Tōjisha research is a methodology intended to help psychiatric patients through dialogue. It was introduced in the context of community care in Bethel House (Hokkaido, Japan) in the early 2000s and later spread to other parts of Japan as well as abroad because of its originality and apparent therapeutic success. It offers patients a framework to investigate their own problems, symptoms, and delusions and to build a discourse around them. In this paper, I present a short account of tōjisha research (...) and I put it in the context of current debates over the benefits and drawbacks of narrative medicine. I argue that there is an original conception of the self and of empowerment of patients in tōjisha research compared to other models of narrative medicine. Finally, I mobilize these original aspects to address some rebuttals of narrative medicine. (shrink)

This paper looks at philosophical questions that arise in the context of AI alignment. It defends three propositions. First, normative and technical aspects of the AI alignment problem are interrelated, creating space for productive engagement between people working in both domains. Second, it is important to be clear about the goal of alignment. There are significant differences between AI that aligns with instructions, intentions, revealed preferences, ideal preferences, interests and values. A principle-based approach to AI alignment, which combines these elements (...) in a systematic way, has considerable advantages in this context. Third, the central challenge for theorists is not to identify ‘true’ moral principles for AI; rather, it is to identify fair principles for alignment that receive reflective endorsement despite widespread variation in people’s moral beliefs. The final part of the paper explores three ways in which fair principles for AI alignment could potentially be identified. (shrink)

Examining the origin and development of my views of social epistemology, I contrast my position with the position held by analytic social epistemologists. Analytic social epistemology (ASE) has failed to make significant progress owing, in part, to a minimal understanding of actual knowledge practices, a minimised role for philosophers in ongoing inquiry, and a focus on maintaining the status quo of epistemology as a field. As a way forward, I propose questions and future areas of inquiry for a post-ASE to (...) address. (shrink)

The paper discusses the role that ethics theory might play in business ethics teaching. It is noted that little attention is devoted to the explanation and application of ethics theory in business ethics textbooks, which suggests that ethics theory is held in low esteem by business ethics educators. This relative disregard has been justified by some critics on the basis of the limited usefulness of ethics theory to business ethics pedagogy. Notwithstanding these criticisms, the paper argues that ethics theory can (...) play an important role in business ethics teaching which conforms to a speculative agenda. A speculative agenda is described, and a contribution that ethics theory can make to it is explained. This constitutes a form of immanent critique, which enables putative statements of business ethicality to be subjected to critique against the cultural values upon which their credibility rests. Ethics theory is offered as a mediating resource to facilitate such critique. Some criteria that the presentation of ethics theory needs to meet if it is to fulfill this speculative agenda are also outlined. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDrawing upon the theoretical debate on the concept of common good involving, in particular, Sison and Fontrodona, I aim to show how the common good principle can serve as the basis for a new diversity perspective. Each of the three dominant diversity approaches—equality, diversity management, and inclusion—runs the ethical risk of focusing on community or individual levels, or on particular disciplines—economic, social, or moral. This article demonstrates that the common good principle could mitigate the ethical risks inherent to each of (...) these diversity approaches. There are three positive aspects to a comprehensive common good perspective: 1) it includes considering different community levels, which it connects by subsidiarity, 2) it embraces the moral, social, and economic fields, which it connects by teleological hierarchy, and 3) it avoids the risk of exclusion by generating a sense of solidarity. (shrink)

Businesses have long been admonished for being unduly focused on the pursuit of profit. However, there are some organizations whose purpose is not exclusively economic to the extent that they seek to constitute common good. Building on Christian ethics as a starting point, our article shows how the pursuit of the common good of the firm can serve as a guide for humanistic management. It provides two principles that humanistic management can attempt to implement: first, that community good is a (...) condition for the realization of personal good, and second, that community good can only be promoted if it is oriented towards personal good. To better understand which community good can favor personal good and how it can be achieved, we examine two recent humanistic movements—Conscious Capitalism and Economy of Communion—that strive to participate in the common good. From the analysis of these two movements, we identify a shared managerial willingness to adopt the two principles. Moreover, we also reveal that Conscious Capitalism and Economy of Communion present different ways of linking community good and personal good, and therefore, different means exist for firms to participate in the common good. (shrink)

