Human capital, the knowledge, skills, and abilities of employees, can be a powerful driver of firm performance, yet the mobility of human capital raises questions over how to protect it. Employee non-compete agreements, which limit an employee’s ability to start or join a rival firm, have received recent attention. While past research considers whether non-competes are effective tools at limiting employee mobility, few have considered if non-competes should be used. Filling this gap, I propose a normative schema for when employee (...) non-competes can be considered ethical. A review of the limited existing literature on the ethics of employee non-competes finds that prior research has mostly focused on questions of property rights, which I propose as being nested within other ethical constructs. Analysis of two real-world illustrative examples of employee non-competes leads to a three-prong approach to evaluating non-competes based on ethical dimensions of power, autonomy, and fairness. I end by proposing—although further research is warranted—a measure of employee-level absorptive capacity, which is closely coupled with an employee’s pre-employment human capital, as an employee-level attribute independent of, although likely coincidental with, the tripartite requirements of power/autonomy/fairness for ethical employee non-compete agreements. (shrink)

People have understandable concerns over what happens to their bodies, both during their life and after they die. Consent to organ donation is often perceived as an altruistic decision made by individuals prior to their death so that others can benefit from use of their organs once they have died. More recently, live organ donation has also been possible, where an individual chooses to donate an organ or body tissue that will not result in their death (such as a kidney). (...) Although these live organ donations can be purely altruistic, they are usually done to benefit a close family member. An additional complicating factor with both kinds of donation is whether forms of extended decision-making can be used as a means of consent. This is where instructions are issued through some form of advance directive giving specific written instructions as to donation or by appointing a proxy surrogate decision-maker to determine such issues. In the case of deceased donation, there is a question as to whether an advance directive can override the wishes of family members. In the case of live organ donation, there is a largely untested concern as to whether advance directives or surrogates can provide acceptable consent to donation when an individual, though still alive, has lost the capacity to consent for themselves. In this paper, I will focus predominantly on the second of these issues concerning live organ donation and the challenges this poses for donors who have lost capacity to consent. I argue that the limitations on advance directives and surrogate decision-making mean that they can only give us an indication of preference and cannot serve as an authoritative consent where there is any dispute over donation. Instead, in turns out that family members have a significant and usually determinate role to play in these decisions. Although I am focusing on organ donation, the implications for this potentially extend to the use of other tissues and even gametes, which could be used for reproductive purposes. (shrink)

In light of the variety of uses of the term autonomy in recent bioethics literature, in this paper, I suggest that competence, not being as contested, is better placed to play the anti-paternalistic role currently assigned to autonomy. The demonstration of competence, I will argue, can provide individuals with robust spheres of non-interference in which they can pursue their lives in accordance with their own values. This protection from paternalism is achieved by granting individuals rights to non-interference upon demonstration of (...) competence. In this paper, I present a risk-sensitive account of competence as a means of grounding rights to non-interference. On a risk-sensitive account of competence individuals demonstrate their competence by exercising three capacities to the extent necessary to meet a threshold determined by the riskiness of the decision. These three capacities are the capacity to acquire knowledge, use instrumental rationality, and form and revise a life plan. (shrink)

Animal welfare has been conceptualized in such a way that the use of animals in science and for food seems justified. I argue that those who have done this have appropriated the concept of animal welfare, claiming to give a scientific account that is more objective than the sentimental account given by animal liberationists. This strategy seems to play a major role in supporting merely limited reform in the use of animals and seems to support the assumption that there are (...) conditions under which animals may be raised and slaughtered for food that are ethically acceptable. Reformists do not need to make this assumption, but they tend to conceptualize animal welfare is such a way that death does not count as harmful to the interests of animals, nor prolonged life a benefit. In addition to this prudential value assumption, some members of this community have developed strategies for defending suitably reformed farming practices as ethical even granting that death and some other forms of constraints are harms. One such strategy is the fiction of a domestic contract. However, if one accepts the conceptualization of human welfare give by L. W. Sumner, and applies it to animals in the way that I think is justified, an accurate conceptualization of animal welfare has different implications for which uses of animals should be regarded as ethically acceptable. In this paper I give an historical and philosophical account of animal welfare conceptulization and use this account to argue that animal breeders, as custodians of the animals they breed, have the ethical responsibility to help their animal wards achieve as much autonomy as possible in choosing the form of life made available to them and to provide that life. Attempts to avoid these implications by alluding to a contract model of the relationship between custodians and their wards fail to relieve custodians of their ethical responsibilities of care. (shrink)

Non-naturalist normative realists face an epistemological objection: They must explain how their preferred route of justification ensures a non-accidental connection between justified moral beliefs and the normative truths. One strategy for meeting this challenge begins by pointing out that we are semantically or conceptually competent in our use of the normative terms, and then argues that this competence guarantees the non-accidental truth of some of our first-order normative beliefs. In this paper, I argue against this strategy by illustrating that this (...) competence based strategy undermines the non-naturalist’s ability to capture the robustly normative content of our moral beliefs. (shrink)

