The four experiments presented support Boyer's theory that counterintuitive concepts have transmission advantages that account for the commonness and ease of communicating many non-natural cultural concepts. In Experiment 1, 48 American college students recalled expectation-violating items from culturally unfamiliar folk stories better than more mundane items in the stories. In Experiment 2, 52 American college students in a modified serial reproduction task transmitted expectation-violating items in a written narrative more successfully than bizarre or common items. In Experiments 3 and 4, (...) these findings were replicated with orally presented and transmitted stimuli, and found to persist even after three months. To sum, concepts with single expectation-violating features were more successfully transmitted than concepts that were entirely congruent with category-level expectations, even if they were highly unusual or bizarre. This transmission advantage for counterintuitive concepts may explain, in part, why such concepts are so prevalent across cultures and so readily spread. (shrink)

Bering makes a good case for turning attention to an organized system that provides the self with transcendental meaning. In focusing on the evolutionary basis of this system, however, he overlooks the self-organizing properties of cognitive systems themselves. We propose that the illusory system Bering describes can be more generally and parsimoniously viewed as an emergent by-product of self-organization, with no need for specialized “illusion by design.”.

Towards the end of the 19th century there were those who wished to see the kinetic theory abandoned. This paper attempts to show that this reaction was primarily due to philosophical objections rather than the result of scientific difficulties encountered by the kinetic theory. First the relevant philosophical background is examined as well as the relation between the kinetic theory and thermodynamics. Next the scientific difficulty known as the specific heats ratio anomaly is discussed and finally Boltzmann's philosophy of science (...) is examined. (shrink)

Feminist educators and theorists are stretching the boundaries of what it means to do religion and science. They are also expanding the theoretical and practical frameworks through which we might present curricula in thosefields. In this paper, I reflect on the implications of feminist pedagogies for the interdisciplinary field of religion and science. I begin with a brief discussion of feminist approaches to education and the nature of the feminist classroom as a setting for action. Next, I present some theoretical (...) and practical issues to consider when developing a feminist praxis and an antisexist curriculum. This leads into a discussion of the role of language and critical reflection in the religion and science classroom, the risks associated with reflective discourse, and considerations in the use of ‘feminist’ teaching tools such as small group work, journals, and portfolio assessment. Iconclude with a reflection on how feminist pedagogy promotes an epistemology that speaks to the hearts and minds of participants in the dialogue of religion and science. (shrink)

Die Erschütterungen neuzeitlicher Gewissheitsordnungen haben das menschliche Selbst- und Weltverständnis in eine tiefe Krise gestürzt. Darauf antworten Bertolt Brecht und Antonin Artaud wie auch ihr Rezipient Roland Barthes mit einem Theater des Nichtverstehens - sowohl auf der Bühne wie auch im Text. Dieses Theater zeigt, dass Kultur in erster Linie ein ästhetisches System und daher immer ein riskanter Prozess ist. Melanie Reichert überführt die drei bisher vor allem literatur- und kunstwissenschaftlich gelesenen Autoren in einen kulturphilosophischen Diskurs über Philosophie, Theater (...) und die Wiederentdeckung der Ambiguitätstoleranz nach dem Scheitern der Ideologiekritik. (shrink)

The essays in this volume concern the points of intersection between analytic philosophy and the philosophy of the exact sciences. More precisely, it concern connections between knowledge in mathematics and the exact sciences, on the one hand, and the conceptual foundations of knowledge in general. Its guiding idea is that, in contemporary philosophy of science, there are profound problems of theoretical interpretation-- problems that transcend both the methodological concerns of general philosophy of science, and the technical concerns of philosophers of (...) particular sciences. A fruitful approach to these problems combines the study of scientific detail with the kind of conceptual analysis that is characteristic of the modern analytic tradition. Such an approach is shared by these contributors: some primarily known as analytic philosophers, some as philosophers of science, but all deeply aware that the problems of analysis and interpretation link these fields together. (shrink)