Organizations interested in employee ethics compliance face the problem of conflict between employee and organizational ethical standards. Socializing new employees is one way of assuring compliance. Important for longer term employees as well as new ones, however, is making those standards visible and then operable in the daily life of an organization. This study, conducted in one large organization, found that, depending on organizational level, awareness of an organization's ethical standards is predicted by managerial adherence to and organizational compliance with (...) those standards and/or discussions with peers. Regardless of level, organizational commitment was predicted most strongly by managerial adherence to organizational standards. These findings have theoretical implications for the fields of business ethics, organizational identity and organizational socialization and practical implications for the implementation of ethics policies. (shrink)

(2011). Casuistry: Case-based Reasoning for the Ethical Journalist. Journal of Mass Media Ethics: Vol. 26, Media Accountability Part Two, pp. 88-92. doi: 10.1080/08900523.2011.532386.

Koopman’s book revolves around the notion of transition, which he proposes is one of the central ideas of the pragmatist tradition but one which had not previously been fully articulated yet nevertheless shapes the pragmatist attitude in philosophy. Transition, according to Koopman, denotes “those temporal structures and historical shapes in virtue of which we get from here to there”. One of the consequences of transitionalism is the understanding of critique and inquiry as historical pro...

I argue that in recent years, the therapeutic ethos and the ideal of authenticity have become aligned with distinctively neo-liberal notions of personal responsibility and self-reliance. This situation has radically exacerbated the threat to political community that Charles Taylor saw in the ‘ethics of authenticity’. I begin by tracing the history of the therapeutic ethos and its early (Rieff, Lasch, MacIntyre) and late (Furedi) critics. I then discuss Charles Taylor’s argument that the culture of self-fulfillment generated by the therapeutic ethos (...) harbors an important moral ideal, namely, the ethic of authenticity. Pace Taylor, I argue that authenticity has now become thoroughly instrumentalized in the service of the guiding political rationality of neo-liberalism. I make this case through a discussion of its uptake in managerial techniques and practices and also in popular culture. (shrink)

This article proceeds from the assumption that the transition to socialism must take account of individuals as they are, not as they might be. The emphasis on the individual appears to be inconsistent with the marxian basis of socialist thought. Attempts to resolve this inconsistency have led marxists to concentrate on cultural and psychological explanations of people within capitalist society. We criticise these attempts, and argue for a view of the individual in society which recognises personal autonomy yet acknowledges the (...) role of structural forces in social change. Given this model, we then ask if there is any indication of individual changes within contemporary capitalism which promote the transition to socialism. In contrast to the pessimistic interpretations which dominate the literature, we argue that the present psychological and cultural states of individuals within capitalism can engender socialist change. (shrink)

This article draws on theoretical resources from economic sociology and sociology of law to intervene in economic debates about the relationship between intellectual property and industrialization. Utilizing historical evidence from the earliest period of American intellectual property law and from a formative company in the New England textile industry, I propose a social process of influence that connects intellectual property law to industrialization. I argue that, consistent with the findings of New Economic Sociology, social relationship structures and social capital are (...) the proximate influential force in industrialization. However, I also argue that transformative changes in those social relationship structures are rooted in the emergence of a particular type of political culture: what I call here, borrowing from Hannah Arendt and Frank Dobbin, a “Natal-Industrial Culture.” A Natal-Industrial Culture, as I propose it here, is a political culture in which collective hopes for the future are placed in new technologies and new cultural products, as means for achieving economic growth. Intellectual property law contributed to the emergence of this new type of political culture by holding out the promise of property, as a reward for the provision of new technologies or new cultural products. Because of the way that hope works on motivation—through cognitive pre-rehearsals of future attainment, which involve semantically-meaningful propositions and contribute to positive emotional experience—the promise of property provided a powerful stimulant to social capital formation. Working through the semantic resonances of property, intellectual property law contributed to a political culture in which invention and creativity were expected to secure a future of growth within the political community, both for particular members and for the political community, as a whole. By fostering a Natal-Industrial Culture, intellectual property law contributed to systematic invention and social capital-formation, leading, in turn, to the transformative changes in working and material provisioning that constitute industrialization. (shrink)

