Next SectionPublic and healthcare professionals differ in their attitudes towards euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS), the legal status of which is currently in the spotlight in the UK. In addition to medical training and experience, religiosity, locus of control and patient characteristics (eg, patient age, pain levels, number of euthanasia requests) are known influencing factors. Previous research tends toward basic designs reporting on attitudes in the context of just one or two potentially influencing factors; we aimed to test the comparative (...) importance of a larger range of variables in a sample of nursing trainees and non-nursing controls. One hundred and fifty-one undergraduate students (early-stage nursing training, late-stage nursing training and non-nursing controls) were approached on a UK university campus and asked to complete a self-report questionnaire. Participants were of mixed gender and were on average 25.5 years old. No significant differences in attitude were found between nursing and non-nursing students. There was a significant positive correlation between higher religiosity and positive attitude toward euthanasia (r=0.19, p<0.05) and a significant negative relationship between internal locus of control and positive attitude toward PAS (r=−0.263, p<0.01). Multivariate analyses revealed differing predictor models for attitudes towards euthanasia and PAS, and confirm the importance of individual differences in determining these attitudes. The unexpected direction of association between religiosity and attitudes may reflect a broader cultural shift in attitudes since earlier research in this area. Furthermore, these findings suggest it possible that experience, more than training itself, may be a bigger influence on attitudinal differences in healthcare professionals. (shrink)

Euthanasia has once again become headline news in the UK, with the announcement by Dr Michael Irwin, a former medical director of the United Nations, that he has helped at least 50 people to die, including two between February and July 1997. He has been quoted as saying that his ‘conscience is clear’ and that the time has come to confront the issue of euthanasia. For the purposes of this article, the term ‘beneficent voluntary active euthanasia’ (BVAE) will be used: (...) beneficent from the prima facie principle of beneficence, to do good, and voluntary to indicate that this must be carried out at the request of a competent client. This implies adherence to another prima facie principle, that of respect for autonomy. Active implies that something is done or given with the intention of hastening death. The word euthanasia itself simply means ‘good death’. This article examines the moral positions of two nurses and one junior doctor towards the subject of BVAE and an attempt is made to represent the main conflicting moral positions. The central arguments against BVAE and counterarguments are presented. The conclusion reached is that consenting adults should not be prevented from availing themselves of BVAE if another consenting adult (a medical doctor) is available and capable of carrying out their wishes. This being the case, it is suggested that BVAE should be available as an option in hospices and in the community. The aims of this article are: to generate debate among professionals; to present a three-way discussion that might be useful as a focus for educational purposes, particularly at undergraduate level; to challenge professionals to confront the issue of euthanasia; and to plead the case of those who request assistance in exercising autonomy by gaining control over their own deaths. (shrink)

The issue of abortion has been the topic of heated and frequent debate in post-Communist Poland. Parliamentary debate in 1998—9 centred around a legislative attempt to restrict prenatal testing, specifically amniocentesis, in order to further reduce the numbers of abortions carried out, as it was argued to inevitably result in the termination of pregnancy. Medical professionals are rarely visible as subjects of and authorities on the abortion debate in the Polish context. However, in this debate around prenatal testing, the medical (...) community appear as key commentators and meaning-makers. This article asks the following questions: What role do the medical profession and biomedical knowledge play in the debate around prenatal testing, when abortion is highly politicized? Second, what social meanings and consequences are attributed to prenatal testing? How do these construct the relationship between foetus, pregnant woman and doctor, and what agency and 'rights' are attributed to women in the process of prenatal testing? (shrink)