What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a group? How do trillions of individual neurons produce something as extraordinarily complex as consciousness? What is it that guides self-organizing structures like the immune system, the World Wide Web, the global economy, and the human genome? These are just a few of the fascinating and elusive questions that the science of complexity seeks to answer. In this remarkably accessible and companionable book, leading complex systems (...) scientist Melanie Mitchell provides an intimate, detailed tour of the sciences of complexity, a broad set of efforts that seek to explain how large-scale complex, organized, and adaptive behavior can emerge from simple interactions among myriad individuals. Comprehending such systems requires a wholly new approach, one that goes beyond traditional scientific reductionism and that re-maps long-standing disciplinary boundaries. Based on her work at the Santa Fe Institute and drawing on its interdisciplinary strategies, Mitchell brings clarity to the workings of complexity across a broad range of biological, technological, and social phenomena, seeking out the general principles or laws that apply to all of them. She explores as well the relationship between complexity and evolution, artificial intelligence, computation, genetics, information processing, and many other fields. Richly illustrated and vividly written, Complexity : A Guided Tour offers a comprehensive and eminently comprehensible overview of the ideas underlying complex systems science, the current research at the forefront of this field, and the prospects for the field's contribution to solving some of the most important scientific questions of our time. (shrink)

This article describes our efforts to screen and enrol clinical trial participants conscientiously in the COVID-19 pandemic setting. We present the standard screening and enrolment process prior to, and our process of adapting to, the pandemic. Our goal was to develop a way to screen and enrol people for clinical trials that was both equitable and effective. In addition, we outline the steps our research department took to ensure that ethical, clinical and logistical factors were considered when matching a patient (...) to a clinical trial. (shrink)

This paper examines six cross-sector partnerships in South Africa and Zambia. These partnerships were part of a research study undertaken between 2003 and 2005 and were selected because of their potential to contribute to poverty reduction in their respective countries. This paper examines the context in which the partnerships were established, their governance and accountability mechanisms and the engagement and participation of the partners and the intended beneficiaries in the partnerships. We argue that a partnership approach which has proven successful (...) in one context can be used as a valuable learning resource. However, a partnership's work, which includes all aspects of the partnership and its activities, cannot necessarily be transferred directly to another partnership without a thorough and locally informed analysis of the context in which it is implemented. In addition, we suggest that it is difficult to assess whether the good intentions behind partnerships were translated into real benefits for target groups as effective monitoring and evaluation procedures were not in place in the partnerships studied. Similarly, the absence of regularised governance and accountability systems in partnerships made it difficult to support partner and beneficiary participation and engagement. We conclude that there is a need to move beyond a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to partnerships and that partnership replication should focus more strongly on the transfer of learning about partnership processes instead of simply copying partnership activities. Moreover, the development of stronger mechanisms for assessing and ensuring accountability towards both partners and intended beneficiaries is required if partnerships are to meet their intended objectives. (shrink)

A single mother is a person who is accountable for raising their children alone because they do not have a husband or live-in partner. Single mothers claim to have no co-parenting relationships at all, comparing single parents to those who are married, cohabiting, or without children, single parents experience the worst work-life balance. A single parent may feel overwhelmed by the demands of juggling child care, a career, paying bills, and maintaining household responsibilities. Single-parent households frequently deal with several extra (...) obligations and possible complications that other families would not. The study also emphasizes the difficulties and coping mechanisms faced by contractual single parents as well as their lived experiences. The study's findings, which were based on an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, were as follows: (1) Work-life balance can be difficult for single parents. They struggle to keep their jobs while taking care of their family because they are the only ones in charge of the children. (2) Single contractual mothers face particular difficulties due to a lack of resources for basic expenses. (3) Contractual single women lean on their kids, the good people in their lives, and their faith in God to get through problems. (shrink)

This article offers an argument of genocide denial as an injustice perpetrated not only against direct victims and survivors of genocide, but also against future members of the victim group. In particular, I argue that in cases of persistent and systematic denial, i.e. denialism, it perpetrates an epistemic injustice against them: testimonial oppression. First, I offer an account of testimonial oppression and introduce Kristie Dotson’s notion of testimonial smothering as one form of testimonial oppression, a mechanism of coerced silencing particularly (...) pertinent to genocide denialism. Secondly, I turn to the epistemology of genocide denialism and, using the example of Turkey’s denialism of the Armenian genocide, show how it presents what Linda Martín Alcoff calls a substantive practice of ignorance. Thirdly, I apply these considerations to individual practices of genocide denial and analyse the particular characteristics of testimony on genocide, the speaker vulnerabilities involved and the conditions under which hearers will reliably fail to meet the dependencies of a speaker testifying to genocide. Finally, I explore the harms that testimonial oppression perpetrates on members of the victim group, insofar as it systematically deprives them of epistemic recognition. (shrink)

