This collection gathers a set of central papers from the emerging area of ethics and climate change.

This example is provided so that non-theorists may see actual applications of the theory previously described. This study considered directly some of the components of Field Sparrow breeding success as a measure of habitat suitability, and found these to vary in a way which was inconsistent with hypotheses that territorial behavior either cues, or limits density. This study provides a valid example of how the problem can be approached and offers a first step in the eventual identification of the role (...) of territorial behavior in the habitat distribution of a common species. (shrink)

The evidence-based medicine movement advocates basing all medical decisions on certain types of quantitative research data and has stimulated protracted controversy and debate since its inception. Evidence-based medicine presupposes an inaccurate and deficient view of medical knowledge. Michael Polanyi’s theory of tacit knowledge both explains this deficiency and suggests remedies for it. Polanyi shows how all explicit human knowledge depends on a wealth of tacit knowledge which accrues from experience and is essential for problem solving. Edmund Pellegrino’s classic treatment of (...) clinical judgment is examined, and a Polanyian critique of this position demonstrates that tacit knowledge is necessary for understanding how clinical judgment and medical decisions involve persons. An adequate medical epistemology requires much more qualitative research relevant to the clinical encounter and medical decision making than is currently being done. This research is necessary for preventing an uncritical application of evidence-based medicine by health care managers that erodes good clinical practice. Polanyi’s epistemology shows the need for this work and provides the structural core for building an adequate and robust medical epistemology that moves beyond evidence-based medicine. (shrink)

Most clinicians take for granted a simple, reductionist understanding of medical knowledge that is at odds with how they actually practice medicine; routine medical decisions incorporate more complicated kinds of information than most standard accounts of medical reasoning suggest. A better understanding of the structure and function of knowledge in medicine can lead to practical improvements in clinical medicine. This understanding requires some familiarity with epistemology, the study of knowledge and its structure, in medicine. Michael Polanyi's theory of tacit knowing (...) is advanced as the basis for developing a more accurate understanding of medical knowledge. Tacit knowing, which explores the taken-for-granted background knowledge that underlies all human knowing, is explained in detail with a focus on its relevance for clinical medicine. The implications of recognizing tacit knowing in medicine and medical decisions are discussed. These include the ability to explain the importance of the clinical encounter in medical practice, mechanisms for analysing patient and doctor as persons, and the need for humility given the uncertainty that the tacit dimension injects into all medical decisions. This more robust medical epistemology allows clinicians to better articulate the nature and importance of patient-centred care, to avoid pitfalls inherent in reductionist approaches to medical knowledge, and to think more clearly about the relationships between medicine and health care at the individual and population levels. (shrink)

A collection of seminal articles in climate ethics and climate justice.

Background Nursing students must graduate prepared to bravely enact the art and science of nursing in environments infiltrated with ethical challenges. Given the necessity and moral obligation of nurses to engage in discourse within nursing ethics, nursing students must be provided a moral supportive learning space for these opportunities. Situating conversations and pedagogy within a brave space may offer a framework to engage in civil discourse while fostering moral courage for learners. Research Objective The aim of this research is to (...) explore the influence of a structured self-assessment tool called the ESA “Engagement Self-Assessment” on the alignment and creation of a brave space in a nursing ethics course. Research Design This study used an exploratory, cross-sectional survey design. Participants and Study Setting Data from 39 undergraduate nursing students enrolled in a nursing healthcare ethics & law course using the ESA were recruited. Ethical Considerations Participation was voluntary and informed without coercion. Written consent was obtained prior to participation. Research ethics approval was obtained by the Institutional Research Ethics Board of the recruited participants (Ethics # 2022-23-03). Findings The ESA provided structured self-reflection on the impact of shared vulnerability within a brave space. However, commitment to a brave space was not strongly influenced by the ESA, but rather by a mutual “commitment to others.” Conclusion A teaching tool such as an ESA can be used to facilitate instructor expectations of civil discourse and discussion of difficult topics. Rules of engagement such as those found in brave spaces can help transform fear of vulnerability into authentic growth for learners. A morally supportive learning space can support critical opportunities for ethical development. This study provides insight into how self-assessment and the use of a brave space in nursing ethics education can facilitate a morally supportive learning space. (shrink)

This paper starts with an apparently provocative question – can we call the 2019 Water Revolution in Hong Kong a lesson of emancipatory education which awakens students’ critical consciousn...