The important question of the legality of the state obliging trial incompetent defendants to receive competency-restoring treatment against their wishes, is one that has received much attention by legal scholars. Surprisingly, however, little attention has been paid to the, in many ways more fundamental, moral question of whether the state ought to administer such treatments. The aim of this paper is to start filling this gap in the literature. I begin by offering some reasons for thinking it morally acceptable to, (...) at least sometimes, oblige trial-incompetent defendants to receive competency-restoring treatments. The paper then discusses whether three prominent arguments (and their variations) offered by legal scholars against using non-consensual treatment to restore trial competence provide grounds for thinking there to be a general moral prohibition against these treatments. I argue that they do not. (shrink)

To measure non-cognitive facets of competence, we developed and tested a new method that we refer to as Embedded Experience Sampling (EES). Domain-specific problem-solving competence is a multi-faceted construct that is not limited to cognitive facets such as domain knowledge or problem-solving strategies but also comprises non-cognitive facets in the sense of domain-specific emotional and motivational dispositions such as interest and self-concept. However, in empirical studies non-cognitive facets are usually either neglected or measured by generalized self-report questionnaires that are detached (...) from the performance assessment. To enable an integrated measurement, we developed the EES method to collect data on non-cognitive facets during scenario-based low-stakes assessments. Test-takers are requested to stop at certain times and spontaneously answer short items (EES items) regarding their actual experience of the problem situation. These EES items are embedded in an EES event that resembles typical social interactions with non-player characters. To evaluate the feasibility and validity of the method, we implemented EES in a series of three studies in the context of commercial vocational education and training (VET): A feasibility study with 77 trainees, a pilot study with 20 trainees, and the main study with 780 trainees who worked on three complex problem scenarios in a computer-based office simulation. In the present paper, we investigate how test-takers perceived the EES events, and whether social desirability biased their answers, and investigate the internal structure of the data and the relationship between EES data and data from several other sources. Interview data and survey data indicated no biases due to social desirability and no additional burden for the test-takers due to the EES events. A correlation analysis following the multitrait-multimethod approach as well as the calibration of a multidimensional model based on Item Response Theory (IRT) also supported the construct validity. Furthermore, EES data shows substantial correlations with test motivation but almost zero correlations with data from generalized retrospective self-report questionnaires on non-cognitive facets. Altogether, EES offers an alternative approach to measuring non-cognitive facets of competence under certain conditions. For instance, EES is also based on self-reporting and thus might not be suitable for high-stakes testing. (shrink)

I have two main goals in this paper. My first goal is to sketch a new view of color perception. The core of the view can be expressed in the following two theses: (i) the overarching function of color vision is to enable and enhance the manifestation of relevant (species-specific) competences and (ii) color experiences are correct when they result from processing that directly and non-accidentally subserves the manifestation of such competences. My second goal is to show that the view (...) can accommodate and account for a wide variety of color perceptual phenomena, including many problem cases. Importantly, the framework allows us to differentiate between two kinds of good cases of color perception: ideal cases where the demands of the relevant competences converge and non-ideal cases where the demands of the relevant competences diverge and clash. (shrink)

I argue against traditional virtue epistemology on which knowledge is a success due to a competence to believe truly, by revealing an in-principle problem with the traditional virtue epistemologist’s explanation of Gettier cases. The argument eliminates one of the last plausible explanation of Gettier cases, and so of knowledge, in terms of non-factive mental states and non-mental conditions. I then I develop and defend a different kind of virtue epistemology, on which knowledge is an exercise of a competence to know. (...) I show how the account, while circular, is not viciously so. It explains both how knowledge is a mental state, as well as the relationship between knowledge and justification, including justified false beliefs and Gettier cases. Moreover, although direct virtue epistemology is compatible with many views on the nature of belief, it can explain how knowledge might be metaphysically more fundamental than belief as well. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I address some of the shortcomings of established clinical ethics centring on personal autonomy and consent and what I label the Doctrine of Respecting Personal Autonomy in Healthcare. I discuss two implications of this doctrine: 1) the practice for treating patients who are considered to have borderline decision‐making competence and 2) the practice of surrogate decision‐making in general. I argue that none of these practices are currently aligned with respectful treatment of vulnerable individuals. Because of ‘structural (...) arbitrariness’ in the whole process of how we assess decision‐making competence, this area is open to disrespectful treatment of people. The practice of surrogate decision‐ making on the basis of a single person's judgment is arguably not consistent with ethical and political requirements derived from the doctrine itself. In response to the inadequacies of the doctrine, I suggest a framework for reasonableness in surrogate decision‐making which might allow practice to avoid the problems above. I conclude by suggesting an extended concept of Patient Autonomy which integrates both personal autonomy and the regulative idea of morality that is required by reasonableness in deciding for non‐competent others. (shrink)

In this paper, I address some of the shortcomings of established clinical ethics centring on personal autonomy and consent and what I label the Doctrine of Respecting Personal Autonomy in Healthcare. I discuss two implications of this doctrine: 1) the practice for treating patients who are considered to have borderline decision-making competence and 2) the practice of surrogate decision-making in general. I argue that none of these practices are currently aligned with respectful treatment of vulnerable individuals. Because of ‘structural arbitrariness’ (...) in the whole process of how we assess decision-making competence, this area is open to disrespectful treatment of people. The practice of surrogate decision- making on the basis of a single person's judgment is arguably not consistent with ethical and political requirements derived from the doctrine itself. In response to the inadequacies of the doctrine, I suggest a framework for reasonableness in surrogate decision-making which might allow practice to avoid the problems above. I conclude by suggesting an extended concept of Patient Autonomy which integrates both personal autonomy and the regulative idea of morality that is required by reasonableness in deciding for non-competent others. (shrink)

The role of physicians in death penalty cases has provoked discussion in both the legal system as well as in professional organizations. Professional groups have responded by developing ethical guidelines advising physicians as to current ethical standards. Psychiatric dilemmas as a subspecialty with unique roles have required more specific guidelines. A clinical vignette provides a focus to explicate the conflicts.

