This is the first philosophy textbook in moral psychology, introducing students to a range of philosophical topics and debates such as: What is moral motivation? Do reasons for action always depend on desires? Is emotion or reason at the heart of moral judgment? Under what conditions are people morally responsible? Are there self-interested reasons for people to be moral? Moral Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction presents research by philosophers and psychologists on these topics, and addresses the overarching question of how empirical (...) research is relevant to philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

Robert Johnson argues that virtue ethical accounts of right action fail because they cannot take account of the fact that there are things we ought to do precisely because we do not possess virtuous character traits. Self-improving actions are his paradigm case and it would indeed be a problem if virtue ethics could not make sense of the propriety of self-improvement. To solve this serious problem, I propose that virtue ethics ought to define right action in terms of the virtuous (...) agent's reasons for action instead of defining right action in terms of the actions that the virtuous agent performs. I argue that this revised definition of right action makes sense of the rightness of self-improving actions and that it can be given a genuinely virtue ethical interpretation. (shrink)

the problem of estimation of High Hume (NBIC) technogenic evolutionary risks is analysed as part of concept of 3-components evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens.

China’s extensive media presence in Africa aims to distinguish itself through the use of constructive journalism in contrast with the perceived dominance of conflict journalism by Western media outlets. However, many scholars have raised questions of consistency surrounding Chinese media’s use of constructive journalism in representing Africa (e.g. Marsh, Citation2016). With perspectives from Galtung’s (Citation1987, p. 1998) conflict and peace journalism, this research applies Critical Discourse Analysis to examine Chinese media’s representation of Africa to an international audience. Using linguistic data (...) from China Radio International’s Today, it challenges the distinctions among peace journalism, solutions journalism and constructive journalism. The findings show that China’s claim of constructive journalism strongly favors the coverage of China, yet is largely absent in the coverage of the African continent. It suggests that while Chinese state-sponsored media utilizes the so-called constructive journalism when presenting information about a specific region to that region, these representations are not consistent across their international coverage. Hence, Africa remains a victim of conflict journalism. (shrink)

Problems arise when applying the current procedural conceptualization of decision-making capacity to paediatric healthcare: Its emphasis on content-neutrality and rational cognition as well as its implicit assumption that capacity is an ability that resides within a person jeopardizes children’s position in decision-making. The purpose of the paper is to challenge this dominant account of capacity and provide an alternative for how capacity should be understood in paediatric care. First, the influence of developmental psychologist Jean Piaget upon the notion of capacity (...) is discussed, followed by an examination of Vygostky’s contextualist view on children’s development, which emphasizes social interactions and learning for decision-making capacity. In drawing parallels between autonomy and capacity, substantive approaches to relational autonomy are presented that underline the importance of the content of a decision. The authors then provide a relational reconceptualization of capacity that leads the focus away from the individual to include important social others such as parents and physicians. Within this new approach, the outcome of adults’ decision-making processes is accepted as a guiding factor for a good decision for the child. If the child makes a choice that is not approved by adults, the new conceptualization emphasizes mutual exchange and engagement by both parties. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Evolution Evolutionary Psychology Ultimate vs. Proximate Causes of Behavior An Example of an Evolved Psychological Mechanism Solidified During the Pleistocene Epoch Summary Postscript: Counterpoint References.

The aim of the book is to encourage discussion among experts on De ira, a text of philosophical nature, by reading it page by page, from a philosophical, philological, and literary perspective (a multidisciplinary choice which is the conditio sine qua non of all judicious research on Seneca). Moreover, the way in which each of these close readings is conducted adds an additional value: they each deal with a section of the text, presenting all the data necessary for its understanding. (...) All together, they cover the whole work. Each of them is also an attempt at a global interpretation of the treatise, examined through the particular framing of the textual passage around which the “Lectures plurielles” are conceived. Around this “polyphonic” analysis of the text, we have built a structure that aims to offer the reader a complete reference work on all the issues of the De ira. Sources, manuscript tradition, images, political and philosophical concepts, posterity – in short, all the aspects that a traditional commentary of the text would not have allowed us to distinguish so clearly – find their place here. This book is therefore aimed at specialists as well as students or anyone interested in the thought of emotions in antiquity. (shrink)