Just as Michael Porter's five forces provided a practical analytical tool for describing the forces that shape competitive strategy, so business ethicists ought to provide business leaders with a workable framework for understanding the sources of ethical obligations. The forces that shape competitive strategy vary according to time and industry, but are anchored in an ultimate criteria of profitability. Similarily, ethics can use a set of analytical categories that identify the relevant forces to business ethics on the basis of relationality.This (...) paper first argues that relationality based on naturalism is the primary, plausible value for ethics. Second, it adapts a tripartite dialectic from scholars William Frederick and Michael Novak to describe the relational categories with which business must contend. Third, it uses these forces in a way similar to Porter's competitive forces to offer an analytical language familiar to managers in order to characterize business ethics. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe health‐care reform promised by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of March 2010 continues our dependence on a central feature of the American health‐care system: employer‐sponsored insurance . In this article I will criticize the assumptions regarding market and welfare concerns on which this dependence is based and argue that efforts to mandate ESI ignore both the dynamics of the employment relation and the nature of health‐care needs. A comparison between investing in employee education and investing in employee (...) health will reveal the pragmatic challenges to ESI and the covert appeal to employer beneficence on which ESI rests. This paper argues that relying on ESI to guarantee appropriate care for a significant segment of the population is undesirable and unsustainable from both market and moral perspectives. (shrink)

This article takes a new idea, ‘normative behaviourism’, and applies it to global political theory, in order to address at least one of the problems we might have in mind when accusing that subject of being too ‘unrealistic’. The core of this idea is that political principles can be justified, not just by patterns in our thinking, and in particular our intuitions and considered judgements, but also by patterns in our behaviour, and in particular acts of insurrection and crime. The (...) problem addressed is ‘cultural relativism’, understood here not as a meta-ethical doctrine, but as the apparent ‘fact’ that people around the world have culturally varying intuitions and judgements of a kind that lead them to affirm different political principles. This is a problem because it seems to follow (1) that global agreement on any substantial set of political principles is impossible, and (2) that any political theory in denial of this ‘fact’ would be, for that reason, deeply unrealistic. The solution argued for here is that, if domestic political principles (i.e. principles intended to regulate a single state) could be justified by normative behaviourism, and in reference to culturally invariant behaviour, then an international system supportive of such principles is justifiable by extension. (shrink)

This article makes four claims. First, that the analytic/Continental split in political theory stems from an unarticulated disagreement about human nature, with analytics believing we have an innate set of mostly compatible moral and political inclinations, and Continentals seeing such things as alterable products of historical contingency. Second, that we would do better to talk of Continental-political-theory versus Rawlsian-political-philosophy, given that the former avoids arguments over principles, whilst the latter leaves genuine analytic philosophy behind. Third, that Continentals suffer from a (...) lack of such arguments, even by their own lights, whilst Rawlsians suffer from inconsistencies within the thought-patterns on which their principles depend. Fourth, that there is an alternative method – ‘normative behaviourism’ – that at least tries to move beyond the problems of both approaches, whilst sharing an idea of ‘praxis’ with the first, and an idea of deriving-principles-from-existing-judgements with the second. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore connections between two disciplines not typically linked: argumentation theory and urban design. I first trace historical ties between the art of reasoned discourse and the idea of civic virtue. I next analyze discourse norms implicit in three theories of urban design: Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977), and Peter Katz's The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community (1994). I then propose (...) a set of ‘settlement’ issues of potential interest to both urban designers and argumentation theorists: size, density, heterogeneity, publicity, security, and identity. I conclude by suggesting that the ‘good city’ be seen as both a spatial and a discursive entity. From such a perspective, good public discourse is dependent, at least in part, on good public space; and good public space is defined, at least in part, as a context conducive to good public discourse. (shrink)

