Utility- and pleasure-Friendship in the "nicomachean ethics" have commonly been held to be wholly self-Seeking relationships and of no great interest as forms of "friendship". Recently, John cooper has argued that these relationships essentially involve disinterested concern in a subtle blending of self- and other-Regarding purposes and causes. The article argues against cooper that disinterestedness has no part in these relationships but that they can nonetheless be seen as exhibiting trust, Sharing, Interdependence, And other virtues of interpersonal relationships.

Much of the sustained attention on pandemic preparedness has focused on the ethical justification for plans for the “crisis” phase of a surge when, despite augmentation efforts, the demand for life...

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This work emerged from funded research examining collaboration among stake-holder organizations present at three U.S. nuclear weapons complex sites. The authors examine issues such as how and why stakeholder groups form collaborative alliances when dealing with the target organization, what leaders of stakeholder organizations actually think about when collaborating to deal with the target organization, and what outcomes result from the collaboration process. Drawing on stakeholder theory and research in interorganizational collaboration, the authors used an inductive, interview-based methodology to build (...) a model of collaboration among nonprofit stakeholder groups. The model contributes to the descriptive stream of stakeholder theory and, in turn, has implications for the instrumental stream. The model also offers implications for future researchers, leaders of stakeholder alliances, and leaders of target organizations. (shrink)

Business students have long been noted for their differential proclivity to engage in academic misconduct. Unfortunately, the potential for misconduct has been exacerbated in recent years by rapid advances in technology, easy access to information, competitive pressures, and the proliferation of websites that provide students access to information that allows them to directly circumvent the learning process. Using a convenience sample of 631 students matriculating in various business majors at four U.S. universities and structural equations modeling procedures, this study assesses (...) the effects of psychological factors on business students’ propensities to utilize the services of homework assistance websites. Specifically, we examine how “Dark Triad” personality traits (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) interact with Fraud Diamond elements to influence student decisions to engage the services of these websites. We find that each Dark Triad trait exerts a significant influence on at least one of the Fraud Diamond elements, which in turn have a significant direct or indirect positive association with students’ reported intentions to utilize, and reported utilization of, these websites. (shrink)

The Ethics Consultation Quality Assessment Tool (ECQAT) establishes standards by which the quality of ethics consultation records (ECRs) can be assessed. These standards relate to the ethics question, consultation-specific information, ethical analysis, and recommendations and/or conclusions, and result in a score associated with one of four levels of ethics consultation quality. For the ECQAT to be useful in assessing and improving the quality of healthcare ethics consultations, individuals who rate the quality of ECRs need to be able to reliably use (...) the tool.We developed a short course to train ethics consultants in using the ECQAT, and evaluated whether the participants (1) achieved an acceptable level of calibration in matching expert-established quality scores for a set of ethics consultations, and (2) were satisfied with the course. We recruited 28 ethics consultants to participate in a virtual, six-session course. At each session participants and faculty reviewed, rated, and discussed one to two ECRs. The participants’ calibration in matching expert-established quality scores improved with repeated exposure at all levels of ethics consultation quality. Participants were generally more accurate when assessing consultation quality at the dichotomous level of “acceptable” (scores of three or four) versus “unacceptable” (scores of one or two) than they were with a more specific score. Participants had higher rates of accuracy with the extreme ratings of “strong” (level four) or “poor” (level one). Although participants were highly satisfied with the course, only a minority of participants achieved the prespecified acceptable level of calibration (that is, 80 percent or greater accuracy between their score and expert-established scores). These results suggest that ECQAT training may require more sessions or need modification in the protocol to achieve higher reliability in scoring. Such trainings are an important next step in ensuring that the ECQAT is a tool that can be used to promote improvement in ethics consultation quality. (shrink)

Structural biology has experienced several transformative technological advances in recent years. These include: development of extremely bright X-ray sources and the use of electrons to extend protein crystallography to ever decreasing crystal sizes; and an increase in the resolution attainable by cryo-electron microscopy. Here we discuss the use of these techniques in general terms and highlight their application for biological filament systems, an area that is severely underrepresented in atomic resolution structures. We assemble a model of a capped tropomyosin-actin minifilament (...) to demonstrate the utility of combining structures determined by different techniques. Finally, we survey the methods that attempt to transform high resolution structural biology into more physiological environments, such as the cell. Together these techniques promise a compelling decade for structural biology and, more importantly, they will provide exciting discoveries in understanding the designs and purposes of biological machines. Structural biology is undergoing technological advancements that now reveal the structures of previously inaccessible biological machines. Microfocus synchrotron beamlines, X-ray free electron lasers, and MicroED cope with vanishingly small crystals, while cryo-electron microscopy targets single molecules at near atomic resolution. These advances promise an exciting decade for structural biology. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 5, Page 20-22, May 2012.

