The wilderness is one of the most widely recognized sources of transcendent emotion. Various recent studies have demonstrated nature’s power to induce intense emotions. The study at hand will generate conceptual and operational definitions of sublime emotion toward nature. Taking into consideration the recent research on feelings of awe, an instrument is devised to measure sublime emotion toward nature. The proposed scale’s reliability and validity is tested in a sample of 280 participants from the general population of Madrid. Results show (...) that sublime emotion was defined by two conceptual components: awe, and inspiring energy, both obtained using the computer program FACTOR. After reliability and validity analysis, the Sublime Emotion toward Nature (SEN) scale included 18 items, distributed into awe (6 items, α =.881) and inspiring energy (12 items, α=.933). Awe was defined by feelings of fear, threat, vulnerability, fragility, and respect for nature, which is perceived as vast, powerful, and mysterious. Inspiring energy was defined by feelings of vitality, joy, energy, oneness, freedom, eternity, and harmony with the universe. The SEN is an adequate instrument to measure transcendent emotions provoked by direct wilderness exposure or memory thereof. (shrink)

The aim of this hermeneutic study was to gain a broader understanding of nurses’ workload and what characterizes a nurse’s experience in terms of the various levels of intensity of nursing care. Twenty-nine nurses participated in seven focus groups. The interpretation process took place in six different phases and the three laws of dialectics were used as interpretation rules. An optimal nursing care intensity level can be understood as a situation characterized by the balance between the intensity of care needed (...) by patients and the external and internal factors of the current nursing care situation. The nurses’ work situation can be understood as a dialectic struggle between ‘being’ and ‘not being’ a good nurse; this can be said to be the underlying root metaphor. Nursing care can be understood as consisting of ‘complex and meaningful caring situations’. Dialectics can be used as a fruitful method of revealing the complexity of clinical reality. (shrink)

En este artículo se sostiene que existe una primacía de la práctica y la acción sobre el conocimiento intelectual y la contemplación. Si esta tesis fuese falsa, no resulta comprensible por qué la prudencia y el hombre prudente son la virtud suprema y el modelo de la vida buena en Aristóteles. La cuestión inicial es 1) ¿Cómo entender la racionalidad del deseo o qué significa deseo razonado?, y esto implica dos cuestiones adicionales: 2) ¿Qué es el silogismo práctico y qué (...) relación tiene con la recta razón? y 3) ¿cuál es la relación entre el razonamiento práctico, la prudencia y el hombre prudente? Estas cuestiones son analizadas para establecer algunas de las semejanzas y diferencias entre el silogismo práctico , los diversos tipos de inferencias prácticas y otros tipos de razonamientos, tratando de mostrar la relación que existe entre la formación del carácter o modo de ser, la recta razón y el silogismo práctico. (shrink)

It does not seem terribly unfair to say that studies of both rhetoric and dialogue have tended, by and large, to pass over listening in favor of speaking. In scholarly as well as quotidian parlance, it would appear that both rhetoric and dialogue are principally concerned with speech, banishing listening to the silent subservience of rhetoric's other. Whichever way it is glossed—as rhetoric, dialogue, language, or argumentation—the Western conception of logos emphasizes speaking at the expense of listening. And the problem (...) with conceiving of logos in terms of speech and speaking is not only that it ignores the importance of listening but also that it obscures how listening makes the ethical response possible. Drawing on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, this article examines the ethical exigency of the face and its relation to primordial discourse in order to disclose the otherwise hidden ethical significance of listening and its vocation as a form of co-constitutive communicative action that can “listen persons to speech.”. (shrink)

This article examines clinical wisdom, which has emerged from a broader study about nurse managers' influence on proficient registered nurse turnover and retention. The purpose of the study was to increase understanding of proficient nurses' experience and clinical practice by giving voice to the nurses themselves, and to look for differences in their practice. This was a qualitative study based on semistructured interviews followed by analysis founded on Gadamerian hermeneutics. The article describes how proficient nurses experience their practice. Proficient practice (...) constitutes clinical wisdom based on responsibility, thinking and ethical discernment, and a drive for action. The study showed that poor working conditions cause proficient nurses to regress to non-proficient performance. Further studies are recommended to allow deeper searching into the area of working conditions and their relationship to lack of nurse proficiency. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the concept conduct of everyday life, namely routines and real life, as they are confronted with empirical observations. The observations are from a study of changes in the conduct of everyday life for individuals who attended a patient education course. The course was a part of their treatment after a hospitalisation with depression in a psychiatric ward. I use analysis of the main individual, Steven’s, conduct of everyday life and illustrate my points with models of (...) conduct of everyday life made using beads. The conceptualisation of conduct of everyday life is expanded through three points. Firstly, cyclic routines can matter and fulfill life, which can support the ongoing discussion about the concept conduct of everyday life. Secondly, I show that, from a first person perspective, what matters in conduct of everyday life is more complex than what is possible to grasp analytically through a dualistic opposition between cyclic everyday conduct and the particular meaningful conduct of everyday life. Thirdly, I expand on the notion of timeouts/breaks as solely something that lifts us out of mundane everyday life. I conclude that it makes a more comprehensive analysis to perceive all conduct of everyday life as having profound personal meaning and to analyse the individuals' concerns in relation to their social self-understanding and localisation at a certain time. (shrink)

