Moral Precepts Research Articles

C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law. By Justin Buckley Dyer and Micah J. Watson

The authors begin by dispelling the misconception that Lewis took no interest in politics, which is easily done. What they call the “conventional wisdom” depends upon equivocating the word politics, confounding the passing pother of parties and elections, which Lewis indeed disdained, with the work of ordering a community towards virtue. The book continues with a pithy review over three chapters of Lewis’s arguments against metaphysical materialism, theological voluntarism, and moral relativism. In each case, nature’s status as extrinsic to human cognition, though accurately reflected there, is an important premise. Reality, including moral precepts, is not subject to human will or passions, but neither in its objectiveness is it unknowable. Reason is the link that furnishes both the order of nature and our ability to perceive it. Chapter 5 strives to link Lewis to John Locke and to find commonalities between Locke’s systematic contributions to political philosophy and Lewis’s targeted observations and limited interventions. Some of these efforts disappoint. On page 89 is adduced an essay Lewis composed in 1924 to guide his own thoughts as he prepared a course entitled “The Moral Good: Its Place among the Values.” While the work under review treats the existence of this essay as early evidence for Lewis’s high regard for Locke, consulting the manuscript in the Bodleian Library indicates that it focuses only on Locke’s empiricism and is entirely critical. Lewis and Locke certainly agree that government should be limited; the authors also seek a relation in Locke’s understanding of the state as instituted for the sake of private property (fully understood as all that is proper to a person, including liberty and life). Lewis comparably asserts that the state exists exclusively for the maintenance of the private sphere (happy households, conversing friends, etc.) and that it is not an arena for virtuous human flourishing in and of itself.

DISPLACED BY DEVELOPMENT: ANALYSIS ON THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLE OF PERMANENT SOVEREIGNTY OVER NATURAL RESOURCES

The forced displacement of people, so frequent nowadays, can be analyzed from different aspects, from its motivation to the responsibility that it generates. Changes to the environment through large development projects promote the emergence of what is understood as the "displaced by development”, a social cost that is undervalued comparing to the benefits of the economic gains. In order to analyze the reasons for that displacement, this paper aims at studying the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources as an important principle of International Law and it also aims at combining it to the evolution of the Right to Development, from an economistic perspective to a humanistic rationality. Highlighting these principles brings up the discussion of the legal status of those who become vulnerable in face of the development process: the displaced ones. The paper concludes that making their rights a core element can help putting into practice the ethical precepts of the development process for it to be seen as an opportunity for the expansion of human freedom.

Odontologia Legal no ensino superior do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul

O ensino de Odontologia Legal nos cursos de graduação em Odontologia assume importância ímpar, visto a necessidade crescente de capacitar o estudante para um ascendente campo de trabalho e oferecer formação humanista, guiada por preceitos éticos e legais. Desse modo, realizou-se um estudo exploratório sobre a oferta da Odontologia Legal e conteúdos relacionados nos cursos de graduação em Odontologia no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, por meio da análise do Projeto Pedagógico do Curso (PPC). Quatorze (93%) cursos participaram dessa pesquisa. Sob uma perspectiva objetiva, 36% deles ofertam a disciplina de Odontologia Legal, enquanto 64% não a disponibilizam. Sob uma perspectiva mais abrangente, 93% dos cursos abordam alguma vertente da Odontologia Legal, enquanto 7% não tratam do assunto. Sendo assim, faz-se necessária a padronização do ensino da Odontologia Legal na graduação em Odontologia.

Looking for Social Work Values and Ethics in the Textbooks of Social Services Administration Over the Past 50 Years (1965–2014)

ABSTRACTThis article presents the findings of a review of 40 social services administration textbooks published between 1965 and 2014 to examine their coverage of social work values and ethics and the preparation of administrators for practice in a value-based profession. The coverage of values and ethics in these texts varied considerably and close to one third paid little or no attention to the ethical precepts of the social work profession. Textbook authors and editors are advised to take a more proactive stance in encouraging social work administrators to reconsider the management of human services from a value-laden point of view.

