Good News for the Logical Autonomy of Ethics

Toomas Karmo claims that his taxonomy of ethical sentences has the result that there does not exist a sound argument with all non-ethical premises and an ethical conclusion. In a recent paper, Mark T. Nelson argues against this claim. Nelson presents a sound argument that he takes to be such that (i) Karmo’s taxonomy classifies that argument’s single premise as non-ethical and (ii) Karmo’s taxonomy classifies that argument’s conclusion as ethical. I attempt to show that Nelson is mistaken about (ii). For any possible world at which the premise of Nelson’s argument is true, Karmo’s taxonomy classifies the conclusion of Nelson’s argument as non-ethical.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The impact of the activation of positive and negative components of an ethnic stereotype on judgments of responsibility for both positive and negative stereotypic behaviors was considered. Overall, stereotype activation biased judgments in a stereotype-consistent manner, across both positive and negative scenarios. Generalization of these judgments to more global trait perceptions of the target was limited to the negative scenario. Results are discussed in terms of both the use of stereotypes as inferential shortcuts and in-group favoritism mechanisms.     

Gender and the Cultural Construction of Good and Bad Suicides

Some cultures distinguish two or more types of suicide which are evaluated differently. The more acceptable or esteemed ones are often not equally accessible to everyone within the same society. This article focuses on gender differences in the cultural construction of suicide options, and on the exclusion of women from superior options. The analysis is based on ethnographic and historical data from Native Americans of the Great Plains, Muslim societies in Southeast Asia, and tribal societies in the Amazon area of South America.     

医疗坏消息告知程序构建研究

坏消息告知是大多数医护人员感到非常棘手的问题,而告知不当所造成的后果有时是毁灭性和持久性的。在案例考察的基础上,分析了我国在医疗坏消息告知中存在的系列问题。在主要剖析SHARE模式的支持环境的设定、告知坏消息、提供附加信息和提供保证及情绪支持四个方面,以及横滨市立大学附属医院对坏消息告知的配合机制等国外成功经验后,指出我国应该从环境设定、程序、行为、语言和医院内的配合五个方面进行规范,并在文中进行了详细、明晰的设计尝试。     

The National Board for Certified Counselors: The Good,the Bad,and the Ugly

The National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) was a good idea whose time has come and gone. It no longer makes sense to promote the National Certified Counselor (NCC) credential when most states now have counselor licensure. It has yet to be established that the National Counselor Examination (NCE) differentiates between good and bad counselors, nor are there any data that suggest that NCCs are any better counselors than are non NCCs. For probably most of the current 16,020 NCCs, NCC status is redundant and useless: for everyone, it is costly. If NBCC is as great as its proponents would like us to believe, how come only 8% of American Counseling Association (ACA) members are also NCCs? Included are suggestions as to how counselors could better spend the money they would save by not becoming or renewing their certification.     

生死学视域中的“坏消息”告知

患者被隐瞒坏消息的主要理由是保护其免受恶性病情信息的打击。而主张告知患者坏消息则有四个重要理由。告知坏消息必要但不绝对,最终是否告知应当取决于患者的知情意愿,而且如果告知还需征得家属同意。强调应该由医生告知坏消息,而不是护士、社工、志愿者等。在坏消息告知方式上,强调以医护团队为主体的生死学场域的提前构建,生死学场域的构成则包括医护人员的叙事素养、生死学科普活动以及医院生死文化三个要素,其中生死学科普活动最为重要。

     

The Good,the Bad,and the Funny: An Ethics of Humor

This article begins by reviewing the overwhelmingly negative assessment of laughter and humor in Western philosophy and in Christianity, arguing that that evaluation arises from a misclassification of amusement as a malicious emotion. It then sketches a play theory of humor in which humor is an activity pursued for pleasure which allows participants to violate linguistic and social norms, especially rules about sincerity. Once we understand humor as a kind of play, familiar ethical objections to jokes based on gender and race are seen to be mistaken, and a new approach to the negative ethics of humor becomes possible. What is more, this play theory also explains how humor is morally praiseworthy in many situations.