The vignette described in the introduction of this symposium raises a number of ethical and legal problems for physicians who work for correctional institutions and death row inmates. They are not confined to correctional physicians, however, as states have requested aid from practicing physicians in the community, and even from other states, when conflicts have arisen in the treatment of death row inmates as they near the date of execution. As outlined, the case involves a 48-year-old man with a long (...) history of schizophrenia, initially diagnosed at age 19. Compliant with medication, he remained generally free from positive symptoms-delusions and hallucinations. Nonetheless, he committed two murders during a robbery and was sentenced to death. Since his incarceration, the defendant has consistently refused psychotropic medications and has been forcibly medicated on several occasions when he exhibited violent outbursts and was overtly psychotic. (shrink)

I argue that an adequate account of non-reductive realization must guarantee satisfaction of a certain condition on the token causal powers associated with (instances of) realized and realizing entities---namely, what I call the 'Subset Condition on Causal Powers' (first introduced in Wilson 1999). In terms of states, the condition requires that the token powers had by a realized state on a given occasion be a proper subset of the token powers had by the state that realizes it on that occasion. (...) Accounts of non-reductive realization conforming to this condition are implementing what I call 'the powers-based subset strategy'. I focus on the crucial case involving mental and brain states; the results may be generalized, as appropriate. I first situate and motivate the strategy by attention to the problem of mental causation; I make the case, in schematic terms, that implementation of the strategy makes room (contra Kim 1989, 1993, 1998, and elsewhere) for mental states to be ontologically and causally autonomous from their realizing physical states, without inducing problematic causal overdetermination, and compatible with both Physicalism and Non-reduction; and I show that several contemporary accounts of non-reductive realization (in terms of functional realization, parthood, and the determinable/determinate relation) are plausibly seen as implementing the strategy. As I also show, implementation of the powers-based strategy does not require endorsement of any particular accounts of either properties or causation---indeed, a categoricalist contingentist Humean can implement the strategy. The schematic location of the strategy in the space of available responses to the problem of mental (more generally, higher-level) causation, as well as the fact that the schema may be metaphysically instantiated, strongly suggests that the strategy is, appropriately generalized and instantiated, sufficient and moreover necessary for non-reductive realization. I go on to defend the sufficiency and necessity claims against a variety of objections, considering, along the way, how the powers-based subset strategy fares against competing accounts of purportedly non-reductive realization in terms of supervenience, token identity, and constitution. (shrink)

This book is an essential guide for veterinarians, veterinary faculty and policymakers for understanding the core competencies of a fresh veterinarian. The book briefly covers competencies in preclinical, paraclinical, and clinical subjects including anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, veterinary jurisprudence, animal management & welfare including nutrition and breeding, infectious and non-infectious diseases, disease epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment, prevention, control and zoonoses, surgical and other clinical interventions. The book further includes other competencies, including biologicals, anti-mortem, and post-mortem inspection, certifications, applied one health aspects, (...) review and analysis of scientific evidence, international trade and regulations, and organization of veterinary services. It also highlights the importance of effective communication, interpersonal skills, record keeping and management of a small veterinary hospital, health informatics, etc. The book breakdowns the must-have competencies of a global veterinarian into different topics and subtopics for easy comprehension and further learning. It enables the professional standard-setting & regulatory bodies and academicians in improved curricula designing and implementation and more importantly tries to bring uniformity in day one veterinary graduates’ competencies globally, enhancing the movement and employability of veterinarians across the world. (shrink)

Competent patients who refuse life saving medical treatment present a dilemma for healthcare professionals. On one hand, respect for autonomy and liberty demand that physicians respect a patient’s decision to refuse treatment. However, it is often apparent that such patients are not fully competent. They may not adequately comprehend the benefits of medical care, be overly anxious about pain, or discount the value of their future state of health. Although most bioethicists are convinced that partial autonomy or marginal competence of (...) this kind demands the same respect as full autonomy, Israeli legislators created a mechanism to allow ethics committees to override patients’ informed refusal and treat them against their will. To do so, three conditions must be satisfied: physicians must make every effort to ensure the patient understands the risks of non-treatment, the treatment physicians propose must offer a realistic chance of significant improvement, and there are reasonable expectations that the patient will consent retroactively. Although not all of these conditions are equally cogent, they offer a way forward to assure care for certain classes of competent patients without abandoning the principle of autonomy altogether. These concerns reach past Israel and should engage healthcare professionals wary that respect for autonomy may sometimes cause avoidable harm. (shrink)