In recent years, the opioid crisis in the United States has sparked significant discussion on doctor–patient interactions concerning chronic pain treatments, but little to no attention has been given to investigating the vocal aspects of patient talk. This exploratory sociolinguistic study intends to fill this knowledge gap by employing prosodic discourse analysis to examine context-specific linguistic features used by the interlocutors of two distinct medical interactions. We found that patients employed both low pitch and creak as linguistic resources when describing (...) chronic pain, narrating symptoms and requesting opioids. The situational use of both features informs us about the linguistic ways in which patients frame fraught issues like chronic pain in light of the current opioid crisis. This study expands the breadth of phonetic analysis within the domain of discourse analysis, serving to illuminate discussions surrounding the illocutionary role of the lower vocal tract in expressing emotions. (shrink)

In emergency research, obtaining informed consent can be problematic. Research to develop and improve treatments for patients admitted to hospital with life-threatening and debilitating conditions is much needed yet the issue of research without consent (RWC) raises concerns about unethical practices and the loss of individual autonomy. Consistent with the policy and practice turn towards greater patient and public involvement in health care decisions, in the US, Canada and EU, guidelines and legislation implemented to protect patients and facilitate acute research (...) with adults who are unable to give consent have been developed with little involvement of the lay public. This paper reviews research examining public opinion regarding RWC for research in emergency situations, and whether the rules and regulations permitting research of this kind are in accordance with the views of those who ultimately may be the most affected. (shrink)

Harry Collins’ book Tacit and Explicit Knowledge seeks to clarify the concept of tacit knowledge made famous by Michael Polanyi. Collins’ tripartite taxonomy of tacit knowledge is explained using illustrative examples from clinical medicine. Collins focuses on distinguishing the kinds of tacit knowledge that can (in principle) be made wholly explicit from the kinds of tacit knowledge that are inescapably tacit. Polanyi’s writings, on the other hand, emphasize the process of tacit knowing. Collins’ investigation of tacit knowledge makes an important (...) scholarly contribution that is distinct from and complementary to investigations that focus on tacit knowing. (shrink)

In The Ethics of Food, Gregory E. Pence brings together a collection of voices who share the view that the ethics of genetically modified food is among the most pressing societal questions of our time. This comprehensive collection addresses a broad range of subjects, including the meaning of food, moral analyses of vegetarianism and starvation, the safety and environmental risks of genetically modified food, issues of global food politics and the food industry, and the relationships among food, evolution, and human (...) history. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

In this paper the current legislative landscape and the challenges researchers face in obtaining informed consent in acute situations are explored. In such situations, some current guidelines can be difficult or impossible to apply. Capacity should be formally assessed before consent is sought to ensure that vulnerable persons are neither inappropriately recruited to a study nor denied the opportunity to participate. However, there is little guidance in current legislation as to how this should be achieved. When the patient is considered (...) to be unable to provide prospective informed consent, other forms are sometimes permissible, although all have specific drawbacks. First, it is argued that a brief instrument, suitable for the acute situation, is needed to determine whether patients have the capacity to consent to clinical trials. Secondly, it is argued that there are areas of the informed consent process that require review, and ways that improvements could be made are suggested. (shrink)

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics.

