Ethical Tool Research Articles

A Scientific Justification for Literature: Jane Austen’s Free Indirect Style as Ethical Tool

A Scientific Justification for Literature: Jane Austen’s Free Indirect Style as Ethical Tool

Deliberating Intergenerational Environmental Equity: A Pragmatic, Future Studies Approach

Across the applied ethics literatures are a growing number of ethical tools: decision-support methodologies that encourage multi-stakeholder deliberative engagement with the social and moral issues arising from technology assessment and environmental management processes. This article presents a novel ethical tool for deliberation on the issue of environmental justice between current and future generations over long time frames. This ethical tool combines two approaches, linking John Dewey's concept of dramatic rehearsal – an em-pathetic and imaginative ethical deliberation process; with the methodologies of backcasting – a type of scenario planning technique drawn from the future studies literature. The proposed hybrid ‘Deweyan Backcasting’ approach combines a creative process of devising multi-stakeholder visions of potentially desirable futures, with practical evaluation of the technical, social and political networks necessary to make such futures happen. It is suggested that such a model can provide a fruitful means for evaluating intergenerational environmental equity issues in long-range policy and planning.

A Private Property Rights Approach on the Social Aspects of a Free Market Economy

ABSTRACT. It is often presumed that a free market economy (by this meaning a system in which can be found exclusive private property rights on the means of production) fails at (always) providing social welfare. This is a no-turning point into discussion and it is also a point where the seeds of government intervention seep in. The criterion used for this type of presumptions is what we generally acknowledge as utilitarianism. However, utilitarianism is only one particular criterion from many others, or only one side of the coin. The present paper is focused on the other side of the coin, namely the private property rights criterion (as developed by Murray Rothbard and Hans Hermann Hoppe). Using this analytical and ethical tool, I will try to develop the social character of a free market economy. From the very beginning the paper will summarize the basic elements of free markets. After this, a short journey into the economic and ethical problems of the social welfare concept will prepare the reader for the section where I state the case for a social market economy from a purely private property rights approach.JEL Classification: B53, D6, I3, P14Keywords: free market economy, private property rights, social welfare, ethicsIntroductionThe central idea of this paper is that markets fail. They fail in delivering what consumers need, fail in reducing enough prices for different goods and services, fail in stopping anticompetitive practices etc. In a word, they fail. And because they fail, from a social perspective this means that free markets let alone are not the best economic systems for the individuals. They must be somehow regulated by the power of the state. Only this power can ensure equilibrium on the market and can satisfy the needs of the society. Thus government policies can be interpreted as a reaction to the damages that free markets leave behind them, or to those which may occur in the future. This is a rational supposition since they come to substitute a natural state of things, a state where individuals voluntarily cooperate for maximizing their utility. For if all would have been good by having free markets, why should there be any government policies at all?Although this idea is not a new one, it is nevertheless arguable. It can be found (among many others) mainly in the political philosophy of ordoliberalism (affiliated with the FreiburgSchool1). According to this philosophy, free markets are the best alternatives for allocating resources with only one condition: they must give positive feedback to any state institutions in the name of public good or social welfare. For this reason, the translation of ordoliberalism philosophy into practical political program was baptized as social market economy. Markets must be free, but they also must fulfil society's needs. There is of course, an important issue to discuss here, which for the moment will be resumed to the following question: What elements can possibly exist in the nature of free markets which inflict on fulfilling society's needs?One may argue that this type of problems can be solved by simply picking up an economic theory which satisfies the interests of the researcher or just offers the most comprehensive answers. But as soon as you pick up the economic theory that you have considered it as the best tool for your analysis, you will discover that it necessarily or implicitly contains some epistemological or methodological suppositions, routed perhaps in the most notorious or, on the contrary, most obscure philosophical theories. For example, when neoclassical economists (Marshall, Samuelson, Baumol etc.) argue that utility functions express a real process with real consumers, they implicitly make the assumption that utility - as a concept - can have cardinal magnitudes. In contrast with neoclassical economics, the marginal revolutionaries (Menger, Jevons, Walras) had demonstrated that utility refers to individual preferences which are always subjective (cannot be easily observed by an outside observer) and ordinal (I-st is apples, II-nd is cranberries, III-rd is cinema tickets etc. …

