In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics CommentaryNeil Pickering, Senior LecturerA doctor whose practice may threaten the well-being of his patients must surely be reported to the proper authorities. But the case of Dr. G opens up some deeper issues. Dr. G can legitimately be understood as a clear case of mental illness, but there is another possible view of what is going on, that he has had a religious experience. With respect to Dr. (...) G’s fitness to practice, psychiatrists will have rather different responsibilities depending on which of these views of his experiences they take. A difficulty that has to be faced in cases like that of Dr. G is how to make the distinction between mental illness and religious experience, and beyond that, to what extent society can make room for both.It is understandable that the psychiatrist and other health workers who come into contact with this patient would think he has a psychosis and would want him to take anti-psychotic medication. What else are they to think of this man who hears voices (one of the possible diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia), which have become more frequent and insistent over time, and now seem to be exercising control over his actions (another of the possible diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia) — commanding him to walk along the expressway and telling him that he will one day be a saint? This pattern of behaviour must surely be very familiar to them, from their textbooks and to some extent in their day-to-day practice, though no doubt the details vary from patient to patient.In Dr. G’s case, much about what has happened — and perhaps ought to happen — fits in with the practices of major societal institutions such as the police and the health authorities, and fits well with patterns [End Page 245] of behaviour witnessed before and which professionals have been trained to recognise and to respond to. Moreover, the “mental health” response is a well-practised one, and one which, I would venture to say, has done much good in the lives of many, and may perhaps do much good in the life of Dr. G, for example by enabling him to return to his usual life and practise as a doctor.But are these the only possible reactions in Dr. G’s case — and are they the right ones? One need not subscribe to any kind of scepticism in general about mental illness to raise questions about the standard reactions of police and health services in a case such as this. To understand Dr. G’s actions, one could appeal, instead, to another familiar enough pattern — though it is perhaps rather weakly represented in more secular forms of modern thinking — into which Dr. G’s sort of behaviour may also fit. The idea of someone receiving a revelation from God and altering their whole life is a common enough trope of religious teaching. In the Christian tradition, Jesus’ disciples were plucked, as it were, from their various ordinary lives — fishermen becoming fishers of men — and seemingly overnight they took on a new life. There was something in the voice of Jesus which called to them, and which convinced them of its authority.An interesting case, with some parallels to that of Dr. G, is reported by Maurice O’Connor Drury. From 1947, Drury practised as a psychiatrist (Danger of Words: xxviii),1 but had earlier been a philosophy student of Wittgenstein, and retained a strong relationship with him up until the philosopher’s death in 1951. Here is the case as he introduces it:Mr. D was sixty-seven years of age, a retired civil servant, a man of great piety who devoted his retirement to prayer and works of charity. His wife had no sympathy for what she regarded as a morbid religiousness. One morning at Mass he heard the words of the Gospel: ‘Go and sell all that thou hast and give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me.’ These words spoke to him like a command. And straightaway he left the church, putting all the money that was on him into the poor-box at the... (shrink)

Is the tick a machine or a machine operator? Is it a mere object or a subject? With these questions, the pioneering biophilosopher Jakob von Uexküll embarks on a remarkable exploration of the unique social and physical environments that individual animal species, as well as individuals within species, build and inhabit. This concept of the umwelt has become enormously important within posthumanist philosophy, influencing such figures as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Guattari, and, most recently, Giorgio Agamben, who has called Uexküll (...) "a high point of modern antihumanism." A key document in the genealogy of posthumanist thought, _A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans_ advances Uexküll's revolutionary belief that nonhuman perceptions must be accounted for in any biology worth its name; it also contains his arguments against natural selection as an adequate explanation for the present orientation of a species' morphology and behavior. _A Theory of Meaning_ extends his thinking on the _umwelt_, while also identifying an overarching and perceptible unity in nature. Those coming to Uexküll's work for the first time will find that his concept of the _umwelt_ holds out new possibilities for the terms of animality, life, and the whole framework of biopolitics itself. (shrink)