The pragmatic inquiry process used in the Corporantes Pathfinder Notebook (CPN) enables students and others to discern their gifts, find purpose and direction in their lives, and seek a FIT between their values and various corporate cultures before making extensive commitments in their field of studies and their employment. Based on Peirce''s theory of Pragmatism the CPN fosters investigation, interpretation, and action resulting from reflected narratives written in response to a series of questions in the CPN. The CPN was used (...) successfully as a framework in a Business Ethics course for connecting career decisions to their personal lives. Other pedagogic activities were used such as case studies, role playing, service learning, team projects investigating ethical climates of corporations, as well as Socratic questioning and discussions of moral dilemmas to develop ethical sensitivity and understanding of ethical challenges and decisions. The CPN also has been used successfully by senior executives in over fifty applications. (shrink)

Background: Pediatric guidelines recommend that children and adolescents participate in a developmentally appropriate way in end-of-life decision making. Shared decision making in pediatrics is unique because of the triadic relationship of patient, parents, and physician. The involvement of the patient may vary on a continuum from no involvement to being the sole decision maker. However, the effects of child participation have not been thoroughly studied. The aims of this literature review are to identify studies on end-of-life decision making in pediatrics, (...) to explore patient participation, and to assess the effects of such participation. Methods: Five databases—PubMed, PsycInfo, Medline, CINAHL, and Sociological Abstract—were searched for empirical studies on end-of-life decision making in pediatrics. Selected articles fulfilling the criteria were assessed for type of decision, participants’ characteristics, reports on participation of the minor patient, and outcome. Results: Fifty-seven articles on end-of-life decision making in pediatrics were identified. The majority of papers (n = 43, 75%) investigated parents’ and clinicians’ perspectives, while only 14 articles (25%) included perspectives of children and adolescents. Twenty-two articles (39%) reported some details on various forms of children's participation (e.g., receive information, plan care details, consulted before or after a decision was made). Positive (e.g., respect for patient's preferences) and negative (e.g., conflict due to diverging opinions) effects of children's participation in end-of-life decision making were reported. Conclusions: This systematic review highlights the need for research to identify factors that contribute to a favorable participation of minors in decision-making processes, as well as strategies to solve possible conflicts. More research should take into account the dynamics in the triadic process of decision making and emphasize children and adolescents’ perspectives. A better understanding of how to meaningfully involve children and adolescents in end-of-life decision making could facilitate the practice of patient participation in pediatrics. (shrink)

Social problems such as racism, sexism, and inequality are often cited as structural rather than individual in nature. What does it mean to invoke a social structural explanation, and how do such explanations relate to individualistic ones? This article explores recent philosophical debates concerning the nature and usages of social structural explanation. I distinguish between two central kinds of social structural explanation: those that are autonomous from psychology, and those that are not. This distinction will help clarify the explanatory power (...) that each type of SSE has, points of convergence with methodological traditions such as critical theory and rational choice theory, and the difficulties that each type of SSE faces. (shrink)

Background: Healthcare providers who are accountable for patient care safety and quality but who are not empowered to actualize them experience moral distress. Interventions to mitigate moral distress in the healthcare organization are needed. Objective: To evaluate the effect on moral distress and clinician empowerment of an established, health-system-wide intervention, Moral Distress Consultation. Methods: A quasi-experimental, mixed methods study using pre/post surveys, structured interviews, and evaluation of consult themes was used. Consults were requested by staff when moral distress was present. (...) The purpose of consultation is to identify the causes of moral distress, barriers to action, and strategies to improve the situation. Intervention participants were those who attended a moral distress consult. Control participants were staff surveyed prior to the consult. Interviews were conducted after the consult with willing participants and unit managers. Moral distress was measured using the Moral Distress Thermometer. Empowerment was measured using the Global Empowerment Scale. Results: Twenty-one consults were conducted. Analysis included 116 intervention and 30 control surveys, and 11 interviews. A small but significant decrease was found among intervention participants, especially intensive care staff. Empowerment was unchanged. Interview themes support the consult service as an effective mode for open discussion of difficult circumstances and an important aspect of a healthy work environment. Conclusions: Moral distress consultation is an organization-wide mechanism for addressing moral distress. Consultation does not resolve moral distress but helps staff identify strategies to improve the situation. Further studies including follow up may elucidate consultation effectiveness. (shrink)

To what extent should we focus on implicit bias in order to eradicate persistent social injustice? Structural prioritizers argue that we should focus less on individual minds than on unjust social structures, while equal prioritizers think that both are equally important. This article introduces the framework of transactive memory into the debate to defend the equal priority view. The transactive memory framework helps us see how structure can emerge from individual interactions as an irreducibly social product. If this is right, (...) then debiasing interventions are structural interventions. One upshot is that the utility of the individual versus structural distinction is not apparent for the purposes of intervention. (shrink)

