BackgroundPerinatal bereavement is an event that greatly impacts the emotional, psychological, and psychosocial aspects of those who want to have a child.ObjectivesSince there are few studies on the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on couples grieving for perinatal loss, this research aimed to survey this experience.ParticipantsBetween 2020 and 2021, in Italian provinces highly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, 21 parents participated: 16 mothers and 5 fathers, among which there were 4 couples.MethodsA mixed-method design was used through self-report questionnaires and (...) in-depth interviews. Accompanied by a sociodemographic form, the following questionnaires were administered: Prolonged Grief-13, the Parental Assessment of Paternal Affectivity, the Parental Assessment of Maternal Affectivity, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale short version, the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, and the Impact of Event Scale-Revised. The texts obtained through the in-depth interviews underwent thematic analysis.ResultsFifty per cent of participants suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders symptoms and 20% suffered from relational dyadic stress. Four areas of thematic prevalence emerged: psychological complexity of bereavement, the impact of the COVID-19, disenfranchisement vs. support, and spirituality and contact with the lost child. Participants interpreted their distress as related to inadequate access to healthcare services, and perceiving the pandemic restrictions to be responsible for less support and lower quality of care. Furthermore, they needed psychological help, and most of them were unable to access this service. Spirituality/religiosity did not help, while contact with the fetus and burial did.ConclusionIt is important to implement psychological services in obstetrics departments to offer adequate support, even in pandemic situations. (shrink)

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic severely strained the already unprepared Italian healthcare system. This had repercussions on healthcare workers, stemming, in particular, from a lack of clear guidelines, adequate protective equipment, and professional preparedness. Such conditions were especially prevalent in Northern Italy.Objectives: This study aimed to examine COVID-19-related professional and psychoemotional stress among nurses and doctors in two hospitals in Northern Italy, along with the worst critical incidents affecting healthcare personnel. A parallel objective was to elicit healthcare professionals' opinions about what (...) changes are needed in the healthcare system's operations, as well as about the relational/emotional skills that are needed to better manage relationships with patients in emergency situations.Participants: Snowball sampling was used to recruit participants and yielded 17 hospital professionals: six nurses and 11 doctors. Three of these professionals worked in intensive care and the others in different wards. All had close contact with COVID-19 patients.Methods: The study employed a qualitative research design, using in-depth interviews of ~60 min each that were conducted via Skype video calls. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, then analysed. The qualitative analysis employed mixed methods to identify the most relevant and recursive themes from the interviews.Results: Four fundamental themes emerged from our analysis of the interview texts: disorganisation and psychoemotional stress; urgency and critical incidents; everything surreal; and disruptions in empathetic relationships with patients.Conclusions: Through our analysis of the interview narratives, we found that systematic and in-depth psychological training is needed to prepare professionals for altered relationships with patients in emergencies; use of exceptional medical equipment; elaboration of new bioethical models suitable for disasters and pandemics; and engagement with the themes of death and dying. (shrink)

This paper discusses some key connexive principles construed as principles about reasons, that is, as principles that express logical properties of sentences of the form ‘_p_ is a reason for _q_’. Its main goal is to show how the theory of reasons outlined by Crupi and Iacona, which is based on their evidential account of conditionals, yields a formal treatment of such sentences that validates a restricted version of the principles discussed, overcoming some limitations that affect most extant accounts (...) of conditionals. (shrink)

This paper develops the idea that valid arguments are equivalent to true conditionals by combining Kripke’s theory of truth with the evidential account of conditionals offered by Crupi and Iacona. As will be shown, in a first-order language that contains a naïve truth predicate and a suitable conditional, one can define a validity predicate in accordance with the thesis that the inference from a conjunction of premises to a conclusion is valid when the corresponding conditional is true. The validity (...) predicate so defined significantly increases our expressive resources and provides a coherent formal treatment of paradoxical arguments. (shrink)

