The Concept and Ethical Justification of Informed Consent

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica W. Berg ◽  
Paul S. Appelbaum ◽  
Charles W. Lidz ◽  
Lisa S. Parker
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Ethical Justification ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
American Society

The values underlying informed consent—autonomy and concern for individual well-being—are deeply embedded in American culture, in our religious traditions, and in Western moral philosophy. It is not surprising that informed consent is a cornerstone doctrine of contemporary medical ethics and health law in the United States. There is widespread agreement about the importance of the concept, goals, and practice of informed consent. Even when there are differences of opinion about the best way to implement informed consent in clinical practice, or when there is debate about the core meaning of the concept, the attention paid to these controversies only reinforces recognition of the importance of informed consent in contemporary health care and medical research. The concept of informed consent has multiple meanings and draws its ethical justification from several sources. Some consider informed consent to be synonymous with the ideal of shared decision making between physician and patient, or at least to embody this ideal (1). Others emphasize that informed consent is a particular sort of decision made by a particular sort of decision maker (2). Still others focus on informed consent as a norm-governed social practice that is embedded in social institutions, specifically law and medicine. This chapter discusses these different but often overlapping conceptions of informed consent. From a patient’s perspective, informed consent appears to be a right, while from the physician’s viewpoint, it is a duty or obligation. In fact, informed consent imposes responsibilities on both patient and physician. The relationship between ethical rights and duties, as well as the possibility of conflict between them, form another topic of this chapter. In this chapter we also discuss the ethical values and goals that underlie informed consent. Informed consent is grounded in some of the ethical values most prized in American society and Western ethical thought, especially autonomy— auto from the Greek word for self, and nomos from the Greek for rule—literally “self-rule.” It is interesting to observe how the fundamental goals of informed consent usually coincide, but sometimes conflict, both in theory and as manifest in particular cases.

People and Climate Change

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Community Inclusion ◽  
Global Issue ◽  
Political Challenge

Climate change is a profoundly social and political challenge with many social justice concerns around every corner. A global issue, climate change threatens the well-being, livelihood, and survival of people in communities worldwide. Often, those who have contributed least to climate change are the most likely to suffer from its negative consequences and are often excluded from the policy discussions and decisions that affect their lives. This book pays particular attention to the social dimensions of climate change. It examines closely people’s lived experience, climate-related injustice and inequity, why some groups are more vulnerable than others, and what can be done about it—especially through greater community inclusion in policy change. A highlight of the book is its diversity of rich, community-based examples from throughout the Global South and North. Sacrificial flood zones in urban Argentina, forced relocation of United Houma tribal members in the United States, and gendered water insecurities in Bangladesh and Australia are just some of the in-depth cases included in the book. Throughout, the book asks social and political questions about climate change. Of key importance, it asks what can be done about the unequal consequences of climate change by questioning and transforming social institutions and arrangements—guided by values that prioritize the experience of affected groups and the inclusion of diverse voices and communities in the policy process.

Reflections on a Scholarly Career in Sport and Exercise Psychology: The Influence of Significant Others on the Psychosocial Well-Being of Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Thelma S. Horn
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Significant Others ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The North ◽  
Senior Scholar ◽  
Sport And Exercise ◽  
American Society

This paper is based on a Senior Scholar presentation delivered at the 2020 annual meeting of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity. The paper begins with a summary of the research work completed by the author and coinvestigators in regard to the influences that significant others (parents, peers, and coaches) exert on the psychosocial well-being of individuals in sport and physical activity. In each of these three areas, illustrative research studies are summarized in a predominantly chronological order with a commentary at the end of each section that identifies unanswered questions and suggests future research directions. In the second section, four particular lessons learned by the author over the course of a scholarly career are identified and explained.

Western Religion in the Long 1960s

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 823-831
Author(s):  
HUGH MCLEOD
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Post War ◽  
American Society

The Yale church historian, Sydney Ahlstrom, had just emerged somewhat dazed from the Sixties when he reviewed the religious trajectory of the United States during that decade. He wrote that by 1966 it was clear that ‘the post-war religious revival had completely frittered out, that the nation was moving towards a crise de la conscience of unprecedented depth’. As well as a ‘growing attachment to naturalism and “secularism”’ he mentioned ‘a creeping or galloping awareness of vast contradictions in American life between profession and performance, the ideal and the actual’ and ‘increasing doubt concerning the capacity of present-day ecclesiastical, political, social and educational institutions to rectify these contradictions’. As Ahlstrom made clear in a later essay, he saw the crisis faced both by the Roman Catholic Church and by the ‘mainline’ Protestant Churches as part of a wider loss of ‘confidence or hope’ in American society and a passing away of ‘the certitudes that had always shaped the nation's well-being and sense of destiny’.

