Crime stories: posnerian pragmatism, Rawlsian pure procedural justice, and the fictional problem

There are many different ways in which law and truth may be said to be related. It is perhaps in the criminal trial that connections between them are of most significance. An orthodox way of describing a criminal trial is that the criminal procedure is seeking to establish the truth concerning some past event, and that success of the procedure is measured by how close its outcome converges with that truth. Criminal justice presents the community with challenging dilemmas in this regard, such as those arising from the notion of double jeopardy. This paper discusses the Rawlsian notions of 'imperfect', 'perfect' and 'pure' procedural justice, and suggests against Rawls that it is pure procedural justice that best represents what we want from a criminal justice system. Good procedure makes good criminal law. A comparison is made with the writings of Habermas and Posner, and given that pure procedural justice eschews transcendental truths, some brief comments are made on the convergence of that position with the realm of the fictional.

Vested interest in the decision to resolve social dilemma conflicts

This exploratory study investigated the degree of correspondence between individual and group interests in the decision to adopt a sanctioning system to manage a shared resource with social dilemma properties. Fifty-two groups of four people accessed a "free-running" computer-simulated shared resource and had either equal or unequal resource access and experienced either an equitable or inequitable sanctioning system. Consistent with past research, a worse group outcome and greater voting for system change was found under the equitable than under the inequitable sanctioning system. However, at the individual level of analysis, the results suggested that the sanctioning systems did not have the same implications for all group members and that some of those differences predicted voting for system change. The study suggests the need to investigate the various decision frames and inequitable implications associated with structural/institutional change and calls for further investigation of dependencies between micro- and macro-level units of analysis.

Pandora`s box : academic perceptions of student plagiarism in writing

Plagiarism is viewed by many academics as a kind of Pandora's box—the elements contained inside are too frightening to allow escape for fear of the havoc that may result. Reluctance by academic members of staff to discuss student plagiarism openly may contribute to the often untenable situations we, as teachers, face when dealing with student plagiarism issues. In this article, I examine the dilemmas English for Academic Purposes (EAP) staff face when dealing with student plagiarism in the tertiary classroom. The perceptions of all 11 teachers involved in teaching a first year EAP writing subject at South-Coast University are detailed in light of the university's policy on plagiarism. My research indicates that not only is an agreed definition of plagiarism difficult to reach by members of staff teaching the same subject, but plagiarism is a multi-layered phenomenon encompassing a spectrum of human intention. Evaluating the spectrum can lead to differences in the implementation of university plagiarism policy, the result of which embodies issues of equity. The aim of the article is to encourage policy-makers and academic staff to acknowledge the concerns about implementation of plagiarism policy. Collaborative, cross-disciplinary re-thinking of plagiarism is needed to reach workable solutions.

Tensions and constraints for nurses in hospital-in-home programmes

Economic necessity constrains health-care expenditure and waiting lists for hospital treatments remain high. As a result, more care is delivered via alternative means, such as same-day surgery initiatives and home-care programmes. Acute care delivered in the home to patients who would otherwise require hospitalization is becoming an increasingly acceptable means of treatment. These Hospital-in-the-Home programmes offer increased comfort while delivering comparable outcomes to many patient groups. The purpose of this paper is to generate discussion concerning the tensions that exist for nurses who practice in the home under the auspices of acute-care institutions. Data drawn from field work that formed part of a critical ethnography is used to generate the discussion. The larger research project explored the constructions of the role of the nurse in four Hospital-in-the-Home programmes in Victoria, Australia. It will be argued that there is significant pressure exerted upon nurses to support the imperative to reduce bed days in acute hospitals by transferring people to their home. At times, this agenda clashes with the nurses’ professional commitment to provide holistic patient care yet the dilemmas are largely unacknowledged and/or unrecognized by the nurses despite the tension they generate.