Diagnostic errors are more frequently a result of the clinician's failure to combine medical knowledge adequately than of data inaccuracy. Diagnostic reasoning studies are valuable to understand and improve diagnostic reasoning. However, most diagnostic reasoning studies are characterized by some limitations which make these studies seem more simple than diagnostic reasoning in real life situations actually is. These limitations are connected both to the failure to acknowledge components of knowledge used in clinical practice as well as to acknowledge the physician-patient (...) relationship's influence on clinical knowledge and on the reasoning process itself. In addition the modes of reasoning described in these studies frequently is oversimplified. In this paper three simplistic and competing models of diagnostic reasoning are analyzed and criticized, followed by an evaluation of two alternative models proposing a combined view. (shrink)

A semantics of vagueness should reject the principle that every statement has a truth-value yet retain the classical tautologies. A many-value, non-truth-functional semantics and a semantics of super-valuations each have this result. According to the super-valuation approach, 'if a man with n hairs on his head is bald, then a man with n plus one hairs on his head is also bald' is false because it comes out false no matter how the vague predicate 'is bald' is appropriately made precise. (...) But why should a sentence in which components actually remain imprecise be regarded as actually false just because it would be false if its components were precise? On one of the alternative treatments of quantification allowed by the many-value approach, the sentence in question is assigned an intermediate value closer to 'false' than to 'true'. Despite the elegance of the super-valuation approach, there are reasons to prefer the many-value approach. (shrink)

Reducing the global treatment gap for mental health conditions in low- and middle-income countries requires not only an expansion of clinical psychology training but also assuring that graduates of these programs have the competency to effectively and safely deliver psychological interventions. Clinical psychology training programs in LMICs require standardized tools and guidance to evaluate competency. The World Health Organization and UNICEF developed the “Ensuring Quality in Psychological Support” platform to facilitate competency-based training in psychosocial support, psychological treatments, and foundational helping (...) skills, with an initial focus on in-service training for non-specialists. Our goal was to design the first application of EQUIP to implement competency-based training into pre-service education for clinical psychology trainees. With Makerere University in Uganda as a case study, we outline an approach to develop, implement, and evaluate a competency-based curriculum that includes seven steps: Identify core clinical psychology competencies; Identify evaluation methods appropriate to each competency; Determine when competency evaluations will be integrated in the curriculum, who will evaluate competency, and how results will be used; Train faculty in competency-based education including conducting competency assessments and giving competency-based feedback; Pilot test and evaluate the competency-based education strategy with faculty and students; Modify and implement the competency-based education strategy based on pilot results; and Implement ongoing evaluation of the competency-based curriculum with continuous quality improvement. This approach will be formally evaluated and established as a foundation for pre-service training in other low-resource settings. (shrink)

Due to the implementation of global education and global citizenship education in the 21st century, more focus is given to developing teachers’ global competence in English language teaching. This study aims to examine the perceptions of English as a Second Language teachers of global competence integration in English teaching and the professional development programs organized by the Ministry of Education for their global competence development. A web-survey questionnaire was distributed to 172 Malaysian ESL teachers based on selected criteria. The data (...) collected were analyzed descriptively. The main findings indicated that most ESL teachers showed positive perceptions regarding the importance of global competence and integration in English lessons. Although 83.1% of the 172 participants agreed to have attended 10 or more programs related to developing global competence, the descriptive analysis found the ESL teachers’ moderate knowledge and understanding of what constitutes global competence. In contrast, a high agreement was found regarding their perceptions of the importance of global competence in ESL lessons. Also, most respondents revealed the lack of support from the MOE through professional development programs specifically structured to develop ESL teachers’ global competence. The findings served as a template for a larger-scale study that focuses on implementing global competence in the local non-western context. (shrink)

Natalie Stoljar posits that purely procedural theories of autonomy are unable to explain the ‘feminist intuition’, which is the idea that the internalization of false and oppressive norms are incompatible with autonomy. She claims instead that an account based on ‘normative competence’ – which requires true beliefs and critical reflection – can explain why oppressive norms should be excluded as legitimate decision-making inputs. On my view, however, the normative competence approach is subject to a worrying problem. While Stoljar's view successfully (...) problematizes the internalization of oppression, her view misattributes non-autonomy also to those who perpetrate the oppression. I suggest that this is implausible, arguing instead that we can establish an asymmetry of autonomy between those who oppress others and those who are made target of oppression. (shrink)

This critical review accomplished two main tasks: first, the article provides scope for identifying the most common conceptions of moral competence in the scientific literature, as well as the different ways to measure this type of competence. Having moral judgment is the most popular element of moral competence, but the literature introduces many other elements. The review also shows there is a plethora of ways to measure moral competence, either in standardized tests providing scores or other non-standardized tests. As a (...) second task, the article reflects critically on the general use of the idea of moral competence. Results suggest that this idea functions as what philosopher Bernard Williams would have called a thin ethical concept. Thin concepts are not problematic in and of themselves if they are used as linguistic shorthand, however, there may be shortcomings in the literature on moral competence because the idea is not rooted in more substantive views or theories in a way that is both clear and coherent. (shrink)

