Philosophy Commons^™

Managers’ Challenges Complying With Environmental Regulations In Ghana’S Mining Sector, Augustin Tandoh

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Even though Ghana’s mining industry has been and continues to be of remarkable benefit to the national economy, environmental pollution continues to plague the industry. The purpose of the qualitative case study was to obtain the perceptions of 9 nongovernmental organization (NGO) stakeholders of the challenges faced by managers in the Ghanaian mining industry tasked with complying with Ghana Environmental Protection Agency (GEPA) regulations. Freeman’s stakeholder theory was the theoretical framework of the study. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with a purposive sample of Ghanaian and international NGO representatives who sought to work with, or even shame and pressure, …

Beyond The Bump: Reconceiving The Philosophy Of Pregnancy, Hazel T. Bianas, Leni Dlr Garcia, Ninotchka Mumtaj B. Albano

Philosophy Department Faculty Publications

French philosopher Hélène Cixous (1976) stressed the importance of feminine writing. She believes that women should take part in sharing their experiences from their own novel points-of-view. We discuss that while pregnancy is an experience unique to women; it has been misappropriated by patriarchal structures throughout the years. The pregnancy bump; which is more than just evidence of the uterus stretching to accommodate the fetus; is a symbol of a woman's triumphs and struggles all throughout conception; pregnancy and childbirth. We show that women have already gone beyond the bump and challenged existing patriarchal systems through different means; as Cixous …

An Ethical Market For Kidney?, Sang T. Truong

Student Research

The kidney performs several vital functions that maintain our general health condition, including filtering waste chemicals out of our blood. Kidney failure is a condition where patients’ kidneys lose their ability to filter the waste from their blood, leading to accumulating toxin in their body. Without any medical care, a patient with kidney failure has a couple days to a couple of weeks to live. One way to elongate the life of the kidney-failure patient is through kidney transplant, where another kidney is implanted into the patient’s body.

In the U.S, it is illegal to trade a kidney for money. …

Extending Animal Welfare Science To Include Wild Animals, Walter Veit, Heather Browning

Animal Sentience

Ng’s (2016) target article built on his earlier work advocating a science of welfare biology (Ng 1995). Although there were problems with the models proposed in Ng’s original paper regarding the balance of pleasure and suffering for wild animals, his call for a science of wild animal welfare was a sound one. This does not require a new discipline but just an extension of the existing frameworks and methods of animal welfare science to include wild animals.

The Crossroads Of Wellness And Second Victim Syndrome: Identifying Factors That Alter The Pathway Of Caregiver Recovery Following An Unanticipated Adverse Patient Outcome, Kimia Zarabian, A. Katharine Hindle, Ivy Benjenk, Anita Vincent, Jamil M. Kazma, Benjamin Shambon, Raymond Pla, Eric Heinz

Journal of Wellness

Introduction: Second Victim Syndrome (SVS) describes the phenomenon in which a caregiver experiences a traumatic psychological and emotional response to an adverse patient event or medical error. Using quantitative survey analysis, we aim to better understand the personal factors that affect SVS development and recovery.

Methods: Caregivers at a small urban academic medical center who had experienced an adverse patient event in the past six months were invited to take part in this institution-wide, voluntary, quantitative, cross-sectional study. Three surveys were administered; the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory (HRLSI) was used as a surrogate to measure stressful life events. The …

Automating Autism: Disability, Discourse, And Artificial Intelligence, Os Keyes

The Journal of Sociotechnical Critique

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems shift to interact with new domains and populations, so does AI ethics: a relatively nascent subdiscipline that frequently concerns itself with questions of “fairness” and “accountability.” This fairness-centred approach has been criticized for (amongst other things) lacking the ability to address discursive, rather than distributional, injustices. In this paper I simultaneously validate these concerns, and work to correct the relative silence of both conventional and critical AI ethicists around disability, by exploring the narratives deployed by AI researchers in discussing and designing systems around autism. Demonstrating that these narratives frequently perpetuate a dangerously dehumanizing model …

“How Could You Even Ask That?”: Moral Considerability, Uncertainty And Vulnerability In Social Robotics, Alexis Elder