Based on a historical and a contemporary fieldwork at a Danish hospital, this article offers a genealogical and philosophical exploration of the development of nurses’ doing and focus within a hospital setting from the 1800 s to the present day. This exploration finds that nurses’ doing has changed during history, which is reflected in their focus. Thus, nurses’ focus has developed from, what the Danish philosopher Uffe Juul Jensen refers to as a situation‐oriented, to a disease‐oriented practice, and while new (...) values are established, the conception of care as a core value in nursing seems to have receded. This article also argues that today's nurses are doing what doctors did in the 19th century. The French philosopher Michel Foucault discusses how things repeat themselves in new ways and new contexts. The nursing profession has become ‘a career open to the talents’ where nurses with the appropriate skills and talents are able to build a career, within which they provide status, position and legitimacy. The conclusion of the article discusses the significance of this development for patients and the nursing profession. (shrink)

Healthcare apps er blevet en omfattende industri. Vi kan ganske gratis downloade tusindvis af apps, som sætter os i stand til at monitorere alt fra vores fysiske form til vores mentale velbefindende, og vi kan gennem denne monitorering, producere endeløse datamængder og viden om os selv og vores liv – altså skabe et «monitoreret mig». Men hvordan forholder vi os til denne mulighed? I nærværende artikel tages udgangspunkt i foreløbige resultater fra et igangværende ph.d. projekt, hvor brugen af apps og (...) biofeedback anvendes i praksis, til at belyse en stigende stressproblematik blandt lærere i den danske folkeskole. Artiklens ærinde er, at tematisere de normer og fortolkningsrammer, som kommer til syne, når aktørerne selv italesætter sit «monitorerede mig» og hernæst diskutere, i hvilken position, disse normer og tolkninger af teknologien i anvendelse, bringer aktøren. Er «det monitorerede mig» en mulighed for frisættende autonomi – en empowerment? Eller bidrager monitoreringen i stedet til individualisering eller patologisering, hvor vi gennem ejerskabet af vores egen fortælling, producerer et overansvar for eksempelvis hvilken behandling vi skal modtage, eller hvordan vores arbejdsmiljø bør være?Nøgleord: Etik, humanistisk sundhedsforskning, selvmonitorering, Ecological Momentary StorytellingEnglish summary: The Monitored Me - empowerment or pathologization?Healthcare apps have become a major industry. We can freely download thousands of apps, that enable us to monitor everything, from our physical condition to our mental well-being, and we can through the monitoring produce endless amounts of data and knowledge about our inner selves and our lives - creating a “monitored me”. But how is this technological possibility dealt with, in practice? The present article presents and discusses results from a case study in which apps and biofeedback were used to illuminate an increasing stress problem among teachers in the Danish preliminary school system. The focus of the article is to analyze the self-interpretation framework that appears when the users of the technology articulate the "monitored me” and hereafter discuss how these self-interpretations position the user. Is “the monitored me” an opportunity for liberating autonomy – for empowerment? Or does it contribute to individualization or pathologization? (shrink)

“La parte de los crímenes” plantea un reto inédito en cuanto al ejercicio de la narración de los feminicidios cometidos en México durante los años noventa del siglo pasado. Sobre ese fondo problemático, el presente artículo se despliega en dos partes. En la primera, siguiendo a Kant y a Lyotard, se propone mostrar la singularidad de la experiencia de lo sublime ocasionada por (el relato de) los crímenes. En la segunda, se abre la posibilidad de que una comprensión del hecho (...) en su conjunto pueda apelar a figuras de la razón, pero, en lugar de volver a Kant, lo resuelve apelando a algunos conceptos-idea de Giorgio Agamben que han venido a enriquecer el paisaje de la filosofía política contemporánea. (shrink)