Rights might be regarded as an objectionable and even a dangerous feature of moral, political, and legal arrangements. It is an element of all types of rights that Able's having right X entails requirements or prohibitions for Baker. These restrictions hold against Baker at Able's discretion, that is unless Able excuses Baker from respecting them. Nor are the restrictions merely decorative. We must presume that they are established because of the expectation that Baker would otherwise be disposed to interfere with (...) the action Ms. Able's right warrants her in taking. Thus as writers as early as Spinoza have stressed, rights are powers – one might even say weapons – that Able may use against Baker. Of course, as a practical matter these “weapons” are frequently ineffective. Ms. Baker may willfully ignore her obligations and prevent Ms. Able from enjoying her entitlements. But such occurrences, as common and as unfortunate as they are, do not materially ease the task of justifying rights. It is only insofar as rights are effective, and hence only insofar as anyone will have reason to defend them, that they are weapons in Able's hands. (shrink)

This article explores the values that should be promoted in civic education for democracy and also how the promotion of values can be non-coercive. It will be argued that civic education should promote the values of reasonableness, mutual respect and fairness, but also that only public, political reasons count in attempting to justify the content of civic education. It will also be argued that the content of civic education may legitimately be broader than this, including but not restricted to the (...) values of autonomy, integrity, magnanimity, truthfulness and generosity. At the same time, if civic education is seen merely as a means to shape and form future citizens, then the promotion of values in civic education will be a coercive imposition on children and young people. If the promotion of values instead is to be non-coercive it must be defended with reasons that children and young people should be able to accept. (shrink)

Contemporary approaches to the study of suicide tend to examine suicide as a medical or public health problem rather than a moral problem, avoiding the kinds of judgements that have historically characterised discussions of the phenomenon. But morality entails more than judgement about action or behaviour, and our understanding of suicide can be enhanced by attending to its cultural, social, and linguistic connotations. In this work, I offer a theoretical reconstruction of suicide as a form of moral experience that delineates (...) five distinct, yet interrelated domains of understanding: the temporal, the relational, the existential, the ontological, and the linguistic. Attention to each of these domains, I argue, not only enriches our understanding of the moral realm but also provides a heuristic for examining the moral traditions and practices that constitute contemporary understandings of suicide. (shrink)

Kevin T. Fitzgerald, S.J.; Knowledge Without Wisdom: Human Genetic Engineering Without Religious Insight, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical.

It has been common for researchers and commentators within the discipline of Social and Public Policy to evoke Rawlsian theories of justice. Yet some now argue that the contractualist tradition cannot adequately incorporate, or account for, relations of care, respect and interdependency. Though contractualism has its flaws this article proposes that we should not reject it. Through a critique of one of its most esteemed critics, Martha Nussbaum, it proposes that contractualism can be defended against the capabilities approach she prefers. (...) The article concludes by suggesting how and why the moral philosophy of Thomas Scanlon offers a basis for reconciling the strengths of a contractualist, egalitarian liberalism with those of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach. (shrink)

This article brings interconnects three debates to show what this might imply for the ‘redemocratisation’ of UK society and for pedagogical reform. One debate concerns deliberative types of democratic reform, arguing in favour of a ‘creative agnosticism’ towards the two philosophical frameworks which dominate this literature. This leads into a discussion of education and critical rationality, arguing for an aptitude-based account of moral agency, one which relates to the sociocultural resources we inherit from the past. The final debate therefore concerns (...) social memory. I do not offer a theory of social memory but critique various commentators in arguing for what I call a ‘multipolar analysis’. This both describes the analytical method adopted in this article and the skills and capacities which a system based upon ‘education for discourse’ would need to facilitate. The article therefore proposes that democracy, education and memory—deliberativeness, critical rationality and social remembering—be brought closer together for the mutual benefit of each debate. (shrink)

Robert Kane’s libertarian theory of freedom is frequently attacked in the free will literature by the “luck objection”. Alfred Mele’s articulation of the objection is a very influential formulation as it captures the spirit of Kane’s critics and their complaint with Kane’s view. Mele argues that without a contrastive explanation that highlights aspects of the agent their free choices are reducible to luck. I argue that the lack of a contrastive explanation does not establish that there is no explanation for (...) self-forming actions. Building on the explanation that Kane offers in his rebuttal, I claim that there are neglected dimensions to Kane’s view that, when put together, mitigate the force of the objection. These elements are value experiments, teleological intelligibility and liberum arbitrium voluntatis. I claim that through adopting a narrative view of the self, we can place value experiments in a broader teleological framework that allows us to see self-forming choices are not just a matter of luck. (shrink)