_From Illiteracy to Literature_ presents innovative material based on research with ‘non-reading’ children and re-examines the complex relationship between psychoanalysis and literature, through the lens of the psychical significance of reading: the forgotten adventure of our coming to reading. Anne-Marie Picard draws on two specific fields of interest: firstly the wish to understand the nature of literariness or the "literary effect", i.e. the pleasures we derive from reading; secondly research on reading pathologies carried out at St Anne’s (...) Hospital, Paris. The author uses clinical observations of non-reading children to answer literary questions about the reading experience, using psychoanalytic theory as a conceptual framework. The notion that reading difficulties or phobias should be seen as a symptom in the psychoanalytic sense, allows Picard to shed light on both clinical vignettes taken from children’s case histories and reading scenes from literary texts. Children experiencing difficulties in learning to read highlight the imaginary stakes of the confrontation with the arbitrary nature of the letter and the "price to pay" for one’s entrance into the Symbolic. Picard applies the lesson "taught" by these children to a series of key literary texts featuring, at their very core, this confrontation with the signifier, with the written code itself.. This book argues that there is something in literature that drives us back, again and again, to the loss we have suffered as human beings, to what we had to undergo to become human: our subjection to the common place of language. Picard shows complex Lacanian concepts "at work" in the field of reading pathologies, emphasizing close reading and a clinical attention to the "letter" of the texts, far from the "psychobiographical" attempts at psychologizing literary authors. _From Illiteracy to Literature_ presents a novel psychodynamic approach that will be of great interest to psychotherapists and language pathologists, appealing to literary scholars and those interested in the process of reading and "literariness.". (shrink)

The article examines some of the conceptual categories currently prevalent both in contemporary French society and in the sociology of the family, relative to the changes in gender relations. It seeks to evaluate the gap between the hypothesis which forms the basis of such conceptualisations – the supposed change in masculine practices – and the actual reality of social reproduction, as evident in the gendered division of labour within the family. The article draws on the evidence about the domestic and (...) parental work carried out by men to be found in national surveys of time-allocation carried out in France and Holland. (shrink)

Ten years after the popular uprising that became a brutal war, Syrian and Syrian-Palestinian authors are engaged in the struggle to craft a historical consciousness that can acknowledge and mourn for their recent revolutionary past without reifying it. As they write in and of material, political, and social ruin, their works echo collective traumas in regional memory: the Palestinian nakba, the rise of Syria’s Assad regime, Lebanon’s civil war, the 2003 occupation of Iraq, and more. The ruin appears cruelly recursive, (...) yet it is arrested in the corpus of works discussed in this article: poetry by Firas Sulaiman and Osama Esber; prose by Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Samer Yazbek, and Ra’id Wahsh; and documentary film by the Abounaddara Collective. Drawing on Arabic poetic modernism and regional politics, I argue that ruin imagery—ranging from war’s rubble to ancient artefacts—carries distinctive structures of temporal anticipation in Syrian literary and cultural memory. The writers and filmmakers discussed deploy formal and thematic means of stasis and repetition, displacement and accumulation, to summon these temporal structures—only to refuse, interrupt, and reroute them. I argue that such poetic engineerings of the images of ruin assert the singularity of the Syrian present within broader collective memories of ruin. As such, they raise a historicizing challenge to the current academic dominance of reading ruin imagery, notably from the Middle East, through an imperial lens. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present an investigation of the action-representation relationship, via the processes which arise from the effects of one’s action and the effects of one’s capacity . These effects are, in our view, of major importance, for they link social legitimation and the personal skill necessary for the preparation and carrying out of action. We look at this complex relationship, and propose a model, the capacity model, which situates action as an executory regulator of representation, (...) which allows us to take some steps towards an explanation of the processes which link action and representation within the identity dynamic. (shrink)

Our understanding of gender carries significant bioethical implications. An errant account of gender-specific disease can lead to overgeneralizations, undergeneralizations, and misdiagnoses. It can also lead to problems in the structure of health-care delivery, the creation of policy, and the development of clinical curricula. In this volume, Cutter argues that gender-specific disease and related bioethical discourses are philosophically integrative. Gender-specific disease is integrative because the descriptive roles of gender, disease, and their relation are inextricably tied to their prescriptive roles within frames (...) of reference. An integrative account of gender-specific disease carries ethical implications because our understanding of gender-specific disease is evaluative, and our evaluations of gender-specific disease entail judgments concerning the praiseworthiness and blameworthiness of a clinical event. Cutter supports a "both/and" emphasis on context and integration in relation to gender-specific disease and bioethical analyses. While the text mainly focuses on gender-specific diseases that affect women, Cutter also includes examples involving men, children, and members of the LGBT community. (shrink)

