Society's Obligation Research Articles

Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865-1900.

The Grand Army of the Republic, the largest of all Union Army veterans' organizations, was the most powerful single-issue political lobby of the late nineteenth century, securing massive pensions for veterans and helping to elect five postwar presidents from its own membership. To its members, it was also a secret fraternal order, a source of local charity, a provider of entertainment in small municipalities, and a patriotic organization. Using GAR convention proceedings, newspapers, songs, rule books, and local post records, Stuart McConnell examines this influential veterans' association during the years of its greatest strength. Beginning with a close look at the men who joined the GAR in three localities -- Philadelphia; Brockton, Massachusetts; and Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin - McConnell goes on to examine the Union veterans' attitudes towards their former Confederate enemies and toward a whole range of noncombatants whom the verterans called civilians: stay-at-home townsfolk, Mugwump penion reformers, freedmen, women, and their own sons and daughters. In the GAR, McConnell sees a group of veterans trying to cope with questions concerning the extent of society's obligation to the poor and injured, the place of war memories in peacetime, and the meaning of the and the individual's relation to it. McConnell aruges that, by the 1890s, the GAR was clinging to a preservationist version of American nationalism that many white, middle-class Northerners found congenial in the face of the social upheavals of that decade. In effect, he concludes, the nineteenth-century career of the GAR is a study in the microcosm of a nation trying to hold fast to an older image of itself in the face of massive social change.

THE EFFECT OF IDENTIFICATION AND DIFFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF GIFTED ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PUPILS

Within the framework of a comprehensive research project entitled “The effects of identification and specific treatment of gifted pupils”, this paper deals with the problem of the effects of such a procedure on the attitudes of pupils, their parents, and teachers regarding giftedness and gifted individuals. Attention was mainly directed towards the effects of identification on the development of personality characteristics of the gifted pupils, on relations between gifted and other pupils, on the characteristics of teachers necessary for work with the gifted, on the controversy about separation of the gifted into special classes or schools, and on society's obligations to the gifted. The results of this two year follow‐up study are based on a comparison of the data from the initial and the final surveys of an experimental and a control group of subjects. 1 This paper is based on a lecture held at the IXth World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children (The Hague, 1991).

The Individual vs Society

AN INDIVIDUAL can be in conflict with society whenever the individual uses a disproportionate amount of a health care service without paying for it.¹This either forces others to cover the cost of replacing the service or, if the cost is not repaid and the service is not replaced, deprives others of the benefits of the service. The first causes others financial harm. The second causes harm to their health. In either case, the "others" are what we call "society." If the individual is incapable of paying, and if the service is considered essential,²then the use of such a service is considered acceptable; it is viewed as part of society's obligation to individuals in need. However, as the individual's ability to pay increases, as the benefit provided by the service decreases, and as the cost of the service increases, the conflict grows. <h3>The Source of the Conflict</h3>

Health Policy In Two Nations: What A British Analyst Might Say

Health Policy In Two Nations: What A British Analyst Might Say

Just health care (II): Is equality too much?

In a previous essay I criticized Engelhardt's libertarian conception of justice, which grounds the view that society's obligation to assure access to adequate health care for all is a matter of beneficence. Beneficence fails to capture the moral stringency associated with many claims for access to health care. In the present paper I argue that these claims are really matters of justice proper, where justice is conceived along moderate egalitarian lines, such as those suggested by Rawls and Daniels, rather than strong egalitarian lines. Further, given the empirical complexity associated with the distribution of contemporary health care, I argue that what we really need to address the relevant policy issues adequately is a theory of health care justice, as opposed to an all-purpose conception of justice. Daniels has made an important start toward that goal, though there are some large policy areas which I discuss that his account of health care justice does not really speak to. Finally, practical matters of health care justice really need to be addressed in a 'non-ideal' mode, a framework in which philosophers have done little.