Robert Kane’s libertarian theory of freedom is frequently attacked in the free will literature by the “luck objection”. Alfred Mele’s articulation of the objection is a very influential formulation as it captures the spirit of Kane’s critics and their complaint with Kane’s view. Mele argues that without a contrastive explanation that highlights aspects of the agent their free choices are reducible to luck. I argue that the lack of a contrastive explanation does not establish that there is no explanation for (...) self-forming actions. Building on the explanation that Kane offers in his rebuttal, I claim that there are neglected dimensions to Kane’s view that, when put together, mitigate the force of the objection. These elements are value experiments, teleological intelligibility and liberium arbitrium voluntatis. I claim that through adopting a narrative view of the self, we can place value experiments in a broader teleological framework that allows us to see self-forming choices are not just a matter of luck. (shrink)

This paper seeks to establish whether the categories of MacIntyrean virtue ethics as applied to business organizations are meaningful in a non-western business context. It does so by building on research reported in Moore : 363–387, 2012) in which the application of virtue ethics to business organizations was investigated empirically in the UK, based on a conceptual framework drawn from MacIntyre’s work. Comparing these results with an equivalent study in Sri Lanka, the paper finds that the categories are meaningful but (...) that there are both similarities to and considerable differences in the content of these categories from the UK study. The paper draws on aspects of institutional theory to explore and explain these findings. Overall, there is supportive evidence that the categories of MacIntyrean virtue ethics are generalizable, and so can be used to characterize problems of organizational virtue and vice around the world, while providing evidence that there may be polities which are more conducive to the ‘practice-like conduct of production’ : 77–91, 2008). (shrink)

There is a growing body of scholarship on the ethics of autonomous vehicles. Yet the ethical discourse has mostly been focusing on the behavior of the vehicle in accident scenarios. This paper offers a different ethical prism: the implications of the autonomous vehicle for human well-being. As such, it contributes to the growing discourse on the wider societal and moral implications of the autonomous vehicle. The paper is premised on the neo-Aristotelian approach which holds that as human beings, our well-being (...) depends on developing and exercising our innate human capacities: to know, understand, love, be sociable, imagine, create and use our bodies and use our willpower. To develop and exercise these capacities, our environments need to provide a range of opportunities which will trigger the development and exercise of the capacities. The main argument advanced in the paper is that one plausible future of the autonomous vehicle—a future of single-rider autonomous vehicles—may effectively reduce the opportunities to develop and exercise our capacities to know, be sociable and use our willpower. It will therefore be bad for human well-being, and this provides us with a moral reason to resist this plausible future and search for alternative ones. (shrink)

The central irony of the Reformation—the effort to deepen religious experience resulted in a secular and exaggerated egoism—is the origin of the modern attitude towards the past. The purpose of this article is to understand this attitude in historical and sociological contexts, and to develop a concep tual framework that points beyond it. I will begin with a review of Christian social and economic ethics, focusing on the change in moral commitments following the Reformation. This will include a discussion of (...) the rise of the secular individual during the Enlightenment and his/her development into the ruthless competitor characteristic of the nineteenth century, finally culminating in what Philip Rieff has called the 'cultureless' society of the twentieth century.1 The relation between the breakdown of culture in Western society and totalitarianism is considered in this context. Finally, a discussion of the role of culture and tradition in society is presented to suggest ways to re-establish an enduring moral order. (shrink)

Based upon a brief outline of existential-phenomenological ontology we present a theoretical and practical understanding of humanbeing, which is suited for a methodologically reflected approach to qualitative research. We present the phenomenological distinction between threedimensions of corporeal intentionality(structural, generative and dialectic intentionality) that form elementary events and structures of meaning. Various aspects of human being are better scrutinized with these concepts of intentionality, such as the association of individual being or collective being (e.g. groups) with the less differentiated anonymity of (...) human being. The aim of our framework is to support the qualitative researcher in grasping the experience of the human life in closer accord with how this being actually unfolds and is lived. Application of the presented framework is illuminated with empirical examples from educational, health and psychological contexts. Finally, we discuss the methodological implications that our approach has for qualitative investigations of human being. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAmateur and professional sportspersons, Bernard Suits proposed, are differentiated by their attitude towards their sport. For the amateur, competition is a game done for its own sake, while...

