AbstractOver the past 20 years, there has been considerable expansion, particularly spirituality theory in the workplace. Simultaneously, there has been a growth of research, most especially in practitioner publication into generational differences. The study's context is human resource (HR) policy and procedures in the workplace. Through this prism, generational perspectives and religious theory are compared and scrutinised within the United Kingdom. Two major religious groups (Muslim and Christian) and three-generational categories (Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers) were selected to explore (...) different attitudes, with participants identifying as belonging to religious groups outside of these two major religions, categorised as 'Other.' This study adopts a quantitative approach, with questionnaires gathering employees' perceptions of spirituality policy within their place of work. Although the study found differences in expectations between the religious groups and between the three generations, there is greater homogeneity than a difference in that the results provide limited support for workplace spirituality. Indeed, the study raises more questions than answers. The study uncovered areas ripe for informed debate around personal values, generations, and spirituality in the workplace. This is a relatively new research area, and our findings are in line with others that suggest that employee spiritual well-being is both underresearched and underexplored by organisations. Changing the current intransigence around the place of spirituality is overdue. (shrink)

This book brings together a range of international studies to support the implementation of cooperative group work in the classroom. In spite of extensive research into the benefits of this approach, in many countries, it is not widely used, largely due to a lack of understanding of how to put this into practice in the classroom. Starting from an exploration of the theoretical perspectives that underpin this pedagogy, the challenges for including pupils with special educational needs and related status issues (...) of pupils are explored. Amongst the themes explored are how creative approaches, such as Storyline, support engagement particularly for second language learning; how working with young children using cooperative group work can develop writing skills; and how teachers can work together in an effective, collaborative, and sustained manner in a professional learning community. The final chapter provides a vivid example of one teacher’s personal journal to develop her understanding of the power of cooperation in creating bridges to meaningful learning for all learners. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Education 3-13. _. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Anime: From Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese AnimationJoseph MurphyAnime: From Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. By Susan Napier. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2001. Pp. vii + 320.Certain progressions can be marked from Antonia Levi's Samurai from Outer Space in 1996 to Susan Napier's Anime: From Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation in 2001. While both survey (...) the phenomenon of Japanese animation as consumed in North America, the palpable underdog subcultural context and sense of mission in Levi's earlier work has given way to a confident mainstream appreciation in Napier's, with the term "Japanese animation" replaced in English by the naturalized anime (a-ni-mé, pl. anime). In a fast-moving media phenomenon both were dated as soon as they were published; however, bolstered by the worldwide critical and financial success of Miyazaki Hayao's work, and contemporary with the exposure to youth by the rise of 24/7 cartoon networks and the runaway success of the card game-anime nexus, Napier's Anime finds itself still in the right historical moment. Though the book has limitations in terms of both its own systematicity and its treatment of potentially interesting philosophical themes in anime, it is a reliable and sometimes inspired guide to a new phenomenon that forms an increasingly important default in the background your students bring.Napier is concerned not so much with accounting for the visual and perceptual properties of anime as with its narrative qualities: "Japanese animation merits serious consideration as a narrative art form and not simply for its arresting visual style.... Much of this book will be an investigation into the themes, imagery, and ideas of some of the most memorable anime created over the last two decades" (p. 10). The strengths and weaknesses of this book are nicely summed up here. Concentrating on narrative—a formal property of storytelling transposable across media—allows a broad and well-chosen survey of themes, images, and ideas. However, there is some question as to whether this will allow the reader to satisfy the ambition to "understand what makes anime the distinctive art form it is" (p. 10).The book is comprised of twelve chapters in four parts. Part 1 is an introduction that argues for the importance of anime and sketches a quasi-Aristotelian method as the basis for Napier's taxonomy. Parts 2-4 cover major thematic divisions that characterize the particular obsessions, power, and drama of anime, and these are particularly well-chosen to reflect not just the relatively palatable work deemed suitable for TV or subtitled for video distribution in the United States but also the anarchic diversity of the phenomenon as it circulates in Japan. Part 2 is on the essential theme of the changeable body and includes discussion of the monstrous adolescent body, pornographic anime, and the cybernetic body, and will allow you to catch up with classic anime like Akira (1988), Ranma 1/2 (TV version, 1990s), and Ghost in the Shell (theater version, 1996). Part 3 is on fantasy and romance as genres and the unusual [End Page 493] space in anime for female leads, and includes discussion of Miyazaki's pastoral work and the comedy TV series Urusei Yatsura (1980s), Oh My Goddess (1980s), and Video Girl Ai (1990s). Part 4 discusses anime that have sought to make a self-conscious contribution to historical debate, including Barefoot Gen (1983) and Grave of the Fireflies (1988), on the bombing of Japanese cities in World War II, and Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke (1997), which presents a multicultural picture of Japan's past produced in consultation with Japan's leading ethnologists. Discussions are balanced and entertaining, introducing the major auteurs of the last twenty years (Oshii Mamoru, Otomo Katsuhiro, Takahashi Rumiko, etc.) and creating the sharp impression that the genre of anime is not the same as the American concept of "cartoons."Though the anime phenomenon raises interesting sociocultural and critical questions about narrative and image culture, it is not immediately certain that there is a philosophical issue to anime. One might seek this philosophical content within the medium itself or in a systematic quality... (shrink)