Night of the Unexpected: A Critique of the 'Uncanny ' and Its Apotheosis Within Cultural and Social Theory

Abstract This essay attempts a critical analysis of the boom in 'uncanny' theory. As the 'uncanny' has carved its image in cultural, political, sociological and aesthetic theory, there has been little attempt to challenge the notion that all critical work is or should be uncanny. Introductions to the concept, such as those by Nicholas Royle and more recently Anna Masschelein, have tended to promote its ubiquity and irreducibility, even while acknowledging a dramatic shift in its fortunes since the 1990s. Opening with a brief genealogy of uncanny theory in the late twentieth century (looking to work on Freud, the influence of Derrida and American deconstruction) the article pays particular attention to the watershed of the late 1980s when the uncanny is increasingly assimilated to the 'spectral' and begins to take shape as an autonomous theory. It probes the influence of Heidegger, who inflected Derrida's own turn to spectres, and the way the uncanny is mobilised on cultural and sociological terrain as a specifically ethical tool: a site of historical mourning or sociological resistance. The article proposes that the anti-conceptualism of the uncanny is a transcendant gesture which needs to be read in the context of a crisis in the theorisation of Marxism at the end of the 1980s. In all the clamour over the disturbing and in-coercible logic of the uncanny, there has been little analysis of its potentially reactionary function on the contemporary scene. Keywords uncanny, Derrida, Heidegger, deconstruction, Royle, temporality, ethics I Since 1995, when Martin Jay cautioned against the rise of the uncanny as a 'supercharged' word, the unheimlich has not ceased to make itself at home across a range of disciplines including cultural studies, history, politics, ediics, aesthetics and sociology.1 Works applying the concept have included The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Unhomely (1994); The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects (1999); Sites of the Uncanny: Paul Celan, Specularity and the Visual Arts (2007); Uncanny Modernity: Cultural Theories, Modern Anxieties (2008); Monstrous Society: Reciprocity, Disapline and the Political Uncanny c. 1780-1848 (2009) and The Queer Uncanny (2012). There are of course different critical tendencies represented here and the uncanny is frequendy linked to satellite terms ('spectre', 'ghost', 'haunting') which are in some cases used interchangeably (Bergland's The National Uncanny is concerned with American Indian 'ghosts', while Derrida suggested his Spectres of Marx could have been subtitled 'Marx - Das Unheimliche').2 However, the net effect has been to promote a new syntax of interpretation aimed at disturbing the boundaries of 'conventional' historical, cultural and sociological analysis. It is hard not to note an imperialising aspect to this success. Uncanny theory tends to break down the boundaries between itself and other cultural theories, to absorb them into the uncanny. According to Nicholas Royle, the queer is uncanny,3 psychoanalysis is uncanny (p24), while the uncanny is a way of 'beginning to think about culture, philosophy, religion, literature, science, politics in the present' (p22). If all critique challenges boundaries, runs the underlying assumption, then all critique - all theories of alienation, repression, or 'otherness' - are or should be uncanny. But the researcher wanting not merely to extend this form of theorisation, but to challenge, or take stock of its implications, is poorly served. In the first place, the emphasis in uncanny criticism has been on its ubiquity and irreducibility. Royle's The Uncanny, which more than any other work put uncanny studies on the map, was an exercise in demonstrating the sheer uncontainability of the concept, while for Anneleen Masschelein, it 'affects and haunts everything, it is in constant transformation and cannot be pinned down'.4 Masschelein's work is the most comprehensive attempt at a genealogy of uncanny theory, and yet, though she acknowledges the concept underwent a fundamental transformation in the 1990s, she chooses 'not to focus on the heyday between 1980-2000', instead filling in its anterior life in criticism from the early-twentieth century up to the 1970s (p6). …

RECOUNTING TRAUMATIC SECRETS

The journalism industry has only recently begun to embrace reflective practice in response to trauma in journalists, but it substantially ignores empathy. This article examines six narratives of trauma subjects, conducted throughout Australia, drawing on the manuscript Speaking Secrets. Framing the subjects' recounts as a form of advocacy journalism, particular focus is given to the role of empathy in eliciting and retelling trauma stories, and its effects on the journalist. The article argues for greater discussion of empathy as an ethical tool of journalism within the industry and academy, and a remedy to public distrust, rather than a notion regarded by most as antithetical.