Donating Your Health Care Benefits

Donating Your Health Care Benefits We have devised a health care system that effectively discourages sharing of medical resources. In concentrating on responding to the needs of self-regarding health care consumers, the responsibilities of patients to share scarce resources has been neglected. We need to change both our theory of medical ethics and our health care system to encourage rather than discourage decisions to share resources, a thesis I will develop with particular reference to decisions by competent patients who have terminal illnesses but whose deaths may or may not be imminent. Although sharing is by no means a virtue for them alone, decisions by the terminally ill provide an illuminating context in which to consider sharing medical resources. In most dimensions of life, we encourage altruistic behavior. We want people to consider the welfare and wellbeing of others when they make choices. But the virtue of sharing disappears when we talk about health care. The patient is encouraged to act exclusively for his or her own benefit: it is considered appropriate to claim all the health care one can. The ethic that encourages this behavior stems partly from a laudable attempt to assert an affluent society's obligation to meet the health care needs of its members, regardless of their ability to pay. But it also results from the less laudable habit of viewing ethics as a discipline that floats serenely above the unhappy reality of economics: How can you place a monetary value on the life of a human being? If we are worth more than any amount of money, surely we should consume health care services without regard to cost. This ethic is supported by our religious conception of the sanctity of human life and our Western ideology, which claims that the way to die is courageously, fighting death every step of the way. Of course, a competent adult has a moral and legal right to refuse medical treatment. But we still feel that the only morally appropriate reasons for not wanting medical care are self-centered ones. Clearly, refusing treatment because of cost is sometimes tragic, the result of injustice. But it is equally clear that, given the cost of medical care today, we cannot all have all the medical care we want. We can now spend $500,000 or more on heroic measures to extend the life of a dying patient. And it will soon be possible--technically, if not economically--to spend that kind of money on an increasingly broad spectrum of dying patients. But we cannot afford for many of us to die that way, not even if we trim the fat and inefficiency from our health care system--not even if we were willing to make dramatic cuts in our spending for defense, education, nonmedical welfare, public works, and personal consumption. By pouring money into expensive and often only partly successful heroic measures for a few people at the expense of more commonplace measures for more people, we add a little time of seriously impoverished quality to some lives instead of saving many other lives that could last longer and be of much higher quality. Thus, a terminally ill patient who is considering what treatment to request ought to be encouraged to calculate the costs of the alternatives in making his or her choice. This would not be incompatible with our deeply held commitments to the autonomy and the dignity of the individual, or even the sanctity of human life. Whenever there are not enough resources to give all individuals everything they want or need, it is more in keeping with the autonomy and the dignity of all individuals and with the sanctity of all lives if some choose to share their health care resources than if some are forced to share or if some are deprived due to inability to pay, barriers to access, or the fact that the victims of our rationing are out of sight and out of mind. …

Socioeconomic considerations in childhood cancer survival. Society's obligations.

Children have the right to be given the opportunity to become responsible adults. But this right is not assured for children with cancer. They carry a stigma that is the basis for discrimination in education, in the armed services, in employment opportunities, and in the opportunity to receive fair treatment from health and life insurance companies. In this article, examples of discriminatory practices are reviewed, along with the steps being taken to alleviate the situation. The author emphasizes that the responsibility for correcting discrimination belongs to all groups in society--the government, families of children with cancer, and other private citizens--and suggests means by which citizens can end discrimination against cancer survivors.

Health Care for Veterans: The Limits of Obligation

The federal government has a generally unquestioned obligation to provide health care to veterans for diseases or disabilities acquired during military service. Much argued, however, is the government's obligation to offer care for nonservice-connected disorders. The Reagan administration has sharpened the debate recently by attempting to impose a means test on veterans over sixty-five who are seeking such care. But the controversy focuses on the wrong issue. Society has a moral obligation to provide adequate health care to all citizens but has no special obligation to care for nonservice-connected health problems of veterans.

Ethical and legal aspects of the suicide problem

The discussion on the freedom to commit suicide and on medical assistance to suicide is a challenge for psychiatry to consider critically the ethical aspects of suicide prophylaxis and of the present jurisdiction on suicide. Suicide research has shown that most acts of suicide are not carried out as free acts of will. The increase in clinic suicides and the high frequency of suicides after in-patient psychiatric treatment clearly show the limits of the therapy of suicidal patients and force us to reflect critically on new developments of psychiatry and special forms of therapy. The decision on the necessity and the duration of compulsory measures can always be made only for each individual case. The danger of renewed acts of suicide can never be excluded. Especially great demands are made on the doctor-patient relationship. Suicide prophylaxis is a humanitarian obligation of society and the medical profession, especially of psychiatry, an obligation which must not be jeopardised by one-sided propagations of the right to "voluntary death".

The Political Implications of Human Genetic Technology. By Robert H. Blank. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1981. Pp. vii + 255. $25.25 cloth; $12.00 paper.)