ObjectiveThe novel coronavirus is linked to increases in emotional distress and may be particularly problematic for those with pre-existing mental and physical conditions, such as chronic pain and posttraumatic stress disorder. However, little empirical research has been published on resilience factors in these individuals. The present study aims to examine authenticity as a resilience factor among those with chronic pain and/or PTSD.MethodsPrior to the national response to the pandemic, participants were screened for pain-related disability and PTSD symptoms, and on the (...) basis of those responses were categorized into one of four groups: healthy, chronic pain only, PTSD only, or comorbid chronic pain and PTSD. During the CV-19 pandemic, participants responded again to the ODI and PCL-5, in addition to the Wood Authenticity Scale, Brief Pain Inventory, and items related to the CV-19 pandemic.ResultsA total of 110 participants, aged 42.19, completed the survey during the pandemic. The comorbid group endorsed higher levels of CV-19 Threat and Impact compared to all other groups. Authenticity moderated this relationship relevant to CV-19 Threat among those in the chronic pain only group, and not in any other group.ConclusionThe comorbid group endorsed higher levels of CV-19 Threat and Impact compared to all other groups. Importantly, greater authenticity was associated with less CV-19 Threat in the chronic pain only group, and not in any other group. The present study also highlights the importance of engaging authentically for those with chronic pain during the pandemic. (shrink)

This essay discusses unlimited insurance subrogation (UIS) as a means of improving the deterrence and compensation results of medical malpractice law. Under UIS, health care insureds could assign their entire potential medical malpractice claims to their first-party commercial and government insurers. UIS should improve deterrence by establishing first-party insurers as plaintiffs to confront liability insurers on the defense side, leading to more effective prosecution of meritorious claims and reducing meritless and unnecessary litigation. UIS should improve compensation outcomes by converting litigation (...) cost- and risk- laden “tort insurance” into cheaper and enhanced first-party insurance. UIS also promises dynamic benefits through further reforms by contract between the first-party and liability insurers that would take charge of system. No UIS-related costs are apparent that would outweigh these benefits. (shrink)

The general consensus is that reform of medical malpractice law should be part of the health care system's overhaul. Medical malpractice litigation results in the expenditure of tens of billions annually, largely paid out of health care insurance funds and mostly paid to defendants' and plaintiffs' lawyers. By all accounts, this tort law regime ill serves the basic deterrence and compensation goals of civil liability. The causes and magnitude of these failings are disputed, and many typical reform proposals sidestep the (...) basic problems and may do more harm than good. In contrast, we advance a straightforward way to improve both deterrence and compensation. Essentially, the proposal is to remove current legal limitations on the scope of insurance subrogation that bar private and public health care insurers from “buying” the whole of their insureds' potential medical malpractice claims in exchange for lower premiums and taxes and expanded insurance coverage. Our proposal’s benefits accrue regardless of the cause and magnitude of the failings of malpractice law or the further reforms that might be adopted. (shrink)

One way to determine whether a mental condition should be considered a disorder is to first give necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be a disorder and then see if it meets these conditions. But this approach has been criticized for begging normative questions. Concerning autism (and other conditions), a neurodiversity movement has arisen with essentially two aims: (1) advocate for the rights and interests of individuals with autism, and (2) de-pathologize autism. We argue that denying autism’s disorder status (...) could undermine autism’s exculpatory role in cases where individuals with autism are charged with a crime. Our argument raises a dilemma for the neurodiversity movement: advocating for the rights and interests of individuals with autism may require viewing autism as a condition that can be inherently disabling (at least for some individuals). If this is right, autism’s disorder status might be maintained (again, at least for some individuals) without deriving this result from any general account of disorder. (shrink)

Background: In the last two decades, nursing authors have published ethical analyses of palliative sedation—an end-of-life care practice that also receives significant attention in the broader medical and bioethics literature. This nursing literature is important, because it contributes to disciplinary understandings about nursing values and responsibilities in end-of-life care. Research aim: The purpose of this project is to review existing nursing ethics literature about palliative sedation, and to analyze how nurses’ moral identities are portrayed within this literature. Research design: We (...) reviewed discussion papers, written by nurses about the ethics of palliative sedation, which were cited in MEDLINE, CINAHL, Nursing and Allied Health, or Philosopher’s Index (search date March 2018). Twenty-one papers met selection criteria. We performed a comprehensive review and analysis (using the Qualitative Analysis Guide of Leuven), of the values, responsibilities, and relationships reflected in authors’ portrayal of the nursing role. Findings: Two different tones are apparent in the extant nursing ethics literature. One is educational, while the other is critically reflective. Irrespective of tone, all authors agree on the alleviation of suffering as a fundamental nursing responsibility. However, they differ in their analysis of this responsibility in relation to other values in end-of-life care, including those that depend on consciousness. Finally, authors emphasize the importance of subjective and experience-based understandings of palliative sedation, which they argue as depending on nurses’ proximity to patients and families in end-of-life care. Discussion and conclusion: Based on our findings, we develop three recommendations for future writing by nurses about palliative sedation. These relate to the responsibility of recognizing how consciousness might matter in (some) peoples’ moral experiences of death and dying, to the importance of moral reflectiveness in nursing practice, and to the value of a relational approach in conceptualizing the nursing ethics of palliative sedation. (shrink)

