Ethics in Conflict

2006 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Barnes ◽  
Michael Keleher

The past two decades have seen an increased emphasis placed on the relationship between communication and ethics, a subject that philosophers have debated for centuries. An analysis of textbooks as disciplinary artifacts reveals that students enrolled in communication courses across the university are often presented with conflicting or contradictory ethics instruction. Commonly, business and technical communication textbooks advocate a foundational approach toward the subject, whereas interpersonal communication textbooks, as taught within the liberal arts, support a nonfoundational view. Rather than bolstering students’ understanding of the importance of ethical communication, such broad-based contradictions might lead to an overall ambivalence toward the subject. A critical pedagogy—one that acknowledges and explores this tacit disciplinary debate on ethics—would provide students a more comprehensive philosophical and historical basis for determining their own perspectives on ethical communication.

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 6222
Author(s):  
Kacper Szewczyk ◽  
Aleksandra Chojnacka ◽  
Magdalena Górnicka

Tocopherols and tocotrienols are natural compounds of plant origin, available in the nature. They are supplied in various amounts in a diet, mainly from vegetable oils, some oilseeds, and nuts. The main forms in the diet are α- and γ-tocopherol, due to the highest content in food products. Nevertheless, α-tocopherol is the main form of vitamin E with the highest tissue concentration. The α- forms of both tocopherols and tocotrienols are considered as the most metabolically active. Currently, research results indicate also a greater antioxidant potential of tocotrienols than tocopherols. Moreover, the biological role of vitamin E metabolites have received increasing interest. The aim of this review is to update the knowledge of tocopherol and tocotrienol bioactivity, with a particular focus on their bioavailability, distribution, and metabolism determinants in humans. Almost one hundred years after the start of research on α-tocopherol, its biological properties are still under investigation. For several decades, researchers’ interest in the biological importance of other forms of vitamin E has also been growing. Some of the functions, for instance the antioxidant functions of α- and γ-tocopherols, have been confirmed in humans, while others, such as the relationship with metabolic disorders, are still under investigation. Some studies, which analyzed the biological role and mechanisms of tocopherols and tocotrienols over the past few years described new and even unexpected cellular and molecular properties that will be the subject of future research.


1987 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 295-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marleen Pugach ◽  
Mara Sapon-Shevin

The calls for educational reform that have dominated the professional and lay literature for the past few years have been decidedly silent in discussing the role of special education either as a contributor or a solution to the problems being raised. As an introduction to this “Special Focus” on the relationship between general educational reform and special education, this article summarizes some of the more prominent reports with regard to their treatment (and nontreatment) of special education. The impact of proposed reforms for the conceptualization and operation of special education is the subject of the five articles that follow.


2020 ◽  
Vol V (II) ◽  
pp. 22-31
Author(s):  
Waqar Un Nisa Faizi ◽  
Anila Fatima Shakil ◽  
Wilayat Bibi

Employee associations serve as resources of interested employees in helping the advisory committees and the staff task forces. Besides, they may also help in publicizing information of interest, procedures, and policy to employees and participate actively in the process of academic review. In universities, a significant role is played by employees unions. Unlike Employee unions, the existence of employee associations differs a lot. Many benefits can be gained from the relationship between the management of the University and employee association. It has been found that in the past, universities in Pakistan have failed to revive and engage with their employees, due to which effectiveness was lost majorly by the associations present in the universities. This research paper will critically reflect upon the relationship between the employee association and the overall management of the universities of Peshawar. Further, it will also identify the significant barriers and issues faced by the employees associations.


Author(s):  
Bruno Bertaccini ◽  
Riccardo Bruni ◽  
Federico Crescenzi ◽  
Beatrice Donati

Logical abilities are a ubiquitous ingredient in all those contexts that take into account soft skills, argumentative skills or critical thinking. However, the relationship between logical models and the enhancement of these abilities is rarely explicitly considered. Two aspects of the issue are particularly critical in our opinion, namely: (i) the lack of statistically relevant data concerning these competences; (ii) the absence of reliable indices that might be used to measure and detect the possession of abilities underlying the above-mentioned soft skills. This paper aims to address both aspects of this topic by presenting the results of a research we conducted in the period October – December 2020 on students enrolled in various degree courses at the University of Florence. To the best of our knowledge, to date this is the largest available database on the subject in the Italian University System. It has been obtained by a three-stage initiative. We started from an “entrance” examination for assessing the students' initial abilities. This test comprised ten questions, each of which was centered on a specific reasoning construct. The results we have collected show that there is a widespread lack of understanding of basic patterns that are common in the everyday way of arguing. Students then underwent a short training course, using formal logic techniques in order to strengthen their abilities, and afterwards took an “exit” examination, replicating the structure and the questions difficulty of the entrance one in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the course. Results show that the training was beneficial.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aslı Alanlı

Since the 1990s, the university space has been the subject of many discussions due to the introduction of communication technologies to the learning process,which has become significantly visible after the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic nowadays. These debates focus on the two extreme points ofwhether university space is necessary or not. In this regard, this research claims that the arguments on this topic are based on subject-object duality. It aims to develop a ground covering the discussions that oscillate between the two extremes by referring to sociomateriality, which advocates the interwovenness of subject and object. Adopting a retrospective perspective, itrediscovers the debates from the 1960s at the onto-epistemological levelthrough a sociomaterial lens. Finally, it situates the discussion on university space within the past-present-future dialogue.