The Collectivity of Blaming

Abstract In this paper I want to argue that acts of blame are performed by collectives, and not by any collective but only by collectives that satisfy certain conditions { broadly those that, by collectivizing reason, can be held to be autonomous subjects to which it makes sense to attribute attitudes, including participant reactive attitudes such as resentment. The actors involved must also be related to the collective in particular ways in order to hold and be held responsible, but they need not have the same attitudes as the collective. This implies both that our attributions of moral responsibility to an agent does not depend only on facts about the agent but also on facts about us, and that the reasons for which we hold responsible and by which we justify our moral practices, and which the agent can likewise appeal to in an attempt to avoid being held responsible, depend on the collective involved and its substantive ethical precepts. The answer to whether an agent is responsible, or is an appropriate object of a reactive attitude, is not to be settled purely by philosophical analysis, and even the kind of naturalistic description of the pattern of our reactive attitudes that [22] suggests in \Freedom and Resentment" will only go part of the way { the excuses and exemptions are things we might say in a dialogue where reasons are exchanged, but each collective has some leeway over what substantive reasons count as grounds of an excuse or exemption.

Sofrimento moral em enfermeiros dos departamentos de fiscalização do Brasil

Resumo Objetivo Identificar a frequência e a intensidade das causas de sofrimento moral vivenciado por enfermeiros nos departamentos de fiscalização do Brasil. Métodos Estudo transversal realizado com 28 profissionais de competência gerencial e 113 profissionais de competência fiscalizatória. A amostra foi intencional e não probabilística. Os dados foram obtidos por meio de questionário e submetidos à análise descritiva e bivariada. Resultados Os participantes revelaram causas do sofrimento moral em dois momentos: Primeiro associado ao processo de fiscalização lento por parte das instituições fiscalizadas e Corens; e insuficiência de recursos humanos. Segundo associado aos problemas éticos; condições de trabalho; e qualidade da assistência de enfermagem. Conclusão Refletir sobre as causas do sofrimento moral neste cenário é reconhecer a necessidade de algumas mudanças que devem acontecer na base que sustenta os preceitos éticos e condutas morais da profissão, para assim fortalecer a categoria.

Data mining: an ethical baseline for online privacy policies

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to advocate for and provide guidance for the development of a code of ethical conduct surrounding online privacy policies, including those concerning data mining. The hope is that this research generates thoughtful discussion on the issue of how to make data mining more effective for the business stakeholder while at the same time making it a process done in an ethical way that remains effective for the consumer. The recognition of the privacy rights of data mining subjects is paramount within this discussion.Design/methodology/approach– The authors derive foundational principles for ethical data mining. First, philosophical literature on moral principles is used as the theoretical foundation. Then, using existing frameworks, including legislation and regulations from a range of jurisdictions, a compilation of foundational principles was derived. This compilation was then evaluated and honed through the integration of stakeholder perspective and the assimilation of moral and philosophical precepts. Evaluating a sample of privacy policies hints that current practice does not meet the proposed principles, indicating a need for changes in the way data mining is performed.Findings– A comprehensive framework for the development a contemporary code of conduct and proposed ethical practices for online data mining was constructed.Research limitations/implications– This paper provides a configuration upon which a code of ethical conduct for performing data mining, tailored to meet the particular needs of any organization, can be designed.Practical implications– The implications of data mining, and a code of ethical conduct regulating it, are far-reaching. Implementation of such principles serve to improve consumer and stakeholder confidence, ensure the enduring compliance of data providers and the integrity of its collectors, and foster confidence in the security of data mining.Originality/value– Existing legal mandates alone are insufficient to properly regulate data mining, therefore supplemental reference to ethical considerations and stakeholder interest is required. The adoption of a functional code of general application is essential to address the increasing proliferation of apprehension regarding online privacy.

Влияние СМИ на институт Церкви

Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) takes an active part in cultural and social life of Russian society. This is possible thanks to renew relationship between the state and the Church and significant changes in the country. The sociology of religion pays great attention to the study of the social functions performed by religion in the population. Every religion defines the behavior of the adherents in society. It’s usually achieved by a set of
 moral precepts, prohibitions and norms that are implemented at social and individual levels of behavior and confession. The Church generates content of interest to the media, takes the initiative in developing contacts with the journalistic community, opening up as much as possible to different categories of population on any issue, but society hasn’t been ready for self-perception in such a positive activity yet.

