Buddhist Ethics

This volume is one of a series of monographs on Buddhist philosophy for philosophers. It presents an outline of Buddhist ethical thought, presenting Buddhist ethical reflection as a distinct approach, or rather set of approaches, to moral philosophy. The book draws on a range of Buddhist philosophers to exhibit the internal diversity of the tradition as well as the lineaments that demonstrate its overarching integrity. This includes early Pāli texts, medieval Indian commentarial literature and philosophical treatises, Tibetan commentaries and treatises, and contemporary Buddhist literature. It argues that Buddhist ethics is best understood not as a species of any Western ethical tradition, but instead as a kind of moral phenomenology, and that it is particularist in its orientation. The book addresses both methodological and doctrinal issues and concludes with a study of the way that Buddhist ethical thought is relevant in the contemporary world.

Reverse Triage and People Whose Disabilities Render Them Dependent on Ventilators

The COVID-19 pandemic has occasioned a great deal of ethical reflection both in general and on the issue of reverse triage; a practice that effectively reallocates resources from one patient to another on the basis of the latter having a more favourable clinical prognosis. This paper addresses a specific concern that has arisen in relation to such proposals: the potential reallocation of ventilators relied upon by disabled or chronically ill patients. This issue is examined via three morally parallel scenarios. First, the standard reallocation of a ventilator in accordance with reverse triage protocols; second, the reallocation of a personal ventilator from a chronically ill patient ordinarily reliant on it; and, third, the reallocation of a personal ventilator owned by a financially privileged individual but who is not ordinarily reliant on it. This paper suggests that whilst property rights cannot resolve these scenarios in a satisfactory manner, it may be possible to do so if we draw on the resources of phenomenology. However, in contradistinction to a recent paper on this topic (Reynolds et al. 2021), we argue that ethical claims to ventilators are not well grounded by the overly demanding notion that they are embodied objects. We suggest that the alternative phenomenological notion of homelikeness provides for a more plausible resolution of the issue. The personal ventilators of individuals who commonly rely upon them become part of their ordinary, everyday or homelike being. They are a necessary part of the continuation or maintenance of their basic state of health or wellbeing and the reallocation of such objects is unethical. Keywords: Phenomenology, COVID-19, Pandemic, Triage, Reverse triage, Ventilation, Chronic illness, Allocation of resources

Nursing students’ experience of learning ethical competence and person-centred care through simulation

Background: Ethics is a difficult subject for nursing students to grasp and learn but, like person-centredness, it has an important role in the relationship between nurses and patients. Simulation has been found to be a suitable method for learning nursing procedures and actions, and the researchers wanted to explore whether it could be a suitable learning strategy for acquiring ethical skills, which are a prerequisite for delivering person-centred care. Aim: In response to the research question How can nursing students develop ethical competence through simulation? the study sought to consider how students could learn ethical reflection and decision making through simulated ethical dilemmas, and whether this could enhance their ability to deliver person-centred care. Design: The study was qualitative and exploratory, and based on students acting in scenarios representing general ethical dilemmas in nursing. There were four focus group interviews with nine nursing students in their second year, during their clinical practice. Students were recruited by self-selection. Data were transcribed and analysed using Graneheim and Lundman’s content analysis. Findings: The students gained experience through participation and acting in simulation exercises. The shared experience was a good starting point for guided reflection on ethical and tacit knowledge, and the acquired experience led to knowledge that is transferable to similar situations in clinical practice. Conclusion: This study shows that simulation is a valuable method for learning ethical reflection in nursing education. It found simulation to be suitable for developing ethical awareness that helps prepare nursing students to deliver person-centred practice. It has become a permanent learning strategy within nursing training at Nord University. Implications for practice: • Nursing students benefit from learning to practise critical ethical thinking as early as possible in order to become ethically aware and reflective during their training and later as nurses • Simulation is a valuable way to practise personal relationships with patients and colleagues • Simulated clinical scenarios improve competence in critical thinking and ethical conduct, and help prepare nurses to deliver person-centred practice. They can be used in all healthcare settings.

Women Without a Nation

Photography has the ability to provoke ethical reflection and to provide an emotional connection to the reality of individual suffering (Hariman & Lucaites, 2016). Therefore, given the remarkable importance of visual communication in covering humanitarian crises, this short paper aims to problematize humanitarian photography practice and reflect on alternative ways of framing representations of refugee women’s life experiences outside mainstream media. Thus, I propose here an initial conversation regarding my doctoral research that focuses on self-representation of refugee women. I aim to investigate how self-representation can challenge the way to document refugee women’s life experiences by constructing through visual narration their identities and exiled memories. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to deromanticize the humanitarian discourse by reflecting on the photographer’s role in the field and by exploring alternative photography practices that frame nations affected by crises. The word crisis governs my work not only because refugee women are victims of a global refugee crisis resulting from armed conflict, natural disasters, and diseases, but also because of the daily subjective crises that these women face in lands that they now call home. Through self-representation, they can construct their stories beyond the problematic of conflicts. Thus, by reflecting on the activist potential of self-representation in framing of refugee memories it is possible to think of new opportunities to make their struggles visible in times of crisis.

Agency, Negligence and Responsibility

This collection of essays represents a ground-breaking collaboration between moral philosophers, action theorists, lawyers and legal theorists to set a fresh research agenda on agency and responsibility in negligence. The complex phenomenon of responsibility in negligence is analysed from multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives, shedding light on key ethical and legal issues related to agency and negligence to impact substantive law and policy-making in different jurisdictions. The volume introduces new debates and questions old assumptions, inviting the reader to rethink substantive law and practical ethical reflection.

