This systematic review identifies and critically evaluates instruments that have been developed to measure clinical trial informed consent comprehension in non-cognitively-impaired adults. Literature searches were carried out on Medline, PsycInfo, CINHAL, ERIC, ScienceDirect, and Cochrane Library for English language articles published between January 1980 and September 2008. Instruments were excluded if they focused on consent onto paediatric trials, the construct under study was primarily capacity or competency, or the instrument was developed specifically for psychiatric or cognitively-impaired populations. Instruments selected for (...) review were evaluated against the following criteria: method of item generation; type and format of test items; administration and interpretation of test results; and psychometric properties. Three instruments met our defined inclusion criteria: the Deaconess Informed Consent Comprehension Test, the Quality of Informed Consent questionnaire and the Brief Informed Consent Protocol. Each instrument varied in terms of content measured. Significantly, these are the first standardized instruments developed to assess comprehension in non-cognitively-impaired adults. Yet, each instrument had its own set of limitations such as the lack of generalizability and the absence of details pertaining to how test results should be used to guide clinical decision-making. Standardized clinical trial informed consent comprehension assessments have been developed to identify gaps in research participants' understanding and ensure that respect for patient autonomy is satisfied. (shrink)
O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar as críticas feitas por neurocientistas às pesquisas que buscam diferenças cognitivas entre homens e mulheres presentes no cérebro, principalmente, utilizando o respaldo da neuroimagem. Desde o início dos anos 2000, a preocupação com a utilização da neurociência para justificar estereótipos de gênero e a falta de critério dos responsáveis para diferenciar as expressões “sexo” e “gênero” têm envolvido diversas neurocientistas no debate mais profundo entre natureza e cultura apresentado por essas pesquisas. Além disso, é (...) imperativo pensarmos no impacto desses resultados, considerando que eles fornecem argumentos para os diversos discursos sociais e contribuem muito para o entendimento das habilidades humanas. (shrink)
This article describes why and how the author started a medical-legal partnership at her small law school, the curricula associated with the medical-legal partnership, and the experience she and her students have had with the curricula to date. It also provides “lessons learned” which may be useful for individuals interested in expanding interdisciplinary and experiential opportunities at institutions that presently lack traditional sources of such opportunities.
In recent literature there is unanimous agreement about children's pragmatic competence in drawing scalar implicatures about some , if the task is made easy enough. However, children accept infelicitous some sentences more often than adults do. In general their acceptance is assumed to be synonymous with a logical interpretation of some as a quantifier. But in our view an overlap with some as a determiner in under-informative sentences cannot be ruled out, given the ambiguity of the experimental instructions and the (...) attitude of trust by children in adults. Our study investigated this hypothesis with different experimental manipulations. We found that when the experimenter's intentions are clear (Experiment 1, all / some order effect; Experiments 2 and 4, conditions 2 and 3), under-informative sentences are usually rejected; otherwise (Experiment 1, some / all order effect; Experiments 3 and 4, control condition) they are accepted. However, analysis of verbal protocols indicated that pragmatically infelicitous sentences are accepted, with some interpreted mostly as a determiner, irrespective of the function of some as a quantifier. Acceptance is not in itself synonymous with a logical interpretation of some as a quantifier. (shrink)
Concern has been raised that segregation of girls and boys into separate classes leads to increased gender stereotyping. We tested this in a sample of 365 seventh-grade students attending a junior high school that offers both gender-segregated (GS) and co-educational classes. It was found that for both boys and girls, the more GS classes they took in the fall, the more gender stereotyped they were in their responding in the spring (controlling for initial levels of gender stereotyping). We concluded that (...) GS likely heightens the salience of gender in the classroom thereby reinforcing and increasing gender stereotypes. As such, we argue that GS is a misguided approach to addressing any educational difficulties girls and boys might be having. (shrink)
Media and Moral Education demonstrates that the study of philosophy can be used to enhance critical thinking skills, which are sorely needed in today’s technological age. It addresses the current oversight of the educational environment not keeping pace with rapid advances in technology, despite the fact that educating students to engage critically and compassionately with others via online media is of the utmost importance. -/- D’Olimpio claims that philosophical thinking skills support the adoption of an attitude she calls critical perspectivism, (...) which she applies in the book to international multimedia examples. The author also suggests that the Community of Inquiry – a pedagogy practised by advocates of Philosophy for Children – creates a space in which participants can practise being critically perspectival, and can be conducted with all age levels in a classroom or public setting, making it beneficial in shaping democratic and discerning citizens. -/- This book will be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the areas of philosophy of education, philosophy, education, critical theory and communication, film and media studies. (shrink)