SORRIA: VOCÊ ESTÁ SENDO FILMADO. A ESPETACULARIZAÇÃO DA PRÁTICA POLICIAL E O TRABALHO DE LIMPEZA MORAL

A espetacularização da vida cotidiana tornou-se mais democrática com o acesso às tecnologias de imagem oferecidas pelo telefone celular. Nessa esteira, estão os vídeos produzidos por cidadãos que registram a ação policial em comunidades em processo de pacificação. À luz de uma abordagem da Análise da Conversa Aplicada (ANTAKI, 2011) e dos estudos sobre multimodalidade (GOODWIN, 2010), analisamos, para este trabalho, um vídeo, postado na internet, que registra a cena de condução de um suspeito à delegacia, logo após uma ação de abordagem. Considerando-se que os policiais estão cientes da gravação e conscientes de que a imagem de policial está sob constante suspeição (MUNIZ, 1998), pretende-se investigar como os policiais vão gerenciar a interação física e virtual para realizar um trabalho de limpeza moral (MACHADO DA SILVA, 2008) que possa reparar seu estigma. Como mostra a análise realizada, a mediação tecnológica favorece a disputa dos policiais pela direção/edição do espetáculo, através de mecanismos como inclusão de informações não captadas pelo cinegrafista e explicitação das normas que orientam suas ações, especialmente no que diz respeito ao uso da força. Através de um trabalho de limpeza moral, os policiais buscam (re) construir a imagem de profissionais que agem de acordo com os preceitos da ética policial-militar, como o exercício de suas funções com probidade e justiça.

Enhancing moral relationships through strict liability

The article considers the apparent tension between contract’s strict liability doctrine with respect to performance and the general moral precepts that liability should track fault and that one should internalize the costs of one’s own choices, but not the costs of arbitrary misfortune. By making contractors strictly liable for their failure to perform, the law attributes greater responsibility to agents than these moral principles seem to countenance – namely by according them legal responsibility for events or outcomes for which they bear no fault. Those precepts, however, are couched at a highly abstract level that is more appropriate for blame and punishment than for the sort of responsibility that contract law assigns. In the article, I defend the strict liability doctrine as a philosophically interesting default rule that supports trusting relationships between the parties and lays the groundwork for a healthier moral cooperative relationship between contracting parties than a fault-based system would. Strict liability norms relieve the promisee of pressures to supervise and intrude upon the promisor during performance and so eliminate some of the impetus to cultivate and display attitudes and behaviours of distrust. In turn, strict liability encourages the promisors to assume full responsibility for a project and by relieving promisees of pressures to intrude on the promisor gives the promisor a greater arena of autonomy in which to operate. While fault-based liability rules may encourage displays of distrust and sow the seeds of conflict, strict liability rules assign responsibility in ways that encourage trust and other components of healthy moral relationships. However, conceiving strict liability in this way brings out an internal tension between the justification of strict liability in contract and broad construals of the duty to mitigate, a doctrine that places the burden of self-help on disappointed promisees. As I will argue, broad construals of the duty to mitigate work at cross-purposes with the moral functions of a strict liability regime, offering further reasons to interpret the duty to mitigate narrowly.

Moral Distress in Family Health Strategy: experiences expressed by daily life

Objective Understanding the Moral Suffering experiences expressed in the daily life of the Family Health Strategy. Method This is a case study with a qualitative approach, conducted between August and October 2014 in a municipality of Minas Gerais. The sample was represented by 28 professionals of family health teams. Data were collected through interviews with semi-structured questionnaires, observation, projective technique and submitted to thematic content analysis. Results The results indicate that routine issues of the health care system lead professionals to experience a challenging practice in dealing with daily situations that contradict their ethical precepts and can compromise the quality of work, becoming triggers of Moral Distress. Conclusions Social vulnerabilities such as domestic violence, poor socioeconomic conditions and organizational weaknesses of the health system were the main triggers of Moral Distress. Therefore, it is necessary to amplify this reflection by workers of the Family Health Strategy, aiming to encourage the minimization of suffering experiences, considering their ethical values.

Unlearning History

Siba Grovogui's Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy is a text that recuperates a modality of critical thought about an emergent object of modern governmentality generally ignored by the discipline and discourse of international relations. International relations, according to Grovogui, has downplayed some of the most critical and innovative moral and political thinking of the anticolonial world in the twentieth century, to its detriment. In its asymmetrical rendering as a form of reason distilled through nineteenth-century moral precepts and, later, empire, international relations seems unduly burdened by its historicist fictions and unable to keep its object in sight as it morphs into ever more complex developments in international politics. As Lalu argues, in Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy Grovogui does more than simply record the birth of a discipline or merely provide reasons for its dispersal. He also asks us to ponder the prospects of occupying the space of thought of those who found themselves intricately invested in both home and the world after being flung into the moral and political aporia of empire and nation.

Developing an Ethical and Legal Interoperability Assessment Process for Retrospective Studies.