Passionate fans of anime and manga, known in Japan as _otaku_ and active around the world, play a significant role in the creation and interpretation of this pervasive popular culture. Routinely appropriating and remixing favorite characters, narratives, imagery, and settings, _otaku_ take control of the anime characters they consume. _Fanthropologies_-the fifth volume in the _Mechademia_ series, an annual forum devoted to Japanese anime and manga-focuses on fans, fan activities, and the _otaku_ phenomenon. The zones of activity discussed in these essays (...) range from fan-subs (fan-subtitled versions of anime and manga) and copyright issues to gender and nationality in fandom, dolls, and other forms of consumption that fandom offers. Individual pieces include a remarkable photo essay on the emerging art of cosplay photography; an original manga about an obsessive doll-fan; and a tour of Akihabara, Tokyo's discount electronics shopping district, by a scholar disguised as a fuzzy animal. Contributors: Madeline Ashby; Jodie Beck, McGill U; Christopher Bolton, Williams College; Naitô Chizuko, Otsuma U; Ian Condry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Martha Cornog; Kathryn Dunlap, U of Central Florida; Ôtsuka Eiji, Kobe Design U; Gerald Figal, Vanderbilt U; Patrick W. Galbraith, U of Tokyo; Marc Hairston, U of Texas at Dallas; Marilyn Ivy, Columbia U; Koichi Iwabuchi, Waseda U; Paul Jackson; Amamiya Karin; Fan-Yi Lam; Thomas Lamarre, McGill U; Paul M. Malone, U of Waterloo; Anne McKnight, U of Southern California; Livia Monnet, U of Montreal; Susan Napier, Tufts U; Kerin Ogg; Timothy Perper; Eron Rauch; Brian Ruh, Indiana U; Nathan Shockey, Columbia U; Marc Steinberg, Concordia U; Jin C. Tomshine, U of California, San Francisco; Carissa Wolf, North Dakota State U. (shrink)

Bioethics is a field of inquiry and as such is fundamentally an epistemic discipline. Knowing how we make moral judgments can bring into relief why certain arguments on various bioethical issues appear plausible to one side and obviously false to the other. Uncertain Bioethicsmakes a significant and distinctive contribution to the bioethics literature by culling the insights from contemporary moral psychology to highlight the epistemic pitfalls and distorting influences on our apprehension of value. Stephen Napier also incorporates research from (...) epistemology addressing pragmatic encroachment and the significance of peer disagreement to justify what he refers to as epistemic diffidence when one is considering harming or killing human beings. Napier extends these developments to the traditional bioethical notion of dignity and argues that beliefs subject to epistemic diffidence should not be acted upon. He proceeds to apply this framework to traditional and developing issues in bioethics including abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia, decision-making for patients in a minimally conscious state, and risky research on competent human subjects. to traditional and developing issues in bioethics including abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia, decision-making for patients in a minimally conscious state, and risky research on competent human subjects. (shrink)