Any even cursory examination of what it is to exchange words about X or to exchange views about Y requires hard thought about what it is to exchange, period. How do we invest in what we give out, and how do we get it back? In kind, or differently moneyed? And, more crucial to the topic into which I am about to make a foolhardy plunge, is there such a thing as free exchange? And if so, what is it worth?How (...) do we perceive worth anyway? What relation does such perception of the invisible system of the initially visible coinage of exchange bear to present visual perception, and then to seeing? And what does perception matter anyway, in relation to writing, reading, and exchanging words? Which is primary?All these questions—in their institutional setting, or then in their freedom from context—can themselves be related to and gathered up into the notion of translation, or the carrying over from one side to, and into, another. All we can learn about speaking and the ways it is taught, reading and the ways we learn it, seeing and the ways it teaches us is translated and transported from sight and its constraints and choices to language and its own. How we read both is itself a subject of choice and constraint, of freedom and explicit value-placing, of variety and fidelity to certain ends. Mary Ann Caws is professor of English, French, and comparative literature in the Graduate School, City University of New York. She is past president of the Modern Language Association and the author of, among other works, The Eye in the Text: Essays on Perception, Mannerist to Modern , Architextures in Surrealism and After , Reading Frames in Modern Fiction , and Interferences. (shrink)

This survey on biotechnology and bioethics was carried out onnational random samples of the public and scientists in November2000-January 2000 throughout Japan, and attendees at theNovartis Life Science Forum held on 29 September, 1999 inTokyo. The sample size was 297, 370, and 74 respectively. Whilethere is better awareness of GMOs in 2000 compared to 1991; thetrend shows an increase in the perceived risks of GMOs followedby growing resistance in Japan. While a majority of personsbelieved genetic engineering would make life better (...) over the nexttwenty years , the proportion of respondents who thoughtgenetic engineering would make life worse over the next twentyyears doubled from 1997 to 2000 .Respondents were asked whether they had heard aboutapplications in several areas and the order of familiarity was: pest-resistant crops, human genes in bacteria, mouseto develop cancer, food and drinks, pigs with human hearts andpre-implantation diagnosis. A divide of opinion can be seen whenthe results on benefit, risk and moral acceptability of applicationsof biotechnology by the public are compared to the forum andscientist samples.A significant change in the acceptance of the public occurred in2000 where only 22% agreed on the moral acceptability of GMfood compared to 41% in 1997. In 2000 fewer people said they arewilling to buy genetically modified fruits that taste bettercompared to 1997 . The results show less public support foruse of gene therapy than 1993 and twice as many scientistsrejected gene therapy than they did in 1991.When asked whom is best placed to regulate modernbiotechnology, the respondents were overwhelmingly in favor ofinternational regulatory bodies, such as the United Nations andthe World Health Organization , rather than national bodies.The comparison between scientists and public is interesting,however the more enthusastic sample were participants from theNovartis Life Science Forum with its mixed occupations. (shrink)

This survey on biotechnology and bioethics was carried out on national random samples of the public and scientists in November 2000-January 2000 throughout Japan, and attendees at the Novartis Life Science Forum held on 29 September, 1999 in Tokyo. The sample size was 297, 370, and 74 respectively. While there is better awareness of GMOs in 2000 compared to 1991; the trend shows an increase in the perceived risks of GMOs followed by growing resistance in Japan. While a majority of (...) persons believed genetic engineering would make life better over the next twenty years, the proportion of respondents who thought genetic engineering would make life worse over the next twenty years doubled from 1997 to 2000. Respondents were asked whether they had heard about applications in several areas and the order of familiarity was: pest-resistant crops, human genes in bacteria, mouse to develop cancer, food and drinks, pigs with human hearts and pre-implantation diagnosis. A divide of opinion can be seen when the results on benefit, risk and moral acceptability of applications of biotechnology by the public are compared to the forum and scientist samples.A significant change in the acceptance of the public occurred in 2000 where only 22% agreed on the moral acceptability of GM food compared to 41% in 1997. In 2000 fewer people said they are willing to buy genetically modified fruits that taste better compared to 1997. The results show less public support for use of gene therapy than 1993 and twice as many scientists rejected gene therapy than they did in 1991.When asked whom is best placed to regulate modern biotechnology, the respondents were overwhelmingly in favor of international regulatory bodies, such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization, rather than national bodies. The comparison between scientists and public is interesting, however the more enthusastic sample were participants from the Novartis Life Science Forum with its mixed occupations. (shrink)

