Senior leadership transitions present daunting challenges. To promote inclusive development and comply with equal opportunity legislation, South African companies often fast-track careers of high-potential previously disadvantaged individuals. Organisations typically do not sufficiently support transitioning leaders, possibly acting unethically. The rate of failure is high with devastating effects for the individual and their organisation. The novel, empirically researched Transformative Transition Coaching framework, helps facilitate deep and lasting changes in meaning perspectives of transitioning leaders through coaching. The ability of the TTC framework (...) to support transitioning leaders is presented in this article. (shrink)

We propose that institutions consider establishing a position of “Ombudsman for Research Practice”. This person would assume several roles: as asounding board to those needing confidential consultation about research issues — basic, applied or clinical; as afacilitator for those wishing to pursue a formal grievance process; and as aneducator to distribute guidelines and standards, to raise the consciousness regarding sloppy or irregular practices in order to prevent misconduct and to promote the responsible conduct of research. While there are compelling features (...) to this position, many complex issues need to be considered and resolved. We invite readers to respond to questions we raise in the text. (shrink)

A list of groceries, Professor Anscombe once suggested, might be used as a shopping list, telling what to buy, or it might be used as an inventory list, telling what has been bought (Anscombe 1957). If used as a shopping list, the world is supposed to conform to the representation: if the list does not match what is in the grocery bag, it is what is in the bag that is at fault. But if used as an inventory list, the (...) representation is supposed to conform to the world: if the list does not match what is in the bag, it is the list that is at fault. The first kind of representation, where the world is supposed to conform to the list, can be called "directive"; it represents or directs what is to be done. The second, where the list is supposed to conform to the world, can be called "descriptive"; it represents or describes what is the case. I wish to propose that there exist representations that face both these ways at once. With apologies to Dr. Doolittle, I call them pushmi-pullyu representations or PPRs. (shrink)

In this book, first published in 1975, Dr Kempson argues that previous work on presupposition - whether in philosophy or linguistics - has been mistakenly based on a conflation of two different disciplines: semantics, the study of the meanings assigned to the formal system which constitutes a language, and pragmatics, the study of the use of that system in communication. The first part of the book deals generally with the nature of semantics in linguistic theory and its formal representation within (...) a transformational grammar; Dr Kempson argues against incorporating the relation of presupposition within such a grammar. The second part provides a pragmatic account of the foundations of a theory of communication and its detailed application to the problems raised by presupposition. The book is intended for those studying both philosophy and linguistics and also for those sociolinguists and psychologists with a more general interest in the theory of communication. (shrink)

This final section presents a literary excerpt and three personal reflections on the theme of Aboagora, as well as on the experience of taking part in Aboagora. It opens with a story written by Ruth Behar, dealing with her personal experience of mastering the English language. Professor Behar read this story as an artistic comment within a workshop entitled ‘Between Art and Research: Rethinking Professional Borderlands’, which dealt with the experiences of people who combine an academic professional career with (...) artistic work. The story is followed by a personal reflection by Bishop Björn Vikström, presented within the context of a session dealing with objectivity and the problem of combining academic research with personal engagement and activism. Finally, two of the organisers of the Aboagora conference, Professor Hannu Salmi and Dr Ruth Illman, reflect on the outcome of the event, evaluating the new insights and perspectives it has facilitated, as well as looking to the future and the potential of Aboagora to develop into a permanent forum for encounters between the arts and sciences. (shrink)

A list of groceries, Professor Anscombe once suggested, might be used as a shopping list, telling what to buy, or it might be used as an inventory list, telling what has been bought (Anscombe 1957). If used as a shopping list, the world is supposed to conform to the representation: if the list does not match what is in the grocery bag, it is what is in the bag that is at fault. But if used as an inventory list, the (...) representation is supposed to conform to the world: if the list does not match what is in the bag, it is the list that is at fault. The first kind of representation, where the world is supposed to conform to the list, can be called "directive"; it represents or directs what is to be done. The second, where the list is supposed to conform to the world, can be called "descriptive"; it represents or describes what is the case. I wish to propose that there exist representations that face both these ways at once. With apologies to Dr. Doolittle, I call them pushmi-pullyu representations or PPRs. (shrink)

Consciousness is many things. It bestows upon humans the ability to interpret outside signs - to think. It allows us the power to establish the value of a perceived object - to feel. Consciousness embodies intuition, making it possible for humans to establish relationships between subjects and objects, thus moving away from passive acceptance of the world around them. However, Dr.