The past decade has witnessed the creation of major international research consortia, aiming to facilitate the sharing of data from different studies to maximize health benefits. However, combining heterogeneous data across existing studies requires addressing issues related to both data harmonization and ethical and legal interoperability. This article proposes a rigorous interoperability assessment process to assess whether different data sets are sufficiently ethically and legally interoperable to allow for a given proposed research use. The methodology used to develop this process is based on a comprehensive analysis of the international ethical and legal framework governing the use of retrospective data in research, and includes the following steps: (I) finding existing processes; (II) comparing processes to identify similarities and differences and determining the limits of the "consistent whole"; (III) establishing common principles and procedures; and, (IV) changing or removing processes that do not contribute to the consistent whole. Each of these four steps were examined using step-specific methodologies, including (a) literature and policy reviews; (b) consultations with international ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) experts; and (c) a case study piloting the proposed framework in an actual international research consortium. This assessment process takes into account key legal and ethical components such as consent, recontact, and waiver of consent. As a result, this analysis allows the development of a comprehensive filter used to verify the legal and ethical restrictions pertaining to a data set. This in turns helps in determining whether the given data set can to be used for a proposed research project, or is ethically and legally interoperable for use in research collaborations. By integrating this filter to the regular data access processes used by cohorts, not only will researchers be able to create virtual "mega-cohorts" of research participants, but it will also ensure that these cohorts respect basic legal and ethical precepts.

International Public Law and the Failure to Efficiently Manage Ocean Living Resources

ABSTRACT This article enquires into why the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Fish Stocks Agreement have failed to provide an adequate legal framework for effective management of high-seas living resources. This failure is due to the nature of the international legal framework that requires signatories only to “cooperate” but how to cooperate remains a choice variable. The result is that if it suits them, signatories take ‘reservations’ (e.g., on whether to abide by catch quotas in Regional Fisheries Management Organizations) with the effect that they continue to ‘play’ non-cooperatively. It is argued that environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, have an important role to play in aligning moral precepts and one day, perhaps, creating a coordination game between fishing nations in which ‘reservations’ are no longer taken. JEL Code: K3.

Management of the hopelessly ill patient: to stop or not to start?

The paper discusses the subject of futile treatment in the case of a hopelessly ill patient. The topic has many facets, among them the ethical precepts of preventing futile treatment, but also the economic and logistic impact of treating patients who do not have a fair chance of benefitting from managing their medical condition. A 75-year old patient, suffering from an advanced stage of Alzheimer's disease and a clinical picture of acute surgical abdomen, is presented and two approaches are discussed. The first scenario is the aggressive management, including immediate laparotomy and admission to an intensive care unit, a solution without a fair chance of saving the patient's life. The most favorable, but theoretical, output in this case would be the patient's return to his previous mental condition, without any connection with the reality and surroundings and in permanent need for help, supervision and assistance. The second option is letting the patient die in dignity, alleviating pain and surrounded by family. The role of the primary care physician and family is discussed and some ethical principles are presented in order to emphasize the importance of preventing futile treatment in a case of a terminally ill patient.

Campaigning for Organ Donation at Mosques

There is a trend of recruiting faith leaders at mosques to overcome religious barriers to organ donation, and to increase donor registration among Muslims. Commentators have suggested that Muslims are not given enough information about organ donation in religious sermons or lectures delivered at mosques. Corrective actions have been recommended, such as funding campaigns to promote organ donation, and increasing the availability of organ donation information at mosques. These actions are recommended despite published literature expressing safety concerns (i.e., do no harm) in living and end-of-life organ donation. Living donors require life-long medical follow-up and treatment for complications that can appear years later. Scientific and medical controversies persist regarding the international guidelines for death determination in end-of-life donation. The medical criteria of death lack validation and can harm donors if surgical procurement is performed without general anesthesia and before biological death. In the moral code of Islam, the prevention of harm holds precedence over beneficence. Moral precepts described in the Quran encourage Muslims to be beneficent, but also to seek knowledge prior to making practical decisions. However, the Quran also contains passages that demand honesty and truthfulness when providing information to those who are seeking knowledge. Currently, information is limited to that which encourages donor registration. Campaigning for organ donation to congregations in mosques should adhere to the moral code of complete, rather than selective, disclosure of information. We recommend as a minimal standard the disclosure of risks, uncertainties, and controversies associated with the organ donation process.