The Journal of Sociotechnical Critique

When it comes to social robotics (robots that engage human social responses via “eyes” and other facial features, voice-based natural-language interactions, and even evocative movements), ethicists, particularly in European and North American traditions, are divided over whether and why they might be morally considerable. Some argue that moral considerability is based on internal psychological states like consciousness and sentience, and debate about thresholds of such features sufficient for ethical consideration, a move sometimes criticized for being overly dualistic in its framing of mind versus body. Others, meanwhile, focus on the effects of these robots on human beings, arguing that psychological …

Morita Therapy According To Morita: Dwelling In The Tension Between Hardy And Fragile Life, Peg Levine

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

At the turn of the last century, Shōma Morita, MD (1874-1938), observed the ways thriving habitats revitalize and sustain humans, other mammals, birds, insects, fish, trees, fungi, and other life. Compatibly, Morita progressed his theory of peripheral consciousness (mushojūshin), which informed his therapeutic ecological habitat and methods. In Morita’s era, scholars and clinicians mulled over diverse hypotheses on consciousness and how consciousness theories (or lack of a theory) influence therapy and places of delivery. Largely by the 1980s, phenomenological inquiry was displaced (if not discredited) by advocates and funders of cognitive science. Therein, consciousness was reframed as …

Native American Perspectives: From The Red Road In Recovery, James Pete

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

CULTURE AND TRADITIONS are a major part of my Red Road in Recovery. I've been involved in Native Art (used to call it Arts and Crafts) from the time I was 8 years old and going on 55 years! I am still learning, in many aspects. But, when I am creating Native Art....there is this place of peacefulness, serenity, a connection to the Higher Power (Gichi Manidoo), those who traveled to the Spirit World, and many others. This is from an Anishinaabe (Chippewa or Ojibwa) aspect.

Contents Ije-Volume 1 (1), October 2020, Cynthia Brunold-Conesa

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Racial Justice And The Image Of Public Health, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The City Commission in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio recently adopted a resolution declaring racism a public health crisis. In doing so, Dayton joins municipalities around the country, as the global pandemic of coronavirus COVID19 swirls around us. The Commission gave compelling reasons for their action, citing the disparate rates of poor health outcomes in African American communities, as well as disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, economic distress, homelessness, incarceration, and inadequate education.1 The Commission’s commitment to remedy these inequities is welcome. Others have laid out this evidence in much detail; I want to focus here on public health …

From Case Study As Symptom To Case Study As Sinthome: Engaging Lacan And Irigaray On "Thinking In Cases" As Psychoanalytic Pedagogy, Erica Freeman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation accomplishes two goals. First, this dissertation articulates a Lacanian account of the epistemological and historical presuppositions of the psychoanalytic case study genre, while engaging reflexively with extant Foucauldian scholarship on this genre as well as feminist psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray’s criticisms of Lacan. Irigaray’s critique is engaged in order to tarry with its implications for a Lacanian approach to the psychoanalytic case study genre. Second, this dissertation critically examines the significance of Lacan’s (re)reading, in Seminar V, of Joan Riviere’s (1929) “Womanliness as Masquerade” in the midst of his oral teachings on the psychoanalytic concepts of castration and …

Clusters Of Individuals Experiences Form A Continuum Of Persistent Non-Symbolic Experiences In Adults, Jeffery A. Martin

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

Persistent forms of nondual awareness, enlightenment, mystical experience, and so forth (Persistent Non-Symbolic Experience) have been reported since antiquity. Though sporadic research has been performed on these experiences, the scientific literature has yet to report a large-scale cognitive psychology study of this population. Method: Assessment of the subjective experience of 319 adult participants reporting persistent non-symbolic experience was undertaken using 6-12 hour semi-structured interviews and evaluated using grounded theory and thematic analysis. Results: Five core, consistent categories of change were uncovered: sense-of-self, cognition, affect, perception, and memory. Participants’ reports formed phenomenological groups in which the types of change …

Brain Complexity, Sentience And Welfare, Donald M. Broom

Animal Sentience

Neither sentience nor moral standing is confined to animals with large or human-like brains. Invertebrates deserve moral consideration. Definition of terms clarifies the relationship between sentience and welfare. All animals have welfare but humans give more protection to sentient animals. Humans should be less human-centred.