In this fascinating and inventive work, A. David Napier argues that the central assumption of immunology—that we survive through the recognition and elimination of non-self—has become a defining concept of the modern age. Tracing this immunological understanding of self and other through an incredibly diverse array of venues, from medical research to legal and military strategies and the electronic revolution, Napier shows how this defensive way of looking at the world not only destroys diversity but also eliminates the (...) possibility of truly engaging difference, thereby impoverishing our culture and foreclosing tremendous opportunities for personal growth. To illustrate these destructive consequences, Napier likens the current craze for embracing diversity and the use of politically correct speech to a cultural potluck to which we each bring different dishes, but at which no one can eat unless they abide by the same rules. Similarly, loaning money to developing nations serves as a tool both to make the peoples in those nations more like us and to maintain them in the nonthreatening status of distant dependents. To break free of the resulting downward spiral of homogenization and self-focus, Napier suggests that we instead adopt a new defining concept based on embryology, in which development and self-growth take place through a process of incorporation and transformation. In this effort he suggests that we have much to learn from non-Western peoples, such as the Balinese, whose ritual practices require them to take on the considerable risk of injecting into their selves the potential dangers of otherness—and in so doing ultimately strengthen themselves as well as their society. _The Age of Immunology,_ with its combination of philosophy, history, and cultural inquiry, will be seen as a manifesto for a new age and a new way of thinking about the world and our place in it. (shrink)

Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland (2023) argue that controlled donation after cardiac death (cDCD) protocols prescribe the extraction of organs that do not violate the dead donor rule. I argue here that e...

A common justification for abortion rights is that the death of the fetus does not violate any of the fetus’s time-relative interests. The time-relative interest account (TRIA) of harm and wrongdoing tells us that a necessary condition for harming someone is that his or her time-relative interests are frustrated. Regarding the justification for abortion, this account falls prey to impairment arguments. Impairment arguments entertain cases of prenatal injury, such as the mother using illicit drugs that disable the child. The intuition (...) is that the child who is born with such disabilities is harmed by the mother’s drug use. But it is unclear what time-relative interest is violated in cases of prenatal harm. Typical responses to impairment arguments point out that the abortion case is different because the child does not exist to experience such harms; but in prenatal injury + survival cases, the child does live to experience those harms. Thus, the TRIA justification for abortion is not impugned by impairment counter-examples. This article argues that this response to impairment arguments is viciously circular. The response must say that so long as you kill the child, no harm is done. But this assumes that killing itself is morally inconsequential and is not itself a case of harm. The response to impairment arguments, then, assumes the permissibility of abortion. (shrink)

Three hundred years before Christianity became a religion, Jesus taught the Way. His earliest followers identified as philosophers--adherents to the philosophy of Jesus. In this book, Daniel Austin Napier guides us to directly experience Jesus' unparalleled genius for renovating human life. A good tour guide, Napier gestures toward and describes other figures on the periphery--such as Socrates, Aristotle, and the Stoics--to whom Jesus may be fruitfully compared. But Jesus and his account of lasting personal change is the singular (...) point of focus from beginning to end. With cross-disciplinary knowledge and gentle personal warmth, Napier presents a portrait of Jesus that you've never seen before but that you've been looking for. Perhaps you wonder: What's a soul and what's it good for? How could you locate it in everyday experience? Just how smart is Jesus? What did he say that changed his students so drastically? What are the essential ingredients of lasting personal change? What's it like to co-work with God, and how can you recognize when it's happening? What's so different, and so good, about the God whom Jesus calls Father? You will find lucid answers to all these questions and many more inside. You're invited. Come explore Jesus' philosophy of personal transformation. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophical discussion on human embryonic stem cell research has focused primarily on the metaphysical and meta-ethical issues suchresearch raises. Though these discussions are interesting, largely ignored are arguments rooted in the secular research ethics tradition already informing humansubject research. This tradition countenances the notion of vulnerability and that vulnerable human subjects (of which human embryos are likely members)ought to be protected from research-related harms. This is the basic idea behind the argument from vulnerability, and it enjoys prima facie plausibility. (...) This articlepresents the vulnerability argument and then focuses critically on several lines of attack including: (1) twinning and totipotency arguments, (2) embryo-rescuearguments, and (3) natural loss arguments. The article concludes that there is no good defeater for the vulnerability argument, and, therefore, we have undefeated reasons for protecting human embryos from research related harms. (shrink)