Re-Examining Group-Centrism in American Public Opinion: The Case of Anti-Latino Sentiment and Immigration Policy Attitudes

Empirical linkages between attitudes toward salient social groups and opinions about public policy issues are commonly taken as evidence that mass opinion is “group-centric.” That is, citizens evaluate policies based on whether favored or disfavored groups are perceived to benefit from them. We argue that this interpretation can be misleading when core values, moral precepts, or pragmatic aims influence both group attitudes and policy preferences alike. In such cases, group attitude-policy opinion linkages are at least partly spurious, and the assumption that considerations of group interest shape and structure policy attitudes may be misplaced. We illustrate this point by drawing on evidence from survey experiments embedded in two original surveys of the California and U.S. publics to examine a seemingly straightforward case of a group-centric relationship – that between non-Hispanic whites’ sentiments toward Latinos and attitudes about illegal immigration policy. We find that modest favoritism toward Europeans and Asians over Latinos reflects respondents’ preference for immigrants who contribute economically and speak English and use of Latino ethnicity as a stereotypical marker of these attributes. Moreover, strong correlations between measures of anti-Latino sentiment and immigration policy opinions emerge because hostility to illegal immigration in general taints attitudes toward Latinos as a group and fosters opposition to legalization. These findings are inconsistent with the group-centric view that whites reject liberal immigration policies because they believe they benefit Latinos. Beyond urging caution about which way the causal arrow points in group attitude-policy opinion links, these conclusions reconcile conflicting findings in the literature on prejudice and immigration policy attitudes.

Characterization of people with venous ulcer assisted at the primary health care

Background: The venous ulcer is a severe public health problem that requires proper care and skilled professionals. Objective: To characterize, as the sociodemographic, health and assistance aspects, adults and elderly with venous ulcers treated with the primary health care. Methods: A cross-sectional survey conducted in primary health care of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, from February to September/2014 with structured interview compound of sociodemographic and bio-physiological measures. The research followed the ethical precepts. Results: Of the total, 61.4% were aged greater or equal to 60 years old. Among the elderly, women predominated (p=0.011), with a partner (p=0.025), primary education (p=0.016), no occupation (p<0.001), non-alcoholic (p=0.029), with diabetes mellitus (p=0.002) and hypertension (p=0.001). As for the health and assistance aspects, there was a tendency of worse outcomes among the elderly. Conclusion: There was a majority of elderly women, without occupation, with a partner, low income, comorbidity, venous ulcer time more than one year, recurrence and pain. It was evident the need for comprehensive care to people with venous ulcers, especially the elderly. &nbsp

Semiótica de ser mãe adolescente: construção identitária de adolescentes em ciclo gravídico-puerperal

Adolescent motherhood as a cultural phenomenon represents an excellent test for human understanding, when studied through a network of meanings. This study aimed to identify the semantics regularity used by adolescents in pregnancy-childbirth cycle about motherhood at this stage of life. Descriptive study with 317 free word association tests with adolescents in pregnancy-childbirth cycle, analyzed through descriptive statistics and correspondence factor analysis. Ethical precepts were followed. Signs assumed principles with multiple, but complementary, characteristics according to how participants signified them, identifying with representational bias. The word was the unit for apprehending the content in context. The educational model of motherhood at this stage of life was structured as positive, neutral, or negative. Feelings of happiness and affection permeated evocations of being a mother, giving the idea of virtue with motherhood. In contradiction, it was anchored by the difficulty of developing this role in adolescence. Thus, there is urgent need for proper monitoring of adolescents, from prenatal to postpartum, since it carries knowledge that, when included in everyday life, provides congruent care in identity construction of being an adolescent or expectant mother.

Nómadas, desempleados y suicidas: racionalidad neoliberal y subjetividades alternas en la literatura centroamericana de posguerra

In this article, I argue that Central American postwar literature—rather than expressing cynicism, affliction or disenchantment as some critics have argued— reveals, questions, and resists the shift in the locus of sovereign power from the political to the economic sphere, which is the result of the consolidation of neoliberalism as the governing rationality and the ensuing economization of all domains of life. Given this context, I claim that the parameters of inclusion and exclusion no longer stem from ideological or political affinities, as was the case during the revolutionary decades, but depend instead on the ability and willingness of the subject to (1) compete and participate in the free market as producer, worker, and/or consumer; and (2) internalize the alleged moral and ethical precepts by means of which neoliberal rationality constructs both the subject and life in common. I therefore argue that the prominent presence in this literary production of subjectivities such as the nomad, the unemployed and the suicide—subjectivities that in one way or another manage to escape neoliberal logic and morality—is not only symptomatic of this change in the locus of sovereignty and the construction of the subject, but also politically critical of it. What is at stake in this literary production is no longer the re-signification of the past, but rather the articulation of the present itself and a different future in which the subject is no longer conceived of and constructed as a mere homo oeconomicus .