Immigration, Multiculturalism, and the Social Contract

1997 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Heath
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Institutional Expectations ◽  
Internal Coherence

Since the failure of the Meech Lake constitutional reforms and the crisis of national unity prompted by the most recent Quebec referendum, the Canadian Multiculturalism Act has been subjected to particularly intense and hostile scrutiny. While some of the criticism of this policy reflects merely parochial adherence to particular cultural or religious traditions, some of it has raised more significant doubts about the internal coherence, efficacy, and overall desirability of the policy. Most importantly, the multiculturalism policy is faulted for attempting to pursue two simultaneously unachievable goals, viz., to integrate ethnic minority groups into the dominant institutions of the society, while at the same time to protect them against various pressures to assimilate to the dominant culture. Critics have pointed out that social institutions and cultural values are interdependent. Not only do cultural value systems provide the central legitimations for social institutions, but the internalization of these values through socialization processes provides agents with their primary motivation for conforming to institutional expectations. This means that integrating an agent into a system of institutions can only be achieved by assimilating the agent to its underlying cultural system.

scholarly journals COVID-19: exploring impacts of the pandemic and lockdown on mental health of Pakistani students

PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e10612
Author(s):  
Gul Muhammad Baloch ◽  
Sheela Sundarasen ◽  
Karuthan Chinna ◽  
Mohammad Nurunnabi ◽  
Kamilah Kamaludin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Male Student ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Higher Educational Institutions ◽  
College And University ◽  
Higher Educational

Background As of the present, the twenty-first century is experiencing what may be one of its most devastating events, in respect to infected and dead people by the virus. Now known to the world as COVID-19, the devastating disease of what has become a pandemic started its spread from Wuhan, China and swiftly engulfed the whole world with almost 11 million cases, in a span of around six months. It has not only increased the global burden of disease but has heavily dented many social institutions, including education. Methods This study investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent measures of lockdown, quarantine, and social distancing have affected students. We look specifically into the effects on individuals’ mental health, that is, the stress and anxiety levels of college and university students using the Zung Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS). Results Among 494 respondents, 61% were females, and the majority (77.3%) of the students were in the age group of 19–25 years. Among the respondents, 125 (25.3%), 45 (9.1%) and 34 (6.9%) experienced minimal to moderate, severe, and most extreme levels of anxiety, respectively. The variables of gender, age and year of study were significant at the 0.25 level by univariate analyses. Nevertheless, the ordinal regression indicates that only gender was significant. The odds of a female student being more anxious are higher compared to a male student (OR = 1.779, 95% CI [1.202–2.634], P = 0.004). The most prominent stressors attained from the qualitative feedback from the Pakistani students are associated with online teaching, concerns about their academic performance and completion of the current semester, uncertainty related to exam dates, and the status of the following semester. Conclusions This study will add to the existing body of literature on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the social and psychological health of students. The study outcomes will provide basic data for further applied and action research and a framework for universities and policy makers in Pakistan and the neighboring countries in the region with the same cultural contexts. Thus, relevant health interventions can be designed for better mental health and educational attainments of students from higher educational institutions. This pathological pandemic may well lead to another pandemic of mental and behavioral illness. All stakeholders should join force regardless of pre-existing differences and inequalities to ensure the well-being of future generations, specifically students from higher educational institutions. The long-lasting impacts and the aftermath of this pandemic will unquestionably need further and future investigations. Keywords: Anxiety, students, mental health, COVID-19, Pakistan

scholarly journals The Immense House of Postcards

1970 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-71
Author(s):  
Hanoch Ben-Pazi
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Core ◽  
Textual Tradition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Way Of Thinking

The subject of tradition engaged both Emmanuel Lévinas and Jacques Derrida in many of their writings, which explore both the philosophical and cultural significance of tradition and the particular significance of the latter in a specifically Jewish context. Lévinas devoted a few of his Talmudic essays to the subject, and Derrida addressed the issue from the perspective of different philosophical and religious traditions. This article uses the writings of these two thinkers to propose a new way of thinking about the idea of tradition. At the core of its inquiry lie the paradigm of the letter and the use of this metaphor as a means of describing the concept of tradition. Using the phenomenon of the letter as a vantage point for considering tradition raises important points of discussion, due to both the letter’s nature as a text that is sent and the manifest and hidden elements it contains. The focus of this essay is the phenomenon of textual tradition, which encompasses different traditions of reading and interpreting texts and a grasp of the horizon of understanding opened up in relation to the text through its many different interpretations. The attention paid here to the actions of individuals serves to highlight the importance of the interpersonal realm and of ethical thought.