A contribution to management philosophy is made here by the development of a postcolonial-storytelling theory, created by drawing together parallel developments in quantum physics and tribal peoples’ storytelling. We argue that these developments resituate the hegemonic relationship of discursive representationalism over material storytelling practices. Implications are two-fold. First, this dissolves inherent dualisms presumed in the concept of interactionamong entities like actor–structure, subject–object and discursive–nondiscursive in favour of a profound ontology of entanglement and intra-action of materiality and discourse, where storytelling is (...) a domain of this discourse. Second, postcolonial phenomena are understood as results of entangled genealogies in which plural voices are present. This implies an understanding and awareness of the intra-action of imperial narratives and material storytelling and antenarrative resistance, and thus the resistance and contestation to imperial and colonising monologic narratives of spatial and temporal alignment. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Tree and the Bean The Taste Test A Way Out of Relativism Other Considerations Try It Yourself!

The behavior of people in the presence of scarce resources has long been a source of ethical concern and debate. Many of the responses, ranging from outright brutality and cheating on the one hand to altruism, nobility, and sacrifice on the other, were most recently demonstrated in the movie Titanic. It should come as no surprise, then, that rational efforts to allocate the very scarce life-saving resource of organs are sometimes circumvented by these natural human impulses and sheer human creativity. (...) This is especially true when the organs in question are required for continued life and cannot be temporarily or permanently replaced by technology. Thus the focus of this paper will be on the competition for livers. (shrink)

This three volume set contains papers presented at the Seventh World Congress of the Econometric Society. The first volume contains three papers presented at the Seventh World Congress of the Econometric Society which summarize and interpret key recent developments and discuss current and future directions in a wide range of topics in economics and econometrics. They cover both theory and applications. Authored by leading specialists in their fields, these volumes provide a unique survey of progress in the discipline. The second (...) volume comprising three papers which examine the latest developments in economic theory, applied economics and econometrics presented at the Seventh World Congress of the Econometric Society in Tokyo in August 1995. The topics were carefully selected to represent the most active fields in the discipline over the past five years. Written by the leading authorities in their fields, each paper provides a unique survey of the current state of knowledge in economics. Designed to make the material accessible to a general audience of economists, these volumes should be helpful to anyone with a good undergraduate training in economics who wishes to follow new ideas and tendencies in the subject. The third of three volumes contains papers presented at the Seventh World Congress of the Econometric Society. The papers summarize and interpret key recent developments and discuss current and future directions in a wide range of topics in economics and econometrics. They cover both theory and applications. Authored by leading specialists in their fields, these volumes provide a unique survey of progress in the discipline. (shrink)

Giulio Tononi's integrated information theory (IIT) proposes explaining consciousness by directly identifying it with integrated information. We examine the construct validity of IIT's measure of consciousness,phi(Φ), by analyzing its formal properties, its relation to key aspects of consciousness, and its co-variation with relevant empirical circumstances. Our analysis shows that IIT's identification of consciousness with the causal efficacy with which differentiated networks accomplish global information transfer (which is what Φ in fact measures) is mistaken. This misidentification has the consequence of requiring (...) the attribution of consciousness to a range of natural systems and artifacts that include, but are not limited to, large-scale electrical power grids, gene-regulation networks, some electronic circuit boards, and social networks. Instead of treating this consequence of the theory as a disconfirmation, IIT embraces it. By regarding these systems as bearers of consciousnessex hypothesi, IIT is led toward the orbit of panpsychist ideation. This departure from science as we know it can be avoided by recognizing the functional misattribution at the heart of IIT's identity claim. We show, for example, what function is actually performed, at least in the human case, by the cortical combination of differentiation with integration that IIT identifies with consciousness. Finally, we examine what lessons may be drawn from IIT's failure to provide a credible account of consciousness for progress in the very active field of research concerned with exploring the phenomenon from formal and neural points of view. (shrink)

The International Research Institute for Climate Prediction was created in 1996 with an “end-to-end” mission to engage in climate research and modeling on a seasonal-to-interannual time scale and to provide the results of this research in a useful way to farmers, fishermen, public health officials, and others capable of making the best of the predicted climate conditions. As a boundary organization, IRI straddles the divides between the production and use of research and between the developed world and the developing world. (...) This article describes the institutional history of IRI, examining how the end-to-end mission evolved over time, how it is becoming institutionalized in IRI as a boundary organization, and the ongoing challenges it presents to managing the boundary between climate variability research and societal applications. (shrink)