Josh is a typical 27-year-old in a career that he enjoys and a successful marriage. Josh begins to exhibit the symptoms of a manic episode. He is soon diagnosed with bipolar disorder. While non-manic, Josh’s preferences are typical. While manic, his preferences change dramatically. He quits his job, cheats on his partner, and squanders his savings. These are behaviors that Josh, when non-manic (euthymic), would never agree to. When Josh returns to a euthymic state, he regrets these decisions. Should those (...) close to Josh have prevented him from making these decisions, or does his competence to decide persist despite his acute mania? In this paper, I examine the connections be-tween bipolar disorder and consent. I defend the view that many (although far from all) individuals with bipolar disorder are competent to consent to a wide variety of things when they are in a manic state. This means that mania should not be presumed to undermine competence in clinical settings. -/- I have several goals in this paper. I want to bring philosophy to bear on the connection between consent and bipolar disorder. Additionally, I intend this paper to contribute to the general debate about the conditions of informed consent. Bipolar disorder presents novel challenges to existing conceptions of competence to consent which require stable core of values for an agent to be competent. For example, Buchanan and Brock endorse such a view. In showing that shifting values do not undermine the competence of a person experiencing acute mania, I show that the aforementioned views of competence are false. Overall, this paper makes substantive contributions to the debate about competence to consent and presents the first sustained philosophical treatment of consent among people with bipolar disorder. (shrink)

The central theme in the discussion of how education about religion can, and should, be developed in pluralistic societies concerns challenges and opportunities involving intercultural religious education (RE). One example is Robert Jackson’s report Signposts, commissioned by the Council of Europe, in which various aspects of intercultural competence are captured and made visible regarding a religious didactic context. Here, different dimensions of what can be described as ‘ethical competence’ appear to be central. In this article, the interpretive approach, strongly connected (...) with Jackson, is considered to be in need of a development of a theoretical framing of forceful strategies for handling ethical challenges taking place in multicultural, multireligious and multi-confessional classrooms. It is argued that such strategies will depend on a careful analysis of the concept of ethical competence. A theoretical platform for the argument is presented with reference to James Rest’s analysis of ethical competence, which is shown to be relevant to an examination of how the concept of ethical competence can contribute to the development of strategies for teaching intercultural RE. As a basis for this examination, the Danish, Finnish and Norwegian syllabuses for compulsory school RE are analysed regarding how they express conceptions of ethical competence. This selection shaped the curricular arena of the investigation as being non-confessional, whilst simultaneously, more or less explicitly, resting on a shared historical Protestant anchorage. This twofold interpretation is shown to allow for an analysis of ethical competence, in relation to which an identification of certain prerequisites for developing strategies for teaching intercultural RE is possible. (shrink)

The closing chapters of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics x are regularly described as “puzzling,” “extremely abrupt,” “awkward,” or “surprising” to readers. Whereas the previous nine books described—sometimes in lavish detail—the multifold ethical virtues of an embodied person situated within communities of family, friends, and fellow-citizens, NE x 6-8 extol the rarified, god-like and solitary existence of a sophos or sage (1179a32). The ethical virtues that take up approximately the first half of the Ethics describe moral exempla who experience fear fighting for (...) their communities, are sensitive to the esteem and recognition of others, and feel love for a desire to live together with a wide variety of kinds of friends. Such good people take pleasure in prudently expending sums to improve their communities—communities in which they exchange goods and participate in ruling and being ruled in a cooperative fashion. The exemplum of x 7-8, by contrast, is a person whose activity consists almost entirely in exercising his or her mind (nous)—a part of one’s soul that Aristotle explicitly notes is disconnected from human emotions and that can be exercised, insofar as one as wise, in a wholly solitary fashion (1178a15-16, a19-20; 1177a33-34). Although Aristotle’s claim that a “life in accord with the mind” is best and most pleasant (1178a6-7) may jar the intuitions of many people—he himself endorses Anaxagoras’ claim that the happy person will appear as “someone who is absurd” (atopos, 1179a15) to most people—it is false to claim that his conclusions in NE x 6-8 are unexpected or unanticipated, or that the text is in any way discontinuous with what precedes it. The Nicomachean Ethics exhibits aspects of ring-composition both within the work as a whole and within book 10. In NE i 5 Aristotle introduces his rendition of a trope that he inherits (most immediately) from Plato, viz. that the problem of the good can be considered like a contest between three different kinds of life—the life of enjoyment (apolaustikos), the life of politics (politikos), and the life of contemplation (theôrêtikos). NE x 6-8 returns to that contest, rendering a verdict about which life takes first, second, and third place. As the opening lines of NE x 6 note, that verdict presupposes central claims articulated between the first and last books of the Ethics, specifically about the nature of the virtues, the nature of friendship, and the nature of pleasure. NE i 5 and x 6-8 thus serve as “bookends” which encase arguments and proposition located between them. Book 10 exhibits a similar ring-composition. NE x opens with methodological reflection on the gap between the theoretical positions that thinkers articulate and the way they live their lives (especially in the case of scolds who simultaneously criticize pleasure on a scientific level but seek it on a practical level [1172a33-b8]). Chapter 8 concludes with an explicit reiteration of the methodological point, a reiteration that underscores how Aristotle’s treatment of the contest of lives incorporates central aspects of the discussion of pleasure in NE x 1-5. Aristotle’s reiteration of the problem of a gap between theory and practice also draws attention to the centrality of his treatment of pleasure in his adjudication of the three lives. Although the life of pleasure takes a distant third in the contest of lives, the contemplative life wins the contest in part because it itself is the most pleasant form of life. The central philosophical problem looming behind Aristotle’s treatment of the contest of lives concerns the relationship between the notion of activity (energeia) and the notion of a way of life (bios). In the last four decades, much of the scholarship on NE x 6-8 has sought to address the question of what activities a certain way of life includes or excludes. “Monistic” or “dominant” end interpretations of the best life have viewed it as including only contemplative activities whereas “inclusivist” end interpretations of the best life have viewed it as including non-contemplative activities. Although this chapter largely side-steps this debate—partially because there are ample recent first-rate introductory treatments of the debate, partially because I have addressed the question elsewhere in my own writing —I argue that focusing solely on the contest between the two best ways of life overshadows the way that Aristotle incorporates insights from the third way of life into the best way of life. Although the notion of a contest among different kinds of lives presupposes that the lives are mutually exclusive, Aristotle has no problem saying that the contemplative life trumps the life of pleasure because the contemplative life is more pleasant. I proceed in two parts. In the first part I examine what I will call the “outer” ring of the Ethics, namely the relationship between the contest of lives proposed in NE i 5 and its overall resolution in x 6-8. I show how i 5 and x 6 establish the framework for the contest, how x 7 adjudicates that contest in large part by relying upon premises articulated in the interim between books 1 and 10, and how x 6 and x 8 determine the second and third place positions in the contest. In the second part I focus on what I will call the “inner” ring of NE x. More than half of NE x struggles with the nature of pleasure, its role in a happy life, and the methodological problems of examining pleasure within a practical science. I show how x 1 and x 8 are “bookends” that underscore the methodological problem of examining pleasure and how the contest of lives draws upon the proximate conclusions concerning the nature of pleasure in NE x 1-5. (shrink)