Human genetic technology has advanced rapidly in recent years to the point where amniocentesis is commonplace and in vitro fertilization has been successful. On the horizon looms the specter of human cloning and genetic engineering, raising a storm of new moral and ethical questions. These questions, asserts the author, are not the only ones to be considered; the impact and role of public policy are equally critical. What part should the state play in human genetic intervention? To what extent does a democratic society have the duty to take steps to reduce genetic disease and improve the quality of life through genetic engineering? If society has such responsibility, at what stage does societal good preempt individual rights? What is society's obligation toward future generations and is genetic manipulation justifiable on these grounds? After surveying the state of the art, the author grapples with these questions, contending that decisions ultimately will not be based on ethical and moral grounds –they will be fought out in the political arena.

Labor and the Living Wage 1890–1910

SummaryIt is clear that the Australian labour movement did not subscribe to any identifiable political ideology, did not blue‐print a grand master‐plan, the application of which eventuated in the complex arrangements of industrial control and the establishment of the national minimum wage. More in character would be the proposition that labour deployed its scarce resources at the points most likely to yield the greatest short‐term rewards. It was logical, for instance, given enhanced political power, to concentrate effort on raising wages and improving conditions in government employment; but equally the campaign was an expedient devised to remedy obvious malpractices of sub‐contractors. Labour's policies may be thought of more as a series of short‐term expediences evolved as experience taught, rather than a continuum of inter‐related policies being part of a preconceived plan of action. Economic and political conditions mostly dictated the pace and direction of change: labour mostly capitalized on opportunities as they occurred.In the process, however, the Australian labour movement inadvertently helped to carve out for itself, and for Australia, the most complete system of state regulated industrial control outside the present day socialist countries. It became socially acceptable for governments to set standards of work, to specify and enforce a pattern of social conditions matching the rigours of an abstract concept of social justice. In the name of settling industrial disputes pacifically, governments assumed the role, or were given the task, of enforcing a wage structure which assumed a parity of power between the two sides of industry, and particularly postulated a ‘living wage’ based at least ostensibly on a criterion of social welfare as distinct from one of industrial capacity.Ultimately, it is with the latter consideration we are most concerned, for the ‘living wage’ formed the conceptial basis of the Harvester judgment and the national minimum wage. The tactics employed by the labour movement to raise wages required continual harping on the standard of living; the iniquity of a wages system tolerating a level of income for the unskilled which a consensus of opinion owned to be socially undesirable. Though labour's indignation of a bricklayer's getting 8 shillings a day when he ‘rightfully’ deserved 10 shillings was of measure equal to that of labourers' receiving less than a subsistence wage, public concern was the greater for ‘a man, wife and three children’ living on 30 shillings a week. Moreover, whilst in the 1900s tradesmen generally regained union rates, oversupply in the labour market kept those of the unskilled at a markedly and obviously lower level than in the decades of prosperity.Labour's policy as we have seen, operated to involve governments directly in redressing power relativities in industrial affairs, and to the fashioning of institutions through which government authority could function. Of equal importance was the cumulative product of campaigns conducted to make these institutions social, political and legal realities. The mechanism developed to meet such needs is interesting and merits careful exposition: but more interesting possibly is the impact of publicity in conditioning society to approve state action guaranteeing a minimum wage for every Australian.We cannot here attempt to analyze the cause or direction of shifts in public sentiment. We need to note, nonetheless, that labour's policies served to focus the spotlight of public concern on a set of ‘injustice’ which few could avoid recognizing. Labour spelled out the premises and little effort on the part of the general public was needed to draw logical conclusions. For more than a decade and a half, with but one brief respite, Australia experienced conditions of high unemployment. And for more than a decade and a half there occurred an unbroken series of ‘monster demonstrations’, protest meetings, well‐publicized deputations to governments, rallies of the unemployed, ‘revelations' at industrial arbitration hearings, exposés by the Anti‐Sweating League, social‐welfare orientated parliamentary debates—the whole drawing attention to and eliciting sympathy for ’the unskilled labourer‘. Understandably the Bulletinconcluded: ’The public has had “living wage” so much dinned into its ear that it has come to regard a bare “living wage” as the proper wage for a working man to get.‘43If we couple this public acceptance of society's obligation to guarantee the working man a ‘living wage’ with the imperative that government ought to ensure industrial tranquillity, judgment when he did, where he did and why it was received with so little disapprobation.