When a patient lacks sufficient capacity to make a certain treatment decision, whether because of deficits in their ability to make a judgement that reflects their values or to make a decision that reflects their judgement or both, the decision must be made by a surrogate. Often the best way to respect the patient’s autonomy, in such cases, is for the surrogate to make a ‘substituted’ judgement on behalf of the patient, which is the decision that best reflects the patient’s (...) values and identity-infused beliefs as they were when the patient last possessed capacity. It is by now well-known that there is troubling evidence that surrogates do only slightly better than chance at making accurate substituted judgements. The use of a patient preference predictor, an algorithm that predicts patient preferences based on characteristics like the patient’s age, gender, socioeconomic status and education level, could help. Rid and Wendler have done important work making a moral case for using the PPP.1 If it were shown to enhance accuracy, it is not at all obvious what objections there could be to its use. Yet several subtle criticisms of the PPP have emerged in the literature. In their feature article, Jardas, Wasserman and Wendler select six of the most prominent objections to the PPP in the literature and defend the PPP against them.2 Along the way they make significant contributions to broader issues concerning the proper uses of statistical evidence and limits on the kinds of preferences there can be reasons of autonomy to respect. Since I found the authors’ answers to the final two objections—that the PPP relies on naked statistical evidence and that it uses non-endorsed reasons—to be especially interesting and provocative, I will examine those answers and raise a few questions about …. (shrink)

Environmental philosophers often conflate the concepts of intrinsic value and moral standing. As a result, individualists needlessly deny intrinsic value to species, while holists falsely attribute moral standing to species. Conceived either as classes or as historical individuals, at least some species possess intrinsic value. Nevertheless, even if a species has interests or a good of its own, it cannot have moral standing because species lack sentience. Although there is a basis for duties toward some species (in terms of their (...) intrinsic value), it is not the one that the holists claim. (shrink)

Among the various methods of deceit, lying is often thought to be a special affront on the grounds that it invites the victim’s trust. Such an explanation is incomplete without an account of the moral significance of trust. This article distinguishes two morally problematic relations to trust, betrayals and abuses, and, appealing to the idea that we should be grateful to be trusted, attempts to explain these wrongs as violations of distinct demands of gratitude for trust. Only the wrong of (...) abuse, not betrayal, is useful for distinguishing methods of deceit. Although lying commits an abuse of trust, it turns out that it is really the broader category of deceit by means of communication that is special in this way. -/- . (shrink)

In this article we assess the extant literature on women’s careers appearing in selected career, management and psychology journals from 1990 to the present to determine what is currently known about the state of women’s careers at the dawn of the 21st century. Based on this review, we identify four patterns that cumulatively contribute to the current state of the literature on women’s careers: women’s careers are embedded in women’s larger-life contexts, families and careers are central to women’s lives, women’s (...) career paths reflect a wide range and variety of patterns, and human and social capital are critical factors for women’s careers. We also identify paradoxes that highlight the disconnection between organizational practice and scholarly research associated with each of the identified patterns. Our overall conclusion is that male-defined constructions of work and career success continue to dominate organizational research and practice.We provide direction for a research agenda on women’s careers that addresses the development of integrative career theories relevant for women’s contemporary lives in hopes of providing fresh avenues for conceptualizing career success for women. Propositions are identified for more strongly connecting career scholarship to organizational practice in support of women’s continued career advancement. (shrink)

Animal liberationism and environmentalism generally are considered incompatible positions. But, properly conceived, they simply provide answers to different questions, concerning moral standing and intrinsic value, respectively. The two views together constitute an environmental ethic that combines environmental justice and environmental care. I show that this approach is not only consistent but defensible.