La presente investigación tuvo como objetivo realizar un análisis del procedimiento abreviado contemplado en el Código Orgánico Integral Penal (COIP), partiendo del criterio de que ciertos aspectos de este procedimiento vulneran derechos fundamentales del investigado. Se destaca particularmente el requisito para el procesado de admitir los hechos que se le imputan para acceder a este procedimiento, lo cual, según la opinión mayoritaria de doctrinarios, compromete el principio de no autoincriminación, la presunción de inocencia y el derecho a un juicio con (...) todas sus fases. El objetivo de esta investigación fue analizar el procedimiento abreviado establecido en el Código Orgánico Integral Penal (COIP), con el propósito de identificar posibles vulneraciones de derechos fundamentales del investigado. Se buscó específicamente evaluar cómo el requisito de admitir los hechos imputados para acceder a este procedimiento podría afectar principios como el de no autoincriminación y la presunción de inocencia. A través de un enfoque cualitativo y utilizando diferentes métodos de análisis, se procuró determinar si el procedimiento abreviado, tal como está configurado, garantiza un debido proceso conforme a los estándares de derechos humanos y constitucionales. La metodología aplicada se sustentó en un enfoque cualitativo, utilizando los métodos inductivo, analítico, sintético y exegético. Se llevó a cabo un análisis documental de la bibliografía relacionada con el tema investigado, así como de instrumentos internacionales de Derechos Humanos, la Constitución de la República de Ecuador, el COIP y jurisprudencia vinculada a la materia. Los resultados de la investigación determinaron que el procedimiento abreviado tal como se encuentra regulado en el COIP beneficia al Estado y al sistema de justicia al agilizar ciertos procesos legales. Sin embargo, se evidenció que este procedimiento puede vulnerar derechos esenciales del procesado, como el principio de no autoincriminación y la presunción de inocencia. Por lo tanto, se concluye que el procedimiento abreviado afecta el debido proceso al comprometer garantías fundamentales. La investigación señala que el procedimiento abreviado regulado en el COIP, si bien puede ser beneficioso para la eficiencia del sistema de justicia, también conlleva riesgos significativos de vulnerar derechos fundamentales del procesado. Por lo tanto, se destaca la necesidad de revisar y modificar este procedimiento para garantizar el respeto absoluto al debido proceso y a las garantías individuales del investigado. (shrink)

This paper investigates Ockhamism from a metaphysical point of view. Its main point is that the claim that future contingents are true or false is less demanding than usually expected, as it does not require particularly contentious assumptions about the future. First it will be argued that Ockhamism is consistent with a wide range of metaphysical views. Then it will be shown that each of these views leaves room for the claim that the future is open, at least on some (...) plausible interpretations of that claim. (shrink)

A debate over the possibilities for foundations of knowledge has been a key feature of theoretical discussions in the discipline of International Relations. A number of recent contributions suggest that this debate is still active. This article offers a contribution to this debate by suggesting that the study of complexity may provide a contingent foundation for the study of international relations. We examine the grounds on which such a claim might be made, and examine the implications for taking complexity as (...) a foundational claim. (shrink)

One of the most common strategies in philosophical dispute is that of accusing the opponent of begging the question, that is, of assuming or presupposing what is to be proved. Thus, it happens quite often that the credibility of a philosophical argument is infected by the suspicion of begging the question. In many cases it is an open question whether the suspicion is grounded, and the answer lurks somewhere in the dark of what the proponent of the argument does not (...) say. This is why it may take years, or even centuries, before the begging of the question is brought to light. But few philosophers would deny that once it is established that a certain argument begs the question, that argument has to be rejected without hesitation: question-begging arguments are bad arguments, hence one should not appeal to them. Logicians traditionally classify begging the question as a fallacy, that is, as a bad reasoning that seems good at first sight. The fallacy is known under the name of petitio principii. This paper originated in our dissatisfaction with definitions of petitio principii found here and there in logic textbooks. Although it is uncontroversial that there is something wrong with begging the question, it is not clear from those definitions what is wrong. (shrink)