Applying an ethical decision-making tool to a nurse management dilemma

This article considers ethical dilemmas that nurse managers may confront and suggests an ethical decision-making model that could be used as a tool for resolving such dilemmas. The focus of the article is on the question: Can nurse managers choose the ethically right solution in conflicting situations when nurses' rights collide with patients' rights to quality care in a world of cost-effective and economic constraint? Managers' responsibility is to ensure and facilitate a safe and ethical working environment in which nurses are able to give quality care to their patients. In nursing it is frequently declared that managers' main obligations are to patients' needs and their rights to receive quality care. However, managers' ethical responsibilities are not only to patients but also to the nurses working in their institution. This article describes a real (but disguised) situation from an Israeli health care context to illustrate the dilemmas that may arise. The question is posed of whether nurse managers can maintain patients' and nurses' rights and, at the same time, fulfill their obligation to the conflicting demands of the organization. The article also offers a way to solve conflict by using an ethical decision-making model.

Influence of nutritional and socio-sexual cues upon reproductive efficiency of goats exposed to the male effect under extensive conditions

This study evaluated the effect of nutritional supplementation and socio-sexual cues upon reproductive efficiency of goats exposed to the male effect under rangeland grazing conditions (22°N). Criollo goats (n = 73) were distributed in four experimental groups: (1) continuous males (CM, n = 19) in which males (n = 2) remained together with females from 7 March to 28 July; (2) supplemented males (SM, n = 16) in which males (n = 2) were kept separately and were individually supplemented with 18% crude protein and 2.77 Mcal ME kg–1 DM, during a 30-day period; (3) supplemented males exposed to the female effect (SM + FE, n = 19), in which supplemented males (n = 2) were maintained with females induced to oestrus before being used for male effect; and (4) supplemented males and supplemented females (SM + SF, n = 19) in which males (n = 2) were supplemented as in group SM, and females received the same supplementation as males 30 days before and 30 days after male introduction. Grazing was performed from 0900 to 1900 hours; liveweight (LW) was registered weekly before grazing and (or) supplementation. Ovarian activity was evaluated (serum P4 concentrations) in the four groups before and after male introduction. At the beginning of the study and supplementation, female LW did not differ among treatments (P > 0.01). However, during the supplementation phase, LW increased in a different fashion among groups (P < 0.002), favouring the SM, SM + FE and SM + SF groups. A positive correlation between female LW at the beginning of the rainy season and the onset of ovulatory activity was observed (r = +0.90; P < 0.01). The average date for the onset of ovarian activity differed (P < 0.001) among groups, being earlier in the SM + SF group (9 May ± 4.3 days), which also depicted the shortest interval between the introduction of males until the onset of ovulatory activity (P < 0.001). Results of the present study indicate that nutritional signalling of the reproductive activity of both female and male Criollo goats reared under marginal conditions surmounts the inhibitory effects of long-day photoperiods during the non-reproductive season. An increased level of nutrition during the anestrous season may be used to increase reproductive function of both male and female goats reared in harsh nutritional conditions and applied as a green, clean, and ethical reproductive tool at these latitudes.

Editorial

This research studies the political and identity dynamics involved in the formation of a dominant mode of business ethics control. Through analysis of the ethical tool design process at five French multinationals, this empirical study reveals how business ethics is becoming legalized. This legalization is explained by a structure of domination that favours a legalistic approach, the diffusion of tools prepared by the legalistic designers, and a socio-cognitive identity strategy applied by the dominated group, the moralist designers. The individualization of responsibility is identified as a major risk associated with excessive legalization in business ethics.

