Resolutions in the United Nations Human Rights Council and General Assembly provide clarification of economic, social, and cultural (ESC) rights, and most of these resolutions pass by consensus. Yet these resolutions are more contentious than they appear. This article analyzes a case study of contestation over resolutions on two ESC rights: water and sanitation. Drawing from theories of norms contestation, this article analyzes how the USA, UK, and Canada challenged the creation of the rights to water and sanitation as rights (...) and as norms. An analysis of all resolutions, archival research, and interview data reveals that while challengers failed to stop water and sanitation from becoming legal human rights, they successfully delayed the process and weakened the normative aspect of the rights. The findings show that while powerful actors may not be opposed to ESC rights in theory, they worked to keep these rights weak and aspirational. (shrink)

The rash of high-profile accounting frauds involving internal corporate accountants calls into question the individual accountant’s perceptions of the ethical climate within their organization and the limits to which these professionals will tolerate unethical behavior and/or accept it as the norm. This study uses social cognitive theory to examine the antecedents of individual corporate accountant’s perceived personal fit with their organization’s ethical climate and empirically tests how these factors impact organizational attitudes. A survey was completed by 203 corporate accountants to (...) assess their perception of relevant variables. The results of the structural equation model indicate three significant antecedents relating to ethical climate fit: higher internal levels of locus of control; greater numbers of prior job changes; and higher perceptions of an increasingly better fit with the firm’s ethical climate. Our results also indicate that higher levels of perceived fit to the ethical climate of a firm are associated with higher levels of perceived job satisfaction and organizational commitment. We also theorize that perceptions of an organization’s ethical climate may be reflections of client narcissism and serve a potential indicator of fraud risk. This is an important topic of study, since current auditing standards call for auditors to examine organizational attitudes toward fraud, but offer minimal guidance in doing so. (shrink)

In developing artificial intelligence (AI), researchers often benchmark against human performance as a measure of progress. Is this kind of comparison possible for moral cognition? Given that human moral judgment often hinges on intangible properties like “intention” which may have no natural analog in artificial agents, it may prove difficult to design a “like‐for‐like” comparison between the moral behavior of artificial and human agents. What would a measure of moral behavior for both humans and AI look like? We unravel the (...) complexity of this question by discussing examples within reinforcement learning and generative AI, and we examine how the puzzle of evaluating artificial agents' moral cognition remains open for further investigation within cognitive science. (shrink)

Cultivating an understanding of ethical responsibilities and the societal impacts of technology is increasingly recognized as an important component in undergraduate engineering curricula. There is growing research on how ethics-related topics are taught and outcomes are attained, especially in the context of accreditation criteria. However, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical understanding of the role that educators play in ethics and societal impacts instruction and the factors that motivate and shape their inclusion of this subject in the courses (...) they teach and co-curricular activities they mentor. The goal of this research was to explore the role of faculty’s personal influences on their inclusion of ESI instruction in these settings. Personal influences are distinguished from external or environmental drivers such as teaching assignments, university policies, and department curriculum decisions. This research employed a grounded theory methodology and extracted data from interviews with 19 educators who teach ESI to engineering students to develop an emergent conceptualization of personal influences. Four categorie were identified: intrapersonal, interpersonal, academic, and professional. The findings suggested a wide range of entry points into ESI instruction for faculty members who do not currently teach ESI and for those looking to expand the inclusion of ESI in their courses. Based on these findings, departments and administrators are encouraged to foster educators’ agency, support access to professional development and engagement, facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, and broaden hiring decisions to account for the impact of educators’ holistic identity on their instruction. (shrink)

Crisis standards of care are a significant change in the standard level of medical care that can be given compared to normal healthcare operations. CSC are implemented when a healthcare facility is overrun due to catastrophic events like earthquakes, or in the case of SARS-CoV-2, a global pandemic. Especially in disasters, resources like hospital beds, pharmaceuticals, and staff become stretched thin, and facilities must adapt their allocation strategies for distributing scarce resources. Inevitably, a question arises: How do we allocate scarce (...) resources justly? During the coronavirus pandemic, bioethicists, healthcare practitioners, and policymakers have asked this question. A recurring worry among them... (shrink)