This paper discusses some key connexive principles construed as principles about reasons, that is, as principles that express logical properties of sentences of the form ‘p is a reason for q’. Its main goal is to show how the theory of reasons outlined by Crupi and Iacona, which is based on their evidential account of conditionals, yields a formal treatment of such sentences that validates a restricted version of the principles discussed, overcoming some limitations that affect most extant accounts (...) of conditionals. (shrink)

In some recent works, Crupi and Iacona have outlined an analysis of ‘if’ based on Chrysippus’ idea that a conditional holds whenever the negation of its consequent is incompatible with its antecedent. This paper presents a sound and complete system of conditional logic that accommodates their analysis. The soundness and completeness proofs that will be provided rely on a general method elaborated by Raidl, which applies to a wide range of systems of conditional logic.

This paper focuses on Confucian formulations of personhood and the implications they may have for bioethics and medical practice. We discuss how an appreciation of the Confucian concept of personhood can provide insights into the practice of informed consent and, in particular, the role of family members and physicians in medical decision-making in societies influenced by Confucian culture. We suggest that Western notions of informed consent appear ethically misguided when viewed from a Confucian perspective.

This paper develops the idea that valid arguments are equivalent to true conditionals by combining Kripke’s theory of truth with the evidential account of conditionals offered by Crupi and Iacona. As will be shown, in a first-order language that contains a naïve truth predicate and a suitable conditional, one can define a validity predicate in accordance with the thesis that the inference from a conjunction of premises to a conclusion is valid when the corresponding conditional is true. The validity (...) predicate so defined significantly increases our expressive resources and provides a coherent formal treatment of paradoxical arguments. (shrink)

Previous research has established that the success of strikes, and social movements more broadly, depends on their ability to garner support from the public. However, there is scant published research investigating the response of the public to strike action by healthcare workers. In this study, we address this gap through a study of public responses to UK nursing strikes in 2022–2023, using a data set drawn from Twitter of more than 2300 publicly available tweets. We focus on negative tweets, investigating (...) which societal discourses social media users draw on to oppose strike action by nurses. Using a combination of corpus‐based approaches and discourse analysis, we identified five categories of opposition: (i) discourse discrediting nurses; (ii) discourse discrediting strikes by nurses; (iii) discourse on the National Health System; (iv) discourse about the fairness of strikers' demands and (v) discourse about potential harmful impact. Our findings show how social media users operationalise wider societal discourses about the nursing profession (e.g., associations with care, gender, vocation and sacrifice) as well as recent crises such as the Covid‐19 pandemic to justify their opposition. The results also provide valuable insights into misconceptions about nursing, strike action and patient harm, which can inform strategies for public communication. (shrink)

This paper outlines an account of conditionals, the evidential account, which rests on the idea that a conditional is true just in case its antecedent supports its consequent. As we will show, the evidential account exhibits some distinctive logical features that deserve careful consideration. On the one hand, it departs from the material reading of ‘if then’ exactly in the way we would like it to depart from that reading. On the other, it significantly differs from the non-material accounts which (...) hinge on the Ramsey Test, advocated by Adams, Stalnaker, Lewis, and others. (shrink)

Over the past few years, the tree model of time has been widely employed to deal with issues concerning the semantics of tensed discourse. The thought that has motivated its adoption is that the most plausible way to make sense of indeterminism is to conceive of future possibilities as branches that depart from a common trunk, constituted by the past and the present. However, the thought still needs to be further articulated and defended, and several important questions remain open, such (...) as the question of how actuality can be understood and formally represented in a branching framework. The present volume is intended to be a 360 degree reflection on the tree model. The contributions is gathers concern the model and its alternatives, both from a semantic and from a metaphysical point of view. ​. (shrink)

According to the analysis of concessive conditionals suggested by Crupi and Iacona, a concessive conditional \(p{{\,\mathrm{\hookrightarrow }\,}}q\) is adequately formalized as a conjunction of conditionals. This paper presents a sound and complete axiomatic system for concessive conditionals so understood. The soundness and completeness proofs that will be provided rely on a method that has been employed by Raidl, Iacona, and Crupi to prove the soundness and completeness of an analogous system for evidential conditionals.

