El artículo abordados expresiones religiosas, el movimiento neo-hinduistaSai Baba y la escuela budista “Zendo Betania”, y da cuenta de su origen y globalización para concentrarse en suimplantación en la Argentina. Asume que al inscribirse en nuestro país,dichos movimientos lo hacen, si bien de modo diferencial, conforme adeterminadas matrices sociales hegemónicas presentes en el ámbito nacional. A continuación, a partir del examen de lastécnicas corporales practicadas por estos grupos (la meditación), el trabajo avanza en la idea de que dichas prácticas redefinen (...) el esquema corporal de los participantes, promoviendo modalidades alternativas de subjetivación que confrontan aspectosdominantes de la cultura actual; específicamente, la concepción de la persona y sus vínculos con el entorno. En este sentido, el presente artículo se inscribe en una línea de trabajos que problematizanla corporalidad en las sociedades globalizadas contemporáneas, análisis que reconocenquesi bien las prácticas recitan normas hegemónicas,enfatizan a la vez que en esa misma repetición se dan puntos de fuga que operan transformaciones. (shrink)

A partir de una encuesta por correo electrónico a estudiantes de Ingeniería en el SAI de la UAMA en un contexto de enseñanza remota forzado por la pandemia, se caracteriza la gestión de la docencia, desde la visión de los estudiantes, se realiza un diagnóstico de los aspectos relacionados. Es un estudio transversal con un análisis cualitativo y descriptivo de las respuestas. La gestión docente se ve afectada por factores inherentes al proceso, así como también por factores externos. Los resultados (...) obtenidos muestran que fue impactada fuertemente al realizarse el proceso totalmente vía remota especialmente, la comunicación e interacción alumno-profesor. (shrink)

Cet article présente le contexte général ayant conduit à l’élaboration du Corpus de français parlé au Québec (CFPQ) et les principes méthodologiques ayant présidé à sa confection. Il illustre ensuite l’intérêt que représente cette ressource documentaire pour l’étude de la langue parlée en contexte informel par le biais d’un examen lexico-sémantique de la séquence je sais pas. L’intérêt pour cette séquence vient d’abord d’un constat : celle-ci est particulièrement fréquente dans le corpus pris comme cible. En effet, elle y occupe (...) le premier rang, en terme de fréquence, pour ce qui concerne la présence de trois unités graphiques figurant en contiguïté. Ce constat oriente vers l’idée selon laquelle son degré d’« entrenchment » (c’est-à-dire d’enracinement) doit être grand, qu’elle a toute chance d’être mémorisée en bloc dans un certain nombre de contextes, à la manière des séquences complexes ou expressions (semi-)figées. L’attention se focalise sur des exemples où je sais pas agit à titre d’expression verbale, puis d’expression discursive. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, there has been a growing interest in the use of meditation to improve cognitive performance, emotional balance, and well-being. As a consequence, research into the psychological effects and neural mechanisms of meditation has been accumulating. Whether and how meditation affects decision making is not yet clear. Here, we review evidence from behavioral and neuroimaging studies and summarize the effects of meditation on social and non-social economic decision making. Research suggests that meditation modulates brain activities associated (...) with cognitive control, emotion regulation and empathy, and leads to improved non-social and social decision making. Accordingly, we propose an integrative model in which cognitive control, emotional regulation, and empathic concern mediate the effects of meditation on decision making. This model provides insights into the mechanisms by which meditation affects the decision making process. More evidence is needed to test our explanatory model and to explore the function of specific brain areas and their interactive effects on decision making during meditation training. (shrink)

The frequent occurrence of comorbidity has brought about an extensive theoretical debate in psychiatry. Why are the rates of psychiatric comorbidity so high and what are their implications for the ontological and epistemological status of comorbid psychiatric diseases? Current explanations focus either on classification choices or on causal ties between disorders. Based on empirical and philosophical arguments, we propose a conventionalist interpretation of psychiatric comorbidity instead. We argue that a conventionalist approach fits well with research and clinical practice and resolves (...) two problems for psychiatric diseases: experimenter’s regress and arbitrariness. (shrink)