Acceptance, Universal Patient Acceptance, and Access to Care An Update

There is an unnoticed step that occurs before a person becomes a patient, that is, every prospective patient must first express his or her need for care to a health professional who responds by describing how the patient might access that care. When the health professional accepts the patient as someone to talk with at the outset, this is termed “acceptance.” Acceptance has been defined as the hidden ethic and core value underlying the applied ethical tool of universal patient acceptance (UPA). Acceptance impacts access to care. Published reactions to acceptance and UPA have so far ranged from thoughtful and constructive, to emotionalized and reactive. As the practical applications of acceptance and UPA are discussed in national forums on access to care, some general trends have emerged. This paper is a status update on UPA and speaks to those proposals and recommendations. The ethical basis of UPA is expanded upon, and the attempt is made to more effectively operationalize the concept and further justify its relevance to the allied-health professions. A clearly articulated notion of acceptance is needed to protect professional conscience from secular interests of patients. It is only after broader multi-disciplinary review and debate, however, that UPA can become less hidden or presupposed, and actually find expression in the ethics codes and training curricula of all the health professions. Once expressed within these professional forums, it will likely gain more relevance in the critical evaluations of acceptance as it is more broadly used in the conversations of economics, politics, and secular (non-professional) society.

Placing Memory: A Photographic Exploration of Japanese American Internment by Todd Stewart, Natasha Egan, Karen J. Leong, John Tateishi

districts as an outgrowth of numerous, con flictingdemands for the samewater resources and tribal treatyrights,orWilliam Robbins's discussion of similar issues along theKlamath inhis recentLandscapes ofConflict,might also better informHussa's stories involving the Klamath water crisis of 2001 and theKlamath River Coalition ofConservation Districts. Hussa focuses on the Walker and McKay familystoriesonly in the latter half of thebook, which veers into disconnected paragraphs critiquing federal land managers and legal decisions. Hussa only vaguely linkstheseasides to the stories and concerns of the McKay and Walker families and theirvalues. Earlier chap ters that focus exclusively on Euro-American families more closely integrate their stories with policy discussions. Methodologically, Hussa's book is strongest where itfollows closely Studs Terkel's formula inWorking. Terkel's classic study introduced each narrative voice with a briefbackstory and thenused each person's words to tellhis or her own story inways that revealed producerist notions of value and virtue in theworkplace while also illuminating underlying class and racial tensions.Hussa's stories similarly ideal ize physical labor as a transcendent ethical force and teaching tool, but she selects narra tives thatoveremphasize ruralityas a unifying identitywhile underplaying class, racial, and gender difference as components of identity in rural landscapes. Hussa might have paid more attention tohow ranch owners differ in their priorities for educating their children, as compared with ranch employees or ranch tenants.The author also oversimplifies urban landscapes as virtue-less, crime-ridden places fromwhich to escape. Despite these concerns,Blake's photos place faces, animals, and work in the landscapes thatHussa's stories describe, and the stories lend identity and meaning to those uncom monly effective images, none more so than the photo of Joe and Gabe in earnest "rodeo conference" amid Hussa's evocative narrative describing Gabe's harrowing journey from Haitian orphan to easternOregon rancher (p. 120). Linked images and stories like this one make thisbook an important contribution to amore nuanced understanding of ourmodern American West. Max G. Geier Western Oregon University PLACING MEMORY:A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION OF JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT byTodd Stewart essays byNatasha Egan and Karen J.Leong afterword bylohnTateishi University ofOklahoma Press, Norman, 2008. Photographs, maps. 132pages. $34.95 cloth. In a recentwork, JasmineAlinder reminds readers of the historical importance of Japa nese American incarceration in World War II. Although writing about two other photogra phers, herwords are appropriate in assessing the significanceof thisvolume byTodd Stewart as well. She referred to thework of such art istsas important because photographs of the incarceration sitesremindus of "thepossibility that thememory of incarceration itself might vanish if it isnot nurtured or remade." In her view, images of the camps "preserve ... the memory of those sitesand the injustices com mitted there" (Moving Images: Photography and the Japanese American Incarceration). Stewart'swork provides additional strengthto thephotographic recordofthat period and isa worthy addition to the literature. He apparently believes, as didAnsel Adams, thatan important role forthe landscape photographer is"to show the land and the skyas the settingsforhuman activity"(Adams toDavid McAlpin, November 4,1938, in Mary Street Alinder andAndrea Gray Stillman, eds.,AnselAdams: Lettersand Images, 1916-1984). 488 OHQ vol. 107, no. 3 Stewart isan assistant professor of photog raphy at theUniversity ofOklahoma, and his professional work has focused increasinglyon the question: Does place hold memory? His images presented in thisbook readily confirm to readers/viewers that they do indeed. This volume is the culmination of a decade-long effort to explore this question by visiting and photographing all ten of the "Relocation Centers" of the War Relocation Authority, the agency responsible for themanagement of the camps. He presentsmore than fifty of his own photographs and adds about threedozen from thework of the War Relocation Author ityphotographers, with the latterproviding scenes of the incarceration centerswhen they were populated. Although this juxtaposition does not achieve as strongan effectas it might, since theyare rarelypaired by locale, itprovides any reader unfamiliar with thathistory away to "read" Stewart'swork. Several of thephoto graphs are fold-out displays of the landscape at several of the camps, and these are,without exception, dramatic depictions of thoseplaces. One inparticular stands out, thatbeing a four page fold-out landscape of Heart Mountain, in Wyoming. Although Placing Memory has much to recommend it...

