The COVID‐19 pandemic has placed extraordinary stress on frontline healthcare providers as they encounter significant challenges and risks while caring for patients at the bedside. This study used qualitative research methods to explore nurses and respiratory therapists' experiences providing direct care to COVID‐19 patients during the first surge of the pandemic at a large academic medical center in the Northeastern United States. The purpose of this study was to explore their experiences as related to changes in staffing models and to (...) consider needs for additional support. Twenty semi‐structured interviews were conducted with sixteen nurses and four respiratory therapists via Zoom or by telephone. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, identifiers were removed, and data was coded and analyzed thematically. Five major themes characterize providers' experiences: a fear of the unknown, concerns about infection, perceived professional unpreparedness, isolation and alienation, and inescapable stress and distress. This manuscript analyzes the relationship between these themes and the concept of moral distress and finds that some, but not all, of the challenges that providers faced during this time align with previous definitions of the concept. This points to the possibility of broadening the conceptual parameters of moral distress to account for providers' experiences of treating patients with novel illnesses while encountering institutional and clinical challenges. (shrink)

Media coverage of influencer marketing abounds with ethical questions about this emerging industry. Much of this coverage assumes influencers operate without an ethical framework and many social me...

This essay develops a renewed conception of autonomy through an explication of Judith Butler’s critique of liberal individualism in The Force of Nonviolence. I argue that while rejecting liberal individualism requires abandoning the fantasies of mastery and self-sufficiency, such a rejection need not imply a renunciation of autonomy. Instead, an ethics of nonviolence that is committed to equality demands a relational understanding of autonomy that affirms our radical interdependency. I contend, moreover, that for an account of the self to acknowledge (...) this interdependency, the body must be conceived as a threshold rather than an end. Put differently, to be a relational self means to be give over to others from the start. My argument proceeds in three steps. First, I explore Butler’s critical analysis of liberal political thought, while emphasizing the key role that the state-of-nature fantasy plays in the Western social and political imaginary. Next, I show how dependency, interdependency, and vulnerability are closely related but also distinct. Specifically, I argue that a relational understanding of autonomy is consistent with Butler’s emphasis on our interdependency and the social obligations that bind us to one another. Finally, I show how the social model of disability lends further support to a relational understanding of autonomy. Drawing on Butler’s brief discussion of instruments for support in The Force of Nonviolence, I propose that we think more closely about the everyday ways in which we are sustained by various modes of support. The fact that we never stop relying on this support, even when we disavow it, suggests that autonomy is not a given but rather an achievement. (shrink)

This book is a defense of modal realism; the thesis that our world is but one of a plurality of worlds, and that the individuals that inhabit our world are only a few out of all the inhabitants of all the worlds. Lewis argues that the philosophical utility of modal realism is a good reason for believing that it is true.

The current study assessed potential relationships among childhood wayfinding experience, navigational style, and adult wayfinding anxiety in the Faroe Islands. The Faroe Islands are of interest because they have an unusual geography that may promote the use of an orientational style of navigation (e.g., use of cardinal directions). Faroese adults completed questionnaires assessing (1) their permitted childhood range sizes, (2) the types of navigational strategies they use, and (3) the amount of anxiety they experience when navigating in adulthood. Males had (...) more childhood wayfinding experience, used the orientation strategy at a higher rate, and showed lower levels of wayfinding anxiety. When compared with other cultures, both Faroese women and men appear to embrace orientation strategies at an unusually high rate. Childhood experience was not conclusively linked to later wayfinding anxiety. However, the current findings raise the possibility that children who have particularly small ranges in childhood may be especially anxious when navigating in adulthood. (shrink)

It is advisable to treat some sorts of discourse about fiction with the aid of an intensional operator "in such-And-Such fiction...." the operator may appear either explicitly or tacitly. It may be analyzed in terms of similarity of worlds, As follows: "in the fiction f, A" means that a is true in those of the worlds where f is told as known fact rather than fiction that differ least from our world, Or from the belief worlds of the community in (...) which the fiction originated. (shrink)

Spatial experience in childhood is a factor in the development of spatial abilities. In this study, we assessed whether American and Faroese participants’ (N = 246, Mage = 19.31 years, 151 females) early spatial experience and adult spatial outcomes differed by gender and culture, and if early experience was related to adult performance and behavior. Participants completed retrospective reports on their childhood spatial experience, both large-scale (permitted childhood range size) and small-scale (Lego play). They also completed assessments of their current (...) large-scale spatial behavior (navigational strategy) and small-scale ability (mental rotation task, MRT). We replicated earlier results showing better MRT performance among males and more reliance by males on orientation navigational strategies, although males and females reported similar ranges as children. However, there were cross-cultural differences, with Faroese having larger childhood ranges, less reliance on route strategies, better MRT scores, and a smaller gender difference in MRT. Larger permitted childhood ranges were associated with reduced use of route strategies for navigation in adulthood, and greater Lego play in childhood predicted better MRT performance as adults. There was also some evidence supporting relationships across spatial scales, with more Lego play predicting an orientation style of navigation and larger childhood ranges predicting better performance on the MRT, although the latter was not independent of country. In sum, we observed an association in both cultures between large-scale childhood experience and large-scale behavior in adulthood, small-scale experience in childhood and adult small-scale performance, and some associations between experience and behavior across spatial scales. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