In light of the publication of Brook Ziporyn’s monograph, Experiments in Mystical Atheism, the present article attempts a philosophical comparison of two key “mystical atheists”: the Chinese neo-Daoist Guo Xiang 郭象 (252–312) and the early modern Dutch philosopher Benedict de Spinoza (1632–1677). Specifically, it argues that Guo and Spinoza both display a core commitment to radical ontological immanence – the idea that reality is an absolute, self-producing system unaffected by transcendent powers or principles. By drawing out the consequences of this (...) commitment through the interlinked fields of epistemology, ethics and soteriology, it aspires to provide a highly compressed comparative analysis of two culturally and historically remote, yet deeply philosophically resonant, critiques of theistic transcendence. By thus revealing the extent of the structural – and spiritual – parallels between two philosophers, born more than a millennium apart on opposite ends of the Eurasian landmass, it hopes to contribute to the ongoing inductive justification of Ziporyn’s overall hermeneutic project, centered on the speculative identification of a cross-cultural tradition of “mystical atheism”. Such an interpretative undertaking has profound implications for ongoing debates on the character of religion in the modern world. (shrink)

The role of transcendence in early Chinese thought has long been the subject of debate among comparative philosophers and sinologists. This article attempts to contribute to the debate by bringing the concept of transcendence into dialogue with the "Sandai gaizhi zhiwen" 三代改制質文 (Three dynasties' alternating regulations of simplicity and refinement) chapter of the Chunqiu fanlu. By reading the chapter's historical cycles in the context of wider pre-Qin and Han understandings of the "Mandate of Heaven," it argues that they can best (...) be characterized as "ontologically ambiguous," thus, as optimally understandable via "non-contrastive" models of transcendence. From here, clues toward a more subtle and malleable comparative discourse can be found. (shrink)

Given the issues discussed and that the arguments in critical focus are fairly new, the collection provides a novel, comprehensive, and rigorous analysis of contemporary pro-choice arguments.”.

The respect for one’s conscience is rooted in a broader respect for the human person. The conscience represents a person’s ability to identify the values and goods that inform her moral identity. Ignoring or overriding a person’s conscience can lead to significant moral and emotional distress. Refusals to respect a person’s conscientious objection to cases of killing are a source of incisive distress, since judgments that it is impermissible to kill so-and-so are typically held very strongly and serve as central (...) moral commitments in one’s moral identity. I think it is wrong for a college basketball coach to pay his players, but I think it is really wrong to kill people. This article argues that any and all arguments for not respecting a conscientious objection to abortion commit a deontic fallacy. Briefly, arguments for the permissibility of abortion are structurally such that abortion is at best permissible, not obligatory. Now, arguments to justify overriding or ignoring a person’s objection to performing action (α) must understand action (α) as being obligatory. Thus, arguments for ignoring conscientious objections to performing abortion are incongruent with the actual philosophical justifications for abortion. Such arguments, then, commit a deontic fallacy. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 8, Page 60-61, August 2011.