Mental Associations And Music Therapy: Including The History Of Associationism And The Neurology Of Associations, Dianna Rose

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Associations are formed in our minds based upon three elements: sensory experience, emotions, and memories. These associations, unique to each individual, dictate thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and actions. Some are necessary and supportive, while others can be maladaptive. Established associations can be changed, and new associations can be formed, to align with a client’s goals. The literature presents a strong history of associationism, as well as a body of research that demonstrates the neurological processes of how mental associations are formed. There are also studies showing how music activates the brain. However, there is a lack of research which draws direct …

Proceeding Without Consent: The Ethics Of Disregarding Patient Preference For Paternalistic Reasons, Nicholas Munsey

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Within the last few decades, modern medical regulations have brought the practicing medical community to an unprecedented level of accountability. Laws and regulations governing the practice of medicine were once, at best, loosely enforced guidelines; practices such as experimental surgeries, dangerous health testing, end of life care, and treatment of mental illness were left comparatively unregulated. The introduction of patient rights and new standards for practicing have left the medical community with a novel dilemma: how might one approach a patient who, according to medical advice, is in need of treatment if that patient is unable to express preference or …

The Criterion Collection, Mackenna Finley

Honors Projects

The Criterion Collection is an examination of truth in fiction and poetry. The goal of this project is not to create truth that is absolute, but instead to allow for the experience of its subjectivity. The interplay between fiction and poetry, reader and author illuminates the subtle warping of truth through human experience.

Community Psychology's Impact On Public Health And The Experience Of Marginalization, Katie Hudick

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

Vulnerable and marginalized populations face a series of risks and dangers throughout their daily lives. This is not simply limited to explicit forms of discrimination and hatred, but systemic forms of oppression and discrimination which limit those not belonging to more privileged and affluent socioeconomic or sociocultural groups. Community psychology operates as a means of analyzing how environmental and social factors impact specific demographic groups within a larger population and by extension the experience of mental health specific to these groups (Townley, Brown, & Sylvestre, 2018). In the application of this field, it is critical to understand the dynamics of …

Ethical Considerations Regarding Paternalism In Medicine, Lola Holcomb

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

Paternalism and autonomy are typically conceptualized as opposing theoretical frameworks. With respect to medical ethics, autonomy is practiced by the patient when he/she has liberty and control over his/her own medical matters, and his/her opinions supersede those of the physician. Paternalism is practiced by the physician when he/she restricts the patient’s autonomy (sometimes against the patient’s will) to promote health and well-being while discouraging undesirable behaviors. This paper details and analyzes a number of cases of medical paternalism in practice, both from the past and in the present day, with the purpose of examining associated ethical considerations. Attention is given …

Filling The Gap: Assessing Moral Permissibility Of Rejections In Dental Practices And Promoting Pro Bono Dental Work Through A Non-Profit Organization, Min Son

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

While the level of urgency in dentistry cannot compare to that in an emergency room, oral healthcare is a crucial part of overall health. Poor oral health can lead to systemic health conditions, such as heart and respiratory diseases, oral cancer, and diabetes. Therefore, the solution to health disparities may lie in addressing oral health disparities first. Nonetheless, most dentists are business owners of their own dental practices. Hence, they work in between business and patient care, sometimes facing associated conflicts. But they are obligated to make ethical decisions when the values between the two fields clash. The dental community …

Volume 12, Haleigh James, Hannah Meyls, Hope Irvin, Megan E. Hlavaty, Samara L. Gall, Austin J. Funk, Karyn Keane, Sarah Ghali, Antonio Harvey, Andrew Jones, Rachel Hazelwood, Madison Schmitz, Marija Venta, Haley Tebo, Jeremiah Gilmer, Bridget Dunn, Benjamin Sullivan, Mckenzie Johnson

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Introduction, Dr. Roger A. Byrne, Dean

From the Editor, Dr. Larissa "Kat" Tracy

From the Designers, Rachel English, Rachel Hanson

Immortality in the Mortal World: Otherworldly Intervention in "Lanval" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale" by Haleigh James

Analysis of Phenolic Compounds in Moroccan Olive Oils by HPLC by Hannah Meyls

Art by Hope Irvin

The Effects of Cell Phone Use on Gameplay Enjoyment and Frustration by Megan E. Hlavaty, Samara L. Gall, and Austin J. Funk

Care, No Matter What: Planned Parenthood's Use of Organizational Rhetoric to Expand its Reputation by Karyn Keane