Authoring lives and the burden of representation

An examination of some the current practices and dilemmas of photojournalism, particularly with regard to the documenting of pain and of otherness. This is looked at in the context of the death of the photo essay and the relegation of the photojournalist to that of a hunter/gatherer. In support of my argument of a current crissi of photojournalism I draw on some of my own practical experience and I include some of my images and captions with this paper.

Gendering men: implications for gender equality

This paper provides an overview of the main questions about men’s involvement in policies and practices toward gender equality and the key debates and issues that arise from them. It argues for the importance of locating this issue in the context of the limitations and potential of gender mainstreaming and an understanding of the gendered nature of the state and the social construction of men’s gender interests. It articulates the case for encouraging men’s involvement in gender equality, whilst being conscious of the dangers of involving men, and outlines a strategy to work through the dilemmas and tensions.

Measuring moral judgement and the implications of cooperative education and rule-based learning

The Defining Issues Test (DIT), developed by Rest (1986), measures a person's level of moral development using hypothetical social dilemmas. Although the DIT is useful for measuring moral development in social settings, it might not adequately capture an individual's moral judgement abilities in solving work-related problems (Weber, 1990; Trevino, 1992; Welton et al., 1994). In the present study, the moral judgement levels of 97 accounting students were measured over a 1 year period using two separate test instruments, the DIT and a context-specific instrument developed by Welton et al. (1994). The test scores are significantly higher on the DIT than the Welton instrument (between the instruments and over time), suggesting that accounting students use higher levels of moral reasoning in resolving hypothetical social dilemmas and lower levels of moral reasoning in resolving context-specific dilemmas. The difference in test scores was highest during cooperative education (work placement programme), implying that the environment is a significant determinant on students' test scores.

Performing and reforming leaders : gender, educational restructuring, and organizational change

Performing and Reforming Leaders critically analyzes how women negotiate the dilemmas they face in leadership and managerial roles in Australian schools, universities, and continuing education. The authors examine how new managerialism and markets in education transformed how academics and teachers did their work, and in turn changed the nature of educational leadership in ways that were dissonant with the leadership practices and values women brought to the job.

Roman concept of mental capacity to make end-of-life decisions

When assessing decisional competence of patients, psychiatrists have to balance the patients' right to personal autonomy, their condition and wishes against principles of medical ethics and professional discretion. This article explores the age-old legal and ethical dilemmas posed by refusal of vital medical treatment by patients and their mental capacity to make end-of-life decisions against the background of philosophical, legal and medical approaches to these issues in the time of the Younger Pliny (c62–c113 CE). Classical Roman discourse regarding mental competency and "voluntary death" formed an important theme of the vast corpus of Greco-Roman writings, which was moulded not only by legal permissibility of suicide but also by philosophical (in modern terms, moral or ethical) considerations. Indeed, the legal and ethical issues of evaluating the acceptability of end of life decisions discussed in the Letters are as pertinent today as they were 2000 years ago. We may gain valuable insights about our own methodologies and frames of reference in this area of the law and psychiatry by examining Classical Roman approaches to evaluating acceptability of death-choices as described in Pliny's Letters and the writings of some of his peers.

So much to do, so little time: multicultural practices and Australian school music

In this paper, the authors are concerned with the challenges, dilemmas and choices that teachers face when teaching multicultural music in classrooms in Australia in an already overcrowded curriculum. This paper considers the notion of changing and shifting cultures, looking at how teachers can break out of the familiar paradigms in which they were trained. There will be a consideration of the notion of cultural ownership questioning whose music is to be taught, how is it to be taught, and by whom. A discussion of how music is embedded in the culture that creates it is undertaken in relation to the concepts of authenticity and transmission. The authors contend that the exploration of other cultures enables the making of connections within and without the classroom and beyond the school into the local, national and global arenas. It is our position that teachers should not hesitate to explore other musics and cultures. It is noted that teachers need support to do this which can only enhance both their teaching and the learning of their students even though there is so much to do in so little time.