SummaryChristians often presume that immediate and universally extensive divine governance of human behavior is incompatible with human agency and responsibility. Against this presumption, Kathryn Tanner argues for a distinctive metalinguistic paradigm whereby Christians can coherently speak of God’s transcendence in such a way that divine action could never in principle ‘compete’ with human action. Thus, it is said, God can comprehensively will each human action without thereby compromising significant human freedom and corresponding moral responsibility. In this article, it is argued (...) that Tanner’s non-competitivist paradigm fails to circumvent a theological version of the ‘direct argument’ for the incompatibility between human moral responsibility and causal determinism. (shrink)

Digital competencies were part of online education and now when returning to the classroom what will happen or what we expect for the future in education. The objective is to analyze and describe the perspectives of the level of digital competence, the non-experimental descriptive quantitative methodology is used with 1987 university students. Resulting that the instrument adapted to the Peruvian version is adequate according to statistics such as Cronbach's Alpha. Concluding that the digital competences improved the academic quality and have (...) a good level. Society is waiting for the next step to know what is presented to us in education. (shrink)

Respect for autonomy is a central moral principle in bioethics. The concept of autonomy can be construed in various ways. Under the non-ideal conceptualization proposed by Beauchamp and Childress, everyday choices of generally competent persons are autonomous to the extent that they are intentional and are made with understanding and without controlling influences. It is sometimes suggested that authenticity is important to personal autonomy, so that inauthenticity prevents otherwise autonomous persons from making autonomous decisions. Building from Beauchamp and Childress’s theory, (...) this article develops a non-ideal authenticity-based conceptualization of personal autonomy. Factors that indicate inauthentic decision-making are explicated, and the full concept is defended from three expected objections. The theory is then tested on a paradigm case which has concerned theorists and practitioners for some time, namely the possible inauthenticity of anorexia nervosa patients’ decision-making. It is concluded that the theory seems to be fruitful in analyses of the degree of autonomy of patients’ decision-making, and that it succeeds in providing reliable action-guidance in practical contexts. (shrink)

In this paper we develop a hermeneutic approach to the concept of competence. Patient competence, according to a hermeneutic approach, is not primarily a matter of being able to reason, but of being able to interpret the world and respond to it. Capacity should then not be seen as theoretical, but as practical. From the perspective of practical rationality, competence and capacity are two sides of the same coin. If a person has the capacity to understand the world and give (...) meaning to the situation, he or she is able to make decisions, and is thus competent. People can fail in the area of practical rationality. They can feel ill at ease, uncomfortable or not at home in the situation. Under such conditions, they appear as incompetent, and urge caregivers to respond in such a way that their competence can be raised. The issue is not how to measure their incompetence, but how to help them to become more competent, that is to get a practical grip on their situation and to be able to live out their lives in such a way that they develop their identity in relations with others. From a hermeneutic point of view, assessing a patient's capacity implies focusing on the patient's way of meaning making and regarding her behavior from the perspective of practical rationality. The focus should not be on the assessment as a matter of fact, but on improving capacity. This requires allowing the patient to experience the world meaningfully and affording her, in the context of a supportive and trustful institutional environment, the possibility of developing a personal narrative where her choices are expressed verbally or non-verbally. (shrink)

We often face a bewildering array of different explanations for the same social facts (e.g. biological, psychological, economic, and historical accounts). But we have few guidelines for whether and when we should think of different accounts as competing or compatible. In this paper, I offer some guidelines for understanding when custom or norm accounts do and don’t compete with other types of accounts. I describe two families of non-competing accounts: (1) explanations of different (but similarly described) facts, and (2) accounts (...) which seem to differ but are really different parts or versions of the same underlying explanation. I argue that, while many types of apparent competitors don’t really compete with customs, there are some that do. I also describe some of the central problems, which suggest that custom accounts will compete poorly with their rivals. (shrink)

In Multi Agent Systems it is often the case that individual preferences are not compatible and coalitions compete to achieve a given result. The paper presents a language to talk about the conflict between coalitional choices and it expresses deontic notions to evaluate them. We will be specifically concerned with cases where the collective perspective is at odds with the individual perspective.