The period after the repulse of Xerxes' invasion is one of the more obscure in Greek history, and this is particularly true of the eclipse of Themistokles and the history of the Peloponnese in the seventies and sixties. On the period of Themistokles' ostracism before the flight which led him to Persia Thucydides says only that he was ostracized and lived at Argos while also travelling to the rest of the Peloponnese. Other writers add a few details to Thucydides' account (...) on other aspects of the ostracism, but tell us even less on the sojourn in Argos. Diodoros and Plutarch merely tell us that he lived there in exile while Nepos informs us that Themistokles' virtuous and dignified life in Argos aroused resentment. Now Themistokles did not remain inactive in exile. The Spartans had some good reason to wish to remove him from Argos. The activities which aroused the Spartans' distrust are probably referred to by Thucydides' remark that Themistokles journeyed to the rest of the Peloponnese. It is usually concluded that Themistokles was involved in the creation of an anti-Spartan coalition and that a major part of this policy may have been the establishment of democratic governments in and the synoecism of the cities of Elis and Mantineia. But we lack any clear evidence on Themistokles' actions in this period and the hypothesis rests principally on deductions from two brief passages. The first is from Herodotos and records that in 479 b.c. the Mantineian and Eleian contingents arrived too late to take part in the battle of Plataia and on their return both cities banished their commanders. (shrink)

This Article addresses the question of what limits, if any, freedom of speech would place on holding authors liable for the reputational damage they cause with fiction. By “freedom of speech” I am not referring to the First Amendment but rather to one conception of the moral idea underlying it. According to this conception, the limits that freedom of speech places on the scope of authors’ liability for causing false and defamatory beliefs are whatever limits are necessary to adequately protect (...) our interests as potential authors and audiences, and whose costs are acceptable in terms of other interests. To apply this conception, it will be necessary to identify our interests as potential authors of and audiences for fiction about real people, and to assess how these interests would be affected by different limits. Ultimately, I will argue that freedom of speech is consistent with holding authors liable for reputational damage caused by their violations of fiction’s “veracity rules” and for reputational damage caused by mistakes that their target audience would be expected to make. But liability for beliefs that are traceable to mistakes that only an author’s incidental audience would be expected to make is, I will argue, prohibitedby freedom of speech, so long as the costs of that protection remain acceptable. (shrink)

In The Twentieth-Century Humanists from Spitzer to Frye, William Calin examines the contributions of eight scholar-critics who produced their most important work between the mid-1930s and the early 1960s, before the advent of contemporary critical theory. Five are from Continental Europe. Leo Spitzer, Robert Curtius and Erich Auerbach were German-language students of Romance literatures, while Albert Béguin and Jean Rousset, both speakers of French, were leading figures of the Geneva school. Calin also includes English-language scholars: the Oxford don C. S. (...) Lewis, the American F. O. Mathiessen, and the Canadian Northrop Frye. Calin's goal is threefold. He wants to draw distinctions between the mid-twentieth .. (shrink)