The Historical Dictionary of Existentialism explains the central claims of existentialist philosophy and the contexts in which it developed into one of the most influential intellectual trends of the 20th century. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and more than 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries offering clear, accessible accounts of the life and thought of major existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Martin Buber, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as (...) well as thinkers influential to its development such as Wilhelm Dilthey, Henri Bergson, Edmund Husserl, and Max Scheler. Historical Dictionary of Existentialism affords readers an integrated, critical, and historically-sensitive understanding of this important philosophical movement. (shrink)

BackgroundFew studies have examined factors associated with willingness of people living with HIV to participate in HIV treatment clinical trials in Sub-Saharan Africa. We assessed the factors associated with participation of PLHIV in HIV treatment clinical trials research at a large urban clinical and research facility in Uganda.MethodsA mixed methods study was conducted at the Infectious Diseases Institute, adult HIV clinic between July 2016 and January 2017. Data were collected using structured questionnaires, focused group discussions with respondents categorised as either (...) participated or never participated in clinical trials and key informant interviews with IDI staff. A generalized linear model with a logit link function was used for multivariate analyses while the qualitative data were summarized using a thematic approach.ResultsWe enrolled a total of 202 and analysed 151 participants, 77 of whom were male with mean age of 41 years. The majority 127 expressed willingness to participate in treatment clinical trials if given an opportunity. At bivariate analysis, willingness to participate was significantly associated with respondents’ perception of a satisfactory compensation package, special status accorded and belief that their health status would improve while on the clinical trial. At multivariate analysis, a satisfactory compensation package and special status accorded in clinical trials remained significant. The qualitative data analysis confirmed these findings as participants valued the privilege of jumping the clinic waiting queues and spending less time in clinic, the wide range of free tests offered to trial participants, unrestricted access to senior physicians and regular communication from study team. Additionally, free meals offered during clinic visits meant that participants were not in a hurry to go back home. Barriers to participation included the perception that new drugs were being tested on them, fear of side effects like treatment failure and the uncertainty about privacy of their data.ConclusionWe found overwhelming willingness to participate in HIV treatment clinical trials. This was largely extrinsically influenced by the perceived material and health-related benefits. Investigators should pay attention to participants’ concerns for benefits which may override the need to understand study procedures and risks. (shrink)

In exploring the nature of excess relative to a phenomenology of the limit, _Testing the Limit _ claims that phenomenology itself is an exploration of excess. What does it mean that "the self" is "given"? Should we see it as originary; or rather, in what way is the self engendered from textual practices that transgress—or hover around and therefore within—the threshold of phenomenologial discourse? This is the first book to include Michel Henry in a triangulation with Derrida and Levinas (...) and the first to critique Levinas on the basis of his interpolation of philosophy and religion. Sebbah claims that the textual origins of phenomenology determine, in their temporal rhythms, the nature of the subjectivation on which they focus. He situates these considerations within the broader picture of the state of contemporary French phenomenology, in order to show that these three thinkers share a certain "family resemblance," the identification of which reveals something about the traces of other phenomenological families. It is by testing the limit within the context of traditional phenomenological concerns about the appearance of subjectivity and ipseity that Derrida, Henry, and Levinas radically reconsider phenomenology and that French phenomenology assumes its present form. (shrink)

The first two sections of this paper are devoted respectively to the criticisms of my views raised by Stephen Engstrom and Andrews Reath at a symposium on Kant's Theory of Freedom held in Washington D.C. on 28 December 1992 under the auspices of the North American Kant Society. The third section contains my response to the remarks of Marcia Baron at a second symposium in Chicago on 24 April 1993 at the APA Western Division meetings. The fourth section deals (...) with some general criticisms of my treatment of Kant's theory of freedom and its connection with transcendental idealism that have been raised by Karl Ameriks, who was also a participant in the second symposium, in an earlier piece published in Inquiry and by Paul Guyer in a review. The paper as a whole is thus an attempt to reformulate and clarify some of the central claims of my book in light of the initial critical reaction. (shrink)