Two related aspects of the present ‘knowledge capitalism’ stage of globalisation are discussed in this article: the transformation of education to make it more directly supportive of educational growth and competition, and the growing demands on educational research to provide scientific evidence for education policy and practice, using narrowly defined methods and techniques. It is argued that both developments have profound consequences for the construction and use of educational theory, and the vital need for critical discussion and communication in this (...) respect is emphasised. (shrink)

This book explores the relevance of virtue theory to law from a variety of perspectives. The concept of virtue is central in both contemporary ethics and epistemology. In contrast, in law, there has not been a comparable trend toward explaining normativity on the model of virtue theory. In the last few years, however, there has been an increasing interest in virtue theory among legal scholars. 'Virtue jurisprudence' has emerged as a serious candidate for a theory of law and adjudication. Advocates (...) of virtue jurisprudence put primary emphasis on aretaic concepts rather than on duties or consequences. Aretaic concepts are, on this view, crucial for explaining law and adjudication. This book is a collection of essays examining the role of virtue in general jurisprudence as well as in specific areas of the law. Part I puts together a number of papers discussing various philosophical aspects of an approach to law and adjudication based on the virtues. Part II discusses the relationship between law, virtue and character development, with some of the essays selected analysing this relationship by combining both eastern perspectives on virtue and character with western approaches. Parts III and IV examine problems of substantive areas of law, more specifically, criminal law and evidence law, from within a virtue-based framework. Last, Part V discusses the relevance of empathy to our understanding of justice and legal morality. (shrink)

Hasta ahora, las discusiones sobre el multiculturalismo se han presentado como una revisión progresista de los límites del liberalismo en cuanto a políticas de inclusión y reconocimiento. Este artículo plantea que la recepción del multiculturalismo en Latinoamérica, si no quiere ser puramente procedimental, puede plantearse como una deconstrucción de los conceptos de Sujeto y Estado. Para ello hemos adoptado el punto de vista de comunidades étnicamente diferenciadas (que Deleuze y Guattari han categorizado como máquinas territoriales), de modo que sus relaciones (...) de poder y sus procesos de subjetivación puedan ser vistos como expresión de lo intraestatal y lo preindividual, respectivamente. Aunque esta diferencia de perspectiva se plantea, básicamente, como un diferendo entre teorías, al final se sugieren criterios para un debate más amplio sobre las relaciones entre Estado y capitalismo alrededor de las condiciones de existencia de las sociedades premodernas. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to compare disagreement in two different WhatsApp groups: one for members of the same family, and another for work colleagues. After the analysis, 427 instances of disagreement were identified in the family group, and 161 in the interactions between work colleagues. The most common strategy in both corpora is ‘Giving opposite opinions’. Nevertheless, the rest of the results present very significant dissimilarities, most notably the higher presence of disagreement in the family WhatsApp group. This (...) higher tolerance for disagreement is corroborated by the choice of linguistic strategies made. Whereas the family members tended to give emotional or personal reasons for disagreement, as well as negative comments on the topic, the colleagues preferred to express their disagreement with mitigating expressions and token agreement. Thus, in the corpora studied, the expression of disagreement seems to be less face threatening for family members than for work colleagues. (shrink)

This paper argues that habits, just like beliefs, can guide intentional action. To do this, a variety of real-life cases where a person acts habitually but contrary to her beliefs are discussed. The cases serve as dissociations showing that intentional agency is possible without doxastic guidance. The upshot is a model for thinking about the rationality of habitual action and the rationalizing role that habits can play in it. The model highlights the role that our history and institutions play in (...) shaping what actions become habitual for us. (shrink)

Modern medical ethics in the English-speaking world is commonly thought to derive from the medical philosophy of the Scotsman John Gregory (1725-1773) and his younger associates, the English Dissenter Thomas Percival (1740-1804) and the American Benjamin Rush (1745-1813). This book is the first extensive study of this suggestion. Dr Haakonssen shows how the three thinkers combined Francis Bacon's and the Scottish Enlightenment's ideas of the science of morals and the morals of science. She demonstrates how their medical ethics was a (...) successful adaptation of traditional moral ideas to the dramatically changing medical world especially the voluntary hospital. In accounting for the dynamics of this process, she rejects the anachronism that modern medical ethics was a new paradigm. (shrink)

