (1681-1914). Puisqu’il n’existait pas de corpus alsacien significatif, un important travail de construction d’un corpus significatif a été mené afin de constituer un corpus documentant les contacts linguistiques dans les écrits des locuteurs-scripteurs alsaciens. Cette tâche a présenté un certain nombre de défis méthodologiques causés par le contact des langues, la variation sociolinguistique et diachronique, le manque de sources primaires et de documents numérisés. Parmi ces (...) défis entrent aussi en compte la complexité du contexte historico-politico-sociolinguistique et les rapports entre oralité et scripturalité. (shrink)

BackgroundAcute myocardial infarction (AMI) research is challenging as it requires enrollment of acutely ill patients. Patients are generally in a suboptimal state for providing informed consent. Patients’ understanding to verbal assents have not been previously examined in AMI research. Patients Acceptance and Comprehension to Written and Verbal Consent (PAC–VC) compared patients’ understanding and attitudes to verbal and written consents in AMI RCTs.MethodsPAC–VC recruited patients from 3 AMI trials using both verbal N = 12 and written N = 6 consents. We (...) compared patients’ understanding using two survey questionnaires. The first questionnaire used open-ended questions with multiple choice answers. The second questionnaire used a 5-point Likert scale to measure patients understanding and attitudes to the consent process. Overall answers average scores were categorized into three groups: Adequate understanding (71–100) %, Partial understanding (41–70)% and Inadequate understanding (0–40)%.ResultsResponses showed patients with verbal assent had adequate understanding to most components of informed consent, close to those of written consent. Most patients did not read written information entirely and believed that it is not important to make a final decision. Patients favoured to have written information be part of the consent but not necessarily presented during the initial consent process. Patients felt less pressured in the verbal assent arm than those of written consent.ConclusionPatients had adequate understanding to most components of verbal assent and comparable to those of written consent. Utilizing verbal assents in the acute care setting should be further assessed in larger trials. (shrink)