Though active in the arts herself, Dr. Richards (psychology, Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco; psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts) views creativity more broadly and as essential to survival. As someone who helped break new ground in the assessment of creativity in the general population, she introduces 13 chapters in which interdisciplinary thinkers probe the "originality of everyday life" in individual and societal contexts. Perspectives range from Piaget's developmental stages and the more positive aspects of television viewing to (...) chaos theory and Zen Buddhism. In integrating these views, the editor enumerates the benefits of living creatively. (shrink)

While stigmatisation is universal, stigma research in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) is limited. LMIC stigma research predominantly concerns health-related stigma, primarily regarding HIV/AIDS or mental illness from an adult perspective. While there are commonalities in stigmatisation, there are also contextual differences. The aim of this study in DR Congo (DRC), as a formative part in the development of a common stigma reduction intervention, was to gain insight into the commonalities and differences of stigma drivers (triggers of stigmatisation), facilitators (factors (...) positively or negatively influencing stigmatisation), and manifestations (practices and experiences of stigmatisation) with regard to three populations: unmarried mothers, children formerly associated with armed forces and groups (CAAFAG), and an indigenous population. Group exercises, in which participants reacted to statements and substantiated their reactions, were held with the ‘general population’ (15 exercises, n = 70) and ‘populations experiencing stigma’ (10 exercises, n = 48). Data was transcribed and translated, and coded in Nvivo12. We conducted framework analysis. There were two drivers mentioned across the three populations: perceived danger was the most prominent driver, followed by perceived low value of the population experiencing stigma. There were five shared facilitators, with livelihood and personal benefit the most comparable across the populations. Connection to family or leaders received mixed reactions. If unmarried mothers and CAAFAG were perceived to have taken advice from the general population and changed their stereotyped behaviour this also featured as a facilitator. Stigma manifested itself for the three populations at family, community, leaders and services level, with participation restrictions, differential treatment, anticipated stigma and feelings of scapegoating. Stereotyping was common, with different stereotypes regarding the three populations. Although stigmatisation was persistent, positive interactions between the general population and populations experiencing stigma were shared as well. This study demonstrated utility of a health-related stigma and discrimination framework and a participatory exercise for understanding non-health related stigmatisation. Results are consistent with other studies regarding these populations in other contexts. This study identified commonalities between drivers, facilitators and manifestations—albeit with population-specific factors. Contextual information seems helpful in proposing strategy components for stigma reduction. (shrink)

Pain management has no meaning without the stories of men and women, and boys and girls whose lives are dramatically altered by the presence of pain in their own and their loved ones lives. In this narrative section, four people present their perspectives on the enigma and challenge of pain, its power, and our on-going efforts to limit its hold on our lives.In the first story, Dr. Robert McQuillan, an anesthesiologist with Creighton University School of Medicine, conveys the fear some (...) patients suffering chronic pain face when seeking pain medication over the long term. Dr. Christine Cassel, chair of the Department of Geriatrics and Adult Development at Mount Sinai Medical Center and immediate past president of the American College of Physicians, recounts the plight of a fellow physician whose pain treatment of a patient led to suspension of his professional license and to personal bitterness after many years of exemplary medical practice. (shrink)

Pain management has no meaning without the stories of men and women, and boys and girls whose lives are dramatically altered by the presence of pain in their own and their loved ones lives. In this narrative section, four people present their perspectives on the enigma and challenge of pain, its power, and our on-going efforts to limit its hold on our lives.In the first story, Dr. Robert McQuillan, an anesthesiologist with Creighton University School of Medicine, conveys the fear some (...) patients suffering chronic pain face when seeking pain medication over the long term. Dr. Christine Cassel, chair of the Department of Geriatrics and Adult Development at Mount Sinai Medical Center and immediate past president of the American College of Physicians, recounts the plight of a fellow physician whose pain treatment of a patient led to suspension of his professional license and to personal bitterness after many years of exemplary medical practice. (shrink)

