Exploring the Counselor's Role in “Right to Die” Decisions

Issues related to the “right to die” are explored in this article. A case is made for counselors to assist clients and families with concerns related to refusal or withdrawal of medical treatment in cases of terminal illness, or in cases where the quality of life is severely impaired such as a permanent comatose state. Historical, ethical, and legal perspectives are presented. Considerations regarding the role of the counselor are discussed.     

The Struggle for the Nature of “Prejudice”: “Prejudice” Expression as Identity Performance

This article develops an identity performance model of prejudice that highlights the creative influence of prejudice expressions on norms and situations. Definitions of prejudice can promote social change or stability when they are used to achieve social identification, explanation, and mobilization. Tacit or explicit agreement about the nature of prejudice is accomplished collaboratively by persuading others to accept (1) an abstract definition of “prejudice,” (2) concrete exemplars of “prejudice,” and (3) associated beliefs about how a target group should be treated. This article reviews three ways in which “prejudice” can be defined in the cut and thrust of social interaction, namely, by mobilizing hatred and violence, by accusation and denial, and by repression. The struggle for the nature of prejudice determines who can be badly treated and by whom. Studying such ordinary struggles to define what counts (and does not count) as “prejudice” will allow us to understand how identities are produced, norms are set into motion, and populations are mobilized as social relations are reformulated.     

The Distinct Psychologies of “Looking” and “Leaping”: Assessment and Locomotion as the Springs of Action

Actions require two essential functions: assessment and locomotion. Assessment determines one’s goals and selects the means. Locomotion translates these into concrete behavior. In past work, assessment and locomotion have been portrayed as co‐ordinated and interdependent, or associated with different action phases. In contrast, we review recent theorizing and research that depict assessment and locomotion as autonomous and complementary. Recent evidence supports this conception for the behavior of individuals, groups, organizations, and cultures in reference to actions at different levels of analysis.     

The Counselor as “Chicken”

Is the counselor a wrestler who struggles with a client—adversary? This article argues for taking a one-down position rather than fighting or confronting.     

Response to “Exploring the Religious-Spiritual Needs of the Dying”

This commentary compares Smith's work to classic value clarification, addresses issues of counselor judgement and informed consent, and outlines further exercises based on near-death experiences.     

“Alkie,”“Frat Brother,” and “Jock”: Perceived Types of College Students and Stereotypes About Drinking1

Two studies assessed perceived types of college students and associated stereotypes about drinking. In the first study, 64 university students responded to an open‐ended probe asking them to list types of college students and then rated the amount of drinking done by each of a set of preselected types. In the second study, 236 students responded to the same open‐ended item and directly rated a set of types that had been revised based on Study 1 in terms of drinking and involvement in the academic and sociosexual collegiate subcultures. As hypothesized, consensual responses to the open‐ended probe reflected the college student culture. Also as hypothesized, types of students socially defined in terms of the sociosexual aspects of college (e.g., “fraternity boy”) were rated as likely to drink heavily, whereas types that were seen as being pulled away from college social life, through assumed involvement in academics (e.g., “brain/straight As”), were rated as drinking relatively little. Finally, rated sociosexual involvement was positively correlated, and academic involvement was negatively correlated, with perceived drinking, which supports a central assumption of the framework guiding the research.     

“PURE” VERSUS “PRACTICAL” EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION

Abstract: In this article I distinguish a type of justification that is “epistemic” in pertaining to the grounds of one's belief, and “practical” in its connection to what act(s) one may undertake, based on that belief. Such justification, on the proposed account, depends mainly on the proportioning of “inner epistemic virtue” to the “outer risks” implied by one's act. The resulting conception strikes a balance between the unduly moralistic conception of William Clifford and contemporary naturalist virtue theories.     

“Higher” and “lower”: Comparative and categorical interpretations by children

Three-, four-, and five-year-old children's categorical and comparative understanding of high and low were examined in two experiments. Categorical knowledge was assessed by presenting subjects with a single object at varying heights (from 0 to five feet above the ground), and asking if the object was high or low. Comparative understanding of the terms was assessed by showing children two objects at a time and asking which was higher or lower. We observed two patterns of performance in children's categorical treatments: younger children in particular defined disjoint categories for high and low such that they only labelled the extreme heights as high or low, and maintained that middle heights were neither high nor low. Older children defined either-or categories such that all heights were labelled either high or low. We also found that children who defined either-or categories made correct comparative judgments across the entire range of variation whereas children who defined disjoint categories could only judge which of two objects was higher if the objects were not low (at 0 and 1 feet) and which of the objects was lower if the objects were not high (at 4 and 5 feet). The results were interpreted as reflecting a lack of appreciation that the terms are interdefined as negations of each other, and were discussed in terms of the similar semantic-congruity effects found in adults.     

Derrida's Worldly Responsibility: The Opening between “Faith” and the “Sacred”

This article will theorize how Derrida's deconstruction signifies a fundamental ontological alterity. We will examine the use of both the tropes of “sacred” and “faith” as tropes to express this possibility. We will articulate how deconstruction, as a development of phenomenology, provides a theoretical nexus where the alterity of things and persons may be thought. We will arrive at the paradoxical formulation of “ontological alterity” as a key moment in deconstructive thinking. Essentially we will argue that deconstruction offers the resources to think the relation between other person and things in the world as motivated by a firm radicalization of Heideggerean worldliness and Levinasian alterity.     

ECONOMY OF “INVISIBLE DEBT” AND ETHICS OF “RADICAL HOSPITALITY”: Toward a Paradigm Change of Hospitality from “Gift” to “Forgiveness”

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct a Christian theology of “hospitality” through a critical reading of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche as well as through an in‐depth biblical and theological reflection on the ethics of hospitality. Out of this reconstructive investigation, I propose a new Christian ethics of hospitality as a radical kind. As a new paradigm, this radical hospitality is distinguished from other types in that it is no longer conceived on the model of “gift”. The new Christian ethics of hospitality is rather reconstructed on the model of “forgiveness” by critically appropriating the concept of “invisible debt” that lies between the hosting citizens and the migrants in the senses of “you owe us your presence” and “I owe you my security and success.” While the hospitality of the gift defines the relationship between the hosting citizens and the migrants as givers and givees, the new paradigm of hospitality identifies this relationship as between creditors and debtors. In this regard, a new Christian hospitality called for unto citizens of the hosting society is a radical kind that challenges them to transcend the creditor‐debtor consciousness.