Analysis of Petroleum Products for …

Ethics Of Dental Marketing, Min Son

Philosophy and Religious Studies Presentations

While dentistry does not deal with immediate life and death situations like the mainstream medicine, preserving oral health is crucial to protect the people’s overall health. Then, is dental marketing morally impermissible because it is selling people’s opportunity for good health? It is important to note that skills and knowledge of dentists are not the only “products” sold from dental offices, and not all products are related to basic healthcare needs. For example, consider teeth whitening services. While whitening teeth may be necessary to better one’s self-esteem and improve one’s social life, it is not a basic healthcare need—whiter teeth …

The Ends Of Medicine And The Experience Of Patients, D. Robert Macdougall

Publications and Research

The ends of medicine are sometimes construed simply as promotion of health, treatment and prevention of disease, and alleviation of pain. Practitioners might agree that this simple formulation captures much of what medical practice is about. But while the ends of medicine may seem simple or even obvious, the essays in this issue demonstrate the wide variety of philosophical questions and issues associated with the ends of medicine. They raise questions about how to characterize terms like “health” and “disease”; whether medicine’s goals should be extended to include enhancement beyond normal human function; and whether the ends of medicine are …

Disease Mongering: How Sickness Sells, Vanessa C. Iroegbulem

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

“Disease mongering” is the practice of widening diagnostic boundaries of an illness and promoting their public awareness to expand the markets for treatment and to increase profits. This tactic typically used by pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment manufacturers, insurance companies, and even some doctors and patient groups, has become a great concern. Disease mongering has since increased in parallel with “medicalization,” which attempts to label normal human conditions as medical problems, thus becoming the subject of medical study, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment. This paper first seeks to examine how an increasing amount of life’s natural conditions and ailments are being seen …

“Why Wouldn’T I Use It?”: Purdue Pharmaceutical’S Push Of Pills, Gillian Fletcher

English Student Scholarship

Throughout the early 1940’s to mid 1960’s, the popular habit of smoking cigarettes was not only condoned, but advertised by doctors and lawmakers. With the support of medical professionals and non-restrictive advertisement laws, the widespread use of this deadly product exploded. The ‘Big Tobacco’ industry and the federal government made enormous amounts in profit and tax revenue. Numerous similarities can be found between the advertising of cigarettes and the prescription opioid, OxyContin. ‘Big Tobacco’ and the producer of OxyContin, Purdue Pharma (Hoffman and Williams Walsh), employed incredibly similar tactics to encourage the public to use their lethal products. By controlling …

Books: The Original And Final Refuge For Mental Wellness, Kyle Christopher Miller

Journal of Wellness

An appreciation for literature and how reading fights to stay relevant in the fast moving era of technology.

Ancient Wisdom And Future Medicine: A Defense Of The Science Of Ayurveda, Michael Eatmon

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

A growing number of people turn to Ayurveda as a complement or an alternative to conventional Western medicine. What are they turning to—a genuine medical science or a patent pseudoscience? This paper claims that modern Ayurvedic medicine is a genuine science with a promising future.

Immunotherapy: Therapy Vs. Enhancement, Mariah Daly

Honors Program Theses

The battle against cancer is a long-standing struggle that has resulted in new information and the development of novel medical technologies. Current research aims to figure out a way to reprogram cells and bodily mechanisms to eliminate those cells that are cancerous without destroying healthy cells in the process. Methods which use the body’s own mechanisms, such as immunotherapy, have shown and continue to show potential for specifically targeting cancer cells. Adoptive T cell therapy is one form of immunotherapy that has gained significant attention and focus in the field. Therapies improve conditions up to the normal state of being, …

Correlations To Financial Performance In The Pharmaceutical Industry, Fred Mcclellan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There exist conflicting priorities for leaders when considering ethical leadership behaviors and organizational financial performance. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine correlations between top manager ethical leadership levels and organizational financial performance, within the pharmaceutical industry. The Ethical leadership theory was used to frame the study. Relationships between top managers’ perceived ethics levels and organizational financial performance were studied, as well as, whether top managers’ practices, purposes, and virtues acted as mediators. A goal of 184 participants were recruited from 338 pharmaceutical companies. Five top managers and 17 of their direct report team members took part in …

China's Lack Of Animal Welfare Legislation Increases The Risk Of Further Pandemics, Amanda Whitfort

Animal Sentience

Legislation enforcing positive animal welfare standards provides an important buffer against the spread of disease when other safeguards to promote animal health have failed. The continuing absence of animal welfare legislation in China increases the risk of future pandemics, like COVID-19, and puts animal health, and consequently public health in danger.