Argument and alternative dispute resolution systems

Alternative dispute resolution occurs outside the litigation process. The alternative dispute resolution (ADR) movement in North America has emphasized viable alternatives to the litigation framework, such as arbitration, mediation, med-arb, multi-party facilitation, non-legal negotiation, mini-trials, administrative hearings, private judging (renta-judge), fact finding, and moderated settlement conferences. This essay addresses argument in the dominant alternatives: arbitration, mediation, and multi-party facilitation. Prior to comparing argument in these ADR systems, each will be briefly described.     

论医疗纠纷中的替代性解决机制

由于在纠纷解决方面所表现出来的简便、经济、快捷、专业型及保密性强等优点,替代性纠纷解决机制逐渐成为许多国家和地区解决民事纠纷的一大趋势。根据我国所面临的现实情况,将ADR引入医疗纠纷领域是一条快速、有效地解决医疗纠纷的途径。医疗纠纷的替代性解决机制主要包括临时仲裁、调解、和解。这三种纠纷解决方式各具特点,适用于不同情况下医疗纠纷的解决。     

The effect of arbitration program characteristics on applicants' intentions toward potential employers

The authors examined intentions toward prospective employers with different alternative dispute resolution (ADR) policies and no ADR policy. In Study 1, students (N = 124) were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions in which 2 variables, arbitration policy presence or absence and firm desirability, were manipulated. The presence of a voluntary, nonbinding arbitration policy had no impact on intentions and did not interact with firm desirability. In Study 2, students (N = 273) were randomly assigned to 1 of 8 conditions (mandatory vs. voluntary arbitration, binding vs. nonbinding arbitration, and highly desirable vs. less desirable employer). Both mandatory and binding arbitration policies were related to less favorable intentions toward firms. Predictions regarding the interaction of ADR policy and firm desirability were partially supported. Some support was found for the interaction between ADR policy and ethnicity.     

ADR解决中国医患纠纷的可行性分析:医患双方的调查

目前我国医患关系紧张,医患纠纷解决机制是行政和司法为主的机制。有无更科学、合理、有效的解决办法。通过调查和理论分析,认为ADR应该成为我国解决医患纠纷的主要机制。协商是医生和患者最愿意采取的方式,仲裁和调解也是可行的,应该是我国医疗事故处理的有效补充。     

Person perception in the heat of conflict: Negative trait attributions affect procedural preferences and account for situational and cultural differences

Disputes by their nature involve contentious behavior. If one attributes such behavior to underlying personality traits, these attributions can be quite damning. The current research investigated negative trait attributions and their impact on dispute resolution decisions. We hypothesized that judging one's opponent to be low in agreeableness and high in emotionality (e.g. stubborn and volatile) shifts one's preference towards more formal procedures – formal in the sense that a third party judge controls the process and outcome. Drawing on the attribution literature, we hypothesized that two antecedents of these judgments (and consequent preferences) are the perceiver's level of prior information and the perceiver's cultural proclivity to explaining behavior in terms of personal dispositions. Results of an experiment measuring reactions to a hypothetical dispute found that prior information and culture (USA vs Hong Kong) increased trait attributions and preferences for formal procedures. Additionally, expectancy measures showed interaction effects suggesting that disputants dynamically construct expectancies in light of their personality impressions.     

医疗纠纷发生的新动态及对策

通过对４２８例医疗纠纷发生的原因进行了分析,总结出了目前医疗纠纷发展的新动态和相应的对策。并提出了以抓服务质量、医疗质量、基础质量为核心,共同提高认识,以减少医疗纠纷的发生。     

医院积极处理医疗投诉的意义与实施方法

医疗投诉往往是医疗纠纷的雏形,消极处理可能使矛盾激化,让医院和患者成为对立的双方,由此增加了问题解决的难度和成本。医院积极对待处理医疗投诉具有积极意义,在降低投诉处理难度和成本的同时,也很好的塑造了医院的社会形象。同时阐述了其积极应对的措施。     

Who is Authorized to Do Applied Ethics? Inherently Political Dimensions of Applied Ethics

A standard view in ethics is that ethical issues concern a different range of human concerns than does politics. This essay goes beyond the long-standing dispute about the extent to which applied ethics needs a commitment to ethical theory. It argues that regardless of the outcome of that dispute, applied ethics, because it presumes something about the nature of authority, rests upon and is implicated in political theory. After internalist and externalist accounts of applied ethics are described, “mixed” approaches are considered that contain inevitable political dimensions. A feminist alternative, Walker’s metaethic of responsibility, shows that authority is best understood as relational and that situations of unequal power are therefore often the places where applied ethics arises. Furthermore, in a democratic society, commitments to democracy should shape the account of authority, and, thus, the nature of applied ethics as well.     