In the Groundwork, Kant seems to make two paradoxical claims about the source of human dignity. First, he claims that if “rational nature exists as an end in itself” (Kant, 1998, p. 36), it is because “humanity is… dignity, insofar it is capable of morality” (Kant, 1998, p. 42). Second, he claims that although “autonomy is the ground of the dignity of human nature and of every rational nature” (Kant, 1998, p. 43), the human being can only have “dignity… insofar (...) he fulfils all his duties” (Kant, 1998, p. 46). This paper argues that neither claim is repugnant because Kant seeks to advance two kinds of dignity. Kant intends to elucidate that the human being possesses a basic ‘entitled dignity’ in virtue of his capacity for morality, but that he needs to become a moral being in order for him to realise his ‘true dignity’. This paper claims that the formal condition under which a person can be worthy of respect is identical with the condition of realising his ‘true dignity’. (shrink)

The Phenomenal Self (PS) is widely considered to be dependent on body representations, whereas the Narrative Self (NS) is generally thought to rely on abstract cognitive representations. The concept of the Bodily Social Self (BSS) might play an important role in explaining how the high level cognitive self-representations enabling the NS might emerge from the bodily basis of the PS. First, the phenomenal self (PS) and narrative self (NS), are briefly examined. Next, the BSS is defined and its potential for (...) explaining aspects of social cognition is explored. The minimal requirements for a BSS are considered, before reviewing empirical evidence regarding the development of the BSS over the first year of life. Finally, evidence on the involvement of the body in social distinctions between self and other is reviewed to illustrate how the BSS is affected by both the bottom up effects of multisensory stimulation and the top down effects of social identification. (shrink)

Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics stand to change many aspects of our lives, including our values. If trends continue as expected, many industries will undergo automation in the near future, calling into question whether we can still value the sense of identity and security our occupations once provided us with. Likewise, the advent of social robots driven by AI, appears to be shifting the meaning of numerous, long-standing values associated with interpersonal relationships, like friendship. Furthermore, powerful actors’ and institutions’ (...) increasing reliance on AI to make decisions that may affect how people live their lives may have a significant impact on privacy while also raising issues about algorithmic transparency and human control. In this paper, building and expanding on previous works, we will look at how the deployment of Artificial Intelligence technology may lead to changes in identity, security, and other crucial values. We will discuss what challenges we may face in the process, while critically reflecting on whether such changes may be desirable. Finally, drawing on a series of considerations underlying virtue ethics, we will formulate a set of preliminary suggestions, which—we hope—can be used to more carefully guide the future roll out of AI technologies for human flourishing; that is, for social and moral good. (shrink)

The paper identifies in the literature two categories of codes of ethics, inspirational and prescriptive, and introduces new classification categories of allodial and decretal. The first classification is based on the identity of the ethics decision‐maker – the authors or the addressees of codes. The second classification is based on whether operational definitions are applied by the codes. Such concrete definitions may be in the rules themselves, in related documents or be known from shared knowledge. The second classification has importance (...) if national associations of accountants use codes as a means for assurance of specific outcomes of defined ethical behaviours. For the study, a survey of 57 codes of ethics issued by national associations of professional accountants was undertaken to determine the basic features of codes and to analyse their content. The areas of ethical concern in national associations were identified and compared to the IFAC model code for professional accountants. The paper reports that national organisations of accountants have promulgated decretal codes in 96% of cases examined. As these codes contain operational definitions, their outcomes can be scientifically measured and sanctions for breaches fairly and reasonably imposed. (shrink)