This book examines matters of religious freedom in Europe, considers the work of the European Court of Human Rights in this area, explores issues of multiculturalism and secularism in France, of women in Islam, and of Muslims in the West. The work presents legal analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on concepts such as laïcité, submission, equality and the role of the state in public education, amongst others. Through this book, the reader can visit inside a French public school located in (...) a low-income neighborhood just south of Paris and learn about the complex dynamics that led up to the passing of the 2004 law banning Muslim headscarves. The chapters bring to light the actors and cultures within the school that set the stage for the passing of the law and the political philosophy that supports it. School culture and philosophy are compared and contrasted to the thoughts and opinions of the teachers, administrators and students to gage how religious freedom and identity are understood. The book goes on to explore the issue of religious freedom at the European Court of Human Rights. The author argues that the right to religious freedom has been too narrowly understood and is being fenced in by static visions of Islam. This jeopardizes the idea of religious freedom more broadly. By becoming entangled with regional and domestic politics, the Court is neglecting important nuances and is jeopardizing secularism, pluralism and democracy. This is a highly readable and accessible book that will appeal to students and scholars of law, anthropology, religious studies and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Genocide remembrance is a complex epistemological/ethical achievement, whereby survivors and descendants give meaning to the past in the quest for both personal-historical and social-historical truth. This paper offers an argument of epistemic injustice specifically as it occurs in relation to practices of (individual and collective) genocide remembrance. In particular, I argue that under conditions of genocide denialism, understood as collective genocide misremembrance and memory distortion, genocide survivors and descendants are confronted with hermeneutical oppression. Drawing on Sue Campbell’s relational, reconstructive account (...) of remembering, I argue that genocide denialism involves disrespectful challenges to memory, which systematically misrecognize rememberers. Adopting the case of Turkey’s denialism of the Armenian genocide, I discuss two interrelated mechanisms through which this can happen: i) through the systematic portrayal of survivors and descendants as vicious rememberers, and ii) through distortions of the very concept of ‘genocide’. Based on this, I show how hermeneutical and testimonial injustice are crucially interrelated when it comes to “contested” memories of historical injustice and the biographical testimony it gives rise to. (shrink)

The Psycho-Analysis of Children, first published in 1932, is a classic in its subject, and revolutionised child analysis. Melanie Klein had already proved, by the special technique she devised, that she was a pioneer in that branch of analysis. She made possible the extension of psycho-analysis to the field of early childhood, and in this way not only made the treatment of young children possible but also threw new light on psychological development in childhood and on the roots of (...) adult neuroses and psychoses. (shrink)

This introduction to the edited volume on "Testimonial Injustice and Trust" provides (a) a brief overview of the philosophical debate on the notion of ‘testimonial injustice’ and (b) a summary of the 18 chapters constituting this volume. The contributions are divided into four thematic sections. These are (I) Rethinking Testimonial Injustice, (II) Testimonial Injustice and the Question of Trust, (III) The Public Spheres of Testimonial Injustice, and (IV) Testimonial Injustice and Public Health. The contributions criticize, complement, or expand on Fricker’s (...) central case of testimonial injustice and the proposed virtue of testimonial justice, thereby contributing to its better understanding and extending its scope. Moreover, through the application of theories of epistemic injustice, and testimonial injustice in particular, to new real-world cases and contexts, they seek to render our theories and concepts more robust and valuable. (shrink)

This book is a survey of the developments in psychoanalytical knowledge resulting from her work. Her main discoveries relate to the very early phases of mental life. She recognized that the world of unconscious feeling and impulse (which we call 'phantasy') is the effective source of all human actions and reactions.

Together with Max Weber, Georg Simmel is one of the founders of modern sociology. He is less well known as a philosopher. Here he emerges as a modern author who tries to uphold the claim of philosophy under the conditions of relativism, scientific positivism and historicism. His very own understanding of a this-worldly metaphysics as well as his affinity for mysticism play a prominent role in this"--Summary on t.p. verso.