This paper explores contemporary Jewish identity-formation and the centrality of official Holocaust memory and Zionism – understood as the ongoing settler-colonial project aiming at the formation and maintenance of a Jewish-exclusivist state in Palestine – to this process. It argues that identity politics within the Jewish community are based on an understanding of identity, which assumes it to be static and individual. In doing so, this political approach reproduces the essentialisation of Jewish communities under the banner of Zionism and official (...) state history. The paper aims to show how this process of identification between Judaism, official Holocaust memory and Zionism has been a state-led process, rooted in the historical development of antisemitism and European colonialism. In order to do so, it builds on a critique of classical Marxist analyses of the Jewish question. It finally proposes a more fluid approach to identity, which understands it as socially constructed, contested, and subject to political contestation. (shrink)

This paper compares the ethical decisions and attitudes of business students and practitioners. Recent unpublished data from a national study of over 1600 students are contrasted with information reported previously. Students are found consistently to make less ethical choices than practitioners, and there is some indication that students are making less ethical choices in the 1980s than in the 1960s. In addition, both students and practitioners agree that buyers should beware, view the role of business more narrowly, and find fewer (...) incentives to behave ethically over time. Codes of ethics appear to be less influential than the individual''s strong personal value system and one''s superiors behaving ethically; support for codes is declining. The paper concludes with observations about the limitations and possibilities for survey research in this area drawing on other studies that used the same instrument utilized for this paper. Some implications for future research are suggested. (shrink)

This essay begins a conversation between Bernard Williams and Confucius (of the Analects ) in response to the general question of whether individuals are internally motivated in adopting role-specific reasons for action. It is argued that certain social roles such as Father, Son, Husband, Wife, Minister or Ruler, and Citizen or Subject are thick ethical concepts operative in Confucian ethical communities, such that the application of these thick ethical concepts results in role-specific internal reasons for action. If so, the Confucian (...) emphasis on li 禮 constitutes ethical knowledge regarding the applicability of these thick ethical concepts, the practice of which actively offers individuals reasons to apply their social roles. This expands Williams' ethical theorizing to account for the ethical significance of social roles and relationships within Confucian ethical communities, as the collective practice of li within a Confucian ethical community serves as a background to the sort of ethical theorizing favored by Williams. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of xiao 孝, often translated as filial piety or familial deference, which is compatible with Bernard Williams’s insistence that ethical deliberation should be indeterminate and open-ended, rather than pre-established on the basis of one’s social relationships. Through a critical reading of Williams’s account of ethical knowledge localized to an advisor model, I suggest that we trust those who share similar experiences in social relationships to offer advice specific to our social roles. This trust exhibits itself (...) as xiao, which amounts to no more than the deference children have towards their parents as their guides on the ethical question of how we ought to live—‘we’, as individuals who share common experiences of being children, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, and other such social roles. (shrink)

Transplant centers and physicians in the United States have limited guidance on the information which they can and cannot provide to transplant candidates regarding donors of potential organs. Patients may refuse organs for a variety of reasons ranging from pernicious requests including racism to misinformation about emerging medicine as with the COVID-19 vaccine and infection. Patient autonomy, organ stewardship, and equity are often at odds in these cases, but precedent indeed exists to help address these challenges. This work uses such (...) cases to highlight the urgent need for uniform, national policy prohibiting informational requests unrelated to well-established risks. (shrink)

Co-speech gestures are closely connected to speech, but little attention has been paid to the associations between gesture and L2 speech performance. This study explored the associations between four types of co-speech gestures and the meaning, form, and discourse dimensions of L2 speech performance. Gesture and speech data were collected by asking 61 lower-intermediate English learners whose first language is Chinese to retell a cartoon clip. Results showed that all the four types of co-speech gestures had positive associations with meaning (...) and discourse L2 speech measures but no association with form-related speech measures, except the positive association between metaphorics and the percentage of error-free clauses. The findings suggest that co-speech gestures may have a tighter connection with meaning construction in producing L2 speech. (shrink)