Questions on what it means to live and die well are raised and discussed in the hospice movement. A phenomenological lifeworld perspective may help professionals to be aware of meaningful and important dimensions in the lives of persons close to death. Lifeworld is not an abstract philosophical term, but rather the opposite. Lifeworld is about everyday, common life in all its aspects. In the writings of Cicely Saunders, known as the founder of the modern hospice movement, facets of lifeworld are (...) presented as important elements in caring for dying patients. Palliative care and palliative medicine today are, in many ways, replacing hospices. This represents not only a change in name, but also in the main focus. Hospice care was originally very much about providing support and comfort for, and interactions with the patients. Improved medical knowledge today means improved symptomatic palliation, but also time and resources spent in other ways than before. Observations from a Nordic hospice ward indicate that seriously ill and dying persons spend much time on their own. Different aspects of lifeworld and intersubjectivity in the dying persons’ room is presented and discussed. (shrink)

This article presents a discourse model of polling that investigates what poll discourse is, how it is structured and how it functions. In contrast to most polling research, which presupposes polling to be primarily a psychological measurement tool, this article explores how it is primarily a discursive form of social interaction. Using the tools of discourse analysis, the model reveals that far from reflecting the beliefs and preferences of citizens, poll questions can instead tacitly evoke and sustain conservative and status (...) quo ideologies. Hence polls can play a significant role in constructing what is admissible and legitimate in political discourse. (shrink)

BackgroundAs part of the research project “End-of-life Communication in Nursing Homes. Patient Preferences and Participation”, we have studied how Advance Care Planning is carried out in eight Norwegian nursing homes. The concept of ACP is a process for improving patient autonomy and communication in the context of progressive illness, anticipated deterioration and end-of-life care. While an individualistic autonomy based attitude is at the fore in most studies on ACP, there is a lack of empirical studies on how family members’ participation (...) and involvement in ACP- conversations may promote nursing home patients’ participation in decisions on future treatment and end-of-life care. Based on empirical data and family ethics perspectives, the purpose of this study is to add insights to the complexity of ACP-conversations and illuminate how a family ethics perspective may improve the quality of the ACP and promote nursing home patients’ participation in advance care planning.MethodsParticipant observations of ACP-conversations in eight nursing homes. The observations were followed by interviews with patients and relatives together on how they experienced being part of the conversation, and expressing their views on future medical treatment, hospitalization and end-of-life issues.ResultsWe found that the way nursing home patients and relatives are connected and related to each other, constitutes an intertwined unit. Further, we found that relatives’ involvement and participation in ACP- conversations is significant to uncover, and give the nursing home staff insight into, what is important in the nursing home patient’s life at the time. The third analytical theme is patients’ and relatives’ shared experiences of the dying and death of others. Drawing on past experiences can be a way of introducing or talking about death.ConclusionsAn individual autonomy approach in advance care planning should be complemented with a family ethics approach. To be open to family ethics when planning for the patient’s future in the nursing home is to be open to diversity and nuances and to the significance of the patient’s former life and experiences. (shrink)

This chapter outlines how biotechnology can be seen as a challenge to our notion of nature, and how the complexity of the concept of nature in itself is a challenge in the debate on enhancement of capacities in humans, animals and plants by means of biotechnology. It then explores how the same concept contributes to the ethical arguments both for and against enhancement of human capacities, focusing on two central aspects of the enhancement debate namely: (i) the debate that focuses (...) on enhancement as an overreaching form of therapy; and (ii) the debate that focus on enhancement as the goal in itself. Finally, the chapter summarizes the contribution of the concept of nature in terms of the challenges that its inherent complexity poses to the ethical and philosophical debate on enhancement technologies, also briefly discussing how “nature” and “naturalness” can be said to have moral relevance in the enhancement debate. (shrink)

RESUMEN En este artículo propongo revisar las aproximaciones de Mabel Moraña y Antonio Cornejo Polar al clivaje paradigmático entre las figuras de José María Arguedas y Mario Vargas Llosa en la cultura latinoamericana. En ese marco, tanto Cornejo Polar como Mabel Moraña desarrollan, en su propio lenguaje, preguntas por los dispositivos de poder y por las estrategias de resistencia que derivan de las relaciones entre literatura y máquinas sociales planteadas por Deleuze y Guattari, en una perspectiva decolonial. Este será el (...) contenido de la primera parte. En la segunda, quisiera seguir el derrotero de Cornejo Polar en la creación del concepto de 'subjetividad heterogénea', que condensa la experiencia de la migración interna en los países andinos y está presente con especial intensidad lingüística y performativa en El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, la última obra de Arguedas. ABSTRACT This article intends to review the approaches of Mabel Moraña and Antonio Cornejo Polar to the paradigmatic cleavage between the figures of José María Arguedas and Mario Vargas Llosa in Latin American culture. Within this framework, both Cornejo Polar and Mabel Moraña develop, in their own language, questions about power devices and resistance strategies derived from relationships between literature and social machines raised by Deleuze and Guattari, from a decolonial perspective. This will be the content of the first part. In the second, it would like to follow Cornejo Polar's path in creating the concept of 'heterogeneous subjectivity', which condenses the experience of internal migration in the Andean countries and is present with particular linguistic and performance intensity in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, the last work of Arguedas. (shrink)