This essay focuses on the drafts and discussions which went into the first edition of the Perambulation. Lambarde’s autograph drafts and letters set his work in dialogue with other contemporary efforts to study the English past, in particular Matthew parker’s De antiquitate Britannicae ecclesiae. This book developed in tandem with Lambarde’s. Lambarde and parker created and shared drafts in manuscript and print as they delved into Kentish church history. Remnants of their conversations about sources like the Textus Roffensis can be (...) found in their books and even in the manuscripts under discussion. Revision, like reading, was a particular social enterprise with its own conventions. The line between a finished, printed presentation copy and a manuscript draft was completely blurred: both constituted a ‘beare whelpe that lacketh licking’. (shrink)

Power, peace, and the just war ethic -- The criterion of legitimate authority : describing the political act -- The criterion of just cause : the limits on government's international jurisdiction -- The criterion of just intention : the pursuit of peace and international order -- Justice in bello : applying the principle of discrimination -- The just war ethic and the nature of Christian realism.

Hope for persons with disabilities is most often associated with the possibility of cure. When cure is not achievable, there remains a dire lack in our socio-cultural imagination around and construction of hopeful disabled futurity. This paper explores Karl Rahner’s eschatology as a means of both deconstructing narrow visions of curative hope and affirming the presence of theological hope that already exists in the lives of disabled people. Ultimately, this paper argues that “crip time”—the time embodied by persons with disabilities—witnesses (...) to a prophetic relationship with time in its openness to the life-giving possibilities of the absolute future. (shrink)

A model is “any representation or concept that helps us to understand the world whenever common sense or direct observations are inadequate.” Common sense and direct observation often prove inadequate to the complexities of the twenty-first-century cities. Thus, models abound in urban life and governance. However, a model is not only a tool for control but a way of defining a situation. Framing the city so as to render it susceptible to interpretation and intervention is an exercise not merely with (...) scientific or technological value but with rhetorical power. The tradition of comprehensive urban models, beginning with the advent of computers and culminating in the self-analyzing “smart city,” I argue, sidelines this rhetorical power in favor of a tone of scientific authority that, while justifiable in technical domains, does not legitimately scale to the level of a political community. Making good on the civic potential of Big Data thus requires recontextualizing properly scientific enterprises within an adequate political philosophy of the city, allowing for the construction of cultural urban models that set human freedom at the core of its inner workings. (shrink)

Nineteenth-century psychiatrists ascribed to a model of health that was predicated on the existence of objective and strictly defined laws of nature. The allegedly “natural” rules governing the production of consumption of food, however, were structured by a set of distinctively bourgeois moral values that demonized over-indulgence and intemperance, encouraged self-discipline and productivity, and treated gentility as an index of social worth. Accordingly, the asylum acted not only as a therapeutic instrument but also as a moral machine that was designed (...) to remake lazy, indolent transgressors into useful, “decorous” citizens. Because the theory and mechanics underlying this machine seemed straightforward and self-evident to psychiatrists, they were confounded when the asylum failed to translate its ideals into reality. While psychiatrists tended to blame this failure on the intractable immorality and weakness of individual patients, particularly paupers and immigrants, a review of the various meanings and uses of food in the hospital reveals the fault lines that ran through the asylum’s ideological structure. (shrink)

In this commentary on a previous Ethics and Social Welfare publication, the authors argue that inclusive and expansive dialogue about interprofessional ethics is more a matter of ??revitalizing?? traditional professional ethics than developing a new field. The dialogue will be most productive of care improvements if it incorporates the service user, includes both health and social care professions, and occurs across countries.

The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant. By Dana Sajdi. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2012. Pp. xv + 293. $60.

The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem: From African Slave to Power-Broker. By Jane Hathaway. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xvi + 323. $105, £75.

