The concept of the quality of life: The medical and the bioethical aspectThe concept of the quality of life initially contained mainly objective indicators. It was only later that it was extended so as to include the subjective ones as well. Upon its transfer from its original medical context into the social sciences, the concept of the quality of life has inspired a new approach to sick persons. It is now acknowledged that it is not enough to merely prolong a (...) life. It also has to meet the standards generally recognized by active, healthy people. In the assessment of the quality of life both objective state of human health and socio-economic status and subjective satisfaction with life and perception of each other indicators are used. It is used, among other things, to evaluate the effects of medical and non-medical health care and medical intervention. In bioethics, it is noted that the term diminishes the value of human life. The methods used to assess the value of human life based on economic analysis and the measuring of the quality of life can lead to undesirable consequences. Conclusion: on the one hand, the estimation of the quality of life is imminent for various reasons; on the other hand, however, it raises ethical objections. (shrink)

Since the Supreme Court of New Jersey decided the Quinlan case a quarter of a century ago, three American Supreme Court decisions and a host of state appellate decisions have addressed end-of-life issues. These decisions, as well as legislation addressing the same issues, have prompted a torrent of law journal articles analyzing every aspect of end-of-life law. In recent years, moreover, a number of law review articles, many published in this journal, have also specifically addressed legal issues raised by palliative (...) care. Much less is known in the United States, however, as to how other countries address these issues. Reflection on the experience and analysis of other nations may give Americans a better understanding of their own experience, as well as suggest improvements to their present way of dealing with the difficult problems in this area.This article offers a conceptual and comparative analysis of major legal issues relating to end-of-life treatment and to the treatment of pain in a number of countries. In particular, it focuses on the law of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan. (shrink)

Internet jest przestrzenią, która otworzyła nowe możliwości prezentowania dziedzictwa kulturowego. Wraz z rozwojem sieci użytkownicy zyskali dostęp do cyfrowych kopii książek, dzieł sztuki oraz wizualizacji 3D zabytkowych budowli i całych miast. Kontakt z kulturą za pośrednictwem mediów nigdy wcześniej nie był tak łatwy. Trudno nie docenić tych możliwości, szczególnie mając w pamięci niedawne czasy pandemii, kiedy to kontakt z kulturowym dorobkiem człowieka ograniczał się głównie do form online. Zasoby online to ogromny rezerwuar materiałów wszelkiego typu, z którego użytkownicy wybierają zazwyczaj (...) te odpowiadające ich zainteresowaniom i preferencjom. Na stronach i platformach internetowych można znaleźć bogaty wachlarz multimediów, tekstów, zdjęć, filmów, symulacji i rekonstrukcji, materiałów związanych z każdym okresem kulturowej i artystycznej działalności człowieka. Różne są też źródła, z których zostały one zaczerpnięte. Duża część materiałów to cyfrowe kopie dzieł sztuki, skany manuskryptów, starodruków, starych fotografii i filmów, udostępnione na oficjalnych stronach instytucji kultury: muzeów, bibliotek czy archiwów. Jeszcze liczniejszą grupę stanowią zasoby, które zostały udostępnione w Internecie w efekcie spontanicznych, oddolnych praktyk jego użytkowników, udostępniających materiały pochodzące z ich prywatnych zbiorów. Są to m.in. zdjęcia wykonane eksponatom muzealnym, pomnikom i zabytkom, a także filmy kręcone w historycznych miejscach. Celem artykułu jest zwrócenie uwagi na problem prezentacji w cyberprzestrzeni treści związanych z dziedzictwem kulturowym oraz korzyści, jakie płyną z digitalizacji zasobów dziedzictwa kulturowego1. Rzadko zwraca się przy tym jednak uwagę na zagrożenia związane z rozpowszechnianiem tych materiałów online. Te same technologie, które pozwalają na prezentowanie obiektów kulturowych w cyfrowych mediach, prowadzą często do przedstawień daleko odbiegających od ich oryginalnego wyglądu, a czasem – do dekontekstualizacji. Zbyt duże zaufanie do możliwości współczesnej technologii może w efekcie prowadzić do degradacji kultury. W tekście przedstawiono przykłady podstawowych problemów związanych z tym zagadnieniem. (shrink)