Stereology is a valuable tool for neuroscientists, allowing them to obtain 3-Dimensional information from 2-Dimensional measurements made on appropriately sampled sections. This 3-D information is invaluable in correlating structural/functional relationships in the pursuit of far greater understanding of the function of the central nervous system. However, in carrying out such measurements, often based on limited data sets, there is a risk of experimenter bias. An important feature of modern design based stereology is to be aware of potential sources of bias (...) and eliminate them during the data collection. With many of the major neuroscience journals now insisting that quantitative data be presented, there is a greater need than ever for neuroscientists to understand the theory and practice behind quantitative methods, such as those offered by stereology. Quantitative Methods in Neuroscience is a cookbook of stereological methods written especially for neuroscientists. It provides clear and accessible advice about when and when not to use stereology. Throughout the book, the emphasis is on practical guidance, rather than discussions and formulae. Written by leading scientists in the field of stereology, with a Foreword by D.C. Sterio, the book will be a valuable introduction to these methods for neuroscientists, and all those involved in development of new drug programmes.Readership: Neuroscientists doing quantitative studies; Scientists involved in drug development; Pathologists. (shrink)

Cherche à mettre en évidence les principes théoriques qui peuvent être au fondement de toute recherche ou réflexion en sociologie de la musique.

A virtue centred approach to ethics has been criticized for being vague owing to the nature of its central concept, the paradigm person. From the perspective of the practitioner the most damaging charge is that virtue ethics fails to be action guiding and, in addition to this, it does not offer any means of act appraisal. These criticisms leave virtue ethics in a weak position vis-à-vis traditional approaches to ethics. The criticism is, however, challenged by Hursthouse in her analysis of (...) the accounts of right action offered by deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics. It is possible to defend the action guiding nature of virtue ethics: there are virtue rules and exemplars to guide action. Insights from Aristotle’s practical approach to ethics are considered alongside Hursthouse’s analysis and it is suggested that virtue ethics is also capable of facilitating action appraisal. It is at the same time acknowledged that approaches to virtue ethics vary widely and that the challenges offered here would be rejected by those who embrace a radical replacement virtue approach. (shrink)

Background In 2001 a report on the provision of clinical ethics support in UK healthcare institutions identified 20 clinical ethics committees. Since then there has been no systematic evaluation or documentation of their work at a national level. Recent national surveys of clinical ethics services in other countries have identified wide variation in practice and scope of activities. Objective To describe the current provision of ethics support in the UK and its development since 2001. Method A postal/electronic questionnaire survey administered (...) to the chairs of all 82 clinical ethics services registered with the UK Clinical Ethics Network in July 2010. Results Response rate was 62% with the majority of responding services situated in acute trusts. All services included a clinical ethics committee with one service also having a clinical ethicist. Lay members were present in 72% of responding committees. Individual case consultation has increased since 2001 with 29% of chairs spending more than 50% of their time on this. Access to and involvement in the process of case consultation is less for patients and families than for clinical staff. There is wide variation in committee processes and levels of institutional support. Over half of the responding committees undertook some form of evaluation. Conclusion Clinical ethics services in the UK are increasing as is their involvement in case consultation. However, the significant variation in committee processes suggests that further qualitative research is needed to understand how these committees function and the role they play in their institution. (shrink)

This book explores five Platonic dialogues: Lysis, Charmides, Protagoras, Euthydemus, and the Republic. This book uses Socrates’ narrative commentary as its primary interpretive framework. No one has engaged in a sustained attempt to explore the Platonic dialogues from this angle. As a result, it offers a unique contribution to Plato scholarship. The portrait of Socrates that emerges challenges the traditional view of Socrates as an intellectualist and offers a holistic vision of philosophical practice.

This article is presented as a defence of voluntary active euthanasia from a virtue perspective and it is written with the objective of generating debate and challenging the assumption that killing is necessarily vicious in all circumstances. Practitioners are often torn between acting from virtue and acting from duty. In the case presented the physician was governed by compassion and this illustrates how good people may have the courage to sacrifice their own security in the interests of virtue. The doctor's (...) action created huge tensions for the nurse, who was governed by the code of conduct and relevant laws. Appraising active euthanasia from a virtue perspective can offer a more compassionate approach to the predicament of practitioners and clients. The tensions arising from the virtue versus rules debate generates irreconcilable difficulties for nurses. A shift towards virtue would help to resolve this problem and support the call for a change in the law. The controversial nature of this position is acknowledged. The argument is put forward on the understanding that many practitioners will not agree with the conclusions reached. (shrink)