AbstractIn many cultures, interactions between humans and plants are rooted in what is called “relational values”—values that derive from relationships and entail reciprocity. In Mexico, biocultural diversity is mirrored in the knowledge and use of some 6500 plant species and the domestication of over 250 Mesoamerican native crop species. This research explores how different sets of values are attributed to plants and how these influence management strategies to maintain plant resources in wild and anthropogenic environments. We ran workshops in two (...) communities in a highly biodiverse region in western Mexico, to ascertain the values and management activities related to important plant resources. The relationship between values attributed to plants and management activities was examined through redundancy analysis. A total of 180 plant resources were mentioned during the workshops, with a broad spectrum of values attributed to them, including material, non-material, and regulatory dimensions. We divided plant management strategies into three general categories of increasing intensity and complexity. We found that participants in the Indigenous community value and manage more wild plant resources than people in the non-Indigenous community. We also identified relationships between plant resource values and the type of management performed; for example, more intensive forms of management, such as sowing seeds, were used for seasonal plants that had a food value. By valuing and managing different sets of plant resources from forest, agricultural plots, and home gardens, people enabled multi-functional landscapes to form, illustrating a key feature of relational values in agroecosystems, which promotes both conservation and domestication of plants. (shrink)

Antisemitism is an increasingly prevalent aspect of public life in the West, both as a consequence of the growth of the far right across the board and through its mobilisation against Palestinian liberation and Palestine solidarity activism. While synagogues are targeted and far-right politicians revive ideas of Jewish global power, it is the left, Muslims, and Palestinians that are continuously constructed as the source of the current rise in hatred and violence against Jews. If historically the Marxist tradition engaged actively (...) with the so-called Jewish question, in recent decades the subject has receded from focus. This shift took place as other forms of racism – directed at Muslims, Black populations, or migrants – became the basis for reactionary politics in the West. This article argues that while some of the assumptions that underwrote classical Marxist texts on the issue have been found wanting – perhaps most notably the inevitable (or desirable) character of the trend towards assimilation – they remain important starting points for making sense of our present, both by their method and their political commitment to liberation. (shrink)

This study evaluated the dimensionality and psychometric properties of the Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS) using a sample of university students in mainland China. Nine hundred and three students from a Chinese university participated in this study. The internal consistency, criterion validity, factorial validity and construct validity of the scale were examined. The Chinese versions of the BSCS demonstrated good internal consistency. The BSCS also showed significant moderate correlations with other construct-related scales. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis suggested that (...) only a modified 11-item BSCS with a four-factor structure was a good model fit in the sample of Chinese university students. The implications for research and theoretical development are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine the cross-cultural validity of the Organizational Stressor Indicator for Sport Performers scale by investigating its psychometric properties with Ghanaian footballers. The study particularly sought to assess in the Ghanaian context, 1, the convergence validity and reliability of the OSI-SP scale, 2, the discriminant validity of the OSI-SP scale to understand the applicability of its factor structure, and 3, whether the OSI-SP hypothesized model fits the data collected within the study context. The intensity (...) aspect of the OSI-SP questionnaire was administered to 424 Ghana Premier League male footballers who took part in the 2020/2021 season. Quality control strategies were put in place to ensure consistency across interpreters and as well improve the validity of the data. The results from a multi-factor first-order confirmatory factor analysis showed some level of convergence validity of the OSI-SP scale in the Ghanaian context using football players. Out of the 23 items on the original scale, 20 met the factor loadings criterion. In assessing the discriminant validity of the OSI-SP scale using Heterotrait-monotrait, 50% of the correlation ratios met the criterion for the original 23-item instrument. Comparing the new model with the original model using the Akaike Information Criterion value, the model fit indices for the modified model appeared better than the original model with 23-items. Generally, there was minimal support for the applicability of the OSI-SP instrument across the sample of Ghanaian footballers. The implications of these findings are discussed in detail. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Temporal dynamists argue that we should believe that there exists temporal passage because there being passage is the best explanation for the presence of our temporal phenomenology. Presentists argue that presentism is the best version of temporal dynamism. Therefore, conditional on us accepting temporal dynamism, we should accept presentism. In this paper it is argued that if we understand temporal passage as the presentist does, such an argument can succeed only if dualism is true. Thus, we conclude, either presentists (...) should embrace dualism, or they should reject any argument for presentism that proceeds via any such argument for temporal passage that proceeds via considerations of what best explains our temporal phenomenology. (shrink)

