Physician-assisted suicide: what's the story?

After telling a story of a family's inquiry into physician-assisted suicide on behalf of a loved one, John F. Kilner uses the story to discuss some specific ways in which modern medicine often fails to supply life-affirming alternatives in situations like the one this family faced. Knowing about these alternatives is important for Christians, since God is the author of freedom, justice, and life itself. Moreover, when medicine has nothing more to offer suffering patients, it should be prepared to assist them in their suffering, rather than simply eliminate the sufferer. The example of Jesus' suffering is important here.     

Weakness of the will: Is a quick fix possible?

Weakness of the will may lead to ineffective goal striving in the sense that people lacking willpower fail to get started, to stay on track, to select instrumental means, and to act efficiently. However, using a simple self-regulation strategy (i.e., forming implementation intentions or making if–then plans) can get around this problem by drastically improving goal striving on the spot. After an overview of research investigating how implementation intentions work, I will discuss how people can use implementation intentions to overcome potential hindrances to successful goal attainment. Extensive empirical research shows that implementation intentions help people to meet their goals no matter whether these hindrances originate from within (e.g., lack of cognitive capabilities) or outside the person (i.e., difficult social situations). Moreover, I will report recent research demonstrating that implementation intentions can even be used to control impulsive cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses that interfere with one’s focal goal striving. In ending, I will present various new lines of implementation intention research, and raise a host of open questions that still deserve further empirical and theoretical analysis.     

On the unavoidability of power in child-rearing: Is the language of rights educationally appropriate?

I am indebted to Graham Haydon for his help with the correct English wording of my thoughts.     

What in the world is weakness of will?

At least since the middle of the twentieth century, philosophers have tended to identify weakness of will with akrasia—i.e. acting, or having a disposition to act, contrary to one’s judgments about what is best for one to do. However, there has been some recent debate about whether this captures the ordinary notion of weakness of will. Richard Holton claims that it doesn’t, while Alfred Mele argues that, to a certain extent, it does. As Mele recognizes, the question about an ordinary concept here is one apt for empirical investigation. We evaluate Mele’s studies and report some experiments of our own in order to investigate what in the world the ordinary concept of weakness of will is. We conclude that neither Mele nor Holton (previously) was quite right and offer a tentative proposal of our own: the ordinary notion is more like a prototype or cluster concept whose application is affected by a variety of factors.     

The Last Chapter of the Book: Who Is the Author? Christian Reflections on Assisted Suicide

In this paper the author argues that a narrative approach to understanding assisted suicide has been compromised by the notion that all narratives must be both coherent and unified. He asks what we are to do with those narratives that cannot seem to cohere or be other than full of disunity? Is suicide the only way to make meaning out of suffering? He then proposes that the narrative found in the Gospel of Mark leads Christians to a life in hope and compassion in spite of apparent incoherence and disunity and threats of abandonment and suffering.     

Not wanting parents' involvement: Sign of autonomy or sign of problems?

The present study investigated whether adolescents' desires to manage their own free time, without parents' involvement, reflected problems or healthy independence. Participants were 1057 adolescents, their parents, and teachers. Initially, wanting parental involvement was related to disclosure, parental knowledge, and positive adjustment across contexts and wanting low parental involvement was related to negative adjustment. With closer examination of adolescents, two groups of adolescents who were similar on desires for low parental involvement but who differed on parental desires for involvement were uncovered. Those adolescents who wanted low parental involvement and whose parents desired involvement were consistently linked to poor adjustment in multicontexts. Those adolescents who wanted low parental involvement and whose parents wanted low parental involvement did not have more problems than their wanting parental involvement peers. Results indicate that not wanting parental involvement should be studied in terms of multiple developmental patterns.     