Justice in epistemic gaps: The ‘proof paradox’ revisited

This paper defends the heretical view that sometimes we ought to assign legal liability based on statistical evidence alone. Recent literature focuses on potential unfairness to the defending party if we rely on bare statistics. Here, I show that capitulating in response to ‘epistemic gaps’—cases where there is a group of potential harmers but an absence of individuating evidence—can amount to a serious injustice against the party who has been harmed. Drawing on prominent civil law litigation involving pharmaceutical and industrial negligence, the overall aim is to illustrate moral pitfalls stemming from the popular idea that it is never appropriate to rely on bare statistics when settling a legal dispute.     

Freedom, Responsibility, and Agency

This paper first distinguishes three alternative views that adherents to both incompatibilism and PAP may take as to what constitutes an agent's determining or controlling her action (if it's not the action's being deterministically caused by antecedent events): the indeterministic-causation view, the agent-causation view, and "simple indeterminism." The bulk of the paper focusses on the dispute between simple indeterminism - the view that the occurrence of a simple mental event is determined by its subject if it possesses the "actish" phenomenal quality and is undetermined by antecedent events - and Timothy O'Connor's agent-causation view. It defends simple indeterminism against O'Connor's objections to it and offers objections to O'Connor's view.     

Preferences for Dispute Resolution Procedures as a Function of Intentionality,Consequences, Expected Future Interaction,and Power1

Two studies investigated preferences for dispute resolution procedures as a function of several situational factors. Study 1 varied intentionality of the conflict, consequences, and expected future interaction between the disputants. The data indicated that 3rd-party procedures were most preferred when the wrongdoing was intentional and when there were high consequences. Study 2 varied intentionality, consequences and the power relationship between the 2 disputants. The relevant effects of Study 1 were replicated, and it was found that arbitration and advisory arbitration were most preferred when the conflict involved parties of equal power. The study supports the general view that research in several domains can be integrated into a coherent pattern of effects relevant for dispute resolution.     

Arguing at Cross-Purposes: Discharging the Dialectical Obligations of the Coalescent Model of Argumentation

The paper addresses the manner in which the theory of Coalescent Argumentation [CA] has been received by the Argumentation Theory community. I begin (section 2) by providing a theoretical overview of the Coalescent model of argumentation as developed by Michael A. Gilbert (1997). I next engage the several objections that have been raised against CA (section 3). I contend that objectors to the Coalescent model are not properly sensitive to the theoretical consequences of the genuinely situated nature of argument. I conclude (section 4) by suggesting that the resolution to the dispute between Gilbert and his objectors hinges on the outcome of several foundational theoretical questions identified over the course of the paper.     

Divorce in the Kibbutz: Determinants of emotional adjustment

About two-thirds of a representative sample of kibbutz divorced subjects reached a satisfactory emotional and functioning level of adjustment with a high degree of cooperation between the exspouses by the second postseparation year. This outcome appears to be positively influenced both by a process of habituation and desensitization determined by the continuous physical proximity of the former spouses and by the neutralization of parenting and economic issues as subjects for dispute and litigation.     