Spiritual leadership has gained much traction among researchers and practitioners for its value-laden approach as it engenders feelings and expressions of a leader’s spirituality at the workplace by intrinsically motivating the followers to envision work as a calling, thereupon culminating in greater organizational performance. However, despite the significant attempts to consolidate the literature, organizational scholarly knowledge on spiritual leadership seems fragmented and incohesive. This is because the extant reviews pertaining to this field often employ subjective approaches in encapsulating the literature. (...) It is due to these limitations, leadership researchers might find it difficult to appreciate the advances made in the realm of spiritual leadership, to grasp a holistic understanding of its objective insights, and to chart a course for future research. Therefore, through our study, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of the past, present, and future of spiritual leadership research. This study combines a bibliometric analysis with a literature review wherein we analyzed 337 papers published between 1980 and 2021. First, through bibliographic coupling, citation analysis, prestige analysis, and co-word analysis of extant studies, we highlight the prominent authors, influential works, leading organizations, countries, and journals in the realm of spiritual leadership. Second, through our content analysis of the leading articles obtained from clustering, we map the emergent core themes in spiritual leadership literature. Third, based on these emergent themes, we offer a comprehensive conceptual framework. Finally, we determine and present potential avenues for future research by employing the TCCM framework that could stimulate scholarly research in this domain and discuss theoretical and managerial implications. (shrink)

The traditional view of cognition as detached from emotions is recently being questioned. This study aimed to investigate the influence of emotional valence on the accuracy and bias in the representation of numbers on the mental number line (MNL). The study included 164 participants who were randomly assigned into two groups with induced positive and negative emotional valence using matched arousal film clips. Participants performed a computerised number-to-position (CNP) task to estimate the position of numbers on a horizontal line. The (...) results showed that participants in the positive valence group exhibited a rightward bias, while those in the negative valence group showed an opposite pattern. The analysis of mean absolute error revealed that the negative valence group had higher error rates compared to the positive valence group. Furthermore, the MNL estimation pattern analysis indicated that a two-cycle cyclic power model (CPM) best explained the data for both groups. These findings suggest that emotional valence influences the spatial representation of numbers on the MNL and affects accuracy in numerical estimations. Our findings are finally discussed in terms of body-specificity and the Brain’s Asymmetric Frequency Tuning (BAFT) theories. The study provides new insights into the interplay between emotions and numerical cognition. (shrink)

This book opens with the emergence and development of the discipline of aesthetics in western countries, specifically the history of Western Music Aesthetics, to study and delve into the development of Chinese Music Aesthetics. The book provides a clear timeline throughout the writing - from the history of Chinese Music Aesthetics, to the construction of a theoretical framework, and the intersections and conversations between Western and Chinese Music Aesthetics. This academic piece is fundamentally consistent with the developing field of Chinese (...) philosophical and literary research. This book also discusses important music aesthetic categories of Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, and metaphysics, and uses critical thinking to analyse the relationship between these categories and relevant schools of thought, reflecting the author's academic vision and thought process. (shrink)

In psychiatry, many scientists desire to move from a classification system based on symptoms toward a system based on biological causes. The idea is that psychiatric diseases should be redefined such that each disease would be associated with specific biological causes. This desire is intelligible because causal disease models often facilitate understanding and identification of new ways to intervene in disease processes. In its attempt to move from syndromal to specific etiological definitions, psychiatry follows the trend of general medicine.Current psychiatric...

