Ethical issues in managed care: a Catholic Christian perspective.

A Christian analysis of the moral conflicts that exist among physicians and health care institutions requires a detailed treatment of the ethical issues in managed care. To be viable, managed care, as with any system of health care, must be economically sound and morally defensible. While managed care is per se a morally neutral concept, as it is currently practiced in the United States, it is morally dubious at best, and in many instances is antithetical to a Catholic Christian ethics of health care. The moral status of any system of managed care ought to be judged with respect to its congruence with Gospel teachings about the care of the sick, Papal Encyclicals, and the documents of the Second Vatican Council. In this essay, I look at the important conceptual or definitional issues of managed care, assess these concerns over against the source and content of a Catholic ethic of health care, and outline the necessary moral requirements of any licit system of health care.     

Two Puzzles for Deontologists: Life-Prolonging Killings and the Moral Symmetry Between Killing and Causing a Person to be Unconscious

Some form of agent-relative constraint against the killing of innocent personsis a central principle in deontological moraltheories. In this article I make two claimsabout this constraint. First, I argue that somekillings of innocents performed incircumstances usually not taken to exculpatethe killer are not even pro tanto wrong.Second, I contend that either there is noagent-relative constraint against the killingof innocents or this constraint has a verydifferent shape from that which deontologistsnormally take it to have. My defence of theseclaims rests on two propositions. First, inkilling someone one may actually prolong thatperson's life. Roughly, life-prolongingkillings are possible, because to kill someoneis to perform an act that causes someone'sdeath and it might well be true that, had onenot performed this act, one's ``victim' wouldhave died earlier. Second, all other thingsbeing equal, killing and causing a person to beunconscious are morally equivalent. Both ofthese propositions are defended in thearticle.     

Christian Counseling: A Synthesis of Psychological and Christian Concepts

Strong describes an approach to counseling that synthesizes psychological processes of change with theological concepts of the Christian faith. Clients are assumed to be self-directing and responsible for their behavior, including the changes that counseling is intended to facilitate. The counselor's junction is to equip clients to enable them to change. The key objectives in Christian counseling are described and the counseling process is reviewed in the light of these objectives. The author discusses the place of justification, responsibility, forgiveness, grace, sin, responsible loving, and prayer in the counseling process. Francis Mc Guire makes a response to Strong's article from a perspective that views Zen Buddhism as an integrated psychospiritual system capable of offering a critique and a complementary viewpoint. Herman Slotkin 's think piece is an attempt to define and clarify some of the language and goals of moral education and propose a civic, nonsectarian perspective regarding value and moral awareness.     

The study of a Christian 12-Step Program for Christian Smartphone-Addicted Adolescents: A Biblical Perspective

Journal of Religion and Health - The aim of this study was to explore the suitability of a Christian 12-step program based on a biblical perspective for smartphone-addicted adolescents. The study...     

Catholics and the Christian Right: A View from Four States

Christian Right Organizations in the 1990s have tried to avoid the pitfalls for the religious particularism that undermined the earlier efforts of such groups as Moral Majority to build long lasting political coalitions. For many Christian Right leaders, conservative Catholics appear to be a particularly appealing group to reach for membership recruitment and political coalition-building. Yet such leading groups as the Christian Coalition have largely experienced disappointment with such efforts.
This essay presents data that offer reasons why conservative Catholics might be willing to form political coalitions with activists of the Christian Right but remain reluctant to join Christian Right organizations. The findings are based on a large survey of Republican party state convention delegates in four states. The data show that Catholic delegates hold very conservative issue positions in line with Christian Right organizations, and have positive feelings toward Christian Right leaders and organizations. Yet Catholic delegates hold somewhat distinctive positions among Republicans on certain issues, and therefore remain reluctant to join the Christian Coalition and other such groups.     

Death, Cadavers and Post-mortem Biomedical Research: A Point of View from a Christian Community

Facing modern developments of medicine and biomedical researches, religious communities are a strong source of ethics principles and orientations. Human dignity does not disappear after life, in a context of biomedical research on cadavers. Moral, political, social and scientific aspects of research on human cadavers (mainly autopsies) have been widely discussed in biomedical publications, whereas the religious ones (which could be predominant for some) have rarely been analyzed and presented. This article will present the results of a survey carried out a French Benedictine Abbey (relative to death, cadaver’s status and biomedical research) and subsequent Christian background according to canonic texts and practical cases from anthropological, historical, archeological and biomedical origin.     

Marginal Christian Spirituality: An Example from a Dutch Meditation Group

Spirituality is one of the forms of religion that seems to thrive in secularised Western societies. It has become an umbrella term for a variety of experience-oriented religious practices in Western societies. The popularity of spirituality is clearly visible within Christian settings, both inside and outside churches. This paper explores the nature of ‘marginal’ Christian spirituality, i.e. Christian spirituality outside the churches, through a case study of a meditation group in a Dutch spiritual centre founded by Jesuits. It will be shown how meditation as a free experiential space stimulates the diversity of individual meanings, both traditional and alternative. Hence, meditation in this case is a method which affirms religious individuality.