Critical thinking is a complex, dynamic process formed by attitudes and strategic skills, with the aim of achieving a specific goal or objective. The attitudes, including the critical thinking attitudes, constitute an important part of the idea of good care, of the good professional. It could be said that they become a virtue of the nursing profession. In this context, the ethics of virtue is a theoretical framework that becomes essential for analyse the critical thinking concept in nursing care and (...) nursing science. Because the ethics of virtue consider how cultivating virtues are necessary to understand and justify the decisions and guide the actions. Based on selective analysis of the descriptive and empirical literature that addresses conceptual review of critical thinking, we conducted an analysis of this topic in the settings of clinical practice, training and research from the virtue ethical framework. Following JBI critical appraisal checklist for text and opinion papers, we argue the need for critical thinking as an essential element for true excellence in care and that it should be encouraged among professionals. The importance of developing critical thinking skills in education is well substantiated; however, greater efforts are required to implement educational strategies directed at developing critical thinking in students and professionals undergoing training, along with measures that demonstrate their success. Lastly, we show that critical thinking constitutes a fundamental component in the research process, and can improve research competencies in nursing. We conclude that future research and actions must go further in the search for new evidence and open new horizons, to ensure a positive effect on clinical practice, patient health, student education and the growth of nursing science. (shrink)

Are professional roles bound by the norms of ordinary morality? This article begins with a discussion of two existing models that give contrary answers to this question; the practice model detaches professional ethics from ordinary morality, while the translation model denies any real divergence. It is argued that neither model can give a satisfying account of how professional roles ground distinct claims that are morally authoritative. The promise model is articulated and defended, wherein the obligations of professional roles are grounded (...) in an act of self-binding by the profession; the public is the promisee, and thereby entitled to make role-dependent claims. This model retains a connection to ordinary morality, but does not reduce role authority to individual conscience. Legitimate promises bind the role holder even in the face of moral disagreement. (shrink)

This article explores the socio-ethical concerns raised by the familial searching of forensic databases in criminal investigations, from the perspective of family and kinship studies. It discusses the broader implications of this expanded understanding for wider debates about identity, privacy and genetic databases.

This article develops a eudaimonistic account of professional virtue. Using the case of teaching, the article argues that professional virtue requires that role holders care about the ends of their work. Care is understood in terms of an investment of the self. Virtuous role holders are invested in their practice in a way that makes professional excellence part of their own good. Failure to care about the ends of professional practice reveals a lack of appreciation of the value of professional (...) work. This ‘investment view’ is contrasted with the currently popular ‘key goods view’, which claims that professional virtues require a profession-specific teleological structure. Unlike ordinary virtues, which are governed by eudaimonia or human flourishing, professional virtues are allegedly derived from professional ends, like health or education. The article argues that this delivers an unconvincing criterion for determining the merits of character traits. (shrink)

Given the current concern in the Soviet Union and East Europe to emancipate public education from its Stalinist past, it is understandable that educators have called for the “humanizing” of education. Yet “humanization” is a none too clear idea and must be approached, I propose, through its opposite: dehumanization. Dehumanization, itself, can be understood as the denial of the dignity of the individual — a cardinal principle of the philosophies that comprise classical and contemporary liberal theory. This principle of the (...) dignity of the individual in turn implies duties for the liberal democratic state to treat all citizens with equal respect as ends in themselves and equally as choosers of ends, as being, at least in principle, capable of choosing and acting on the ultimate ends in their own lives and as potential “sayers of great words and doers of great deeds” in the common public enterprise.Now in claiming that the principle of the dignity of the individual is central to an understanding of a just and humane society, we do not thereby commit ourselves to those doctrines long associated with liberalism, viz., ontological and moral individualism. The form of political, or united-reformed, liberalism argued for in this paper is clearly compatible with strong forms of community, even authoritarian types of community insofar as they do not transgress the principle of the dignity of the individual as regards informed choice. As decidedly non-perfectionist and agnostic about ultimate goods, this form of political liberalism is neither individualistic nor communitarian, neither capitalist nor socialist.This rendering of the liberal democratic state sets the requirements for a deep and thorough political education that goes well beyond any familiar example today. In seeking to develop, to “humanize” individuals for a world of thought and action in the common public enterprise, political education — the premier form of education — in a liberal democratic state seeks to develop individuals who are theoretically informed and practically wise — thus the emphasis on the development of rationality in all of its forms. Moreover, despite the formal agnosticism of the state concerning ultimate human ends, a political education requires deep student exposure to and critical assessment of religion, possible ways of life, and those views of the human good that humans throughout history have found worthy of pursuit. And this even if it means that students will come to reject the principle of the dignity of the individual. (shrink)