Jonathan Y. Tsou examines and defends positions on central issues in philosophy of psychiatry. The positions defended assume a naturalistic and realist perspective and are framed against skeptical perspectives on biological psychiatry. Issues addressed include the reality of mental disorders; mechanistic and disease explanations of abnormal behavior; definitions of mental disorder; natural and artificial kinds in psychiatry; biological essentialism and the projectability of psychiatric categories; looping effects and the stability of mental disorders; psychiatric classification; and the validity of the DSM's (...) diagnostic categories. The main argument defended by Tsou is that genuine mental disorders are biological kinds with harmful effects. This argument opposes the dogma that mental disorders are necessarily diseases that result from biological dysfunction. Tsou contends that the broader ideal of biological kinds offers a more promising and empirically ascertainable naturalistic standard for assessing the reality of mental disorders and the validity of psychiatric categories. (shrink)

Based on 24 hours of videotaped data, this study investigates, both qualitatively and quantitatively, gender differences in the use of person pronouns in televised sports in Taiwan. This analysis has found that, regardless of their speaker role, male sports reporters use the second-person singular pronoun nimuch more frequently than their female counterparts. In addition, there is a significant difference in the distribution ofpragmatic functions of nibetween men’s and women’s reporting. While male sports reporters use niin a more varied way, i.e. (...) to refer to the TV audience, a specific athlete or team, an indefinite or non-specific athlete, or to include this pronoun in direct speech to dramatize their reporting, female reporters use this pronoun predominately to referto a non-specific athlete. In other words, male sports reporters tend to employ impersonal niand dramatic nito signal their strong self-involvement, their interpersonal involvement with the athlete and the TV audience, and their involvement with the reported sports event. Finally, malesports reporters’ more frequent use of the second-person pronoun niin the data also marks their informal and conversational speech style.This result contradicts those previous studies which claim that formality and detachment characterize men’s information-oriented public discourse. (shrink)

Based on video-taped data from five televised 1998 Taipei mayoral debates, this article examines the use of reported speech in Chinese political discourse, with a particular focus on direct quotation. The findings are that direct quotation or constructed dialogue not only creates the rhetorical effect of vividness and immediacy but also establishes interpersonal involvement. More importantly, the three debaters in this study use direct quotation as an indirect strategy for self-promotion and for denigration. Citing someone else's words objectifies debaters' praise (...) of themselves and vilification of their opponents, thereby heightening the reliability of their claims: these claims are presented as shared knowledge and reference is made to an external source. However, direct quotation is also a strategy of evasion: the speakers disclaim responsibility and distance themselves from the source of knowledge. Finally, the different use of citations made by the three debaters also marks their different communicative styles. While the two politicians who speak more formally generally tend to cite figures from newspapers or magazines, the one who speaks most casually frequently employs direct quotations. (shrink)

Adopting Fairclough's multidimensional approach, this corpus-based study explores discursive changes in current Taiwanese society, with a particular focus on conversationalization in printed media. Data were collected from three major newspapers catering to different readerships during three time periods. The analyzed linguistic features include noun phrases, Chinese four-character set expressions, mixing of local dialect, and slang. My analysis shows that over the past two decades there has been an increase of conversational features in all three newspapers. In addition, a cross-sectional comparison (...) has revealed that soft news texts include more conversational features than hard news texts. It is also found that the newspaper which stresses local values and advocates an independent Taiwan identity tends to adopt more conversational features, particularly the mixing of Taiwanese in Mandarin news texts. Finally, I suggest that this trend of conversationalization in the Taiwanese press can be linked to substantive democratization and marketization of the Taiwanese society as well as the change and development of modern written Chinese. (shrink)

This paper argues that the definition of food justice must be defined in more participatory terms. Current accounts of food justice tend to emphasize distributional inequalities. However, there is broad recognition that these distributional inequalities are the result of participative inequalities and that the participation of marginalized groups in advocacy plays an important role in creating just food systems. In addition, thinking of food justice in more participative terms also suggests a more well-rounded and comprehensive approach to dealing with inequalities (...) within the food system. One manner in which the concept of food justice can be redefined to better capture the importance of participative justice is by considering what is required for informed consent. (shrink)