On August 28, 2008, Michael Marmot, Chair of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health, formally handed over the Commission’s Final Report to Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. It was a significant moment. Dr. Chan addressed a hall packed with representatives of the world’s communications media in a speech that was remarkably direct. Dr. Chan reiterated the Commission’s position that to improve health and health equity action needs to be (...) taken not just across the health sector but across all social and economic policy areas, and stated, “Social deprivation is not a matter of fate. It is a marker of policy failure.” This was a bold statement from one of the world’s leading diplomats. Policy failure! The phrase echoes the Commission’s assertion that “a toxic combination of poor social policies, unfair economic arrangements and bad politics is killing people on a grand scale.” The Commission’s messages are far reaching. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cloning without Prior Approval:A Response to Recent Disclosures of NoncomplianceRuth Macklin (bio)Editor's note: In September 1994, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal published a special issue on the ethics of embryo splitting or "cloning," which included papers originally prepared for a workshop on embryo splitting sponsored by the National Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction (NABER) and NABER's report, Human Cloning through Embryo Splitting. The impetus for the project (...) was embryo-splitting research conducted by Drs. Jerry L. Hall, Robert J. Stillman, and others, at George Washington University and presented in October 1993 at a joint meeting of the American Fertility Society and the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society. Media coverage at the time reported that the research had been approved by the university's formal review committees. However, it came to light in December 1994 that the researchers had not obtained approval from the university's institutional review board prior to conducting the research. Following a university investigation, the researchers were disciplined and instructed to destroy their data. The university also voluntarily forwarded the records of the incident to the Office for Protection from Research Risks at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hall resigned from George Washington University in September 1994.In the following postscript to her article on the ethics of embryo splitting (KIEJ, September 1994), Ruth Macklin discusses these events. The letters and memoranda that she cites were obtained from NIH through the Freedom of Information Act.My article, "Splitting Embryos on the Slippery Slope: Ethics and Public Policy" (KIEJ, September 1994), included a brief assessment of the ethics of the Hall-Stillman embryo-splitting experiment conducted at George Washington University (GWU). The article reviewed the researchers' stated purpose ("to help infertile couples by reproducing nature's ability to reproduce twins"), the features of the research itself (splitting embryos that never could become viable and with no plan to implant either the original or the split embryos), and the review procedures surrounding the experiment. I said that the researchers might be [End Page 57] faulted for not waiting until embryo research guidelines had been established at the national level; on the other hand, they surely could not fail to conform to such national guidelines when none existed.My conclusions were based on information that had been reported in the print media. Dr. Robert J. Stillman's statement that the experiment "had been approved by the university's formal review committees and peer reviewed by colleagues" was reported in the Washington Post on October 25, 1993, (Sawyer 1993). However, in light of the recent disclosure that the researchers had not obtained approval from George Washington University's IRB before proceeding with the research (Schwartz 1994), I now draw a sharply different conclusion about the ethics of the researchers' behavior.The most glaring flaw was the researchers' failure to submit a protocol to their institution's IRB in advance of embarking on the research. Following an investigation of the matter, the Office for Protection from Research Risks (OPRR) made the further determination that "the failure on the part of GWU research investigators and administrators to notify the IRB promptly about noncompliance in this research constitutes additional serious noncompliance" with research regulations (J. Thomas Puglisi, Chief of the Compliance Oversight Branch, Division of Human Subject Protections, OPRR, letter to Stephen J. Trachtenberg, President of George Washington University, 23 August 1994). Is it reasonable to suppose that these researchers were unaware of their obligations (a) to obtain prior review and approval from the IRB and (b) to notify the IRB promptly about their noncompliance? Regarding the latter item, Dr. Puglisi's letter to the President of GWU states that "the notification requirement has been a longstanding element of the GWU MPA [multiple project assurance], which should have been familiar to all members of the GWU research community." I shall concentrate on the researchers' more glaring ethical omission, failure to obtain prior review and approval from the IRB.Did either or both of these researchers contend that they were unaware of any review requirements for their research? Hall blames Stillman, Director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology, Fertility, and IVF Programs, for not making the requirement... (shrink)

This article analyses the discursive construction of collective and individual memories and the functions of commemorative events for the discursive construction of national identities through the example of Austrian post-war commemorative events. Thus, the various attempts to come to terms with the Nazi past in post-war Austria are illustrated in detail. The article will first summarize the socio-political contexts relating to the relevant post-war commemorative years in Austria. Then we will consider sequences of a political speech by the then Austrian (...) chancellor, Dr Wolfgang Schüssel, as one of many possible examples in 2005 which establishes a hegemonic stance towards the Nazi past. Finally, we will discuss our results and illustrate that, in addition to hegemonic discourses, competing narratives aim to provide different answers to the basic question `how should one come to terms with traumatic pasts?' Our results are such that in the hegemonic narrative of Austrian history after 1945, the political event of the Declaration of Independence is represented metaphorically as a `rebirth'; a metaphorical scenario which constructs a `creation myth', and by this anthropomorphization suggests that `newborn' Austria is to be perceived as innocent as a newborn child. On the other hand, the historical events before and after are placed in the cognitive frame of natural disasters or fateful events and a community of victims is discursively constructed comprising the victims of the Nazi terror as well as the soldiers waging the war of aggression. Discursive patterns apparent in this case study can, of course, be generalized to similar communicative events in many nation-states. The specific systematic and explicit linguistic/pragmatic and discourse-analytic methodology presented in this article lends itself to deconstruct official discourses which influence collective beliefs, opinions and ideologies. (shrink)