This essay challenges a "meta-theory" in just war analysis that purports to bridge the divide between just war and pacifism. According to the meta-theory, just war and pacifism share a common presumption against killing that can be overridden only under conditions stipulated by the just war criteria. Proponents of this meta-theory purport that their interpretation leads to ecumenical consensus between "just warriors" and pacifists, and makes the just war theory more effective in reducing recourse to war. Engagement with the new (...) meta-theory reveals, however, that these purported advantages are illusory, made possible only by ignoring fundamental questions about the nature and function of political authority that are crucial to all moral reflection on the problem of war. (shrink)

Certain truths, such as genetic identity, relationships and medical history are important goods for autonomy. Knowledge about genetic heritage allows children to form a factual narrative identity. Deceit about one's genetic identity can obliterate trust and confidence. This paper seeks to analyse some of the moral issues associated with misattributed paternity.

Is the possession of taste relevant to the practice of moral and political judgement? For Mary Wollstonecraft and many of her contemporaries, the formation of taste was increasingly significant for...

Research by neuroscientists suggests there is a distinction in the BSTc area of the brain between males and females. In transsexual females, those considered male at birth, but who had a strong conviction that they were female, the BSTc region appears to be similar in size to the female BSTc and transsexuals considered female at birth, but who were certain they were male, had a BSTc similar to the male BSTc. This distinction leads to the conclusion that in addition to (...) the recognised markers for gender - genitalia, gonads and chromosomes - we may need to also include the BSTc, given that this current research seems to substantiate what transsexuals are saying about their gender. This paper sets out to challenge our current reliance on the standard gender indicators alone and seeks to address some issues faced by transsexuals. (shrink)

When is an ideal of a ring radical or prime? By examining its generators, one may in many cases definably and uniformly test the ideal’s properties. We seek to establish such definable formulas in rings of p-adic power series, such as $\mathbb Q_{p}\langle X\rangle $, $\mathbb Z_{p}\langle X\rangle $, and related rings of power series over more general valuation rings and their fraction fields. We obtain a definable, uniform test for radicality, and, in the one-dimensional case, for primality. This builds (...) upon the techniques stemming from the proof of the quantifier elimination results for the analytic theory of the p-adic integers by Denef and van den Dries, and the linear algebra methods of Hermann and Seidenberg.prepared by Madeline G. Barnicle.E-mail: [email protected]: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6t02q9s4. (shrink)

While in this paper I focus on adoptees, my argument is applicable to donor-conceived children and children of misattributed paternity. I address some of the noted risks of closed adopted and the benefits of open adoption, which is more in keeping with Article 7 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which provides all children with a right to know about their genetic parents and which the Australian government ratified in 1980.

We used a multi-dimensional framework to assess current stereotypes of men and women. Specifically, we sought to determine (1) how men and women are characterized by male and female raters, (2) how men and women characterize themselves, and (3) the degree of convergence between self-characterizations and charcterizations of one’s gender group. In an experimental study, 628 U.S. male and female raters described men, women, or themselves on scales representing multiple dimensions of the two defining features of gender stereotypes, agency and (...) communality: assertiveness, independence, instrumental competence, leadership competence (agency dimensions), and concern for others, sociability and emotional sensitivity (communality dimensions). Results indicated that stereotypes about communality persist and were equally prevalent for male and female raters, but agency characterizations were more complex. Male raters generally descibed women as being less agentic than men and as less agentic than female raters described them. However, female raters differentiated among agency dimensions and described women as less assertive than men but as equally independent and leadership competent. Gender stereotypes also were evident in self-ratings, with female raters rating themselves as less agentic than male raters and male raters rating themselves as less communal than female raters, although there were exceptions (e.g., no differences in independence and sociability self-ratings for men and women). Comparisons of self-ratings and ratings of men and women in general indicated that women tended to characterize themselves in more stereotypic terms – as less assertive and less competent in leadership – than they characterized others in their gender group. Men, in contrast, characterized themselves in less stereotypic terms – as more communal. Overall, our results show that a focus on facets of agency and communality can provide deeper insights about stereotype content than a focus on overall agency and communality. (shrink)

We examine and reject the claim that the past-directed aspect of mental time travel (episodic memory) is unique to humans. Recent work in our laboratory with rats has demonstrated behaviours that resemble judgements about past occasions. Similar to human episodic memory, we can also demonstrate a dissociation in the neural basis of recollection and familiarity in nonhumans.

