A discussion of some moral issues in nutrition and feeding

In this essay we review a number of values and conflicts involved in human nutrition in order to clarify the sources of resistance to accepting a pump-fed patient on the part of nursing home nurses. The case illustrates the complexities of our feelings and values in the area of intrusion showing the need for continued reflection upon and revision of our intuitive reactions. The case also displays conflict resolution.     

Estimating gender differences in the comprehension and preference of moral issues

The claim of a gender bias is considered on measures of moral judgment focusing on concepts of justice. Both meta-analyses and secondary analyses on 56 samples of over 6000 male and female subjects are used to estimate the magnitude of gender effects. Inconsistent with current expectations, the results indicate that overall, and at every age/educational level, females score significantly higher than males. Second, the magnitude of this difference is small, both in comparison with age/education effects and in relation to conventional interpretations of the measures employed. Several possible interpretations of these results are discussed especially with regard to C. Gilligan's (1977, Harvard Educational Review, 47, 481–517) recent criticism of Kohlberg's theory.     

Health, fortune, and moral authority in medicine.

The Christian conviction about Divine Providence encourages a novel account of the moral content of health and authority in the health care context. While health can be understood as the disposition of a living body to be able to proceed in the world well, as a species of freedom it is informed by the particular projects and concerns that Christians hold deepest. This is due to the fact that health acquires content, and thus becomes desirable as a particular type of good, only in relation to judgments about the good life. Aquinas' reflections concerning the good of health and its partial slavery to fortune reveal a Christian past that dwelt on the intrinsic and instrumental good of health. A rich Christian tradition in which health as intrinsically good, a good of the body, is ordained to the interests of right Christian virtue. Each of these factors affects the character of the health to be pursued and the authority of the physician as determining the ends and means of medicine.     

Toward a methodology for moral decision making in medicine

The failure of medical codes to provide adequate guidance for physicians' moral dilemmas points to the fact that some rules of analysis, informed by moral theory, are needed to assist in resolving perplexing ethical problems occurring with increasing frequency as medical technology advances. Initially, deontological and teleological theories appear more helpful, but critcisms can be lodged against both, and neither proves to be sufficient in itself. This paper suggests that to elude the limitations of previous approaches, a method of moral decision making must be developed incorporating both coherence methodology and some independently supported theoretical foundations. Wide Reflective Equilibrium is offered, and its process described along with a theory of the person which is used to animate the process. Steps are outlined to be used in the process, leading to the application of the method to an actual case.     

Beliefs and Experiences of Bereaved Teenagers: some spiritual and moral issues

When people die it is quite common for the bereaved to think about where they have gone and to maintain links with them in some way. Traditional Christian beliefs about ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ may be revised and other ideas about spiritual continuity are often explored. This article will discuss responses from 94 11‐17‐year‐olds (38 males/56 females) regarding circumstances of and reasons given for a death; explanations and support; religious affiliation and belief in God; answers to the question ‘Why do people die?’ and ‘What happens after death?'; experiences of having a sense of the presence of the deceased; and personal qualities, attitudes towards other people and views of life. It will conclude by reassessing some of the moral and spiritual issues raised.     

Behavioral disordered children's conceptions of moral,conventional, and personal issues

This study employed a series of sorting tasks with 22 normal and 20 children with behavioral disorders (BD) to determine whether BD children discriminate among three classes of social actions viewed by normal children as distinct. These categories are (1) the moral (actions having intrinsic effects upon the rights or well-being of others), (2) the conventional (actions whose propriety is determined by social consensus), and (3) the personal (actions whose propriety is a matter of individual prerogative). Findings were that although BD children distinguished among the three forms of behavior, they differed with normals in the classifications of specific acts and in the reasons given for act classifications. Chief among these differences was the finding that BD children were less likely than normals to identify acts as within their personal domain.We wish to thank Mary Confray, Denise Jaffe, and Christopher Pellikan for their help with the data collection. Thanks are also due to Diana Algminas of the Proviso Area Exceptional Children's Program, Ted Lawrence of the West Suburban Association for Special Education, and Wayne Thorne of the Board of Education District No. 89 (Maywood and Melrose Park, Illinois) for the cooperation of schools in their respective districts. We wish also to thank Mark Oberlander and Ronald Brown for their suggestions regarding identification of the BD sample. Portions of these data were presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Los Angeles, April 1981.     

