Dual loyalty issues confront health and welfare professionals in immigration detention centres in Australia. There are four apparent ways they deal with the ethical tensions. One group provides services as required by their employing body with little questioning of moral dilemmas. A second group is more overtly aware of the conflicts and works in a mildly subversive manner to provide the best possible care available within a harsh environment. A third group retreats by relinquishing employment in the detention setting. A (...) fourth group is activist in intent and actions. Derived from research and ethnography conducted in Australia, the article explores the moral dilemmas confronting those who are duty-bound by professional codes of ethics while also bound by loyalty to their employers and silenced by confidentiality statements. It provides particular focus on psychiatry, nursing and social work. We conclude by speculating whether a politics of compassion and acts of solidarity can forge a pathway through the ethical terrain. In doing so we draw upon human rights considerations as well as on the works of Joan Tronto and Elisabeth Porter. (shrink)

Australia has one of the harshest regimes for the processing of asylum seekers, people who have applied for refugee status but are still awaiting an answer. It has received sharp rebuke for its policies from international human rights bodies but continues to exercise its resolve to protect its borders from those seeking protection. One means of doing so is the detention of asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat. Health care providers who care for asylum seekers in these conditions (...) experience a conflict of “dual loyalty,” whereby their role in preserving and maintaining the health of patients can run counter to their employment in detention facilities. Many psychiatrists who have worked in the detention setting engage in forms of political activism in order to change the process of seeking refuge. (shrink)

The main aim of this essay is to propose and develop a product?oriented, non?psychologistic, approach to scientific and artistic creativity. I first argue that the central problem is that of answering the question: how is creativity possible? Traditional approaches to this question tend to locate creativity primarily in some special psychological processes or traits, or in some special creative act. Some general arguments against such an approach are developed, and it is suggested that creativity ought primarily to be located in (...) scientific and artistic products. I then investigate the question ?what aspects of such products lead us to evaluate them as creative?? and use the results of this inquiry as a set of desiderata against which to evaluate various general views as to the nature of the creative process itself. The upshot of this procedure is the development of a kind of ?Darwinian? model whose novel feature lies in the suggestion that the process of production has, in effect, been controlled (plastically) by those very factors which can enable the product to be a creative one. (shrink)

This paper explores ethical questions arising from the work of health practitioners in immigration detention centres in Australia. It raises questions about the roles of professional disciplines and the ways in which they confront dual loyalty issues. The exploration is guided by interviews conducted with health professionals who have worked in asylum seeker detention and an examination of the outsider advocacy role undertaken by the social work profession. The paper discusses the stance taken by individuals and professional associations on participation (...) in controlled settings, including as participant, bystander and advocate, and asks when the provision of care becomes collusion with oppression. (shrink)

Australia's policy of mandatory indefinite detention of those seeking asylum and arriving without valid documents has led to terrible human rights abuses and cumulative deterioration in health for those incarcerated. We argue that there is an imperative to research and document the plight of those who have suffered at the hands of the Australian government and its agents. However, the normal tools available to those engaged in health research may further erode the rights and well being of this population, requiring (...) a rethink of existing research ethics paradigms to approaches that foster advocacy research and drawing on the voices of those directly affected, including those bestowed with duty of care for this population. (shrink)

A Sceptical Theory of Scientific Inquiry: Problems and Their Progress presents a distinctive re-interpretation of Popper's 'critical rationalism', displaying the kind of spirit found at the L.S.E. before Popper's retirement. It offers an alternative to interpretations of critical rationalism which have emphasised the significance of research programmes or metaphysics (Lakatos; Nicholas Maxwell), and is closer to the approach of Jagdish Hattiangadi. Briskman gives priority to methodological argument rather than logical formalisms, and takes further his own work on creativity. In addition (...) to offering an important contribution to the understanding of critical rationalism, the book contains interesting engagements with Michael Polanyi and the Meno Paradox. This volume also contains an introduction by the editor, which situates Briskman's work in the history of the interpretation of 'critical rationalism'. (shrink)

Epistemology as traditionally conceived seems to have fallen upon hard times. Not only has the cry arisen from diverse philosophical quarters that epistemology is dead, but we have even been offered a plethora of suggestions as to how best fill the vacuum left by her sudden demise. Thus Quine, for example, has recently urged that epistemology be “naturalized” and replaced by empirical psychology and an empirical semantics. Others suggest that epistemology be “historicized” and replaced by a study of the history (...) of ideas, and especially by a study of the history of science. Still others have argued that epistemology be “sociologized” and replaced by a sociology of scientific knowledge and/or a sociology of the scientific community. Finally, we have even been told, in a rather delightful Viennese manner, that epistemology must be “radicalized” and replaced by a kind of opportunistic anarchism, marching under the banner of “Anything Goes!” to the tune of a Dadaist waltz. (shrink)

The main aim of this essay is to propose and develop a product?oriented, non?psychologistic, approach to scientific and artistic creativity. I first argue that the central problem is that of answering the question: how is creativity possible? Traditional approaches to this question tend to locate creativity primarily in some special psychological processes or traits, or in some special creative act. Some general arguments against such an approach are developed, and it is suggested that creativity ought primarily to be located in (...) scientific and artistic products. I then investigate the question ?what aspects of such products lead us to evaluate them as creative?? and use the results of this inquiry as a set of desiderata against which to evaluate various general views as to the nature of the creative process itself. The upshot of this procedure is the development of a kind of ?Darwinian? model whose novel feature lies in the suggestion that the process of production has, in effect, been controlled (plastically) by those very factors which can enable the product to be a creative one. (shrink)

Our world suffers. Some people suffer more than others. Since the first part of 2020, ours is justly described as a time of uncertainty, threat, and upheaval. In this article, we offer reflections threaded narratively, told from the specificity of our societal contexts in Iran, Canada, and Australia. What might we learn in the present and anticipated future from people living chronically within conditions of uncertainty and immobility and also those experiencing uncertainty and immobility for the first time? We argue (...) that reflexive comparative analysis bridging social and visual analysis, anchored in embodied conditions of such people, offers a way to learn from responses to COVID-19 while also being an exercise in ethical research practice. This reflection builds on and extends from our scholarly collaborations that have been ongoing since 2015. Our title recognizes this specific virus as stealthy. Importantly, our choice of words identifies resident Iranians—whose experiences were the original impetuses for this paper, and whose lives provide its empirical basis —as equally steely. (shrink)

This book examines the intersections of bioethics, human rights and health equity. It does so through the contextual lenses of nation states while presenting global themes on rights, colonialism and bioethics. The book is framed by the following propositions on indigenous health: it is a human rights issue; it is located within the politics of colonization; and subjugated indigenous knowledges require restoring.

Australia's policy of mandatory indefinite detention of those seeking asylum and arriving without valid documents has led to terrible human rights abuses and cumulative deterioration in health for those incarcerated. We argue that there is an imperative to research and document the plight of those who have suffered at the hands of the Australian government and its agents. However, the normal tools available to those engaged in health research may further erode the rights and well being of this population, requiring (...) a rethink of existing research ethics paradigms to approaches that foster advocacy research and drawing on the voices of those directly affected, including those bestowed with duty of care for this population. (shrink)

The system of asylum seeker detention in Australia is one in which those seeking refuge are stripped of many of their rights, including the right to health. This presents serious ethical problems for healthcare providers working within this system. In this article we describe asylum seeker detention and analyse the role of nurses. We discuss how far an “ethics of care” and witnessing the suffering of asylum seekers can serve to improve their situation and improve ethical nursing practice.