ABSTRACTIn A Theory of Moral Education, Michael Hand defends the importance of teaching children moral standards, even while taking seriously the fact that reasonable people disagree about morality. While I agree there are universal moral values based on the kind of beings humans are, I raise two issues with Hand’s account. The first is an omission that may be compatible with Hand’s theory; the role of virtues. A role for the cultivation of virtues and rational emotions such as compassion is (...) vital in accounting for the emotional aspect of morality. The second issue pertains to Hand’s foundational premise of human beings’ rough equality. Following Martha Nussbaum, I argue that contractarian approaches must be critically evaluated to ensure the social contract properly includes and accounts for the human dignity of those who are typically excluded from the benefits of society. Hand’s justificatory arguments rely upon a contractarian premise, and the contract itself needs scrutiny and adjustment if it is to support a viable theory of moral education. (shrink)
Following neo-Aristotelians Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum, we claim that humans are story-telling animals who learn from the stories of diverse others. Moral agents use rational emotions, such as compassion which is our focus here, to imaginatively reconstruct others’ thoughts, feelings and goals. In turn, this imaginative reconstruction plays a crucial role in deliberating and discerning how to act. A body of literature has developed in support of the role narrative artworks (i.e. novels and films) can play in allowing us (...) the opportunity to engage imaginatively and sympathetically with diverse characters and scenarios in a safe protected space that is created by the fictional world. By practising what Nussbaum calls a ‘loving attitude’, her version of ethical attention, we can form virtuous habits that lead to phronesis (practical wisdom). In this paper, and taking compassion as an illustrative focus, we examine the ways that students’ moral education might usefully develop from engaging with narrative artworks through Philosophy for Children (P4C), where philosophy is a praxis, conducted in a classroom setting using a Community of Inquiry (CoI). We argue that narrative artworks provide useful stimulus material to engage students, generate student questions, and motivate philosophical dialogue and the formation of good habits which, in turn, supports the argument for philosophy to be taught in schools. (shrink)
Conventional quantitative methods for the measurement of organizational legitimacy consider mainly three sources that make judgments about organizations visible: news media, accreditation bodies, and surveys. Over the last decade, however, social media have enabled ordinary citizens to bypass the gatekeeping function of these institutional evaluators and autonomously make individual judgments public. This inclusion of voices beyond functional and formally organized stakeholder groups potentially pluralizes the ongoing discussions about organizations. The individual judgments in blogs, tweets, and Facebook posts give indication about (...) the broader fit between an organization’s perceived behavior and heterogeneous social norms and therefore constitute an indicator of organizational legitimacy that can be accessed and measured. We propose the use of social media data and sentiment analysis to study the affect-based responses to organizational actions by citizens. We critically discuss and compare the method with existing quantitative methods for legitimacy measurement and apply them to a recent case in the banking industry. We discuss the value of the method for studying the process of legitimacy construction as the expression and negotiation of normative judgments about organizations by various evaluators. (shrink)
As social and political beings, we are able to flourish only if we collaborate with others. Trust, understood as a virtue, incorporates appropriate rational emotional dispositions such as compassion as well as action that is contextual, situated in a time and place. We judge responses as appropriate and characters as trustworthy or untrustworthy based on these factors. To be considered worthy of trust, as an individual or an institution, one must do the right thing at the right time for the (...) right reasons, and the action should have its intended effect. By focussing on character, including a moral agent’s emotional disposition, virtue ethicists offer a more holistic account of trust than that explained by a deontic adherence to one’s duty as governed by a social contract. I will apply this understanding to educational institutions, particularly primary and secondary schools that serve a vital role in society. One of the main roles schools perform is to assist in character formation so that students, through practice, learn to be trusting and trusted citizens of society. I offer the philosophy in schools’ methodology of the community of inquiry as one example of how such practice may be facilitated in the classroom. (shrink)