The magnet served three interests of Restoration mechanical philosophers: it provided a model of cosmic forces, it suggested a solution to the problem of longitude determination, and evidence of its corpuscular mechanism would silence critics. An implicit condition of William Gilbert's ‘magnetic philosophy’ was the existence of a unique, immaterial magnetic virtue. Restoration mechanical philosophers, while claiming descent from their compatriot, worked successfully to disprove this, following an experimental regime of Henry Power. Magnetic philosophy lost its coherence and became (...) subsumed in the study of effluvia. This contradiction of a distinct, yet mechanical magnetic philosophy came to a head in 1684 in an argument between Robert Hooke and Martin Lister. An effluvial explanation of magnetism introduced great complexity to the North-seeking behaviour of compass needles, and undermined the already troubled longitude programme. Thus magnetic philosophy no longer furthered the interests which had maintained it, and it was abandoned. (shrink)

Epistemology and Inference was first published in 1983. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Henry Kyburg has developed an original and important perspective on probabilistic and statistical inference. Unlike much contemporary writing by philosophers on these topics, Kyburg's work is informed by issues that have arisen in statistical theory and practice as well as issues familiar to professional philosophers. In two (...) major books and many articles, Kyberg has elaborated his technical proposals and explained their ramifications for epistemology, decision-making, and scientific inquiry. In this collection of published and unpublished essays, Kyburg presents his novel ideas and their applications in a manner that makes them accessible to philosophers and provides specialists in probability and induction with a concise exposition of his system. (shrink)

A major contribution to Descartes studies, this book provides a panorama of cutting-edge scholarship ranging widely over Descartes's own primary concerns: metaphysics, physics, and its applications. It is at once a tool for scholars and--steering clear of technical Cartesian science--an accessible resource that will delight nonspecialists. The contributors include Edwin Curley, Willis Doney, Alan Gabbey, Daniel Garber, Marjorie Grene, Gary Hatfield, Marleen Rozemond, John Schuster, Dennis Sepper, Stephen Voss, Stephen Wagner, Margaret Welson, Jean Marie Beyssade, Michelle Beyssade, Michel (...) Henry, Evert van Leeuwen, Jean-Luc Marion, Genevieve Rodis-Lewis, and Jean-Pierre Seris. Combining new textual sensitivity with attentiveness to history, they represent the best established scholars and most exciting new voices, including both English speaking and newly-translated writers. Part I examines the foundations of Descartes's philosophy: Cartesian certainty; the phenomenology of the cogito and its modulations in the passions; and the defensibility and comprehensibility of the Cartesian God. The second part examines Descartes's groundbreaking metaphysics: mind's distinctness from and interaction with body; imagination; perception; and language. Part III examines Cartesian science: the revolutionary rhetoric of the Rules and the Discourse; the metaphysical foundations of physics; the interplay of rationalism and empiricism; the mechanics and human biology that flow from Descartes's physics. (shrink)

Berkeley's immaterialism has more in common with views developed by Henry More, the mathematician Joseph Raphson, John Toland, and Jonathan Edwards than those of thinkers with whom he is commonly associated (e.g., Malebranche and Locke). The key for recognizing their similarities lies in appreciating how they understand St. Paul's remark that in God "we live and move and have our being" as an invitation to think to God as the space of discourse in which minds and ideas are identified. (...) This way of speaking about God, adapted by Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, opens up new ways to think about the relation between God and finite minds. (shrink)

This article presents evidence that an anonymous publication of 1573, aLetter sent by a gentleman of England [concerning …] the myraculous starre nowe shyning, was written by Thomas Digges, England's first Copernican. It tells the story of how it arose out of research commissioned by Elizabeth I's privy counsellors in response to the conventional argument of Jean Gosselin, librarian to Henri III of France, that the star was a comet which presaged wars. The text is significant because it seems to (...) contain the observations and opinions that Digges held before he completed his other astronomical treatise, the groundbreakingAlae seu scalae mathematicae. It also casts some light on the development of Digges's radical and puritan views about the star, Copernican astronomy, the infinity of the universe and a belief that the ‘latter days’ of the world had arrived. (shrink)