Biomedical, ethical, and moral issues being forced by advanced medical technologies

Technology is rampant, exponentially growing beyond the bounds normally comprehensible by the human mind. Many of these technologies are so fundamentally disruptive that they challenge the very practice of science. Discoveries once unimaginable except in science fiction are appearing at such a rapid rate that there is no time to evaluate their moral and ethical implications in a deliberate and measured fashion. Genetic engineering, human cloning, tissue engineering, intelligent robotics, nanotechnology, suspended animation, regeneration, and species prolongation are but a few that will revolutionize what it means to be human and what the ultimate fate of the species may be. Unless these issues are addressed at this time, we shall face the consequences of an uncontrolled and unprepared future.     

There is no moral authority in medicine: response to Cowdin and Tuohey.

Central to the Cowdin-Tuohey paper is the concept of a moral authority proper to medical practitioners. Much as I agree with the authors in refusing to degrade doctors to the status of mere technicians, I argue that one does not succeed in retrieving the moral dimension of medical practice by investing doctors with moral authority. I show that none of the cases brought forth by Cowdin-Tuohey really amounts to a case of moral authority. Then I try to explain why no such cases can be found. Developing an insight that is common to all the major moral thinkers in the philosophia perennis, I show that doctors are professionally competent with respect only to a part of the human good; morally wise persons are competent with respect to that which makes man good as man. I try to show why it follows that a) professional expertise has no natural tendency to pass over into moral understanding, and that b) doctor and non-doctor alike start from the same point in developing their understanding of medical morality. It follows that the authors fail in their attempt to de-center the moral magisterium of the Church by setting up centers of moral authority outside of the Church.     

Measuring moral reasoning using moral dilemmas: evaluating reliability,validity, and differential item functioning of the behavioural defining issues test (bDIT)

ABSTRACT

We evaluated the reliability, validity, and differential item functioning (DIF) of a shorter version of the Defining Issues Test-1 (DIT-1), the behavioural DIT (bDIT), measuring the development of moral reasoning. About 353 college students (81 males, 271 females, 1 not reported; age M = 18.64 years, SD = 1.20 years) who were taking introductory psychology classes at a public University in a suburb area in the Southern United States participated in the present study. First, we examined the reliability of the bDIT using Cronbach’s α and its concurrent validity with the original DIT-1 using disattenuated correlation. Second, we compared the test duration between the two measures. Third, we tested the DIF of each question between males and females. Findings reported that first, the bDIT showed acceptable reliability and good concurrent validity. Second, the test duration could be significantly shortened by employing the bDIT. Third, DIF results indicated that the bDIT items did not favour any gender. Practical implications of the present study based on the reported findings are discussed.     

Moral awareness and ethical predispositions: investigating the role of individual differences in the recognition of moral issues

The impact of the role of individual ethical predispositions, preferences for utilitarian and formalistic ideals, on managerial moral awareness was examined in 2 studies. Results suggested that a manager's ethical predispositions influence his or her responses to the characteristics of the moral issue. Both utilitarianism and formalism shaped moral awareness, but formalism demonstrated a greater capacity to do so in that formalists recognized both harm and the violation of a behavioral norm as indicators of the moral issue, whereas utilitarians responded only to harm. These findings provide support for the basic arguments underlying theories of moral development and offer several implications for the study and practice of moral awareness in organizations.     

An analysis of moral issues affecting patenting inventions in the life sciences: A European perspective

Following the 1980 US Supreme Court decision to allow a patent on a living organism, debate has continued on the moral issues involved in biotechnology patents of many kinds and remains a contentious issue for those opposed to the use of biotechnology in industry and agriculture. Attitudes to patenting in the life sciences, including those of the research scientists themselves, are analysed. The relevance of morality to patent law is discussed here in an international context with particular reference to the law of the European Patent Convention administered by the European Patent Office (EPO). The EPO has been the principal forum for opposition to such patents and the few cases under dispute in the EPO are reviewed, including patents for the onco-mouse, human relaxin gene, and the PGS herbicidally resistant plant (gmo). Morality provisions in the European Parliament and Council Directive 98/44/EC are also summarised.     

Personal moral philosophies and moral choice

The moral choices and post-transgression reactions of individuals who adopted varying personal moral philosophies were examined in an experimental setting that permitted the manipulation of the salience of moral norms and the nature of the consequences of one's actions. As predicted, the two situational variables had a strong impact on moral action; only 50.0% of the subjects chose to violate a moral norm when that norm was salient and they would personally benefit by their actions; this percentage increased to 76.2% in the other conditions. Personal ethical philosophies also influenced moral choices and post-transgression reactions, for more of the idealistic subjects chose to act immorally relative to the low idealists (91.66% vs 70.83%), and subjects who were low in both idealism and relativism were less likely to transgress a moral norm if they personally would benefit. The results lend support to the proposed interpersonal model of morality, particularly as applied to post-transgression reactions.