Trust is vital for individuals to flourish and have a sense of well-being in their community. A trusting society allows people to feel safe, communicate with each other and engage with those who are different to themselves without feeling fearful. In this paper I employ an Aristotelian framework in order to identify trust as a virtue and I defend the need to cultivate trust in children. I discuss the case study of Buranda State School in Queensland, Australia as an instance (...) of successful school reform that reinstates trust in an educational setting. Buranda makes use of the community of inquiry (CoI) pedagogy practiced by advocates of philosophy for children (P4C). Educators may create a safe space in the classroom by using the CoI and giving children the chance to voice their ideas and build upon, as well as question, those of others in a democratic and respectful manner. Through this pragmatic dialogue, trust may be established, along with a sense of belonging that supports well-being in the classroom as well as in life. (shrink)
In evolutionary psychology predictions, women’s mate preferences shift between fertile and nonfertile times of the month to reflect ancestral fitness benefits. Our meta-analytic test involving 58 independent reports was largely nonsupportive. Specifically, fertile women did not especially desire sex in short-term relationships with men purported to be of high genetic quality. The few significant preference shifts appeared to be research artifacts. The effects declined over time in published work, were limited to studies that used broader, less precise definitions of the (...) fertile phase, and were found only in published research. (shrink)
In Epistemic Two-Dimensional Semantics, David Chalmers seeks to develop a version of 2-D semantics which can vindicate the rationalist claim that there are constitutive connections between meaning, possibility and a priority. Chalmers lays out different ways of filling in his preferred epistemic approach to 2-D semantics so as to avoid controversial philosophical assumptions. In these comments, however, I argue that there are some distinctively rationalist commitments in Chalmers's epistemic approach to 2-D semantics. I start by explaining why Chalmers's approach requires (...) a canonical language that affords subjects accurate a priori access to the space of possibility. I then argue that traditional worries about rationalism will simply re-emerge as worries about whether there can be a canonical vocabulary and how we could come to recognize one if there were. The moral is that Chalmers's 2-D semantic framework builds in substantive metaphysical and epistemological commitments which stand in need of further defense. (shrink)
This editorial to the special issue addresses the often overlooked question of the ethical nature of social enterprises. The emerging social entrepreneurship literature has previously been dominated by enthusiasts who fail to critique the social enterprise, focusing instead on its distinction from economic entrepreneurship and potential in solving social problems. In this respect, we have found through the work presented herein that the relation between social entrepreneurship and ethics needs to be problematized. Further, we find that a range of conceptual (...) lenses and methodological approaches is valuable as the social entrepreneurship field matures. (shrink)
Irène Némirovsky’s novella Les Mouches d’automne paints an effective portrait of exile, of the longing for the lost home, and the disorientation that one feels when faced with a reality that is neither recognizable nor understandable. In this article, I analyse Némirovsky’s narrative strategies in relation to spatio-temporal phenomena. My analysis is based on the work of philosophers Mikhail Bakhtin and Gilles Deleuze: Bakhtin’s chronotope and Deleuze’s crystal-image illuminate how the novella’s dominant themes, exile and nostalgia for the home, are (...) irreducible to the clichés of a linear narration and to the simplistic dichotomy home/exile, past/present, and here/there. Instead, Némirovsky creates a productive tension of overlapping and coalescing space- and time-frames. The philosophical framework provided by Bakhtin and Deleuze is useful to unlock and make visible how this thematic complexity is reflected in the novella’s narrative structure. Indeed, my analysis of Les Mouches’s chronotopes and crystal images illuminates Némirovsky’s innovative experimentation in the creation of time–space crossings and a/synchronies, and also contributes to extend further our understanding of Némirovsky’s place within the contemporaneous literary panorama. (shrink)
ABSTRACT Social media is a key player in contemporary political, cultural and ethical debates. Given much of online engagement is characterised by impulsive and emotive responses, and social media platforms encourage a form of sensationalism that promotes epistemic vices, this paper explores whether there is space online for moral responses. This paper defends the need for moral engagement with online information and others, using an attitude entitled ‘critical perspectivism’. Critical perspectivism sees a moral agent adopt a critical eye, supplemented by (...) a caring disposition, when engaging with interactive digital media and the stories of others that are technologically mediated. Such an ethical attitude is required given our globally connected, technological world features new versions of recognisable challenges to democracy and the reasonableness of citizens. There is a vital role for educationalists to play in teaching and making space and time for students to practice being critically perspectival. (shrink)