Preface by Daniel C. Dennett Beginning with a general theory of function applied to body organs, behaviors, customs, and both inner and outer representations, ...

I defend the historical definition of "function" originally given in my Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories (1984a). The definition was not offered in the spirit of conceptual analysis but is more akin to a theoretical definition of "function". A major theme is that nonhistorical analyses of "function" fail to deal adequately with items that are not capable of performing their functions.

Located in a settler-Australian tertiary education institution we develop a worldly or mundane approach to working in and between institutions enacting two distinct world philosophies. We engage with the epistemics embedded and expressed in the functioning of modern institutions committed to a naturalistic scientific world. And albeit to a more limited extent we engage with epistemics embedded in and expressed by institutions framed and ordered by collectively enacting intentions of Eternal World-Making Beings of Yolngu Aboriginal Australian lands and peoples.

This paper argues for the existence of a fourth positive generic value relation that can hold between two items beyond ‘better than’, ‘worse than’, and ‘equally good’: namely ‘on a par’.

There are no "special sciences" in Fodor's sense. There is a large group of sciences, "historical sciences," that differ fundamentally from the physical sciences because they quantify over a different kind of natural or real kind, nor are the generalizations supported by these kinds exceptionless. Heterogeneity, however, is not characteristic of these kinds. That there could be an univocal empirical science that ranged over multiple realizations of a functional property is quite problematic. If psychological predicates name multiply realized functionalist properties, (...) then there is no single science dealing with these: human psychology, ape psychology, Martian psychology and robot psychology are necessarily different sciences. (shrink)

This paper begins with a response to Josh Gert’s challenge that ‘on a par with’ is not a sui generis fourth value relation beyond ‘better than’, ‘worse than’, and ‘equally good’. It then explores two further questions: can parity be modeled by an interval representation of value? And what should one rationally do when faced with items on a par? I argue that an interval representation of value is incompatible with the possibility that items are on a par (a mathematical (...) proof is given in the appendix). I also suggest that there are three senses of ‘rationally permissible’ which, once distinguished, show that parity does distinctive practical work that cannot be done by the usual trichotomy of relations or by incomparability. In this way, we have an additional argument for parity from the workings of practical reason. (shrink)

One of the most common judgments of normative life takes the following form: With respect to some things that matter, one item is better than the other, with respect to other things that matter, the other item is better, but all things considered – that is, taking into account all the things that matter – the one item is better than the other. In this paper, I explore how all-things-considered judgments are possible, assuming that they are. In particular, I examine (...) the question of how the different considerations relevant to an all-things-considered judgment come together in a way that gives each relevant consideration its proper due. I propose an answer which provides a unified account of all-things-considered judgments and highlights a deep connection between value and reason. My suggestion is that ‘all things considered’ is, in effect, a placeholder for a more comprehensive, sometimes nameless, value that includes the things considered as parts, and that this more comprehensive value determines how the things considered normatively relate. (shrink)

Offers an analysis of three strongly contrasting primitive civilizations, showing how behavior is influenced by custom and tradition.

Suppose lightning strikes a dead tree in a swamp; I am standing nearby. My body is reduced to its elements, while entirely by coincidence (and out of different molecules) the tree is turned into my physical replica. My replica, The Swampman.....moves into my house and seems to write articles on radical interpretation. No one can tell the difference.