Facilitating resolution of forest conflicts through understanding the complexity of the relationship between forest industry and environmental groups

Conflict over the utilisation of forest resources is ubiquitous, often as a result of clashing interests and values regarding their use. Though there are positive dimensions to these conflicts, they often result in the inefficient use of the resource on which many livelihoods and societies rely. Therefore, management of these conflicts is vital. A prominent feature of these conflicts are the roles played by environmental non-government organisations (ENGOs) campaigning against the operating practices of forestry industry. The main objective of this research is to analyse the various dimensions of conflicts between ENGOs and forestry related industries, culminating in the creation of a tool to facilitate resolution. The study achieves this through examining the impact of ENGO campaigns against the operating practices of Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd (APRIL), a pulp and paper company in Indonesia (paper I), and the roles of legitimacy in this arena (paper II). It also examines the motivations of ENGOs, with regards to campaigns against corporations (paper III). The final paper presents a tool for facilitating resolution of complex forest conflicts (paper IV) of which relationship between ENGOs and forest industry is a key part. The research was conducted in two stages, the first stage involved interviewing and questioning various stakeholders regarding the campaigns against APRIL in order to determine their impact as well as examine the roles of legitimacy. The second stage primarily involved over 40 ENGOs completing a questionnaire to determine how they define a successful campaign, in addition this stage also involved questioning various ENGO campaign leaders related to the APRIL campaigns, and interviewing leaders of ENGO campaigning against the Finnish Forest and Park Service, a State owned enterprise, related to its operation in Upper Lapland, Finland. The interviews and questionnaires, as well as analysis of published and unpublished documents from the various organisations showed that there is a high level of complexity in conflict between the ENGOs and APRIL, as well as in the Upper Lapland conflict, based on the differing perspectives of the situation which has foundations in the interests and values of the different parties. This complexity makes resolution of the conflict very difficult, leading to the creation of a tool, ethical analysis, which may facilitate the resolution of conflicts of these types. The findings of this research have theoretical and practical implications not least the ethical analysis tool for helping to resolve conflict, but also the need, for example, of ENGOs to take measures to protect their legitimacy.

The Family Ranch: Land, Children, and Tradition in the American West by Linda Hussa, Madeleine Graham Blake