Supporting Ethical Decision Making – A Tool for Ethical Reflection on Care Technologies

"The tool FreTiP (Fragen zur ethischen Reflexion von digitalen Technologien in der Pflegepraxis – questions on ethical reflection of digital technologies in nursing practice) was developed in 2020 by the Institute Mensch, Ethik und Wissenschaft (IMEW) as part of ELSI research in the PPZ-Berlin project. Our aim was to develop an instrument that stimulates and supports ethical reflection processes in the application of digital care innovation technologies in practice. Ethical considerations are part of everyday (nursing) life, are closely interwoven with other aspects and are therefore difficult to recognise as such. The starting thesis of our work was that actors in care act on the basis of value concepts that they are more or less aware of. An ethics that is consciously integrated into everyday care takes into account all aspects that are relevant for an action or decision. In this respect, it is important to look at ethics in context and not to understand “ethics” as something isolated, coming from outside. Based on this, the development of the instrument should not consist of “breaking down” ethical concepts and theories to practice, but of ethically locating, structuring and making applicable the experiences, questions and needs of the actors working in nursing practice. Thus, FreTiP is not only to be considered practice-oriented, but also to a certain extent practice-based. The instrument was designed to be suitable for everyday care in clinics, care facilities and in the home context. FreTiP was developed as a low-threshold instrument that can be used flexibly and that takes into account the perspective of patients as well as carers. The development of the instrument was preceded by a triangulated study that included a literature review, interviews and (non-)participatory observations. In the paper, experiences with the ethical reflection tool FreTiP will be presented. "

Introduction

This chapter introduces the book’s main themes. It explains why public health policy matters, and why public policy requires ethical and philosophical reflection. It introduces debates around the definition of disease and illness, and debates about the definition of public health. It examines why public health was initially largely excluded from the purview of medical ethics and bioethics in the 1960s and following decades, and some of the drivers behind the rise of ethical reflection on public health since 2000. It also briefly introduces the structure of the rest of the book.

Egg Donation in Art. Legal and Logical Arguments

"The procuring of eggs and compensatory measures for donors today present unresolved ethical and conceptual issues, which fuel the growth of the assisted reproductive technology (ART) industry. The speech proposes a problematization of the phenomenon from a legal point of view, supported by a rhetorical-argumentative analysis of the legal institutions. The legal provision of oocytes admits the only donation. It was deduced by analogy from the legislative provisions of available of organs and tissues (law no. 458 of 1967; law no. 301 of 1993; law no. 91 of 1999; law no. 483 of 1999), which provides for the balance between impairment of the psycho-physical sphere and goods that benefit from it. Is this balance comparable to the available of oocytes? Or does it need an autonomous redefinition? The various national regulations show that in Europe the term donation includes not only solutions of substantial gratuity, but also various forms of compensation. On one side this shows the fragility of the definition of donation, rhetorically constructed through the Aristotelian argument of the dissociation between reimbursement and remuneration, and on the other it makes clear the need to use logical-argumentative tools to disclose the criterion of hierarchization of values in game. It remains to be understood how ethical reflection, led by an argumentative legal analysis, can provide the tools to improve the functioning of a system that seems to render donors’ rights unfit for use. "

“L’enfer, c’est les autres”: Proximity as an Ethical Problem during COVID-19

During the COVID-19 emergency, people around the world are debating concepts like physical distancing, lockdown, and sheltering in place. The ethical significance of proximity—that is, closeness or farness as ethical qualities of relations (Strathern 2020)—is thus being newly troubled across a range of habits, practices, and personal relationships. Through five case studies from Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States, contributors to this Colloquy shed light on what the hype of the pandemic often conceals: the forms of ethical reflection, reasoning, and conduct fashioned during the pandemic.

DO UNIVERSAL (TIMELESS) VALUES EXIST? ETHICAL PROJECT OF MORITZ SCHLICK

Реконструируется этическая философия М. Шлика и акцентируется внимание на темпоральных аспектах его этики. Для этого анализируется его последняя работа «Вопросы этики», где он предпринимает попытку научного рассмотрения морали. Отмечается, что для начала ХХ века характерно обращение к рассмотрению ценностей, т. к. «старый» набор ценностей, дискредитированный во многом войной и последующим изменением общества, больше не мог «закрепить» человека в текучей современности. Делается вывод, что этика Шлика представляет собой результат тонкого чувствования изменяющегося времени с его потребностью в переосмыслении всех оснований культуры - начиная с того, как мы познаем этот мир, и заканчивая тем, как нам жить и действовать в этом мире. The article aims at reconstructing philosophical ethics developed by Moritz Schlick and at outlining its relation to temporality. We analyze in greater detail Schlick's last work 'Problems Of Ethics', in which he addresses the problems of philosophical reflection on morality. We place Schlick's work into the historical context of the early twentieth century, which can be characterized by an increased interest in values because the 'old' values were dismantled by world war and major social transformations. Human life and its meaning required renewed forms of orientation and meaning in «liquid modernity». In this respect Schlick's ethical reflection originates in the Zeitgeist with its search for new meaning of human life. For Schlick, the key question is why human beings act morally. To answer this question, Schlick investigates central concepts of ethics from the perspective of human activity. He also distinguishes his ethics of the good which relies on human nature, from the rationalistic ethics of duty, which, in his view, causes but alienation from life. Morality does not have to hinge on selfabnegation, while true virtue can be based on pleasure principle and remain independent from social pressures. Virtue can evolve from human free will and involve both reason and feelings. Thus, we argue that Schlick's heightened sensitivity to the spirit of the times with its need to reimagine the foundations of our culture shaped his approach to and his main concerns in ethical reflection, which embraced both the ways we can know the world and the ways we should live and act in it.