Ethical dilemmas and decision-making are a persistent feature of the everyday operations of animal shelters and animal protection organizations. These organizations frequently face difficult decisions about how to treat the animals in their care, decisions that are made all the more difficult by limited funding, material resources, and human labor. Moreover, animal protection organizations must also determine how to act within and toward the wider social and institutional environment in which non-human animals are routinely exploited. The first section of The (...) Ethics of Animal Shelters contains practical recommendations developed by ethicists in response to the ethical challenges identified by employees of the Montreal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. These challenges arise across the organization's activities, including its internal structure; shelter operations; public campaigns and advocacy work; dealing with the public, animal agriculture and governmental agencies; and their work with feral animals. The second section offers philosophical analyses of the ethical challenges unique to animal shelters. Issues explored include the killing of shelter animals; shelter animals' diets; medical decision-making procedures; adoption policies; and the role shelters might play in transforming social attitudes and norms. (shrink)

Practical wisdom (hereafter simply ‘wisdom’), which is the understanding required to make reliably good decisions about how we ought to live, is something we all have reason to care about. The importance of wisdom gives rise to questions about its nature: what kind of state is wisdom, how can we develop it, and what is a wise person like? These questions about the nature of wisdom give rise to further questions about proper methods for studying wisdom. Is the study of (...) wisdom the proper subject of philosophy or psychology? How, exactly, can we determine what wisdom is and how we can get it? In this chapter, we give an overview of some prominent philosophical answers to these questions. We begin by distinguishing practical wisdom from theoretical wisdom and wisdom as epistemic humility. Once we have a clearer sense of the target, we address questions of method and argue that producing a plausible and complete account of wisdom will require the tools of both philosophy and empirical psychology. We also discuss the implications this has for prominent wisdom research methods in empirical psychology. We then survey prominent philosophical accounts of the nature of wisdom and end with reflections on the prospects for further interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

This paper argues that some widely used laws of implication are false, and arguments based upon them invalid. These laws are Exportation, Commutation, (as well as various restricted forms of these), Exported Syllogism and Disjunctive Syllogism. All these laws are false for the same reason – that they license the suppression or replacement in some position of some class of propositions which cannot legitimately be suppressed or replaced. These laws fail to preserve the property of sufficiency of premiss set for (...) conclusion. They are false, and can be seen to be false, independently of their respon- sibility for the paradoxes. Hence the main ‘independent’ argument for the paradoxes – that they follow from an allegedly immaculate set of laws – is undermined. Counterexamples to all these laws are produced. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that what we ought to do collectively does not imply anything about what each of us ought to do individually. According to this line of reasoning, if cooperating will make no difference to an outcome, then you are not morally required to do it. And if cooperating will be personally costly to you as well, this is an even stronger reason to not do it. However, this reasoning results in a self-defeating, yet entirely predictable outcome. If (...) everyone is rational, no one will cooperate, resulting in an aggregate outcome that is devastating for everyone. This dismal analysis explains why climate change and other collective action problems are so difficult to ameliorate. The goal of this paper is to provide a different, exploratory framework for thinking about individual reasons for action in collective action problems. I argue that the concept of commitment gives us a new perspective on collective action problems. Once we take the structure of commitment into account, this activates requirements of diachronic rationality that give individuals instrumental reasons to cooperate in collective action problems. (shrink)

A collection of spiritual essays written by Black thought leaders and teachers that discuss what it means to be Black in the world today.

Sugar, pork, beer, corn, cider, scrapple, and hoppin' John all became staples in the diet of colonial America. The ways Americans cultivated and prepared food and the values they attributed to it played an important role in shaping the identity of the newborn nation. In A Revolution in Eating, James E. McWilliams presents a colorful and spirited tour of culinary attitudes, tastes, and techniques throughout colonial America. Confronted by strange new animals, plants, and landscapes, settlers in the colonies and West (...) Indies found new ways to produce food. Integrating their British and European tastes with the demands and bounty of the rugged American environment, early Americans developed a range of regional cuisines. From the kitchen tables of typical Puritan families to Iroquois longhouses in the backcountry and slave kitchens on southern plantations, McWilliams portrays the grand variety and inventiveness that characterized colonial cuisine. As colonial America grew, so did its palate, as interactions among European settlers, Native Americans, and African slaves created new dishes and attitudes about food. McWilliams considers how Indian corn, once thought by the colonists as "fit for swine," became a fixture in the colonial diet. He also examines the ways in which African slaves influenced West Indian and American southern cuisine. While a mania for all things British was a unifying feature of eighteenth-century cuisine, the colonies discovered a national beverage in domestically brewed beer, which came to symbolize solidarity and loyalty to the patriotic cause in the Revolutionary era. The beer and alcohol industry also instigated unprecedented trade among the colonies and further integrated colonial habits and tastes. Victory in the American Revolution initiated a "culinary declaration of independence," prompting the antimonarchical habits of simplicity, frugality, and frontier ruggedness to define American cuisine. McWilliams demonstrates that this was a shift not so much in new ingredients or cooking methods, as in the way Americans imbued food and cuisine with values that continue to shape American attitudes to this day. (shrink)