1974 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 5-7

During the past forty years the dominant preoccupation of scholars writing on Livy has been the relationship between the historian and the emperor Augustus, and its effects on the Ab Urbe Condita. Tacitus’ testimony that the two were on friendly terms, and Suetonius’ revelation that Livy found time to encourage the historical studies of the future emperor Claudius, appeared to have ominous overtones to scholars writing against the political backcloth of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Though the subject had not been wholly ignored previously, the success of the German cultural propaganda-machine stimulated a spate of approving or critical treatments. While some were hailing Livy as the historian whose work signalled and glorified the new order, others following a similar interpretation were markedly scathing.


2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 2755-2773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonatan Loewenstein ◽  
Drazen Prelec ◽  
H. Sebastian Seung

Over the past several decades, economists, psychologists, and neuroscientists have conducted experiments in which a subject, human or animal, repeatedly chooses between alternative actions and is rewarded based on choice history. While individual choices are unpredictable, aggregate behavior typically follows Herrnstein's matching law: the average reward per choice is equal for all chosen alternatives. In general, matching behavior does not maximize the overall reward delivered to the subject, and therefore matching appears inconsistent with the principle of utility maximization. Here we show that matching can be made consistent with maximization by regarding the choices of a single subject as being made by a sequence of multiple selves—one for each instant of time. If each self is blind to the state of the world and discounts future rewards completely, then the resulting game has at least one Nash equilibrium that satisfies both Herrnstein's matching law and the unpredictability of individual choices. This equilibrium is, in general, Pareto suboptimal, and can be understood as a mutual defection of the multiple selves in an intertemporal prisoner's dilemma. The mathematical assumptions about the multiple selves should not be interpreted literally as psychological assumptions. Human and animals do remember past choices and care about future rewards. However, they may be unable to comprehend or take into account the relationship between past and future. This can be made more explicit when a mechanism that converges on the equilibrium, such as reinforcement learning, is considered. Using specific examples, we show that there exist behaviors that satisfy the matching law but are not Nash equilibria. We expect that these behaviors will not be observed experimentally in animals and humans. If this is the case, the Nash equilibrium formulation can be regarded as a refinement of Herrnstein's matching law.


1980 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Hays

33 patrons of the University of California, Riverside student union were given $1.05 in change for a dollar bill (three quarters, two dimes, and two nickels). Honesty was assessed by the criterion of self-initiating the return of the extra nickel, and behavior was examined as a function of sex, age, and manner of dress. Results indicate that the over-all honesty of patrons was low (45%), but no significant findings for the relationship between the subject variables and honesty were shown. The 45% rate of honesty indicates that subjects who believe there will not be any external knowledge of their dishonesty are likely to exhibit dishonest behavior.


1932 ◽  
Vol 78 (320) ◽  
pp. 12-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. M. Ford-Robertson

The subject of this thesis is the outcome of what might be termed a hereditary interest in the complex problem of the relationship of chronic infections to the psychoses and allied mental disorders. Circumstances enabled me, while still a student, to undertake very humbly the continuation of my father's researches in the Scottish Asylums' Laboratory at a point where his illness and death might have proved the closing of a long and arduous chapter. That this would have been so is, as far as I know, borne out by the fact that up to the present no work directly bearing on his later bacteriological studies has been published. The researches I have undertaken during the past six years have been an attempt to elucidate more clearly what exactly are the bacteriological factors at work, and, further, in what manner they attack the economy generally, and with what result. In my endeavour to verify and extend Ford-Robertson's views I have been singularly fortunate.


Traditio ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 430-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfons Nehring

Treatises de modis significandi are known to have been a favorite genre of scholastic literature. One of them, by Martinus de Dacia, has lately been made the subject of a thorough study by Father Heinrich Roos, S.J., and will be briefly discussed in these pages. The text of this treatise, and commentaries on it, are found in a fairly large number of manuscripts, of which Fr. Roos presents a list, and which he endeavors to determine in their mutual relation in order to lay the groundwork for a future edition, apparently — as much as any one not himself familiar with the manuscripts can judge — with thoroughness and reliablity (chs. I, II). In some of the manuscripts and in certain other sources the treatise is ascribed to one Martinus de Dacia (Denmark). Very convincingly Fr. Roos demonstrates (ch. III) that this bit of information is correct and that the author was identical with a high-ranking Danish cleric of that name, who at one time was the chancellor of King Eric VI Menved. It is likely that Martinus composed his treatise while he was a professor in the Liberal Arts Faculty of the University of Paris, probably around 1250. The treatise seems to have enjoyed a great reputation, which would be accounted for if Fr. Roos is right in assuming that Martinus set the model for the entire type. In the last two chapters (IV, V) Fr. Roos describes the character and basic ideas of the tractate against the background of the development of scholarship and higher education during the Middle Ages. This historical outline is very interesting and instructive indeed. Nevertheless it provokes criticism regarding two interrelated points, namely, the characterization of scholastic grammar and its position in the history of linguistic studies.


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