The Polish society has perceived privatization as an issue of special importance which enables a free market economy in a short time. Privatization has always raised hopes and expectations. It is the lack of experience in the field of ownership transformations, the level of their complexity and the economic, legal, psychological and other conditionings that have confronted those transformations with many hindrances. They have also raised numerous moral and ethical dilemmas among the staff of privatized companies and founding organs including (...) the staff of the Voivodship Council of Łódź. The decisions of the Working Board of one company about the future path of privatization have raised concerns among the staff uncertain of the fate of their place of work. In such cases the voice of the staff, which previously contributed to the company’s financial status, has always been decisive when choosing the path of privatization; this concerns mostly workers’ partnerships. It was John Paul II’s words about people of conscience who are needed in Poland, which were said in Skoczów, that were crucial for privatization decisions by the Voivodship Council of Łódź. (shrink)

Typology of perpetrators of domestic violence The objective of the research conducted by the author was to obtain an answer to the question: could we distinguish different types of intrafamily violence perpetrators considering a specified profile of personality factors and temperament traits and how domestic violence perpetrators cope with stressful situations? The research was conducted on a group of 325 men who were convicted pursuant to article 207§1 & 2 of harassment over family members. In terms of a gender the (...) group was homogenous. On the basis of the literature on the subject, the following personality traits of violence perpetrators were categorised: locus of control, self-acceptance, aggressiveness, hostility, intelligent quotient and temperament traits. The following research techniques were employed in the study: the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, Berger's Self-Acceptance Scale, the Delta Questionnaire by R. Drwal, the SABD Questionnaire - Buss-Durkee, Formal Characteristics of Behaviour - Temperament Inventory by J. Strelau, the WCQ questionnaire by R.S. Lazarus and S. Folkman, a categorised interview and an analysis of court records. As a result of the analysis conducted on a group of the studied sample of violence perpetrators, four subgroups, differing in terms of selected personality traits, were specified. They are reactively aggressive perpetrators, perpetrators of low preventive competences, psychopathic and retaliatory perpetrators and perpetrators with a big adaptive potential. Further on, four distinguished groups have been characterised in terms of stress-coping strategies, and psychological processes of coping with stress proceeded differently in the research group. (shrink)

Recent years in Poland have been characterized by the dynamic development of scientific activity among nurses. It might have been caused by several factors, namely: the rising needs and expectations of representatives of this professional group, the necessity of adjusting to EU standards, changes in the system of education, as well as the individual “research needs” of those representatives. However, is there a correlation between the increase in the quantity of scientific research and its quality? An attempt to answer that (...) question led the author to formulate this paper’s goal, which had been formulated as follows: to analyse different sources of information concerning the reality of scientific research in nursing in Poland. (shrink)

Interactive media create a space conducive to development of participatory culture, in which media content recipients become its active creators. Participant activities are not limited to commenting on online articles or being active on social media. They want to influence reality through their actions and to participate in creating and spreading information. The willingness and readiness of Internet users to co-create content is becoming increasingly important also in scientific projects, where success depends on the involvement of many volunteers who undertake (...) specific tasks. Although such projects are often time-consuming, they usually do not require advanced skills from the people involved. The only payoff for their efforts is the satisfaction that comes from participating, as well as the recognition in their community. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to evaluate the phenomenon of crowdsourcing in humanities, especially in the context of the new reality created by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is based on the literature which addresses the importance of crowdsourcing in projects in a variety of areas, on top of an analysis of examples in which this method is used. The selection of presented examples is strongly intended to demonstrate the enormous possibilities and resulting benefits of involving willing volunteers in humanities projects. Their role is not diminished by the fact that they do not have competencies related to project topics. It can be assumed that crowsrourcing will be more and more widely used by researchers, especially in times when increasing numbers of people undertake online activities. (shrink)