THE FAMILY RANCH:LAND,CHILDREN, AND TRADITION IN THEAMERICAN WEST byLindaHussa photographs by Madeleine Graham Blake University ofNevada Press, Reno, 2009. 272 pages. $24.95 cloth. "Self-sufficiency," Linda Hussa argues in this thought-provoking book, "is difficultto attain but paramount and worthy of the effort" (p. xxvii). In awork thatconsiders the"mothering dynamic" of families raising theirchildren ina "classroom of quiet horizons," Hussa explores the ways ranch families in theGreat Basin inte gratedwork, leisure,education, and landscape during the late twentiethcentury.Hussa pres ents a seriesof intimatevignettes,profiling the experiences of sixdifferentranch families in a montage of recollections thatconvey moral and ethical themes.Hussa depicts a rancher ethic revolving around family, land, and livestock. In a work that lacks footnotes, bibliography, or other scholarlyapparatus, theonly support ingdocuments areMadeline Graham Blake's evocative photographs showing parents and childrenworking together against those quiet horizons. Hussa presents these themes in loosely structured life-histories, apparently gleaned from undocumented conversations and interviews. These narratives, told from the perspective of transitional figureswho were either children of ranching parents or parents of ranching children,depict a culture of rural fundamentalism that embraces producerist, familyvalues. Hussa foregrounds people who conveyed their values and traditions across generational lines by sharing hard work with their children on family-based ranches and farms.Homeschooling figures prominently in these stories and photos (for example, the McKay, Harper, and Stoddart families on pp. 129,171-77, and 15-17). The author acknowl edges that other ranch families took a differ ent approach, but thisbook presents families who preferhomeschooling as a component of ranch life. Hussa's largely autobiographical chapter, "Eminent Domain and Land Use: Cattle Free in '93," questions theforeshortenedperspective of unnamed environmentalists, scientists, and federal agents whose decisions transformed remembered landscapes of rancher-managed cattle and rangelands into a government managed "wasteland" where people "pro duce nothing" (p. 28). Voices in these stories particularly criticize agents of the federal government for causing problems for rural folk;position family ranchers and farmers as "holistic,"production-oriented, land stewards; and praise cattle as beneficial to the ecosystem (p. 144-45). The familieswhose storiesHussa privileges as exemplars of producerist, rural values are impressively varied. They include families of interracial adoption, a singlemother who adopted a teenaged girl,and a Shoshone family thatblends reservation lifewith commercial ranching. Most chapters focus on multi generational familiesofEuro-American origin, butHussa emphasizes the restorativepotential of ranch lifefordisaffected or disadvantaged orphans. Despite its important attention to racial, ethnic, and gender diversity, the book lacks context in previous scholarship that examines closely related landscapes of rural lifeand ranch families. Kenneth Porter's studies ofAfrican Ameri can workers in thewestern cattle industry might better inform the discussion of the McKay family's children, for example, and Hussa's lingering discussion of adoption impressionistically dismisses the Haitian landscapes thatproduced those children. The Walker family story is similarlyvague on the closely intertwinedhistory of cattle ranching and Indian labor in theAmericanWest. Nancy Langston's recent study of cooperative, adap tive management in the Malheur and Klamath Reviews 487 districts as an outgrowth of numerous, con flictingdemands for the samewater resources and tribal treatyrights,orWilliam Robbins's discussion of similar issues along theKlamath inhis recentLandscapes ofConflict,might also better informHussa's stories involving the Klamath water crisis of 2001 and theKlamath River Coalition ofConservation Districts. Hussa focuses on the Walker and McKay familystoriesonly in the latter half of thebook, which veers into disconnected paragraphs critiquing federal land managers and legal decisions. Hussa only vaguely linkstheseasides to the stories and concerns of the McKay and Walker families and theirvalues. Earlier chap ters that focus exclusively on Euro-American families more closely integrate their stories with policy discussions. Methodologically, Hussa's book is strongest where itfollows closely Studs Terkel's formula inWorking. Terkel's classic study introduced each narrative voice with a briefbackstory and thenused each person's words to tellhis or her own story inways that revealed producerist notions of value and virtue in theworkplace while also illuminating underlying class and racial tensions.Hussa's stories similarly ideal ize physical labor as a transcendent ethical force and teaching tool, but she selects narra tives thatoveremphasize ruralityas a unifying identitywhile underplaying class, racial, and gender difference as...

ETHICAL ANALYSIS IN PUBLIC HEALTH PRACTICE: A MULTI-SECTORAL MIXED-METHODS STUDY

Rationale: All decisions in public health practice involve implicit value judgements, and many involve explicit reference to ethical principles. Despite the increased awareness, interest and literature in Public Health Ethics in the past decade, there remains little understanding of what public health practitioners or trainees mean by ethics, what meta-ethical foundations shape their approach to ethical dilemmas, and what prior training in ethics they have had or wish to have. This study aims to answer some of these questions and will serve as the basis for the development of resources to aid public health decision-making. Method: Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from public health practitioners by means of paper and web-based surveys, as well as structured interviews. Data was coded and analysed using SPSS 15. Results: 16/20 trainees, 70/150 Canadian practitioners, and 508/2058 American practitioners responded to the survey; 10 interviews were conducted. There was remarkable heterogeneity of responses regarding prioritization of values and meta-ethical justification of ethical norms. Respondents reported little training in ethics and considerable in enhancing their skills. Conflict between ethical imperatives and the law were a prominent feature of American, but not Canadian respondents. Conclusions: Public Health practitioners hold a variety of disparate views regarding ethics in public health. These translate into different understandings of the goals and means of public health, with far reaching implications in all spheres of practice. A Public Health Ethical Reflection tool was developed to enhance ethical awareness in goal setting, planning and implementation of public health interventions.