Explores listening as a fundamental human endowment connected with language and thought, and its potential for social, personal, and political action. Incorporates historical, literary, intercultural, scientific, musical, and philosophical perspectives"--Provided by publisher.

This paper defends a version of the Simple View, the claim that someone intentionally φs only if the person intends to φ. To do this, I raise a problem for Bratman’s classic argument (1984, 1987) against it. The problem brings into focus an evaluative dimension behind the View, whose recognition allows for an improved version of it. With this improved version, I then go on to answer other criticisms that have been raised to it.

Política y perdón / Jacques Derrida / - Hacia una cultura del perdón / Christian Schumacher / - La práctica del perdón en el judaísmo, el cristianismo y el Islam / - Alfredo Goldsmith / - La cultura del perdón como factor de construcción social / Oscar Lara Melo / - Venganza y transformación. Notas para una antropología de la venganza / Roberto Pinesa Camacho / - Venganza y cultura en Bogotá / Arturo Laguado / - El perdón jurídico a (...) la luz de la constitución colombiana y del derecho internacional / Marco Gerardo Monroy Cabra / - El perdón entre razón y no razón / Darío Botero / - La ética del perdón / Camila de Gamboa / - La obligación moral de recordar / Pablo de Greiff / - Perdón y proceso de reconciliación / Jorge Orlando Melo / - Castigo, perdón y reconciliación : el caso de Sudáfrica / David Crocker / - Una opinión pública sólida para la reconciliación y la reconstrucción nacional / Fabio López de la Roche / - Proceso de paz y construcción de región / Francisco de Roux / - Lo públ... (shrink)

In this article, I examine recent debates concerning the existence and the nature of basic actions. The discussion is structured around four theses, with which Arthur Danto introduced basic actions to contemporary theorists. The theses concern (i) the relationship between agency and causality, (ii) the distinction between basic and complex actions, (iii) the regress argument for basic actions, and (iv) the structure of practical knowledge in the light of these actions.

:In this essay, I present an account of forgiveness as a process of emotional distancing. The central claim is that, understood in these terms, forgiveness does not require a change in judgment. Rationally forgiving someone, in other words, does not require that one judges the significance of the wrongdoing differently or that one comes to the conclusion that the attitudes behind it have changed in a favorable way. The model shows in what sense forgiving is inherently social, shows why we (...) should be pluralists about it, and provides a basis for arguing against the existence of necessary conditions of forgiving. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to develop a coherence theory for the justification of evidentiary judgments in law. The main claim of the coherence theory proposed in this article is that a belief about the events being litigated is justified if and only if it is a belief that an epistemically responsible fact finder might hold by virtue of its coherence in like circumstances. The article argues that this coherentist approach to evidence and legal proof has the resources to (...) meet some of the main objections that may be addressed against attempts to analyze the justification of evidentiary judgments in law in coherentist terms. It concludes by exploring some implications of the proposed version of legal coherentism for a jurisprudence of evidence. (shrink)

This paper argues for a coherentist theory of the justification of evidentiary judgments in law, according to which a hypothesis about the events being litigated is justified if and only if it is such that an epistemically responsible fact-finder might have accepted it as justified by virtue of its coherence in like circumstances. It claims that this version of coherentism has the resources to address a main problem facing coherence theories of evidence and legal proof, namely, the problem of the (...) coherence bias. The paper then develops an aretaic approach to the standards of epistemic responsibility which govern legal fact-finding. It concludes by exploring some implications of the proposed account of the justification of evidentiary judgments in law for the epistemology of legal proof. (shrink)

This paper argues that “free will” is vague. The argument has two steps. First, I argue that free will is a matter of degrees and, second, that there are no sharp boundaries separating free decisions and actions and non‐free ones. After presenting the argument, I focus on one significant consequence of the thesis, although others are mentioned along the way. In short, considerations of vagueness help understand the logic behind so‐called manipulation arguments, but also show why these arguments are ultimately (...) flawed. (shrink)