Nurses in all practice roles and settings need to understand the therapeutic use and potential for abuse of prescription drugs. Nursing roles, which include the administration and prescription of medication, health teaching and the implications of application, and the detection of drug-related problems, require that such education be timely and comprehensive. This paper discusses the state of knowledge dissemination about prescription drugs within the general context of nursing education. It highlights educational needs and explores the attitudinal factors and knowledge deficits (...) that influence the nursing practices of prescribing, pain management, nursing assessment, and care of persons with drug problems.Standard educational requirements in all nursing curricula undergird teaching about licit and illicit drugs and medication, as well as their therapeutic use, misuse, and abuse. It has been recognized widely since the early 1980s, however, that clinical experiences and didactic content on licit and illicit drugs presented in nursing programs is inadequate. (shrink)

Nurses in all practice roles and settings need to understand the therapeutic use and potential for abuse of prescription drugs. Nursing roles, which include the administration and prescription of medication, health teaching and the implications of application, and the detection of drug-related problems, require that such education be timely and comprehensive. This paper discusses the state of knowledge dissemination about prescription drugs within the general context of nursing education. It highlights educational needs and explores the attitudinal factors and knowledge deficits (...) that influence the nursing practices of prescribing, pain management, nursing assessment, and care of persons with drug problems.Standard educational requirements in all nursing curricula undergird teaching about licit and illicit drugs and medication, as well as their therapeutic use, misuse, and abuse. It has been recognized widely since the early 1980s, however, that clinical experiences and didactic content on licit and illicit drugs presented in nursing programs is inadequate. (shrink)

Fear is a common and potentially distressful psychological response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. The factors associated with such fear remains relatively unstudied among older adults. We investigated if fear of COVID-19 could be associated with a combination of psychological factors such as anxiety and depressive symptoms, and risk perception of COVID-19, and demographic factors in a community sample of older adults. Older adults completed measures of fear of COVID-19, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and risk perception of COVID-19, during a (...) COVID-19 lockdown. These variables, together with demographics, were fitted to a structural equation model. Anxiety and depressive symptoms were highly correlated with each other and were combined into the higher order latent variable of affective symptoms for analyses. The final model revealed that fear of COVID-19 was positively associated with psychological factors of affective symptoms and risk perception. Older age was associated with greater fear of COVID-19. Our findings showed that fear of COVID-19 can be a projection of pre-existing affective symptoms and inflated risk perceptions and highlighted the need to address the incorrect risk perceptions of COVID-19 and socio-affective issues among older adults in the community. (shrink)

The roots and evolution of two concepts usually thought to be Western in origin-musica mundana (the music of the spheres) and musica humana (music's relation to the human soul)-are explored. Beginning with a study of the early creeds of the Near East, Professor Meyer-Baer then traces their development in the works of Plato and the Gnostics, and in the art and literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Previous studies of symbolism in music have tended to focus on (...) a single aspect of the problem. In this book the concepts of musica humana and musica mundane are related to philosophy, aesthetics, and the history of religion and are given a rightful place in the history of civilization. Originally published in 1970. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Under the terms of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Australia has ratified, children have a right to know who their genetic parents are. As a result, we have a duty to establish these facts and to make this information available for children to access should they wish to know. Introducing mandatory DNA testing of newborns and their alleged genetic parents is one viable option to ensure that this information is available for children to access. Indeed, (...) it may be the only viable option to address childrens' right to the fulfilment of Article 7 of the CRC. There are a number of benefits to obtaining this benefit for children. For one, mandatory DNA testing could solve all disputed paternity cases and finalise them early in the lives of children, thus making life more financially secure for those children in the long term. This could reduce or eliminate the need for fathers to secretly carry out DNA tests in order to disestablish paternity. The large number of benefits gained from identifying genetic parents for children and the small possible risks that they may suffer when this information is withheld give us good reasons to support mandatory DNA testing. (shrink)