scholarly journals Self-Abdication and Otherness in Philip Roth’s The Human Stain (2000)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assia Mohdeb ◽  
Sofiane Mammeri
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Racial Passing ◽  
The Core ◽  
Class Discrimination ◽  
The Subject ◽  
American Society ◽  
Definition Of

Identity, in one of its understanding, signifies a set of characteristics that make up a person’s ethical faithfulness to, identification with, and pride of one’s origin, tradition, and culture. Remaining true to one’s identity and being faithful to the core values of one’s culture is a complicated matter when it comes to a black living in white society like America, where color and racial identity are rudimentary prerequisites in self-definition and naming. Philip Roth’s novel entitled The Human Stain (2000) shows how some black figures undress their black identity to wear the prestigious white one to go onward with life as full selves, to have access to all the privileges the whites enjoy, and, above all, to live without the specter of race and the decisiveness of epidermal signs. The novel calls into question and revision such essentialist notions as other, class,andrace by describing the crises the subject or self undergoes in the light of racial prejudices, center-periphery relations, and class stereotypes. The present paper, then, addresses the act of self-abdication the protagonist, Silk Coleman, carries out to overstep the feeling of otherness and to dodge racial discrimination. The paper looks into the notions of selfhood and Otherness by negotiating the definition of the self and the distortion it undergoes in its encounter with the Other . The study aims at revealing, primarily, the effects of Black racial-passing, a common phenomenon in American society of the first half of the twentieth century, on familial relationships and cultural heritage. It also reveals the weight of gender and class discrimination in the individual’s identity formation and well-being.

scholarly journals Medical Violence, Obstetric Racism, and the Limits of Informed Consent for Black Women

2021 ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Colleen Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Informed Consent ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cesarean Sections ◽  
Bodily Integrity ◽  
Early American ◽  
Antebellum Era ◽  
Unnecessary Procedures ◽  
A Site ◽  
Biological Race

This Essay critically examines how medicine actively engages in the reproductive subordination of Black women. In obstetrics, particularly, Black women must contend with both gender and race subordination. Early American gynecology treated Black women as expendable clinical material for its institutional needs. This medical violence was animated by biological racism and the legal and economic exigencies of the antebellum era. Medical racism continues to animate Black women’s navigation of and their dehumanization within obstetrics. Today, the racial disparities in cesarean sections illustrate that Black women are simultaneously overmedicalized and medically neglected—an extension of historical medical practices rooted in the logic of biological race. Though the principle of informed consent traditionally protects the rights of autonomy, bodily integrity, and well-being, medicine nevertheless routinely subjects Black women to medically unnecessary procedures. This Essay adopts the framework of obstetric racism to analyze Black women’s overmedicalization as a site of reproductive subordination. It thus offers a critical interdisciplinary and intersectional lens to broader conversations on race in reproduction and maternal health.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prema A. Kurien
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global South ◽  
Immigrant Communities ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
Religion And Ethnicity ◽  
American Society

The conclusion provides an overview of what the Mar Thoma case teaches us regarding the types of changes globalization is bringing about in Christian immigrant communities in the United States, and in Christian churches in the Global South. It examines the impact of transnationalism on the Mar Thoma American denomination and community, specifically how the Kerala background of the community and the history of the church in Kerala impact the immigrant church. It also looks at how contemporary shifts in the understanding and practice of religion and ethnicity in Western societies impact immigrant communities and churches in the United States, the incorporation of immigrants of Christian backgrounds into American society, and evangelical Christianity in America. Finally, it discusses how large-scale out-migration and the global networks facilitated by international migrants affect Christianity in the Global South. The chapter concludes with an overview of how religious traditions are changed through global movement.

“Literary Institutions are Founded and Endowed for the Common Good”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Dorn
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
The Public ◽  
Regional Center ◽  
The Common ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Civic Mindedness ◽  
Primary Mission

This chapter examines Bowdoin College, which was supported by district elites who worked to erect a regional center of higher learning to which they could send their sons rather than incur the cost of dispatching them south to other colleges. On the morning of Bowdoin's opening, appointed president Joseph McKeen pronounced the college's primary mission: “That the inhabitants of this district may have their own sons to fill the liberal professions among them, and particularly to instruct them in the principles and practice of our holy religion, is doubtless the object of this institution.” This conception of higher education's function in American society drew heavily on a social ethos of civic-mindedness that assigned priority to social responsibility over individuals' self indulgence. Characterized by the practice of civic virtue and a commitment to the public good, civic-mindedness provided social institutions, including those dedicated to higher learning, a source from which to derive their central aims.

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