Trust not only disposes us to feel betrayed, trust can be betrayed. Understanding what a betrayal of trust is requires understanding how trust can ground an obligation on the part of the trusted person to act specifically as trusted. This essay argues that, since trust cannot ground an appropriate obligation where there is no prior obligation, a betrayal of trust should instead be conceived as the violation of a trust-based obligation to respect an already existing obligation. Two forms of trust (...) are evaluated for their potential to ground such a second-order obligation. One form counts as a gift to the trusted person only because it does not involve an expectation of trustworthiness; the other form cannot count as a gift but confers an honor because it does include an expectation of trustworthiness. Only trust that confers an honor generates a second-order obligation whose violation would be a betrayal of trust. -/- . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.1 (2001) 142-154 [Access article in PDF] Critical Discussions The Fortunes of Avant-Garde Poetry Mary Anne O'Neil Invisible Fences. Prose Poetry as a Genre in French and American Literature, by Steven Monte; xii & 298 pp. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000, $50.00. Modern Visual Poetry, by Willard Bohn; 321 pp. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2000, $47.00. The situation of French poetry at the (...) turn of the twenty-first century is far different from what it was during the last fin de siècle. In 1900, poetry was a booming art, and France was home to numerous poets of varied inspiration and expression. The religious verse of Claudel and Péguy shared the attention of the reading public with the philosophical poetry of Valéry and the futuristic celebrations of Paris and modern life found in Apollinaire's Alcools and Calligrammes. Long poems, short poems, poems written in standard verse, free verse, prose, and even published as drawings, suggested that the golden age of poetry begun in the early nineteenth century by the Romantics and continued after 1850 by Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé, would not soon come to an end. This indeed proved to be the case, for the heirs of the Symbolist tradition of the first decade of the twentieth century were soon followed by the Surrealist revolutionaries of the 1920s and 1930s, many of whom directed their talents to the composition of political verse at the time of the Second World War. Political poetry by and large disappeared from France after 1950, only to be [End Page 142] succeeded over the next two decades by two very different types of verse. On the one hand, writers like St. John Perse and Pierre Jean Jouve produced difficult works whose appeal was limited to a sophisticated audience, while lyricists, such as Jacques Prévert and even the songwriter Georges Brassens, made poetry more accessible to the general public, often through popular songs. The fact that, during the days of May 1968, students scrawled verses of the Surrealist-Communist poet Paul Eluard on the walls of the Sorbonne to encourage efforts to bring down the social order attests to the power exerted by poetry on the intellectual life of France well into the second half of the twentieth century. Such, however, is no longer the case today. There are only two well-known living French poets, Francis Ponge and Yves Bonnefoy. While reviews dedicated to original poetry do still exist, especially in the south of France where the poetic arm of the French Resistance was most active in the 1940s, poetry attracts many fewer readers--and fewer writers--than it did even fifty years ago.Such a radical change merits some reflection. What has happened to French poetry since the mid-twentieth century? In a sense, all good things must come to an end sometime, and a century and a half of inventiveness and poetic energy may simply have run its natural course. French publishing houses, well aware that prose sells better than verse, have done little to encourage young poets. However, certain trends in the subject matter and form of contemporary French poetry have probably contributed to the current lack of interest. Since the end of the Second World War, French poets have concerned themselves almost uniquely with everyday life--common objects, geographical locales, and ordinary people. This obsession with the ordinary has produced some excellent poetry, especially René Char's evocations of Provençal landscapes and Yves Bonnefoy's treatments of childhood. Yet, this concentration on everyday life has severed poetry from the traditional subjects that have sustained it ever since classical antiquity, such as the celebration of heroic figures and heroic deeds, philosophical and religious inquiry, love, loss, prophetic vision. This very narrow range of subject risks consigning poetry to the status of a minor art. At the turn of the twenty-first century, French poetry also finds itself at the end of a very long period of formal experimentation that began in the second half of the nineteenth century and which includes... (shrink)

In light of the already-here disasters of the Anthropocene, what might it mean to define “ground” phenomenologically? That is, if one is to get beyond the ‘merely rational’ and enter into the ‘dustier’ matters of ecological philosophizing, how might one phenomenologically consider the ground? This article will dwell on the nature of the earth-ground—or, soil—as a rematerialized grounding principle for phenomenology in this age of climate crisis. Contending with Heidegger, among others, this poietic article limns possibilities for a ‘grounded’ phenomenology.

The paper is a defense of the moral methodology of John Rawls against criticisms by R.M. Hare and Peter Singer. Rawls is accused of intuitionism and subjectivism by Hare and of subjectivism and relativism by Singer, I argue that Rawls does not rely on intuitions as such, but on judgments on which there is a consensus. This does not commit Rawls to subjectivism for what is required for objectivity in ethics as in science is simply a rational justification procedure for (...) principles, which Rawls provides. Moreover, an appeal to a moral consensus at some point is inescapable. Finally, concerning the charge of relativism, I point out that Rawls includes in his justification procedure only those judgments on which there is a consensus among competent judges. Though there is the possibility that conflicting sets of judgments may be equally valid for different societies in the unlikely case that there is nothing invariant in the judgments of competent judges, this is a relativism we can accept. (shrink)

Ferdinand Schoeman criticizes the liberal view of the family which holds that parental rights are based in and limited by parental duties to the child. Instead he proposes the construction of principles based on the value of familial intimacy. Schoeman claims that only by recognizing the value of intimacy can we account for the degree of autonomy we legitimately grant parents in their relations with their children. In opposition, I argue that he misinterprets the liberal view. A correct interpretation allows (...) an appropriate degree of parental autonomy and familial intimacy but without sacrificing the child’s developmental needs. (shrink)