Research questions and backgroundThis study explores a highly controversial issue of medical care in Germany: the decision to withhold or withdraw mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients. It analyzes difficulties in making these decisions and the physicians’ uncertainty in understanding the German terminology of Sterbehilfe, which is used in the context of treatment limitation. Used in everyday language, the word Sterbehilfe carries connotations such as helping the patient in the dying process or helping the patient to enter the dying process. (...) Yet, in the legal and ethical discourse Sterbehilfe indicates several concepts: (1) treatment limitation, i.e., withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment (passive Sterbehilfe), (2) the use of medication for symptom control while taking into account the risk of hastening the patient’s death (indirekte Sterbehilfe), and (3) measures to deliberately terminate the patient’s life (aktive Sterbehilfe). The terminology of Sterbehilfe has been criticized for being too complex and misleading, particularly for practical purposes. Materials and methods An exploratory study based on qualitative interviews was conducted with 28 physicians from nine medical intensive care units in tertiary care hospitals in the German federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The method of data collection was a problem-centered, semi-structured interview using two authentic clinical case examples. In order to shed light on the relation between the physicians’ concepts and the ethical and legal frames of reference, we analyzed their way of using the terms passive and aktive Sterbehilfe. Results Generally, the physicians were more hesitant in making decisions to withdraw rather than withhold mechanical ventilation. Almost half of them assumed a categorical prohibition to withdraw any mechanical ventilation and more than one third felt that treatment ought not to be withdrawn at all. Physicians showed specific uncertainty about classifying the withdrawal of mechanical ventilation as passive Sterbehilfe, and had difficulties understanding that terminating ventilation is not basically illegal, but the permissibility of withdrawal depends on the situation. Conclusions The physicians’ knowledge and skills in interpreting clinical ethical dilemmas require specific improvement on the one hand; on the other hand, the terms passive and aktive Sterbehilfe are less clear than desirable and not as easy to use in clinical practice. Fear of making unjustified or illegal decisions may motivate physicians to continue (even futile) treatment. Physicians strongly opt for more open discussion about end-of-life care to allow for discontinuation of futile treatment and to reduce conflict. (shrink)

Direct-to-consumer advertising of healthcare products refers to a variety of marketing practices based on a combination of information and promotion strategies directed at consumers through different media such as radio and television broadcasts, newspaper and magazine ads, and, more recently, through the Internet. The principal form of marketing used by the pharmaceutical industry is the distribution of free samples to physicians but DTCA is an increasing part of global promotional spending for prescription drugs. Latest estimates suggest that DTCA now represents (...) an annual $3.2 billion enterprise for the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. Findings from the literature show that these substantial efforts are geared toward the newer pharmaceuticals for chronic conditions with huge market potentials. The lion's share is going to the 20 most prescribed pharmaceuticals. (shrink)

This study aimed to identify the learning and business incubation processes and their impact on developing the performance of business incubators in Gaza Strip, and the study relied on the descriptive analytical approach, and the study population consisted of all employees working in business incubators in Gaza Strip in addition to experts and consultants in incubators where their total number reached (62) individuals, and the researchers used the questionnaire as a main tool to collect data through the comprehensive survey method, (...) where (55) questionnaires were retrieved with a recovery rate of (88.7%). The results of the study showed that there is a high approval of the variables of the study, where the dimension of incubation operations came with a relative weight (84.89%), followed by the learning dimension which got a relative weight (82.50%), while the performance level of the incubators got a relative weight (80.12%) and as the study results showed There is a positive relationship statistically between the two dimensions of learning and business incubation processes and performance development in business incubators, and the linear regression analysis model showed that the main effect in improving the performance of business incubators is "after business incubation operations" while it showed weak effect after learning. The study came out with several recommendations, the most important of which is that business incubators seek to reinforce the learning process and incubation processes for business, and the need to periodically evaluate their performance, and that a more effective mechanism be designed to follow up with companies after the end of the incubation period and monitor the progress of these companies. (shrink)