Sex is probably the best example of stable biological variation within the human species. Scientists have tried to account for the origin of sex differences in biological terms using evolutionary theory. Although Charles Darwin derived his theories of natural and sexual selection with no consideration for sex, he assumed that the differences he observed in male and female human and animal behavior were variations related to biology. This chapter examines the link between sex and evolution by reflecting on the various (...) resonances between cultural and social norms one the one hand, and biological theory on the other. It first considers scientific explanations of women's nature, or womanhood as a subject of science, before turning to research on female choice and the animal/woman divide in the early twentieth century. The chapter also discusses the use of human and animal models of “natural” sexual behavior after World War II, sexual selection and biological determinism in the 1970s, and efforts to bridge the gap between feminism and evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Environmental Law, Ethics and Governance draws attention to the necessity for inter-disciplinarity in research focused on achieving good environmental governance, be it of a physical area, an environmental problem or a natural resource. Law and ethics each have an important role to play in this regard and the chapters in this volume consider these issues from a number of different perspectives. Included in this book is the academic research and professional experiences of a diversity of authors, including those engaged in (...) research into substantive governance issues, which arise at all levels from the global to the local. The case studies explored in this book provide excellent examples from across this range. In addition, contributions are included from those involved in process and procedural matters, including the complex issues of how new law ought to be drafted, the implementation of that law and environmental legal education. This volume is both thought provoking and instructive and aims to inspire further research regarding the ethical dimensions of environmental law and legal governance. It is clear that these topics remain of great significance if law and policy is to be effective and therefore this volume is a valuable and timely contribution to the discourse in this area. (shrink)

This paper develops a probabilistic analysis of conditionals which hinges on a quantitative measure of evidential support. In order to spell out the interpreta- tion of ‘if’ suggested, we will compare it with two more familiar interpretations, the suppositional interpretation and the strict interpretation, within a formal framework which rests on fairly uncontroversial assumptions. As it will emerge, each of the three interpretations considered exhibits specific logical features that deserve separate consideration.

This paper explores an idea of Stoic descent that is largely neglected nowadays, the idea that an argument is valid when the conditional formed by the conjunction of its premises as antecedent and its conclusion as consequent is true. As it will be argued, once some basic features of our naıve understanding of validity are properly spelled out, and a suitable account of conditionals is adopted, the equivalence between valid arguments and true conditionals makes perfect sense. The account of validity (...) outlined here, which displays one coherent way to articulate the Stoic intuition, accords with standard formal treatments of deductive validity and encompasses an independently grounded characterization of inductive validity. (shrink)

This paper is going to explore the adverse effects of exposure to combat death on medics’ holistic well-being, which, if ignored could decrease individual readiness and negatively impact the mission. We rely on the experience of United States Air Force Special Operation Surgical Teams (AF SOST) whose exposure to mass casualty scenarios in austere environments could serve as approximations of conditions of future battlefields. Over the past two decades, the ability to deliver advanced medical care on and off the battlefield (...) along with a rapid casualty evacuation platform has allowed for unprecedented survival rates exceeding 90%. While laudable, these medical achievements have also set up a casualty management paradigm in which medical decision-making singularly focuses on life-saving care. Confronting peer-peer adversaries in large scale combat operations (LSCO) on a multi-domain battlefield will make casualty management frighteningly more complex by introducing major infrastructural, personnel, and resource constraints. When considering the high number of casualties expected in LSCO alongside enormous limitations in medical resource and resupply capability, the current casualty management paradigm will not be sustainable. The resource constrained environment in LSCO will shift medical decision-making away from a singular focus on life-saving care to triage, which hinges on the ability to determine futile medical interventions—a skill that has been lost in the past two generation of combat medics. As such, a broad ethical challenge that arises in preparation for LSCO is the need to set new expectations concerning dying and death. However, medical decision-making focused on death and dying has not been explicitly addressed in military medical training, research, or policy. Relying on a body of literature known as terror management theory (TMT) and ethnographic data from our study with AF SOST medics, we are going to argue that it is important to expose medics to death in mass casualty and triage training. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 45, Issue 1-2, Page 164-188, June 2022.