Deception is a useful methodological device for studying attitudes and behavior, but deceptive studies fail to fulfill the informed consent requirements in the U.S. federal regulations. This means that before they can be approved by Institutional Review Boards, they must satisfy the four regulatory conditions for a waiver or alteration of these requirements. To illustrate our interpretation, we apply the conditions to a recent study that used deception to show that subjects judged the same wine as more enjoyable when they (...) believed it had a higher price. (shrink)

Today''s headlines suggest that economic criteria alone is the basis for business decision-making. This paper argues that while profitability is a legitimate end of business, it must be moderated by ethical considerations. But can business be both successfuland ethical? Practical examples highlight individuals who chose profitability over ethical responsibility and those who chose and continue to choose both. The authors propose that there is an ethical person profile. Corporate managers can resolve the profits vs ethics dilemma by modeling ethical behavior.

This essay endeavors to show that application of a universalist epistemic method in theological ethics results in a construal of God, which is, from a biblical perspective, reductionist, and is a form of ethics in which universality is achieved at the expense of plurality. It argues for the formal possibility of an ecclesial ethics grounded in a tradition-centered rationality. It further argues that such an ethic need not result in a narrow and defensive sectarianism, a rigid and static orthodoxy, or (...) an authoritarian dogmatism. The posture of an ecclesial ethic based on the kind of critical realism advocated here may retain an apologetic and dialogical relation with the broader society, as it seeks to embody the incarnational narrative in its particular context. (shrink)

The use of growth attenuation therapy (GAT) is becoming more common in order to enable a family to care for a child with profound cognitive and physical disabilities (PCPD) as they age into adulthood. The first published study on the use of GAT was done with the family of a six-year-old girl with PCPD by Daniel Gunther and Douglas Diekema in Pediatrics in 2006. The ethical application of GAT generated considerable discussion on the use among children with PCPD in the (...) medical and ethics communities. This paper discusses the use of GAT for children with profound cognitive and physical disabilities from a Catholic bioethics perspective. (shrink)

Many oppose the use of profile evidence against defendants at trial, even when the statistical correlations are reliable and the jury is free from prejudice. The literature has struggled to justify this opposition. We argue that admitting profile evidence is objectionable because it violates what we call “equal protection”—that is, a right of innocent defendants not to be exposed to higher ex ante risks of mistaken conviction compared to other innocent defendants facing similar charges. We also show why admitting other (...) forms of evidence, such as eyewitness, trace, and motive evidence, does not violate equal protection. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultants are inevitably called to participate in and bear witness to emotionally challenging cases. With the move toward the professionalization of ethics consultants, the responsibility to respond to and address difficult ethical dilemmas is likely to fall to a small set of people or a single clinical ethicist. Combined with time constraints, the urgent nature of these cases, and the moral distress of clinicians and staff encountered during consultation, like other healthcare professionals such as physicians and nurses, clinical (...) ethics consultants could risk burnout. If it is true that clinical ethicists are at risk for burnout, an important strategy to avoid burnout is to develop sound self-care practices. This article reviews the goals and skills of ethics consultation and the role-specific reasons that clinical ethicists may be at risk for burnout, and argues that clinical ethicists may need to engage in self-care practices. Strategies to address burnout are reviewed and opportunities for future research are identified. (shrink)

A significant amount of discussion in the bioethics community has been devoted to the question of whether individuals performing ethics consultations in healthcare institutions have any special expertise. In addition, articles in the lay press have questioned the “added value” that bioethicists bring to ethical dilemmas. Those at the forefront of the bioethics community have argued repeatedly that those doing ethics consults cannot simply be well-intentioned individuals, that some training in bioethics, group process, and facilitation is necessary to competently execute (...) a consult. As one bioethicist commented:if you approach any endeavor as an amateur activity, you will get, in the end, an amateurish version of the activity. Without a sufficient commitment of personnel, time, support, and financial resources, a healthcare organization will get the ‘ethics’ program … it set out to create: an inept, unskilled, inefficient, and highly risky ‘program’ in healthcare ethics and bioethics. (shrink)