Fifteen preservice teachers involved in a peer microteaching experience and twenty preservice teachers involved in a field experience were compared in a field setting on knowledge of teaching skills, confidence in performing certain teaching skills, attitude toward certain teaching skills, performance during student-teaching, and attitude toward preparatory coursework taken. The one significant difference found after the student-teaching experience was that the field experience group was rated better in performance than the peer microteaching group. The results tentatively support the conclusion that (...) a field experience component in the preparatory coursework prior to student-teaching is a more effective “self-contained” situation than peer microteaching for secondary level social studies preservice teachers. (shrink)

Twenty-five social studies preservice teachers enrolled in 2 field based method courses and twenty- one social studies preservice teachers enrolled in 2 non-field based method courses were compared on knowledge of teaching skills, attitude about behaviors teachers should exhibit in class, and attitude about how well they can perform certain teaching skills. Analysis of covariance tests indicated no significant differences between field and non-field based methods courses. Implications of results for alterations in the field based method course and future evaluation (...) procedures are discussed. (shrink)

The Citizenship Knowledge Test contained subtests which were designed to measure sub-areas of the overall construct of citizenship knowledge. Two factor analysis studies were conducted to determine if the test factored as predicted—one common factor with each subtest retaining a unique factor. The results Indicated that the test behaved as predicted. Thus the test was construct valid and can be used as a general measure of the construct citizenship knowledge.

Debates on moral enhancement focus legitimate attention on the questions of whether it is possible and/or what could count as a moral enhancement given deep ethical disagreement. I argue here that moral enhancements might not even be rational to consider—from the perspective of the agent. At issue is the assessment of whether the enhancement is truly reliable. Since we assess reliable belief forming processes by their outputs, whether they are true, an agent who is entertaining a putative moral enhancement faces (...) a trilemma. If she already believes the promised outputs of the enhancement, the enhancement is obsolete. If she does not believe the promised outputs, it would be irrational from her current perspective to undertake the “enhancement.” If she is uncertain, she has no reason for thinking that the enhancement truly augments her moral beliefs. On any option, the agent has no reason for taking a putative moral enhancement. (shrink)

The teacher task of stage scoring moral judgments was used for three purposes in experimental “Kohlbergian” programs. More recent curriculum materials have been somewhat ambiguous for which of the three purposes teachers needed to or could stage score moral thought statements. However, recent empirical research indicated that teachers could not adequately stage score moral judgments for any of the three purposes. The question arose, therefore, as to whether teachers could use “Kohlbergian” programs when they could not stage score moral judgments. (...) An analysis of Kohlberg's reinterpretation of research on moral development was made. This analysis provided logical justification for the suggestions made about ways to accomplish the three purposes outlined in experimental “Kohlbergian” programs without requiring teachers to stage score moral judgments. (shrink)

The author reviews one of the more intriguing articles in the stem cell research issue of the journal Metaphilosophy (April 2007), “Killing Embryos for Stem Cell Research,” by Jeff McMahan. He begins by recapitulating McMahan’s argument against the proposition that we are essentially individual human organisms. He then turns to two main critiques of the argument. First, he shows that the term “essentially” is insufficiently defined by McMahan and, more important, if we take the typical explication of the concept by (...) modal metaphysicians, then the claim “we are essentially human beings” is true—contrary to McMahan’s argument. Second, the author offers a counterexample to McMahan’s implicit acceptance of the principle that only beings who have developed the capacity for self-consciousness are the proper subjects of moral worth. The author presents a regenerative therapy example to show that McMahan’s commitment on this point is counterintuitive. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 8.2 (Summer 2008): 255–264. (shrink)

In the year of our Lord 1862, Polish painter Jan Matejko finished his first famous work, Stańczyk, fully translated into English as “Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk.”1 The piece was painted in oils and depicts a famous political figure of Renaissance Poland, Stańczyk the court jester. Stańczyk, an influential figure of Polish history who was as much a political philosopher as a funny man, is depicted in this (...) scene sitting alone and apoplectic as a royal party rages on just outside his door. As the illustration implies, he and the partygoers have just received some correspondence that declares the Polish territory of Smolensk has been besieged, and, appallingly.. (shrink)

Paltrow and colleagues focus on the deleterious consequences that could occur if Roe were overturned, including food and housing insecurity, loss of employment, bankruptcy, unjustified arres...