In this undergraduate textbook Lewis R. Gordon offers the first comprehensive treatment of Africana philosophy, beginning with the emergence of an Africana consciousness in the Afro-Arabic world of the Middle Ages. He argues that much of modern thought emerged out of early conflicts between Islam and Christianity that culminated in the expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula, and from the subsequent expansion of racism, enslavement, and colonialism which in their turn stimulated reflections on reason, liberation, and the (...) meaning of being human. His book takes the student reader on a journey from Africa through Europe, North and South America, the Caribbean, and back to Africa, as he explores the challenges posed to our understanding of knowledge and freedom today, and the response to them which can be found within Africana philosophy. (shrink)

The intellectual history of the last quarter of this century has been marked by the growing influence of Africana thought--an area of philosophy that focuses on issues raised by the struggle over ideas in African cultures and their hybrid forms in Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. Existentia Africana is an engaging and highly readable introduction to the field of Africana philosophy and will help to define this rapidly growing field. Lewis R. Gordon clearly explains Africana existential thought to (...) a general audience, covering a wide range of both classic and contemporary thinkers--from Douglass and DuBois to Fanon, Davis and Zack. (shrink)

Her Majesty's Children reveals not only a deeply personal account of the experience of racism but is also a revolutionary work that asks us to reconsider our ordinary practices and lives to recognize and resist the traces of a colonial age of racism that so many claim is only part of our past.

Inoperative Learning draws upon the movement towards a weak philosophy that is currently gaining ground in educational philosophy: this weak philosophy does not offer a set of solutions or guidelines for improving educational outcomes, but rather renders assumptions about the theory-practice coupling that is so popular in contemporary education inoperative. By arguing that such logic reduces education to merely instrumental ends, which can only be assessed in terms of predefined measurement tools, this book presents a challenge to contemporary notions of (...) education as learning. There are various forms of inoperative education that temporarily suspend the goal-directedness of learning. From the perspective of learning, the neutralization of progress, growth, and maturity would usually be seen as obstacles needing to be overcome on the path toward set goals. Yet Lewis argues that a serious investigation of inoperativity opens up possibilities that would be otherwise unavailable in a world fixated on the question of learning. In dialogue with philosophers (Agamben, Benjamin, and Esposito), as well as authors (Kafka and Walser), and qualitative researchers (Lather), Lewis turns our collective attention to what remains when concepts such as learning, child development, teacher effectivity, and personal growth are left idle. Inoperative Learning presents a radical rewriting of educational possibilities. It should therefore be of great interest to educational researchers and educational philosophers concerned with the question of alternative logics of education beyond learning. The book may also be of interest to educational policy specialists who are looking for new and innovative forms of critique and analysis. (shrink)

Christianity teaches that whenever evil is done, God had ample warning. He could have prevented it, but He didn't. He could have stopped it midway, but He didn't. He could have rescued the victims of the evil, but - at least in many cases - He didn't. In short, God is an accessory before, during, and after the fact to countless evil deeds, great and small. An explanation is not far to seek. The obvious hypothesis is that the Christian God (...) is really some sort of devil. Maybe He is a devil as popularly conceived, driven' by malice. Or maybe He is unintelligibly capricious. Or maybe He is a fanatical artist who cares only for the aesthetic quality of creation - perhaps the abstract beauty of getting rich variety to emerge from a few simple laws, or perhaps the concrete drama of human life with all its diversity - and cares nothing for the good of the creatures whose lives are woven into His masterpiece. Oust as a tragedian has no business providing a happy end out of compassion for his characters.) But no; for Christianity also teaches that God is morally perfect and perfectly benevolent, and that He loves all of His creatures; and that these things are true in a sense not a million miles from the sense in which we attribute morality, benevolence, or love to one another. (shrink)