In Felisberto Hernández’s story “The Stray Horse,” the young narrator imagines that the piano teacher’s sitting room furniture has relationships, intentions, and desires. The developmental psychologist Paul Bloom attributes this imagination of objects as living as part of normal development in childhood. He argues that such a tendency, while scientifically incorrect, was an evolutionary advantage in the long, brutal prehistory of mankind. Whatever the merits of Bloom’s evolutionary story, it fails to grasp the nature of creative imagination in children. Maurice (...) Merleau-Ponty cautions against reading backward from the adult into the child. Seeing all that is adult existing in some minor form in children fails to capture those unique, and often lost, parts of childhood experience. In their imaginative play, children rarely confuse object and toy play with religion. Instead of fitting into adult metaphysical commitments, children’s imaginations challenge our organization of reality. The intensity and rigidity of children’s play with objects, including their fear of select ones, often seems to speak of objects, such as those from “The Stray Horse,” that are connected to a parallel world that intervenes weakly on our own. It is fantastical, but not as in an addition to our metaphysical commitments, but as a kind of barbarian reality. This paper takes up the challenge of childhood imagination as the phenomenological prehistory of our own creative imagination. It considers the work in psychoanalytic and phenomenological accounts of childhood memories and ties it to the creative imagination of authors like Hernández. Dans le récit de Felisberto Hernandez, Le Cheval perdu, le jeune narrateur imagine que le mobilier du salon de sa professeur de piano possède des relations, des intentions et des désirs. Le psychologue du développement Paul Bloom attribue à ce fantasme, qui fait des objets des êtres vivants, une partie du développement normal de l’enfance. Il soutient que cette tendance, bien que scientifiquement incorrecte, a été un avantage dans la longue et brutale préhistoire de l’humanité. Malgré les mérites de l’histoire de l’évolution de Bloom, elle ne parvient pas à saisir la nature de l’imagination créative des enfants. Maurice Merleau-Ponty met en garde contre une lecture rétrospective qui voit l’adulte dans l’enfant : voir tout ce qui est de l’adulte déjà exister en quelque sorte sous forme mineure dans l’enfant, nous empêche de comprendre les traits uniques, et souvent perdus, de l’expérience de l’enfance. Dans leur jeu imaginaire, les enfants confondent rarement le prétexte de leur jeu ou leur jouet avec la religion. Plutôt que de s’inscrire dans les obligations métaphysiques des adultes, l’imagination des enfants met en question notre organisation de la réalité. L’intensité et la rigueur avec lesquelles les enfants jouent avec les objets, impliquant aussi la peur qu’ils ont de certains d’entre eux, semblent vouloir parler d’objets (comme ceux du Cheval perdu) connectés à un monde parallèle qui lui-même n’interfère que faiblement avec le nôtre. C’est un monde fantastique, non pas comme ajouté à nos contraintes métaphysiques, mais plutôt comme une réalité barbare. Cet article relève le défi de l’imagination infantile entendue comme la préhistoire phénoménologique de notre imagination créative. Il prend en charge le travail psychanalytique et phénoménologique concernant les souvenirs d’enfance et le met en rapport avec l’imagination créative d’auteurs comme Hernandez.Nel racconto di Felisberto Hernandez, Il cavallo perduto, il giovane narratore immagina che il mobilio del salotto della sua insegnante di pianoforte sviluppi relazioni, intenzioni e desideri. Lo psicologo dello sviluppo Paul Bloom considera l’immaginare gli oggetti come esseri viventi parte di un normale sviluppo nell’infanzia. Egli sostiene infatti che tale credenza, benché scientificamente errata, sia stata un vantaggio nella lunga e violenta preistoria dell’umanità. Malgrado i meriti della storia dell’evoluzione di Bloom, questa non riesce tuttavia a cogliere la natura dell’immaginazione creativa nei bambini. Maurice Merleau-Ponty mette in guardia da una lettura retrospettiva che veda l’adulto nel bambino: vedere l’adulto come già esistente, in una qualche forma minore, nel bambino impedisce infatti di cogliere delle componenti uniche, e spesso perdute, dell’esperienza dell’infanzia. Nel loro gioco immaginativo, i bambini raramente confondono l’oggetto e il giocattolo con la religione. Invece di iscriversi nei vincoli metafisici degli adulti, l’immaginazione dei bambini mette in discussione la nostra organizzazione della realtà. L’intensità e l’inflessibilità del giocare dei bambini con gli oggetti, compresa la paura che alcuni di questi incutono in loro, spesso sembra voler parlare di oggetti – come quelli de Il cavallo perduto – che sono connessi ad un mondo parallelo che solo debolmente interferisce con il nostro. È un mondo fantastico, che non va però letto come un’aggiunta rispetto ai nostri vincoli metafisici, quanto piuttosto come una forma di realtà selvaggia. Questo articolo accetta la sfida di pensare l’immaginazione dell’infanzia come preistoria fenomenologica della nostra immaginazione creativa, prendendo in considerazione il lavoro psicoanalitico e fenomenologico sulle memorie infantili e collegandole all’immaginazione creativa di autori come Hernandez. (shrink)

Dans le Littré, le mot « étudiant » est ainsi défini : « Celui qui étudie [...] / Particulièrement celui qui étudie dans une université, et, en France, dans une faculté [...] / Au féminin, étudiante, dans une espèce d'argot, grisette du Quartier Latin ». À la fin du XIXe siècle, l'étudiante, telle que nous la concevons aujourd'hui, c'est-à-dire celle qui étudie, n'existe pas. L'étudiante est celle qui accompagne, voire qui « couche » avec l'étudiant, et non celle qui étudie (...) à ses côtés.. (shrink)