The paper clarifies the relative merits and proper roles of standards of review in the determination of proxy consent for those unable to make decisions concerning their own medical treatment. The "substituted judgment" standard asks which treatment the incompetent person would choose if competent, while the "best interests" test asks which treatment would benefit the patient. The tests are discussed in relation to the moral principles of autonomy and beneficence which provide their justification. I distinguish six types of cases involving (...) incompetent patients and argue that which standard is appropriate depends on the type of case involved. A "rational choice" standard, which asks "What would the incompetent patient choose if his or her choice were rational?", is proposed as a way of determining best interests. Keywords: proxy consent, nontreatment of incompetent persons, substituted judgment CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In this paper we take up the issue of near-term artificial intelligence (AI). "Near-term AI" is used to denote artificial intelligence algorithms that are already in place in a variety of public and private sectors, guiding decision that pertain to advertising, credit ratings, and sentencing in the justice system. Our focus here is to contribute to a critical discussion of the ways that AI is already being widely used in decision-making procedures in these areas. We will argue that developers and (...) deployers of AI systems--in senses to be defined--bear a particular kind of responsibility for the moral consequences of near-term AI. We will present a tool to aid developers and deployers in engaging in the moral reflection we argue is required of them, in order both the help them meet their moral obligations and to help address the material risks posed by what we take to be the status quo of actual near-term AI development. This chapter can be understood as a contribution to the field of technology assessment, but instead of suggesting policy revisions, we will propose a framework for ethical analysis that can be used to facilitate more robust ethical reflection in AI development and implementation. (shrink)

A significant amount of discussion in the bioethics community has been devoted to the question of whether individuals performing ethics consultations in healthcare institutions have any special expertise. In addition, articles in the lay press have questioned the “added value” that bioethicists bring to ethical dilemmas. Those at the forefront of the bioethics community have argued repeatedly that those doing ethics consults cannot simply be well-intentioned individuals, that some training in bioethics, group process, and facilitation is necessary to competently execute (...) a consult. As one bioethicist commented:if you approach any endeavor as an amateur activity, you will get, in the end, an amateurish version of the activity. Without a sufficient commitment of personnel, time, support, and financial resources, a healthcare organization will get the ‘ethics’ program … it set out to create: an inept, unskilled, inefficient, and highly risky ‘program’ in healthcare ethics and bioethics. (shrink)

We examined cynicism as a mediator of the influence of managers’ mission-congruent communication and behavior about ethical standards (a form of supervisory behavioral integrity) on employee attitudes and intended behavior. Results indicated that cynicism partially mediates the relationship between supervisory behavioral integrity and organizational commitment, but not the relationship between supervisory behavioral integrity and intent to comply with organizational expectations for employee conduct.

This article addresses two areas of continuing controversy about consent in clinical research: the question of when consent to low risk research is necessary, and the question of when consent to research is valid. The article identifies a number of considerations relevant to determining whether consent is necessary, chief of which is whether the study would involve subjects in ways that would (otherwise) infringe their rights. When consent is necessary, there is a further question of under what conditions consent is (...) valid or successful in waiving a right. The most influential account of validity conditions is non-moralized, in the sense that the conditions make no essential reference to whether the researcher soliciting consent has obtained it in a way that wrongs the subject. The article examines the implications of this account, and compares it with recent accounts that moralize some of the validity conditions. -/- . (shrink)

The central thesis of this article is that academic freedom has indeed become a "canonical value" of American higher education, though not for the reasons that conventional wisdom might posit. As recently as a half century ago, few university administrators or governing boards felt constrained in dismissing or refusing to hire outspoken professors. The quite remote risk of potential legal liability for such adverse action posed a minor deterrent. The Supreme Court's first recognition of academic freedom came only in the (...) late 1950s, and matured only in the ensuing decade. Apart from judicial endorsement of this doctrine, some credit must be given to faculty organizations such as the American Association of University Professors, and to the gradual spread of collective bargaining in public higher education. Yet the soundest explanation for the "canonization" of academic freedom is a slightly different one - that respecting and protecting faculty rights became an increasingly critical element in the intense competition to attract and retain the most eminent scholars. Quite simply, no reputable institution of higher learning could risk a valid charge of disparaging or disrespecting the expressive rights of its professors. (shrink)