There has been a tendency, natural perhaps in such ‘verbal’ disciplines as philosophy and linguistics, to assume that language and communication are the same thing. But while no one would deny that language is one powerful medium of human communication, is it the only one? Is there any real distinction between communicating one's desire to leave a dinner party by making verbal remarks like, ‘I must go’ or ‘We could only get Jane as a babysitter’, as opposed to fidgeting, standing (...) up and looking longingly towards the door? As Michael Argyle argues, a great deal of information is conveyed by non-verbal cues. To take the argument a step further, are even verbal statements examples of purely linguistic communication? Whereas the manifest linguistic content of ‘I must go’ is obvious to anyone who speaks English, the meaning of the remark about the babysitter can only be understood by those who know the particular neighbourhood social context in which it was uttered. Does it make sense, then, to try and analyse the linguistic structure and content of an utterance without taking into account the use to which it is being put in a particular extra-linguistic context? (shrink)

Le débat qui se déroule dans les années 1720 à l'Académie royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres, sur la possibilité ou non de connaître l'histoire des premiers siècles de Rome, est généralement interprété comme une mise au point épistémologique par l'un des protagonistes. Une mise en contexte qui prend en considération les enjeux politiques de la dispute permet de comprendre que ce débat est l'amorce d'un processus d'autonomisation du champ des études historiques savantes, non seulement du point de vue de la (...) division des savoirs, mais aussi par rapport au pouvoir monarchique. (shrink)

If one of the most important aims of education on military ethics is to strengthen moral competence, we argue that it is important to base ethics education on virtue ethics, the Socratic attitude and the process of ?living learning?. This article illustrates this position by means of the example of a ?train the trainer? course on military ethics for Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs), which is developed at the Netherlands Defence Academy, and uses a number of examples both from its structure and (...) from experiences from its actual use. (shrink)

As there is a gap of legal regulation of covenants not to compete in Lithuania, the legal doctrine and the case-law are analyzed in this article. It is recognized in judicial practice that labour laws are not applicable for the regulation of the covenants not to compete. So, the parties, an employer and employee, are free to make agreement on non-competition. There are some suggested principles how to make parties’ agreement on non-competition. Firstly, there should be disputed an adequate compensation (...) to the restrictions that would be made for an employee. Secondly, the restriction of competing should be precisely described, taking into account other issues, such as period of non-competing, employee’s qualification and duties, termination of agreement, etc. It is also proposed to supplement the Law on Competition of the Republic of Lithuania with the rules concerning the conclusion, execution or termination of these covenants. (shrink)

In a possible world framework, an agent can be said to know a proposition just in case the proposition is true at all worlds that are epistemically possible for the agent. Roughly, a world is epistemically possible for an agent just in case the world is not ruled out by anything the agent knows. If a proposition is true at some epistemically possible world for an agent, the proposition is epistemically possible for the agent. If a proposition is true at (...) all epistemically possible worlds for an agent, the proposition is epistemically necessary for the agent, and as such, the agent knows the proposition. -/- This framework presupposes an underlying space of worlds that we can call epistemic space. Traditionally, worlds in epistemic space are identified with possible worlds, where possible worlds are the kinds of entities that at least verify all logical truths. If so, given that epistemic space consists solely of possible worlds, it follows that any world that may remain epistemically possible for an agent verifies all logical truths. As a result, all logical truths are epistemically necessary for any agent, and the corresponding framework only allows us to model logically omniscient agents. This is a well-known consequence of the standard possible world framework, and it is generally taken to imply that the framework cannot be used to model non-ideal agents that fall short of logical omniscience. -/- A familiar attempt to model non-ideal agents within a broadly world involving framework centers around the use of impossible worlds where the truths of logic can be false. As we shall see, if we admit impossible worlds where “anything goes” in epistemic space, it is easy to avoid logical omniscience. If any logical falsehood is true at some impossible world, then any logical falsehood may remain epistemically possible for some agent. As a result, we can use an impossible world involving framework to model extremely non-ideal agents that do not know any logical truths. -/- A much harder, and considerably less investigated challenge is to ensure that the resulting epistemic space can also be used to model moderately ideal agents that are not logically omniscient but nevertheless logically competent. Intuitively, while such agents may fail to rule out impossible worlds that verify complex logical falsehoods, they are nevertheless able to rule out impossible worlds that verify obvious logical falsehoods. To model such agents, we need a construction of a non-trivial epistemic space that partly consists of impossible worlds where not "anything goes". This involves imposing substantive constraints on impossible worlds to eliminate from epistemic space, say, trivially impossible worlds that verify obvious logical falsehoods. -/- The central aim of this dissertation is to investigate the nature of such non-trivially impossible worlds and the corresponding epistemic spaces. To flag my conclusions, I argue that successful constructions of epistemic spaces that can safely navigate between the Charybdis of logical omniscience and the Scylla of of “anything goes” are hard, if not impossible to find. (shrink)