Dans le Littré, le mot « étudiant » est ainsi défini : « Celui qui étudie [...] / Particulièrement celui qui étudie dans une université, et, en France, dans une faculté [...] / Au féminin, étudiante, dans une espèce d'argot, grisette du Quartier Latin ». À la fin du XIXe siècle, l'étudiante, telle que nous la concevons aujourd'hui, c'est-à-dire celle qui étudie, n'existe pas. L'étudiante est celle qui accompagne, voire qui « couche » avec l'étudiant, et non celle qui étudie (...) à ses côtés... (shrink)

Le problème philosophique du principe, tout particulièrement et exemplairement dans son traitement métaphysique, réside dans la difficulté à conjoindre d’un côté l’unité, l’antériorité, la supériorité, la différence, la transcendance du principe vis-à-vis de ce dont il est principe (sans quoi le principe n’est pas principe), et de l’autre côté la présence ou la relation effective du principe à la multiplicité dont il est principe (sans quoi le principe n’est principe de rien). Cette double di...

L'objectif de cet article est de nous reconduire au projet des fondateurs de l'esthétique, – Alexander Baumgarten (1714-1762) et Kant, – c'est-à-dire à la considération du sentir sous toutes ses formes comme objet de réflexion privilégié de l'esthétique, qui n'est pas la science de la beauté, mais l'ontologie du sentir, c'est-à-dire le savoir de ce qu'est sentir. Comment un tel savoir est-il accessible? Par l'expérience esthétique, entendue comme l'unité d'une attitude (sentir) et d'une affection (plaisir). S'appuyant sur les analyses d'Erwin (...) Straus dans Du sens des sens (1935), l'auteur montre que le sentir n'est pas réductible à un mode du connaître, car sa dimension affective nous est cachée par les nécessités de l'action, qui ordonnent « le sentir au connaître, et le connaître à l'agir » et nous conduisent illusoirement « à voir dans le sentir un connaître et non un ressentir ». On comprend dès lors que le plaisir esthétique, – c'est-à-dire les plaisirs simultanés du sentir comme état, de la présence du sensible et de la conscience de se sentir sentant, – doit être cherché dans l'immanence du sentir. (shrink)

Background and PurposeMany critically ill patients in intensive care units (ICUs) are unable to communicate their wishes about goals of care, particularly about the use of life-sustaining treatments. Surrogates and clinicians struggle with medical decisions because of a lack of clarity regarding patients’ preferences, leading to prolonged hospitalizations and increased costs. This project focused on the development and implementation of a tool to facilitate a better communication process by (1) assuring the early identification of a surrogate if indicated on admission (...) and (2) clarifying the decision-making standards that the surrogate was to use when participating in decision making. Before introducing the tool into the admissions routine, the staff were educated about its use and value to the decision-making process.Project and MethodsThe study was to determine if early use of a simple method of identifying a patient’s surrogate and treatment preferences might impact length of stay (LOS) and total hospital charges. A pre- and post-intervention study design was used. Nurses completed the surrogacy information tool for all patients upon admission to the neuroscience ICU. Subjects (total N=203) were critically ill patients who had been on a mechanical ventilator for 96 hours or longer, or in the ICU for seven days or longer. The project included staff education on biomedical ethics, critical communication skills, early identification of families and staff in crisis, and use of a simple tool to document patients’ surrogates and previously expressed care wishes. Data on hospital LOS and hospital charges were collected through a retrospective review of medical records for similar four-month time frames pre- and post-implementation of the assessment tool.ResultsSignificant differences were found between pre- and post-groups in terms of hospital LOS (F=6.39, p=.01) and total hospital charges (F=7.03, p=.009).ConclusionsProject findings indicate that the use of a simple admission assessment tool, supported by staff education about its completion, use, and available resources, can decrease LOS and lower total hospital charges. The reasons for the difference between the pre- and post-intervention groups remain unclear. Further research is needed to evaluate if the quality of communications between patients, their legally authorized representatives, and clinicians—as suggested in the literature—may have played a role in decreasing LOS and total hospital charges. (shrink)