The number of distributors selling Fair Trade products is constantly increasing. What are their motivations to distribute Fair Trade products? How do they organise this distribution? Do they apply and communicate the Fair Trade values? This research, based on five case studies in Switzerland, aims at understanding and structuring the strategies and the managerial practices related to Fair Trade product distribution, as well as analysing if they denote an engagement with Fair Trade principles. The results show a high heterogeneity of (...) strategies and engagement. In general, strategies implemented by mainstream actors contribute to increase Fair Trade global sales but do not convey the transformative message of Fair Trade through their engagement. The latter is rather communicated through alternative channels. Problems and potential solutions to this issue are discussed. (shrink)

As of this writing, twenty‐one states have passed laws barring transgender youth‐athletes from competing on public‐school sports teams in accordance with their gender identity. Proponents of these regulations claim that transgender females in particular have inherent physiological advantages that threaten a “level playing field” for their cisgender competitors. Existing evidence is limited but does not support these restrictions. Gathering more robust data will require allowing transgender youth to compete (rather than preemptively barring them), but even if trans females are shown (...) to retain some advantage, this would not have greater moral significance than the many other “fair” physical and economic advantages found across sports. These regulations deprive transgender youth, an exceptionally vulnerable population, from the vast physical, mental, and social benefits of sports. While we advocate for transgender inclusion under our current, gender‐segregated model of sport, we propose changes to the overarching structure that would promote a more inclusive and fairer athletic environment. (shrink)

How should you live? Should you devote yourself to perfecting a single talent or try to live a balanced life? Should you lighten up and have more fun, or buckle down and try to achieve greatness? Should you try to be a better friend? Should you be self-critical or self-accepting? And how should you decide among the possibilities open to you? Should you consult experts, listen to your parents, or should you do lots of research? Should you make lists of (...) pros and cons, or go with your gut? These are not questions that can be answered in general or in the abstract. Rather, these questions are addressed to the first person point of view, to the perspective each of us occupies when we reflect on how to live without knowing exactly what we're aiming for. To answer them, this book focuses on the process of living one's life from the inside, rather than on defining goals from the outside. Drawing on traditional philosophical sources as well as literature and recent work in social psychology, this book argues that to live well, we need to develop reflective wisdom: to care about things that will sustain us and give us good experiences, to have perspective on our successes and failures, and to be moderately self-aware and cautiously optimistic about human nature. Further, we need to know when to think about our values, character, and choices, and when not to. A crucial part of wisdom, the book maintains, is being able to shift perspectives: to be self-critical; to be realistic; to examine life when reflection is appropriate, but not when we should lose ourselves in experience. (shrink)

Price is a central analytic concept in both neoclassical and old institutional economics. Combining the social network perspective with old and new institutionalist approaches to price formation, this article examines technological, economic, institutional, and political factors that shaped the earliest pricing systems for electricity used in the United States, between 1882 and 1910. We show that certain characteristics of electricity supply led to ambiguities in how the product should be priced, which created a politics of pricing among electricity producers. In (...) particular, we investigate why the “Wright system,” arguably inferior in productive efficiency to other alternatives, was widely adopted by 1900. We argue that this outcome resulted in part from the political and organizational clout of its supporters, as well as from their particular conceptions of the boundaries and future of the industry itself. The Wright system best suited the “growth dynamic” strategy promoted by the managers of large central stations in their fierce competition with smaller and more decentralized installations. Thus, even in this apparently highly technical and mainly economic issue of how to price the product, there was ample room for social construction and political manipulation. The outcome reached was by no means inevitable and had a highly significant impact on the shape of the American industrial infrastructure. (shrink)