The Ethical and Practical Aspects of Acceptance and Universal Patient Acceptance

"Acceptance" is an often presupposed, hidden core value and ethic focused on how dental and other health practitioners first accept people as possible patients. The three basic styles of patient acceptance are random, selective, and universal. Reduced public access to care results from the practice of random and selective acceptance. Only universal acceptance creates a potential pathway for improved access to care. The notion of Universal Patient Acceptance (UPA) is discussed here as one kind of applied ethical tool or clinical practice that allows for the ethic of acceptance to be more effectively pursued in daily practice. We suggest that health providers falsely surmise that they already understand and practice Universal Patient Acceptance. That myth and perspective are partly what keeps Acceptance hidden as an ethic and overlooked as a potential way to foster dialogue and indirectly promote better access to care. Without Universal Patient Acceptance, dental and health providers will continue to silently engage in practice patterns that adversely affect public access to care. The actual benefits of Universal Patient Acceptance are the subject of ongoing review and debate. Whatever those benefits might be will not likely be realized until Acceptance and Universal Patient Acceptance are included as part of dental and other health professional codes of ethics and training curricula. That is what we argue for here.

P-683: Assessment of human oocytes developmental competence by in vitro culture following parthenogenetic activation

In mammals, parthenotes, the embryos obtained by parthenogenesis, can develop to different stages after oocyte activation, but never to term. The development of human parthenotes to the blastocyst stage was recently reported. Aim of the present work was to establish an activation protocol for the generation of parthenotes and to determine if their developmental competence would reflect that of zygotes obtained by fertilization. In this hypothesis, activation protocol could represent an ethical tool for the objective assessment of oocyte developmental competence following experimental procedures in the area of reproductive biology.

On the Moral Status of Humanized Chimeras and the Concept of Human Dignity

Recent advances in the technology of creating chimeras have evoked controversy in policy debates. At centre of controversy is the fear that a substantial contribution of human cells or genes in crucial areas of the animal’s body may at some point render the animal more humanlike than any other animals we know today. Authors who have commented on or contributed to policy debates specify that chimeras which would be too humanlike would have an altered moral status and threaten our notion of ‘human dignity’. This setting offers a productive opportunity to test the notion of human dignity and to emphasize some of its weaknesses as an ethical tool. Limiting chimerism experiments on the basis of whether or not it undermines or challenges human dignity implies a clear demarcation of those characteristics which are typically, and importantly, human. Evidence of our evolutionary ties and behavioral similarities with other animals seem to annul all attempts to define the uniquely human properties to which human dignity may be attributed. Hence, it has been suggested that the particular moral status associated with humans cannot be explained for beyond an intuitive basis. In what follows, we will argue that the difficulties inherent in the notion of human dignity lie not in the impossibility to acquire a list of properties which are unique to humans, but rather in the difficulty to demonstrate the moral relevance of these properties, and particularly the relevance of their being human. We offer an alternative interpretation of the concept of dignity which is not necessarily related to being human.

The ethics of placebo-controlled trials: The case of asthma

Some have argued that placebo-controlled trials (PCTs) are unnecessary and unethical in conditions such as asthma for which there is standard therapy. This article, by using asthma clinical trials as an example, examines the ethics of PCTs. There remain several scientifically sound reasons to conduct PCTs: (1) ensuring scientific validity of the trial, (2) evaluating new therapies less effective than the gold standard, (3) minimizing the number of patients exposed to potentially inefficacious or dangerous therapy, (4) studying clinical situations in which withdrawal of therapy might be considered, and (5) determining the true incidence of side effects. Opponents of PCTs err by conflating clinical research with clinical practice and ignoring the fact that all clinical research involves some sacrifice on the part of the subject for the ends of the research and the good of future patients. PCTs do not per se violate major ethical codes. Properly conducted, PCTs remain a valuable and ethical tool in the armamentarium of modern scientific medicine.