Logical form has always been a prime concern for philosophers belonging to the analytic tradition. For at least one century, the study of logical form has been widely adopted as a method of investigation, relying on its capacity to reveal the structure of thoughts or the constitution of facts. This book focuses on the very idea of logical form, which is directly relevant to any principled reflection on that method. Its central thesis is that there is no such thing as (...) a correct answer to the question of what is logical form: two significantly different notions of logical form are needed to fulfil two major theoretical roles that pertain respectively to logic and to semantics. This thesis has a negative and a positive side. The negative side is that a deeply rooted presumption about logical form turns out to be overly optimistic: there is no unique notion of logical form that can play both roles. The positive side is that the distinction between two notions of logical form, once properly spelled out, sheds light on some fundamental issues concerning the relation between logic and language. (shrink)

Once common, therapeutic privilege—the practice whereby a physician withholds diagnostic or prognostic information from a patient intending to protect the patient—is now generally seen as unethical. However, instances of therapeutic privilege are common in some areas of clinical psychiatry. We describe therapeutic privilege in the context of borderline personality disorder, discuss the implications of diagnostic non-disclosure on integrated care and offer recommendations to promote diagnostic disclosure for this patient population. There are no data in this work.

Existing whistle-blowing models rely on “cold” economic calculations and cost-benefit analyses to explain the judgments and actions of potential whistle-blowers. I argue that “hot” cognitions – value conflict and emotions – should be added to these models. I propose a model of the whistle-blowing decision process that highlights the reciprocal influence of “hot” and “cold” cognitions and advocate research that explores how value conflict and emotions inform reporting decisions. I draw on the cognitive appraisal approach to emotions and on the (...) social-functional value pluralism model to generate propositions. (shrink)

This paper investigates the logic of reasons. Its aim is to provide an analysis of the sentences of the form ‘p is a reason for q’ that yields a coherent account of their logical properties. The idea that we will develop is that ‘p is a reason for q’ is acceptable just in case a suitably defined relation of incompatibility obtains between p and ¬q. As we will suggest, a theory of reasons based on this idea can solve three challenging (...) puzzles that concern, respectively, contraposing reasons, conflicting reasons, and supererogatory reasons, and opens a new perspective on some classical issues concerning non-deductive inferences. (shrink)

.This paper discusses Aristotle’s thesis and Boethius’ thesis, the most distinctive theorems of connexive logic. Its aim is to show that, although there is something plausible in Aristotle’s thesis and Boethius’ thesis, the intuitions that may be invoked to motivate them are consistent with any account of indicative conditionals that validates a suitably restricted version of them. In particular, these intuitions are consistent with the view that indicative conditionals are adequately formalized as strict conditionals.