Freedom of conscience is a core element of human rights respected by most European countries. It allows abortion through the inclusion of a conscience clause, which permits opting out of providing such services. However, the grounds for invoking conscientious objection lack clarity. Our aim in this paper is to take a step in this direction by carrying out a systematic review of reasons by midwives and nurses for declining, on conscience grounds, to participate in abortion. We conducted a systematic review (...) of ethical arguments asking, “What reasons have been reported in the argument based literature for or against conscientious objection to abortion provision by nurses or midwives?” We particularly wanted to identify any discussion of the responsibilities of midwives and nurses in this area. Search terms were conscientious objection and abortion or termination and nurse or midwife or midwives or physicians or doctors or medics within the dates 2000–2016 on: HEIN legal, Medline, CINAHL, Psychinfo, Academic Search Complete, Web of Science including publications in English, German and Dutch. Final articles were subjected to a rigorous analysis, coding and classifying each line into reason mentions, narrow and broad reasons for or against conscientious objection. Of an initial 1085 articles, 10 were included. We identified 23 broad reasons, containing 116narrow reasons and 269 reason mentions. Eighty one narrow reasons argued in favour of and 35 against conscientious objection. Using predetermined categories of moral, practical, religious or legal reasons, “moral reasons” contained the largest number of narrow reasons. The reasons and their associated mentions in this category outnumber those in the sum of the other three categories. We identified no absolute argument either for or against conscientious objection by midwives or nurses. An invisibility of midwives and nurses exists in the whole debate concerning conscientious objection reflecting a gap between literature and practice, as it is they whom WHO recommend as providers of this service. While the arguments in the literature emphasize the need for provision of conscientious objection, a balanced debate is necessary in this field, which includes all relevant health professionals. (shrink)

The article explores the place of affect in community relations with respect to trauma following the closure of a steelworks for a working-class community in the South Wales valleys in 2002. A review of sociological approaches to community demonstrates the poor handling of relational and affective aspects which, it is argued, are central to the way in which community relations were formed and provided a safe and containing skin against the uncertainty of industrial production. Using psychoanalytic approaches to affect which (...) stress the importance of skin, particularly the work of Bick, Tustin, Winnicott and Anzieu, the article explores how a sense of a containing skin provides a feeling of ontological security for a community beset by uncertainty and insecurity. It is argued that, following the closure of the steelworks in 2002, this skin is ruptured and that it is difficult for the members of the community to find a way forward. Using examples taken from psychosocial interviews with community members, the case is made for a range of affective relations and practices through which the skin is created. The absence of these practices and relations creates a profound sense of lack of safety and fear of death within the inhabitants, which needs to be addressed, but is rarely discussed in approaches to community or regeneration. (shrink)

Habermas élabore une théorie radicale de la démocratie qui entend répondre aux défis posés tant par la mondialisation économique que par la tentation de repli des « peuples » qui cherchent à retrouver une souveraineté perdue. Une telle théorie, qui prend une forme délibérative, projette la démocratie dans la constitutionnalisation du droit international, et implique une perspective cosmopolitique. Dans ce cadre, la réflexion sur la politique européenne et ses institutions est centrale, et permet de montrer que la théorie critique n’a (...) rien perdu de sa lucidité quand il s’agit de mettre en garde notamment contre un « fédéralisme postdémocratique de l’exécutif » dans lequel l’Europe risque de se perdre. (shrink)

What is well-being? This is one of humanity's oldest and deepest questions; Valerie Tiberius offers a fresh answer. She argues that our lives go well to the extent that we succeed in what matters to us emotionally, reflectively, and over the long term. So when we want to help others achieve well-being, we should pay attention to their values.

Hermeneutic research in nursing: developing a Gadamerian‐based research method This paper takes the stance that although there are many different approaches to phenomenological and hermeneutic research, some of these have become blurred due to multiple interpretations of translated materials. Working from original texts by the German philosophers, this paper reconsiders the relevance of phenomenology and hermeneutics to nursing research. We trace the development of Gadamer's philosophy in order to propose a research method based in this tradition. Five steps have been (...) identified as a guide for nurse researchers. These are deciding upon a question, identification of preunderstandings, gaining understanding through dialogue with participants, gaining understanding through dialogue with text and establishing trustworthiness. (shrink)

The rise of private standards, including those involving multi-stakeholder processes, raises questions about whose interests are served and the kind of power that is exerted to maintain these interests. This paper critically examines the battle for ideas—the way competing factions assert their own narratives about value chain relations, the role of standards and related multi-stakeholder processes. Drawing on empirical research on the horticulture and floriculture value chains linking Kenya and the United Kingdom, the analysis explores the framing of sustainability issues, (...) especially around labor issues and good agricultural practice, and the choice of response with respect to private standards and multi-stakeholder initiatives since the late 1990s. We identify four competing narratives currently in play: a dominant global sourcing narrative, a pragmatic development narrative, a broader development narrative and a narrative we term potentially transformative. This last narrative is currently emerging through the unpacking of narratives in relation to the framing of sustainability problems and solutions, and in terms of legislative, executive and judicial governance. The paper contributes to emerging understanding of power in value chains, moving beyond material power to a consideration of how ideational power is exerted and resisted. (shrink)