In _Feminist Interpretations of John Rawls_, Ruth Abbey collects eight essays responding to the work of John Rawls from a feminist perspective. An impressive introduction by the editor provides a chronological overview of English-language feminist engagements with Rawls from his Theory of Justice onwards. She surveys the range of issues canvassed by feminist readers of Rawls, as well as critics’ wide disagreement about the value of Rawls’s corpus for feminist purposes. The eight essays that follow testify to the continuing (...) ambivalence among feminist readers of Rawls. From the perspectives of political theory and moral, social, and political philosophy, the essayists address particular aspects of Rawls’s work and apply it to a variety of worldly practices relating to gender inequality and the family, to the construction of disability, to justice in everyday relationships, and to human rights on an international level. The overall effect is to give a sense of the broad spectrum of possible feminist critical responses to Rawls, ranging from rejection to adoption. Aside from the editor, the contributors are Amy R. Baehr, Eileen Hunt Botting, Elizabeth Brake, Clare Chambers, Nancy J. Hirschmann, Anthony Simon Laden, Janice Richardson, and Lisa H. Schwartzman. (shrink)

Correctly understood, teleosemantics is the claim that “representation” is a function term. Things are called “representations” if they have a certain kind of function or telos and perform it in a certain kind of way. This claim is supported with a discussion and proposals about the function of a representation and of how representations perform that function. These proposals have been retrieved by putting together current descriptions from the literature on neural representations with earlier explorations of the features common to (...) most things we are inclined to call representations as these were assessed in Millikan. Of interest is the degree to which these independent sources converge. I conclude that there is no need to employ any new or technical sense of the term “representation” for it to play an important role in neuroscience. (shrink)

"According to informational semantics, if it's necessary that a creature can't distinguish Xs from Ys, it follows that the creature can't have a concept that applies to Xs but not Ys." (Jerry Fodor, The Elm and the Expert, p.32).

It seems self-evident that people prefer painful experiences to be in the past and pleasurable experiences to lie in the future. Indeed, it has been claimed that, for hedonic goods, this preference is absolute (Sullivan, 2018). Yet very little is known about the extent to which people demonstrate explicit preferences regarding the temporal location of hedonic experiences, about the developmental trajectory of such preferences, and about whether such preferences are impervious to differences in the quantity of envisaged past and future (...) pain or pleasure. We find consistent evidence that, all else being equal, adults and children aged 7 and over prefer pleasure to lie in the future and pain in the past and believe that other people will too. They also predict that other people will be happier when pleasure is in the future rather than the past but sadder when pain is the future rather than the past. Younger children have the same temporal preferences as adults for their own painful experiences, but prefer their pleasure to lie in the past, and do not predict that others’ levels of happiness or sadness vary dependent on whether experiences lie in the past or the future. However, from the age of 7, temporal preferences were typically abandoned at the earliest opportunity when the quantity of past pain or pleasure was greater than the quantity located in the future. Past-future preferences for hedonic goods emerge early developmentally but are surprisingly flexible. (shrink)

Shaftesbury’s major work Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times was one of the most influential English works in the eighteenth century. This paper focuses on his contributions to debates about persons and personal identity and shows that Shaftesbury regards metaphysical questions of personal identity as closely connected with normative questions of character development. I argue that he is willing to accept that persons are substances and that he takes their continued existence for granted. He sees the need to supplement metaphysical (...) debates of personal identity and believes that we have to turn to the character that is realized by a substance if we want to understand who we are. For Shaftesbury persons have a particular character, can act, and govern themselves. I propose that Shaftesbury’s approach to persons has a developmental dimension, which is meant to encourage personal development and improvement of character. The developmental dimension can be understood as an intellectual journey that invites us to search for our true self, to develop our character, and to seek happiness, which ultimately involves understanding our place as persons in the order of the universe. I show that my developmental interpretation is preferable to other existing interpretations. (shrink)

In February 2020, the British Medical Association will be surveying members for their views on what the BMA’s position on physician-assisted dying should be. The BMA is currently opposed to physician-assisted dying in all its forms, a position that was agreed in 2006 at the annual representative meeting, the Association’s policy-making conference.1 As previously reported in Ethics briefing,2 the decision to survey members follows a motion passed at last year’s ARM which called on the BMA to “carry out a poll (...) of members to ascertain their views on whether the BMA should adopt a neutral position with respect to a change in the law on assisted dying”. The results from the survey will not determine BMA policy. Rather, the results be published ahead of this year’s ARM and provided to those attending to inform a debate and discussion on the BMA’s policy position. More information about the survey, including a briefing pack of useful information, and information for BMA members on how to participate can be found online at www.bma.org.uk/PAD. ### High Court rejects Judicial reviews on assisted suicide The High Court has refused permission for two separate challenges to the law on assisted suicide in the UK to proceed to a full hearing. In the first case, Phil Newby, who has motor neuron disease, applied for judicial review of the law on assisted suicide and asked for the court to carry out a detailed examination of what he termed “legislative facts” – that is, an examination of the existing evidence on the “costs, risks and benefits” of regulating assisted suicide – including a cross-examination of relevant expert witnesses.1 Handing down the judgement, Lord Justice Irwin and Mrs Justice May, held that assisted dying …. (shrink)