Integrative and naturalistic philosophy of mind can both learn from and contribute to the contemporary cognitive sciences of dreaming. Two related phenomena concerning self-representation in dreams demonstrate the need to bring disparate fields together. In most dreams, the protagonist or dream self who experiences and actively participates in dream events is or represents the dreamer: but in an intriguing minority of cases, self-representation in dreams is displaced, disrupted, or even absent. Working from dream reports in established databanks, we examine two (...) key forms of polymorphism of self-representation: dreams in which I take an external visuospatial perspective on myself, and those in which I take someone else's perspective on events. In remembering my past experiences or imagining future or possible experiences when awake, I sometimes see myself from an external or 'observer' perspective. By relating the issue of perspective in dreams to established research traditions in the study of memory and imagery, and noting the flexibility of perspective in dreams, we identify new lines of enquiry. In other dreams, the dreamer does not appear to figure at all, and the first person perspective on dream events is occupied by someone else, some other person or character. We call these puzzling cases 'vicarious dreams' and assess some potential ways to make sense of them. Questions about self-representation and perspectives in dreams are intriguing in their own right and pose empirical and conceptual problems about the nature of self-representation with implications beyond the case of dreaming. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEmployees who possess cross-cultural capabilities are increasingly sought after due to unparalleled numbers of cross-cultural interactions. Previous research has primarily focused on the bright side of these capabilities, including important individual and work outcomes. In contrast, the purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the cross-cultural capability of cultural intelligence can lead to both positive and negative outcomes. Applying the general theory of confluence, we propose that expatriates high in CQ excel in customer relationship performance, while simultaneously behaving opportunistically. (...) We also suggest that ethical relativism moderates these relationships. Using mixed methods, four separate studies generally support our predictions while also deepening our understanding of various forms of opportunism and the mechanism behind two seemingly opposing effects. Conceptual and managerial implications of CQ for opportunism, customer relationship performance, and ethics are discussed. (shrink)

A discussion of ethical decision-making literature is overdue. In this article, we summarize the current literature of ethical decision-making models used in mental health professions. Of 1,520 articles published between 2001 and 2020 that met initial search criteria, 38 articles were included. We report on the status of empirical evidence for the use of these models along with comparisons, limitations, and considerations. Ethical decision-making models were synthesized into eight core procedural components and presented based on the composition of steps present (...) in each model. This taxonomy provides practitioners, trainers, students, and supervisors relevant information regarding ethical decision-making models. (shrink)

Given the profound influence of social media and emerging evidence of its effects on human behavior and health, bioethicists have an important role to play in the development of professional standards of conduct for health professionals using social media and in the design of online systems themselves. In short, social media is a bioethics issue that has serious implications for medical practice, research, and public health. Here, we inventory several ethical issues across four areas at the intersection of social media (...) and health: the impact of social networking sites on the doctor‐patient relationship, the development of e‐health platforms to deliver care, the use of online data and algorithms to inform health research, and the broader public health consequences of widespread social media use. In doing so, we review discussions of these topics and emphasize the need for bioethics to focus more deeply on the ways online technology platforms are designed and implemented. We argue that bioethicists should turn their attention to the ways in which consumer engagement, bias, and profit maximization shape online content and, consequently, human behavior and health. We also offer a set of recommendations and suggest future directions for addressing ethical challenges in these domains. (shrink)

In this essay we argue that there is a contradiction lurking at the heart of Bernard Suits's seminal book on the philosophy of games, The Grasshopper, which has oddly gone unnoticed for 43 years. Suits argues that games need inefficiency and defines inefficiency such that it wouldn't exist in Utopia. This trivially entails that there could be no games in Utopia, yet the whole normative point of The Grasshopper is that games would be the only worthwhileactivity in Utopia. We then (...) diagnose Suits's error and suggest some ways forward. (shrink)