Research questions and backgroundThis study explores a highly controversial issue of medical care in Germany: the decision to withhold or withdraw mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients. It analyzes difficulties in making these decisions and the physicians’ uncertainty in understanding the German terminology of Sterbehilfe, which is used in the context of treatment limitation. Used in everyday language, the word Sterbehilfe carries connotations such as helping the patient in the dying process or helping the patient to enter the dying process. (...) Yet, in the legal and ethical discourse Sterbehilfe indicates several concepts: (1) treatment limitation, i.e., withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment (passive Sterbehilfe), (2) the use of medication for symptom control while taking into account the risk of hastening the patient’s death (indirekte Sterbehilfe), and (3) measures to deliberately terminate the patient’s life (aktive Sterbehilfe). The terminology of Sterbehilfe has been criticized for being too complex and misleading, particularly for practical purposes. Materials and methods An exploratory study based on qualitative interviews was conducted with 28 physicians from nine medical intensive care units in tertiary care hospitals in the German federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The method of data collection was a problem-centered, semi-structured interview using two authentic clinical case examples. In order to shed light on the relation between the physicians’ concepts and the ethical and legal frames of reference, we analyzed their way of using the terms passive and aktive Sterbehilfe. Results Generally, the physicians were more hesitant in making decisions to withdraw rather than withhold mechanical ventilation. Almost half of them assumed a categorical prohibition to withdraw any mechanical ventilation and more than one third felt that treatment ought not to be withdrawn at all. Physicians showed specific uncertainty about classifying the withdrawal of mechanical ventilation as passive Sterbehilfe, and had difficulties understanding that terminating ventilation is not basically illegal, but the permissibility of withdrawal depends on the situation. Conclusions The physicians’ knowledge and skills in interpreting clinical ethical dilemmas require specific improvement on the one hand; on the other hand, the terms passive and aktive Sterbehilfe are less clear than desirable and not as easy to use in clinical practice. Fear of making unjustified or illegal decisions may motivate physicians to continue (even futile) treatment. Physicians strongly opt for more open discussion about end-of-life care to allow for discontinuation of futile treatment and to reduce conflict. (shrink)

In psychiatry, pharmacological research has played a crucial role in the formulation, revision, and refinement of neurobiological theories of psychopathology. Besides being utilized as potential treatments for various mental disorders, pharmacological drugs play an important epistemic role as experimental instruments that help scientists uncover the neurobiological underpinnings of mental disorders (Tsou, 2012). Interventions with psychiatric patients using pharmacological drugs provide researchers with information about the neurobiological causes of mental disorders that cannot be obtained in other ways. This important source of (...) evidence for the biological causes of mental disorder is often overlooked in philosophical analyses of psychiatry, especially in skeptical analyses that debase the biological aspects of psychopathology (e.g., Szasz, 1960; Scheff, 1963; Laing, 1967). In discussing pharmacological interventions as a form of evidence for the physical basis of mental disorders, this paper aims to clarify the nature, reliability, and limitations of this evidence. In addition, it illustrates the central role that pharmacological findings in applied clinical contexts play in the acquisition of neurobiological knowledge in research contexts. (shrink)

Der Klimawandel ist die globale Krise unserer Gegenwart. Mit Blick auf die sich hieraus ergebenen Handlungsoptionen und -zwänge stellt der verantwortliche Umgang mit Energie sicher einen der zentralen Bereiche dar. Unsere ethische Verantwortung betrifft dabei beides: Erzeugung und Verbrauch von Energie gleichermaßen. Der vorliegende Band verfolgt zwei Ziele: Erstens soll ein interdisziplinärer Dialog ermöglicht und die dafür notwendigen fachlichen Reflexionen angestoßen werden. Keine Einzeldisziplin kann auf die komplexen Probleme des Klimawandels oder die mit dem Terminus Energieverantwortung angezeigten Herausforderungen alleine eine (...) plausible Antwort geben. Vielmehr müssen die Wissenschaften ein gemeinsames Verständnis der Probleme entwickeln, um auch interdisziplinär geteilte Antworten bereitstellen zu können. Zweitens soll dies in transdisziplinärer Perspektive erfolgen. Das bedeutet, die von der Gesellschaft an die Wissenschaft herangetragenen Fragen und Problemstellungen ernst zu nehmen, aufzugreifen und Antworten zu formulieren, die auch außerhalb der wissenschaftlichen Diskurse als Antworten auf diese Fragen und Problemstellungen verstanden werden können. (shrink)