Exercise

I am the stream

And I flow beyond myself

I am the river

And I pour myself into the sea

I am the sea

And I evaporate into nothing

I am the cloud

And I am losing my hold

In rain and snow

My form fragments

Who can love me

When I appear and disappear

Again and again

You are water, says the water

Water, my child, you are me

Whether ice or fog

You are me

Love yourself, then you love me

And everywhere you are safe in me.

(Visser 1)1 1.?Unless stated otherwise, all translations are by the author. View all notes

     

Evaluation of a Targeted Intervention Within a Schoolwide System of Behavior Support

A recommended component of comprehensive behavior support in schools is a targeted intervention designed to efficiently and effectively meet the support needs of students who are not responding to preventive schoolwide intervention strategies (Sugai, Horner et al., 2000; Walker et al., 1996). This study provides a fine-grained analysis using a multiple baseline across students design with the targeted intervention as the independent variable, and both classroom problem behavior and academic engagement as dependent variables. The multiple baseline analysis documents a modest functional relationship between implementation of the intervention and reduction in problem behavior. Implications for the design of behavior support in schools and the development of future research are provided.     

从“金规则”看儒家伦理“仁”的思想体系的本质特征及其与基督教伦理的异同

《走向全球伦理宣言》的"金规则"("己所不欲,勿施与人")与儒家伦理相符,即"恕道",亦即"仁"的思想体系的本质特征。"己欲立而立人,己欲达而达人"是对"仁"的积极表述;"己所不欲,勿施与人"是对"仁"的消极表述。儒家的"仁爱"观与基督教的"圣爱"观都是普世之爱,由于二者的起源、发展方式不同,所以表现形式也不同。儒家的"仁爱"观与"敬"分不开,其极至状态为"四海之内,合敬同爱"。     

Challenges in the Evaluation of Nanoscale Research: Ethical Aspects

The purpose of the present paper is: (1) to outline a conceptual framework useful for the analysis of ethical issues raised by goal-directed activities, (2) to apply this framework to nanoscale research, (3) identify some of the main challenges in the evaluation of such research, and (4) exemplify what is needed for a positive answer to the question “How can nanoscale research improve the quality of life?” A basic idea of the paper is that nanoscale research can improve the conditions and quality of life of large groups in society, provided that: (a) this research is directed at certain generally accepted goals, (b) at least some of the opportunities are exploited for the good of mankind, (c) the key obstacles on the road are eliminated, reduced or circumvented, and (d) this is done in ethically acceptable ways.     

从"杀盗非杀人"看逻辑与价值的混淆

"杀盗非杀人"是墨辩的一个自相矛盾的诡辩命题,墨者之所以提出这个命题,论者之所以倾心辩护,是由于逻辑与价值的混淆.本文对这个命题进行了逻辑分析和价值分析,通过追究墨者提出这个命题的用意和后果,发现了墨辩停留在逻辑萌芽状态而未能发展为逻辑学的症结所在,就是:逻辑屈从价值,价值牺牲逻辑.     

Korean Christian Zionism: A Sociological Study of Mission

From the perspective of the sociology of missions, this study explores the Korean Christian Zionists' mission work after 9/11. The current Pentecostal success in South Korea has spurred the nation to send more missionaries abroad than any other country except the United States. As America has been losing the trust of the world since 9/11, some evangelical fundamentalists argue that Korea should take over the initiative of world mission from the United States. The Jerusalem Jesus March in 2004 and the South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan in 2007 have served to admonish Korean churches to hastily reconsider coercing their missionaries to proselytize in dangerous areas such as Islamic lands. This study unfolds issues such as “spiritual subjectivism” and “Korea‐centrism”, illustrated by the Jesus March incident and the Afghan controversy, and suggests that the expansionism of Korean Pentecostal/evangelical missionaries taken up with the idea of “global spiritual conquest” is a manifestation of “Korean Christian Zionism”.     

Aging: Setting Limits Within a Christian Vision: A Theology of the Paschal Mystery

ABSTRACT

Daniel Callahan, in his provocative book Setting Limits, Medical Goals in an Aging Society, has affirmed that in a period of declining resources, it should be the function of medicine to help elderly to achieve a natural and fitting life span, and has invited the elderly to set limits to their demands. “To set limits” in a cultural context marked by frenzied consumerism, and a discriminatory attitude toward aging is to demand of the elderly what no one else is willing to do. What is needed for the “setting of limits” is a frame of reference where loss and negativity can be accepted without despair. In the Paschal Mystery Christianity provides us with a model of humanhood where the letting go of power and the acceptance of creatureliness are predominant characteristics. Disengagement is not simply for the end of the life cycle, but on-going from the beginning.