Recently, Verheijde and Potts (2011) have called into question the whole-brain death (WBD) criterion and, in particular, have taken issue with my admittedly limited defense of WBD. I would like to thank Verheijde and Potts for their comments and for identifying key points in the debate that need further clarification and defense. This article is an attempt to provide such clarification and to focus on Verheijde and Potts’s key argument against me and other proponents of WBD. The structure of this (...) reply is first to clear away some misunderstandings and to articulate further some of my original arguments. These clarifications are necessary to acuminate attention to what is, I believe, the fundamental locus of disagreement between proponents of WBD and its detractors. Detractors assert that patients who satisfy WBD can still evince integrated functioning. On the assumption that persons are not dead yet if they can manifest integrated functioning, WBD is not a reliable indicator of death. In the second section, I address this fundamental point of disagreement, arguing that with no (known) exceptions, patients satisfying WBD require external support (e.g., ventilator) in order to maintain integrated functioning. This fact is important because on the account of the person I endorse, one which I think is plausible, the soul confers on the body certain vital potencies. When the body itself has lost such potencies, we have evidence of the soul not being present. Emphasizing the aspect of self-integration that is characteristic of living human beings avoids the challenge that WBD persons are still alive. In the third section, however, I address what I take to be Verheijde and Potts’s strongest objection against WBD criterion, namely the objection from spontaneous circulation. The responses to this objection point to the fundamental and limited role the WBD criterion is meant to play in organ donation decisions. (shrink)

Intuitively, patients who suffer the permanent cessation of circulatory functioning—the cardiac criterion—are considered dead. As such, the cardiac criterion tells us what evidence counts as reliable evidence for determining death. The cardiac criterion is challenged by two principal arguments. The reversibility objection says that, for all we know, patients who suffer arrests could be resuscitated. Even so, for some donors who are declared dead by the cardiac criterion, they have their hearts transplanted and re-started. This challenges the idea that the (...) donor’s circulatory functioning ceased permanently. The second argument is that donation-after-cardiac-death [DCD] donors undergo ante-mortem procedures that are only done to benefit the recipient of the organ. This looks like one is using the donor merely as a means and therefore is disrespecting the donor. This chapter argues that permanent cessation of circulatory functioning is a reliable indicator for death and that DCD protocols can be consistent with a fundamental respect for the donor. (shrink)

A widely accepted, perhaps prevailing view among Hobbes scholars is that his theory of political obligation is grounded in an egoistic and materialistic view of human nature. There are a number of difficulties with this view, not the least of which is that it seems to make a genuine theory of political obligation impossible. It is the object of the present paper to examine certain aspects of Hobbes's account of human nature, with the object of weaving them together into a (...) single doctrine which is coherent with what he has to say about political obligation. I will conclude by considering briefly how traditional interpretations could have come to prevail. (shrink)

Ethical challenges to certain aspects of research on human subjects are not uncommon; examples include challenges to first-in-human trials (Chapman in J Clin Res Bioethics 2(4):1–8, 2011), certain placebo controlled trials (Anderson in J Med Philos 31:65–81, 2006; Anderson and Kimmelman in Kennedy Inst Ethics J 20(1):75–98, 2010) and “sham” surgery (Macklin in N Engl J Med 341:992–996, 1999). To date, however, there are few challenges to research when the subjects are competent and the research is more than minimal risk (...) with no promise of direct benefit. The principal reason given for allowing research that is more than minimal risk without benefit is that we should respect the autonomy of competent subjects. I argue that though the moral intuitions informing respect for autonomy are sound, there is another set of intuitions regarding what we take to be just treatment of another when one agent knowingly causes or allows suffering on another agent. I argue that concerns generated by commutative justice serve as limitations on permissible research. I highlight our intuitions informing this notion of justice by appealing to work done on theodicy; what counts as a morally sufficient reason for God to allow suffering in humans is applicable also to the researcher-subject relationship. I conclude that all human subjects who are exposed to more than minimal risk research should enjoy the same actual protections (e.g., subpart D) as those given subjects who cannot consent. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to present the teachings of the Catholic Church as they pertain to ethical issues arising in the healthcare and biomedical sciences. The premise of the project is that the Catholic Church's teaching speaks in an accessible way to a wide range of people concerned about healthcare ethics.