When engaging in community-based research, it is important to consider ethical research practices throughout the project. While current research practices require many investigators to obtain approval from an ethics review board before starting a project, more is required to ensure that ethical principles are applied once the investigations begin and after the investigations are complete. In response to this concern, as expressed by workers at a feminist non-profit during a community placement, we developed a tool to foster both greater ethical (...) and feminist research practice in community-based research. Using feminist theories, methodologies, and concepts such as epistemic justice, epistemic trust, and coauthorship, a tool was developed to support researchers and other collaborators in building relationships of reciprocity. This tool, called the Research Responsibility Agreement (RRA) invites all members of a research project to explicitly reflect on their role in the research, their relationships with other collaborators, their responsibility to contributing meaningfully in the project, and their plans to remain accountable to one another. In doing so, the RRA adds to existing tools that support ethical research by sharing explicit reflections from all collaborators on how to prevent harm and by asking them to reflect on ethical practices beyond the initial stages of the project. The RRA also encourages greater engagement from researchers and collaborators toward building meaningful relationships with each other, and with participants, to work together in advancing social change. As a practical tool that promotes reflection, that builds relationships, and that holds all parties accountable to ethical and feminist research practices, the RRA has the potential to generate impactful change in community-based research projects and beyond. While the RRA is tailored to community-based research, it can be applied widely to any research project and has the potential to revolutionize how research relationships are built across disciplines. (shrink)

Our eyes, bodies, and perspectives are constantly shifting as we observe the world. Despite this, we are very good at distinguishing between self-caused visual changes and changes in the environment: the world appears mostly stable despite our visual field moving around. This, it seems, also occurs when we are dreaming. As we visually investigate the dream environment, we track moving objects with our dream eyes, examine objects, and shift focus. These movements, research suggests, are reflected in the rapid movements or (...) saccades of our sleeping eyes. Do we really see the dream world in the same way that we see the real world? If we do, how could dreaming, usually assumed to be mind-generated hallucinations, replicate such an experience? This problem would be deflated if dreams are not hallucinations at all, but rather imagination, illusion or simply unrealistic. I argue that imagination and illusion views do not satisfactorily explain away the problem of vision and action in sleep. The imagination model is not a complete description of dreaming that is consistent with empirical research, and it is unlikely that the visual dream world is an illusion. Given that the dreaming visual experience is most likely active, hallucinatory, and at times a realistic world simulation, there are important implications for our understanding of visual perception and its relationship to movement. Evidence suggests that our dream eyes investigate the dream world as our waking eyes investigate the waking world. If changes to the unconsciously generated dream environment are perceived as external and unintentional while dream body movements are perceived as self-generated and intentional, current theory of visual perception may have to be expanded to account for how the dreaming mind generates a stable world in which we track and visually explore mind-generated objects. (shrink)

As we become more aware of the potential causes and consequences of climate change we are left wondering: who is responsible? Climate change has the potential to harm large portions of the global population and, arguably, is already doing so. Further, climate change is argued to be human-caused. If this is true, then it seems to be the case that we can analyze climate change in terms of responsibility. I argue that we can approach environmental harms, such as climate change, (...) through a theory of collective responsibility. I propose an account of reductive collective responsibility that can apply to the unstructured collective causing climate change and determine what we are each individually morally responsible for. To avoid the critiques of reductive collective responsibility for large unstructured harms, I propose we separate the determination of membership and eligibility for responsibility from the attribution of responsibility. Through this method, I can speak to the individual responsibility of each member who contributes to climate change without holding them responsible for that which is outside their control. (shrink)

This book sets out to generate new ways of reflecting ethically about the purposes and values of contemporary higher education in relation to agency, learning, public values and democratic life, and the pedagogies which support these.

The intuitive view that memories are characterized by a feeling of pastness, perceptions by a feeling of presence, while imagination lacks either faces challenges from two sides. Some researchers complain that the “feeling of pastness” is either unclear, irrelevant or isn’t a real feature. Others point out that there are cases of memory without the feeling of pastness, perception without presence, and other cross-cutting cases. Here we argue that the feeling of pastness is indeed a real, useful feature, and although (...) this feeling does not define memory ontologically, it is a characteristic marker which helps us easily categorise a mental state first-personally. We outline several cognitive features that underlie this experience, including the feeling of past accessibility, ergonomic significance, immersion, objectivity and mental strength. Our account is distinctly phenomenal, rather than doxastic, although our web of beliefs may contribute to this experience. (shrink)