Leroy C. Edozien: Self-determination in health care: a property approach to the protection of patients’ rights

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

‘Humane intervention’: the international protection of animal rights

This paper explores the international implications of liberal theories which extend justice to sentient animals. In particular, it asks whether they imply that coercive military intervention in a state by external agents to prevent, halt or minimise violations of basic animal rights (‘humane intervention’) can be justified. In so doing, it employs Simon Caney's theory of humanitarian intervention and applies it to non-human animals. It argues that while humane intervention can be justified in principle using Caney's assumptions, justifying any particular intervention on behalf of animals is much more difficult – and in present circumstances impossible. If these claims are correct, a number of important conclusions follow. First, all states lack legitimacy because of the horrors that they inflict upon animals. As a result of this, all states are prima facie liable to intervention by external agents. To remedy this situation, all states have the responsibility to massively transform their relationship with non-human animals, and to build international institutions to oversee the proper protection of their most basic rights.     

A Separation of Convenience? The Concept of Neutrality in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights1

Abstract

The article examines the strategies the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) employs to apply the concept of neutrality in relation to Article 9 (freedom of religion or belief) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Having explored the theoretical background of the concept of neutrality and its specific application in the case law, the authors argue that neutrality is often used to display a bias towards a particular world view or societal paradigm, rather than representing unbiased perspectives of legal reasoning. The article studies the specific justifications for such biased approaches in the context of relevant ECHR cases and argues that in this way neutrality has discredited itself as a credible legal tool and as a form of legal argumentation. Furthermore the difficulty of handling the complexities of Article 9 claims by applying the principle of neutrality has led to a stronger trend of avoiding Article 9 by dealing with Article 9 claims through other Convention articles. Finally the authors discuss possible new approaches to legal reasoning which could take on board the dynamics of freedom of religion or belief through independent reasoning beyond the myth of neutrality.     

What is the link between regret and weakness of will?

This paper argues (a) that most contemporary accounts of weakness of will either implicitly or explicitly assume that regret is a typical or even necessary element of standard cases of weakness of will and (b) that this assumption is mistaken. I draw on empirical and philosophical work on self-assessment to show that regret need not accompany typical weak-willed behavior, and that we should therefore revise the dominant account of the difference between weakness of will and (mere) changes of mind.     

“You signed the line”: Collegiate student-athletes’ perceptions of autonomy

Background and purposeThe purpose of this study was to assess collegiate student-athletes’ perceptions of autonomy. This study seeks to contribute insight into how and why student-athletes choose to continue their sport participation and to reside in an environment that places great limitations on their autonomy. Since self-determination theory states that autonomy is a key element and a reason why people continue to engage in activities, it is necessary to understand the mental processes students-athletes go through to perceive themselves as being autonomous.MethodOpen-ended interview techniques were used to gain an understanding of the perceptions of autonomy of 12 (7 male, 5 female) Division I collegiate student-athletes representing 4 different sports (basketball, football, track, golf). Data were analyzed in a manner consistent with the interpretive analysis model.Results and conclusionThree major themes related to autonomy emerged from the analysis of the interviews. They were: (1) personal autonomy, (2) relational autonomy, and (3) lack of autonomy. The results of this study suggest that student-athletes’ perceptions of autonomy are often embedded in their relationships with others and are derived from having a developed sense of identity. Student-athletes’ perceptions of autonomy depend on their ability to accept their lifestyle as a college student-athlete and to integrate this lifestyle into their sense of self. Student-athletes’ abilities to reframe activities that are non-autonomous and to integrate these behaviors into their value system enable them to experience greater autonomy and satisfaction in their role as collegiate student-athletes.     

Reciprocity of trust in the supervisor–subordinate relationship: The mediating role of autonomy and the sense of power

This article develops and tests a model of reciprocal trust between supervisor and subordinate. Drawing from literature on trust and control and on the approach/inhibition theory of power, the authors present a model in which supervisor trust is suggested to enhance subordinate reciprocal trust through increased work-related autonomy and a heightened sense of power. The mediator analysis using the two-level full structural model confirmed that the relationship between supervisor trust and subordinate trust was partially mediated by the suggested chain of variables. The article responds to a call for empirical studies on reciprocal trust and offers a complementary mechanism for trust building beside characteristics and relationship-based approaches.