浅析医患纠纷的解决机制

目前,我国未有一条有效的途径来缓和医患矛盾。诉讼、仲裁和调解是较为常见的几种纠纷解决机制。如果能建立起配套的法律法规和相应的组织机构,充分发挥诉讼、仲裁和调解各自的优势,应该可以有效解决目前的医患纠纷。因此,我国目前必须加大对该问题的研究力度,加快立法进程,在实践中努力寻找最有效的解决办法,尽快建立我国医患纠纷的解决机制。     

BNP和CRP在ACS患者的预后评估中的相关性分析研究

为了探讨血浆脑钠肽（BNP）和C反应蛋白（CRP）在急性冠状动脉综合征（ACS）患者的预后评估中两者的水平与临床预后的关系,连续性入选120例ACS患者。测定症状发作平均（34.2±16.3）h的血浆BNP和CRP水平,随访患者住院期间,30d,3个月病死率及主要心脏不良事件（MACE）（心原性死亡,再次心肌梗死,再发心绞痛,继发心衰和再入院的复合终点）发生率。结果显示,当将CRP、BNP和年龄等其他冠心病危险因素放入同一模型预测ACS的预后时,血浆CRP水平失去了预测效能,而血浆BNP水平升高独立于各因素预测30d和3个月病死率及MACE发生率。因此,BNP和CRP能够很好地对ACS患者进行危险分层,预测近期病死率和MACE发生率。BNP可能是较CRP更好的预测ACS患者近期临床预后的指标。     

Marriage Counsellors’ Reflections on the Counselling Process in Family Courts in India

Family courts in India were established to facilitate speedy redressal of family disputes, particularly matrimonial issues. Marriage counsellors facilitated dispute resolution based on alternative dispute resolution practices. Counselling was mandated for all couples approaching family courts due to marital discord. At present, there is a lack of literature on the process of counselling followed by marriage counsellors in the family courts. The present study used an exploratory research design to understand marriage counsellors’ perspectives on the process of counselling in family courts. Fifty-six marriage counsellors completed open-ended questionnaires on counselling assessment, goals, interventions and the influence of the presence of children on the couple counselling process. Thematic text analysis of the responses revealed a range of areas that counsellors explored, individual and relational goals that they focused on, as well as the interventions used by marriage counsellors in their work with couples. Findings suggested that there was a lack of uniformity in the counselling approaches used by marriage counsellors. Additionally, marriage counsellors reported not being equipped to address some intrapersonal and interpersonal concerns that emerged in the counselling process, despite identifying them. Based on the findings, the paper recommends the need for a unifying framework for training and practice for marriage counsellors working with couples in family courts to conceptualise couples’ concerns as well as guide their goals and interventions. The paper underscores the need for acknowledging sociocultural influences, reflective practice and client feedback in the process of counselling.     

Predicting the Outcomes of Disputes: Consequences for Disputant Reactions to Procedures and Outcomes1

Third parties in dispute settings often make predictions to disputants regarding the likely outcome of their dispute at arbitration. However, virtually no research has examined the impact of predictions on disputant satisfaction with dispute resolution procedures and outcomes. One explanation for the lack of attention to this variable may be that current theorizing regarding dispute resolution procedures is too narrowly stated to incorporate this procedural variation. Theories about predictability from nondispute settings are used to generate hypotheses regarding the consequences of such outcome prediction. In a laboratory setting, disputants prepared arguments in anticipation of an arbitration hearing. Prior to the arbitrator's decision, the experimenter read the disputants' arguments and made a prediction regarding the arbitrator's decision. Their arguments were then presented to an arbitrator who imposed a binding decision. Dependent measures include the disputants' anxiety while awaiting the arbitrator's decision, and their postdecision satisfaction with dispute resolution procedures and outcomes. Internal analyses support the hypothesis that outcome prediction has benefits for disputants' predecision coping, ratings of procedural fairness, and satisfaction judgments. Also, as hypothesized, correct predictions produced greater postdecision satisfaction with outcomes and decision-makers than did incorrect predictions.     

Putting the cart before the horse: the benefits of arbitrating before mediating

The authors examined the impact of 2 hybrid dispute resolution procedures (mediation-arbitration [med-arb] and arbitration-mediation [arb-med]) and 3 disputant dyadic structures (individual vs. individual, individual vs. team, and team vs. team) on various dispute outcomes. Consistent with W. H. Ross and D. E. Conlon (2000), the authors found that disputants in the arb-med procedure (a) settled in the mediation phase of their procedure more frequently and (b) achieved settlements of higher joint benefit than did disputants in the med-arb procedure. These results suggest that arb-med may be a dispute resolution procedure with broader applicability than originally imagined.