Maternal Touch in Pilar Rodiles's Bidún (Undocumented)

Maternal Touch in Pilar Rodiles's Bidún (Undocumented) Yeon-Soo Kim is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She specializes in Spanish Cultural Studies. Her forthcoming book, The Family Album: Histories, Subjectivities and Immigration in Contemporary Spanish Culture, interrogates the role of the family album as a critical and ethical tool through which to reevaluate the complexities of twentiethcentury Spanish history. Her current project analyzes the different moral weights assigned to Asians and Arabs in the contemporary Spanish cultural imaginary. S ami Na'ir, in his La inmigración explicada a mi hija (2001), claims that Spain has become a country of immigration during the last decade and quotes the statistics that there are more than 300,000 undocumented immigrants residing in Spain, in addition to the 100,000 who acquired legal status in 1991 (18). While Nair's statement reflects the irrefutable social reality of what Spain has recently become, Javier Casqueiro's report about racism in Spain, published in El Pais on January 26, 2001, suggests that the sudden increase in the number of immigrants has largely produced negative reactions among native citizens. Casqueiro claims that according to research conducted in 2000 by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 49.4% of Spaniards consider themselves racists and 48.6% feel somewhat or absolutely intolerant of other ethnic groups and foreign customs. The latter statistic is alarming, the journalist notes, because it reflects a 13.6% increase from a study performed in 1994 by the same institute. These data reflect an intensification in xenophobia in Spanish society, concomitant with an upsurge in immigration, and reveal an attitude that challenges the belief in an accepting, multicultural society based on mutual deference. In tune with more populist public sentiment, a divisive discourse that hierarchizes Europe over Africa and native citizens over immigrants occasionally issued from the mouths of political figures. For instance, as reported in El Mundo on December 2, 2002, the government sub-delegate to Tarragona, Angel Sagardy, made chauvinistic comments, referring to African immigration as an invasion: "AquÃArizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Volume 8, 2004 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies necesitamos gente, pero no a toda Africa." More well-known and vigorously disputed racist statements are those Marta Ferrusola, wife of the former president of the Generalit ät, Jordi Pujol, made in February 2001. She condemned Kurdish immigrants who arrived on the French coast for being difficult in spite of the host country's hospitality because they requested a diet that observed the rules of their religion. Ferrusola also lamented Catalonia's generous social assistance to North African immigrants who have no interest in learning the region's cultural history. Both Sagardy and Ferrusola's comments point to an underlying mentality that the host country's self-interest takes precedence over hospitality and when munificence is offered, immigrants need to comply with the cultural codes of their new homeland and conceptions of its historic mission. One problem this formula poses is that immigrants are perceived as indebted to generous native residents. In contrast, many non-governmental organizations led by both Spanish and immigrant social activists and journalists have been working robustly to thwart social hostility toward immigrants and to promote a critical understanding of immigration among their fellow citizens since they first witnessed the dead bodies of African immigrants appearing on Spanish shores on November 2, 1989.' Numerous artists and intellectuals also lent their voices to the call to resist xenophobia and ignorance by creating works that bring this social issue to the fore. Among them are authors Juan Goytisolo, Gerardo Muñoz Lorente, Adolfo Hernández Lafuente, Eduardo Mendicutti, and Nieves GarcÃ-a Benito; film directors Montxo Armendáriz, Imanol Uribe, IcÃ-ar BollaÃ-n, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Chus Gutiérrez and Carlos Molinero; and photographers Nuria Andreu and Rick Dávila, to name but a few.2 In this essay I add Pilar Rodiles to the aforementioned list because this Canarian painter provides a unique perspective on the discussion of immigration with her 2000 collection of paintings, Bidún (Undocumented).3 While many artists have attempted to represent immigrants with respect and equality, disavowing any hierarchical relationship, Rodiles...

Ethics and economics in community care

The need for evaluation of health care is a given in today's health service. Since demands are infinite and resources are finite there is an acceptance that cost considerations are integral to all interventions whether hospital or community based. This work looks at communitybased care and the dilemma of measuring services from practitioners engaged in providing community care. The article argues that any measurement should consider quality of life, a concept which continues to escape definition. There are questions around the effectiveness of Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) as an economic measure in this domain and some thought is given to an alternative ethical tool which seems to incorporate the individualism of today's society and the government's notion of community care.

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