Background Studying global health problems requires international multidisciplinary teams. Such multidisciplinarity and multiculturalism create challenges in adhering to a set of ethical principles across different country contexts. Our group on health system responses to violence against women (VAW) included two universities in a European high-income country (HIC) and four universities in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). This study aimed to investigate professional and policy perspectives on the types, causes of, and solutions to ethical challenges specific to the ethics approval stage of (...) the global research projects on health system responses to VAW. Methods We used the Network of Ethical Relationships model, framework method, and READ approach to analyse qualitative semi-structured interviews (n = 18) and policy documents (n = 27). In March-July 2021, we recruited a purposive sample of researchers and members of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) from the five partner countries. Interviewees signposted policies and guidelines on research ethics, including VAW. Results We developed three themes with eight subthemes summarising ethical challenges across three contextual factors. The global nature of the group contributed towards power and resource imbalance between HIC and LMICs and differing RECs’ rules. Location of the primary studies within health services highlighted differing rules between university RECs and health authorities. There were diverse conceptualisations of VAW and vulnerability of research participants between countries and limited methodological and topic expertise in some LMIC RECs. These factors threatened the timely delivery of studies and had a negative impact on researchers and their relationships with RECs and HIC funders. Most researchers felt frustrated and demotivated by the bureaucratised, uncoordinated, and lengthy approval process. Participants suggested redistributing power and resources between HICs and LMICs, involving LMIC representatives in developing funding agendas, better coordination between RECs and health authorities and capacity strengthening on ethics in VAW research. Conclusions The process of ethics approval for global research on health system responses to VAW should be more coordinated across partners, with equal power distribution between HICs and LMICs, researchers and RECs. While some of these objectives can be achieved through education for RECs and researchers, the power imbalance and differing rules should be addressed at the institutional, national, and international levels. Three of the authors were also research participants, which had potential to introduce bias into the findings. However, rigorous reflexivity practices mitigated against this. This insider perspective was also a strength, as it allowed us to access and contribute to more nuanced understandings to enhance the credibility of the findings. It also helped to mitigate against unequal power dynamics. (shrink)

My office is in a medical building in suburban Washington, D.C. —in Bethesda, named for the Biblical healing pool. All of the offices of my building are occupied by medical specialists, representing the most sophisticated training in the application of the scientific method. Downstairs and of service to all of us is a pharmacy, looking for all the world like a research laboratory with its gleaming surface, meticulous cleanliness, micro-balances, records, reference books, and cash register. It is neatly stocked with (...) modern, physiologically-defined preparations of active, predictable drugs. Among the enzymes, hormones, antibiotics, and chemo therapeutics for neoplasm, are a few newly hatched, unfledged remedies, but most are dependable and thoroughly assayed. The intently busy, white-coated, unsentimental pharmacists serve a hard-headed group of practitioners and a neighborhood of upper-class, well-educated patients. It is disconcerting, then, to see the undersurface of this sophistication, the irrational shadows beneath the science. On the front counter of the pharmacy are displayed attractive colored advertisements and pleasantly seductive inducements to self-improvement through diet cults and foods, tranquilizers, energizers, protein supplements, happiness promisers, preparations to enhance sexuality, vitamins artfully combined, and many packeted stuffs of no rational or pretended use whatsoever. “Why,” I ask the gimlet-eyed pharmacist, “do you have this large display of ‘Il Wah Genuine Chinese Ginseng, the Miraculous Herb of Life’? Doesn't it violate your university training? Your integrity as a modernist?” “Oh,” says he, “ginseng makes you feel better! You have more energy. You can do more! Lots of athletes use it, and people who work too hard and feel exhausted. It's only $3.45 a package. The prescriptions you give me once in a while yield no profit, but I sell a lot of ginseng. I use it myself!” Bemused, I walk back to my office, wondering about the easy abandonment of rationality, and pull down a box of medicinals collected the year before at an open-air pharmacy in the riverside markets of Brazil. The box gives forth deliciously rich forest smells. The packets within contain barks, roots, seeds, all of purported medical value. Other packets have amulets, charms, and protectives. The colorful labels on some of the patent medicines invoke ancient saints and healers, and promise happiness, health, prosperity and power. The essential rationale for their use in indigenous medicine was illusive to me despite many conversations with indigenous healers, and many times I have gone through the hundreds of items trying to find the key to what Brazilian and North American people fundamentally want from a pharmacy. In both cultures, where does magic stop and science begin? Do shops in both countries vend talismans in the search for the enhanced life, and fetishes against death? How much of all drug use is ritual and inchoate expectation? How can we reduce the mystification and incrementally increase the rationality of our pharmacopeia? (shrink)

Moral reasoning in bioethics -- Bioethics and moral theories -- Paternalism and patient autonomy -- Truth-telling and confidentiality -- Informed consent -- Human research -- Abortion -- Reproductive technology -- Genetic choices -- Euthanasia and physician assisted suicide -- Dividing up health care resources.