The increasing role that new technologies play in intimate relationships has led to the emergence of a new form of couple violence, cyber dating abuse, especially among adolescents and young adults. Although this phenomenon has received increased attention, no research has investigated predictors of cyber dating abuse taking into account the interdependence of the two partners. The study examines adverse childhood experiences and early maladaptive schemas as possible predictors of young adults’ perpetrated and suffered cyber dating abuse. Adopting a dyadic (...) approach, mediational models in which adverse childhood experiences were assumed to be related to individual and partner’s cyber dating abuse through individual early maladaptive schemas were tested. 134 couples completed online self-reports of the variables of interest, including a bidimensional measure of cyber dating abuse assessing pressure-aggression and control-monitoring. Actor-partner interdependence mediation model analyses were conducted. Results indicated that the emotional deprivation schema mediated the association between adverse childhood experiences and cyber dating abuse, whereas the abandonment schema did not. Specifically, more frequent experiences of emotional abuse and physical neglect during childhood were indirectly related to increased likelihood of perpetrating cyber dating pressure-aggression as well as of perpetrating and suffering cyber dating control-monitoring in both males and females. These associations were mediated by a stronger internalization of the emotional deprivation schema and were supported by both self-reported and partner-reported data. Also, a strong and direct association was found between childhood exposure to intimate partner violence by the opposite-sex parent and cyber dating pressure-aggression by females or control-monitoring by both males and females. These findings help to clarify the potential negative effects of specific adverse childhood experiences and early maladaptive schemas on the tendency to perpetrate and suffer cyber abuse in romantic relationships. The implications for prevention and treatment programs are noted and avenues for future research are described. (shrink)
There is a traditional debate in analytic aesthetics that surrounds the classification of film as Art. While much philosophy devoted to considering film has now moved beyond this debate and accepts film as a mass art, a sub-category of Art proper, it is worth re-considering the criticism of film pre-Deleuze. Much of the criticism of film as pseudo-art is expressed in moral terms. T. W. Adorno, for example, critiques film as ‘mass-cult’; mass produced culture which presents a ‘flattened’ version of (...) reality. Adorno worries about the passivity encouraged in viewers. Films are narrative artworks, received by an audience in a context, making the focus on the reception of the work important. The dialogue held between Adorno and Walter Benjamin post-WWII is interesting because, between them, they consider both the possible positive emancipatory and negative politicization effects of film as a mass produced and distributed story-telling medium. Reading Adorno alongside Benjamin is a way to highlight the role of the critical thinker who receives the film. Arguing that the critical thinker is a valuable citizen, this paper focuses on the value of critical thinking in the reception of cinematic artworks. It achieves this by reconsidering Adorno and Benjamin 's theories of mass art. (shrink)
ABSTRACTAs our technology rapidly advances, designer babies and other bioethical issues are fast becoming possible. Instead of solely being considered in economic terms, or in terms of accuracy and desirability, ethical questions should also be asked such as ‘is this a good thing to do?’. This article considers whether moral people would ‘design’ and genetically engineer their babies and applies the moral theories of virtue ethics, deontology and utilitarianism to help guide our ethical decision-making in relation to this complex issue. (...) Even if we can do something, we should pause and consider whether or not we should. (shrink)
Clinical ethics can be viewed as a practical discipline that provides a structured approach to assist healthcare practitioners in identifying, analysing and resolving ethical issues that arise in practice. Clinical ethics can therefore promote ethically sound clinical and organisational practices and decision-making, thereby contributing to health organisation and system quality improvement. In order to develop students’ decision-making skills, as well as prepare them for practice, we decided to introduce a clinical ethics strand within an undergraduate medical curriculum. We designed a (...) programme of clinical ethics activities for teaching and assessment purposes that involved using ethical frameworks to analyse hypothetical and real-life cases in uni- and inter- professional groups. In this paper, we draw on medical student feedback collected over 6 years to illustrate the appeal to students of learning clinical ethics. We also outline the range of benefits for students, healthcare organisations, and the field of clinical ethics arising from tomorrow’s doctors experiencing clinical ethics early in their training. We conclude by briefly reflecting on how including clinical ethics within tomorrow’s doctors curricular can secure and continue future engagement in clinical ethics support services in the UK, alongside the dangers of preparing students for organisational cultures that might not exist. We anticipate the findings presented in the paper will contribute to wider debates examining the impact of ethics teaching, and its ability to inform future doctors’ practice. (shrink)