This article introduces the symposium “Toward a Philosophy of Blockchain,” which provides a philosophical contemplation of blockchain technology, the digital ledger software underlying cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, for the secure transfer of money, assets, and information via the Internet without needing a third-party intermediary. The symposium offers philosophical scholarship on a new topic, blockchain technology, from a variety of perspectives. The philosophical themes discussed include mathematical models of reality, signification, and the sociopolitical institutions that structure human life and interaction. The (...) symposium also investigates the metaphilosophical theme of how to create a philosophy of anything, specifically a new topic such as blockchain technology. Repeated themes are identified, in all areas of philosophical inquiry, and conceptual resources are elaborated to contribute to a philosophical understanding of blockchain technology. Thus, philosophy as a metaphilosophical approach is shown to be able to provide an understanding of the conceptual, theoretical, and foundational dimensions of novelty and emergence in the world, with a particular focus on blockchain technology. (shrink)

I propose a narrative fabrication thesis of dream reports, according to which dream reports are often not accurate representations of experiences that occur during sleep. I begin with an overview of anti-experience theses of Norman Malcolm and Daniel Dennett who reject the received view of dreams, that dreams are experiences we have during sleep which are reported upon waking. Although rejection of the first claim of the received view, that dreams are experiences that occur during sleep, is implausible, I evaluate (...) in more detail the second assumption of the received view, that dream reports are generally accurate. I then propose a “narrative fabrication” view of dreams as an alternative to the received view. Dream reports are often confabulated or fabricated because of poor memory, bizarre dream content, and cognitive deficits. It is well documented that narratives can be altered between initial rapid eye movement sleep awakenings and subsequent reports. I argue that we have reason to suspect that initial reports are prone to inaccuracy. Experiments demonstrate that subjects rationalize strange elements in narratives, leaving out supernatural or bizarre components when reporting waking memories of stories. Inaccuracies in dream reports are exacerbated by rapid memory loss and bizarre dream content. Waking memory is a process of reconstruction and blending of elements, but unlike waking memory, we cannot reality-test for dream memories. Dream experiences involve imaginative elements, and dream content cannot be verified with external evidence. Some dreams may involve wake-like higher cognitive functions, such as lucid dreams. Such dreams are more likely to elicit accurate reports than cognitively deficient dreams. However, dream reports are generally less accurate than waking reports. I then propose methods which could verify the narrative fabrication view, and argue that although the theory cannot be tested with current methods, new techniques and technologies may be able to do so in the future. -/- . (shrink)

In this article I am concerned with how relatively privileged people who wish to act in anti-oppressive ways respond to their own ignorance in ways that fall short of what is necessary for building coalitions against oppression. I consider María Lugones's sense of “world”-travel and José Medina's notion of epistemic friction-seeking as strategies for combating privileged ignorance, and assess how well they fare when put into practice by those suffering from privileged ignorance. Drawing on the resources of tourism studies, I (...) critique the political and material context that can turn these attempts to “world”-travel or seek epistemic friction into a morally and epistemically problematic epistemic tourism. Centrally, I argue that trying to learn what it's like to experience oppression is not an effective method of counteracting privileged ignorance, since the epistemic vices and cognitive distortions that created the ignorance in the first place continue to influence knowledge-creation even after they are acknowledged. Rather than attempting to understand “what it's like” to experience oppression, privileged progressives should undertake to learn about the provenance and purpose of their ignorance and the structures of oppression that facilitate and are facilitated by that ignorance. (shrink)

This article examines the tensions in the identities of men who belong to the Promise Keepers movement by uncovering the social conditions that lead men to rethink gender and racial ideologies. Using participant observation and in-depth interviews, the author draws on gender and social movement scholarship to reveal how contradictory gender and racial ideologies shape PKs' identities. Furthermore, the PKs' impact on gender and race relations is also contradictory. PK fosters men's growth on an interactional level, allowing men to embrace (...) a more expressive and caring masculinity that includes cross-racial bonding. Simultaneously, however, PK ignores, and indirectly reinforces, the structural conditions that underpin gender and racial privilege among white men. (shrink)