If a guilty offender is justly sentenced to be punished and an innocent volunteer agrees to be punished instead, is that any reason to leave the offender unpunished? In the context of mundane criminal justice, we mostly think not. But in a religious context, some Christians do believe in penal substitution as a theory of the atonement. However, it is not just these Christians, but most of us, who are of two minds. If the punishment is an imprisonment or death, (...) we do not believe in penal substitution. But if it’s a fine, even a big fine, we mostly do. (shrink)

Causal reasoning and game-theoretic reasoning are fundamental topics in artificial intelligence, among many other disciplines: this paper is concerned with their intersection. Despite their importance, a formal framework that supports both these forms of reasoning has, until now, been lacking. We offer a solution in the form of (structural) causal games, which can be seen as extending Pearl's causal hierarchy to the game-theoretic domain, or as extending Koller and Milch's multi-agent influence diagrams to the causal domain. We then consider three (...) key questions: i) How can the (causal) dependencies in games - either between variables, or between strategies - be modelled in a uniform, principled manner? ii) How may causal queries be computed in causal games, and what assumptions does this require? iii) How do causal games compare to existing formalisms? To address question i), we introduce mechanised games, which encode dependencies between agents' decision rules and the distributions governing the game. In response to question ii), we present definitions of predictions, interventions, and counterfactuals, and discuss the assumptions required for each. Regarding question iii), we describe correspondences between causal games and other formalisms, and explain how causal games can be used to answer queries that other causal or game-theoretic models do not support. Finally, we highlight possible applications of causal games, aided by an extensive open-source Python library. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin's Antifascist Education is the first comprehensive analysis of educational themes across the entirety of the critical theorist's diverse writings. Starting with Benjamin's early reflections on teaching and learning, Tyson E. Lewis argues that the aesthetic and cultural forms to which Benjamin so often turned-namely, radio broadcasts, children's theatrical productions, collections, cityscapes, public cinemas, and word games-swell with educational potentialities. What emerges from Lewis's reading is a constellational curriculum composed of minor practices such as poor teaching, absentminded (...) learning, and nondurational studying. This curriculum carries political significance, offering an antidote to past and present forms of fascist manipulation, hardness, and coldness. Walter Benjamin's Antifascist Education is a testimony to Benjamin's belief that "everyone is an educator and everyone needs to be educated and everything is education.". (shrink)

Première traduction française des écrits de mathématique et de philosophie, pleins d'humour, de l'auteur d'Alice au pays des merveilles, tirés de The Game of Logic, 1887, et de Symbolic Logic, 1896.Si l'on sait en général, que Lewis Carroll fut professeur de mathématiques, on sait plus rarement qu'il fut logicien, et ce avec passion.Sommaire : La logique et les mots dans l'œuvre de Lewis CarrollLa logique symboliqueA l'adresse des débutantsLes choses et leurs attributsLes propositionsLe diagramme bi-littéralLe diagramme tri-littéralLes syllogismesLa (...) méthode des indicesLes soritesProblèmes et solutionsA l'adresse des spécialistesQuelques sophismesCe que dirent Achille et la tortueLes trois coiffeursLewis Carroll logicien. (shrink)

Learn to think critically with the leading introduction to reasoning and argumentation. Highlights In clear, reader-friendly language, The Power of Critical Thinking provides an engaging introduction to argumentation, deductive and inductive reasoning, inferencing, and evaluating scientific theories New Critical Thinking and the Media boxes in each chapter apply the principles of critical thinking to the realms of media, advertising, and news New content on "fake news," the COVID-19 pandemic, and other important contemporary topics reflects the changing world in which today's (...) students must apply their critical thinking abilities New and updated exercises offer extensive opportunities for students to practise the skills through which they will become active, engaged critical thinkers Additional online resources-including a study guide and practice quizzes for students as well as an instructor's manual, a test bank, and PowerPoint slides for instructors-offer stimulating materials to enhance the learning and teaching experiences. About the Authors Chris MacDonald is an associate professor and chair of the Law and Business Department at the Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan University. Lewis Vaughn is an independent scholar and author of several textbooks on philosophy, ethics, and critical thinking. (shrink)

CHAPTER The Excommunication of Baruch Spinoza The Decree of Anathema A man excommunicate is a man alone. He is severed from his past, his parents, teachers , ...

An account of Socrates' encounter with divine revelation.

Introduction: about philosophy in general and ethics in particular -- The good and bad in experience: prolegomena -- The good and bad in experience -- Semantics of the imperative -- Ethics and the logical -- Deliberate acts -- Right acts and good acts -- Right doing and the right to do -- We approach the normative finalities.

Learn to be responsible with Grover and your Sesame Street friends! Young readers will discover how to be a good helper to both themselves and those around them. Now in Spanish!

This is the only book that teaches critical thinking skills by applying them to the consumption of modern media. The active involvement with this vitally important area enhances student engagement and learning and prepares students to be independent and intelligent consumers of information that they encounter in their daily lives.