Norms conferring public or private powers, i.e., the competence to issue other norms, play a very important rôle in law. But there is no agreement among legal philosophers about the nature of such norms. There are two main groups of theories, those that regard them as a kind of norms of conduct (either commands or permissions) and those that regard them as non-reducible to other types of norms. I try to show that reductionist theories are not quite acceptable; neither the (...) command-variety (Kelsen, Alf Ross inOn Law and Justice), nor the permission-variety (von Wright, Kanger, Lindahl) provide a satisfactory account of competence norms.Among the authors who maintain that competence norms are different from (and hence not reducible to) norms of conduct are Hart, Ross inDirectives and Norms, and Searle. Ross and Searle distinguish between regulative and constitutive rules as two radically different kinds of rules and classify competence norms among constitutive rules. This distinction runs parallel to von Wright's distinction between rules that are prescriptions and determinative rules. While the first regulate actions (by commanding, prohibiting, or permitting them), determinative rules define certain concepts. To view competence norms as (partial) definitions of certain legal concepts (like those of legislator, judge, etc.) seems to open interesting perspectives and to shed light on at least one aspect of these elusive norms. (shrink)

Despite the variety of competing interpretations of domination, a common feature of the most influential analyses of the concept is their reliance on a normative criterion: the detrimental effect of domination on those subject to it. This article offers a non-evaluative, non-consequence-based definition of domination, in line with the perspective on power developed by the theory of the social exchange. Domination, it is argued, should be seen as a structural property of a power relation, and consists in an extreme inequality (...) in the social distribution of power. It is contended, accordingly, that the postulation of a society in which domination is avoided (or minimized) should rely on the ideal of the minimization of inequality, and, more specifically, that it should be based on a distributional pattern of maximally equal social resources. (shrink)

A core tenet of metanormative non-naturalism is that genuine or robust normativity—i.e., the kind of normativity that is characteristic of moral requirements, and perhaps also of prudential, epistemic and even aesthetic requirements—is metaphysically special in a way that rules out naturalist analyses or reductions; on the non-naturalist view, the normative is sui generis and metaphysically discontinuous with the natural. Non-naturalists agree, however, that the normative is modally as well as explanatorily dependent on the natural. These two commitments—discontinuity and dependence—at least (...) initially pull in opposite directions, and one of the central challenges to non-naturalism is how to reconcile them. In this paper I spell out the most pressing version of this discontinuity problem, as I propose to call it, and I go on to offer a novel solution. Drawing on the ideology of reasons-firstism, I formulate an account of normative explanation which reconciles the two commitments, and I argue that competing accounts either do not solve the problem or are implausible on independent grounds. (shrink)

Non‐homologous end‐joining (NHEJ) is the dominant means of repairing chromosomal DNA double strand breaks (DSBs), and is essential in human cells. Fifteen or more proteins can be involved in the detection, signalling, synapsis, end‐processing and ligation events required to repair a DSB, and must be assembled in the confined space around the DNA ends. We review here a number of interaction points between the core NHEJ components (Ku70, Ku80, DNA‐PKcs, XRCC4 and Ligase IV) and accessory factors such as kinases, phosphatases, (...) polymerases and structural proteins. Conserved protein‐protein interaction sites such as Ku‐binding motifs (KBMs), XLF‐like motifs (XLMs), FHA and BRCT domains illustrate that different proteins compete for the same binding sites on the core machinery, and must be spatially and temporally regulated. We discuss how post‐translational modifications such as phosphorylation, ADP‐ribosylation and ubiquitinylation may regulate sequential steps in the NHEJ pathway or control repair at different types of DNA breaks. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that the Faculty of Language is compositional, i.e., that it computes the meaning of complex expressions from the meanings of their immediate constituents and their structure. I fargue that compositionality and other competing constraints on the way in which the Faculty of Language computes the meanings of complex expressions should be understood as hypotheses about innate constraints of the Faculty of Language. I then argue that, unlike compositionality, most of the currently available non-compositional constraints predict (...) incorrect patterns of early linguistic development. This supports the view that the Faculty of Language is com- positional. More generally, this paper presents a way of framing the compositionality debate (by focusing on its implications for language acquisition) that can lead to its even- tual resolution, so it will hopefully also interest theorists who disagree with its main conclusion. (shrink)

Being incoherent is often viewed as a paradigm kind of irrationality. Numerous authors attempt to explain the distinct-seeming failure of incoherence by positing a set of requirements of structural rationality. I argue that the notion of coherence that structural requirements are meant to capture is very slippery, and that intuitive judgments – in particular, a charge of a distinct, blatant kind of irrationality – are very imperfectly correlated with respecting the canon of structural requirements. I outline an alternative strategy for (...) explaining our patterns of normative disapproval, one appealing to feasible dispositions to conform to substantive, non-structural norms. A wide range of paradigmatic cases of incoherence, I will argue, involve manifesting problematic dispositions, dispositions that manifest across a range of cases as blatant-seeming normative failures. (shrink)