In recent decades, evidence-based medicine has become one of the foundations of clinical practice, making it necessary that healthcare practitioners develop keen critical appraisal skills for scientific papers. Worksheets to guide clinicians through this critical appraisal are often used in journal clubs, a key part of continuing medical education. A similar need is arising for health professionals to develop skills in the critical appraisal of medical ethics papers. Medicine is increasingly ethically complex, and there is a growing medical ethics literature (...) that modern practitioners need to be able to use in their practice. In addition, clinical ethics services are commonplace in healthcare institutions, and the lion’s share of the work done by these services is done by clinicians in addition to their usual roles. Education to support this work is important. In this paper, we present a worksheet designed to help busy healthcare practitioners critically appraise ethics papers relevant to clinical practice. In the first section, we explain what is different about ethics papers. We then describe how to work through the steps in our critical appraisal worksheet: identifying the point at issue; scrutinising definitions; dissecting the arguments presented; considering counterarguments; and finally deciding on relevance. Working through this reflective worksheet will help healthcare practitioners to use the ethics literature effectively in clinical practice. We also intend it to be a shared evaluative tool that can form the basis of professional discussion such as at ethics journal clubs. Practising these critical reasoning skills will also increase practitioners’ capacity to think through difficult ethical decisions in daily clinical practice. (shrink)

Australia’s punitive policy towards people seeking asylum deliberately causes severe psychological harm and meets recognised definitions of torture. Consequently, there is a tension between doctors’ obligation not to be complicit in torture and doctors’ obligation to provide best possible care to their patients, including those seeking asylum. In this paper, we explore the nature of complicity and discuss the arguments for and against a proposed call for doctors to boycott working in immigration detention. We conclude that a degree of complicity (...) is unavoidable when working in immigration detention, but that it may be ethically justifiable. We identify ways to minimise the harms associated with complicity and argue that it is ethical to continue working in immigration detention as long as due care and attention is paid to minimising the harms of complicity. (shrink)

This article was developed as part of the forthcoming special issue on "Reparations" for the Journal of Social Philosophy and was accepted (with minor revisions) by the guest editors Christina Nick and Susan Stark in November 2021. The special issue article is available online open access for early view. -/- Abstract: The United Nations Commission on Human Rights acknowledges the Right to Know as part of state obligations to combat impunity and thereby protect and promote human rights in the aftermath (...) of “serious crimes under international law”. In light of such an institutionally acknowledged epistemic right of victims, this paper explores the normative foundations of the idea of epistemic reparation in the aftermath of genocide. I argue that such epistemic reparation requires not only fulfilment of the informational needs of victims, survivors and descendants, including access to knowledge about the violations. By taking into account epistemic injuries, which are part and parcel of genocide, it ought to also re-establish victims’ epistemic standing. This is because genocide is enabled, justified and even prescribed through a genocidal epistemology involving the propagation of falsehoods and misinformation about social reality as well as abuses of epistemic authority and epistemic authoritarianism. Hence, epistemic reparation ought to correct the dysfunctional epistemic practices that underlie and sustain a genocidal epistemology. It thereby provides victims, survivors and descendants with epistemic recognition that has been systematically withdrawn from them, making epistemic reparation a crucial element of restorative justice. (shrink)

Employees at healthcare organizations are experiencing more stress than ever given the current COVID-19 pandemic. Different types of stress are affecting diverse organizational outcomes, including the employees’ voluntary turnover. This is the case of cognitive stress, a type of stress that affects how individuals process information, which can influence employees’ turnover intentions. In this study, we look at the mechanisms that can reduce the adverse effects of cognitive stress on turnover intentions, particularly the role of employees’ perceived psychological safety. We (...) hypothesize that psychological safety mediates the relationship between cognitive stress and turnover intentions, and COVID-19 worry and supervisor support moderate the relationship between cognitive stress and psychological safety. To test our hypothesis, we invited two public health care organizations in Chile to join this study. In total, we obtained a sample of 146 employees in 21 different teams. Using a multilevel model, we found that psychological safety prevents the harmful effects of cognitive stress on employees’ turnover intentions. In addition, while COVID-19 worry can worsen the relationship between cognitive stress and psychological safety, supervisor support only directly affects psychological safety. This study contributes to expanding the stress and psychological safety literature and informs practitioners in healthcare organizations about how to deal with cognitive stress in the “new normality” that the pandemic has brought. (shrink)