Healthcare professionals are currently working under extreme pressure as they respond to the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19. At the time of writing, there is currently no effective vaccine or anti-viral treatment. The pandemic is fast-moving, relatively unpredictable and of uncertain duration. In many countries, it is placing an enormous stress on healthcare resources and providing care to existing standards is proving difficult. Unfortunately, in some countries, health services have been overwhelmed. The impact of the pandemic on resource-poor countries is of (...) particular concern. This extraordinary situation is raising, or has the potential to raise, many ethical challenges for doctors delivering care to patients. It is possible, for example, that there may be points in this pandemic where decisions need to be made about who should have access to finite specialised intensive care beds, drugs and equipment. This has happened in some countries and, despite efforts by the UK Government to reduce demand and increase supply, it is still possible that this could happen in the UK. Some hospital trusts in the UK are already reporting concerningly low supplies of oxygen and vital medicines such as propofol and alfentanil.1 In these circumstances, where not everyone can be treated, difficult ethical decisions will have to made. For example, can some patients be prioritised over others? How should a doctor decide on which patients to treat? Can treatment be withdrawn from patients who are currently being treated, but are not responding, in order to offer treatment to those who may have a better chance of benefiting? The UK is also reporting concerningly low supplies of vital personal protective equipment for frontline workers, raising the question - what are a doctor’s obligations to treat patients, in circumstances that present a high …. (shrink)

It is argued that quantum theory is best understood as requiring an ontological duality of res extensa and res potentia, where the latter is understood per Heisenberg’s original proposal, and the former is roughly equivalent to Descartes’ ‘extended substance.’ However, this is not a dualism of mutually exclusive substances in the classical Cartesian sense, and therefore does not inherit the infamous ‘mind-body’ problem. Rather, res potentia and res extensa are proposed as mutually implicative ontological extants that serve to explain the (...) key conceptual challenges of quantum theory; in particular, nonlocality, entanglement, null measurements, and wave function collapse. It is shown that a natural account of these quantum perplexities emerges, along with a need to reassess our usual ontological commitments involving the nature of space and time. (shrink)

This paper compares ethics in countries with different cultural dimensions based on empirical data from 12 countries. The results indicate that dimensions of national culture could serve as predictors of the ethical standards desired in a specific society. The author divided societal cultural practices into desired and undesired practices. According to this study, ethics could be seen as the means for achieving a desired state in a society: for reducing some societal characteristics and increasing others. Finally, a model of the (...) impact of cultural dimensions on desired ethical standards is proposed. (shrink)

: The multicultural composition of the United States can pose problems for physicians and patients who come from diverse backgrounds. Although respect for cultural diversity mandates tolerance of the beliefs and practices of others, in some situations excessive tolerance can produce harm to patients. Careful analysis is needed to determine which values are culturally relative and which rest on an underlying universal ethical principle. A conception of justice as equality challenges the notion that it is always necessary to respect all (...) of the beliefs and practices of every cultural group. (shrink)

Testing is an effective learning method, and it is the basis of mobile quiz apps. Quiz apps have the potential to facilitate remote and self-regulated learning. In this context, automatized feedback plays a crucial role. In two experimental studies, we examined the effects of two feedback types of quiz apps on performance, namely, the standard corrective feedback of quiz apps and a feedback that incorporates additional information related to the correct response option. We realized a controlled lab setting (n= 68, (...) Study 1) and an unsupervised mobile setting (n= 150, Study 2). In the learning phase, participants used the quiz app and received feedback. They also completed a subsequent test as well as a follow-up test 1 week later by using the same quiz app. Irrespective of feedback type and setting, cognitive outcomes (quiz scores) and metacognitive outcomes (response certainty) increased similarly in the short term and long term. Feedback effects were not moderated by participants' overall response certainty during learning, their prior knowledge, and the difficulty of quiz items. Moreover, we found that participants perceived the quiz app to be similarly attractive, interesting, and enjoyable in both feedback conditions and that they spent slightly more time to process quiz items in the lab setting. We discuss these results in detail, including the role of moderating and mediating factors and prospects for further research and practice. Overall, our results underline that quiz apps are useful and effective tools that can support the acquisition and retention of semantic knowledge in different learning settings. (shrink)