Since the Supreme Court of New Jersey decided the Quinlan case a quarter of a century ago, three American Supreme Court decisions and a host of state appellate decisions have addressed end-of-life issues. These decisions, as well as legislation addressing the same issues, have prompted a torrent of law journal articles analyzing every aspect of end-of-life law. In recent years, moreover, a number of law review articles, many published in this journal, have also specifically addressed legal issues raised by palliative (...) care. Much less is known in the United States, however, as to how other countries address these issues. Reflection on the experience and analysis of other nations may give Americans a better understanding of their own experience, as well as suggest improvements to their present way of dealing with the difficult problems in this area.This article offers a conceptual and comparative analysis of major legal issues relating to end-of-life treatment and to the treatment of pain in a number of countries. In particular, it focuses on the law of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan. (shrink)

The author of the article begins with a discussion of how specialists in the field understand the term “autobiography” and what its role is. Then, she presents the results of an analysis of autobiographical elements present in texts by 136 students starting Polish studies. In analysing the collected works, she diagnoses the places and attitudes of students who referred to stories from their own school lives, their considerations about their teachers’ ways of perceiving pupils, and the purpose of such texts. (...) She also indicates the roles of emotions and the recollections of the personal past in creating school memories, and developing various ways of thinking about pupils, teachers, and literature. In treating those texts as diagnoses of the problems of school and school Polish education, she discusses the importance of such observations for their authors, readers and for school and university education. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Osoba – fikcja czy rzeczywistość? Tożsamość i jedność ja w świetle badań neurologicznych [A Person: Fiction or Reality? Identity and Oneness of the I in View of Neurologic Research], by Józef Bremer.

The eighteenth‑century English writer Matthew Gregory Lewis wrote one of the most dramatic Gothic novels, The Monk; over 200 years later, a film of the same name appeared, based on the novel and directed by Dominik Moll. The film, a free adaptation of the book, presenting the story of the moral downfall of the monk Ambrosio, has inspired us to philosophical reflections on sexuality, sensuality, and physical desire. We have attempted to analyze and interpret this cinematic work of art in (...) the context of these issues. The method we have adopted is based on a thorough discussion of the topics developed in the film and related issues. This method, while not pretending to be scientific objective, enables us to outline an interesting field of research as well as to identify a number of theoretical problems and questions that remain open. The formula we have adopted is to quote lines from the film The Monk which permits the analysis of selected issues related to sexuality, sensuality, and physical desire. Moreover, these quotes serve to order the text and enable the precise identification of interpretive trains of thought. (shrink)

Science or myth? This question contains the basic problem, arising from the analysis of evolutionary psychology. The problem in question refers to the status of the interpretations of reality promoted by the evolutionists, in par­ticular in reference to the human being. This article is an attempt to present an argument for the following thesis: firstly, that there are no scientific criteria for evaluating hypotheses in evolutionary psychology; and secondly that the theses of the discipline contain certain cultural contents - which (...) until present times were carried by myth. (shrink)

Science or myth? This question contains the basic problem, arising from the analysis of evolutionary psychology. The problem in question refers to the status of the interpretations of reality promoted by the evolutionists, in particular in reference to the human being. This article is an attempt to present an argument for the following thesis: firstly, that there are no scientific criteria for evaluating hypotheses in evolutionary psychology; and secondly that the theses of the discipline contain certain cultural contents—which until present (...) times were carried by myth. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Osoba – fikcja czy rzeczywistość? Tożsamość i jedność ja w świetle badań neurologicznych [A Person: Fiction or Reality? Identity and Oneness of the I in View of Neurologic Research], by Józef Bremer.