This article explores the plausibility of an argument against embryonic stem cell research based on what the regulations already say about research on pregnant women and fetuses. The center of the argument is the notion of vulnerability and whether such a concept is applicable to human embryos. It is argued that such an argument can be made plausible. The article concludes by responding to several important objections.

Most philosophers will grant that on some issues and in some circumstances, we can acquire knowledge from another. But when it comes to moral knowledge, the presumption is on the side of autonomy; we must not rely on others for our moral beliefs. I argue here for the surprising thesis that in some circumstances we must rely on others in order to acquire moral knowledge. I believe that this, or something trivially different, is a position that Leibniz would hold. When (...) woven together, his comments on teaching, authority, errors of conscience, and testimony provide concrescent support for this surprising thesis. (shrink)

This paper addresses a certain lacuna in moral theological reflec­tion. An institutional review board (IRB) reviews research on human subjects and so represents the institution’s ethical review mechanism for research. The author argues that if an IRB approves a research project that is immoral, it thereby implicates the institution in formal cooperation. The author also argues that numerous ethical concerns are created by current research enterprises—concerns that extend beyond the “usual suspects” of embryonic stem cell research and research using cell (...) lines of illicit origin. The author describes these more subtle issues and shows how IRBs at Catholic hospitals can navigate them. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.2 (Summer 2011): 257–266. (shrink)

Discourse-based interpreting research has determined that interpreters are participants within interaction. Grice established that conversation participants conform to a cooperative principle. With respect to interpreting, what is the cooperative principle? How do sign language interpreters and deaf people work together to negotiate meaning in interpretation? The aim of this article is to present a case study of a deaf presenter and two sign language interpreters and evidence of their strategies for cooperation in interpreter-mediated monologic talk. Drawing on a framework of (...) interactional sociolinguistics, naturalistic data from a seminar presentation was analysed, focusing on the use of pauses, nods and eye contact as contextualization cues in the interpreter-mediated event. It was found that these three participants used these cues deliberately and strategically for signalling comprehension, marking episodes, clarification and controlling the pace of the presentation; drawing on their frames of reference. Thus, the data suggest that the cooperative principle of interpreting involves the establishment of particular cues for communication. (shrink)

Research on human subjects aims to obtain knowledge of vital importance for human health and functioning. Neuroscientific research specifically is understood as oriented towards three goals: the maintenance of neurological health, the treatment of neurological diseases or syndromes, and the enhancement of neurological functioning. Most guidelines or regulations for pediatric research (whether in the U.S. or elsewhere) require that if a research intervention exposes subjects to more than minimal risk, a prospect of direct benefit is required—along with some other important (...) criteria. It is also required for any research project, that the methods and design will yield scientifically valid knowledge. This is typically met via placebo-controlled trials. This chapter presents an argument to the effect that more than minimal risk research on pediatric subjects cannot meet both ethical requirements. The basic idea is that either the subjects in the control or experimental arm will receive a prospect of direct benefit, but not both. This chapter also argues that the ethical weight or importance of this dilemma is very acute for neuroscientific research given the complexity of the brain’s functioning and the correlated difficulty of judging whether there is a “prospect” of direct benefit. The second half responds to this argument via a case study in neuroscientific research. The solution recapitulates a type of component analysis according to which different ethical principles apply to different activities of a research study. (shrink)