Given the current concern in the Soviet Union and East Europe to emancipate public education from its Stalinist past, it is understandable that educators have called for the “humanizing” of education. Yet “humanization” is a none too clear idea and must be approached, I propose, through its opposite: dehumanization. Dehumanization, itself, can be understood as the denial of the dignity of the individual — a cardinal principle of the philosophies that comprise classical and contemporary liberal theory. This principle of the (...) dignity of the individual in turn implies duties for the liberal democratic state to treat all citizens (and for all citizens to treat each other) with equal respect as ends in themselves and equally as choosers of ends, as being, at least in principle, capable of choosing and acting on the ultimate ends in their own lives and as potential “sayers of great words and doers of great deeds” in the common public enterprise. Now in claiming that the principle of the dignity of the individual is central to an understanding of a just and humane society, we do not thereby commit ourselves to those doctrines long associated with liberalism, viz., ontological and moral individualism. The form of political, or united-reformed, liberalism argued for in this paper is clearly compatible with strong forms of community, even authoritarian types of community insofar as they do not transgress the principle of the dignity of the individual as regards informed choice. As decidedly non-perfectionist and agnostic about ultimate goods (tempered by the ban on all public forms of dehumanizing behavior and treatment), this form of political liberalism is neither individualistic nor communitarian, neither capitalist nor socialist (though the state is not indifferent to their fortunes). This rendering of the liberal democratic state sets the requirements for a deep and thorough political education that goes well beyond any familiar example today. In seeking to develop, to “humanize” individuals for a world of thought and action in the common public enterprise, political education — the premier form of education — in a liberal democratic state seeks to develop individuals who are theoretically informed and practically wise — thus the emphasis on the development of rationality in all of its forms. Moreover, despite the formal agnosticism of the state concerning ultimate human ends, a political education requires deep student exposure to and critical assessment of religion, possible ways of life, and those views of the human good that humans throughout history have found worthy of pursuit. And this even if it means that students will come to reject the principle of the dignity of the individual. (shrink)

A prominent trend in moral philosophy today is the interest in the rich textures of actual human practices and lives. This has prompted engagements with other disciplines, such as anthropology, history, literature, law and empirical science, which have produced various forms of contextual ethics. These engagements motivate reflections on why and how context is important ethically, and such metaethical reflection is what this article undertakes. Inspired by the work of the later Wittgenstein and the Danish theologian K.E. Løgstrup, I first (...) describe one of the ways in which context plays a central role with regard to ethical meaning and normativity. I then examine how ‘context’ is to be defined, and finally I discuss some of the questions which arise when giving context prominence in ethics – namely, how to delimit the scope of relevant context, the relevant traits of a particular context and what ‘the ethical’ is. (shrink)

The challenge in maintaining patient autonomy regarding medical decision-making and confidentiality lies not only in control over information transferred to and regarding patients, but in the ambiguity of autonomy itself. post-modernity is characterized by the recognition of not just numerous accounts of autonomy, but by the inability in a principled fashion to select one as canonical. Autonomy is understood as a good, a right-making condition, and an element of human flourishing. In each case, it can have a different content, depending (...) in part on whether it is given a nomological or a volitional construal. Different accounts of autonomy can lead to strikingly different understandings of appropriate behavior, including the argument that one ought on behalf of autonomy to liberate individuals from the sense of autonomy they themselves affirm. In the face of competing accounts of moral probity, autonomy in a secular morality and bioethics must by default be understood in terms of the permission of patients, which makes space for numerous moral accounts and different communal construals of free choice, which in turn will legitimate different practices of informing patients and maintaining confidentiality. (shrink)

H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.; Can Philosophy Save Christianity? Are the Roots of the Foundations of Christian Bioethics Ecumenical? Reflections on the Nature of.

Individuals care deeply about with whom they associate and on what terms. A liberty to avoid entanglement in the disfavored designs of others is counterposed by an entitlement not to be excluded from valued modes of activity. These interests generate not one but two freedoms of association, the former negative and the latter positive. Often they conflict. This essay begins by setting out several respects in which negative free association is crucial to a liberal order and then examines several pleas (...) for positive association, at least one of which is judged to be compelling. Because the two freedoms of association are in conspicuous tension, the essay concludes with strategies for reconciling their competing claims. (shrink)