The increasing concern about ethics and integrity in research communities has brought attention to how students and junior academics can be trained on this regard. Moreover, it is known that ethical behaviour and integrity not only involve individual but also group norms and considerations. Thus, through action research and participant observation, this research investigates the learning processes through which 64 students collaboratively develop research ethics and integrity competencies. The aim was to understand how bachelor, master and PhD students approach ethical (...) dilemma cases through a collaborative process. The data consisted of recorded group work on ethics cases, student group reports, and post-training questionnaires. Later, the analyses considered groups as the unit of analysis. These data were analysed through content analysis utilizing the SOLO taxonomy to identify levels of understanding and assess evolvement of ethical sensitivity during a case-based training session. The results show that all groups reached the level of understanding where the groups demonstrated that concepts had been understood appropriately, but occasionally struggled to make connections between them. Students perceived working collaboratively as beneficial. The results help teachers of research ethics and integrity to make pedagogically justified choices in their teaching. Drawing on the results of this study, we propose a tool for the formative assessment of student learning of research ethics and integrity. (shrink)

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently upheld United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York Judge's denial of petitioner's application for a writ of habeas corpus. The Court held that it was not objectively unreasonable for the Appellate Division to conclude, in light of clearly established federal law as expressed by the Supreme Court of the United States, that a New York statute providing for the recommitment of specific defendants who plead not (...) responsible by reason of mental disease or defect under a mere “preponderance of the evidence” standard does not violate either due process or the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (shrink)

This paper outlines an account of concessive conditionals that rests on two main ideas. One is that the logical form of a sentence as used in a given context is determined by the content expressed by the sentence in that context. The other is that a coherent distinction can be drawn between a reading of ‘if’ according to which a conditional is true when its consequent holds on the supposition that its antecedent holds, and a stronger reading according to which (...) a conditional is true when its antecedent supports its consequent. As we will suggest, the logical form of concessive conditionals can be elucidated by relying on this distinction. (shrink)

Consequentialism is a moral philosophy that maintains that the moral worth of an action is determined by the consequences it has for the welfare of a society. Consequences of model design are a part of the model lifecycle that is often neglected. This paper investigates the issue using system dynamics modeling as an example. Since a system dynamics model is a product of the modeler’s design decisions, the modeler should consider the life cycle consequences of using the model. Seen from (...) a consequentialist perspective, the consequences of policies developed from system dynamics models determine the model’s moral value. This concept is explored by discussing model uncertainty from an engineering perspective. In this perspective, the ethical considerations shift from the behavior of the modeler to the model itself and the model’s inherent uncertainty. When the ethical considerations are taken away from the modeler and directed to what the model does, the ethical boundaries extend beyond the proximity of the model. This discussion renews the ethics conversation in system dynamics by considering this shift in philosophical perspective, and investigates how consequentialist moral philosophy applies to the modeling process and in communicating with decision-makers. A model of social assistance in Norway in the context of immigration pressures illustrates some possibilities for addressing these ethical concerns. This paper argues for an ethical framework, or at the very least, an ethical conversation within the field of system dynamics.Article first published online: 25 FEB 2017. (shrink)

The focus of this article is university teachers’ and students’ views of plagiarism, plagiarism detection, and the use of plagiarism detection software as learning support. The data were collected from teachers and students who participated in a pilot project to test plagiarism detection software at a major university in Finland. The data were analysed through factor analysis, T-tests and inductive content analysis. Three distinct reasons for plagiarism were identified: intentional, unintentional and contextual. The teachers did not utilise plagiarism detection to (...) support student learning to any great extent. We discuss the pedagogical implications and suggest that the contextual reasons for plagiarism require focus primarily on study strategies, whereas the intentional reasons require profound discussion about attitudes and conceptions of good learning and university-level study habits. (shrink)

The study focused on university students' understanding and conceptions of ethical issues in research. Domain-specific and domain-transcending measures were developed to gauge the students' awareness of ethical issues. Responses were obtained from 269 undergraduate and graduate students at a U.S. regional university. Participant withdrawal, the debriefing of research participants, the dissemination of findings, and giving credit to co-contributors were the most challenging ethical issues for the students. Ethical awareness was predicted by professional and organizational socialization, and perspective taking. Contextualization greatly (...) improved the students' ability to recognize ethical issues. Simulations and role-taking are suggested as the means with which to teach students about the ethical issues perceived as challenging. (shrink)