The article claims that Ziauddin Sardar's contribution to the religion-science conversation is primarily a performance situated in a social location that gives him access to a highly significant perspective. Sardar places Western science within the context of the Western culture from which it emerged and which it continues to serve. The contemporary hegemonous science of today is one form of science. Its acceptance as a universal and objective form enables its users and promoters to exercise imperialistic control over much of (...) the world. Sardar's critique receives its effective bite from his social location as an immigrant Muslim, raised and educated in Western culture. The article examines the relevance of his social location to the issues with which he is most concerned, such as promotion of the rights and responsibilities of cultures, in particular Islamic cultures, traditionally cast as "Other" by the West. They too have their sciences and these sciences function often within worldviews that are "religious." Sardar's critique of science and his call for the recognition of the so-called Other cultures is significant for its performativity. His work is not merely a descriptive or explanatory account, but bears also the performative characteristics that seek to effect the change for which he calls. (shrink)

Contemporary political discourse is marked with the language of democracy, and Western countries in particular seek to promote democracy at home and abroad. However, there is a sublimated conflict in general political discourse between a desire to rely on alleged political experts and a desire to assert the supposed common sense of all men. Can the struggle between the democratic and aristocratic values embodied in this conflict be reconciled? The question is perennial, and raises issues that are central to constitutional (...) design. Aristotle, developing in significant ways insights made by his teacher Plato, grapples with it in his Politics. Aristotle's views on these matters are relevant—by way of the American Founders'—to contemporary American politics and modern democracies generally. During the eighteenth century, the Founders, some of whom explicitly reached back to Aristotle's work, also struggled—especially in The Federalist Papers—with these thorny issues of constitutional design. They created the U.S. Constitution in part to address these very same problems and issues. We are living in some ways, then, in the shadow of Aristotle's political theorizing, albeit as transposed by the American Founders. Both Aristotle and some of the American Founders theoretically favor aristocracy over democracy, but concede that in practice a blend of the two has to be integrated into the fundamental structure of political society. We need to reconnect with these important political discussions in order to come to terms with aristocratic and democratic values in our current circumstances. Footnotesa I am grateful to Fred Miller and David Keyt for many helpful suggestions and thoughtful questions throughout the editing process. I would also like to thank Irfan Khawaja for valuable feedback on an earlier version of this essay. (shrink)

There is no concept, no matter how strange, in which human beings are not willing to believe fervently, so long as it offers some comfort from the knowledge that one day they will no longer exist, so long as it gives him them hope of some form of eternal life. Norbert Elias1.

Depuis près d'un demi-siècle, Madame Hélène ACKERMANS a coopéré très activement à l'organisation de l'École des sciences philosophiques et religieuses des F.U.S.L. Avec Monseigneur Henri van Camp, elle a donné à la tribune des leçons publiques sa renommée internationale ; auprès de l'actuel comité de direction, elle n'a cessé de prodiguer ses multiples compétences et ses conseils avisés. En hommage à son travail, il a été demandé à quelques-uns des penseurs avec lesquels Madame Hélène ACKERMANS a noué des liens d'amitié, (...) de réfléchir au rôle de la philosophie dans la Cité. (shrink)

The problems of exposing students to real life situations in which they can gain an insight into the dilemmas experienced by clients and staff are highlighted. The value of the Greek notion of catharsis (katharsis: a cleansing) is discussed and the use of literature is suggested as a means of providing students with vicarious experience of the real, but often inaccessible, situations in which nurses may have to make moral decisions.

In this article, I investigate the similarities and differences between the ways we relate to the other in ethics and in love through an engagement with the thinking of K.E. Løgstrup and Emmanuel Levinas. My point of departure will be a reading of a novel by Maja Lucas, Mother, which brings out the important and complicated nature of the relation between ethics and love. My main concern, however, is to investigate how Løgstrup’s and Levinas’s different conceptions of natural love point (...) to differences in their understanding of the ethical relationship to the other. (shrink)

Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen presents a new account of the role of moral philosophy and its relationship to our ordinary moral lives. She challenges the idea that moral theories have an authoritative explanatory or action-guiding role, and develops instead a descriptive, pluralistic, and elucidatory conception of moral philosophy.

In "Implementing Expanded Prenatal Genetic Testing: Should Parents Have Access to Any and All Fetal Genetic Information?," Bayefsky and Berkman argue in favor of establishing three categorie...