Zero impact: are lawyers' values affected by law school?(Survey)

In 2001 approximately 700 Australian final-year undergraduate law students were surveyed as the first part of a three-year study of Australian lawyers' values. This study is being undertaken in an effort to understand what values are important in determining lawyers' attitudes to difficult behavioural choices confronting them in legal practice. It is hoped that knowledge of the actual values held by lawyers (in the context of critical professional choices) will enable better targeted values awareness education in both pre- and post-admission contexts.

The main quantitative survey employed a number of hypothetical scenarios. These were designed through the use of ethical dilemmas to examine issues of conflicting loyalties within a context of self-interest and lawyers' perceived obligations to the community, employers, family, friends and clients. (1)

Our approach in this paper is to set the scene by providing basic frequencies to responses in each scenario, followed by an analysis of themes elicited from respondents during the focus groups. Our immediate objective is to provide representative interviewee (that is, respondent) commentary designed to throw some light on the major choices of those respondents in the first year of the main quantitative survey. (2) Note that these focus groups were conducted some months after the quantitative analyses, and in particular after respondents had left law school. All respondents were, by that stage, working within a variety of legal workforce environments. In this analysis, it must be stressed, we have not attempted to match and compare individual respondents' comments with their earlier choices in the quantitative survey. That task awaits the longitudinal analysis now under way for the whole period of data collection during the three-year study.

State Political Action Committee Financing and the 2008 Presidential Election: A Detailed Look at Mitt Romney and the Commonwealth PACs

This study looks at the historical context in which PACs developed, as well as the current legal environment in which they operate. It will also briefly discuss the legal and procedural challenges that candidates face and the ways in which PACs alleviate some of these pressures in ways that presidential committees cannot. An understanding of the strategic dilemmas which cause candidates to seek extraneous structures through which to establish campaign networks is essential to extrapolating the potential future of campaign finance strategy. Furthermore, this study provides an in-depth analysis of the state Commonwealth PACs both in terms of fundraising and spending, and discusses the central issues this state PAC strategy raises with respect to campaign finance law. The study will conclude with a look into the future of campaign financing and the role these state-level PACs may play if current rules are not revised.

Understanding the ontological requirements for collaborative web-based experiential learning

The challenge of human-computer interaction forces educationalists to think of new ways to understand the social, historical and contextual nature of learning. Discussion and exchange of ideas enable learners to learn together. However, the granularity of the Webbased learning context is extensive; consequently, e- Courseware design faces new dilemmas. Only through targeted research will it be known with any certainty whether Web-based learning gives rise to a new type of learning dissonance [1]. It has been proposed that converged theoretical paradigms that underpin particular digitised or context-mediated learning systems are forcing learners into new ways of thinking [2]. This paper presents an overview of the plans for an experimental project designed to understand the ontological requirements for experiential instructional environments. This project is a joint research initiative involving three Universities in the Asia/Pacific region. Results will be used to inform educationalists interested in developing instructional strategies for a global community.

Ethics handbook : questions and answers

A prominent characteristic of the modern legal profession is the need for lawyers to deal with challenging ethical dilemmas. It is an aspect of practice that has developed due to the increasing complexity of client arrangements, commercial realities and national and international responsibilities. This book is based on rulings of the Law Institute's Ethics Committee, which meets monthly to deliberate on requests for guidance from practising lawyers facing ethical dilemmas in their day-to-day working lives.

Postdeconstruction-reconstruction of journals as a methodological solution for the postmodern researcher

Many in the postmodern era recognise the subjectivity of the research process and in doing so seek to dismantle the traditional barrier between the researcher and the researched. How may the standpoint of this research subject be incorporated? How may this be implemented in practical terms? And how may this be analysed without theoretical recourse to essentialism? This paper proposes a new application of journalling to solve these methodological dilemmas drawing on a wider research project that investigates how practitioners conceptualise and enact policy reform. Responses to related postmodern methodological dilemmas and solutions will be invited from conference discussants.