The Military Origins of Medieval Representation

AMONG the circumstances that attended the formation of parliamentary institutions in the Middle Ages, one seldom hears of militarism or military organization. The prevailing understanding comprises such factors as the persistence of feudal traditions of counsel and law, the emergence of an urban class, the revival of Roman legal principles of public responsibility and representation, and the ever more urgent financial needs of expanding governments. It is not my purpose to reject this pattern of explanation. On the contrary, I should like for the present to assume that it is generally satisfactory. But it seems to me that militarism has been unduly neglected in accounting for the rise of consultative government and that it should be investigated as a fundamental condition to which the well-known factors or causes may be related. Fortunately there have been some prospectors in this domain; the problem, while neglected, has not passed unnoticed. It will appear that my discussion owes much to suggestions and contributions made by William Stubbs, J. H. Round, J. E. A. Jolliffe, Michael Powicke, and other authorities. The underestimation of military aspects of parliamentary origins may perhaps be attributed to the tendency to view developments of the High Middle Ages anachronistically. In recent times representative institutions have come to be regarded as incompatible with militarist rule. Ordinary affairs of state are usually distinguished sharply from what we like to think of as the extraordinary affairs of war. Yet it is hardly open to doubt that European representation arose in a society of a different sort: a society that, notwithstanding considerable advances in social objectives and politicaladministrative techniques, remained organized primarily for war. Even in England, with its exceptionally progressive institutional life, those who ruled were still in the thirteenth century mainly those who fought. Those who were ruled, moreover, were still thought of in fundamentally military terms. Landholding, the obligations of society, and privileges long con-

The Society's Obligation to the Permanent Literature of Petroleum Engineering

The Society's Obligation to the Permanent Literature of Petroleum Engineering

A Definition of Petroleum Engineering

A Definition of Petroleum Engineering

Kodály's Later Orchestral Music (I)

It has often been said that the greatness of an artist depends on his relation to the legacy of previous epochs and on his attitude to the intellectual impulses of his time. His awareness of these factors, conditioned by his response towards the obligations of society, will determine the value of his own contribution.In Kodály's case investigation was hitherto centred mainly on his choral music: it is now proposed to examine his two large-scale, purely orchestral works of comparatively recent date.

Obligations of Society in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. A. L. PooleThe English Government at Work, 1326-1337. W. A. Morris , J. R. Strayer

<i>Obligations of Society in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries</i>. A. L. Poole<i>The English Government at Work, 1326-1337</i>. W. A. Morris , J. R. Strayer

Obligations of Society in the 12th and 13th Centuries; The Ford Lectures by Austin Lane Poole. (10s. 6d.) - England and the Continent in the Eighth Century; The Ford Lectures by W. Levison. (20s. Both Oxford University Press.)

Obligations of Society in the 12th and 13th Centuries; The Ford Lectures by Austin Lane Poole. (10s. 6d.) - England and the Continent in the Eighth Century; The Ford Lectures by W. Levison. (20s. Both Oxford University Press.)

Obligations of society in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

Obligations of society in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Get access Notes and Queries, Volume 190, Issue 11, 1 June 1946, Page 242, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/190.11.242 Published: 01 June 1946

Scientific truths and their use by society

This article clarifies the responsibility of the scientist and engineer in the modern world, and emphasizes the obligations of society to utilize the researches of science for the common good.

COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF PHILADELPHIA, SECTION ON OTOLOGY AND LARYNGOLOGY (SPECIAL MEETING) Nov. 12, 1925

MODERNMETHODS IN THEEDUCATION OF THEDEAFCHILD. Presented byDR. M. A.GOLDSTEIN(by invitation). Society's obligation to the deaf child is similar to that of the sick or crippled minor. In the past, the weight of this obligation has not been sufficiently recognized, and although progress has been made the public still does not respond to the aid of this group of deficients as readily or as intelligently as it does in making provision for the crippled or sick child. It is essential for the otologist to cooperate unselfishly with the teachers of the deaf. Too few otologists have accurate knowledge of the methods of training and the results that can be realized. Without this knowledge, he cannot give the most valuable and accurate advice to the parent consulting him relative to the care and training of a deaf child. Dr. Goldstein divided deaf children into two