In mammals, a network of cellular circadian clocks organizes physiology and behavior along the 24‐h day cycle. The traditional hierarchical model of circadian clock organization with a central pacemaker and peripheral slave oscillators has recently been challenged by studies combining tissue‐specific mouse mutants with transcriptome analyses. First, a surprisingly small number of tissue rhythms are lost when only local clocks are ablated and, second, transcriptional circadian rhythms appear to be regulated by a complex mix of local and systemic factors. As (...) reviewed here, these findings suggest a more integrated model of clock network interaction with the central pacemaker as the main source of behavioral and systemic–physiological rhythms and peripheral clocks controlling some local rhythms while at the same time acting as gatekeepers that temporally adjust cellular responses to external stimuli. (shrink)

In the present Western cultural and political context, the concept of nature plays a central role in the debate about new technologies. However, the concept of nature is complex and reflects more than one frame of reference stemming from a long historical tradition. ‘Nature’ is referred to: a) as the object (phenomenon) toward which the debate is directed, and b) as the normative frame of reference that either justifies or rejects the technological method in specific situations. This paper argues, that (...) this double character of ‘nature’ is not particular for the debate on ethical concern for the non-human nature, rather it constitutes the complexity of the concept itself. This, in turn, leads to a more fundamental question, namely: What is ‘nature’?—Or rather: Is ‘nature’ to be defined? (shrink)

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

This paper articulates an egalitarian conception of judicial humility and justifies its value on the grounds that it importantly advances the legal and political ideal of fraternity. This account of the content and value of the virtue of humility stands in sharp contrast with the dominant view of judicial humility as deference or judicial restraint. The paper concludes by discussing some ways in which the account of humility and of its value provided in the paper furthers our understanding of the (...) judicial virtues and of the political implications of giving virtue a role in adjudication. (shrink)

The university that Alasdair MacIntyre defines as liberal is that which rejects the tradition as something pre-modern and with an impediment for the progress, including the pedagogic one. This university model has been extended in all instances, giving priority to the technical education in a pragmatic way. Thus, the global and sapiential vision of the university has been relegated. This last approach is the key for unifying the knowledge and to pass it onto other people and, therefore, to educate and (...) mold intellectually and morally. However, the professionalization of the philosophy and the criteria of the modern liberalism seem to dominate and inspire most universities in the present day. This situation has plainly shown an inability to become aware of their incompetence to properly educate professors and students alike, in a sapiential and moral manner, threfore deceiving themselves with a naive rhetoric. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of moral responsibility are standardly framed by two platitudes. According to them, blame requires the presence of a moral defect in the agent and the absence of excuses. In this chapter, this kind of approach is challenged. It is argued that (a) people sometimes violate moral norms due to performance mistakes, (b) it often appears reasonable to hold them responsible for it, and (c) their mistakes cannot be traced to their moral qualities or to the presence of excuses. (...) In the end, the implications for discussions of moral responsibility are discussed. (shrink)

Background Health ministries in Europe are investing increasingly in innovative digital technologies. Older adults, who have not grown up with digital innovation, are expected to keep up with technological shifts as much as other age groups. This is ethically challenging, as it may threaten a sense of dignity and well-being in older adults. Research objective To clarify the phenomenon of sense of dignity experienced in older adults, concerning how their expectations and needs are met within the context of digitally led (...) healthcare in Norway. Research design A Reflective Lifeworld Research design was chosen, and purposive, in-depth interviews were conducted. Participants and research context The participants were 13 adults 75 years and older from Northern Norway, living at home and not receiving consistent assistance. Ethical considerations Followed the principles of the Helsinki Declaration. This study was approved by the Social Science Data Services in Norway (project number 916119). Interviews were conducted carefully within a safe environment chosen by the participants. Findings Older adults experience that using new digital systems in healthcare makes them become dependent with experiences of helplessness. They feel an increased sense of dependency on other people, and that recognition can assail their experience of personal dignity. Older adults not only expect digitally led healthcare to give them a feeling of safety but also experience feeling insecure concerning privacy and loss of possibilities for dialogue with healthcare providers. They are met by demands from society, which they often struggle to achieve. Conclusion The phenomenon of sense of dignity experienced in older adults, concerning how their expectations and needs are met within digitally led healthcare, indicates a sense of feeling lost in the digital world. Further, innovative healthcare lacks focus on ethical performance. This impacts their perception of dignity, as loss of dignity is noticed especially in its rupture. (shrink)